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"There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more." ~ a quote by Woody Allen on back of a paper bookmark.
07 May, 2015: Created
23 May, 2015: Additions
The presence of a book in the catalogue does not imply that it has been definitively absorbed in any substantive manner. It is simply an indication that the book may have been read, portions of it read, or to be read. Further, reading a book is not the same as understanding it. It takes several re-reads over years to even assess whether one has fully grasped the distinctions between author's state of mind when writing the book, the intended meaning in the mind of the author, the meaning implied from a critical and analytical reading of the text, and, finally, of course, the interpreted meaning grasped on reading, in the sense that most of us understand the term 'reading'.
It is hopeless to attempt to get to this level with most of the books, articles, essays and other pieces of writing that one comes across. However, with some writings we are naturally attracted to probe it so deeply so as to be able to reach a state where we are able to confidently assert that "Yes, I finally understand what the author really felt when writing or narrating it" and in the process provide a counter to Roland Barthes' axiom of "The birth of a reader is the death of the writer".
Personally, the writings that have forced me to engage with them persistently so as to get at the 'original meaning' are the passages from the Pali Cannon at Access to Insight and the works of Spinoza. Why these in particular, I cannot answer with dogged clarity. One motivating force could be that what is stated in these works is possible to verify in the course of one's day to day life through continuous effort. That makes it more probable to come closer to the actual intended meaning of these works and, also to 'feel' that meaning in a manner that a child gets intimate with a new surrounding that he is placed in --- first a question where am I and why am I here, then a sense of hesitation, then glancing in all directions, followed by wonder. If the sense of wonder is strong, it will be followed by a strong urge to explore. The exploration at first will be random (crawling, walking or employing any means of motion the child has learnt till date). As the surroundings become clearer then the exploration becomes more directed.
Soon, knowledge arises regarding what parts of the surrounding are likeable and which are not likeable. This analogy should be paused here. Because once a set of preferences develop in a child, he will be inclined to pursue those over other parts of his environment. When reading a book, it is foolish to stay with preferences developed for its select corners. Rather, as one keeps reading one realizes that it is necessary to explore the book in its totality. It is the difference between listening to one song and listening to the entire album in the sequence that the artist crafted the album in.
Besides the above two, the other writings in recent memory that have compelled me to repeatedly navigate a lot of their alleys are: the book "On Literature" by Umberto Eco as it supplied an entire new dictionary to express myself with. The second piece of writing is the first chapter of the book "Science and Hypothesis" by Henri Poincare titled "On Mathematical reasoning" which literally changed the way I sequenced my thoughts.
The third one is The Buddha and His Dhamma by B.R. Ambedkar. At first, reading it was difficult not because of the content but because of reconciling it with the other writings that I had come across on Buddhism. But luckily the introduction by Aakash Singh Rathore and Ajay Verma ensured that I persist with the book and learn to appreciate the alternative arrangement and interpretation of the prevailing Buddhist literature and in the process discovering how this book can actually serve as a valuable source of daily reference, recollection and application of a large set of facets of life and philosophy of the Buddha.
Undoubtedly, Bertrand Russell has been a surreptitious influence. He has entered the mind and created a home. His words are strong, bold, at some points they seem so incisively logical that it made me appear like a fool to myself. Indeed, there are moments when Russell can introduce an inferiority complex in men of average mental powers (among whose numerous memership base I count myself in). And this can lead to an instinctive aversion to some of his views, thoughts and opinions. But there is indeed something attractive about the way he writes. And it is the style that brought me to him again and again. My first and real exposure to Russell was his book "History of Western Philosophy". It was a book that was purchased from a CrossWords book-shelf out of vanity in 2008. Vanity because it looked fat, scholarly and I thought sitting in my own shelf it would lend it a sense of masterly respectability.
I opened the initial pages on Greek Civilization. But I always closed it after a point because I felt that those pages claimed superiority of Greek civilization disproportionate to its place in time. In particular, I was a little peeved at a certain sentence in the chapter concerning the Stoics that began somewhat like "if Buddha existed..". I think at that point I was under the grips of a false dichotomy of East and West.
