[Spoilers ahead.]

Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017) is about two individuals unexpectedly discovering the void each carries within, and slowly realizing that each possesses what the other has been searching for.

Beginnings

Harry had run from his home in Punjab to Canada to become a singer. But he could not make it. Now he is a tour guide in Europe, leading an empty life, moving from one relationship to another in an attempt to escape his frustration and disappointment. He misses home but is not able to return because he has not accepted his failure. Consumed by self-loathing, his sense of self-worth lies in tatters. Over time, he has become bitter towards the world, and women in particular. He often uses Punjabi expletives to express his isolation. Deep down, he believes he has become fundamentally incapable of goodness.

Sejal, in contrast, is bossy yet deeply caring. Her fiancé neither appreciates her kindness nor values her for who she is. Instead, he fixates on a misplaced engagement ring, allowing it to become a measure of their relationship. She begins to feel insecure and unworthy. More fundamentally, Sejal has spent much of her life performing the role expected of her—a practical, plan-focused woman whose value depends on fulfilling the expectations of others. The film starts with Sejal asserting that everything boils down to the money, underscoring the role she has been playing. It is in this vulnerable state that she places her trust in a man she has known for only a few days: her tour guide.

The journey

When Harry finds himself alone with Sejal during the search for the missing ring, he confesses what he believes is his greatest flaw. He fears that his “bad character” is no longer something he controls, but something he has become.

Sejal’s empathy finds a soft corner for a man so tormented by his own guilt. Later, when Sejal mocks him about one of his former partners, Harry retorts that he saw her as “pure and beautiful, but not sexy”. Sejal—already feeling rejected by the fiancé who left her alone abroad—reacts almost rebelliously, trying to entice Harry in the hope of reclaiming her own desirability.

After Harry rescues her from a dangerous encounter in a pub, Sejal becomes comfortable with him. We see that Sejal is transparent in her devotion to her fiance, the thought of hiding the incident of her having been in a brawl at the pub doesn't even enter her mind. Sejal, in the midst of their pursuit, still is thinking in terms of ‘practicality’ what she should do if the gangsters were to force her. Harry shrugs her off the sensibility horse and takes charge. He shows to her why being sensible and planning ahead always isn't possible. In fact he often solves problems in the spur of the moment on instinct, which is alien to her.

Growing close

In the aftermath, he asks her why she was thinking that way. He wonders why he feels so attached to her well-being. The irony is not lost on us when they discuss rhetorically if one would find God if they searched for Him, and then spend the night in an old church, finding comfort in each other.

He feels humbled at his own feelings of belonging with her. He feels overwhelmed at life finally giving him a chance to be happy. He is grateful, and also cognizant of the volatility of this gift. So much, that tears well up, and in his loneliness, shushes himself as his mother used to when he was a kid. “No matter, it happens, all will be okay.. ,” he soothes himself. This scene touches.

This is one of the film's most revealing moments. Harry's toughness momentarily falls away, exposing the wounded child beneath the identity of the "bad man." His longing is no longer for another fleeting relationship, but for belonging itself.

Sejal, not knowing his real feelings, thinks he just needs companionship. And so, she offers to be his pretend-girlfriend on the trip.

He opens up to her. Tells her about his failed singing career. He finds space and empathy in Sejal who wants him to return home. Harry, meanwhile, dreads the day she will inevitably leave. Sejal thinks she is too ‘selfish’ and practical to fall in love with him. She is essentially denying her own emotions. Harry plays along, pretending to be in a friendly contest of ‘who falls for the other first’.

Impending separation

When they get close to finding the ring, the impending end of the journey puts both of them into a deep anxiety. Sejal shows her caring side, asking him to go back home instead of wandering around. Harry suddenly feels a great hole in his life being filled with affection. He asks her to hold him.

Sejal, who has been feeling undermined and abandoned by her fiance, realises that she is much more desirable than she thought. She rediscovers her sexuality by mirroring what she sees in Harry. Harry, for her, by his own admission, is a depraved man. They are both in a journey to discover themselves from an externality to an internality. Harry starts his journey from the self-loathing of his desire, and moves to his internal feelings for Sejal. Sejal, already in isolation — trapped in the identity of a sensible woman — has to make the journey in parallel. For her, the discovery of her own sexuality and the primacy of her emotional life, happen together. It takes her longer, but she reached first.

When she eventually discovers that the missing ring has been in her own bag all along (we wonder if forgetting the ring was a Freudian slip), she quietly keeps the discovery to herself. Taking care of Harry’s wound (inflicted in a skirmish with a gang) is more important. The search has ceased to be about the ring; it has become a way of prolonging their time together. Realizing that their days are numbered, Sejal wants to get intimate with him, but Harry cannot bring himself to face his guilt. Sejal gently suggests that he may not be as bad as he imagines himself to be. Harry’s belief gets stronger that Sejal can save him from himself. Sejal promises to save him.

The impossible choice

Sejal’s helping nature comes to the fore when she goes to help Harry's friend Mayank to prepare for this wedding. At one point, Sejal remarks to Mayank that her real life awaits her in Mumbai. Harry, exhausted by pretending their intimacy is not temporary, asks whether she truly believes what they share is not real. She is confronted with the question that goes against the role she has been performing. Can she be the ‘cheap’ woman who runs away with her tour guide? He throws it like an insult to show her what it would be like, but he ends up pleading her. But she can't answer it yet, the cost is too much.

She in turn asks the question that matters most: does he want her to stay? Harry cannot answer—not because he does not love her, but because he cannot imagine himself deserving her. The cost for him is also impossible.

The separation and reunion

Rupen apologizes. Sejal asks Harry many times if she should go, implicitly. Harry doesn't answer. She finally tells him about the ring. He doesn't stop her. Sejal leaves. This scene is poignant. Sejal says she found what she was looking for — the ring as well as Harry. But this realisation has not dawned on him. She has already reached the place where Harry is yet to arrive at.

Harry’s loneliness finally forces him to confront what he has been denying. He has a remarkably thankful attitude about this encounter. He terms it a blessing. After talking to Mayank, he decides to confess his feelings on her wedding day, only to discover that the wedding has already been called off.

Sejal tells him she cancelled it because she could no longer remain faithful to the role society had written for her—that of the nice, sweet, practical, dutiful girl who always does the expected thing. Harry had given her something she had long been missing: love, appreciation, and the freedom to choose for herself. Having seen truth, she couldn't go back, and waited for Harry.

In return, Sejal heals Harry’s deepest wound—his belief that he is beyond redemption. Their marriage marks not just the union of two lovers but the reconciliation of two fractured identities. They settle in Punjab, where Harry finally makes peace with both his family and the land he had spent years trying to escape.

The ring is the symbol of Sejal’s role that she has been performing. That is why at the end, they don't use a ring to get engaged. They have become free of those identities.

Peeling the onion

The film’s strength lies in the way its central metaphors operate simultaneously at multiple levels. The ring is at once an object to be found, a social role to be relinquished, and a search that unexpectedly yields what neither character knew they lacked. The church conversation about searching for God echoes the same idea: the stated object of the search matters less than the transformation it brings about. Every major object and event in the film follows this pattern. Punjab becomes home, the holiday becomes self-discovery, the pretend relationship becomes genuine intimacy, and the search for a ring becomes the search for oneself.

Harry's "I am a bad man" and Sejal's "I am the sensible girl" are neither ultimately true. They are stories each has learned to inhabit. Their relationship slowly dissolves those stories until both can respond to life rather than role. In that sense, Jab Harry Met Sejal is less about finding the right person than about becoming free of the selves we mistake for who we are.

[Read in English]

कल्ट फ़िल्म द कराटे किड (1984) की सामान्य व्याख्या यह है कि यदि पर्याप्त समर्पण और दृढ़ निश्चय हो, तो कठिन परिश्रम आपको सबसे कठिन लक्ष्य भी हासिल करा सकता है। यह एक डेविड-गोलियथ संघर्ष से धैर्य और जुझारूपन का उत्सव मनाती हुई प्रतीत होती है।

लेकिन अंतिम दृश्य से ठीक पहले कुछ ऐसा होता है, जो इस संघर्ष की कहानी में सहज नहीं बैठता।

मिस्टर मियागी: जीत या हार — कोई फ़र्क नहीं पड़ता। [...] अब लड़ने की ज़रूरत नहीं है। तुमने अपनी बात साबित कर दी है।

डैनियल: क्या? कि मैं मार खा सकता हूँ? जब भी मैं उन लोगों को देखूँगा, वे जानेंगे कि उन्होंने मुझे हरा दिया था। इस तरह मुझे कभी संतुलन नहीं मिलेगा। न उनके साथ, न अली के साथ — और न ही अपने साथ।

यदि यह फ़िल्म केवल धैर्य और परिश्रम से उपलब्धि प्राप्त करने की कहानी होती, तो मिस्टर मियागी डैनियल को फिर से रिंग में जाने से क्यों रोकना चाहते?

आइए, आज इस फ़िल्म के छिपे हुए संदेश को समझने का प्रयास करें।

दर्शन

इरादा मायने रखता है।

यदि वही कर्म एक बाधित अहम् की वजह से किया जाए, तो वह जागरूकता को विकसित करने में सहायता नहीं करता। भय से प्रेरित परिश्रम और अधिक बाधाएं उत्पन्न करता है, जबकि भय को पार करने के लिए किया गया परिश्रम हमें मुक्त करता है।

मिस्टर मियागी एक ज़ेन गुरु हैं। वे सहज रूप से जानते हैं कि मनुष्य में दुःख, संस्कार और क्लेश कैसे उत्पन्न होते हैं।

डैनियल के भीतर भय और क्रोध है। पीछे छूट जाने और अपमानित होने का भय। जॉनी द्वारा प्रताड़ित किए जाने का क्रोध। वह दुःख से भरा हुआ है।

उसमें अहंकार भी है। वह जीतना चाहता है। सफलता उसके लिए महत्त्वपूर्ण है। स्वयं को सबके सामने सिद्ध करने की आकांक्षा है।

सेमीफ़ाइनल के बाद जब उसका पैर टूटता है, तब तक वह स्वयं को सिद्ध कर चुका था। वह सम्मान प्राप्त कर चुका था जिसकी उसे अपनी समस्याओं के समाधान के लिए आवश्यकता थी। प्रतिद्वंद्वी डोजो की बेईमानी ने यह स्पष्ट कर दिया था। फिर भी वह रुकता नहीं। वह अभी भी जीतना चाहता है। उसके लिए “संतुलन” अभी भी जीत में ही निहित है।

मिस्टर मियागी शायद जानते थे कि ये तृष्णाएँ बहुत गहरी हैं। केवल कराटे से उनका समाधान नहीं हो सकता। उन्हें दूर करने का सबसे अच्छा अवसर इन्हें वास्तविक संसार में सामने लाना था।

टूर्नामेंट का अंतिम मुकाबला डैनियल को यह देखने का एक अनोखा अवसर देता है कि उसने कौन से चुनाव किए हैं। अपनी परिस्थिति को स्वीकार करने का अवसर।

स्वीकार करना

डैनियल को बदमाश बच्चों ने परेशान कर दिया है। वह स्वयं को असहाय महसूस करता है। वह उस स्थान को कोसता है। वह भाग जाना चाहता है।

ऐसे निर्णायक क्षण में, जब उसे सबसे अधिक आवश्यकता होती है, मिस्टर मियागी उसके जीवन में प्रवेश करते हैं। वे डैनियल के भीतर जमा अस्वीकृति, असंतुलन और दोषारोपण को देखते हैं। वे उसके दुःख को महसूस करते हैं। उसी करुणा के कारण वे उसकी सहायता करने का निर्णय लेते हैं।

यह सहायता प्रतिशोध या विजय के लिए नहीं है। इसका उद्देश्य उसे फिर से अपने पैरों पर खड़ा करना है, ताकि वह अपनी परिस्थितियों को स्वीकार कर सके। जीवन को अस्वीकार नहीं, बल्कि उसे अपना सके।

दुर्लभ संतुलन

कराटे का उद्देश्य हमेशा संतुलन सीखना था। लेकिन अपने क्लेशों से बँधा हुआ डैनियल ऐसा नहीं कर सकता था। उस अवस्था में शिक्षाएँ उस तक पहुँच नहीं सकती थीं।

जब डैनियल कराटे का अभ्यास करता था, तब भी उसका उद्देश्य जॉनी को सबक सिखाना और स्वयं की रक्षा करना था। जीतना था। दूसरों पर विजय पाना था। उसका उद्देश्य संतुलन सीखना नहीं था।

शायद मिस्टर मियागी समझ गए थे कि उसे यह स्वयं देखने देना बेहतर होगा कि टूर्नामेंट जीत लेने से भी उसका दुःख समाप्त नहीं होगा। बाद की कोबरा काई (2018) श्रृंखला में डैनियल की यही असंतुष्टि दिखाई भी जाती है। अंतिम मुकाबले से पहले उसके दर्द को कम करना करुणा का कार्य था — ताकि डैनियल अपने कर्मों का सामना कर सके।

यदि डैनियल अधिक जागरूक और कम क्लेशग्रस्त होता, तो वह मिस्टर मियागी से वापस लड़ने की अनुमति नहीं माँगता। लेकिन उसने माँगी। इससे स्पष्ट हो गया कि वह अभी भी अपनी जंजीरों में गहरा बँधा हुआ है। मिस्टर मियागी यह देख सकते थे, और शिष्य की सहायता का सर्वोत्तम मार्ग उसकी उन्हीं जंजीरों का उपयोग करना था।

जीत और हार का द्वैत

कराटे कभी जीतने के बारे में था ही नहीं। मिस्टर मियागी जिस कराटे की शिक्षा देते हैं, वह मूलतः रक्षा के लिए है।

जीवन के प्रहार शायद ही कभी कोमल होते हैं। संसार डोमिनो की तरह कारणों और परिणामों के विशाल जाल में हमें खींच लेता है, और रक्षा ही हमारा सबसे बड़ा अवसर है।

यह रक्षा हार मान लेने से नहीं होती। यह संसार को वैसा ही स्वीकार करने से होती है जैसा वह है — बिना द्वेष के — और उसके साथ मिलकर काम करने में है। सफलता, पराजय, पीड़ा और आनंद के तूफ़ानों को सहते हुए। संसार से बेपरवाह प्रेम करने में है।

संतुलन का अर्थ दुनिया को वैसा ही स्वीकार करना है जैसी वह हमेशा से रही है — बिना पूर्वाग्रह। दूसरों को, यहाँ तक कि हमें पीड़ा पहुँचाने वालों को भी, हमारे समान बाधित प्राणी के रूप में देखना है। (कोबरा काई (2018) श्रृंखला में डैनियल जॉनी के साथ यही करता है।) निर्माण करते रहना है। प्रयास करते रहना है। अपने भ्रमों — क्रोध, भय और स्वयं को सिद्ध करने की लालसा — से अनासक्त रहना है।

इसीलिए मिस्टर मियागी कहते हैं कि समस्या हमेशा दृष्टिकोण की थी।

संतुलन तब आता है जब हम समझते हैं कि सफलता और असफलता एक ही सिक्के के दो पहलू हैं। उनका कोई स्वाभाविक, स्वतंत्र अस्तित्व नहीं है। हम जीतें या हारें, उसी निष्ठा के साथ काम करते रहें, क्योंकि प्रयास ही महत्त्वपूर्ण है। यही प्रयास हमें बदलता है। हमारे पूर्वाग्रहों को मिटाता।

हमारा लक्ष्य संतुलन प्राप्त करना होना चाहिए — संसार के साथ सामंजस्य में आना। कारणों और परिस्थितियों के उस महासागर में विलीन हो जाना।

[हिंदी में पढ़ें]

The conventional reading of the cult classic The Karate Kid (1984) is that given enough dedication and determination, hard work can help you achieve even the toughest of targets. It seems to celebrate grit of a David-Goliath conflict.

