Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Depression

How depressing the life may be sometimes! These days I am going through a similar ‘sometime’, in which whatever that is happening to me or whatever state I am in is so much depressing. It is the post-operative period of recovery for me that I am in. I have to be in bed all the time that too alone………. (hehehe). If there is something that is with me is pain and nothing else. On the name of movement, I have only to move from one position to another and then again back, of course in the bed itself, the main aim being to avoid the bed-sores from developing. It’s a feeling that can be described as undescribable yet depression is the most appropriate in my dictionary to describe the state that I am in [I didn't use the word melancholy coz that is borrowed in my dictionary, I owe it to my bhaiya, :)]

In such a period of depression, I am doing a few things as my pass time. I got to read “Old Masters- A Comedy” by Thomas Bernhard. The review about the book at the back of it describes it as a satirical novel. I have started it only a day or two back, so have read only a small part of it. I had thought that this comedy could elevate my mood a bit if not much, but strange enough, it was not to be. From whatever I have read of it, I have been able to appreciate it as a satire on art, artist and many other things that are deemed to be great in this world. Where I have been able to appreciate it, I have not been able to appreciate in depth the satire part of it. Where I had thought it to elevate my mood, it has only been able to elevate the level of depression for me. It has brought in me a sense of unawareness, a unawareness from the beauty of this world, a unawareness from the greatness of the art of the world, a unawareness from the great artists of the world, a unawareness from many other things in this world that people call great. Even, I also called them great but now I feel that I have no right to call them great for I don’t know them, I don’t know the greatness of them, I am really not someone who can call them great, I have no right to do so.

To understand the satire part of it, I needed to know who Goethe, Kant, Schopenhauer, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart or many more are. The list is endless and with every name the feeling of that unawareness increases even more. Though, a few of these names I had heard of, I have not yet witnessed their work, so , I can’t appreciate anyone of them and to laugh on something that you don’t know is something that is the sorriest in this world. Anyway, it is only the start of my life, so, think, I’ll be knowing about, at least, some of them in future.

Today, I watched “Pyaasa” by Guru Dutt. A real masterpiece it is, doubtedly one of the best that the Hindi film industry has ever produced. It is again strange enough that a depressing movie that Pyaasa is, has elevated my mood much. I don’t want to get into the detail of this great work. I can only say one thing about it, a masterpiece. The plot of the story is available in this Wikipedia article about the movie. I wanted to write in detail about it but, don’t know why, I am feeling a bit reluctant in doing that. Anyway, watching Pyaasa, in spite of its depressingly pessimistic story, is able to bring happiness to you for you watch it and you watch a real masterpiece. you get the feeling that you have just witnessed one of the greatest works ever produced in bollywood.

Having said everything about me being depressed, I want to make it clear that I am not that much depressed as I have written. Writing for me is always associated with a bit of, and sometimes more, exaggeration. It’s a confession that I want to make for all my writing till date that they all have that part of exaggeration in them. CONFESSIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!

3 comments:

Alok said...

sometimes you need to exaggerate things to get out of a difficult situation. Behaving melodramatically in other words...:)

Thomas Bernhard is a master of the art of exaggeration. In this book he is railing against the way artists and writers are turned into Gods and people idol-worship them. It is wrong because the whole purpose of art is exactly the opposite. he also specially criticises austrians who he thinks are hypocrites becayse they consign all these great artists in their museums and galleries which allows them live their lives in a hypocritical manner.

i think he is not the ideal writer to read in your condition. wait till you get well and also some more time :)

I would love to read about Pyaasa, it is one of my favourites too. Or you can just write about one of its songs they are marvellous too.

Alok said...

also the content of the book is not really that important. notice how he tells the story...how the monologue of one person (Reger) is reported by another who is the narrator and also how there are no paragraph breaks.

Aashu said...

I am also moved by his extra-ordinary style of writing a full story ithout a paragraph-break.......really commendable...........
I've already realised that at an early stage that I am in, he is not ideal to me but I had no options. Being restricted to movement, I had to chose in between Thomas' Old Masters, The loser and Gandhi's autobiography.............I thought it best for me........anyways!