chaotic order

All that I could see was the spacious and stunning architecture of the Temple of Latter day saints (LDS) situated in temple Square, Downtown Saltlake city. The inner precincts of the church was only for the believers of Mormonic faith, and needed a recommendation from an higher authority to enter it. So obviously, I couldn't go inside.. A friend of mine, an young lady, who had attended my clas s months ago decided to accompany me to the temple grounds, when she knew that I was planning to visit it. She was a staunch Mormonite. It was a beautiful evening and we strolled around the capacious acreage of greenery talking and discussing the rudiments of her faith and the symbology behind it. Mormons placed a lot of importance on Customs, rituals and strict adherence to it, and she was telling me about the various books that they use for liturgical purposes; and its origins. She seemed very knowledgeable about the whole thing., but I could sense that she was really making an effort to j

Contrary to wise and popular opinion there are no absolutes in this world . It is only an abstraction created by the mind when it cannot find tranquility in the "what is". A complete Misanthrope, fastidious to the core, utterly repulsive, d isdains company or relationship in any form - such is the character of Melvin essayed by the inimitable Jack Nicholson : the seemingly neurotic author in this brilliant 1997 movie "As good as it gets". One cannot expect even the mildest curtsies from this man. His neighbors detest him, and he revels in their discomfort. He mouths the most hurtful comments to his gay neighbor Simon ; presents to him, his most disgraceful self ; makes him squirm and writhe through his pointed taunts and sarcasms; and yet our hero, is also a successful author who is capable of writing the most tender stories about love and relationships. Such is the anomaly of life. He needs to sit at the same table at his restaurant for breakfast, use his own cutl

Dinu Lipatti lived but a brief and incandescent life of thirty two years. Born in 1917; succumbed to Leukemia in 1950 , taking along with him a prodigious talent, a gift, an unsurpassed mastery over the Piano and not the least; the tremendous affection of his passionate audience, who flocked to hear him every time his thin body took to stage to weave his magic upon his favorite instrument ... Unorthodox, frail, unbounded endurance on stage - his mastery, meticulous prepar ation and scrupulous interpretation of the piano compositions of Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven among others , held listeners and critics spellbound during his short and intense career as an artist. In particular, The Waltzes and Etudes of Chopin came alive under the supple, nimble and divine fingers of Lippati. And as if by a tryst of destiny, It was his disposition to record more and perform less on stage ; probably because his unstable and deteriorating health left him incapable of playing live at a stretch

A Beautiful Spring day in Atlanta yesterday. I took a long walk ; and on my way back, I stepped into my favorite restaurant in Dunwoody for a bite of dinner. I normally prefer sitting at the bar (though, I don't drink anymore!!), because it gives me an opportunity to meet my old friends , and secondly the bar is the least snobbish place to sit and hit an easy conversation with fellow human beings. . It was quite a busy night, and there was a long queue waiting to be seated . I quickly wound my way to my customary corner seat, which strangely enough never gets occupied ,only to find an old friend sitting next to me. I am meeting him after many months. He is a Stocky American in his early fifties, casually dressed with gentle blue eyes that always seem to have a pleading look in them. He works as a senior account manager in a retail chain in Atlanta. An inveterate wine drinker ; he was now holding a glass of red wine and lost in thought when my greeting woke him up from his reverie.

The first time I read Oscar Wilde’s “The picture of Dorian gray”, as a text book in school, I must frankly admit that I understood nothing of it. The pomposity of his language, the intricate caricature of a morally decadent Victorian societ y seemed too much for me at that young age. Later, when literature started to making more sense to me, and I could visibly relate to what I read, the works of Wilde began to take a new meaning and perspective in my mind. It is at this juncture that I realized that ‘the picture of Dorian gray” was the only novel that Wilde ever wrote, and all his others works were Dramas or essays or epistles written at various decisive moments in his life. Speaking of his life, Wilde lived it rambunctiously. He stretched the patience and moral limits of late Eighteenth century England by poking fun at the hypocritical society that he lived in. His tour of America radically altered his views of individual liberty and freedom, and plays written during that period r

I just finished reading Isabel Allende’s “The house of Spirits”. It had been in my bucket list for a long time. Curiously enough, I have read most of her work except this - the very first book that came out in 1982. Of the many voices of Women that emerged in the last thirty or forty years in literature: Margaret Atwood, A S Byatt, Iris Murdoch to name a few of the very best - Isabel Allende’s genre of storytelling is unique; and in many ways representative, symbolic of Latin American spirit of magical realism that bursts through every single page of her novels. Over the last three decades, all her stories have had a string feminine bias: Mighty willed, beautiful, capricious and makers of their own destiny - such are the heroines that Isabel’s fertile mind conjures up for us. I remember her speaking in one of the TED talk many years ago, where she remarked that most of her characters are derived from common people that she had encountered, but once she starts breathing her fiery spiri

The French philosopher Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld famously wrote: ‘few know how to get Old……”. One of the most difficult stages in life comes with the comprehension that the body is aging and there isn’t much time left. The exuberance and immortality that youth promises melts away with passing years, and all the education, culture and religion of this world cannot help console or retract us from the inevitable. We cling to our passions with a thin straw hoping against hope that a miracle will happen, and we shall be forever bask in the shadow of this human shell.. The 2008 movie, “Elegy” is based on this theme. Philip Roth, the Pulitzer winning novelist sketched a short story titled “the Dying animal”, about an aging art critic who hops from one relationship to the other without any emotional commitment, until he meets a young, beautiful Cuban girl - a student in his class; and engages in a passionate physical relationship with her. Kepesh – the name of the professor, ratiocinat