But right before the climax, something doesn’t fit this tale of underdog grit.

Mr Miyagi: Win, lose — no matter. […] No need fight anymore. You proved a point.

Daniel: What, that I can take a beating? Every time I see those guys, they’ll know they got the best of me. I’ll never have balance that way, not with them, not with Ali — not with me.

If the film was about achievement through perseverance, why doesn’t Mr Miyagi want Daniel to go back into the ring?

Today let’s unwrap the film’s hidden message.

The Philosophy

Intention matters.

The same action done from the pull of a conditioned self doesn’t help in inculcating awareness. Hard work done out of a fear will create further conditioning, while hard work done to overcome a fear will free us.

Mr Miyagi is a Zen master. He intuitively knows how sufferings, conditionings and afflictions arise in a person.

Daniel has fear and anger. Fear at being left behind and undermined. Anger at being bullied by Johnny. He has sufferings.

Also, he has ego. He wants to win. Success is important to him. He has a girlfriend. He has cravings to prove himself to her.

When his leg breaks after the semifinal, he had already proved himself and got the respect he needed to solve his problems. The rival dojo’s dirty tricks proved that. Yet he does not let it go at that. He wants to still win. To him ‘balance’ is still in winning.

Mr Miyagi seems to know that these cravings are deep-rooted. They couldn’t be solved by Karate alone. The best chance he could get to solve them was to face them in the real world.

The tournament final provided a unique opportunity for Daniel to see through the choices that he had made. To own his condition.

Owning up

Daniel is pushed into a corner by bullies. He feels helpless. He curses the place. He wants to run away.

Mr Miyagi enters his life at a critical juncture, when he needs him the most. He sees the rejection pent up in Daniel. His imbalance. His blame. He feels his pain. He decides to help him because of this compassion.

This help is not about Daniel getting revenge. Or winning. It is about getting him back on his feet. So that he could own up to his circumstances. Accept life, not reject it.

The Elusive Balance

Karate was always about learning balance. But Daniel couldn’t do that bound by his afflictions. Teachings could not reach him in that stage. Even when Daniel practiced Karate, it was for teaching Johnny a lesson and maybe defend himself. For winning. For prevailing. It was not for learning balance.

Mr Miyagi perhaps realised that it was best to let him see that even winning a tournament wouldn’t reduce his sufferings. In the later Cobra Kai (2018) series, this story arc about Daniel being dissatisfied is shown. Relieving his pain before the final was an act of compassion. To let Daniel confront his karma.

If Daniel had been more aware, less conditioned, less afflicted, he would not have asked Mr Miyagi to let him go back. But since he did, it became clear that he was deep into his chains. Mr Miyagi could see that, and the best way to help a pupil was through harnessing their own chains.

Win/loss dichotomy

Karate was never about winning. The version which Mr Miyagi taught was all about defense.

Life’s kicks are seldom soft. The world — domino-like — pulls us in its vast network of causes and effects, and defense is the best chance we get. This defense is not about giving up. It is about accepting the world for what it is — without hate — and working along with it, withstanding the storms of success, defeat, pain, joy. Loving the world regardless.

Balance is about not judging the world for what it always has been. To see others, even those who hurt us, as the conditioned beings they are, just like us. (In the later Cobra Kai (2018) series, Daniel does exactly this for Johnny.) To keep building. Trying. Without any attachments to our delusions — anger, fear or the craving to prove oneself.

This is why Mr Miyagi says that it was an attitude problem all along. Balance comes from realising that success and failure are two sides of the same coin. They are empty of an inherent existence. Whether we win or lose, we keep working with the same rigour, because only the effort matters. It is the effort which changes us, de-conditions us. Our aim should be to attain balance, to be in alignment with the world. To merge in the ocean of causes.

When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.

Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired - though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank of fact, to be expressed
In terms of others, or it's just
A compensating make-believe.

Much better stay in company!
To love you must have someone else,
Giving requires a legatee,
Good neighbours need whole parishfuls
Of folk to do it on - in short,
Our virtues are all social; if,
Deprived of solitude, you chafe,
It's clear you're not the virtuous sort.

Viciously, then, I lock my door.
The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain. Once more
Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.

Philip Larkin’s poem Best Society appears, at first glance, to be a meditation on solitude. The poem begins with childhood reflections on being alone, moves through adulthood’s complicated relationship with solitude, and ends with the poet locking his door and retreating into himself.

Many readers take this as a defense of aloneness. I think the poem is doing something subtler.

Larkin is dealing with contradictions.

As children, solitude comes naturally. We do not seek it. We do not define it. We simply move between being with others and being alone. Solitude is not a special state; it is just another part of life.

As adults, however, solitude becomes an idea. It becomes something we desire, pursue, defend, and identify with. We begin to contrast it with society, noise, relationships, and obligation. In doing so, we create a distinction that did not previously exist.

This is why I find the following lines particularly interesting:

What
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank of fact, to be expressed
In terms of others, or it’s just
A compensating make-believe.

One interpretation is that our understanding of ourselves must be tested through relationships. There is truth in that.

But another interpretation is possible. If your solitude can only be understood in terms of others—if it exists only because others are absent—then it is merely a compensation. It is not genuine solitude at all. It is a reaction. Your solitude should not be dependent on presence or absence of others. It is a quality independent of that. 

The person who says, “I need to get away from people to be myself,” is still defining himself through people. His solitude remains dependent on the very thing he is trying to escape.

This reminds me of the idea of sahaj, often found in Kabir’s poetry. The problem is not whether one sits in a marketplace or in a forest. The problem is attachment to either. Solitude is not inherently good. Society is not inherently bad. What matters is whether either condition allows us to observe ourselves clearly.

Going further, it is a quality of our mind that creates these distinctions. We define such conceptual boundaries. Whether or not solitude depends on being with others, is a choice we made. Hence these distinctions should not be attached to, because these concepts are empty. Don’t seek solitude because it is a good thing. Purpose matters. Seek it because it gives a chance to observe ourselves.  

Larkin then appears to praise society. Love requires another person. Charity requires someone to receive it. Good neighbours require neighbours.

Yet there is another contradiction hidden here. If you need to proclaim your virtue, advertise your goodness, or repeatedly remind others of your charitable acts, then your virtue becomes questionable. Genuine kindness does not require constant validation. The desire to be seen as good is often different from being good.

The poem repeatedly returns to these tensions. It presents opposites and then quietly undermines them.

This is why I do not think the final stanza is simply about retreating from the world.

Viciously, then, I lock my door.

The obvious interpretation is that the poet is shutting the world out.

But what if he is shutting something else out?

What if he is closing the door on his attachment to a particular idea of solitude?

What if he is setting aside the debate itself?

Immediately after locking the door, the poem stops arguing. Instead, it turns toward direct experience.

The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain.

The world has not disappeared. The rain remains. The wind remains. The room remains. Nothing has been rejected.

In fact, the outer world enters the poem more vividly than before.

He uses solitude as a tool, unconcerned with its ontological meaning, and lets in the rain. He connects back to the world. He lets in the outer world into his own inner world. He observes his self.

The solitude here is not isolation. It is not a rejection of society. It is a suspension of prejudice. The poet allows experience to be present without immediately forcing it into categories.

This is why the poem ends not with a discovery but with an emergence.

there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.

The self is not declared. It is not justified.

It unfolds.

Like the sea-anemone and the snail that Larkin mentions, it reveals itself when conditions allow.

The purpose of solitude, then, is not to escape the world. It is not to prove that being alone is superior to being with others.

Its purpose is observation.

When we are comfortable with the world—both the outer world and the inner world—we become capable of noticing our contradictions. We notice our fears, our attachments, our need for validation, our self-deceptions, and our genuine intentions. We accept them. Only then can we decide what to do about them—the idea of vivek from Kabir.

Such an acceptance takes everything in its ambit: the ills, the good, the evil. When we are comfortable with the world, then we are able to spot the problems that we can solve using our free will. This solitude is not about aloneness, but connecting back to the world without prejudice.

Whether we stand in a crowded marketplace or a silent meadow matters less than our ability to see clearly.

The distinction between solitude and society is itself secondary. Both are conditions in which the same task remains before us: to observe ourselves nd the world without bias.

Tristan is a man caught between the free spirit of Native Americans and the duty-bound existence of the civilized west. Love is supposed to be eternal, unchanging from the civilized point of view, but it conflicts with the fickle, real, raw emotion of the free but wild love of the Indian in him. In the end he chooses his Indian side, becomes a hunter, and leaves the civilized world for good.

The film also explores the theme of karma. Of acceptance. Tristan feels responsible for Samuel’s death. Susannah feels responsible for Isabel’s death. These characters struggle with self-awareness. Ludlow says it, only Samuel was responsible for his own death. But Tristan is initially unable to understand it. He punishes himself.

The craft of the film

The characters are immaculately drawn. They are internally consistent. They fight, struggle, suffer, love.

Ludlow foreshadows by saying that he was not equipped to raise children. He was a battle commander. One Stab foreshadows by saying whatever happened was not Susannah’s fault. One Stab sets in motion the image of the bear, the rock.

Scenes such as the one when Alfred comes to Ludlow to announce his candidacy and meets Susannah are memorable. Tristan breaking in a wild horse, and driving back a herd when he returns from his sojourn are superbly shot. There are many such scenes of arrivals: Susannah meeting the family for the first time, Tristan coming back after the war, Tristan coming back after his world-travel, Alfred coming back to bury Susannah, Tristan coming back to his house and finding a waiting Alfred after Isabel’s death. Emotions run high as they come to the meeting — it creates a feeling of distance being dissolved by the continuity of emotions and presence. Even though years may have passed, these meetings show the characters grow and connect back to their earlier versions.

Susannah’s passion

Susannah is introduced to as an orphan This had instilled in her a yearning for not being alone. She later develops modern reformist thoughts on social emancipation of women. Ironically, in her own personal life, she was searching

Susannah is unable to accept her own suffering. Her craving to the wild in Tristan, her envy of Isabel’s happiness blind her to her own fortunate life. She blames herself for Isabel’s death. She succumbs to her pain. Tristan is the most aware character in the film by the end. But even he suffers due to his own choices.

Susannah is portrayed as a woman of passion. Even before Samuel’s death, she was attracted to Tristan, and she loves him until her death. She is unable to let him go, even when out of desperation she marries Alfred. She is unapologetically attached to him. And when he refuses her with finality, she isn’t able to carry on. Her refusal to accept her suffering, her own attachment is the reason, not society’s denouncement or Colonel’s anger at her.

She tries to get back Tristan many times. She spills all her thoughts in front of him. But he is unable to reciprocate because he doesn’t get too attached to anything, owing to his own free spirit.

Tristan’s bear

Tristan creates his identity around the hunter archetype. In childhood, he ventured into the forest to ‘hunt’, escaping but maiming a bear. This is celebrated by the Indian One Stab, reinforcing what he did, notwithstanding his father’s remonstrance. He grows to be disdainful of rules and laws, without the remedial influence of a mother.

The bear appears in the story at three pivotal points. At the beginning when he was only a child, when he returns after the death of his brother, and when he dies. At each point, the bear represents the wild streak in him, rejecting pain and constraints of the world. The death of Samuel shakes his world and he rejects the laws of the world. He gives in to his animal self, avenges his death by killing many enemy soldiers. Since he had vowed to protect him, he blames himself for his death. After the death of his brother, he gets the chance to shoot the bear, but he is unable to, because he could not accept his failure at saving Samuel, and maybe he identifies with the bear too intimately.

After his vengeance on Isabel’s killer and Susannah’s death, he plans to leave society, thinking that he is ‘damned’ — that he brought devastation to them. But Alfred’s final act of defiance against their ‘enemies’ connects him back to his family. He leaves him his children to look after, and vanishes from society to reclaim his ‘hunting’, looking for that elusive bear, metaphoric of his own search for peace.

Eventually Tristan comes to accept his life and his choices. He is at peace with Susannah leaving him, Isabel dying. He has come to accept his wild side. He even goes to jail for his children’s sake, something a younger Tristan would never have agreed to. The free spirit in him rejects suffering, however much pain life gives him.

Alfred’s choices

Alfred wonders at the end: he did everything right, yet why did everyone love Tristan more. It was because of his own choices. His own expectations were wrong.

Alfred loathes that his father treats him as a child even though he is the eldest of his brothers. This shows his attachment to his ego. Nobody deserves love just by existing or by being the elder. Love can be received simply by giving, like Tristan. What he did was the opposite. He lusted after Susannah knowing that she was not interested in him, that she was interested more in his brother. His pain was inflicted by his own desire, his own ego. He always wanted more from the world, instead of accepting what it gave him. He blamed Tristan for stealing Susannah, instead of realising that they had chosen each other freely. This is why he suffered.

Only when he leaves his ego aside, and saves his family from its enemies, does he get the acceptance and respect he wanted.

His nature was understood by Susannah. Even in the brief dialogue when Susannah is confronted by Alfred about meeting Tristan when he returned, she deftly changes the context of the meeting as if Tristan had come to meet him instead of her, thus stoking his own ego.

The weak links

But its villains are one dimensional. It is murder that connects a family back together. Vengeance by blood is seen as a right instead of a crime. It sometimes tends to celebrate violence.

Overall, the film is well made, with a good story and a hidden philosophical depth. I watched it twice.

The film starts by some anecdotes of accidental teachers - those who never wanted to become teachers, those who thought it was a stop-gap job. Then we get introduced to a young new teacher Mr Barthes. He writes poems, and we see his tragic past of his mother having committed suicide and his grandfather in a home still dealing with that trauma. We understand that he has had an anger problem, probably due to this incident.

He starts at a new school, a temporary job. The school has unruly children and parents. It is in a bad state. He brings a whiff of fresh air, deals with it without losing his cool. This establishes the setting.

When Meredith (a student) presumes this to be a mark of strength, he rightly corrects her that it doesn’t take strength but empathy to truly understand others’ sufferings (as they lack self-awareness), that is why he didn’t lose his cool.

We see him lose his anger at the old-age home and realise he is a deeply broken man.

He bumps into a sex worker, he tries to avoid her but she finds him too original to ignore.

He has problems not being committed to his temporary job. He has a problem opening up to people. We see the school falling apart around him — the dean has quit, the headmistress is asked to leave. Mr Seaboldt is shown to have a sense of humor and talks in the lingo of the students. He is tough and understands them deeply.

He visits his grandfather and bumps into the sex worker again. Taking pity at her, he takes her to his apartment to give her some food. She is only a kid. He sees that she has been raped recently. He bandages her wounds. He lets her rest in his home.

He finds a kid who has killed a cat. The kid feels ‘trapped’. Then he returns to find the sex worker with her client at his apartment. He doesn’t get mad at her, understands her situation.

Meredith has an overbearing parent who can’t stand her creative pusuits in photography.

