The Great Gatsby

The first time I read this novel in some distant past I enjoyed its plot and forgot all about it except the hazy outline of the narrative. I someone asked me, have I read the celebrated novel I would say yes indeed and would tell him yeah there was this inscrutable guy throwing lavish parties from money he apparently earned from dubious operations.  Then I noticed this novel freely available on the net about two years back read it again.  This time I loved the language of the novel and admired the author’s great perspective of looking at things absolutely unemotional way e.g. ‘I was in the war, tried hard to die but couldn’t succeed’. 

And recently when the movie created so much buzz I read it again ….

This time the novel appeared to be inspired by movies …It seemed like crisp, cleverly written screenplay. Then it occurred to me the novel was written almost a century back so it is the other way round. Our great screenplays of movies are inspired by this novel.   

Are we waiting for someone to die?

Humiliation, in particular in public, affects us in varying degree. Some find it beyond a threshold and succumb to temptation of finality; an answer that ends all. And then we act; institute committees, thunder indignation, mouth platitudes until the gory episode fizzles out of memory.

Many of us are in some ways better than our creator because we tolerate dissent. Bullying from position of power is quite common feature of humans. Our God is regarded as the ultimate bully therefore the ritual of worship. If He is not a bully than what is the rationale of worship? The scene replicates in real life. The men in powerful position bully, some with arrogance and some in subtle ways. I write this piece because I suspect possibility of unfolding of a tragic drama about to happen. A dismayed student confides to his sympathetic teacher about his dilemma and the teacher senses seriousness in his issues and forwards his email to the head of Institute. The head sees frivolity, lack of effort etc in the concerned student and makes his email public with his own opinion and some ridicule. A communication meant for a specific person goes into public domain without his consent because a smug know-all gentleman thinks he knows better. The issue snowballs as community of students begin to take sides over the manner of handling the episode by the head of the institute. The hapless student is discussed/analyzed and opinion aired in public domain! Does anyone know if he wants to be discussed? Worst the sensitive teacher who finds fault in the handling of the incident by head is dismissed for some flimsy reason because the matter spills over public domain in which the head of the institute was criticized.

Can’t we expect some tolerance for disagreement from the head of a premier Institute? Not just any institute but an Institute that deals with humanities!

Are we usually waiting for someone to take his life before corrective measures are taken? Often it is only a possibility but should we take such a possibility lightly?