Fortunately, better sense prevailed in intervening years. And it was not till early 2013 that I decided to wade through the book come what may. A resolution similar to one I had adopted way back in 1997-1999 to complete War and Peace & Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. The result was that I felt a sense of relief on completion of the former and fell in love with Anna when reading the latter. And by love I mean 'love' as Anna Karenina herself would have understood it.
Back to Russell: that one book was instructive. Not so much for the content but for teaching me that originality, creativity and reason owe no debt to any place, time and culture. All men who have anything profound to say are worth listening to (or being read about). I am grateful to that book for showing me how to befriend philosophers even if they say things that are an anathema to personal dearly-held views. And the fact that there is no East and there is no West. It is one man at a time that one has to understand.
Significantly, I am thankful to Russell for making me stumble upon Spinoza. I am also thankful to Russell, through his autobiography for showing me the value of intellectual honesty. It is healthy to speculate as long as one keeps track of one's chain of reasoning and is able to look back and identify where one went wrong. Russell has relieved me from the anxiety of being right, of being fine with being out of depth in a lot of aspects as long as one keeps persevering in a reasoned fashion. Above all, he has encouraged me to read philosophy as one would read literature. Having said all this, I still disagree with Russell on a lot of points. The difference this time unlike earlier is: I believe that my disagreement may have more to do with the fact that I have not spent enough time on the subject unlike earlier where I disagreed on the basis that his views opposed mine.
Another important but unusual influence was the book Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, popularly referred to as SICP, when I had an occassion to read through it in late 2004 and early 2005 with the eagerness of a disciple who has been shown some magical powers. The fundamental notion of thinking "in terms of elements" was ingrained by the 5 chapters of this book. I never had an occassion to actually apply it in any way to real programming (because my supposed career as a programmer was quite artificial and short-lived), but the alteration of the method of thinking that this book brought about persisted more or less permanently. A much more direct and distinct articulation is what I found in Poincare's writings. As engineers we were always taught to break-down complexity into simpler parts. But I had not seen a visceral example of how it can be done and what are the tangible benefits of doing so. This book was actually Engineering 101 that was deseparately needed. Except that it was more like Engineering Plus 101 coming 2 years after I graduated with an engineering degree.
Somewhere in 2008 I chanced upon Guns, Germs and Steel on recommendation of a friend. The impression it left behind was one of disgust at the way we were taught history. A disgust that had refinement added to it when I read R.S.Sharma's Indian Feudalism. Books such as these were effective tools to develop suspicion of received historical truths. And that attitude of suspicion has enabled the mind to not be so gullible to any kind of historical narrative (or for that matter to any narrative that claims to represent facts about events, including journalistic). And this in turn has saved one from slowly avoiding getting into arguments, which the Buddha would say would arise from "clinging to views".
These are not the only books. One owes an incredible debt to the books of literature, biographies, hagiograhies, mythologies that one read when young and impressionable. These are too numerous to cite though. There is a place and a time to read a book. Non-fiction is great but literary-fiction is irreplaceable. For without an ability to imagine (which is what literature truly inclucates) there is no ability to change. Too much of hard logic, plain facts, historical truths without the balm of literature can lead the mind to sublime rigidty and conceit. The nerves of the mind so tightly entangled by the laws of science, need to be occassionally ruffled, re-shuffled, laid to waste by the magic of literature. This unshattering allows one to stop and re-examine everything bottom-up once again, relying, of course, on the laws of reason and hard scientific truths once again.
While literature is indisputably important, rock music and pop music can also be. Especially, if you happen to spend your formative years in South Bombay in 80's and 90's. It usually starts innocently like discovering Pet Shop Boys and thinking Western Music is worth a try. What comes next is of course not that benign: The Doors, Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins. And then of course came the Beatles and everything logically (or rather aesthetically) follows from there.
