She said she was a real Princess. ‘Ah! we shall soon see that!’ thought the old Queen mother!

Danish author Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, of more than 150 years ago, have always had such a lovable charm of their own, ain't they?

Even today, with a host of theoretical paradigms that seek to threaten the ambit of ‘l'art pour l'art', the ‘unravished bride’ of the good ol’ fairy tales still do have their charm and their music intact!

Added, most of us, during our kiddo days were wont to freak out on them in the dawning, nooning and evening times of our habituated ‘read’ie existence, on this amazing legendary fairy tale writer!

It is said that, more than 3300 of his works have been translated into more than 125 languages! That’s a whopping number, by all means!

Andersen’s fairy tales have been assimilated, ingested, chewed and digested by the youngistans and the oldistans alike to such an extent that they have become a part of their collective unconscious in all their myriad glory!

But wait! Andersen wasn't quite this sensational a hit with the reading public until the year 1845, when his works started getting their due in English, with a slew of translations coming up on him!

From thence on, it's been 'no turning back' on Andersen's fame and popularity!

Anderson’s tales are unique not only because of their way to pull us all into its amazing wonderlands, but also because they present to us on a platter, amazing lessons of virtue, ethics, fortitude and resilience for readers of all hues, alike!

So today, one short story from Andersen for us all!

Even as you read through the story, an ardent plea for y’all would be to enjoy each line with relish! Cos’ they are translated versions of the original, but they nayver ever seem so!

Hats off to translators and their invaluable contributions in making our wonderlands stay alive and afloat even centuries from thence on!

Here goes a little short story from Andersen for us all! It’s titled “The Real Princess”

There was once a Prince who wished to marry a Princess; but then she must be a real Princess. He travelled all over the world in hopes of finding such a lady; but there was always something wrong. 

National Seminar on Books and Reading 2019 @ UoM - A Report

An amazing conclave of excellence it really was! with a delightful rendezvous of bibliophiles of all hues from all over India having gathered together on the occasion of  World Book Day, 23 April 2019.

Writer Imayam speaks

The Department of English, University of Madras, had the pride, the prestige and the privilege of organising a unique and one-of-its-kind National Seminar on “Books and Reading” on 23rd April, 2019, to commemorate the occasion of World Book Day.

The occasion was also meant to be a remembrance of the legendary playwright William Shakespeare [the Bard] on his birthday.

Eminent speakers included Ms. Mini Krishnan (Translations Editor – Oxford University Press, Chennai), Mr. Andrew Collister (Second Secretary and Vice-Consul, Australian Consulate, Chennai), Mr. Imayam (Tamil Writer) and Mr. G. Olivannan (CEO, Emerald Publishers, Chennai).

Inaugurating the seminar, Dr. S. Armstrong, Head of the Department of English, University of Madras, spoke at length on the importance of books and libraries. He made a call to students to go beyond the reach and the confines of the curriculum, and also emphasized on the need to acknowledge the vibrant custodians guardians of our knowledge systems, the librarians!

Dr. S. Armstrong, Inaugurating the Seminar

Dr. Armstrong reviewed the latest book by Australian Aboriginal writer Anita Heiss titled, Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia. "To the natives, the contrived curricula in the school system presented to them was grossly unfair and highly misplaced. This is because the native knowledge far surpasses the bookish knowledge given to them through the educational system," he observed.

He also focused on the importance of epistemology to the natives. ‘Epistemology is inbuilt amongst the natives’ he observed, and added that, ‘there’s a school inbuilt in their way of life’ that outclasses any colonial schooling system as such! He also elucidated extensively on the concepts of assimilation and displacement and also highlighted on the plethora of books available on the ‘Growing Up’ series, on the transition between the Aboriginal past and their present, on the ‘sting of humiliation’ and the ‘boot of discrimination’, on the theme of Memory studies, on Anti-stereotyping, on the hardships of living in the bush, on the sense of extended family, and on the theme of survival with respect to Australian Aboriginal literature.

