Farenheit 451

4 damn years.

It had been 4 years since I read a book that wasn a Kolfer, a Rowling, a text book or a book for some course. It seems I picked the perfect book to read considering this. A book about books being burnt. About books being destroyed as they made people think and therefore, unhappy. A book about making life so fast that there was no time to think. About making sure the television (or parlour walls) allowed no scope to think or discuss anything important.

This book is not only thought provoking, but very deep and profound in its message. Other than its obvious relevance to censorship, it also deals with the politics of dissent, where anyone who owned books was arrested, people who thought were ostracised and people who went into the why rather than the how of things were sent to psychiatrists. It explains how one person is never important. It's always about groups. One person can only make a difference when he has others following him in his mission. The fact that change is inevitable. The fact that no autocracy can ever last. There is always a reaction to every action.

The english used in this book may get tiring at times, but the thought provoking bits keep you wondering for hours after. This book talks of the difficulty of dealing with the unmoving cattle of the majority. The majority that watches as the minority is slaughtered.

What is even more interesting is the afterword written by the author. He says his books and plays often get requests to be re written keeping some minority interests in mind. He rejects all these requests. he says, "If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent type writers. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences mushmilk their teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their ownn ungodly manufacture."

Essentially, everyone has a right to speech. If u have a problem with what I say, respond. Start your own blog. Stand up for yourself. Dont go crying to mama (or the faculty as the case may be).

This book is a must read. It deals with all aspects of life, freedom and liberty. One can draw innumerable allusions to present day life, with life becoming so fast that most interaction happens on gtalk than in person, with life becoming so fast that people are full of themselves and have no time to open up to other ideas, with life becoming so dull that the only excitement one gets is from watching movies instead of reading, inter personal interaction and most importantly, thinking for oneself. The book essentially deals with this in great detail. The power of thought. The power of memory. The power of knowledge. The book talks about two essential requirements. 1)Quality of information, 2) leisure to digest it. The first is not necessarily from books. It can be from a teacher (not the ones we have at the law school), a movie, anything. But what's more important is time given to difest it. Without this time, we see that little knowledge is a dangerous thing. As is evident in this book.

I went out and bought myself a translated copy of Mein Kampf today. I'm sick and tired of the inefficient democracy and the incessant fence sitting. Something needs to be done, and soon. I guess I'll read 1984 online before moving onto Mein Kampf. Reading is something that one should never give up. No matter what. I must thank my brother pestering me to read Dune (which I will soon), Chand Bibi and her "Look at me, I read all the time" and of course Tiny and the incessant insults. But I assume they were all catalysts and would like to believe I would have rekindled the habit all by myself.

I also like to believe the world revolves around me.