The perks of being a wallflower

Author – Stephen Chbosky

Publisher – MTV books

First published – 1999

Rating – Wow

I’m convinced I’ve read a modern classic. A book riveting in all it’s pages and a bombshell at the end.  These lines will stay with me forever “we were infinite”, “We accept the love we think we deserve”. This is a story of triumph of the human spirit and the exercise of free choice in navigating the labyrinth of life.

Charlie is an introvert all seeing teenager with few friends until he takes up with a bunch of seniors.  Written as letters from Charlie to an anonymous friend telling him/ her about his day, can’t help but be taken in by the raw honesty. But why is this honesty only in his letters? Why not with his family or his friends?

In the beginning, I found it strange that his family had hardly any time for him when he wanted to talk or be with them.  Sister with boyfriend, mother with cooking, father with game on TV, brother with game on field! And therein I thought lies the problem – that there is no one in the family the child can talk to! However this scenario is stated pretty matter of fact in the book, like it is one of those things of growing up.

 Anyway to the story, Charlie finally feels part of a gang and has a social life. He has friends he sits at lunch with, goes to a local hangout place with, exchanges gifts with, is invited over to parties and has his first girlfriend. Which complicates matters because Charlie is in love with Sam who is older and is going out with another guy. Mary Elizabeth, Charlie’s girlfriend is opinionated and is of the opinion that only her opinion counts. That is what Charlie thinks until they break up and she starts going out with another equally opinionated guy and they constantly differ and argue on their opinions. Sam opens

his eyes to the fact that he needs to participate in life around him instead of just watching and being there for people as they would like him to be. To be true to oneself and one’s friends. So when Patrick, Charlie’s gay friend and Sam’s stepbrother kisses Charlie when he is heartbroken because of his relationship breakup and Charlie lets him even though he does not like it, Sam tells him he was not being a good friend to Patrick because he was not true to himself.

Towards the end of the academic year as Sam is about to leave for college, Charlie and Sam get together after a bitter breakup for Sam with her boyfriend. However as they initiate physical intimacy, Charlie breaks out in sweat. He does not know the reason since he has been in love with Sam since he saw her and while he passes out he dreams of his aunt Helen touching him the same way as Sam had.

This is the turning point in the story and the reader now has a concrete reason for Charlie’s introvertism, passivism, violence at times, depression etc. Aunt Helen was Charlie’s mother’s sister. She was molested as a child and had quite a few unhappy relationships. His mother gave her a place to stay in her home and she used to watch over the children whenever the parents went out. She especially loved Charlie and always bought an extra present for Charlie on his birthday. The day she died in a car accident, she had gone out to buy Charlie’s extra present.

The breach of trust inside the family with a defenceless, innocent young one is tragic. As a parent of two small little girls, it is frightening for me. I don’t know how to and from whom to protect my little ones. The thing I vouch to do is give time and listen to my young ones.

However, for Charlie, he does not want to let the incident with aunt Helen dictate his life. He decides to choose the course of his own life and not be tied down to what happened in his past. He signs off his last letter “please believe that things are good with me, and even if they are not, they will be soon enough.”

I cannot get stats on and intellectualise this topic. It touches a chord too close to home.

Inferno

Author – Dan Brown

Publisher – Bantam Press

Rating – OK

With this book Dan Brown has almost exhausted his buyability based on “The Da Vinci Code”.  I’ve read “Angels and Demons”, “The Lost Symbol” after I read his most successful book – “The Da Vinci Code”. I’ve been unsuccessfully looking for the fast paced thrill, discover religious symbologies, underground associations and conspiracy theories that set “The Da Vinci Code” apart. However, as with the “inferno”, the other two books feel short of the author’s promise.
The saving grace of the book is the central theme – overpopulation. This, the villain of the book claims as the root of most problems that humans are facing today. I checked the population statistics by an organisation of repute and the stats are shocking – In 10,000 BC, the human population was 1 million, in 1 AD the population was 170 million, by 2000 AD the population has crossed 6 million. We in 2013 are sitting at 7 million and counting.