Mr. Roshan Tony being honoured by the Vice-Consul, Australian Consulate

Mr. Roshan Tony, II MA English, Madras Christian College, got a citation and a cash award of Rs. 5000/- from Mr. Andrew Collister (Second Secretary and Vice-Consul, Australian Consulate, Chennai), and a honour-shawl from Dr. S. Armstrong, in appreciation of his passion for books and reading, and for presenting papers in more than five conferences this past year. Dr. Meena Kumari, Dr. Supala Pandiarajan and a host of other professors were there on the dais to honour him on the occasion.

Ms. Mini Krishnan highlighted the importance of translations of Indian regional literature and their place in academia.

Excerpts from her speech –

Dear Book-Friends Dear Prof Armstrong,

Thank you very much for inviting me to participate today. A rare honour for a publisher because I am neither a writer nor a researcher but something in between; with the help of both these categories, I try to shape reading tastes and preferences, catering to emerging trends and supporting what academia engages with.

I am privileged to be on the same platform as Annamalai Imayam one of our greatest living and writers and Andrew Collister Australia’s cultural and political voice in Chennai. It is fitting that these forces appear together on WBD because we are facilitators of an understanding of the world, and we promote the sharing of stories in some sort of universal space which both foregrounds and transcends the personal. In 2014 I anchored a session on marginalized writers from India and Australia at the Bangalore Literature Festival. The visitors from Oz were Dylan Coleman, Jeanine Leane and you know what their primary worry was? That they were losing their languages. There were at least two generations that couldn’t speak their Aboriginal languages and they had set up schools to revive them but more of that later…

For those of us who live by the printed word, really, every day is Book Day but it is fitting that we honour the date of birth of the man who never went to University never specialized in the classics, but who knew how to access them partially through translation and entertain the average person; and this he did with great power and authority if I might be allowed to use Biblical language.

A reference to the Bible naturally brings me to one of the major influences we see in Shakespeare’s language. Translations into English of the Hebrew and Greek Old Testament and New Testaments. John Wycliffe (14th century) and William Tyndale ( 1520)  were widely read in Shakespeare’s lifetime. Did Shakespeare read languages other than English? : he knew Ovid and Plutarch – but did he read the originals or translations? We know he used modern French and Italian works. He read books on law, medicine, folklore, alchemy, astrology, and much much else.

Shakespeare proved that language is a social energy like coal and oil are natural energies. Our capacity for articulation and writing and thinking has set us apart from other species. We not as fast as cheetas or horses. We not as strong as bulls. We are not as adaptable as bacteria but our brains are equipped with the facility to produce and process speech and abstract thought. For at least 80,000 years language has enabled the sharing of ideas. Our relationship with our own language and with other languages builds and archeology of human experience.

I am very glad that the day is going to be filled with students reviewing important books but I cannot understand why no translations of Indian writing have  not found a place in today s deliberations. We have our own literary culture our own literary eco-system and I would have been very happy if 50% of the reviews today had honoured that fact. English the visitor language is very important but it cannot replace your mother tongue. Writers too have their home team and our home team is our nation. Writers reflect the nation back to itself, from the inside.

And this is the central message of my address: the importance of Translation in our lives, not just on WBD. Have you watched a film called Bend it like Beckham? Well, we have done that with English. Here is an excerpt. Tell me if you can hear the rhythm of Tamil behind the English!

The Bus to Aaladi

“Just move up a little,” said the woman from Vadakkiruppu.

“That’s someone’s seat. They’ll come now,” said Priyanka.

“When they come I’ll get up. Now move up.”

“They’ve gone to the shop. Be back now.”

“Is this bus your family property, or what?”

“It’s the government’s.”

“Then what’s the problem? Move up.”

“It’s someone’s seat, they’ll be coming – how many times do I have to tell you? Find another seat.”

“Let them come. You move up. Or move out of the way!” The woman spoke with some force. She was from the cluster of huts to the north of Priyanka’s own village.  . 

Priyanka was sitting in a space meant for two people. A handbag lay on the seat next to the window. When the northerner told her to move, she had at once taken hold of the bar above the seat aheadwith both hands.  Only if she removed her arms could anyone go past her.  The woman tried to push away those arms. It was no use. Priyanka wasn’t loosening her grip even a little.