Then he veers into blaming the ‘system’ for marketing to kids false beliefs like they need to be thin, or they need to be pretty to be alive. We can always reject these influences. Children can be taught this self-awareness, that there are bad influences and they need to filter them out. But this can’t come from a point of blaming, it has to be seen as a part of the world. This rant shows all is not well with him.

He stresses on the importance of a reading habit which can stimulate our own minds and enable us to think critically. So that we are able to push back against these external influences. This is about training our minds in correct perception.

He has a date. Erica is mad at him when he returns late. He doesn’t get mad, understands her again, and carefully explains to her that she doesn’t get to have expectations from him. He was only doing her a favor by letting her stay.

There are these interludes when Barthes becomes the narrator, and starts to give some direction to the movie. He tells us that everyone struggles, and people take these problems to home, and they become fearful, helpless. He is talking about attachment.

He gets Erica tested for HIV. They become friends and give each other gifts.

Meredith has a crush on him. He helps another troubled teacher. Empathy causes us to really see other people.

The counsellor, Grace is burnt-out and vents out on a student. We realise that nobody acknowedges her fortitude in dealing with the kids. Seaboldt helps her. Just gratitude can help us connect back to the world.

Barthes finds a change in Erica. She has started to care about others. When he was at school, she goes to his grandfather’s old-age home because he has had chest pains. His grandfather has Alzheimer’s and keeps talking in his delusion. We come to know that he feels responsible for his mother’s death. He doesn’t judge his grandfather. He has forgiven him.

He finally talks about his mother to her. They develop a bond.

Meredith starts to get emotional while talking to Barthes. She feels that he really ‘sees’ her. Then he says to her that ‘we are all the same’. This is non-judgement and empathy. He advises her to journal her problems. Another teacher sees her with him and gets the wrong idea. They have a row about it. He gets angry at the insinuation.

His grandfather dies. He realises that Erica is falling in love with him, and he couldn’t love her the way she wants him, so he calls child services. She puts up a fight, but he lets her go.

The PTM day arrives but no parents come. There is a feeling of ‘how things change’, ‘the reality of the problem’. He is talking about impermanence and indifference.

The HIV test results come back. Barthes has his last day at the school. He gives Meredith a journal. Meredith, unknown to him, eats a poisonous cake and commits suicide.

Later, he talks that he is a ‘non-person’ and he is ‘hollow’. These are clearly references to anatta. He realises that he had failed Meredith -- she had tried to reach out to him and he hadn’t helped her.

So he goes to visit Erica. He doesn’t want to make the same mistake with her. They embrace. We are not told about what the test results contained. I think that part was edited out to keep a happy ending. There is a ‘House of Usher’ reference to the school as it falls apart.

We realise he has grown, opened up to Erica, and works hard to not repeat his mistake.

All the teachers shown in the school are good humans. They stand up to a salesman selling profit making courseware. They help each other. They help students and parents, bearing insult, humiliation and pain. They break down, but continue. They are warriors in pursuit of compassion.

Analysis

I feel the film lands in some scenes, but there were many problems in stitiching it into a credible story.

The problem mainly is with the development of a central conflict and its resolution. There are a number of parallel themes: the disrepair of the school, Barthes’ own dilemmas, Meredith’s problems, Erica’s journey, other teachers’ arcs. Barthes is the central character, but the revelation of his conflict (his unresolved feelings about his past) lands roughly in the middle of the film. His inability to help Meredith, then getting back to Erica signifies growth but it doesn’t directly connect with the other arcs (empathy being the indirect connection), and nor does it help with his main conflict. When, out of empathy, he asks his grandfather that he is free to leave, he has let go of his own attachment. That was his conflict’s resolution, but it doesn’t come in a climax. We move to another minor conflict — his inability to help Meredith. There is a vague reference to his being a ‘non-person‘ and ‘hollow’ but it doesn’t land. How does Meredith’s death translate into the realisation of ‘anatta’? And how does that lead him to unite with Erica? These are left unexplained.

Meredith doesn’t have a lot of time on screen to accurately show her conflict. The disrepair of the school continues and ends with the reference to the House of Usher, there is no tangible development in that arc (despite the students’ appreciation of Barthes at the end).

Similarly we see other teachers struggling and supporting each other, but there is no tangible development there too. Then there are the rants, and the biographical narrator’s voice trying to give a direction to the story, but if the story should have been able to do that, there would been no need to have a narrator.

Pearl S Buck’s The Good Earth is a classic which lived up to its fame, but only partly. The writing captivated my emotions, but it upturned them jarringly to the ground midway, as though the author had deliberately abandoned the story. It gives a lot of fuel to think of how human afflictions shape our lives.

Style

The narration is that of a parable. There are long sentences, mainly action-driven, with sparse introspection.

The description is captured with heart, the setting very natural. Wang Lung comes across as a crude man with a lot of failings, which is a great choice to be redeemed by earth and O-lan.

The author doesn’t use names of the characters. This is an intentional ploy to not focus on their individuality. Births and deaths happen as a natural course, only the earth stays. That is why it is not important enough to name each character.

Plot

Marriage

We start at the wedding day of Wang Lung, a poor farmer in the heartlands of China. The setting of the village, the hardships of Wang Lung, are vivid.

Wang Lung is the protagonist which the narrator follows, through pretty much his entire life. Wang Lung needs to be ‘presentable’ on his wedding day. We see his self-involvement, his inner loathing for his old father. He does not accept his current state of being poor; he secretly hates his life. Even though in throes of extreme poverty, he shaves his head, splurges on meals on his wedding day.

He wanted a pretty wife. His parochial mindset is presented when he thinks of the chastity of his future wife, thinks of her as his property, since his wife — a slave — was bought from the great House of Hwang. He is very sensitive to what others think of him — a clear sign of isolation. He is easily manipulated — a simple man from the village — but not because he is ignorant, but because he has a very fragile ego.

He goes to the House of Hwang with his tail between his legs. His sense of inferiority is given shape by a stark contrast of his poverty with the abundance of the rich house. He takes his wife with great shame, and returns back home.

The wife, O-lan, makes his house a home. She is not good-looking, a woman of few words, but capable of great labor. She readily assumes all the responsibilities she could do, going above and beyond all of Wang Lung’s expectations. She works with him at the fields, tends their home; she gives, asking nothing in return. Wang Lung admires her industry. To him it feels like luxury.

With her, he begins to reap in great harvests. With her, he shares his joy of working on the earth. She keeps on giving, has their first son — alone — without any support, and directly goes back to work. At this time, we are rather curious about O-lan’s taciturn nature, her erstwhile life.

Prosperity

He trusts her with some of his money, and she is grateful. They visit the House of Hwang with the child, and understand that the House is in a bad state. With the coming of some money, Wang Lung now bears the same attitude which he resented earlier from others, towards the slaves of the House of Hwang. But with his wife near him, he still feels ashamed at any thought of superiority, and fears the Gods. He comes to know that the House’s Old Mistress wanted to sell some land. Wang Lung has always had a fascination for land, and a bold idea is born. He will buy that land.

He goes to the Old Lord of the House of Hwang, who has taken a new concubine Peach Blossom. He buys the land, they spend it on opium as usual. This state of the house becomes important later on.

It is shown that excess brings to fore the greed which stays sleeping in poverty‘s stupor. Wang Lung had his share of problems, and riches corrupt his simple-minded soul.

Wang Lung puts the land to good use, reaps another bumper harvest. His wife begets another son. But his pride soon gets the better of him. He picks up a quarrel with his craven uncle over his social image, gets angry, then has to apologise, and give away his hard-earned money to him out for charity.

Hard times

A girl is born to him, and he starts to worry. But he does not realise it is because of his own ego — his uncle was only an agent. The rains fail, and he is able to survive by the harvest from the Hwang land beside the moat. He buys more land from Hwang out of greed. The rains fail yet again.

This time it is the worst. O-lan is with child again, they slowly exhaust all their food. O-lan has to kill their ox for food as Wang Lung is prone to attachment, and not only to animals like his ox but to his own pride, his self-esteem. His uncle keeps on instigating the villagers against Wang Lung, saying that he has silver stowed away. Suffering moves men to cruelty. They plunder Wang Lung’s house, find nothing of value, and O-lan rises and shames them. They leave, Ching the neighbour, among them.

This episode strengthens Wang Lung’s resolve that he should keep on getting more land as it could not be stolen from him. The famine fills him with anger, he rejects it vehemently. Unable to work out his emotions on his land, he blames God. We see that Wang Lung’s afflicted self reasserts itself, away from his land.

By this time his children are starving, his infant girl is not getting milk, and has stopped crying. Wang Lung bonds with her, trying to protect her with all his remaining strength. He hears of wicked things: villagers are eating their own children — including his uncle — and decides to leave his village to go south to a city. His neighbour, Ching, helps him with his own last food, as a penance for robbing him. O-lan gives birth to a girl who immediately dies. The uncle tries to get his land sold, but he refuses angrily. O-lan sells their furniture, and with no hope left, they leave the village.

Here I was rather sure that this choice was not a good one. After all, if they had sold their land, they could have survived a little while longer. But eventually that would have also gone. They could have then moved to the city. But Wang Lung has a fixation on land, he would not sell it even for his family’s lives. This fixation creates more suffering.

Later, I realised it was probably for the best. But this seems like a spiritual lacuna in the plot that a fixation leads to a good result.

They reach the ramparts of the town, starving men gathering around House of Hwang, wondering how to break it open and loot the riches. This theme keeps on coming back. The author tends to justify it as an inevitability (“when the rich become too rich”). But the author does not punish in any way (karmic or otherwise) those who loot the rich. It is probably to say that they acted out of desperation, they were not looters out of choice, but by circumstance; but I don’t agree to it. I think we always have a choice. This view is also exemplified when Ching, who was among those who looted Wang Lung in famine, comes back to him and helps him leave the village, atoning for his sin. He later becomes a good friend, showing that it was not a choice but a compulsion.

They find a train out of their good fortune, spend the little silver they received from the selling of the furniture, and reach the city. And begins their soulless city life.

The lost year

Wang Lung makes a hut out of mats, sends the children, his wife and father to beg, and pulls a ricksha during the day. They eat at the community kitchen. His ego keeps on getting hurt, but he learns the city way of greed.

They never make enough to save anything of value. He sees the foreigners, the women, the businessmen; but he remains an alien. The language is a staccato burst of sounds, while he is used to words in a languid flow as that of a river. In his parts, money ceased to be value when there was no more food—his labour was the only real currency; but here it rules every part. There is never any scarcity of food in the city.

His boys start stealing. His conscience does not allow this, and slowly the ambition to return to his land starts murmuring again.

The city’s brilliance is built on top of poverty. It is pulled to life by these numerous people of the working class. Their labors are so heavy that they have dissolved their selves in it, knowing no more about themselves than that their breaths go on and their hunger is never met. Suffering by labour has, pushed them into an unknowable, dreamless, bare existence.

I really like the prose in this part; it is beautiful.

Wang Lung sees foreigners distributing pamphlets about Jesus, but he is unable to understand the picture, thinking it was about some atrocity soon to come to them. Then he listens to another man who is trying to work the laborers to passion against the rich, but is unable to understand how the rich could have anything to do with his suffering, which were caused by famine. This was very astute reasoning, and I see how Wang Lung’s earthliness gives him this quality of non-judgement, even though he is severely afflicted by vanity, anger and greed. He is not interested in taking another man’s property, his greed is only confined to land, that too bought from his own hard-earned money. In this way, he remains ethical.

Spring comes, and the ache in him grows. The only way seems to sell the girl to get enough money to make back to the village. But Wang Lung would not commit. He loves his daughter-of-famine too much. We see his conflict, but he makes the right decision. Fortune intervenes, and they come to know of another revolution soon to come.

Wang Lung does not accept his situation. His cravings return every time, contributing to his suffering. This craving to return to his land again takes hold of him.

Even though we see him in the grips of these passions, the city is unable to corrupt him any more than he already was. A war comes to the city, and he escapes drafting by a hair. He hides in the day, and pulls heavy loaded carts at night.

The loot

The revolution comes, he enters the rich man’s house — half dragged — but does not take anything. He comes to a straggler who empties his pockets at him before fleeing, and he takes the coin.

He reaches his land, buys a new ox on whim, seeds and grains. The stolen money has little value to him, it escapes soon. He employs his neighbour Ching to work on his lands for his good deed. His uncle has turned into a bandit. With his labour, he rebuilds his house; his family flourishes again.

One day, Wang Lung finds another mass of jewels that O-lan stole from the rich man in the city. He lets her keep two pearls, and with the rest gets even more land from the now poor House of Hwang. The Old Mistress has died and there is only a slave Cuckoo and the Old Lord left.

He hires laborers to work on his lands, expands his house, builds more houses protected from flood lands. O-lan continues to live simply, gives birth to twins. But his first girl, the one whom he loved the most, never talked. Ching becomes his steward of the lands. He still feels ashamed in company of the grain-sellers at his illiteracy, and starts to send his two boys to school.

He saves money, builds excess each year, and becomes wealthy. Then one year, floods force him to stay indoors. Unable to work on his land, trapped in a house, he feels bouts of restlessness. Unappreciated by his family of his success, he starts feeling contempt for his wife’s simple face.

It is not that the excess is the root cause of his suffering, but it is the underlying afflictions of greed and pride which are unable to be healed from the combined effects of earth and sweat.

The fall from grace

His vanity causes him to frequent a newly opened tea shop which was expensive. His boredom, and search for novelty cause him to look for new sensations. O-lan after the last child-birth has been sick with ‘a flame in her vitals’. Cuckoo from the House of Hwang now works at this tea-shop to get customers for the brothel on the first floor. She entices him, shames him for being a mere ‘farmer’ and traps him out of his own vanity. I really liked how from Cuckoo’s manipulation it is clear that it is not Cuckoo, but Wang himself who is responsible for his fall.

I love the metaphor in the following lines, which tell us about how Wang Lung has gone blind in the darkness.

Lotus Flower enters his life. She is well-versed in the arts of enticing men, and soon casts such a spell on him that he cannot get enough. Unknown to any in his home, he steals every night, splurges on her, acquiesces to her every demand. But his lust does not get satisfied, unlike before. It is lust borne out of greed and opulence; and greed has no end. This is because love had a utility, a purpose before. Now it is idle, empty, aimless, for greed.

He would wash himself daily, cut off his braid, becomes a dandy. He asks for the pearls that O-lan had kept, she gives them without any remonstrance. He gives them to Lotus.

O-lan had not wanted the pearls as wealth. She had kept them as the last vestiges of a thing of beauty — a self which nobody had ever given her. When it is taken away, she is truly devastated.

Wang Lung’s uncle returns with his wife and the surviving son; and they immediately become permanent house guests. He is angry and hateful, but cannot say anything for the sake of his pride. He does not realise he himself is responsible for his uncle’s family to behave so.

By now O-lan has realised in some way that Wang Lung has left her out. His uncle’s wife quickly realises Wang Lung’s situation. She offers to be the agent who would buy Lotus from the tea-house and bring her to Wang Lung’s house.

So blind he is, that he is even willing to sell off his land to procure Lotus.

He builds a new courtyard for Lotus; Cuckoo moves in with her. Lotus lives like a princess; has all the comforts one can dream of. Soon discord between O-lan and Cuckoo begins. They have to separate out the kitchens. Then the uncle’s wife becomes fast friends with Cuckoo and Lotus, and they spend lavishly on exotic foods in the new kitchen. His old father, unaware of the entire episode, suddenly wakes up and starts berating him, calling Lotus ‘a harlot’. Lotus can’t bear his children, and Wang Lung gets angry at her and a little of the film on his eyes parts.

