To Blog or Not to Blog is the Question

What is Madhushala?

Madhushala or ‘House of Wine’ can be considered as one of the greatest literary masterpieces in Hindi Poetry. Its author Harivansh Rai Bacchan primarily used 3 words Haala(wine), pyaala(cup) and saaki(wine-bearer) to create his collection of 135 stanzas. These stanzas primarily deal with philosophy of life and the various phases one goes through i.e. the honeymoon stage, depression and an indifferent stage and grief and hope. Also through this collection the poet challenges the widely held social conventions , hypocritical religion , morality , greed in his own unique way and at the same time gives some valuable and much needed preaching . I read somewhere that this whole compilation is inspired by a Persian poet Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyyat .

Why Madhushala?

Its my favorite book and one hardly finds more than a few of his poems on the net and I will try to put his entire collection on the net in my blog. Whether I succeed or not,I will try. It will require a lot of effort given my busy schedule, but at the end I hope to satisfy my ego by giving this great book its due.

What will be its format ?

It will be in Hindi in English words and if I do get some time I will try to scan the book and put it on the net. Dont know if I will be violating any copyrights, will check. I will try to get as much help as possible from the net and I will give the credit wherever it is due in my posts. Whenever I get time I will add a couple or more stanzas in each post and add my own commentary(right or wrong) on these stanzas. It will all be categorized under Madhushala.

Disclaimer

I am no expert in Madhushala nor in Hindi literature. I am just trying to interpret Madhushala in my own way and I apologise to Harivansh Rai bacchan and all other Hindi literature luminaries for any faux passes.

Still going through my jetlag. Havent got a wink of sleep the whole night . So decided to blog rather than stare at the ceiling.

If there ever was a book which can get the title of ‘Just-cant-put-it-down-once-u-start-it’ this should be it. I dont have the taste for whodunit books and I heard somewhere that ‘Da Vinci Code’ was one such type. But seeing the popularity of the book I decided to give it a try. Bought the book in Boston read a few chapters liked it , kept it in my travelling kit to India. Once I was on the plane I just couldnt put it down and was done with the last 70% of the book during my flight from chicago to Frankfurt.

The story is more or less about the ‘Holy Grail’ quest, remember the Indiana jones movie .The story goes into history and various conspiracies that led to the evolution of Christianity. No doubt the church is enraged. I have heard that the Church has come with a different book which refutes what was said in this book. If I do get some time I will definitely look into it .

Some interesting points about the book.

1. Author argues that modern Christianity is a mixture of Mithrainism, a pagan religion and christianity. ( This was a known fact. Christmas and Easter were borrowed from Mithrianism). The author has taken this to public for the first time. Evolution of modern christianity was for the lust for power by Constantine, the Roman emperor.

2. It was a woman’s world and the advent of Christianity changed the world into a man’s world and that sex was considered holy. Christian leaders tried to suppress women by tainiting them as witches and burning them at stake and denigrated sex as ‘original sin’ .

3. Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and they had a kid. (Early christian Popes denigrated Mary Magdalene as a prostitute). Mary Magdalene was the Holy Grail and a secret society had maintained this code which was passed onto them by the Templars, who found this secret from the temple at Jerusalem during the first crusade. These Templars were brutally killed by the pope in a covert operation.

4. Jesus was considered a mortal prophet by early christians .

5. The Bible was tampered with to show Jesus as God. The author cites Dead-sea scrolls and hammadi documents as examples.

I will have to read the reaction by the Church and devout christians , but this book is definitely a great read.
I would like to see this book converted into a movie.

Here is the story of my absence. I went to India to attend my cousins wedding, had lotsa fun and came back Thursday evening . On my way to India read ‘Da Vinci Code’ and on my way back read ‘Understanding J D Krishnamurti ‘ . Both great books . Got printed edition of ‘Madhushala’ , a Hindi literary masterpiece, read it whenever I was free . Will write about these three books and India trip soon. Was seriously disappointed with ‘Complete Works of Shakespeare’ . He is not philosophical and his English sucks . I guess I need patience to read him . Whatever I am not picking up Shakespeare for a year. Have lot more books to read.

Got up Friday morning at 5 ,rushed to Gleacher. Had LEAD session at 730 . There were some lectures and breakfast before we officially began at 830. In total there are 125 students,divided into 5 groups, participating in LEAD .Our(Davis/Stuart Cohort group) class was divided into 4 groups of 6 students.

Well my name sticker had my first name spelled as ‘Rock’ . I was the last one to mind it . I still gotta know how ‘Rock’ entered offices of GSB. I dont know a single person to whom I introduced myself as Rock at GSB. A big mystery as big as ‘Da Vinci Code’ itself. I gave a humorous introduction to myclass and my name has stuck. No need to re-introduce myself to anyone. I guess I should stick to Rock.

The class was divided into two sections EAS 1 and EAS 2 (Executive Action Skills). Learned some very new concepts . Met a lot of new ppl. Overall it was fun until my jet lag kicked in . After my LEAD ended at 5, I had my Marketing Strategy class at 1800 . Somehow survived it too with my jetlag . Drove back , got up at 10 after sleeping over 3 alarms and 4 missed calls . Went to FTSA class and attended Marketing conference call in the evening. It is my turn to write the case, so I better pay attention.

Been out to Boston last week and am travelling this week and the next too so blogging will be very difficult. Am reading ‘Da Vinci Code’ interesting read. Also got ‘Complete Works of Shakespeare’ in my travelling kit.