நடந்தாய் வாழி காவேரி

எழுதுவது ஒரு வரம். சிலருக்கு இயல்பாய் வருகிறது. சிலருக்கு விஷ்வாமித்தரர் போல் கடும் தவம் செய்து பெற வேண்டிருக்கிறது. எப்படி வாய்த்ததோ, ஆனால் தி.ஜா விற்கு அவ்வரம் அளவின்றி இருக்கிறது. சுவாரசியமான கதையை சொல்வதென்பது வேறு, ஒரு கட்டுரை புத்தகத்தை சுவாரசியமாக சொல்வதென்பது வேறு. அதை சாதித்து காட்டி இருக்கிறார்கள் தி.ஜாவும், கிட்டியும், “நடந்தாய் வாழி காவேரியில்". அதுவும் என் போன்ற கட்டுரை என்றால் பயத்துடனே எடுப்பவனும் மூழ்கி போய் படிக்குமாறு.

காவேரியின் பாதையையும், அதன் கிளை மற்றும் உப நதிகளையும், காவேரியின் பாதையில் உள்ள ஊர்களையும் விவரிப்பதே புத்தகம். காவேரியின் போக்கை விவரிக்கும் போது, கண் முன்னே காவேரி ஓடுகிறது. இதை படிக்கும் பொழுது 40 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பு எழுதிய இந்த புத்தகத்தின் தலைவி, பெருகி ஓடிய இடங்களில் எல்லாம் இப்பொழுது வெறும் மணல் மேடாய் இருப்பது, வாழ்ந்து கெட்ட வீட்டை பார்பது போன்ற வலியை ஏற்படுத்துகிறது.

காவேரி கரை ஊர்களை பற்றி சொல்லும் போது, அதன் வரலாற்றையும், அது சார்ந்த நம்பிக்கைகளையும், அந்த ஊரில் வாழ்ந்த மனிதர்களையும், அவர் படைப்புகளையும் சொல்லி செல்லும் பொது, ஒரு வித nostalgia உருவாகிறது. கங்கை கொண்ட சோழபுரம் பற்றிய கேள்விகள், ஒரு நாவலை படிக்கும் போது மனதில் சில கதாபாத்திரங்கள் ஏற்படுத்தும் உணர்வை தருகின்றன.

ஆசிரியரின் தமிழ் இலக்கியகங்கள், மற்றும் கர்ஞாடக இசை மேல் உள்ள ஈடுபாடு, புத்தகம் முழுவதும் விரவி உள்ளது. பயண நூல், தகவல் களஞ்சியம் என்பதை எல்லாம் விட அதிக ஈடுபாடு வர காரணம் ஆசிரியருக்கு காவேரி மீது உள்ள காதல். காதல் இன்றி வேறெதுவும், இப்படி உருகி, இரசித்து எழுத வைக்காது.

எத்தனையோ இராஜ்ஜியங்களையும், மன்னர்களையும், படைப்பாளிகளையும், கோபுரங்களையும், அரண்மனைகளையும், கண்டு, நூற்றாண்டாய் நிலைத்து நின்று, பல துணை நதிகளை இணைத்து, சுளித்து, வளைந்து, பொங்கி, அடங்கி , துள்ளி, பல கிளை நதிகளாய் கிளைந்து, கடல் கலந்த காவேரியியை கொண்டாடும் புத்தகம்.அகண்ட காவேரியில் நமக்கு, இன்று மிச்சம் இருப்பவையோ, பரந்த மணல் திட்டுகளும், சிதிலடைந்த கோயில்களும்தான். அவைகளும் வேகமாய் கரைந்து கொண்டிருக்கும் நேரத்தில், நமக்கும், நமக்கு பின் இருப்பவர்களும் மிச்சம் இருப்பவையோ சிலப்பதிகாரம், தியாகராஜர் கீர்த்தனைகள் போன்ற காவிரியை கொண்டாடிய படைப்புகள் தான். அவை போலவே சாஸ்வீதம் பெரும் தன்மை வாய்ந்தது இப் படைப்பு.

