My favorite book

Book Review: The gospel of Shree Ramakrishna

This is the perfect book for the intellectual and the confused spiritual seeker. For it has a one point direction: from the head to the heart. Where it leaves you, singing and dancing, within and without.

The Gospel of Shree Ramakrishna is a big book, in fact it is two fat volumes. With a book this big, the first impulse is to open it in the middle somewhere and start reading. Not a good idea. This story deserves to be read from the beginning, for that is where the punch is.

M., or Mahendranath Gupta, the author, was a learned man, or so he thought. On his first visit to the Master, he is deeply charmed by the eloquence in Ramakrishna’s words. ‘He must be well read,’ is M.’s response. He is shocked that the Master hasn’t read a single book in his life.

But the taste of bliss in his gut brings him back to Dakshineshwar the next morning, when the Master is getting shaved.

The second meeting is more intimate, with a one to one conversation.

Sri Ramakrishna: Are you married?

M: Yes Sir.

Sri Ramakrishna (with a shudder): Oh, Ramlal! Alas, he is married!

Like one guilty of a terrible offence, M. sat motionless, his eyes on the ground. He thought, ‘Is it such a wicked thing to be married?’

The Master(continues): ‘Have you any children?’

M. this time could hear the beating of his own heart.

M. (whispers in a trembling voice): ‘Yes, sir, I have children.’

Very sadly, Sri Ramakrishna says,

‘Ah me! He even has children!’

Thus rebuked, M. sat speechless. His pride had received a blow. After a few minutes, the Master looked at him kindly and said,

‘You see, you have certain good signs. I know them by looking at a person’s face. Tell me, what king of person is your wife? Has she spiritual attributes, or is she under the power of avidya?’

M.: She is alright. But I am afraid she is ignorant.

Master: (with evident displeasure) And you are a man of knowledge?

M had yet to learn the distinction between knowledge and ignorance. He was under the impression, as we all are, that you get knowledge from books and schools. Later he learnt from the Master that to know God is knowledge and to not know him is ignorance.

This is an excerpt from the first chapter of the book, when M. meets the master. There is hardly any reference to M at all after this. M simply records everything as he saw and heard as he sat quietly at Sri Ramakrishna’s feet.

Sri Ramakrishna is basically oriented towards the devotional aspect of spirituality. However, he does not prescribe rituals of devotion. What he prescribes is an intense yearning for God. ‘Cry to God with all your heart and you shall surely see him.’

This one sentence, if taken to heart, can be extremely cathartic in nature. ‘Crying to God’, done on a regular basis, can turn the mind within. It can also become a hotline to the Maker.

When he meets someone for the first time, the master asks, ‘So do you believe in God with form or do you believe in the formless aspect of God?’ The utter simplicity and clarity in this question reveals the understanding of Sri Ramakrishna: he is the embodiment of the meeting of Gyana and Bhakti.

This book is a witness to the happening of another saint, Swami Vivekananda. Ramakrishna displays more than a simple affection for Narendra, the Guru literally pines for his disciple.

After all, he has a big job to do there: passing on the legacy of the inner spirit of India.

What I didn’t like about the book:

Ramakrishna was guileless; he lacked the sophistication of the city dweller. He is supposed to have used a lot of off-color jokes which were edited out of the English version. Somehow this goes against the spirit of the book, which is basically the complete flow of the master’s words, unedited, even by the master himself.

What I liked about the book:

There is story about Swami Vivekananda and the mother Kali. After the demise of his father, Swamiji was facing a very rough patch at home. He was jobless and the kitchen fire was out. Sri Ramakrishna advised him to go to the Mother’s temple and ask for her help. She who runs the universe will surely give him a job, some stable income to feed his family.

Instead of asking for the vitamin M, all Swamiji could ask for were devotion and knowledge. Again and again he went, each time he forgot. Finally he realised that the master was playing a trick on him. He was teaching him that the only things worth asking from the Goddess, were spiritual.

I feel that Sri Ramkrishna’s blessings work like this trick in this book. Once you get hooked to it, the rose tint enters your eyes. Life is not the same again.

