Enchanted by something else...reading something else

Man’s Search for Meaning is truly a horrendous account of life inside a concentration camp but there are some key takeaways for me. In excellent businessy-style, I summarize them here:

n  In my life there is absolutely nothing to be complaining about

n  Though there are ups and downs, life as a whole is beautiful

n  If a catastrophe befell me (God forbid) and took everything from me, it still cannot rob me of my choice to react to the situation. So I can choose to be miserable or choose to put on a happy face and get on with it

The last point was the main reason for the author writing his story and I am happy he drove that point home with me.  The second part talks only about logotherapy, a new kind of therapy developed by the author – most of which was too complex for my insignificant brain to understand.

Moving on, I chose Madman by Kahlil Gibran. Don’t ask me why, besides not being able to find anything remotely sensible to read. My frustration was partly aggravated by the fact that I read a beautiful excerpt of an upcoming book 1857. This book was written, as the name suggests, in 1857 and is a firsthand account of a momentous event in the history of India as seen by an impoverished but learned young beggar-priest. This momentous event is the sepoy mutiny when all over India people were up in arms over the British rule. India didn’t achieve independence until 1947 so the 1857 mutiny while a historical account for the country, didn’t do much for the Raj.

Anyway, needless to say I am hunting this book down and have soldiers on the ground in Mumbai doing the dirty work for me as well. When I lay my hands on it, everything else will be dropped. Why, you shall ask. As I mentioned earlier an excellent excerpt fell in my lap and the story is about the first woman fighter in the history of India – Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi. The article is so beautifully titled The Crossdressing Raja and Rani of Jhansi. Definitely recommend reading it if you like history and have some free time.

More on Madman tomorrow.