An ode to a trusted companion

For the past few months, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, (hereafter TLOTR) had been my faithful companion, never leaving my side except for the time I spent at the University and few hours on food, sleep, conversation and other things. Now that I have completed the trilogy, I sense a vaccum. For long, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Peppin and others filled my time and I laughed as they laughed and was sad when something was amiss with them. When the fellowship of the ring was broken, I was quite anxious that the party should get together again. Well, let me stop gushing and continue with the post.

A book (both fiction and non-fiction, but in this case, fiction) provides an assortment of emotional vagaries within us. Not only we are transported into the time frame of the book but we also integrate the lives of the characters within our own. Their quest becomes ours, their thoughts colour ours, and sometimes their anguish becomes ours. And if the book is like TLOTR, one spends a considerable time with the book which has three parts, with each part consisting of few hundred pages. The characters no longer belong to the book alone but are very much part of my waking time.

Not the characters alone, but one tends to imbibe the language and vocabulary present in the book. The evil characters in TLOTR, are Sauron, Saruman and the Orcs. At the time of reading the book, any student who gets on my nerves is an Orc and any person whose intentions are crooked and vile is Saruman. I don't know whether you notice but metaphors and similes are largely from the book which is being read. Ah, and how did I forget Mr. Gollum! Gollum-like is my favourite phrase now!

In more than one way, the book becomes one's companion, leading one through strange lands, people, language and experience. Now that I have parted with Sam, Frodo, and others, I am restless for laying my hands on other works of J. R. R. Tolkein's. And some works fill us with wisdom that comes in handy during unexpected times.

Before I end, let me leave you with a quote from Part I of TLOTR.

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring 

Now, what do books mean to you, dear readers?

Image 1: Internet

Image 2: Internet

Image 3: Internet

A la Simone de Beauvoir

Well, I never thought that my life will start resembling that of a feminist, philosopher and an assortment of different things - de Beauvoir. I first came across this name when I was doing my Literature in Womens Christian College. We were all naive and young and feminism and liberating ideas were quite novel and thereby fascinating to flirt with. For years calling myself a feminist was something which gave me a bloated ego where any form of chivalry was totally destroyed. My poor unassuming male friends were in a state of total confusion when I attempted on the travails of opening the door, volunteering to carry my bags, et al. So much for being a feminist and Simone de Beauvoir was always on my mind! Well, the plunging into the domain of higher studies cleared the notions of myself calling me a feminist and I ventured away from the portals of Feminism; Simone de beauvoir was still there. Now other things from her life started interesting me. Sartre came into the scene! Well, existentialism seemed to rule the order! That was the introduction of Simone de beauvoir and Sartre.

The Part II of the reflections continue way after the introduction of the two thinkers. The life led by the two caught my attention. The companionship of the two, a relation where the two were constantly there for the other and lived by the strong dictum of honesty and a right to explore people and experiences outside of them. The relationship that sustained the both of them throughout the rest of their life after thier meeting at Sorbonne. I quote from an online source, "They were famous as a couple with independent lives, who met in cafés, where they wrote their books and saw their friends at separate tables, and were free to enjoy other relationships, but who maintained a kind of soul marriage. Their liaison was part of the mystique of existentialism, and it was extensively documented and coolly defended in Beauvoir’s four volumes of memoirs, all of them extremely popular in France: “Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter” (1958), “The Prime of Life” (1960), “Force of Circumstance” (1963), and “All Said and Done” (1972). Beauvoir and Sartre had no interest in varnishing the facts out of respect for bourgeois notions of decency. Disrespect for bourgeois notions of decency was precisely the point."

Well, so much for Simone de beauvoir in my life. Now if the reader is speculating an assortment of things, I am encouraging him/her to do so for speculation is an art of assumption where the mind is free to think anything.