Pick: The Great Indian Novel
Following is an excerpt is from the masterpiece "The Great Indian Novel" written by Shashi Tharoor which was first published by Penguin Books India 1989. The following conversation is between Ved Vyas (who is narrating) and Ganpati (his scribe).
All knowledge is transient, linked to the world around it and subject to change as the world changes. Whereas wisdom, is eternal, immutable. To be philosophical one must love wisdom for its own sake, accept its permanent validity and yet its perpetual irrelevance. It is the fate of the wise to understand the process of history and yet never to shape it.
I am not a philosopher. I am a chronicler and a participant in the events i describe. In the life one must ever choose between being one who tells stories and one about whom stories are told. My choice you know, and it was made for me.
My choice you know and it was made for me.
Does the river ask why it flows to the sea?
I share with you a fragment of experience -
Embellished no doubt, a figment of existence;
But it is true.
It moves me, I do not control it.
When the pantheon marches, can the police control it?
It is a shard of ancient pottery-
Awarded to a spade as if by lottery;
But it is true.
The song I sing is neither verse nor prose.
Can the gardener ask why he is pricked by the rose?
What i tell you is a slender filament,
A rubbing from a colossal monument;
But it is true.
I claim no beginning, nor any end.
Does a tree in the wind know why it must bend?
The picture i show you has colors and cast
A snip from a canvas impossibly vast;
But it is true.
I am not potter, nor sculptor, nor painter, my son.
Do the victor or loser know why the race must be won?
I am not even kiln, not hand, no, not brush;
My tale is recalled, words plucked from the crush -
But it is true.
Highly recommended for people with objective mind and a sense of humor. It marries Indian mythology and Modern Indian Politics with such genius that you wonder why didn't you read it before.