Finally the summer ends, the water recedes and Wang Lung goes back to his land.

The land heals him again, and he is freed of his lust. He begins to prosper again, and gains the respect of his village-folk. He starts to look for a wife for his eldest son. The son is becoming more restless and begins to visit a prostitute. Wang Lung finds his uncle’s son’s involvement in this and begins to loathe him.

Lotus mentions to him a former client who had been a grain-seller and had a daughter. Wang Lung sets up his son to marry her. When he confronts his uncle, his uncle tells him that he had been a bandit, and he would not dare throw him out of his house. Wang Lung is terrified, realises that his uncle was the reason he had never been robbed.

Their crops are attacked by marauding locusts. Wang Lung fights off the locusts fiercely, and is able to survive. His eldest son wants to leave the town for higher studies, but Wang Lung shuts him off sharply. This makes him sullen. His marriage has not yet come to pass and there begins a curious episode of him starting to visit Lotus behind his father’s back. O-lan warns him, and he catches him talking to Lotus. In a fit of anger, he sends him off to the city for further studies. This is intentionally not cleared by the author what really happened between Lotus and the son.

He apprentices his second son as a merchant with his eldest son’s father-in-law, and he moves away. He also arranges for his second daughter’s marriage to the merchant’s second son.

The heart of the story — O-lan

O-lan has been sick these past many years of a growing tumor in her belly. She becomes increasingly frail, and finally it dawns on Wang Lung that she will not survive. As she lies dying, Wang Lung is filled with remorse and sadness. She keeps going out of her mind in her agony, and we get a glimpse of her tortured past. We come to know of her internal sufferings — of being born ugly, of having lived a life of slavery and of her husband’s preference of beauty over her faith. For many months she keeps fighting her condition, and Wang Lung forgets his land, his mistress and his troubles. Towards the New Year, O-lan tells him that her time is coming, and she will die after the eldest son is married. Wang Lung calls him back from the city, and they hurriedly perform the marriage ceremony.

Shortly after this, O-lan dies. Soon after, Wang Lung’s father also dies. O-lan’s passing is a turning point in this story. Wang Lung loses the one redeeming person in his life, someone who was akin to the land he so passionately clung to. O-lan was a gift to him who stayed with him through the years, steered him, and kept on giving. But now he is beyond redemption, his karma is too heavy with rot.

Death

Death is treated like a natural occurrence, something to go over much as harvesting a crop or waiting out a cold winter. They buy their coffins in advance, and wait for it to pass with acceptance. It gives them peace that they will have a place on the earth, and that their generation lives on after them. Death is not a tragedy, but a commonplace event.

Then starts again the cycle of floods. Wang Lung curses the Gods, forgetting all the good fortunes he has had till now. The famine that follows makes everything dear and Wang Lung has to fight Cuckoo to not spend so much on her mistress’s lavish habits, his idle uncle and his wife to not presume too much of his graciousness, restrain his uncle’s son against casting his evil eye on his second daughter. Wang Lung along with his eldest son connive and hook up his uncle and his wife on opium to keep them out of the way. They marry the second daughter early to keep the son of the uncle away.

Wang Lung wanted his youngest son to be a farmer and deal with the land after him. But this lad now wants to study and so Wang Lung allows him.

Life goes on, Wang Lung buys even more land to feed his ever-increasing family. He buys more slaves. Wang Lung’s old wounds open and he discovers that he really hated the Hwangs (but secretly he also wanted their riches) — so much that he wanted to take their place in their own house, as a final salvo. So he rents out the House of Hwang, and moves into it, along with his family.

His second son is a money-minded and practical man. He marries a girl from the village, who came with an ample dowry and was pliable to his wishes.

Wang Lung was a patient man when he had worked on his fields, but riches and idleness had made him a quick and impatient man. His uncle’s son wants to become a soldier, and he gladly lets him. Wang Lung now immerses himself into his new life as the head of a great house. Ching dies, and he is again woken out of his stupor.

A change in pace

After O-lan’s death the novel becomes exceedingly fast in action, as if the author is speeding to closure. There is very less introspection, or emotional, ethereal description, which made the prose stand out in the first half. I wonder if it is deliberately done, because the coming of the riches and the sundering of the earth from Wang Lung’s life suddenly leaves his life bereft of color and youth. It becomes dry and mechanical, albeit full of disquiet and self-loathing.

We start seeing Wang Lung’s afflictions get reflected in his sons’ lives. His eldest son keeps on decorating the House of Hwang, his second son keeps on skimping on the coffers. His third son keeps on running away from his responsibilities. With all his riches, Wang Lung still cannot find peace. He does not realise that peace comes from within. His sons are his reflection.

His second son gets married, and trouble begins. His daughters-in-law don’t see eye-to-eye, his sons are jealous of each other. In the days of scarcity, his house was happy if they had enough to eat. Now with money overflowing from invisible sources — for his sons never stepped on the earth that created this bounty — they fight for their ego and greed. His uncle dies a sad death, having forgotten reality in his opium dreams.

War comes to his town, and with it blows in his uncle’s son who is now a soldier. Soldiers overrun his house, and the family shrinks inside one room in fear. The uncle’s son leers at the women of the house.

The uncle’s son looks at everything as if they were things to be eaten. Cuckoo suggests to Wang Lung that a slave be given to him to appease him. He asks for Pear Blossom — a slave of Lotus — but the girl is terrified. Wang Lung takes pity at her, and another slave volunteers for the job. But this leads to fresh trouble with Lotus. Finally the army leaves the town.

Wang Lung thinks he will finally have some peace, but his house is all embattled in its own ranks. The only source of peace is his first daughter, who knows nothing, but only smiles at him with her bit of cloth. His youngest son has dreams of glory, and wants to run away to war. He refuses him, but the lad has a crush on the very same Pear Blossom. This rouses some strange emotions in his old age.

So, finally, his lust wakes up and he takes Pear Blossom as his second concubine. One by one each of his sons visit him, and when the third son comes, we come to know that he and Pear Blossom had some kind of relationship, and out of his chagrin at his father’s choice, the son marches off to join a distant war.

The sons

Wang Lung’s eldest son is the embodiment of his pride and vanity. His second son is the symbol of his greed. His third son has O-lan’s honesty and acceptance. Most neglected of the three, who worked the earth, he saw Wang Lung most clearly. He loved a slave even though he could have anyone, because he didn’t care about the facade like Wang Lung. He saw the injustice that the likes of his father committed, and he rebelled against it. He is O-lan’s second coming, her redemption.

Soon Wang Lung’s brief lust subsides, and he is closer to his end than ever before. His eldest son is about to take a concubine, just like him. He moves back to his old house out of sentimentality; his attachments to his wealth, pride and his family loosen. He becomes forgetful — a symbol of his growing detachment. He becomes like his own old father. At the end, he overhears his sons discussing plans to sell off his land after his death, and he berates them. The story ends here with a hint that Wang Lung would die with his attachment to his land, but the land will not remain after him.

I kept on waiting for karma to come back to Wang Lung for his robbery and other depraved deeds. I think that the fact he lived without peace until the end was the very karma of his own deeds.

Characters

Wang Lung

Wang Lung has a complex personality — molded by his life’s currents. Land is the major influence on his life. He has many cravings — greed, anger, vanity and lust. He has a patriarchal mindset common to his time. It is shown that land serves as an anchor to his many faults, pulling him back to life whenever he falls. Through a plethora of sufferings, he survives because of the healing effect of the land. When he leaves his land, his peace goes away, even though he is no longer poor.

Earth stands for acceptance of his suffering. He is a deeply afflicted man, but land is the way he is able to transcend them, however temporarily. It is the labour, the patience which gets generated when he works on his land that enables him to accept his suffering, even remove them.

The land just has to exist, it is the medium. It may be anyone’s land, as long as the labour is there, there is value being generated. It is the effort, which creates money out of time. Without work, perseverance or mind, there is no value created. Hence, the value is created when we solve a problem, and that does not have to be our own problem or our own land.

Ironically, Wang Lung becomes the very same rich Old Lord whom he despised in his youth. It is karma running full circle.

The old man

The old man is a stoic, rational man connected to the earth. He has lived through more terrible times than Wang Lung. Wang Lung secretly loathes him, but because of societal boundaries never troubles him. Even when Wang Lung forgets his roots, and meanders into corruption; the old man keeps steady. Wang Lung needs his fellowmen to respect him, but the old man never gives him that respect. While Wang Lung changes his life to use up his wealth, the old man stays content in his simple life. When nobody knew what passion consumed him for Lotus, the old man had noticed his pallor. While nobody could reproach him when he brings Lotus to his house, the old man shouts ‘harlot’ to her face. The old man is the symbol of the old country, when people lived and died with a simple set of responsibilities.

O-lan

O-lan is a symbol for the ‘Good Earth’ itself, which only gives, toils, blesses, purifies and heals. With her, Wang Lung is able to survive the hardest winters, the most rogue of his tempers. O-lan’s death is a tragedy to Wang Lung because of his own guilt. He knows he did not treat her fairly. His afflictions do not leave him at peace. O-lan dies because she has no place left for her in his life. Like earth, she withers away after a time, when her purpose is done.

Initially it seemed to be a great movie. I was especially moved at the places where the mustang bonded with Little Creek, the Indian. But then questions arose about the most important question it asks: the nature of freedom.

Plot summary

The mustang is born, has a carefree existence until he assumes the position of leader in his herd. Then one day his curiosity causes him to be caught by English settlers. They take him to a military camp where he struggles hard against all efforts at domesticating him. A native Indian, Little creek, is also a captive at the same site. When Spirit is kept without food or water for three days, he temporarily relents and a Colonel rides him, but he escapes with the help of the Indian. After running to the Indian camp, the Indians try to tame him. I like this part. The Indian shows him affection, treats him well. But Spirit does not relent. The Indian pairs him with another mare Rain whom he is fond of. The Mustang is smitten, but cannot understand the mare’s obedience to Little Creek. Little Creek gives up on taming him, and lets him go.

The mustang is unable to leave on account of Rain but then the Indian village is attacked by the settlers. Little Creek escapes on Rain, Spirit saves Rain and by consequence Little Creek by attacking the Colonel.

In the aftermath, Rain and Spirit struggle for their life in a river. They fall over a waterfall and Rain is incapacitated. Spirit can’t leave her, and is captured by settlers. Little Creek sees this, and tends to Rain. He decides to pay the debt of his life by deciding to follow Spirit.

Thinking Rain is dead, Spirit gives in to the men, and is transported to a railroad construction site. But he realises that the rail will go to his birthplace, and sabotages the rail and flees away.

Little Creek finds and helps him. I like here how the mustang is able to come to understand the Indian. The settlers again start chasing them. They escape, get cornered against a gorge. Then Spirit and the Indian escape by jumping across the gorge. Seeing this, the colonel lets them go. Finally he offers him to ride his back. They make way back to the village. Spirit is reunited with Rain. The Indian lets them both go. They return to Spirit’s birthplace.

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Analysis

I like the theme of what cannot be broken by force, can be coerced by kindness. Spirit could not be tamed, but he could be befriended. He helps Little Creek even though he is a man, he learns that evil doesn’t have an identity, it could be anybody. His experience with the Colonel had made him wary of humans, but he is still able to befriend Little Creek.

I find the preoccupation with the ego concerning. Why is spirit so headstrong and how is that a good thing? The film tries to celebrate this, but actually it is not will, that gets you freedom. It is acceptance. This is what it fails to convey.

Spirit got caught because of his own sniffing around. When he was caught the second time by settlers, it is again because of his attachment to Rain. Why are the settlers bad? They are doing what they need to survive.

Spirit wants to be free to be with family. But he could have found family in a human as well. It was this bias that created all these tensions, judgement.

The film is unrealistic because destiny keeps on intervening, Spirit seems to exist out of karma loop. The Indian is able to find Spirit always in the nick of time and help him too, because he feels indebted, even though spirit was only saving Rain and not the Indian.

I wonder, should Spirit have resisted his chaining? Does acceptance say not to resist, accept your situation, give up?

No. Acceptance is not about giving up. It is about coming to terms with reality, but keeping on solving real problems.

The chaining by a brutal master like the Colonel should have been resisted. It was inhuman, torture. Spirit was right in doing that.

But chaining by Little Creek was not wrong. He gave him respect, the chance to be with Rain, a real friendship. This was not servitude. Spirit should have accepted that.

Instead, he yearned to go back. This fixed notion is inadaptability. But perhaps we should not expect such level of awareness from an animal, even though the film anthropomorphosizes Spirit?

Little Creek understands this. He understands that Spirit’s heart lies both with his herd and with Rain. He couldn’t expect him to stay. The mustang was too stubborn.

That is why he lets him go with Rain, and shows great awareness. He is the example of an awakened man, a compassionate man.

That is why the man is able to take great feats of courage with Spirit. That is why he is still happy to let them go.

This movie did not sit right with me. It is primarily because its spiritual core is confused.

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is a much beloved classic. The book tells the tale of Siddhartha, a Hindu boy who lived during the time of the Buddha.

The book takes a lot of dense ideas from both Buddhism and Hinduism and tries to merge them together. This creates a lot of conflict for the protagonist.

There are a lot of great passages here, but I still was left wanting at the end. This is because the book is merely clad in Buddhist metaphors and ideas, but essentially it rejects Buddhism’s core ideas by the end. It tends to go against its own form, and thus becomes unconvincing.

An unlikely merging of two traditions

This is a story of the character of Siddhartha fighting his ego, ultimately letting it go to gain compassion.

He is initially an ignorant fellow which leads to expectations like the desire to know his atman. These expectations lead to conflicts between his reality and his expectations. He is unable to hide from his self, he tries to deny it, but is forced to come back to his self. This leads to great bodily suffering. He tries again and again. He creates mental formations, fixed views like ‘learning can only happen via experience, not words of another’ (this may be a form of ‘solipsism’). These should have lead to further conflicts.

But from here-on the book significantly differs from my experience. This view actually leads to him taking one identity after another. He is able to discard these identities like snake skin (which is highly unrealistic in my opinion), then get reborn. With each metaphoric rebirth he faces karmic residues (like a son), ensuing into more suffering. Finally he is able to realise ‘oneness’, relinquishes control of his ego, sheds judgement, accepts the world as it is, and finds compassion. The end state is of peace and bliss.

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The chain should have been the following:

This is the reason that the book takes a hawkish stance to Buddhism, showing Govinda as being misguided to take shelter in Buddhism. Most of its story borrows heavily from Buddhist terminologies, but it rejects Buddhism at its core junctures. This gives an appearance of neither here nor there.

Style

The characters often use the third person to refer to themselves. This may be an attempt to mimic scripture, but I personally felt it only made the prose more pompous.

The characters use rhetorical sentences to make the same point over and over again. This causes some loss of focus, but perhaps it was a trend of the time.

Story summary

Siddhartha is born in a Brahmin family, and has a sharp intellect. He is studying the scripture from his father, and is geared for a great career in scholarship. He has a friend Govinda from his caste.

Conflict

The scene sets the conflict when Siddhartha finds himself dissatisfied with the ritualistic life he has been leading. He feels empty from the knowledge of the verses, which can’t tell him what his atman is. He sees all the learned Brahmins but can’t find a single one who has attained enlightenment, who has known his atman. He starts looking at his father as yet another man who was still searching.