“You’re going to which place?” demanded the woman.

“Aaladi.” Priyanka was curt.

“All the way to Vadakkiruppu I have to go! Can’t keep on standing so long.  In this whole crowd  it’s only you who’s just four stops from your place, isn’t it? So why can’t you shift a bit and sit over there?” said the woman.

“Is there no other place in the bus?”

“If there was why would I come and hang on you?”

The Vadakkiruppu woman’s angry question fell on deaf ears. Deliberately looking away from her, Priyanka stared out of the bus.

I will close with a word about teaching and mentoring because we are meeting in that environment. You students are fortunate because you have people who can not only guide you in your reading but also discuss your responses to what you have read. Look at the great chance you ve been given : to publicly assess and share your views on milestone works. Reading well is best pursued as an implicit discipline because finally there is no method but yours.

Thank you very much

Mini Krishnan

Mr. Andrew Collister then spoke on the significance of books in understanding cultures and building international relations between countries. Noting how World Book Day is an occasion when society recognizes writers, Mr. Imayam argued that literature serves as an eye to perceive society. To him, a language is a person’s identity, as it carries one’s culture and history along with it. He observed that, if a person’s language is destroyed, the entire culture and history associated with it also gets erased.

About 25 faculty members, research scholars and students from across India presented reviews on books from Australia, India, New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria. They also presented reviews of books from the Language Centre of the London School of Economics. Two students presented papers on The Times Literary Supplement. (Reviews by Presenters will be discussed on a separate post! Keep watching this space!)

The programme ended with a wonderful valedictory address by Mr. G. Olivannan the CEO of Emarald publishers. Mr. Olivannan highlighted how digital Literature was once a threat to book publications. He also stressed on how book sales increased despite the pressures of such changes in medium. He requested writers to record through their writings how to bring about a change in society. He wanted the writers to be the game changers like how it used to be in the past. He also added to say that, we learnt a lot from books, about a society’s culture, their civilization, their language etc. which we have to pass on through books.

[Thank you Prof. Angeline for the snaps, and Prof. Rasheeda for the wonderful write-up on the Valedictory!]

'Why should we build our own happiness on the opinions of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?'

Childhood days have always been a favourite hunting ground for writers, philosophers and poets down the ages!

For a sample of an instance, let us take the case of abandoned children returning to their families, right from the stories of Moses, of Oedipus, of Oliver Twist, of Shakuntala, to the fairy tales of Hansel and Gretel, which have always been archetypal in their ambit for writers from far and wide across ages and climes!

In this regard, the 18^th century in literature, should possibly be seen as the most intense torchbearer to this celebration of childhood by writers, philosophers and educationists, in all its magnificent aura.

Childhood, to them all, was seen as the most important phase of a person’s life for reasons quite known and unknown to societies of those days.

First of all, childhood was the time, they felt, when there always was, a great purity of mind and soul, where the capacity to forgive, the capacity to love, and to be loved was much higher and stronger!

Secondly, the concept of imagination was much more intense and much more higher in children in this phase, than in any other phase in one’s life!

Thirdly,  there was also the conception amongst writers of this period, that children always had an amazing connect with Nature and the Environment, that is quite innate or latent within them! Hence it is that the mountains, the vales, the rivers, the little pets, the animals, the flora and the fauna help much in stimulating their sensibilities.

Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Emile, written during this time, in 1762, looks an amazing, extraordinary, futuristic, visionary treatise on children and their education!

Rousseau’s vision of an idealized ‘natural man’ has its own gentle rubrics for us all to emulate and to inculcate in our children! There is, Rousseau believes, a natural goodness so innate and so spontaneous, contained within a person since childhood, that could be tapped, nurtured and maintained only by a highly systematic, idealized model of education, and it is here that Rousseau offers his own model for the reader! A model that is revolutionary by all means!

To this end, Rousseau’s Emile is divided into five books, discussing within each of its rubric, one developmental stage, each!

