Niraj Chandra

The Waste Land was a mind blowing experience for me, the first time I read it. The experience gets a little deeper each time I read it. It’s a book for mystics, for people who go beyond the literal meaning of words. To me, it evokes a feeling of despair at the mistakes that humanity has made, that could lead its downfall. The final stanza speaks of peace and possible redemption if we change course. In the end, all that counts is Daya, or compassion in a life of discipline and generosity.

I re-read The Doll House just a couple of days ago. I first read it during college days when it did not create much of an impact on me. Its good to re-visit these classics with a mature mind. This time, I was blown away. Henrik Ibsen talked about women empowerment at a time when hardly any women were empowered. The main character, Nora, is a housewife who effectively lives in a doll's house. Her values are her husband's values. her likes and dislike are fashioned by her husband's likes and dislikes. She is also consumed by guilt for something she had done in the past. Then she has a moment of awakening, realising that she has been trapped inside the doll's house. Once she realises this, her guilt disappears - she is no longer trapped by the morality of her time. She is awakened. In India, we have a concept that the world is Maya, or illusion and we are trapped in its web. This Maya is the doll's house for most of us. However, the illusion is of our own making; we have taken the values of society, politicians and thought leaders as true. Once we realize that those are not our values, our morality, we discover our own truth. Then we are free of the trap. To me, that is true spirituality and Henrik Ibsen expressed it so beautifully in this ground-breaking play.