He takes the decision to join the Samanas (a wandering sect who practice extreme ascetism). He keeps standing all night — until his father gives him permission. Govinda joins him out of love for him. This is a little weird, because we are not told about Govinda’s familial circumstances, or how he gets permission.

Siddhartha goes all in with the Samanas. He wants to know his atman. He remains thirsty, fasts very long, inflicts terrible ordeals on his body; until all his senses felt like white noise. He tries to silence his self through pain, so that he could feel his atman. He succeeds in hiding from his self for considerable periods, but he always had to go back to his self. He is still unable to find his atman. Essentially he is trying to be other people/animals/things — a form of rejection.

Fixed view

He confides in Govinda how he is feeling. Being a Samana was an anesthetic, the same that someone in a tavern does by drinking. Siddhartha has started believing that any ‘learning’ in the form of words doesn’t work (something similar to J Krishnamurthy’s ideas). He has started to believe in only the experiential form of seeing. They start to hear stories about Gotama the Buddha. Even though Siddhartha doesn’t trust teachings, they leave the Samanas to see Gotama in flesh.

They go to Savithi, where they meet the Buddha. Siddhartha feels love, admiration and serenity at how the Buddha walked and talked. Govinda becomes his follower, but Siddhartha has other thoughts. He asks the Buddha privately, why does nirvana violate the law of dependent origination. The Buddha sees the intent behind the question is not to know, but it is Siddhartha’s own ego, his self trying to find gaps and create a model of the world for salvation. Buddha says that his teachings are not for creating such a model, but to alleviate suffering; and so he does not answer his question. He warns him not to give in. Siddhartha then expresses his aversion to all ‘teachings’, but only for himself. He says the teachings themselves came from the Buddha’s own experiences, and he also wants to do the same, but without the crutches of anyone else’s experiences. Siddhartha is too afraid, too attached to his goal of seeking his atman. He thinks if he stayed with Gotama, he might give up on his goal of salvation — out of his love for the Buddha. Thus he rejects everything else apart from his own experience, even Gotama. And so he leaves, still searching.

Siddhartha thinks that he has been fleeing away from his self in search of atman, but he didn’t know this self, this identity of Siddhartha. A great yearning in him takes root — to know his self. The world seems beautiful. He has always rejected the physicality of the world, considering the world to be an illusion as a Samana. He feels he has lost his identity of being a Samana, a Brahmin. Now what could he be?

A strong sense of sadness, isolation comes over him: he is utterly alone. In his ignorance, his fixation to reach his atman, he has gone so deep in his unreal world, rejected every other teaching but his own, that he is cut-off from reality. This despair does the inevitable: he gives in to exploring himself, just what the Buddha warned him against.

He understands that atman did not lie in the world of thought, or the world of senses. He wants to go deeper and explore the physical world. He comes to a rives, meets a ferryman who loves the river. Then he reaches the first village where he flirts with a woman. His inner voice stops him from doing anything more, and he reaches a city. There, he is attracted to a courtesan Kamala.

Ignorance

Kamala takes an active interest in this skin-and-bones Samana. He was a curiosity, she tells him that he needs money to be with her. He recites a self-composed poem, she kisses him. He expresses his urge to learn the arts from her, is rather vain that he can fast, wait and think. For him, success in the material world is only a matter of time. He has done much more difficult things — he is seeing himself as a continuous being, attached to his ‘feats’, as a permanent entity. This egoism could only lead to suffering.

Kamala pitches him to a rich merchant Kamaswami who is impressed by his reading and writing skills, and takes him on as an assistant. Siddhartha rises rapidly in his fortunes. But he doesn’t take anything seriously. He plays it like a game. He goes through everything with mockery, still exploring. He lets in everything that comes his way, but not out of acceptance — out of indifference. His goal was not to become rich, but eventually he becomes rich. He is not fettered with failure. His relationship with Kamala continues.

He often feels pangs of his old identity of Samana — it means he has still not let it go. He feels that this world of materialism is not his own. And yet he continues to ignore this feeling. He feels no love, only carnal instincts. Other people can love, because they can let go, sacrifice. He was too driven by his ego of finding the atman — so much so that he had plunged into materialism.

With years, that goal starts getting forgotten. His mockery grows more involved, thirst and greed for money, possessions and lust appear. His senses which were killed while being a Samana, are awakened. His control over his wants goes away. He schemes, lies and cheats. Aversions and addictions grow. Exactly what Buddha would have warned him against.

He gambles fiercely. Trying to imitate the mockery that he had when he began, he becomes even more reckless and angry in his gamblings. He still wants to find something new to experience. He is still in the throes of escapism, of rejection. The same rejection that he had done as a Samana. The same intoxication of a game, of an anesthetic pulled over his reality, to numb down the hollowness and isolation caused by his ignorance.

He is trying to find his self in experiences of the fleeting world of materialism. This would never occur, as the self doesn’t exist in the physical world. With each gamble, he only affirms and extends his addictions.

Then he has a dream in which he throws away a dead bird of Kamala’s, and this shakes him out of his stupor. He leaves the city and his possessions behind. He feels deeply conflicted, ashamed of his actions, and resolves to die.

He comes to the river, is about to plunge from a height into the river, but stops as a deep ‘Om’ from within him rises. Then he falls asleep out of exhaustion.

Moving on to the next identity

He meets Govinda who has stopped to look after a fallen stranger. They talk and Siddhartha feels again reborn. He no longer is a rich man. He starts thinking again about impermanence. Siddhartha realises that peace cannot be found in the world of sansara, but still feels he did the right thing to find this by himself.

Here I felt it was a rather implausible that Siddhartha would be able to give up so many years’ worth of affinities in a single night. Such formations can’t be shaken off by a dream.

He crosses the river in a ferry. This is the same ferryman Vasudeva who had carried him earlier. They become friends. Vasudeva listens to his story, and invites him to stay with him. He tells him about the river which speaks to him, and is the source of all his learnings.

The river becomes a character. Siddhartha learns that the river exists at all places at all times, making time an unnecessary construct. All suffering is time (again similar to J Krishnamurthy’s ideas). He understands that his past self is the same as his current self. River is like the Brahman, existing everywhere, forever, connecting everything. It speaks in many tongues.

Only just a while ago, Siddhartha was ruminating about impermanence of all things, all identities. But now this is totally turned on its head and he thinks everything has the same unchanging soul. This is where it deviates significantly from Buddhism.

Karma

Years later, the Buddha lies dying, and flocks of people are crossing the river to join him. Kamala, who has a son by Siddhartha without his knowledge, had also become a devotee. She comes to the river too with her son, but is bitten by a snake and dies in the presence of Siddhartha. He takes the boy in. Thus, suffering returns to him.

The boy turns out to be an entitled, spoiled brat. He torments Siddhartha, but Siddhartha bears his tantrums. Until Vasudeva confronts him, and tells him to let the boy go back to the city, where he feels fit. Siddhartha is unable to let him go, wants to protect him from suffering. This is his ego taking control again. He doesn’t actually love the boy, only wants to possess him.

The boy finally runs away after stealing from them, and Siddhartha follows him back into the forest. He tells himself that he is doing it for his safety, but actually the boy knows his way and is not in much danger. He goes to the gates of the city, but is unable to enter. He remembers when he had met Kamala, he remembers all his misdeeds in the city, and chants Om. He keeps on waiting. Vasudeva finally takes him back to their hut. He has accepted and let go.

Acceptance

He now accepts everyone in his life. He doesn’t judge anyone who goes in his ferry. Even people who are vain. He recognises that everyone is the same in their struggles.

But the wound of his son leaving him still festers. The river laughs and shows him that once he had also done the same thing to his own father. He opens up to Vasudeva. Vasudeva is a great listener, Siddhartha feels an other-worldly aura around Vasudeva as he narrates his tale to him. They go to the river, and Siddhartha sees all his life, its characters and every event being mirrored in the river. His suffering dissolves into the oneness of the river, and compassion begins in his heart. Even his son needed compassion. He finds peace. Vasudeva leaves to the forest.

Compassion

Govinda is still searching for peace, going on pilgrimages. It is shown clearly that Govinda’s path of following a teaching has not worked out for him. He meets Siddhartha on his way across the river. As before he is unable to recognise him, Siddhartha, out of his newly found compassion, then helps him. He never did that before because he had always been too self-involved. Govinda has been searching for peace, for salvation from his days of being a Samana, but he unlike Siddhartha, he never experienced life directly to find what he wanted. He relied on teachings. He relied on others. And apparently ‘teachings’ don’t work.

Siddhartha tells him about the illusion of time, how only the present exists, and all possibilities exist at the same time, not in future or past. He explains to him oneness - the Brahman. And then of the divinity of all things. And because of this he is able to love everything, because everything is One.

Here Govinda says that the Buddha didn’t teach us to love, and yet this is not right. I don’t know why the author wrote this, but Buddhism teaches metta - loving-kindness for all beings which is the exact opposite of Govinda says here.

Siddhartha tells him that this is why they are arguing about words, about opinions — which shouldn’t be. Siddhartha then does something magical — he shows Govinda all his past lives, and he finally understands that Siddhartha has already reached enlightenment, much like the Buddha. He bends to him in tears.

Impact

What did not go well

The story left little philosophical effect because of its unnatural concoction. I feel the character of Govinda could have been developed further to give a sharper contrast between the two philosophies of Buddhism and Hinduism. The ending seemed a little contrived, with Siddhartha being able to perform a feat of magic, which was avoided mostly in the rest of the book.

What went well

The book got a lot of things right: acceptance, compassion and equanimity. It provided a good meal for thought.

I am still processing certain things: that every thought is one-sided, words are never true; time does not exist, so every future possibility and past event are always here — there is only the present; so everything is One.

These are bold claims. If no words could describe reality truthfully, then that means even the words that Siddhartha speaks are not true. It places a fundamental limit on what human language can achieve, and thus creates a barrier which can’t be crossed — which is self-defeating. Maybe there is a form of language which can describe our world truthfully — mathematics and Physics. They are still evolving, but maybe we will get there and have a TOE (theory of everything).

Regarding time, Siddhartha mentioned that every being is both alive and dead at the same time, because he does not recognise distinction in states with respect to time. For him all states exist at the same time perpetually. This is again a description of Oneness. But it does not make any sense. If the universe is static, is all One, then why do we have any cause and effect?

Buddhism clearly says that there is no inherent substance to most things. That is, they are not one. They are connected, but by causes and affects.

This is the fundamental conflict between the two traditions. The book takes sides with one, I would keep looking.

[SPOILER ALERT]

I read this book after a string of non-fictions and it was a nice change of pace. I initially read it when I was in high school, and then after at least twenty years so I had forgotten most of the plot, but was in awe of Ludlum’s writing since then.

The book took a lot of time, but it was well spent. Today’s attention spans don’t allow such largesse.

The traditional spy thriller is all about plot. This book has many such twists. In theory at least Paul Janson is similar to Jason Bourne--the more famous spy, even their names have a derivative feel. Both have a tragic past. Both stories start in a present when their careers are about to be over. Both are highly skilled.

Jason Bourne was created when Ludlum was at the peak of his career. Paul Janson is his last creation, actually the book was published posthumously.

Emphasis on action

The book begins and dives into action in the very first page, drawing the reader in. It doesn’t wait to create characters, only naming them and disposing them off after use works most of the time. The focus is always on the plot, on how action drives consequences. You get to see the casual Islamic terrorism plot, the spy who has turned into a ‘consultant’, his tragic life, and the further salvo.

As in the case of Jason Bourne, the protagonist often goes into a flashback of his erstwhile life as a Navy SEAL, which serves as a nice change in the scenery. In the scenes from Vietnam, the character of Alan Demarest takes shape. He is a psychotic villain, medieval music lover, casual intellectual who loves quoting from Emerson while torturing POWs. He talks in epithets, and his rendering is among the best things in the book.

The first mission that Janson takes in the book seems like an end in itself. It introduces characters like Theo Katsaris, and you start rooting for the team to succeed against tough odds, but the author continues on his unspoken dictum of killing them off exactly at the unexpected moment.

From the genesis, I had expected the main villain to be the Caliph, but he just becomes a small-time player after the initial mission. Indeed the mystery deepens as to who really is the main antagonist. Strange things happen to Janson, but he is not deterred.

One the strengths of Ludlum is the detailed descriptions he provides of tactical stratagems and manoeuvres. From the way Janson paratroops, tracks like an aeroplane, to how he manages standoffs with armed militia, and dodges snipers: it is all about the evasions, the rational decision making, the hits and the misses. These descriptions are often constrained, either by natural surroundings or by antagonists.

Foreshadowing

Ludlum drops clues to the reader about future plot twists. I for myself did not understand it when the caged Peter Novak says that there could only be one Peter Novak! It made sense after hundreds of pages.

In the middle of the mission, things go horribly wrong, but our protagonists always find a way to salvage things. They improvise and the reader keeps guessing as the tension builds up.

The technique of the opposites (irony)

The style often has a hint of irony. You have many sentences which underscore the dual meanings of entities. He would state one thing, then in the next breath he would say the opposite as well, yet both meanings co-exist. Sample this:

... he grabbed handfuls of her hair and sliced them off... As coiffure it was inelegant; as safety precaution it was a thing of beauty.

But it was Barry Cooper, the same old Barry Cooper, a litttle scary and somewhat crazy, but mostly neither of those things.

He looked like a jarhead but didn’t come on like one.

...accustomed to it, but not reconciled to it.

After the initial mission’s debacle, we get to some powerful scheming bureaucrats who are talking in pronouns. The reader keeps guessing who they are talking about, initially it is Janson, but later on they are talking about someone else but you are only sure after another hundred pages.

Janson keeps moving from one lead to another, always finding them to turn against him -- all his allies turning into his foes.

The story talks about anti-Americanism. Perhaps it was in vogue at the time of its creation, in the post 9/11 world. And some of that rings true, but the world has moved on now.

Mood and imagery

The scene keeps moving across countries -- from Anura, to Greece, to Britain and to Hungary. The descriptions of each country are immaculate, and I came across many words which I had to look up. The imagery is often suggestive of the combative mood of the story. Sample this:

Pitraes’ Great Harbor was a vast, circular inlet, cupping the ocean, so it seemed to Janson, like an open manacle--or one that was closing. [the opposites make an appearance here as well].

There are observations from psychology as well. Sample this:

Someone victimized by his own greed or lust was a readier object of sympathy than someone who came on his bad luck honestly.

POV technique

The POV is mostly that of Janson, though occasionally we see minor characters like Callahan--the doomed driver of an assassination, or Ratko--an assassin. The choice here is made because the agency of action of a scene sometimes lies with those who are going to be impacted. If Janson is not in the scene it can be someone expendable.

And then we come to Jessica Kincaid. She jumps into the plot as an antagonist, and turns into a secondary lead protagonist. There is some romantic tension between Paul and Jessie, which is resolved to a happy ending later.

Zoom technique

In order to enhance drama, Ludlum uses a peculiar technique many times in this book. Sample this:

In the jungle was a base. In the base was an office. In the office was a desk. At the desk was a man.

It is something that I remembered from twenty years ago. You zoom in from a great distance like a movie camera. But it may not be only distance, You may be zooming into the past.

Ludlum has done extensive research. Each place he describes has specific idiosyncrasies, and real historical references like King Matthias of Hungary.

