Done and over with, finally!!!

Huhhh.. Finally i will be able to write about other things, am finally done with the damn book. Fountain Head. All i can say is that the experience was exasperating. And yet i could not put down the book, had to finish it because of its brilliant story line. That was the only good thing about the book. There was no characterization in the book whatsoever. It was only Ayn... all along in the whole book. Ayn = Dominique = Roark = Wynand = Toohey = Peter Keating. Peter had no identity when he was talking, he could have been anyone. I couldn't understand where Roark began and Wynand began. Is that what Ayn intended? I don't know. What i know is that everyone spoke the same language in the same tone and everyone was looking for this profound thing.
When you read a book you forget that its been written by someone...all the characters, the places.. all come alive..so that by the end you know all of them so well. In Fountain Head i was always aware of the fact that Ayn was talking to me. The places that she described, the architecture was all so difficult to construct in the mind so that the places remained unreal.
Anyway... I did like the story and the fact that she has offered a different way of looking at some of the concepts that we have held for generations like - selfishness, selflessness, ego, religion, love.
Yesterday a friend asked which book was i reading, i told her. She asked me if the book was good and if she should read it. I still haven't found whether i want to recommend this book or ask people to stay away.

The Fountain Head!

Its the first time that i cant decide whether i like a book or i hate it..."fountain head". Scores of people vouched for this book...'Its a must Read.........is it...?! For one, its a philosophical world...all of it..its not a philosophical book..but Ayn has created a world of philosophy.
I believe all of us have a black hole in us..something that is not explainable..not reachable...most of us are not even aware of it...a lot of things get sucked in the hole...and we never know those things or those feelings/emotions existed. There are times when we recognize this black hole and for an instance operate in it...like a look or a glance..will tell us what exactly the other person is thinking...these things can never be put into words! But Ayn seems to operate solely in the black hole...!! Not just one character, all of them. The world that she has created,doesn't exist....the things that Dominique and Roark say..or believe....are from the deepest corner of the black hole. Till then it was still ok...but to my horror i discovered that everybody speaks the same language...of the unspeakable, unexplanable...even meek little Catherine. By making an attempt to say all that is usaid and unspoke..Ayn i feel has ruined it somewhere...it gets too loud and hence vulgar...!
The feeling that i got while reading the book was of those times when a special moment passes between two people...a specail look..that only the two of them know and understand...but as soon as you voice it, the charm is gone, the moment gone...it dissolves and flies away - thats what reading fountain head makes me feel.
Yet...i am hooked to the book. I havent finished reading it yet, the end will decide perhaps of whether i will like the book or not. At this stage its getting interesting...but it continues to be loud.

Didn't Rapunzel's hair stink?

Fairy Tales have never fascinated me. The snow whites, sleeping beauties, Cinderella's of the world fail to interest me. One reason behind it is the sense of beauty, good, bad that they portray. What is beauty..? What is it like to be beautiful?
"Beauty is skin deep" , "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder" blah blah blah. I don't believe in the concept of beauty...i believe in the 'sensibility' of beauty. Yes there is a difference.
Do you like roses? And lilies..? I don't. I don't find them beautiful...i don't think roses even smell good. There...I've said it...! All along i used to think that what is it that people find so attractive about flowers..roses...? I just took their word for it and resigned myself to think that they must be beautiful ..if so many people say so..maybe it is so....but the truth is...thats not my sense of beauty...i find wild flowers that have no fragrance in them far more beautiful..all those colours...!

I once went to a hill station and my friends kept exclaiming how beautiful the sunset was and how beautiful the trees looked.....did they? To me that was not beautiful..what was beautiful was the magnitude of it all....the huge ball of fire in the never ending sky..the clouds..so so so white! Magnitude is beautiful for me...and so is a small little squirrel. Yes snakes are beautiful too...so beautiful.
When i see people who have a good face or good body...they are merely that for me..someone with a good face and a good body....thats about it. They don't interest me neither do they attract me. When i connect with someone at an emotional level, at a philosophical level, at an intellectual level... I find that person very attractive and beautiful.
You are beautiful when you can make others 'feel' beautiful........! Beautiful is an emotion for me... not a face, not the eyes, not the hair, not the figure.

Changing..!

"Its nice to go back to a place that has remained unaltered and see how you yourself have changed".....a few months back i went back to my college..had some work. This line kept playing in my head then, like a song that gets stuck in the head. It was overwhelming to see how life goes on...even after you...the canteen,the lecture rooms,the campus was all buzzing with life..with girls chattering just like we used to...everything was the same..except the eyes that watched all of this.
Change - i have always seen change as being 'beautiful. I think in images....so when i say change an image of a small bud comes to my mind..it slowly opens up, grows and a thousand colour petals..huge one's..sprout from it..that is how i see change. And yet, now when people tell me "God kasturi, you've changed" i dont like it. In school we used to write slambook enteries and say "never change", "be the same always", "you are so sweet, please dont change", to each other. Everyone changes, everyone grows up..then why do i have a problem with the change in me? Maybe because the colour of the petals in my case are subdued...are not bright and dazzling and attractive...they are sort of dull...unsure...hesitant...!!!
I dont desire to be a bud again, no, i just want the colours to cheer up a little..want my eyes to do patar patar the way they used to! Buttons eyes...small button like eyes is what i have..and yet someone once said "you have beautiful eyes, cause they are so lively...its like they have a life of their own". I just wish for that life to come back.
All this might sound terribly dull, like i am depressed or something..thats far from true. I am happier than i have ever been....lil joys, lil pains.....lil lil things to make my day...and someone to share all these lil things with. Life is beautiful....he makes it for me.