Dr Lilian Jasper
Principal
Women’s Christian
College (Autonomous), Chennai
[Speech given on the occasion of the inauguration
of the English Literary Forum, MCC]
The Inauguration of
the English Literary Forum 2019 – 2020 brings back memories of fun times spent
in the deep woods of this fascinating campus with its sinuous snakes,
mischievous monkeys, ubiquitous mongoose, colourful birds and graceful deer.
The proximity I enjoyed
with the wilderness has been addictive and it has taken me on explorations across Uttarakand and the lower Himalayas, the Western Ghats, Kaziranga, to
Bohol in the Philippines in search of Tarsiers and to Kenya in West Africa.
It also reminds me of
my classmates. Ten of us in the MPhil class… eight girls and two despondent
boys. One of the boys is the current principal of St. Stephen’s College in Delhi
and I think John owes it to all of us girls for catapulting him into greatness.
Some of the friendships you make here stay with you for life.
 |
| Dr Lilian Jasper, with her book titled, Kenyan Odyssey that she has co-authored! |
Time is one of the
most valuable commodities we have and it is more valuable than money as you
cannot make more time whereas you can make more money. Your days in campus
might look like you have a long way to go.
But believe me life is
flying by and this is your one shot. Don’t hang out with people who pull you
down, invest your time astutely and live purposefully and wisely. Staying on
Social media and catching up on the latest gossip is not redeeming time.
A great many people
are incredibly talented and have great potential but they are not disciplined
when it comes to spending their time.
For us in this vast
arena called literature, books and authors beckon us from every side. So it is
imperative that you have reading lists at the beginning of each year and keep
ticking them as you proceed.
You can choose your
lists based on your area of interest or if you are an undergraduate I would
suggest spreading your reading list over Greek classics starting with Homer’s
gripping epics The Iliad and Odyssey and moving on to Aristophanes’
comedies or the tragedies of Sophocles or Euripides. When I first heard about
them from my Literary Forms teacher in
my UG class I thought they sounded too dense until I read the first play. It
was absolutely gripping much better than even Harry Potter’s adventures while
the English Mystery and Miracle plays gave me new perspectives of the Bible
accounts.
Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina or War and Peace has such wide canvases that it literally gives you a worldview
of different human personalities and landscapes in erstwhile Russia. Hermann
Hesse’s profound Steppenwolf with its
‘There is no reality except the one contained within us’. That is why so many
people lived such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for
reality and never allow the world within to assert itself’. Or Jack Kerouac’s The Road with its ‘The air was soft, the
stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was
in a dream…’ take you on a journey towards self-realization and exploration.
George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 with its themes that
centre on totalitarianism, historical negationism and propaganda are relevant
even today.
A complete antithesis
to 1984 would be Kingsley Amis’s
Lucky Jim with situational humour or Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. A woman reader could probably delve into
Jean Sasson’s books on the Princess of Arabia or Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club with its wide canvass of
Chinese immigrants in America. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Mansfield
Park could any day give Korean Drama a run for its money.
If you are interested
in travelling across the globe, Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson, Levison Wood, Dervla
Murphy and Michael Palin would be delightful companions, and if you are about
the natural world David Attenborough and Anthony Lawrence’s The Elephant Whisperer along with Gerald
Durrell will help you peek into the mysterious lives of creatures with whom we
share our blue planet.
The canvas is huge and
I have listed a few plays and novels. A well-written novel can transport you to
new realms, and everything you read fills your head with new bits of
information.
The more knowledge you
have, the better equipped you are to tackle any challenge while being
articulate and well-spoken is of great help in any profession and it can be an
enormous boost to your self-esteem.
Exposure to
well-written writings will improve the cadence and fluidity of your writing
styles. A good book is a wonderful companion and the common malaise of boredom
and loneliness will never strike you.
Believe me when I first
moved into my current position, I left behind my colleagues in the English
Department and felt lonely in my new role for just a day or two until I moved a
small bookshelf with my favourite books.
Books have the power
to open the world up for us, show us the realities of others and changes our
outlook completely.
Reading a book like
Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s List
takes you into the skin of a Jew during the holocaust while Anantha Murthy’s Samskara or Sujatha Gidla’s Ants Among Elephants capture the social
ostracism and caste-based discrimination practised in independent India.
Books also help one to
reduce their overall stress levels, and provide inner peace and tranquility as
they are effective mood changers. For example, P G Wodehouse’s line like ‘She
laughed – a bit louder than I could have wished in my frail state of health,
but then she is always a woman who tends to bring plaster falling from the ceiling
when amused’, or ‘It isn’t often that Aunt Dahlia lets her angry passions rise,
but when she does strong men climb trees and pull them up after them’. He had
the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the
bottom’, - will definitely lift up your mood and take you into another kingdom.
It’s not only
important how we spend our time, but with whom we spend it. When you walk with
wise men you will become wise.
When your friends are
leaders, givers and have integrity and excellence then those qualities will rub
off on you. When you are with them, you are investing your time wisely.
You cannot hang out
with chickens and expect to soar like an eagle. Make sure you are investing
your time.
The author of the
detective Father Brown series, Chesterton in a poem says –
Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world around me;
And with tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?
Before you join Dr
Seuss in saying, ‘How did it get so late so soon?’ invest wisely in time. I am
sure a literary forum like this will help you widen your reading or help you
choose good books and also help you to reflect on your reading. Each new day
set your goals and let your inner circle be with books which will help you set
new goals and help you grow and flourish.
- MCC Magazine, Vol. LXXXV
image courtesy: Nakshatra Krishnamoorthy
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