Slackening of the pace

Ludlum’s descriptions turn verbose in the middle of the book. The pace slows a little, and it may be due to a lack of editing. Sample this:

Lakatos turned out to be a small, hunched man; the curvature of his upper spine set his head oddly forward on his neck, as if he were tucking in his chin. His cheeks were round, his nose bulbous, and his wattled neck was continuous with his jawline, giving his head a pearlike shape. He was a study in dissipation.

This is even more of an introduction that Jessica got. Note the summarising line at the end, which I feel serves no purpose.

In the middle overs, I found some parts not paying off well. For example chapter 22 in which Janson escapes from an arms-dealer while trying to get to the Liberty Foundation. This chapter does not add anything to the plot, and it might only have added to the action. If I were the editor, I would have probably removed it.

Character development through dialogue

I see that the dialogue is slick, and often there is character development imbued in how the conversations go.

“I should have been there...”

“You don’t know what sort of tripwires there might be at a rendezvous like that....”

“... it would have been a sensible precaution ...”

“It represented an unnecessary risk.”

“Damn straight.”

“To you, I mean.”

“...Treat me like a partner”

“A partner? Reality check. You’re twenty-nine...”

“I’ll be the best student you ever had.”

“... My students have something in common. They’re all dead.”

When Janson voices his concern about Jessie being an unnecessary risk, she asks to be used as a partner, to which Janson--acknowledging her expertise--says she is young, to which Jessie says she wants to be his protege, to which Janson--again acknowledging her point--gives a counterpoint of his students getting killed.

This conversation between Jessie and Paul after the arms-dealer fiasco shows that Janson has started to care for Jessie. It is an open and receptive talk.

At this point, the novelty of Janson’s knowledge and skills had worn off, so the writer tried various tricks to maintain the tension. He tried a scene in which Jessie plays the agent, in contrast. The story needed more tools like antagonists and subplots to make it more interesting.

The only remaining mystery of Novak’s origins is thus traced, and the scene moves to Hungary. And then we move onto a meeting with Derek Collins, the NSA guy, and then to Janson infiltrating a secure facility only to find it was a setup to bring him in, and thus meeting the President.

The final big mystery is revealed regarding Demarest, the two threads joined, and the story is now set up for the climax.

The climax takes place at the UN and there are a couple of twists here as well. Ludlum makes good use of the first subplot, guiding Caliph’s story to a happy ending, and then the customary tete-a-tete between the villain and the hero before the villain is vanquished. Janson comes to know that the death of his wife was arranged by Demarest and with this the reader is convinced of his guilt. Janson relives his suppressed memory in which he killed a young boy, explaining why he hesitated in the first mission in a similar situation.

Finally we come to the denouement in which some small loose ends are tied up. For a moment it seemed as if Demarest’s words were coming true, but Janson blackmails the President, and then successfully shuts down the Mobius Program, although it seemed a little far-fetched in my opinion.

Plot development techniques

I have a theory about how Ludlum developed a plot. There are two ways: one in which you develop it from the inside out, the other is to develop it from the outside to the inside.

Let’s say you have an idea, a conspiracy theory, that a powerful mogul is actually a decoy, a fiction created by a government to manipulate world affairs. The mogul is actually an ex-agent who has turned rogue. Now you build layers on top of it. The central idea is hidden, and you get a protagonist who has a disturbed past, and who is pulled into a machination by this mogul. Also he has a historical relationship with this mogul, but is unaware of the identity of this antagonist. So now you have a complex relationship, unknowns hiding the truth, and a journey through which the protagonist goes through character development. The POV is of the protagonist, who knows nothing, and at the end we reach the antagonist who knows everything. The truth is revealed layer by layer, creating tension and suspense. The payoff to the reader comes as each layer gets revealed.

In order to create mystery and introduce the antagonist, there are two parallel threads in the story, one which begins in the present and the other which begins in the past, and both merge at some point before the climax into the future.

There is little character development of the antagonist, because we see him majorly from the POV of the protagonist. and we don’t really get the motivation of the antagonist. Alan Demarest is an evil guy because..? We don’t get to know. Why is he so obsessed with reclaiming Janson, his lost protege? Why does he repeatedly assert that Janson and he are the one and the same? We don’t come to know.

The other way to develop is to envision from the outset. You have an ex-agent with a dark past. He goes on to one last mission. But his attempts are foiled, and he is hunted like an animal because of reasons unknown to him. He has flashbacks to his past misdeeds, and the man who was his guru as well his nemesis. Eventually he learns that the man is behind his current ordeal as well.

The development of the villain for conflict

This characterisation of the antagonist as someone you cared about, and especially someone who was a mentor, is not new. We see this in Star Wars, Batman Begins, Spiderman etc. It builds an emotional journey, which has conflict written in every move. Readers can get caught up in the decisions the antagonist and protagonist make. It makes up for a good story.

Scenery

Ludlum’s vocabulary is amazing. So many nuances and words from disparate fields like geology, architecture, textiles, history and psychology had to be looked up that I almost got discouraged if as an aspiring writer I would ever get that good. I have noted down close to 150 new words in my flashcards app.

Overall, it was fun reading this book. I learnt new techniques, and understood a little more about the genre of spy novels.

[Spoiler alert]

This movie is the typical Nolan parallel story of different periods and different events. The skill of the creator is in weaving them together, bringing out the conflict and the growth in characters.

Oppenheimer is followed in his initial (pre-war) career, war-time career and post-war career. These time periods are lensed through two hearings - Strauss’s (a politician who was the AEC chairman) and Oppenheimer’s. These timelines are often merged together, creating a complicated narrative drama.

Obsessions of the youth

We begin in two hearings. Oppenheimer is being deposed and Strauss being deposed at another hearing (for confirmation for the post of Secretary of Commerce).

Oppenheimer gets into a flashback. It begins on a crisis with Oppenheimer poisoning an apple of his tutor’s, keeps awake at night wondering about the fundamental questions of physics. Regret follows and goes to throw away the apple. Crisis deepens as his idol Bohr is about to eat it. But he snatches it at the last moment and throws it away. At the same time Bohr suggests he go study with Max Born.

He finds joy in research. He fully immerses himself into it.

The frame shifts and we move back to Strauss. He meets Oppenheimer to convince him to take the job at Princeton. We see the difference between the two characters. While Strauss is a ‘self-made man’, a former businessman, he is anxious to sell this position to Oppenheimer. But Oppenheimer remains cool, doesn’t respond to his overtures. He calls him ‘a lowly shoe salesman’. Strauss corrects him - ‘just a shoe salesman‘, feeling insulted. Oppenheimer keeps on correcting him. Strauss is eager to introduce him to Einstein, but Oppenheimer already has known him for years, and doesn’t buy his title of ‘the greatest mind of our time’. Strauss shows his petty thinking when he assumes that Oppenheimer said something to Einstein which soured their relationship.

We move on to Oppenheimer’s hearing again where there is a rude question about meeting any Russians. Oppenheimer then moves to his story in Holland where we come to know that he has learnt German in a few weeks to give a lecture. We meet Isodor Rabi, a Jew from America. They strike up a friendship. We understand that Oppenheimer has a very strong will.

He then meets Heisenberg. We get introduced to Oppenheimer’s ranch in Santa Fe.

He returns to Caltech and finds an empty department. He meets Lawrence, the experimental physicist.

Gets his first pupil, Lomanitz. His class grows.

We veer back to the Strauss hearing where he mentions Oppenheimer’s security file which has his left wing activities.

The personal story

The FBI had taken an interest in suspected communist gatherings. We get introduced to Frank, his brother, Chevalier the literature professor. We see the fire behind the motivation to do something concrete, something apart from his abstract physics research. This is why he meets communists, but he himself does not commit to any ideology. He meets Jean, his love interest and a communist herself. They hit chemistry. He reveals to her how he had to undergo therapy because of the poisoning episode. She is attracted to his intellect. They make love while he reads to her Sanskrit - ‘and now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’

The scene shifts to Santa Fe. Frank, Lawrence, Oppenheimer go to the ranch. Frank talks about his marriage to a communist. We understand that this place - Los Alamos - is very special to Oppenheimer.

I see that even such small incidents like a trip to a desert have crucial plot points which make the story move.

We move to an urgency created by a scientific breakthrough. The splitting of the uranium nucleus. Oppenheimer envisions the concept of the atomic bomb.

The relationship with Jean becomes complicated as she shows her neurotic side.

Hitler invades Poland. We move back to Oppenheimer’s deposition and get introduced to Kitty - his wife - a former biologist who had been married twice before. They meet on the ranch.

She gets pregnant, then gets a divorce. Oppenheimer breaks it off from Jean. Jean shows she still cares for him. She reveals what Oppenheimer couldn’t admit about himself - that he believed he was above the rules, so he betrayed a fellow academic and married his wife. Jean cautions him against getting lost in his own aura. Oppenheimer goes on to do exactly this, and then spends out his entire life carrying the burden.

Oppenheimer is self-obsessed and begins to unionise the college students.

Lawrence tries to stop him. He tries to tell him that Oppenheimer is being tracked. Oppenheimer promises to stop. He gets into the Manhattan project.

We move back to Strauss hearing in which he is asked what changed his mind about revoking Oppenheimer’s security clearance after the war when he was cleared during the war. Strauss denies any involvement in Oppenheimer’s hearing. We now get an idea that the two hearings might be related.

Strauss heaps that blame on Borden, an anti-communist. At this moment we don’t know who is telling the truth. Strauss chuckles as he recollects how Robert was non-manipulative, did not grease the right people. Someone gave Robert’s file to Borden. He recollects the incident when Robert gave a testimony in AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) against Strauss.

Los Alamos

The story continues from the point Robert gets inducted into the project. He comes home to Kitty drunk and a baby crying in the background. We realise that his self-obsession is taking a toll on his family. He gives his baby to Chevalier for sometime because he wanted to focus on the project. Chevalier praises his insight. We realise Robert may be made for better things.

We see Kitty motivating Robert to take a lead on the project. I feel a little lost opportunity here to build on the crisis developed in the last scene.

We meet Groves who interviews Robert for his recruitment. The dynamic is electric. Groves is sharp, can see through the demeanour of brilliance, and calls a spade a spade. He listens to Robert about his proposal and recruits him as project director.

We immediately see the passion for planning, meticulous thinking, his knowledge of the atom, about Heisenberg. He seems perfect for the job. We see his drive for practical contribution when he praises Nobel for his invention of dynamite. This is character building. He doesn’t want compartmentalization. But Groves asserts his authority. Oppenheimer says he couldn’t run a hamburger stand, but he could run the Manhattan project. All because he was motivated to do so. And the crisis begins when he says that Germany already had a headstart, but they were against Jews which would limit Heisenberg’s resources, while Americans could unite everyone including Jews with vast resources.

Robert next fulfills his childhood wish and convinces Groves to make a town in Los Alamos for the experiment. They go on to recruit scientists.

Rabi introduces us to the moral dilemma around the bomb. But everything is forgotten in the face of a marching adversary. Robert discards the military uniform. And lets go of his ego and delegates the research work to others. We see growth.

We get introduced to Teller. He tells us about the possible sustained chain reaction. This crisis grows. Oppenheimer rushes to get Einstein’s view. Einstein advises him to do the right thing. If indeed the calculation were right, he should share this with the Nazis. So that neither side destroys the world.

We fast forward to the resolution as we come to know that the probability of igniting the atmosphere was near-zero.

Robert now visits Chevalier where he suggests to Robert that there was a way by which scientific secrets could be shared with the Russians (through Eltenton). We understand clearly now that Robert is not a traitor even though his open-mindedness landed him in such circles.

We move to Robert’s hearing as he narrates this incident while defending Chevalier. And then move to Strauss hearing where we understand that a scientist is being brought to testify. This highlights what Strauss thinks of scientists. He blames them for being pig-headed, and is thinking of strategies to turn this development in his favor.

We shift back to Robert’s story, now it is not clear who is telling the story. But it is an omniscient narrator. Understanding the position of conflict with Chevalier, Robert shifts his son and family to Los Alamos.

We move to the research again. Now a cinematic device is introduced. The glass jar which signifies the amount of uranium they have synthesized till now. It will ultimately be replaced by an actual bomb in terms of image. But it will keep getting filled as they inch closer to their goal.

Teller, as usual, gives a differing view. He wants to work on the hydrogen bomb.

We move to a post-war meeting in which we come to know that Russians have created an atomic bomb, which raises questions over how security was handled in Los Alamos.

We move back to the story, but now there is more tension, as Nichols, a security commander, looks over how information is flowing. There is the British contingent with Fuchs, Oppenheimer not following compartmentalisation; Nichols telling Groves about all this.

We go back to the AEC meeting where Strauss’s conflict with Robert becomes clear. Strauss openly suspects that there was a spy at Los Alamos. Or else how did Russians create their plutonium bomb?

This now becomes the main focus of the contention.

Groves comes back into the picture and testifies in Robert’s hearing. We come to know that Robert was given security clearance only because Groves had insisted on it during the war.

We move back to the AEC meeting where Nichols again brings up Jean and Chevalier.

He is ashamed about breaking his word with Jean - he had said he would always answer her calls. Not because he leaked any secrets. This vulnerability exposes him to the circling hawks in the hearing. They attack him. Jean dies after Robert left, most probably due to suicide.

Kitty leaves- she had known about this incident from before - but urges Robert to fight back, and not give in to the attack. We move to Colonel Pash, who testifies in Robert’s hearing. This time it is bad. We come to know that Oppenheimer had told Pash about Eltenton reaching out to Chevalier about information on the bomb from the Russians. We see how Oppenheimer is a simpleton in matters of subterfuge, has trouble concealing his thoughts. Pash would not let this go. So Groves transferred him to London. This does not augur well in the hearing.

I see the parallel between Prometheus and Oppenheimer fitting, because Prometheus spent his life chained to a rock and eaten by an eagle because of his act of defiance. Similarly Oppenheimer is shown to be tormented when his security clearance was revoked. This forced him to silence himself in matters of public policy regarding nuclear arms, as the world moved into the Cold War. He thought himself to be responsible for the unveiling, but he was unable to do anything about it.

The story moves back to Los Alamos. Robert is devastated because Jean is dead. There is a possible murder angle as well. He feels responsible for her death.

Meanwhile back to the bomb: the scientists are quarreling, Teller tries to leave. Here, a crisis between Teller and Robert develops. Teller wants to work on the H-bomb, Robert finally gives in. He tells Robert, ‘you are a politician now.’ It underscores the shift in Robert’s role. In his quest to be pragmatic, he had left Physics behind long ago.

This realisation serves as a catalyst to the next major crisis: the moral dilemma behind the atomic bomb.

We now go to the AEC meeting again where the counter to the Russian test is discussed: the H-bomb. We see the post-war Robert who is decidedly against the use of atomic weapons. This is opposite to Strauss who is the politician and wants to use this opportunity. Nichols tries to assert that there were security lapses at Los Alamos. There is a heated debate in which the H-bomb is discussed.

An auditorium reverberating with thumping feet is foreshadowed. Robert keeps on reliving that memory. With time its meaning transforms.

At the AEC meeting, Borden meets Robert. Borden recounts his days as a fighter pilot and dreams of what a V2 rocket would look like carrying an H-bomb. Robert is unable to read him, suggests peace and Borden starts hating him.

Back at the hearing, Strauss is asked more questions on how Robert’s file could have been procured by Borden for an indictment which led to Robert’s security clearance revocation.