Here is a link to a zoom in to the book.

a bitter sweet letter to an author,

when read again and again, becomes beautifully true to the seeker. This letter was a response of someone I deeply respect, to my novel, A Grasshopper's Pilgrimage.

Dear Manju,

Jai Guru!

There are two levels at which I would like to look at this book. The spiritual and literary. At the spiritual level, the book leaves much to be desired. Its honesty, though an admirable virtue of form, does not transcend to the content. In fact, a kind of fictitious honesty, assertive of individual opinion or personal manifestation, in matters spiritual, I have come to think, is quite undesirable. It sets a bad precedent. The might of personal conviction/ interpretation has been defeating the scriptural wisdom for centuries, because anything literal made to seem true goes down as literal truth.

The seeker in your book, as a character, succeeds beautifully; it’s the person named Gopika I mean. But the path is flawed and the culmination reached is both shallow and pretentious. The quest angle which is central to any pilgrimage or journey lacks the sheer fire and force.

There is no progress in the character of the protagonist, a seeker of “something” and it remains that way— vague, nebulous and untruly mystical even at the end of the book. Nothing is found, there’s no discovery. There is nothing in the book to root Gopika’s feelings or imaginations in reality. This seems rather whimsical.

First half of the book creates a pure and charming background for what is to follow by way of great journey, but our hopes are belied. We have nevertheless the consolation of reading an interesting story at yet another (that is, mundane) level.

I have a healthy disregard for what I call wayside spiritual romance (contrasted with plain and serious practice as taught in your favourite Gospel), a misdemeanour committed even by those who can tell wheat from chaff. It is a product of indulgence to which I too have been prone. But my regret is not that you wished it, my regret is that you landed into it quite inadvertently. You wished to relate the great event inside, but what you have on paper is a motley collection of events and no true spiritual journey. The events pretend but don’t actually belong in a concrete Big Picture.

Somehow, the mix does not become. Ramesh or Ramana does not mix with the weighing machine chap. Or other sidereal romances in the name of spirituality. This indiscriminate mixing is a great handicap. There are such pure and fine and elevating moments in the book to be followed or interfered by the truly banal. This is not to take away the charm of many genuine things you have portrayed. There are a few observations which make a mark. The profound relation between a baby and God for instance! Few sentences do well as to be quotable! Congratulations!

The book raises ideals: Arunachala, Raman Maharshi, Ramesh, Ramakrishna, Buddha and so on. The passion, with which you have painted these, could well kindle healthy curiosity in the readers for these hallowed personages. But you mix these with some foreigners whose authenticity is questionable and indistinct. Though these could have served as interesting props, their elevating in your tale to chief dramatis personae results in an unfortunate and unwarranted dilution of the marvellous candidness with which you set out to explore the world of the spirit. The bona fide is mixed with the stray; this may be the way of the eager beaver but not of a sadhak proper.

There will be some moderns, if a few, who will get interested in spirituality because of your book. You do them a great favour. We hope they will find light on the path to drive their journey to more robust destiny.

The skill with which firmly entrench the characters in their local contexts is noteworthy. Rain in Bombay, locals, wet pavements, dandiya, Salman Khan sans shirt. You are very good at this.

There are many things in your book which struck a familiar chord in me, especially from the standpoint of what I have written. The fascination you have for Arunachala for instance, I had for Ganga at one time. The mystical reverence you have for the weighing machine Baba, I had for a Sai devotee. The germ is identical, but our denouements differ sharply. Perhaps, because I have been a Sanatanist and maybe a stuck-up old timer.

Now let me come to the true appreciation. How did you manage to write such a superbly lucid, astonishingly fluent narrative? Not a single compound sentence! What a triumph! Don’t blame it on the Muse in entirety; take some credit for the breakthrough style. It’s such an easy read that one does not realize you have finished reading the book. What Gulzar and Sandhu write on the cover bears a true testimony to this.

I also hand it to you for your literary unpretentiousness, your absolute lack of forced erudition of which at least thousand and one writers are a victim. Call it the mark of an excellent story-teller or simplicity of a true genius and accept it graciously. Please stick to this lucidity in all your future endeavours.

Your sense of visual is fantastic. Many descriptions in words are startlingly visual, a gift you can surely work on and enrich. You are not preachy, you are pithy. And it works!