Books 1 & 2 are from birth to age 12, and describe the Age of Nature for a child

Books 3 & 4 are devoted to adolescence (the transitional stage!)

Book 5 describes the age of wisdom.

Which is followed by the age of happiness, according to Rousseau!

What an amazing perspective to children’s education! What an amazing perspective to training up a child in the right nuances there are, to life and living!

I would just take some time off to focus on the Age of Nature for a child, that Rousseau discusses in Books 1 & 2 of this lovable, eye-opener kinda treatise that doubles up as a novel!

In an age when education is becoming more and more commercial, and students are seen more as commodities or customers, and in an age when technology has slowly got the better of our children, it has become all the more imperative to discuss Rousseau’s rubrics and their relevance for us all today!

Considered to be the most significant treatise since Plato’s Republic, Rousseau’s Emile has treasure troves galore on offer for eager and vibrant parents, teachers and learners of all hues!

Rousseau’s lovable refrain on the ‘Age of Nature’ has often bordered within the scope of the two sentences given below!

That humans are by nature good – and it is society’s institutions that corrupt them!

Why should we build our own happiness on the opinions of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?

One gets a glimpse into this celebration of Nature, in Rousseau’s ten, classic, meditations that go by the title, Reveries of the Solitary Walker. On this front, again, ain’t one so spontaneously reminded of Thoreau’s equally phenomenal treatise, that comes up almost a hundred years later, on Walking, where he stresses upon the importance of nature to humankind, and how people cannot survive without nature, although we seem to be spending more and more time immersed in the daily grinds of society?

Rousseau, likewise, found for himself a therapeutic respite only in Nature’s solitude, and in a romantically lyrical communion with nature!

I am so tempted to refer to a wondrous friend of mine, Nirmaldasan, (A little feature on him, on our past post HERE), and a kutty little inspiring incident that had happened back then, in one of our sojourns to Pondicherry. We both, - Nirmaldasan and myself, - were taking a stroll down Nature’s blissfully blessed pathways, when... when all of a sudden, I could sense Nirmaldasan lagging behind on the nature-stroll! 

And... yes! I couldn’t well believe my eyes a wee bit when I saw him, in all earnestness, gently touching, petting and prodding a neem tree, on one of its beautiful, shady branches! He was almost throbbing with such immense love for the tree in particular,  and for Nature in general, that he remained rooted to the spot, continuing on his petting and prodding, of this grand, age-old, magnificent tree with such intense fondness and love! I was so surprised beyond measure!

Almost a full fifteen harmonious, therapeutic minutes in the pristine lap of Nature, passed us by, this way! 

Then on, not being able to control my teeming curiosity, I quietly proceeded to ask him the reason for his immense fondness and love for that particular neem tree! Nirmaldasan replied, with his customary smile, saying, 

‘Rufus, I was connecting myself to the nourishment, the warmth, the care and the love that this tree has within its grand, colossal frame! The more I connected with the tree, the more I could feel a power from the tree coming inside me and nourishing and rejuvenating me totally!’

Something that would sure look profane, absurd and weird for any many of us like me, who have never seen a tree this way! 

And yes! It would hardly cut ice with any many of us who break branches off such beautiful trees when our cars or trucks break down in the middle of the road, and subsequently throw away the broken branch, the moment our car’s fault is fixed! It would never cut ice with any many of us who look at trees and forests as objects and commodities for snapping clicks after clicks after clicks, with the pavapetta tree as a mere prop for a 'beautiful' 'natural' background, until the battery drains down our mobile phones!

How true the wondrous words of Wordsworth prove: “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”

And that’s exactly what Toru Dutt tells us through her 1881 poem, “Our Casuarina Tree!”

The tree, to little Toru, was such a source of rejuvenation, restoration and revitalization! The tree, then, to Toru, brings out the huge vibrancy and the vitality contained within its colossal frame, which it so gently transmits and passes on to the flowers, which in turn attract the bees and birds to its loving, sweet, motherly embrace! Very soon, as Toru describes the tree's beauty in all its grandeur, a flock of baboons, a herd of cattle, along with a bevy of birds come under its thick, loving shadows! This apart, the tree, to Toru, has also helped much in building harmonious relationships with her siblings! Now, when she looks back, she has these wonderful, nostalgic reminiscences galore on such sweet, delightful remembrances of the casuarina tree!