Pink Floyd came soon after. Bob Dylan was thrust upon. It seemed too dry at first and it took 10 years to get comfortable with Dylan and realize that a favourite album of his was "Street Legal" --- possibly an odd choice among his repertoire. Love for the Floyd and Dylan is largely on account of Napster,. It would not be an understatement to say if there was no Napster mine could have been a different personality. And R.E.M. too came through another form of peer-to-peer sharing in management school campus. Of course a lot happened in between. One figured that there is Natalie Merchant, Joan Baez, and Patti Smith too. Somewhere, thankfully, Dave Matthews Band too slipped in.
Peter Buck of R.E.M. once remarked to the effect: rock is both the most important and not the most important thing in the world. In teens and early 20's the first part of Buck's statement holds. It remains a fact that the lyrics of John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Roger Waters and Bono are likely to have shaped the crude philosophy of relating to the external world of a youngster more than any profound contact with any profound author in the comfortable environs of South Bombay. And that philosophy would have been powerfully elemental: anti-establishment and rooting for the under-dog.
As one would notice there is no Marx. There is no Buddha. There is no Spinoza. There is no Russell. There is no Ambedkar. There was to some extent Gandhi and Hindu mythology. But ultimately, one would have to admit that Morisson, Lennon, Dylan and The Joshua Tree won the war of influencing the mind. It was fashionable to be anti-American because Jim Morisson denounced the treatment to Red Indians. It was fashionable to be self-engrossed and what would be deemed vain because the Beatles loved talking about their own experiences in The White Album. It was fashionable to "emote" because of the lament of "Oh Johnny" by Paul for John in the aptly titled "Oh! darling" in Abbey Road. Heck, that album made even the Octopus so endearing and "Her Majesty" so common-folk. And of course a glass-breaking guitar noise was phenomenally wonderful because Billy Corgan produced sounds on Pisces Iscariot that at that age one wondered only God could produce. Indeed, one thought that the opening lyrics of "To Sheila" on Adore were sheer poetry (of course one's excuse then was that knowledge of something like Dante existed was some 15 years into the future).
It was not unusual to feel that any and all kinds of war are an utter folly because Dylan proclaimed quite matter-of-factly in the "Masters of War". And one felt enraged at the American government for putting a farmer in the plight described viscerally in the "Ballad of Hollis Brown". It should be mentioned in the same breath that one was so naive so as to not realize that our own government was not far behind.
If you layer the above with Guru Dutt, Mother India, Naya Daur, Misssissippi Burning, Stanely & Iris, A Civil Action and many more then it was inevitable that at least centre-of-left views would find a welcoming home. However, dreams of being a revolutionary remained a mind-made fiction. Not every listener of Dylan can become an activist. Some could also become investment-bankers and after accomplishing what they have to accomplish possibly boast of a huge Dylan collection. Most others fall in-between. They become the ordinary citizens who are buyers and admirers of Dylan's album. But things are not that simple. The streak that Lennon and Co. incubate always remains. If things do not go as planned (which, by the way, is the norm), that streak starts flowering into an intricate blossom. It does not seem that fantastic that Lennon & Co. can lead one to the Buddha, Spinoza, Russell, Ambedkar and Dostoyevsky. Or more correctly, both can run in parallel with Lennon & Co. having a comfortable head-start.
The difference is: what was said briefly, roughly, with passion, in a hurry is said in detail, with increasing finesse based on reason with emphasis on self-study, self-reflection and need for exertion. At one level it is a difference of character and at another, simply of degree.
At this stage the second part of Buck's statement holds true. Something as seemingly banal as rock music actually starts seeming banal for some things. But in others it still retains its vitality. Like for instance getting a strange, unexplained senstation when listening to "Diamonds and Rust" by Joan Baez with full knowledge of the history behind the song. It is a sensation such that if one stays with it can lead to a mood of "melancholic optimism": a phrase that Bertrand Russell mentioned in context of Plotinus. And that kind of mood is nothing but a possible prelude to serious philosophic reflection.
