God is dead. Marx is dead. Lenin is dead. Gandhi is dead. I am alive and not feeling too well myself. — Graffiti, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. May 1983.
I feel alive again, and how! A blog did it. I stumbled upon it just now and it sent things racing in my head. As if a glimpse of that world was what I was waiting for. The last week went by in a daze. I was down with fever and low in spirit. But today is a brand new day. Reminds me of my journey for tomorrow. Delhi, once more. I came here from Delhi quite different. I will return different still. And I am curious about how I am gonna feel. Yes it has just been six months away from home, but for someone like me who can feel a feel six times more than an average person does, I think it calls for some retropection. But more on that some other time.
As for right now, I don't really know if I am looking forward to going. I certainly am looking forward to meeting people. Only if I didn't have to travel to meet them now and then. Be distant yet be reachable. Be there, be here.
These days reading Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom along with Michael Sandel's Justice..the themes are different and so is the landscape, but there is a common thread. The thread that one has to look at issues keeping a 'human' perspective..that no matter what, even if it is one person's freedom pitted against the will of majority, that one lone voice should be paid heed, even if you have to ultimately override it. And not because it would be right to do so - the paying heed. But because there is no other way. Of course, this simplistic stuff is not what these books talk about, but the more you read, the more clear things become, the easier the distinctions, the less daunting the dilemmas.
Also, received Palace of Illusions today. All set for the flight.
