Prologue to ‘Also Sparch Zarthustra’

'Dil dhoondhta hai phir wahi fursat Ke raat din….' 'Ghalib'

[In search of those carefree days and nights..]

When I started with Gunche, never did I envisage that it will be the paucity of time that will prevent me from posting new entries. I my first post I had written that it would be waning of interest or simple laziness that might prevent me from posting here but none of them were the reason for this late post.

B' schools suck time and energy and that to such an extent that even one gets some time here and there one feels like living the moment by not doing anything. Back in campus 'Summers' seemed like time spent in different world. A world where time moved slowly, in fact, at times I felt that it didn't move at all.

It was one such day in Pune when the sun was at its scorching best outside and I was dozing off in the air cooled training room. It was only 2'O clock and I was done with all the time killing activities of lunch, mail checking, newspaper reading and tea break. I had another four hours to spend in the office with nothing to do. I had two options left. One was to watch a movie or visit Crossword at the basement of the building. I rejected the idea of watching movie on the ground of it being economically imprudent as I could watch the same movie next day morning show at half the rate. So I had no other choice but to once again go to Crossword which was becoming customary activity.

In the self deceiving anticipation that some new books would have arrived I took the lift to basement. Unlike usual days when lift was full with people and it stopped at each floor between eight and first, it was empty with only liftman and me in it. This saved me five minutes which seemed a loss to me. Also, I lost the pleasure of watching busy people hurrying in and out off the lift.

The doorman of the bookshop opened the door for me. He had done the same nearly twenty times in the last thirty days. He got a sadistic pleasure of watching me getting bored and doing as mundane a job as his. As I entered same old setting was awaiting me. It was like looking at a picture frame at different points of time. Jack Welch with his wily eyes and deceptive smile was looking at me from the 'New Arrivals' shelf, the world was lying flat on table, 'The last Mogul's were stacked above each other and 'Argumentative India' was lying dumb on the 'Crossword Recommends' segment.

Same books, same people and even the time was same; only the date in my watch had changed. As usual after combing through 'New Arrivals', 'History' and 'India' section I moved to 'Religion and Philosophy'. In all my visits to this bookshop this section had never added a book and that day was no different. I picked up 'In search of Zarathustra' by Paul Kriwaczekia for the second time. First time I didn't take it because I wanted to read a book on history of Christianity and decided to wait for it but then I realized that it would not come before I left Pune. I read the blurb again and thought that it would be safe bet to take the book. I read first few pages and my thought about the book got embolden and I bought it.

During next few days I read the book. Kriwaczekia had written a very captivating, impartial and insightful book. Enthused by new information I started drafting the blog.

That was three months ago. And still I have not posted. As per my original plan the blog was becoming very long and demanded substantial amount of time. So I decided to break it in three parts. In first part I'll write about Nietzsche and Zoroaster, second part will cover Bogomils, Tartars and Manichaeism, and in final part I'll write about the Sassanid, the Achemenids and Zoroaster. The first part 'Also sparch Zarathustra' is posted here.

In the hope that I'll complete the other two parts soon I am ending this post by quoting Meer

ashq aankhon meiN kab nahin aata

lahu aata hai jab nahia aata

[ashq = tears ,lahu = blood]

hosh jaata nahin raha lekin

jab woh aata hai tab nahin aatn

dil se rukhsat hui koi khwahish

griyaa kuchh be-sabab nahin aatn

[rukhsat = depart] [KHwahish = desire]

[griyaa = weeping] [be-sabab = without reason]

ji mein kya-kya hai apne ai hamdam

har sukhan taa ba-lab nahin aata

[suKHan = speech] [taa = but] [ba-lab = till the lips]