Back at Robert’s hearing, Teller testifies in strong support of Robert. We come to know that there were meetings at Los Alamos where people were not in favor of dropping the bomb on a defeated Germany. Robert then had advocated for its use justifying on two bases: Japan still fought on, and for future deterrence.

We now see the glass jars are full of pebbles, which means the bomb was ready for testing.

Robert negotiates with Groves to call Frank to Los Alamos. This comes back to him at his hearing.

Groves and Robert fly to Washington to give the President a date for the test. Szilard and Hill intercept him and ask him to desist. But Robert is at the moment vainglorious. He doesn’t listen seriously enough, or so it seems because of Groves being in earshot.

At the meeting with the Secretary, he tries to highlight the psychological power of the bomb’s detonation. It is shown that Kyoto is taken off the list for its cultural significance and the fact that the Secretary honeymooned there. Everyone agrees that Japan will not surrender. They intend to detonate it twice.

The talk goes to an assertion of might, and how it would end up ‘saving lives’. Then the question of sharing this intelligence with the Russians comes. Robert is concerned about an arms race. He wants atomic cooperation, but the Secretary rejects this and says they have to continue the atomic programme even faster than before. Robert tries to raise this point that not all scientists agree, but Groves interjects and raises the point of these scientists’ loyalty. Robert is speechless, and the deadline for the test ‘Trinity’ is set.

Trinity test

Suspense and tension mount as the jar is replaced by an actual bomb, logistics are set, blast radius is discussed. Weather sours, and Robert asks Kitty to take in the sheets if it has been successful. The final implosion test fails, the rain won’t let up. The scientists make bets on the kilotons, implosion, atmospheric ignition etc. It is quintessential last-hour ‘gallows’ humor.

So, at 5:30 in the morning, as a child Robert had known, the rain lets up. The audience already knows that they will succeed, yet it is hard not to hold your breath. 3 years of hard work, 2 billion dollars: would they succeed?

They sit on their cars, in their cars, with welder’s glasses, UV protection cream. Flares go off at twenty minutes, at two minutes, countdown begins: fingers shaking on that trigger button.

After the initial impact settles, they are shaken back to the ground with a massive shockwave. It serves to return us back to the action. It is jubilation all around. Feynman plays his bongo. Kitty gets a call to ‘take in the sheets’.

The bombings

As expected this turning point was merely a gateway to another crisis. Joy gives way to consternation. The military takes over. They pack up the bombs, Robert doesn’t get any details on what would happen next. He is worried. But he consoles himself that the bomb would act as a deterrent to ‘perhaps all war’. Teller replies, alluding to the H-bomb, unless someone builds a bigger one.

We reach the auditorium again, this time not as a flashback. Oppenheimer enters the room: people are happy, they are celebrating. He feels the weight of his actions. He is unable to bring his voice close to the joy of the room. He is choked with self-loathing. He starts hallucinating, his smile does not reach his eyes. He hears the shrieks of people that had died. The room is mute. His voice is hollow. He sees the skin peeling away from dying people, the bright light washing away the rancor. He steps into a charcoal body; sees people crying, vomiting out of radiation poisoning.

He meets President Truman. Truman seems absolutely unaware of the moral weight Robert feels. Robert again brings up atomic cooperation with the USSR, but Truman rejects it. They discuss why Robert would be leaving Los Alamos. Robert confesses that ‘he has blood on his hands’. When this is spelt out, Truman grows angry, and Robert has to leave. While leaving, we hear Truman calling him a ‘crybaby’.

This sets the motivation for the crisis we have been following all along - the cancellation of his security clearance. Strauss mentions how Robert started using his influence as ‘father of the bomb’ to change US atomic policies. The example of the isotope export is brought up in Robert’s hearing. Strauss narrates that those who had their security clearance revoked (like Frank, Lomanitz, Chevalier) ended up working in lowly jobs. But even these did not stop Oppenheimer to force AEC to recommend atomic cooperation instead of the H-bomb. Truman rejected this recommendation and started the H-bomb programme because of the USSR’s test.

Fuchs, the British scientist, who had joined the programme at Los Alamos turns out to be a spy. And this is told to Robert by a gloating Strauss.

Strauss then narrates to his aide at his hearing how Robert was investigated and tailed after Fuchs. This was the McCarthy era. But Robert did not stop. When Eisenhower took over, Robert again tried to push for atomic cooperation with the USSR, but this was too much. Borden complained to the FBI, and Robert lost his security clearance. Without that, he could no longer speak publicly on the atomic programme. Obviously, Strauss lays the blame squarely on Robert’s own shoulders.

The story shifts back to Robert and Teller where we understand the new position Robert finds himself in after the bombings. The Cold War has begun. There is an understanding that the bombings may have not been required at all. And there is a break with Teller when Robert refuses to advocate for the H-bomb.

Strauss’s animus

Back at Strauss’s hearing, we see that he has pivoted, and openly acknowledged to Time magazine that he had fought against Robert out of patriotism. This is a turning point.

Until now Strauss was kept clean. Now questions arise. We understand that Robert, back at his hearing, had also figured this out. Strauss’s own ego had led to a vindictiveness. He had been playing hidden in the shadows. So now our villain is identified. Kitty asks Robert why won’t he fight him.

Strauss openly acknowledges his role in Oppenheimer’s security clearance revocation to his aide. He set up the whole thing. His politician’s instinct told him that to truly stop Oppenheimer, his credibility must be destroyed; and this needed to be done far from the limelight. So a security clearance meeting turned into a trial, and all his statements would be entered into his record.

Robert’s lawyer does not have security clearance, so he couldn’t help him at all. We move to the main conflict, the trial. Rabi, Teller, Groves testify. Lawrence declines. The letter of indictment is read, alleging that Robert was an agent of the USSR. Robert just wonders, will there ever be a time the truth about that letter would be revealed?

At the hearing of Robert, Teller and Groves testify against Robert. We see Kitty rattle the counsel.

But on the other side, the same thing has started to happen to Strauss. Eerily, it is karma in action. We see Strauss show his vindictiveness. He presents Robert to his aides as an opportunist, an egoist and a disingenuous man. He doesn’t realise, but he is only talking about himself. He feels threatened by him, he still thinks Oppenheimer turned Einstein against him!

We switch back to Robert’s cross-examination, where he is deliberately asked questions to humiliate him on his H-bomb position, given he had agreed to dropping the fission bomb earlier. This brings us right to the contradiction - why did he agree to build the fission bomb but was against the H-bomb. The prosecution wanted to link this to his being a traitor. It was Robert’s guilt which he could not acknowledge in the record.

Finally, his security clearance gets revoked.

The climax

We come to the ending scene. The Senate denies Strauss - just as Robert had been denied, Kennedy being the one who voted against. Robert meets his wife, we understand it was Robert who had been punishing himself by not fighting in the hearing. Back in the room with Strauss, we realise it was not Strauss who Einstein and Oppenheimer talked about that day, but something much more important. Strauss couldn’t imagine a world which didn’t revolve around him.

We come back to the beginning - the reason which sparked the animus of Strauss: the meeting in which Robert and Einstein didn’t talk about him. Einstein is old now, he treats Robert with respect - like an old colleague. Einstein reminds him of the law of karma: just the way he had to deal with the fallout of his discoveries, so would Oppenheimer. We get the glimpse of an old Oppenheimer being felicitated by the government; we see Teller, Rabi and Lawrence have made peace with Oppenheimer.

And so, Robert relives his burden again. He had wondered if they would destroy the world in a chain reaction during Trinity. They didn’t that day. But in the fallout, they did. The arms race had begun. And there was no stopping the nuclear world. He imagines again the V2 rocket, Earth being engulfed in a nuclear winter. His punishment goes on.

We understand the reason behing Einstein’s sullen mood. It was not about Strauss. His discovery had laid the foundation of the quantum world, and from that world, came the atomic bomb. It was about what his own discovery had brought forth, just like Robert.

Have you watched The Lunchbox? It is a shorter, remodeled Forrest Gump.

Initially it felt like it was about escapism. But the ending made me a little uncertain. I felt confused if it is about acceptance or escapism.

Let the analysis begin!

Escapism or acceptance?

Escapism is about apathy. It occurs from indifference, resignation. It is disengagement with the present. When you have a fixed view of yourself, you don't want to adapt, you may want to escape from reality.

The film constantly talks about death as the final escape. It builds a fantasy world - of Bhutan, love letters, an understanding and sensitive partner - to escape from the reality of the present.

Ila

I thought that the character of Ila is written from an escapist point of view. Instead of engaging with the problem of her dysfunctional marriage, she opts to have an affair. A random kind stranger should do the job. It is shown that the husband had an affair, so it is conveniently justified to throw the marriage under the bus by having an affair of your own. Ila doesn't want to understand the root problem. She tries to talk to her husband about a second child but is rebuffed, so she gives up and is soon tempted into the fantasy of Bhutan.

Saajan

The character of Saajan is much more nuanced. He is a widower, a loner - having a fixed life. He is also indifferent. He jokes about pushing a cat under the bus, juxtaposing the cat with an old man. Problems start surfacing with this approach when changes ask him to adapt. Ila gives him a reason to postpone retirement. But he is also pulled into her escapist notion. He starts imagining that she is his girlfriend, even though in reality he doesn't know much about her. He starts to fancy himself as a suitor.

Reality hits this fantasy when he realises he is old. So, he doesn't meet her. Even though this started from acceptance, his not meeting her is about insecurity. He thinks he doesn't deserve her because she is too young for him. This is coming from his fixed view of himself. Here is the conundrum- was this escapism or acceptance?

The pivot

Later he realises that he wants children, a connection to the world in which he has nobody. Shaikh was also an orphan. This moved something in him.

He then accepts Shaikh whom he had avoided before. This signals indifference turning into acceptance. This change also causes him to own up Shaikh's mistakes - an act of compassion. He starts indulging kids playing in this yard. Compassion comes as a result of acceptance.

So, he goes back to find Ila. This is now about adaptation. He has now no problem with being old and wanting to have a relationship. He has adjusted. He engages instead of running away to Nasik. His not meeting her was denial of the present, of his feelings. So even though he is old, he was still rejecting the fact that he had feelings, denying the present.

Open ending

But the film ends before this goes any further. And I think this is why the film's message is not about celebrating escapism. The film ended at this point because it did not want to emphasize escapism, or acceptance of the present.

The lunchbox serves as the karmic vehicle for both, bringing forth their affinities. We see little change in Ila's character - she is still into escapism. She has sold her jewelry, and is preparing to run away to Bhutan. But we see a real change in Saajan. He is moving in, she is moving out. This contrast is what the film is all about. It doesn't show a neat end because it doesn't want to take sides. It is about fluidity of life.

I suspect if they had met, it would not have been a happy ending, their arcs having diverged so much.

We saw the same themes in Forrest Gump earlier, but there the film takes a clear stance in favor of acceptance and compassion.

The film ‘F1: the movie’ is about how the love of a process trumps the passion for a result. Ironically, while the film is about racing on the surface, the emotional core is not about winning. This layered structure is what makes it watchable.

Search for peace

It talks about experience, being grounded, mentoring, leading by example, ditching stereotypes. Sonny Hayes, the veteran, is haunted by his unfinished career. He is not motivated by money or fame; these are all 'noise' to him. What he yearns for is a moment of peace which he could only find when he is immersed in driving. It is about dissolving his identity, his ego into the present, into an experience, so that he could finally rest in his wanderings.

But sometimes there's this moment in the car where everything goes quiet. My heartbeat slows. It's peaceful. And I can see everything. And no one, no one can touch me. I'm chasing that moment every time I get in the car.

For this he is willing to go to any lengths. Piece by piece he would disentangle all that was going wrong with his fledgling team. He would guide his young teammate Joshua, help fix the car's aerodynamics, boost the pit crew's morale, redo the strategy. It is hard work, but he is only doing it for a selfish reason: so that he is able to drive. Not win. Only exist.

Right intention

Even though the reason is selfish, the intentions are pure. The intention is grounded in an inner motivation, in a process and in dissolving the self. It is about discovery of himself, not attached to anything external, without any end goal, and arises from compassion for the self. He just wants to be.

Pain and the process

It is not all a cakewalk; he stumbles too. He loses control to his anger, and meets with an accident. He has an ugly brawl with Joshua. His body battles with pain daily.

Why're you here?

We can see that he is still searching. He is aware, but he has not transcended his attachments-his pride, his longing to prove something. He has not realised the illusory nature of the self, so his cravings return sometimes. The craving to win causes anger at a setback (when his car's upgrade is cancelled), which leads to a grisly accident. The craving to be the alpha driver causes tensions with Joshua.

Despite the hiccups, his intentions are pure enough to guide him back to the right path. He takes no offense when he is laughed at during press meets. He gets to work helping fixing the car and strategy. He adapts to the situation, they did not have the car for straight lines, so he focuses on the curves.

Adapting with acceptance

Adaptation is a crucial part of awareness. Once we understand we are all interconnected, we automatically accept without judgement and adapt, but this does not come at the cost of our will. While the rest of the team were blaming the car for their failure, he accepts it and gets to work with what he has.

Mentorship

Sonny Hayes is not a mentor in the traditional sense. He is not a leader with a whistle. He leads by example. By doing what he preaches. He takes risks himself, and inspires without meaning to. When he sees cockiness in Joshua, he understands it from a point of view of compassion. Joshua's transformation is key. He shows him by doing it himself. He tells him that his abrasiveness was coming from fear. He sees through his insecurity, tells him to cut the noise, and focus on the process-'drive fast'. He lets him win, so that he gains confidence. His own win is unimportant, as long as they survive. Note that the mentoring happens through communicating about intention. It is upto the mentee to implement its specifics.

Mentorship needs right intention (not from a point of passion/self-awareness), checking if the mentee is ready, and checking if the time is right.

Transformation

I would win a million times, you should have at least one.

Joshua finds respect for him as he outgrows his insecurity and fear. He realises the purity of Sonny's intentions, lets go of his clinging to wins. He initially blames Sonny for his accident, but later on realises his own mistake. A good intention causes rippling, and reciprocation. He becomes compassionate himself. He ultimately sacrifices personal ambition to make way for Sonny's maiden win.

Search goes on

Finally when they succeed, Sonny is nowhere to be found. He goes back to his room, far from the rousing crowd, away from the din, because he had found peace during his last race. A win doesn't change his intention, even if it was the most famous race tournament of the world.

The ending is apt - it ends in a journey, not a result. He continues to explore other racing formats. Not because he won, but because he has not yet transcended his own identity. He’s still searching.

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दहलीज़ एक अनिष्ट प्रेम की कहानी है. मुझे लेखक का चित्रण अच्छा लगा. कहानी मे कुछ खास नया नहीं है. कहानी का पूरा ध्यान एक स्मृति पर है.

पहले अनुच्छेद में कोई पूर्ण विराम ना होने के कारण मुझे यह सोचना पड़ा की ऐसा क्यों किया गया होगा. फिर से पढ़ने पर लगा की ठीक ही किया जो नही लगाया, क्योंकि पूरा अनुच्छेद एक लंबा-सा वाक्य है, जो स्मृति से उपजा है.

दूसरे अनुच्छेद में ही एक प्रश्न पाठक के मन में डाल दिया जाता है, जो आगे पढ़ने पर मजबूर करता है. यह एक अच्छा तरीका है जो मैने पहले नही पकड़ा. एक अधूरा विचार लिख दिया जाता है. उसे पूरा उत्कर्ष में किया जाएगा. यह मनोवैज्ञानिक दृष्टि से सही भी है. अक्सर ऐसा होता है कि हम कष्टकारी विचारों या स्मृतियों से बचते हैं. इस तरह से कहानी में यथार्थ आ जाता है.

