Category Archives: Literature / Culture

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR “We must always bear in mind that despite the most beautiful agreement between the facts and our ideas, explanatory principles are only points of view, that is, manifestations of the psychological attitude and of the a priori conditions under which all thinking takes place.” —Carl Gustav Jung, On Psychic Energy [1948] When Carl […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR “That is no country for old men. The young/In one another’s arms, birds in the trees/ — Those dying generations — at their song,/The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,/Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long/Whatever is begotten, born, and dies./ Caught in that sensual music all neglect/Monuments of unageing intellect.” Thus wrote William […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Music, said Ludwig van Beethoven, the legendary composer and pianist, is the mediator between the life of the senses and the life of the spirit. It is also a powerful catalyst in the creative process of the genius, the connoisseur, the proficient, and the average, among us. It is the art of thinking […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Picture this: Charlie Chaplin’s memorable film, City Lights [1931], where he plays the little tramp, as usual. He saves, in one hilarious sequence, a drunk from leaping to his death. The drunk turns out to be a millionaire who befriends Chaplin and the two spend the evening together, drinking and partying. The next […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Earnestness, it is aptly said, is the font of authority or authenticity, where ‘auto’ means ‘self’ — your original instrument and ‘entea’ — or, tool connotes communication. This explains why our credibility as a speaker, or leader, in any field of activity, for example, is directly correlated to the extent to which the […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Artistic, or histrionic, settings are limitless connotations — not just random constructs. They are, in more ways than one, burrowed truths moored in wide and deep realities, where each truth is a part of the whole, also its sum and substance. In simple words, acting is a myriad oeuvre that more than highlights, […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR When Kahlil Gibran published his magnum opus, The Prophet, a hundred years ago, he wouldn’t have, perforce, realised the true, perennial import of his work: a structure with a timeless appeal. All the same, his insuperable work was a roseate contribution to literature — one that has in it just about every ingredient a […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Graham Greene — the legendary novelist, playwright, short story and screenplay writer, critic and journalist of the top draw — was always a mobile writer, never ever easy to pin down. His narrative quest was criminal-centered. His novels enveloped dissent, and his journalism championed disliked causes. His comedies were sad and his politics […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. — Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE, was a great visual artist. He was also a supreme architect of anticipation. What’s more, he never believed in the ordinary. He held a magnetic, or hypnotic, charm too. Evil, for him, […]