But it is also true that every force can eventually run out. As Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane recounted in an interview in 1981: "We said what needed to be said. There was an obvious call not to turn the other cheek when we were being slapped by the system. The rock bands of the 60's supplanted the football and military heroes, and just as all those heroes had fallen when put to the test, rock musicians proved they had no more of an answer to saving the world than anybody else." (Sourced from the article "Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane Dies at 74", New York Times, accessible here). However it does not mean that the inspiration that the force injects also dies out. It needs to quickly latch on to another force which can lend it further and further meaning. The problem happens when too much time elapses and then the inspiration (and hence the idealism, however amateurish and primitive it may be) is laid to waste.
It is imperative to keep that soft, but burning, idealism alive and ensure it does not harden and manifest itself as an ever-present aversion to those who oppose and disagree. This idealism at its root is nothing but values that are intensely personal and engineered in one's conscience. One does not need to look farther than the theatre (the one without a proscenium and one which runs on passion, idealism, inspiration, art and intellect rather than commerce) to find that which can be intensely personal. Being a socialist / communist / humanist / rebel / revolutionary / rationalist / in pursuit of the understanding of religion, or, at the very least, a home-bred philosopher does not need early exposure to complex philosophy or a lived tragic life. Sometimes discovering that 'personal element' in mass media is surprisingly good enough.
All said and done, though, one should always remember that: indulging in centre-of-left and left thoughts with a South Bombay sensibility is different from being a humanitarian after having been compelled (against one's complete wishes) to go through the trials of life. All the books are not worth their salt if at the end of the day they do not teach one to let not the vanity of the former stand in way of respecting, paying attention to and supporting the latter.
But the million dollar question still is: do Lennon & Co. (or Marx & Co.) come to you or you go to them?
There was no Dylan denouncing war when NATO and U.S. under Clinton attacked Yugoslavia in 1999. There was an automatic aversion to the West and sympathies for Yugoslavia. At some level it felt 'unfair' that those who yield power should exercise it so righteously. Indeed, that sentiment continues till date when Crimea was in the news: one has to sympathise with Russia inspite of not agreeing to its choice of Putin as its head of State. There certainly was recollection of Dylan's Hurricane and resulting genuine distress for the manner of persecution of Saddam Hussein and Osama-bin-Laden. It did not showcase a civilised nation at work.
Where do these preferences and sentiments rise from? They do not spring from knowledge of facts because facts are the same on both sides of the war. Both sides are violent, both sides are foolish and vain because it always takes two to clap. As time goes by, the rage against war gives rise to a sense of dejection. It is a change in the texture of the sentiment, but not its character. So, was the sentiment always latent waiting for Lenno & Co.? And all that the Co. did was to forcibly extricate it out of the unconscious and present it as a permanent birthday gift?
In South Bombay, Lennon & Co. holds more relevance. Maybe somewhere else it could be Savarkar. And in yet other places, Neitzsche and Wagnor. And in emotionally more sensitive lands, Tagore would be the force for our unconscious to befriend. In more practical lands, Confucius would be revered. In some other practical lands, religious cults with a tacit nod of acceptance to Savarkar & Co. What poetry was to Dante, reason was for Spinoza (of course this analogy is not fully apposite, as both strove for a super-sensible good that not all followers of Marx & Co. or Savarkar & Co. will choose to).
Do we have a choice in the choice of this initial set? If we adopt the temper of "melancholic optimism" the answer would be a conditional yes. What that "conditionality" is I would leave it to your informed speculation. Though as a pointer, some of the following listed material might help you in your speculations.
Being dogmatic is not a positive trait of mind but in some things one has to be. Drawing inspiration from Henry Ford: you can adopt any philosophy that you want, as long as it moves you more towards the left than the right. The probability of ending up in hell may be lower. The children of Mara might entrap you if you veer to the right (indeed they might entrap you if you veer too much to the left too). But as the French say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So ultimately, it is every man and woman to himself and herself as long we all agree to learn to disagree in a civil way.