कहानी की ताक़त उसका सजीव विवरण है. तितली की धड़कन से लेकर आकाश के मध्य झूलते तार के बीच के आकाश की फलक जैसे सूक्ष्म विवरण से ऐसा समा बन जाता है की मानो आप वही पर हैं. लेखन मे एहसास को महीन तरीके से व्यक्त किया गया है, मानो पल को जी लिया.

पात्र का परिचय क्रियाओं और प्रसंगों के मध्य होता है, जिससे पाठक का कौतूहल बना रहता है.

परिचय होते-होते एक टकराव डाल दिया जाता है. यहाँ अंतर्द्वंद्व है. मुख्य पात्र, जिसकी स्मृति है, उसके मन का क्लेश है. लेखक समय नहीं व्यर्थ करते. क्रिया होते-होते वो इस संघर्ष की तरफ लेकर आते हैं. रहस्य का निर्माण होता है.

परतें धीरे-से खोलते हैं. उस ओझल स्मृति में अंततः चले जाते हैं, जो पहले अधूरी छोडी थी.

लेखक बाल मन के प्रेम की सटीक प्रस्तुति करते हैं. गले का रुंध जाना, भावविव्हल होने पर रोने को एक हक मानना, यह बाल मन का खाका खीचते हैं. दहलीज़ वह अध्याय है जब बचपन पीड़ा के उद्भव से जवानी मे प्रवेश कर जाता है.

लेखन में गति सहज है, जैसे कविता हो. प्रेम की अभिव्यक्ति न कर पाने की बौखलाहट, आतुरता, मुट्ठी का भींचना और खुलना, यह वर्णन सही मनः स्थिति मुद्रित करता है.

फिर आता है उत्कर्ष और उपसंहार. यहाँ के बाद कहानी एक सीधी नदी हो जाती है. और हमें उस अधूरे विचार की परिणति भी मिल जाती है.

For this weekend, let’s rewatch a lost gem of Indian cinema.

This film is remarkable for its original story, layered conflict, and emotional depth. Characters are not only well-drawn but also given the space to grow through muted, expressive moments.

Spoilers ahead.

Mute but powerful

Some of the most powerful scenes contain no dialogue.

In a scene, Shekhar is asleep in his car and Piya comes and wants to caress his face but stops. It shows the nature of her nascent feelings and her own guilt out of her love for Amar.

In another, Shekhar lets a hundred-dollar note fly away—a symbolic moment we’ll return to later.

Then there is the car ride in which little is said, but a lot is developed between Piya and Shekhar via glances and expressions.

Priyanshu’s expressive dreamy eyes are featured prominently and exclusively in the frame which capture the story's mood.

Talking to the mute Babaji is a unique plot device. It also serves as the cathartic point of the emotional conflict of the major characters.

Songs serve as a great way to show these mute moments. Piya seeing Amar's visions, chasing after him in dreams, then waking up at nights, being joined in by Fufu.

Layered conflicts

Conflict is the bread and butter of a story.

There is conflict between Shekhar’s sense of uprightness and the guilt of manslaughter. Then there is conflict between his love for Piya and his guilt.
For Piya, there is conflict between her love for Shekhar and Amar. Conflict between her duty to her company and her love. Conflict between her duty to her company and Abhi's proposal.

For the police inspector, there is conflict between duty and the need of a family.

For Babaji, there is conflict between love for his son and his family's need of Shekhar.

There is conflict between India and Pakistan's culture and language in the comic sideline of Iftikhar.

When Piya asks Shekhar to leave over a diagreement, she secretly hopes for him to remain. Shekhar lets go of a hundred dollar note over the bridge (for the bet he had placed with Amar), she gazes after him in hope, but when he turns back, she looks away. Finally when he leaves, she is left aghast. The conflict in their motivations is never so clear as in this scene. Shekhar is consumed by guilt, and thus cannot stay. Piya is also hanging onto Amar's company, and cannot step back. Both are bound by love, but choose to deny their love for a love which they felt towards Amar.

Love asks for sacrifice

All characters exemplify this.

Piya is ready to sacrifice her love for her company. Shekhar is ready to sacrifice his love to spare the family the pain of telling them the truth. Abhi is ready to sacrifice his love for Piya's happiness.

Grief, loss and penance

Different people deal with grief differently. For Piya, it first leads to desperation. She is convinced that the company is doomed and she has given up. Then later on, she makes it a mission to uplift the company at the cost of her love and family, because in her grief, Amar's only legacy is the company.
Babaji goes silent in his grief. Shekhar had created a bond with Amar before his death, and the guilt and grief compels him to first seek forgiveness, and then give up his love (for penance) because he feels unworthy. He even goes against Piya on the issue of merger because he feels responsible to Amar. Babaji also says that Shekhar's remorse and guilt are proof of his honesty and serve as his penance.

Genuine remorse is thus a form of repentance. It leads to love and ultimately to forgiveness.

The film also gives a perspective on how to deal with loss. Amar comes to Piya in a dream and says that his loss has not stopped the world, so why should it stop Piya's life? What could have been is a mere fiction, and weeping for something which could never be true is a mistake. She should remember her time with him and that time would always be a source of happiness, not grief. Life awaits her, he cannot come back, she should let his memory serve as a catalyst to live.

Shekhar gifts Piya a hat, and while she smiles trying the hat, he says she should try to be happy just like that, she looks good when happy. In other words, live in the moment, not the past.

Love with its foundations in integrity

Piya falls in love with Shekhar because he is kind, humble, upright, a gentleman and has got a great work ethic.

Shekhar is an empathetic person. He falls in love with Piya because of her loving nature, her independent life as a career woman and because of his sympathy for her loss.

Poetic justice

Towards the end, Shekhar recites the poem on phone. Note that it was on phone that Piya had recited the poem. This is deliberate. Once he gets arrested, the burden of penance is lifted off him and then he is able to confess his love and guilt to Piya. There is poetic justice, as Shekhar also gets hurt in an accident.

Then Shekhar is let off the hook by the police because he had served his penance, and helped so many more lives.

Irony

Piya says that miracles happen in stories, not life. Ironically this is said in a story, and then the 'miracle', in form of Shekhar enters the scene.

Love as redeemer

Shekhar had thought he would never be worthy of the family's love because of what he had done. But not only does the family accept him, but his father forgives him. His love undoes whatever wrong he did.

Busting stereotypes

The film has characters of a mixed culture.

Even though Piya was only engaged to Amar, after her death the family considers her to be a daughter whose marriage is now their duty. She continues to manage the company even though Amar is no more.

Strong women characters

Piya initially resists attempts by Shekhar to help. Even after Shekhar takes charge, she resists him saying she does not need a crutch. When Shekhar says he is just there to share this time with her, she accepts. Even while working, she does not want to rely on him unnecessarily. She goes against her shareholders, her family to approve the merger. When Shekhar does not agree, she asks him to leave.

Her Fufu makes a decision to marry Iftikhar, which is another way to show a strong independent woman.

Immaculate direction

Attention to detail

Sandali's childike voice is offset beautifully with Priyanshu's baritone. In the journey sequence, Shekhar and Piya stop in the middle, but the car signals first. Abhi uses a one-way mirror to enunciate grabbing the moment for its opportunities.

Tight dialogue

Shekhar tries to explain to Mili why death happens with a make-belief story of how God sends good people to others more in need. But then because of his guilt is not able to extend the explanation to Amar's case. This shows dialogue follows the emotional sanctity of the character.

When Abhi probes Piya about the concept of a soulmate, she answers in a platonic manner, but actually she is talking about Shekhar, while Abhi assumes it to be for him. It shows she is ready to move in her relationship with Shekhar, while also developing the arc for Abhi.

There are many more such examples.

Single face frames

The movie focuses on single face frames to bring out emotive eyes of Sandali and Priyanshu. It brings out the loneliness the characters face after tragedy.

Using song sequences

The song sequences further the story, and build the universe of the story’s themes.

‘…Tune ankho se koi baat kahi ho jaise’ [As if you had said something with your eyes]

This line mirrors so much that makes this movie unique.

Cinematography

The mood changes with the scenery. It goes from a lonely office to a snowed road trip, and then to a glass office at the top of an industrial tower, to a wedding, then to a hospital and the flat planes of an airfield. The movie is focused on loneliness, so often the action takes place in secluded places, like a car or an empty road.

Climax

The story could have ended far earlier when Piya confesses her feelings to Shekhar. But the writers realised that the emotional conflict had not yet reached its zenith.

Instead of giving a bare ending, they let the conflict to escalate even further. Shekhar refuses her love because of his enduring guilt, Abhi moves in to get engaged to Shekhar, Shekhar gets arrested, confesses, and then gets hurt in an accident. This rallies Babaji and the entire family, bringing out the love that the family reciprocated, closing the crucial loops of repentence, loss, grief, and redemption.

Career vs personal time

Abhi often asks Piya to take out more time for herself. Fufu wants Piya to take it easy. Shekhar takes time out to celebrate Mili's birthday.

Themes of grief, love, guilt, sacrifice, and redemption are seamlessly integrated into the plot, visuals, music, and performances. It’s a film where everything matters—and speaks—even in silence.

I started reading this book as a getaway from serious non-fiction. It was a good read, though I could have been more satisfied with the ending.

Grisham’s style

Grisham uses an easy, simple language. His characters are not deep. This might be done deliberately to focus on the plot. He keeps a razor-sharp focus on action.

His method is to focus on the basics of storytelling. Dive into action, create a backdrop, pose questions, reveal mysteries, pose more questions, keep the reader guessing. Do not focus too much on character studies. Even the protagonists are kept hidden halfway through the book. This is why we don’t see any names on chapters.

His sentences are concise and precise. Often he uses numbers as embellishments of his plots: how wealthy a CEO is, how much leverage a broker has, and so on.

He believes in setting a background before diving into the story. Often this would be a picture taken well after the action has begun, described without all the past history and context. The context then slowly builds up, as and when a new character walks in, or some action takes place.

Dialogues begin naturally to emphasise the action, peppered with the undercurrent. It is more like a play, all focus is on action and the motivations of the characters.

One interesting example: Jerry and Nicholas are shown as best friends on the jury. Nicholas, being the ringmaster, and Jerry his aide, together corner Lonnie Shaver to understand where he is leaning towards in the trial. This relationship is not stated, but shown to the reader via the dialogue.

“Jerry and I had pegged you as a defense juror,” Nicholas explained. “It was difficult though, because you’ve had so little to say.“

“And what are you?“ Lonnie asked.

“Me, I’m still open-minded. Jerry’s leaning toward the defense, right, Jerry?“

“I have not discussed the case with anyone. I have had no unauthorised contact. I have not taken any bribes. I am a juror Judge Harkin can be proud of.“

“He’s leaning toward the defense,“ Nicholas said to Lonnie. “Because he’s addicted to nicotine, can’t kick the habit, but he’s convinced himself he can throw them away whenever he wants. He can’t, because he’s a wimp. But he wants to be a real man like Colonel Herrera.“

“Who doesn’t?“ Lonnie said.

“Jerry thinks that because he can quit, if he really wanted to, then anyone should be able to quit, which he can’t do himself, and therefore Jacob Wood [plaintiff] should’ve stopped long before he got cancer.“

“That’s about right,“ Jerry said. “But I object to the part about the wimp.“

“Makes good sense to me,“ Lonnie said.

Grisham does not assume knowledge of the courtroom and its customs from the reader. He keeps on educating the reader along the way.

Unlike other books, reader was mostly not sure that Nicholas was the hero of the story. He became a hero by his actions. Such is the power of good revelation.

Grisham’s techniques

We go through the process of jury selection, witnesses, arguments and then jury deliberation in the courtroom. In the background, there are a few characters who continue on their own journey trying to influence the verdict. They manipulate, blackmail, threaten, and bribe. It shows that the entire process is so fraught with loopholes, that no amount of care, force or money would stop a determined person. At the centre is a couple, the protagonists, who planned the entire story, and who walk away free at the end.

Nicholas becomes the defacto leader of the jury, ingatiating himself with each of the eleven other members, inventing crises and staging little demonstrations for his partner’s benefit. His partner, the girl on the outside Marlee, would manipulate the two sides of the trial. It is initially kept secret how she was getting inside information about the jury.

The jury is sequestered, and then it starts resembling the reality show Big Brother. The jury, cornered into unity, goes on strike. On the outside, stings take place, jury’s family members are entrapped. Nicholas disqualifies jury members which are inimical to his influence by planting evidence on them. Each of this is used by Marlee to drive her bargaining with the two sides.

How an idea becomes a novel

Halfway through the story the links between the protagonists is revealed, giving a little background of how it all started. This is done mainly in order to get it out of the way as it would be anyway discovered by the defense and the writer could then focus on the action. We get a glimpse of the raw idea of the story, as it would have started off in the writer’s mind. A couple, who chose a niche like the tobacco industry, learned the law, researched the main agents involved, got into a jury—timing it well—and then manipulated the system to bargain with a rich company. The idea is simple, it has its heroes and villains, toy soldiers, but there is so much more to be done to take this idea to a novel: characters, revelation arcs, places, details, dialogues, motivations, style, motif.

Towards the climax, tension increases, suspense builds, as the story’s threads race to completion, each affecting the other. Chapters end with cliff-hangers. Money is wired to the protagonists. And then Marlee’s identity is revealed. It becomes clear that the duo were anti-tobacco, and that the defense would lose the case.

Climax and ending

The part of how Nicholas manipulates jury deliberations is interesting. He makes his influence with each member count. He had already established himself as an ‘exponent’ of law. He first brings them round to vote for the plaintiff. There is an adversary in the jury, mainly the blackmailed man, who serves as his counterpart. Then he makes a point of sending a message to the tobacco industry and bringing a ‘historical verdict’. He starts off from a billion dollars as punitive damages, something he only put out to temper expectations. He rattles off tobacco revenues and famous jury cases. Finally they settle down to four hundred million dollars after averaging the number each had in mind.

The ending is somewhat loose. The bribe money that Marlee got from tobacco side is used to short the stock exchange. This is a little hard to understand. Since there is no reason supplied, how could she have become a stock maven? Then fascinatingly, she returns the money back to Fitch. This is a little hard to follow, obviously the writer wanted the heroes to be ethically clean. But was it really necessary and logical?

Some things like how Marlee learned about Fitch and the rest of the secrets of the tobacco industry is again not explained.

Grisham’s world

Grisham’s stories necessarily deal with corruption. His characters are mostly grey, and the good guy often has to face the reality of the corrupt world. Here too, Herman Grimes, the model juror, gets bumped off by Nicholas because he couldn’t be controlled.

Grisham juxtaposes the clear, precise nature of law with the obtuse, murky and uncertain real world, and then watches how it ends up getting twisted but leaving some impact. Characters like lawyers, judges, witnesses, jury members have limited agency.

Play with psychology also occurs frequently. An expert witness—attractive and eloquent—crosses her legs and the jury is hooked. Nicholas uses the anchoring effect, a cognitive bias, to get the jury give a high punitive damage. He creates personal relationships with many jurors by helping them, thus becoming the defacto leader.

Overall a thrilling read, and taught me much about the process of creating a novel.