English Literature & Reincarnation

What goes around ...

' Sixteen men on a dead man's chest … Yo ho ho … and a bottle of rum.' That's from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. It was my English literature text and my introduction to the world … as I entered secondary school … Form 1. There's something about pirating that appeals to the young rascals … at that age … and the finding of a treasure chest … certainly held promises of wealth and ambition … to our young minds.

 

In going on to Form 2 … the trend stayed the same … with Arnold Bennett’s The Card … that demonstrated the versatility of wit … in a rigid society. I thought it encouraged a certain ' creative intelligence ' … not amounting to lying … that I found very purposeful. It became the formative impulses of a young man … intent about getting ahead … and demonstrating his resourcefulness. It worked great on the self confidence … and affirmed my own wit on issues.

 

But the following year … at age 15 … we ran into Adam Bede by George Eliot and the mood suddenly turned to thoughts of love … with a man competing to bring himself to express his love for this girl … he thought he was not worthy of attaining. I thought then … that the book was remarkable for creating a picture of women … and the relationship we form with girls … as delicate and virtuous. It primed our impulses at puberty.

 

The social message stayed with us through Forms 4 & 5 … with DH Lawrence's The Rainbow … and then family relations … honor … and jealousy with … Othello.  And then the great satire on politics … Animal Farm by George Orwell.  And then in Form 6 … The War Poems of Wilfred Owen ... The Winter's Tale … Shakespeare … and it ended with the individual view of life … through the eyes of one Jay Gatsby … in The Great Gatsby … by Scott Fitzgerald.

 

Perhaps because these novels were endorsed by the school itself … as a standard view of the Western experience … it stayed with me through my young adult years … and helped me form my own sense of standard views of people and the world. It emphasized the human quality … at the base of any action … or failure … and helped me take the gains and the losses … with some amount of acceptance as normal.

 

I was therefore not pressed into any need to express my own attitudes on life … and formed a convenient reference to lifestyle and personality … in the way … the main characters in the novels … responded to life's many situations. My relation to them … was supported by my own views on the universality of life … and that one man was not much different from another. It formed a secure sense of understanding about life … but obviously not from my own living experience.

 

In getting into marriage and family … something rose in my personality … that seemed to surpass any relation to the universality of human nature … and caused me to think I was simply imitating others … in the way I represented myself … in my social circle. It carved a need for me to think for myself … in relation to the life I was living … and to form my own views as regards my personality. It contested me on the reality of life … and raised the inquiry … ' wouldn't I want to know it for myself?'

 

Thereafter I seemed to be constantly encountering the questioning gaze of people about whether I was speaking metaphorically … or was I speaking from my own direct experience on issues? But as I started to do that … it always came out a little raw at the edges … and didn't seem to invite too many responses. I realized then that … people would prefer something metaphorical in terms of social banter … and not the ' whole truth and nothing but the truth.'

 

I was telling myself that I was turning out like a Tom Brangwen of The Rainbow … but it was met by … ' not Tom Brangwen … you … you.'  Right! … I certainly was not a Brangwen … I am a Sri Daran … living here in this part of the world. But what is a Daran? So I moved to distance myself from those personalities in the novels … and as I did that … I realized something not unlike a lived experience … in relation to pirates … cards … English farmers … and American dandies … that simply refused to budge.

 

I went back to it again … with the attitude of someone unable to move a rock. It was my introduction to the notion of past lives … and the thesis regarding reincarnation of souls. I was flabbergasted … could it be true? I experienced these as a part of my memories … but had simply related to the personalities in the novels as a semblance of relation. So I dug in a bit … allowed the mind some room for exploration … and then the visions opened up … with snippets of scenes I never saw before … and laden with the loves and struggles of that life … sometimes moving me to tears.

 

That was my modern day introduction to the writings of the Indic traditions … on creation … the legends of the Gods … and then over to the Greek … on empires … and epic battles. I continue relating to these … till today … and am surprised to find … that they have grown into a story about the world … and how we all live our lives in relation to each other … in a common aspiration of our desires. I experience the memories in these times … as a reflection on the subtle emotions … the way they represent an aspect of life from the past.

 

I figure the web has been a powerful stimulus on the way … we stay in contact with other parts of the world … and brings home to us … an effect on our memories and subtle passions … that rekindles our thoughts … beyond our provincial natures where we live. If that is common with webbers … I wonder about the impact its having on the world society … and the lives of individuals in these times. It certainly is going to re-define the individual experience … not only across boundaries … but time and space.

 

Our outlook hereafter … will require that we organize ourselves well … to perceive these experiences … and to be able to relate to them coherently. It promises to be exciting … and the implications for the union of the world's societies … appears like a treasure  indeed.