And that’s exactly what Rousseau advocates for children in the first twelve years of their innocent, Nature-connected lives!

You are Invited...

'We have an Everywhereness to Us Now...'

One is quite spontaneously reminded of the mighty Heidegger and his three ways of being, from his most profoundest philosophical musings of the century, Being and Time, when one gets to read Professor Laurence Scott’s The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World. 

Well, in short, the book is all about how our ‘networked lives’ have made us all ‘four-dimensional humans,’ and how it has in effect, profoundly impacted our experience as humans, and how this new 'digitized human' in us, is constantly affected in his/her thoughts by a constant stream of ‘mediated’, ‘filtered’, ‘skewed’, and ‘tutored’ news, views, information and gossip every second and every minute of our lived lives on this planet, in this ‘multimediated’ existence of ours!

Scott’s lively illustrations, his vivid examples and his highly personal narrative style make this book a well-meaning read and an unputdownable one at that!

I guess it musta taken this youngy professor such huge commitment and dedication on his part to have worked on a book of this magnitude! All of us, in this present dispensation could so easily relate to all that’s said and contained within this 190-page read, even as we browse our way through each and every page of this revelatory read of sorts!

And yes! Even a cursory feel into the ‘thisness’ of this book would really vouchsafe to the existential and the philosophical tinge that permeates through the entire gamut of this book.

The book also lends ample credence to the famed notion that, humans are indeed insignificant specks in a depersonalized universe! Or rather, a dislocated, a dematerialized and a disembodied universe rolled in one!

Yes! Scott uses the expression ‘disembodied’ on a highly existential note here in this book! And I quote –

If our bodies have traditionally provided the basic outline of our presence in the world, then we can’t enter a networked environment, in which we present ourselves in multiple places at once, without rethinking the scope and limits of embodiment.

While we sit next to one person, smiling through a screen at someone else, our thoughts, our visions, our offhand and heartfelt declarations materialise in fragments in one another’s pockets.

It’s astonishing to think how in the last twenty years the limits and coherence of our bodies have been so radically redefined. We have an everywhereness to us now that inevitably alters our relationship to those stalwart human aspects of self-containment, remoteness and isolation.

Like the 4D Man, we are able to insubstantiate ourselves to the point that the solid stuff around us seems insubstantial. Unlike this jealous genius, however, we can be on both sides of the wall at once.

Yes! This ‘everywhereness’ could connote to mean that, we are somewhere else when we are here! Or rather, we are here, when we are everywhere else!

At the same time, what’s double the redeeming about this book is the fact that, the book doesn’t forebode a disastrous dystopic vision of the future for humankind! Rather it gently coaxes and cajoles us to think about what it would be like to be wired 24 x 7 to the cloud every breathing moment of our lives!

No spoilers though! ;-) The book is all yours for grabs at Rs.475/- on flipkart, or for just around six dollars, if you’re an Amazonian bum!

Well, I’ve wanted to compare this occidental school of thought from Scott in the present  times, to the oriental school of thought from the past where Dr. Radhakrishnan, an illustrious past student of MCC, and the second President of India, says about this ‘loss of subjectivity!’

To Dr. Radhakrishnan, humans were never meant to be insignificant specks in a depersonalized universe! Rather, humans tend to become 'insignificant specks' the moment they start looking on the outside, and forget to look within - onto their inward subjectivity!

‘What is this movie really about?’ 😄

This memorable incident happened quite a few years ago and it gave us such real indelible heartprints, to be etched and latched onto our hearts, for, I guess, forever!

One fine Saturday, around seven of us - friends and colleagues - decided to rev up the ensuing weekend, by hitting the multiplex Mayajaal that adorns the pleasant scenic highway, to indulge ourselves on an unwindy-weekendy getaway of sorts – that came with the added bonus of a movie’s delight, - a movie that was supposed to cap up our weekend sojourn!