Out lie rs

Outliers is a book by Malcolm Gladwell, which analyses the success of people and tries to put the big picture behind the success. As it says, the bigger picture is the things our conventional moral lessons fail to say. It says how society, cultural heritage and chance plays important role in one becoming successful or famous. It is not just one’s talents. What it says is not those people became successful just because they were lucky. It accepts they were talented. But they had something beyond their talents that brought them the fortunes. For some it was where their great grand parents born. For some it was their year of birth or month of birth. Actually these are the things it states as reason for their success more than their talents: When you born, where you born, to whom you born and to whom they were born. It’s interesting and even more convincing. But what it ignores is it doesn’t speak about negative samples. About the people whom even with their talents failed. Well it shrugs of it with the argument those people don’t exist; they are wiped out simply because it’s winners who write history.

The book brings out an interesting fact; any person who succeeds has put 10000 hours of work before he succeeds. Neither one succeeded without that much hours of effort, nor one failed with that much work. What it extrapolates is the people with some advantages (the ones stated above) gets these hours. And the other group doesn’t. Well its huge amount of time to put. You won’t put so much unless you get some feedback, you will give up in middle if you don’t think you can make out. It’s like a marathon. The moment you know you won’t finish, you quit. It’s easy. You can find it sooner. But it applies only to the people who run for the purpose of winning. Not for those people who run for the reason of running. It is the point the book fails to understand. It is true the year of birth plays pivotal role in the Silicon Valley success stories. But it’s more important when they entered into computer field they don’t know it’s the future. They hooked to it because they loved it, not because they thought it will bring them success. That is the fundamental reason. The passion. No one can predict how world takes its course over years. All one can do is to do the things that he love to do. It’s one thing you can see in the people all who succeeded. Bill gates didn’t spend 10000 hours in computer because he predicted it will be the future. It’s true A.R.Rahman got Oscar because he was in music industry when world is shrinking and India is growing. But what’s more important is he didn’t chose music as his profession, because he predicted globalization or because he know what he should do in next 20 years to get Oscar. It’s simply because he loved music. The converse is also true. Take any profession or industry, its not nurtured persons, persons whose parents identified it’s the future and nurtured their offspring, who made their marks in industry. By overwhelming majority its people who are first of it’s kind. What Malcolm Gladwell fails to point out is a single story where a person understood his date of birth advantage, his year of birth advantage, his cultural advantage and chose a profession and marveled in it. He can’t present a case like that simple because it doesn’t exist.


What he says is truth, undisputable but it holds no value. It’s like the fact earth is round for a person who never traveled more than 100 mile from his place of living. It is as much true as saying, sun raises in east is false. But it holds no value. Because at the end of day, what makes this life a worth one is the reason for which it lived. A man loses his life once he knows his life is built on nothing. It is his beliefs, his passion, however foolish they are to the critical eyes, but that’s what keep them running. It’s not the success it gives. Success is just by-product.

P.S.:
An important thing, I learned in this book is that I have to give my 10000 hours of work to make whatever I wrote to be more interesting.

The Hours----time ticks

Books (even movies and music) are like wine, they need to get old with time before declaring them masterpiece. It needs more than one sip to peel out the various aromas they will give. Their taste more often don’t lie with buds in tongue but on the way it travels in and the sense it gives. But we can say whether it can become a good wine ,the moment it was pour in to the cask for storage. On my first read of ‘the hours’, exactly that’s what I felt: It’s a good read.

The novel traces 3 stories or could I say 3 independent incidents. Each one is rooted to its past and impacted profoundly by what they are and how they were. Virginia wolf is about to write her greatest story, “Mrs. Dalloway”. As that particular day unfolds she decides about what each character will do. What actually dictates their character? What she is, what she want to be, how she conflicts and collide with people conjures up as a story. It’s a magic of capturing the moment where a flower blossoms and the sweet scent fills the room. It’s a momentary feel, technically you can say the instant where it happened report it micro second by microsecond, but still you might not have told what actually happened. But Michael Cunningham transpires it beautifully. May be it’s because he took the literary freedom and made a story out of incidents that transpired over a period of time. May be, Virginia wolf wrote Mrs. Dalloway and she had committed suicide later in her life is the only fact that he stated. May be all things he stated are actually happened in his mind. What the heck …its so beautifully told, with all those powerful words, expressions and metaphors above all its relevance to life, the real life, not the life of blood and skin but that of the grey and white matter.

