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Our next distillate is Naphtha...frankly I don't know if I have seen it, but no matter.
In our Reader's Grade their equivalent is: Pleasure Readers.
Reading books outside their curriculum is purely for kicks for them. What gives them their dope differs from person to person. But I have an observation to make:
Folks who have always been having a good time, decent living, assured pay, own home...in short those who are well-off and born with a silver spoon in their inlets tend to read 'serious' books. It may be a sort of 'compensation' for the occasional guilt complex they may have for their good luck.
At KGP my neighbor belonged to this category...he was born with his own house at Delhi and one more in Calcutta not to talk of a fortune in and out of various banks. On the other hand luck was not so generous to me. I had to eke out.
When once I visited their Qrs of an evening, my neighbor was watching one of those Doordarshan upstart serials in the 1980s. It was a sit-trag without any laughs in it. So I excused myself and was quitting. And he asked me why. I said the only serial I watch in DD is the hilarious: "Eh jo hai jindagi". Then he asked if I don't watch 'Tamas' type serials. I said, "Never". And he was so upset that he said:
"You are no better than a rickshawala!"
I kept quiet but felt honored to be compared with an honest rickshawala, rather than a rich President of the Lions Club intent on doing good by the day and counting them in his diary by the night...I have nothing against Lion's Club...except that I don't 'belong' there.
On the other hand, some of my best friends were rickshawalas at KGP and autowalas in Hyderabad.
Read that sentence again with the word 'intellectual' inserted before the 'rickshaw' and 'auto' wallas.
Coming to the pleasure readers, don't think I am talking only about Archie Comics addicts. Early in their life they go through books of all kinds from Jane Austen to Hemingway to PGW to Al McLean to Pickwick to Dostoyevsky because they don't know who exactly are the authors they like.
By late middle age they stop reading anything but their favorites. And that too again and again. Reading and re-reading several times makes them ask why they are doing it. And find that the first time it is for the story, the second it is the turn of the phrase, the third the craft, the fourth the art....
So, by and by they get to ape or imitate or imbibe the various features of their authors and that tends to show up in their conversations, their writings, and in general their attitude to life and world.
So, when they mature, they are not afraid to write. In case their favorites range from Nehru to PGW, they can write in either of their styles as occasion demands:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2011/02/scholars-nehru-and-bertie.html
After retirement they become millennial bloggers ;-)
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Our next distillate is Naphtha...frankly I don't know if I have seen it, but no matter.
In our Reader's Grade their equivalent is: Pleasure Readers.
Reading books outside their curriculum is purely for kicks for them. What gives them their dope differs from person to person. But I have an observation to make:
Folks who have always been having a good time, decent living, assured pay, own home...in short those who are well-off and born with a silver spoon in their inlets tend to read 'serious' books. It may be a sort of 'compensation' for the occasional guilt complex they may have for their good luck.
At KGP my neighbor belonged to this category...he was born with his own house at Delhi and one more in Calcutta not to talk of a fortune in and out of various banks. On the other hand luck was not so generous to me. I had to eke out.
When once I visited their Qrs of an evening, my neighbor was watching one of those Doordarshan upstart serials in the 1980s. It was a sit-trag without any laughs in it. So I excused myself and was quitting. And he asked me why. I said the only serial I watch in DD is the hilarious: "Eh jo hai jindagi". Then he asked if I don't watch 'Tamas' type serials. I said, "Never". And he was so upset that he said:
"You are no better than a rickshawala!"
I kept quiet but felt honored to be compared with an honest rickshawala, rather than a rich President of the Lions Club intent on doing good by the day and counting them in his diary by the night...I have nothing against Lion's Club...except that I don't 'belong' there.
On the other hand, some of my best friends were rickshawalas at KGP and autowalas in Hyderabad.
Read that sentence again with the word 'intellectual' inserted before the 'rickshaw' and 'auto' wallas.
Coming to the pleasure readers, don't think I am talking only about Archie Comics addicts. Early in their life they go through books of all kinds from Jane Austen to Hemingway to PGW to Al McLean to Pickwick to Dostoyevsky because they don't know who exactly are the authors they like.
By late middle age they stop reading anything but their favorites. And that too again and again. Reading and re-reading several times makes them ask why they are doing it. And find that the first time it is for the story, the second it is the turn of the phrase, the third the craft, the fourth the art....
So, by and by they get to ape or imitate or imbibe the various features of their authors and that tends to show up in their conversations, their writings, and in general their attitude to life and world.
So, when they mature, they are not afraid to write. In case their favorites range from Nehru to PGW, they can write in either of their styles as occasion demands:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2011/02/scholars-nehru-and-bertie.html
After retirement they become millennial bloggers ;-)
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3 comments:
Dear Sir,
Once I became familiar with your blog, I suggested it to one of my friend, who had spent 2 years in KGP. I would like to quote his reactions here ---"[GPS's] Blogs are good, well written, but they are sometimes too crafted and this craftsmanship of the writer sometimes kills the spontaneity."
I agreed with him up to some extent but as you have mentioned here that the reader finally look for the craft and art, may be as time passes the art only survives.
I think all the readers have witnessed again your craftsmanship in this piece!
" On the other hand, some of my best friends were rickshawalas at KGP and autowalas in Hyderabad.
Read that sentence again with the word 'intellectual' inserted before the 'rickshaw' and 'auto' wallas. "
I just love this line!!!!
Dear Friend:
Now you have grown doubly anonymous...you & your friend...
gps
Dear Sir,
Both of us are very shy and prefer to stay anonymous while expressing our views in public.
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