There is something else of good worth in your writing and it is the integrity that consists in safeguarding oneself against pointless elaboration. You practice economy of words with great finesse. It’s evident you could have made more pages than hundred and seventy one, but you didn’t because you are not dealing in mushrooms like the whole host of ostentatious authors of all times. A Camus or a Hesse alone can practice such precision writing because they are masters; others give in to the accretive mode of verbal annexation, both deliberate and undeliberate.

If you can practice the economy you have demonstrated so well in form, also in content, ruthlessly pruning the worthless substance, you shall be a master.

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book.

Raj.

(Raj is an old friend, he is the person in my life who inspired me to write, and to seek what to write. He continues to inspire and to guide. After a couple of days of this letter, I received another one. )

Manju,

Jai Guru!

I wanted to congratulate you for choosing the subject of seeking for your novel. It's a great thing to attempt. But this mail is about your style.To write your style away as “breezy”, “easy reading” and “effortless” would amount to arbitrary compromising of what is of great merit in your writing. A gift that is so prominent that it hails from every page. Another of my friend to whom I recommended AGP vouches for it. In my earlier mail I tried to allude to simplicity of a true genius, but I am still working at defining what it is. I know for sure that this kind of gift of simplicity is the same thing as profundity. Your writing has soul. It’s a soulful writing, shorn of literary trappings or flourishes, in which the writers like me are so wont to indulge. Ekaantik or one-pointed text is what it is perhaps. Something more direct, formulaic and aphoristic like language used in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. I suspect this is much more than an act of minimalism or advertising abridgement. Here is a distillation as it were, which is so difficult to practice but you have managed so well. I, for one, often meander and ramble, like many authors.

It’s not to show our erudition or enjoy flourish like George Bernard Shaw that we are so excessive in our literary expression; it’s that our minds have not reached that full-grown ease and simplicity which is soul-like. Sahaja, as simple as new-born, saha jaayate iti sahaja. You have already gotten there; finding a relevant story is a lesser, though not an unimportant mission, if you want to make a mark. The author’s fundamental artistic proficiency lies in the style and form and you have it. Thank God for this great gift. It’s just a matter of writing more and more and finding better stories to tell. Let not literature ever take a backseat in your life. I wish you the very best!

Raj.

a homeopath reviews A Grasshopper's Pilgrimage

This review had me tickled pink. A good friend, an online homeopathic doctor who is always willing to prescribe medicines through the chats, has written his thoughts on my book, A Grasshopper's Pilgrimage.

A Grasshopper's Piligrimage,..... one journey over

I wanted to finish the novel slowly, and i wanted to comment with wisdom. But I finished the novel in 6 hours and I am commenting with no wisdom.

He begins. But, as always, I got the real meat out of him through some probing.

Here is the rest of it.


When I wrote this book, I used the word 'screw' to denote that our role in life is like a screw, it is small, not very important, rather, not all that special, replicable, basically, something without any idea where it is or why is it going from here to there.

Something without much value, maybe a little irresponsible, in fact, it is totally irresponsible as it has surrendered the notion of doership to existence.

Just tell me one thing doc. I appreciate your emotion, and thanks for the post, but let me take this opportunity to tease you a bit. If we are all screws, how is one screw better than the other?

Grasshopper scores again

I think this review is thanks to Banno. The pleasant surprise is that the grasshopper is getting reviewed by those who are the villains in the book: the atheists. :) Here is the expert of the review:

I must begin with a disclaimer and a confession. I am totally not into spiritual reading. I shy away from books that come with spiritual/religious tags and over the years, I’ve become suspicious of anything that describes itself as a ‘journey of the soul’ or something along those lines. Which is not to denigrate the genre. It is just that I personally start to get restless and irritable at the mention of the soul.

It was, therefore, with a small measure of trepidation and guilt that I agreed to do this review. It isn’t fair to approach a book with shelf-sized biases. That said, I have to confess that this book was a pleasant surprise. It was smooth reading right through. Author Manjushree Abhinav chose to tell an honest story instead of wrapping up a sermon in a novel’s cloak.

