Celsius 420

You read stories by Chekhov, you read Conan Doyle, you read O. Henry and you make a world in your head. Literature is great for developing sentimentality and empathy, but it only brings delusion and suffering in a setting as direct as we live in. Still, literature needs to be read and sentimentality appreciated. The empathy developed should be used wisely. It all boils down to a wise use of one's faculties and abilities in the end. The drama of nationalism and patriotism diffuses once one comes to know the truth and yet you appreciate the constitution of the country, it's a beautiful document. All the nationalistic and patriotic conditioning and grooming comes to an abrupt halt when you realised that in this country the chicken cross the road to make way to the tandoor. It's a machine, whether local or global, and it runs by consuming people. It's like a train, with first class, second class and general compartment which is a fine arrangement unless you realise that individuals from the first class hunt people from the second class and general compartment for no other reason than sadistic pleasure, they hunt and consume them. It's a setup of cannibalism, just that the individuals in the first class aren't humans, they are gods, well, at least in their heads. You are thrown in a game, and though not being very sporty, you play the game, first for your life, when you knew less, and later when you came to know enough, then for fun. Life was good when one could wish to be a writer. And the excitement gradually tapers down when one realises that it's not really an art, you sell because you are deluding people into thinking something other than their daily life or you are pimping yourself. Imagine I manage to write Ashtabhuj, an adventure fantasy that I always wanted to write. I finish it and then find an agent, the agent if they like it and are sure it's a money making horse, pimps it to the publishing house, the publishing house editor then decides whether it deserves to be published or not. The books get published and does two things, it deludes the youth who are too stupid to distinguish fiction from reality, and on purpose, just not theirs, and I become a joker in the first class compartment of this country who believe it or not are still stupid enough to ridicule people and laugh on them despite having access to all the knowledge and Kindles of the world. I was young once and I had thought I was Ryan from Five Point Someone of Chetan Bhagat, I know not a very good taste but in my defence I would say that that novel was, if not good, at least authentic. Another defence for me would be that I expected my college to be Hogwarts, which I think that all colleges are in some or the other way. It's just that Voldemort is too strong in this country to let these colleges make a difference and deatheaters are directly (and secretly) selected from these Hogwartses in the ministry of magic to manage the second class and general compartment of the train this country is. I like my time with books. During my college time I used to read Sherlock Holmes on a rainy holiday, eating chocolate cookies. When shit got real for me I turned to Lovecraft. Even though he is now branded as racist by the woke crowd, a good reader knows that no actually racist man can produce the kind of literature that he did. I still have two novels in my head waiting to be written, but the purpose of writing them is lost. It's a cruel joke of destiny that my favourite writer in my youth was Franz Kafka, who told his friend to burn all his writing after his death, the only sane thing to do in a world where we are supposed to read only what we are supposed to.