Mrs. Lara Brown has a picture perfect family, what most will long for. She has a war hero husband who is sincere in his work and in his care for family. On his birthday, he wakes up before his wife, buys flower and makes breakfast for his son. He senses his wife is dull but he attributes it to her pregnancy. He is, the common man, the successful common man. But the problem is Laura is not looking for him. What she wants is not this. But can she say it? She fills her life in reading books. Her everyday is struggle between the life she wish to have and the life she have which is filled with the people who love her and care for her. On the particular day she is reading the novel “Mrs. Dalloway”. You could blame the novel she was reading or the passionate kiss she gave to Kity, which made her understand her lesbian interest or who knows what inside her brain, she decides to commit suicide. But her love for life stops her from doing it and she returns to her family. Eventually she leaves her family and runs to Canada and spends her life as a librarian.

Clarissa is an editor living with her lesbian partner in New York. She is busy on the day with the party she is planning for her friend, Richard. Richard, an AIDS patient who is counting his days to death, has been awarded a literary honor, for the only novel he wrote, which spends reams and reams of paper about nothing. The only thing, who ever read it understood is (from the lady who sells the flowers to Richard‘s gay partner), he has spoken in length about Clarissa. He has a chapter running for pages which simply states how much time Clarissa had spent in a nail polish shop , ending up not buying any nail polish .‘The hours’ presents itself a book on existentialism, on marginal people, what not. But at the end, all I could feel is, it is the best love story I have ever read. The one that Clarissa has on Richard and the one Richard has on Clarissa. Of all the things that happened to her she still remembers the day, the kiss she shared with Richard. That was the happiness. She thought it was the starting. But thirty years later she knew it was the moment. Richard (only Richard) call her Mrs. Dalloway for reasons no one know. May be on a crazy moment when both knew each love one another more than anything else, on the moment of pinnacle of one’s happiness he started to call her Mrs. Dalloway and he calling her so continues. Clarissa, still wonders, how it could have been if they chose to be together. They are not together; it’s more because of their love for them, which is actually their love for life. Some hours before the party, Richard commits suicide. How much it affects Clarissa? It looks she knew it all way. Her love for day is slightly more than her love for Richard. After all that’s what keeps us moving, isn‘t it? In spite of all the heartbreaks, all those hours which just exist to remind us the good old time once we had. We all rooted in our past and we still look forward for day for reasons no one can say how. The concluding line of the novel best surmises it:
“We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds & expectations, to burst open & give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so.”

fooled by randomness

“Fooled by randomness” by Nissim Nicholas Taleb is an interesting read. It tries to explain the role of chance in life, more through the example of market. In the course it speaks about probability, skewness, odd, expectation, mean vs. median- what not. The book is written in entertaining manner bringing lot of laugh and thinking. One may agree or disagree with the book, but surely it will make the reader to contemplate. A book can never change a person’s view of life on a single read. (That’s why I stay away from self guide and motivational genre.)But what, a worth a read, will do is resurfacing itself at several places showing how true it was. This book is worth a read.

Trying to explain what this book speaks is not an easy thing, but let me try to point out the ones that pops out after a week (Time is a good filter to remove the noise).

1. If we have sufficient number of monkeys knowing to hit typewriter, then there is a possibility one monkey might produce an Iliad, but it doesn’t mean it will make another epic. More the people, more the chance, the so called success to be a pure random event.

2. If there is an urn with 50 white and 50 red balls, more the red ball you take out less the chance of drawing a red ball on next draw. So in a way past history has a negative co relation in predicting future.

3. Whatever be the number of white swans you see, it is not sufficient to say all swans are white. It just need 1 black swan to say swan can be black.

4. Random thing can decide the outcome but not the way you see it or react to it. This is the important thing that made me to appreciate the book. Means, not the ends that matter. As Nissim says “The only article lady Fortuna has no control is your behavior”