To do that it is essential to remember the dictum from the Buddha: "Know the essential as essential and non-essential as non-essential." It is not a dictum to be acquired in form of a tenet of knowledge. It is a habit of mind to be developed. It is to take the duality that is inherent in every living human: of classifying things as "I like this" and "I don't like this". This is "good" and this is "bad". Sometimes this leads to "left" and "right". Sometimes it leads to "this concerns me" and "this does not concern me". Sometimes it leads to uncalled for vanity regarding "This is logical, rational and mathematically proved hence true" while "This is not logical, not rational and mathematically on weak footing hence not true".
It is to take this habit of perception and recollection and instead give it a turn that is "harmless" and "harmful", "beneficial" and "un-beneficial", "skillful and unskillful", "easeful" and "dis-easeful", "without quarrel" and "quarrelsome" (including, as A.G. Noorani puts it in context of forces like RSS: "they have a quarrel with history itself" [of all things]), "restful" and "restless" and if you may so permit, for the purpose of popular discourse "left" and "right".
To quote from Dvedhavitakka Sutta (Two Sorts of Thinking) [translation from Pali to English by Thanissaro Bhikkhu] "The Blessed One said, "Monks, before my self-awakening, when I was still just an unawakened Bodhisatta, the thought occured to me: 'Why don't I keep dividing my thinking into two sorts?' So I made thinking imbued with sensuality, thinking imbued with ill-will, & thinking imbued with harmfulness one sort, and thinking imbued with renunciation, thinking imbued with non-ill-will, and thinking imbued with harmlessness another sort.
And as I remained thus heedful, ardent & resolute, thinking imbued with sensuality arose in me. I discerned that 'Thinking imbued with sensuality has arisen in me; and that leads to my own affliction or to the affliction of others or to the affliction of both. It obstructs discernment, promotes vexation & does not lead to Unbinding.'
As I noticed that it lead to my own affliction, it subsided. As I noticed that it leads to the affliction of others...to the affliction of both...it obstructs discernment, promotes vexation & does not lead to Unbinding, it subsided. Whenever thinking imbued with sensuality has arisen, I simply abandoned it, dispelled it, wiped it out of existence.
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The purpose of any personal library is to aid in making us aware of this fault-line and lend the two sides of it different meanings that move beyond all notions of "I like hence good" and "I don't like hence not good". It is in this spirit that the following list is shared. We don't have to take what others give us. Let's take the shell of words they give and if necessary, insert the meaning from other sources of work, or if you are a genius, create your own.
To get back to the quote by Woody Allen (one such popular original genius of our time) at the beginning of the page: As in Lennon's "With a Little Help from my Friends", lets draw on substantive books and not-so-substantive pop music, bollywood and hollywood to reclaim the average good folk's right to enjoy his waking hours much more.
But whichever friends you choose to befriend, ensure that they help you figure out the essential (essence) from the non-essential (non-essence). Or more directly, the sense from the non-sense.
P.S.: By the way, it should still be noted: there is still no Marx. Why? It is an answer I cannot give because I have never read him. Why have I never read him? Every time I go to a bookstore I see the "Communist Manifesto" but I have not purchased it, inspite of words of appreciation from Eco that "Communist Manifesto" is a master-stroke of literature (even if one chooses to ignore the philosophy of it). I think the only vague answer I can muster up is that: I have this impression sitting somewhere that if I start reading Marx I will have to give it enough time and mental space to do it full justice. Following from this, my conscious excuse is laziness. But I think there is a deeper unconscious excuse and I believe it is 'aesthetical' in nature.
P.P.S: Some of the books have been lost, some have been disposed off due to space (including hard-disk) constraints, some lost in transition, and, very few, reluctantly gifted away. The lists below represent the remainder.
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Initial draft proof-read and corrected with help from Bibhas Mondal. The errors, if any, may be on account of subsequent modifications and are all attributable to the author.
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