It was a bit of an impish oversight on our part that we had blissfully ‘forgotten’ to tell an ‘unsuspecting duo’ amongst our lot, that it was a scary movie at that!

Dr. SSJ, the seniormost of us all, was, in his inimitable style, arrayed in the finest of his attire, as were all of us, his juniors, and with rollicky fun all along the way, we soon landed at our desired destination, where we were given a rousing reception by Prof Luke who had outwitted us on the revving by a huge pace, with such royal throttle on his Royal Enfield, and hence was already there, quietly waiting for the rest of us, much ahead of time!

After some wonderful refreshments that came our way with a cuppa coffee to top ‘em all, we all made a beeline to our respective seats at this particular screen, where we soon became quite busy amongst ourselves, discussing the pros and cons on the ‘about-to-be-screened-movie’.

The unsuspecting duo who had been ‘erroneously’ kept in the dark about the movie’s genre were Dr. SSJ and Prof. Lukey boyyy!

The lights all around us were soon turned off, and we quite soon adjusted ourselves onto our seats, lounging at times, for that added comfort, until at long last, the silver screen saw some sheen and shine with some dashing display of advertisements.

Very soon, the long awaited movie was projected onto the screen, when one of the two, (who were kept in the dark on the movie) quietly sneaks by my side and asks, 

‘What is this movie really about?’

I, for once, not wanting to get the suspense lost this soon on this pavapetta unsuspecting buddy, just tell him, reassuring him that it would be an amazing and a memorable movie!

After having his anxiety assuaged a wee bit, he went back into his 'lounge-mode' to relish and to enjoy the sumptuous treat of the movie on offer right there in front of him, on a platter!

Some fifteen minutes into the movie, and there comes up the first in a huge succession of horror scenes that zoomed past the silver screen and right into the eyes and the hearts of the unsuspecting duo! 😄

This literally shoulda sent a shiver down the spine of one of our folks, who, from thence on, started nudging me, with all his might, to part with the genre of the movie, yet again!

One of us was about to tell him on the genre, when just then, as destiny woulda firmly and steadily contrived it, an impish colleague prances forward and interrupts the ‘spillbeans’ with such a genial smile and a cordial grin on his face that was meant to cheer up the latter's sinking spirits! 

He now gently assuages the lubby-tubby heart of our unsuspecting duo, assuring him that the movie was one of the finest to come by in recent times, and that it would be such a joyous treat to watch!

“Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than to be in bad company”

Today’s post, intends to do a little review on an amazing autobiographical read that connects with agricultural lands, and in sync with our event line-up for these past days!

Well, if I should suggest a must-read, a lovable read and a motivating read rolled up in one, for everyone from all ages and climes, it would be the autobiography of one of the mosttt influential Black men in the United States, Booker T Washington!

His autobiography titled, Up From Slavery contains finest gems of purest ray serene, that spur us to action with the most confident stride, ahead!

Up from Slavery is a witness to the wonderful fact that, a committed and determined individual, inspite of how harsh one’s circumstances could be, if only there’s a single-minded commitment and determination within him, could achieve anything, exceeding above that which others could only dream of!

Brought up as a slave child, who did not have the means to learn reading and writing, Washington’s dreams and sighs were achingly and longingly turned towards the schoolroom where his master’s children were studying! He had that deep thirst and fervent longing within him to learn reading and writing!

One fine day, by a lucky accident, he came to know about a recently established boarding school that catered exclusively to the Blacks, called Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute!

This place was to be a game-changer for the entire course of his life!

He impulsively decided to himself that he would be educated there, with little idea about the costs and the fees for his education! The place was quite far n far off, and so he slept in snatches under bridges and beside hedges, with almost nothing to eat, and at last finally arrived at his desired destination, Hampton.

He looked so impoverished, penniless and dirty, that even his teachers ignored him. But one day, the way and the manner in which he skillfully swept his lecture hall spick and span, with such elegance, found him favour in the eyes of his teacher!

