Book Review - Siddhartha -- A novel about enlightenment

Siddhartha is a beautiful philosophical novel by Hermann Hesse, a German Nobel Prize winner. It’s a story of a young Indian Brahmin’s pursuit of enlightenment. The setting is the time period of Gautama Buddha. The story is rich with philosophy, but the language is so lyrical and the narration so vivid that it is difficult to separate the poetry and the deep philosophy. One flows with the story as if flowing with a peaceful river.

The author seems to conclude that no amount of second-hand knowledge and learning can give you the real sense of peace or happiness unless it is enlivened by real first-hand experience.

Siddhartha, a Brahmin boy, is brought up in a devout and learned family, but he is restless and full of doubt about the routine of sacrifice, chanting, and meditation. So he leaves home and spends time with the ascetics who believe in hard renunciation and numbing of all bodily senses.

But this route does not bring the salvation Siddhartha seeks. So, he goes and meets with Gautama Buddha to hear his teachings. He realizes that what he is seeking is the state Buddha has achieved for himself, but his teaching does not satisfy him. So, he decides to live an ordinary earthly life and try to discover his true “self”.

A long time passes in the world of birds and flowers, sensuous pleasures and pains, and money and vices. Initially, Siddhartha participates in ordinary people’s activities as if they were just games, and views ordinary people as children and laughs at their childish intensity in their material obsessions. He is able at will to return to the inward mental sanctuary of Siddhartha the ascetic and not be bothered by anything for too long. But sure enough he soon gets drawn into the whirlpool of Sansara and all but forgets his real pursuit.

Eventually though, a bad dream awakens him and he returns to the river of his childhood and youth utterly shaken and bewildered. He is saved from suicidal thoughts, and then he becomes the assistant of a wise old ferryman who has learnt the art of listening to the river and learning life’s secrets.

Here, finally, Siddhartha achieves peace (although there is a brief period of torment when he experiences what it is to be a father). He realizes that life is like a river – timeless, present everywhere at the same time, with no past and present, and when one conquers the unreality of time, one is happy and at peace. He realizes that the wisdom is in accepting things as they are.

Book Review - Anand Owari

Anand Owari is a well-known Marathi novel, written by D B Mokashi which deals with Kanhoba, Sant Tukaram's younger brother, who is trying to locate Tukaram, who has disappeared, for the last time. During the later phase of his life, Saint Tukaram had developed the habit of going into seclusion for shorter duration and would come back. And hence no one, except the close family, took his disappearance seriously. The novel depicts the journey of Kanhoba for next 72 hours, as the pressure builds up & eventually the search turns out to be futile. The story operates at various levels and presents many viewpoints and is filled with an intense, fast paced landscape of emotions and understanding.

In this novel, Tukaram's story has been rendered in a very different perspective. It gives an intense portrait not only of Tukaram the man, but also of the restlessness of a creative and rebellious person. Kanhoba seeks to understand this and shows us the picture of this different Tukaram, one we can all relate to.

In a surprising small book, just 72 pages, the author has portrayed each character in a unique style, giving enough justice to each. 

While the search is going on Kanhoba says... 

A very brief comment about Sawaji, the eldest brother, says it all ... 

And this is about the poetry of Saint Tuakaram ... 

This novel raises questions related to our lives and makes us introspect. It explores the pain and agony of human life. I always found Tukaram's story, his day-to-day struggle, challenges more human and appealing to a common man, compared to the likes of Saint Gyaneshwar or Ramdas, who appear to have the sense of purpose and understanding of the *divine* self, more or less by birth. The novel takes us through the step by step journey of transformation driven by the life around him, thus making him look for the true meaning of life and exploring other domains, in turn renouncing his life. Kanhoba, his brother, on the other hand continues to be a part of this world and explores its complexities.

The story is centered around the contradiction between Pravritti (initiative and action) and Nivritti (resignation and withdrawal). Kanhoba poses the  tension between the mundane world of crass materiality and the spiritual or mystic renunciation of that world. Kanhoba emerges in this narrative Tukaram’s alter ego of sorts.

Kanhoba is posing the question, if the materialist view of the world and its mundane compulsion can be wished away at all? Kanhoba is caught in a trap of that mundane world and his beloved brother losing himself in his Bhakti and his Vithoba.

Kanhoba lends poignancy to Mokashi’s work which sums up the dilemma that paradoxically has made Tukaram the most loved poet of Marathi. In the end there is no answer to Kanhoba’s  predicament or the entanglement in the mundane world and the spiritual quest. He cannot resolve it the way his brother did or could. At times in Mokashi’s work, Kanhoba seems to be uncertain if his brother really ever solved the dilemma. For Mokashi’s Kanhoba, the quest is not over nor is it ever likely to be over.

In the end, Saint Tukaram is successful in his own way, renouncing the world, that is well-known. But the author takes the reader to a different level of understanding when the story takes a dramatic turn with Kanhoba leaving the  family house, leaving the sacred village Dehu & renouncing the path of Vithoba, for ever, leaving the reader with a heavy heart and possibly wet eyes.

Note: While Nivritti is generally seen as a path of resignation and withdrawal, for those who are actually walking  it, the path is about acceptance. Accepting life as is, without complaints and lack of willingness to 'fight' with the situation can either be seen in a positive light or negative one, it's the question of your perspective. People opting the path can see it in positive light as they can see something different, beyond the horizons, beyond the 'daily grind'. 

This difference in perspective is a major reason for the difference in opinion. Kanhoba, like most people, could not see difference. Just a personal opinion. 

Book Review - ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’, a fable by Richard Bach

‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’, a fable written by Richard Bach, happens to be one of my all-time favorites. It's the story of freedom, perseverance, courage, altruism, love, dreams, and giving back to society. It is about finding your true nature. It serves as an inspiration to anyone who wants to succeed beyond the limitations imposed by the social norms.

A seagull bird wants to learn flying for the sake of flying, takes flight in the sky, tries to break his own boundaries and limits, goes through various ups and downs, gets outcast from the flock for violating the accepted norms of the group, finds a teacher who directs him towards perfection, in that process understands his own self, understands the true meaning of love and compassion, goes back to the flock that had out-casted him, shares his understanding with love and compassion. This remarkable book talks about the true love and friendship that goes beyond the boundaries of time and space. 

This is a story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules, people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, people who know there's more to this living than meets the eye: they’ll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than ever they dreamed.

Some of the great quotes from the book include:

“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding."

"The only true law is that which leads to freedom. There is no other.”

 “We choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, with all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome.”

 “Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, ten thousand?”

“Your whole body is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too…”

“Why is it,” Jonathan puzzled, “that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he’d spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?”

Author	Richard Back
Category	Literature / Classic Fiction
Rating	An inspiring read, a must have for everyone