Read the rest of the review here.

grasshopper jumps on

Looks like the grasshopper is becoming a buzz word.

Is life a grasshopper's journey, asks this reporter from the Indian Express, as he writes a report on the launch.

When I read the name of Manjushree Abhinav’s debut novel, ‘A Grasshopper’s Pilgrimage’, I was struck by the similarity the title gave to my life; probably to many of our lives. The book which is semi-autobiographical, talks about the life of Gopika.

Read further, here.

I acknowledge

Here is my personal response, not book review, to 'the three mistakes of my life', a novel by Chetan Bhagat.

I am stunned.

I was in Ahmedabad during the riots, and I had cultivated some opinions, some fears, about the common man in the city.

I concluded that most of the non-minority group was against the minority. I believed that the businessmen were crude and selfish. And cricket, well, cricket was a game where one ball was tossed from one end of the TV screen to another. Whenever someone talked about the score, I'd ask without caring, does that mean we are winning or losing?

So when I started reading a novel about three hindu boys in Ahmedabad, who open a cricket shop next to a temple, well, I am simply being faithful to an earlier high of Chetan's first two books.

I think a writer bores you to establish your belief in the truth of the story. And then, when the ordinary bloke with whom you begin to identify becomes superhuman, the book has grabbed you. Your heart is stuck in the book, you and the book get into a bubble that is tighter than a spaceship hurtling in space. It is in the telling of the story lies the art. The telling of the story is the story.

Yes, I did ask myself, could this story really be true? I went back to Chetan's track record. God calling on the phone and all. But Five point someone was so so real. So Chetan gets fifty percent credibility. Thats no help.

The question still remains. Could this really be a true story?

Does it matter?

What is relevant is, the characters in the book have walked out of the book. I have met them. And they have changed my mind about certain stereotypes I carried in my baggage.

And for this, I can't thank him enough.

If you don't like browsing book shops, buy the book from here.

I confess

I confess that I have two reasons for the meanness in my last post.

First reason:
I usually don't do this. In fact, I once refused an offer to visit Amitabh Bachchan's house. I believe in letting the stars doze. More than an year ago, before I started blogging, I wrote an email to Chetan Bhagat. I poured out my struggle with publishing my manuscript, and also appreciated his first two novels. And then, I waited for a reply.

Second reason:
For the moment, this is unprintable. I do not yet have the courage to bite the hand that might feed me and make me famous. The courage will come after my novel is a bestseller!

And 'The Three mistakes of My Life' begins with Chetan Bhagat reading an email. A suicide note. And Chetan's response? He not only tracks down the emailer in a hospital, he takes the next flight to Ahmedabad from Singapore, meets the guy and gets his long story, his joys, his mistakes.

So you can imagine my jealous feelings.

Having said them, they are gone, and all there is left is love for this writer, and an urgent desire to get back into the book.

Book review, next post.

The three mistakes of my life

'Is there a bookshop near your house?' my mother asked on the phone.

'Nope.'

'Well, go to town, then. And buy this book, Chetan Bhagat's latest mistakes. I couldn't put it down. It's situated in Ahmedabad. You will love it.'

Sorry, mum, but this novel is such a drag that I have to make tremendous effort to remember to pick it up.

As of now, I am on page 50 something. Hopefully, it will pick up. If it does, I will complete this post. If not, I shall toss it in delete.

Dying, is always for the first time.

When I was a teenager, I sometimes daydreamed that I am dying / dead. My friends and relatives would be so concerned, so caring....


'The First Time', written (quite some time back), by Joy Feilding, is a novel with similar musings. A married woman, in her late thirties, is struck by an incurable disease just as her marriage is breaking up. The doctors give her an year to live.

Death as a threat, transforms everything. An unfaithful husband comes back home, an uncaring mother is forced to understand and accept her daughter. The couple, during the last few months of their time together, fall in love, for the first time.

I think novels are written for people who once had enormous capacity to daydream. Now all they have left is a little imagination. Fiction writing, as such is nothing but professional daydreaming.

If you are a person who harbors the desire that people around you should love you more than they do, 'The First Time' is an ideal weekend read.

Joy Feilding has done it again. If this book gets you, you wont be able to put it down.