He narrates the incident in so simple a prose –

Giving y’all the lines from Booker himself, culled from Chapter 3 –

As soon as possible after reaching the grounds of the Hampton Institute, I presented myself before the head teacher for an assignment to a class. Having been so long without proper food, a bath, and a change of clothing, I did not, of course, make a very favourable impression upon her, and I could see at once that there were doubts in her mind about the wisdom of admitting me as a student.

I felt that I could hardly blame her if she got the idea that I was a worthless loafer or tramp. For some time she did not refuse to admit me, neither did she decide in my favour, and I continued to linger about her, and to impress her in all the ways I could with my worthiness.

In the meantime I saw her admitting other students, and that added greatly to my discomfort, for I felt, deep down in my heart, that I could do as well as they, if I could only get a chance to show what was in me.

After some hours had passed, the head teacher said to me: "The adjoining recitation-room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it."

It occurred to me at once that here was my chance. 

Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger in solitude.

Everything which comes from the many is good. Everything which comes from one is evil. Thus we have been taught with our first breath.

We have broken the law, but we have never doubted it.

Yet now, as we walk the forest, we are learning to doubt.

In keeping with today’s theme of ‘forests and the pastoral in literature,’ I was quite reminded of the wonderful role that pastorals and forests play in literatures from across the world! Right from Kalidasa’s and Shakespeare’s works, forests have always been represented as places of solitude, freedom and peace, and as transformative and therapeutic locales!

Ayn Rand’s gripping novella titled Anthem is one such delightful case in point.

The novella is a dystopian story, taking place in some remote time in the future, in a place where freedom and individual rights have been stifled and completely dispensed with. Collectivism has replaced individualism! [Collectivism, again, is the political philosophy that prioritizes the society and state over the individual, and that the individual exists only to serve the state, and not the other way round!]

Hence, the 21-year old protagonist who goes by the peculiar name, Equality 7-2521, uses only plural pronouns ("we", "our", "they") to refer to himself and to others.

Like all the other children in this collectivist society, Equality 7-2521 was also brought up, away from his parents, in collective homes.

Equality feels that he has a ‘curse’ on him, that makes him very receptive to any subject that’s being taught, and as a result so many questions pop up in his ‘scholarly’ bent of mind! Since he is also proficient in the Science of Things, he dreams that one day he would become a Scholar of high merit! But sadly, the Council of Vocations assigns him the job of being a Street Sweeper all through his life.

Equality, in a resigned tone, sadly accepts his street sweeping assignment, but at the same time, never ceases to work secretly all the time, on his hide-out tunnel, which he uses as a lab for all his scientific experiments. He also has his first tryst with love as a sweeper, while cleaning the roads. He meets Liberty 5-3000, a 17-year-old girl, with dark eyes and golden hair. He names her "The Golden One".

Soon, Equality gets his ‘eureka’ moment, when he finds to his delight that, a glass box with wires gives off light when he passes electricity through it! At long last now, he is so happy that he has rediscovered electricity.

Overjoyed, he resolves to take his rare discovery to the World Council of Scholars, expecting them to crown him a Scholar, by acknowledging his invaluable discovery. But sadly, as ill luck would have it, his absence from the Home of the Street Sweepers is suddenly noticed, and he is mercilessly flogged and detained in the Palace of Corrective Detention.

And just into the previous night when the World Council of Scholars is all set to convene, Equality manages to escape from his detention centre, and at last manages to present his discovery to the World Council of Scholars.

Ironically, again, the World Council of ‘Scholars’ are shocked beyond measure to know that he has done ‘unauthorized research,’ and they condemn him promptly as a "gutter cleaner" and recommend strong punishment for him! [Well, if any inventor/s of today comes to your mind, it’s gotta be purely a coincidence, I swear!!!]

The World Council of Scholars plot together to destroy his rare discovery of sorts so that, it will not harm the plans of the Department of Candles. Equality, then, in a fit of rage, curses the World Council of Scholars, and makes good his escape, fleeing into the forest that lies outside of the City.