Theloopylululog

The one book I never finished is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Actually make that two. The Godfather by Mario Puzo is the other one.

The Godfather came to me at 15 after my SSC boards. I found it utterly boring. Sleep inducing would perhaps define it better. I tried hard to get through but every page of it felt like Oh my…I like the idea of being a Mafia don wearing an all white suit but that’s taking way too much trouble and stress to kill people for a living…what about the blood stains on the white suit? Need I hire a personal dhobi (launderer) too?

I closed the book at page 100. It goes on for another 350 odd pages. I just couldn’t put myself through the torture. I had places to be and tons of better things to do.

Just as it slipped out of my hands back to the library, it slipped out of my memory too. I don’t think about it at all. I am sure I won’t ever go back to read it. Our relationship ended at the 100 page marker and that’s it, we are through.

No contact contract honoured to the T.

But that has not been the case with The Fountainhead. It came highly recommended. Every celebrity, every famous person on the planet was reading it and endorsing it. That’s even how I came across it for the first time.

Back in the day, Deccan Chronicle, the newspaper had a special section published on sundays called The Sunday Chronicle. It carried an interview of a famous personality. One question posed invariably at every one of them was, what’s the book/character you are inspired by?

One nondescript sunday morning I came across an interview by Tom Hanks, my favorite actor back then and he mentioned Howard Roark, the protagonist from The Fountainhead as someone he tries to emulate.

Now that got me curious. If Tom Hanks finds Roark inspiring enough to follow him, I knew I ought to know more about Roark. Hanks couldn’t be wrong, could he?

I hit the college library the next morning. Borrowed it and went straight to my sister, handed it to her, knowing she will finish it. I needed her to peruse the book so I know what’s in it for me!

She finished it in record time, absolutely went crazy over it and said I HAD to read it. I didn’t until after graduation though.

I remember buying a pirated version of it off the streets of Churchgate because the original one was beyond my means. Excited and enthusiatic about my mind ready to be blown, I sat down to read it.

Only to be attacked with the same sleeping sickness of the Godfather era. Day after day, afternoon after afternoon was dedicated to pushing through the book.

The beginning was okay as I was introduced to the slimy, oily, swiny character Peter Keating. I was completely bowled over by the characterisation of this man whom we meet ever so often in our day to day lives. We all have a Peter Keating in our lives who has stolen our thunder in numerous ways letting their sweet talking tongue do the back biting business.

A few other interesting characters walk in and out. While all that was ok, I was awaiting Roark. The entry was not as shocking as his orange hair. He is subdued. Rarely talks. And is as frugal as a monk.

The pace slackens. The plot weakens. And I was simply trying too hard to stay awake all along. All the while wondering and waiting for the thing that inspired Hanks to call Roark his ideal, to surprise me with a boo!

Even the wait tired of snoozing too often. Ayn Rand’s language is as dry as a desert. Hardly anything moist to chew on, my mind rarely stayed on the page. Roark’s penchant for suffering and glorying it as his dedication to his art simply didn’t make sense to me.

I gave myself a couple of days to be patient enough to continue till the end. I could quit…it was after all a book. Not a life partner!

But I am a finisher. I don’t quit things or people. Least of all a book. It’s time, money and energy; not just mine, the writer’s too. So much goes into the journey of enquiring about a book, getting excited about it, wondering about the impact it will leave on us before we even go down the street to buy it.

Reading a book is an adventure. An art that involves emotions. And when emotions are dangled, we are bound to get entangled.

So there I was, left in a quandry. If I were to leave the orange haired man in his quarry, what does that make me? A ditcher?

What about closure? I am someone who finishes everything, tied with a bow et al. So I could organise the memory of it neatly in my memory palace. Where do unfinished things go in the palace? Do they need a room of their own? Will an attic do? Or do they need a storage space away from the rest of my life’s memories so they don’t interact with each other?

It’s pointless to say, I continued with the drudgery. Enter the woman in his life. The suffering zoomed up several notches up the thermostat. A point came when I couldn’t believe I was putting myself through this torturous slavery on my own!

Wow! Talk about inspiration! Was I being influenced by Roark’s kick for suffering now? Oh God. Yikes.

The ga-ga moment never came.

That’s when I stopped. I couldn’t do that to myself anymore. The man was portrayed as too perfect to be true. Anyone who is an artist or has been one knows that we all compromise at some point. Our vision might not match with what is feasible. Or perhaps it doesn’t gel well with our client’s. Somewhere, something’s gotta give. Someone loses for the art to win.

The book was portraying something too far fetched to imagine. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that Roark didn’t break. Any one of us would have.

My life took me to places and moments after the book where I had to let go of my own penchant for perfection so the art had a chance to stay alive in some form. So I could understand why Roark stayed true to his vison but couldn’t really see him stick to it at the cost of the art losing it’s only chance to even birth itself.

I quit. Never went back to it. Gave away my copy to a library. Never been tempted to go back to know what happens to Roark in the end.

But he has been in my thoughts. Any time someone talks of a perfect man, I think of Roark. Not out of admiration but out of curiosity. Was he really perfect? Or is he just a figment of our perfect idea of perfection? Is he an inspiration to inspire us or warn us of what to be wary of in our journey of life?

I will never know. I don’t want to.

As yet.

One of my earliest paintings has an orange man raising his hand to God. Is he seeking or questioning or doffing his hat? I can’t really say.

It is about how everything and everyone is connected. From a tiny drop of water to the tiniest of thoughts percolating in our minds…everything goes back to the whole from whence it arose.

I have no idea why the cental piece of that painting is that orange man. Was it a hat tip to Roark? Was I unconsciously inspired by him too? Was I afraid I would allow myself to be corrupted so my art could live? Was I envious he didn’t, even at the cost of his art’s death?

I will never know that either. It’s over 18 years since I painted it. It’s over 20 years since I left The Fountainhead midway. But every time I look at my own painting, Roark comes alive and leaves behind a trail of questions I have no answers for.

I have a long life to live. Decades waiting to be fully optimized to their highest potential. Maybe Roark and I will meet somewhere in there, in a bridge between perfection and conviction, integrity and authenticity and who knows, maybe we could even broker peace?

Fingers crossed!

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