Source – US census bureau

The carrying capacity of the Earth, the villain Bertrand Zobrist, an eminent gene scientist reasoned has been over-breached. This has resulted in humans indulging in the seven deadly sins – pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, sloth for it’s extinction and hence it’s very survival. Since all world leaders and world organisations primarily WHO is in denial and talks about long term measures like education and contraceptives as their solution for the problem, the doctor decides to take things in his own hands.

The theme is bold and forces one to face the stark problem. Is it really a problem though? Countries that are the most populated term their billion population as the source of economic power while the ones scarcely populated are the ones crying foul. The gap of course is about the Developed vs Developing and underdeveloped countries.

Robert Langdon, the unwitting historical sleuth is inexplicably involved in this chase to stop the eminent doctor because Bertrand Zobrist is also a Dante fan and leaves an altered picture of Boticelli’s “Inferno di Date” and a video based on Dante’s play, “Divine Comedy”.  Robert Langdon goes on a wild chase across Florence and Venice with the governments of every country trying to overpower him. Langdon had a bullet wound on his head by an assassin and does not remember what happened for the past two days and why people are following him. All he gets are visions of a lady with silver hair beseeching him to “seek and find” and a man with the deathlike plague mask proclaiming himself to be death.

As an Indian living in one of the most congested metropolis Mumbai, I see poverty and crime everyday and try to live a sane life despite the human suffering all around. I try to live a responsible life, fulfilling my family’s needs. Is that a sin? According to Bertrand Zobrist it is. “The lowest places in hell are reserved for those who preserve their neutrality in times of a moral crisis”, he says.  How many of us help the displaced farmers who pour into Mumbai everyday? We even desist from giving them alms hiding behind reasons like beggar cartels, lazy people, promoting begging etc.  Or to cases which have hogged the headlines – Theft and murder of the elderly, rape of innocent girls even minors!

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To link all these problems to overpopulation is oversimplification and far fetched. After all, crime exists in less populated as well as overpopulated countries. Like Mahatma Gandhi said “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need but not enough for any man’s greed”.  The rich keep acquiring more resources even though they have more than enough. So Mukesh Ambai makes a  27 storey house while there are people still sleeping on the pavements.  Let me complete Gandhi’s quote “So long as we cooperate with the cycle of life, the soil renews its fertility indefinitely and provides health, recreation, sustenance and peace to those who depend on it. But when the ‘predatory’ attitude prevails, nature’s balance is upset and there is an all-round bio-logical deterioration.”

On a Global scale, the Developed nations scream about overpopulation in the developing and underdeveloped world. Are appalled at the poverty and crime when they visit Africa, India, Middle East, Erstwhile USSR and yet go into denial when these people talk about their history. When these same continents were affluent – economically, socially, culturally before the people from the developed countries interfered. Where are the riches of these countries today?

Who is wearing the blood diamonds from Africa? Not the Africans.

Who has the Kohinoor? Not India.

Who has the petrol? Not Iraq.

Civilizations are plundered for the greed of powerful nations and then these same nations turn around and blame the poor nations for stressing the world’s resources!

I quote Mahatma Gandhi from the following passage from an article commissioned in 1926 by an American journal, World Tomorrow , and published in its October issue (and then in The Hindu on 8 November). In this passage, the term “the movement” refers to the peace-movement of the 1920s:

“I cannot help the gnawing fear that the movement will fail if it does not touch the root of all evil – man’s greed. Will America, England and the other great nations of the West continue to exploit the so-called ... uncivilized races and [still] hope to attain [the] peace that the whole world is pining for? ...Will Americans continue to ... [engage in] commercial rivalries and yet expect to dictate peace to the world?”

The Mahatma has touched the root of all evil – Greed.

After all excessive urge of one’s offspring to occupy the Earth is also greed.

Sources -  

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/the-earth-provides-enough-to-meet-everyones-needs#page1

http://www.academia.edu/303042/Gandhi_on_providence_and_greed

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx