Media, Controversy and Faith

The Da Vinci Code is on its way towards Indian cinema halls. Consider these:
1. Rajasthan Patrika, a Hindi daily says that the movie is ‘about a secret code hidden in Leonardo Da Vinci’s most famous painting - The Monalisa. What can I say? Dude, we know yours is a Hindi newspaper but at least take the pain of reading the novel once before printing information just by viewing the first ad of the film, which obviously was made to arouse curiosity and was not related at all.
2. Aaj Tak, the pioneer among the news channels focuses more on the fact that the book shows Jesus taking wine (and believe me, it highlights this like anything) whereas it was mentioned only once in the novel and that too as a matter-of-fact rather than any claim.

Well, the media has a knack in uprooting controversies whether the roots exist or not. The movie has been received quite critically from Christians all over the world including India. I was watching news on another channel where it was showing some Christians on a hunger strike to ban the movie to be premiered and shown in India. A priest comments, “This book is trying to go against the Church and the God which ¾th of the world’s population follow.”
My dad was sitting there and he just made an interesting remark, “Hehe … ¾th don’t follow”. And though it was spoken with humor, it is a truth indeed. To follow Christ and to be a Christian are altogether different things. I believe that more than ¾th of the elder Christian population drinks. So, do they follow Christ (who Bible proclaims didn’t drink and according to which it is a sin)? I wish to ask how many people who were sitting on that hunger strike have actually read The Da Vinci Code. I am convinced that the number of those who haven’t read it will be more than ¾th.
And even if all that is there, if your faith is strong, what is the need to worry? A weaker faith will fail anyway in time of difficulties (or rather at the time of test). I was really surprised to see even Pope commenting and condemning it directly. And to me, Langdon’s words in the book seem so appropriate to mention here - "It's important to remember that the modern Church's desire to suppress these documents comes from a sincere belief in their established view of Christ. The Vatican is made up of deeply pious men who truly believe these contrary documents could only be false testimony."
In fact I forgot to mention that Aaj Tak also highlighted that Dan Brown has claimed that Jesus was married and that the ‘Royal Bloodline’ still exists. I disagree because the book is an interwoven work of facts and fiction and the ultimate product is only a fiction and not a claim. One has to understand that whereas all documents and rituals mentioned are accurate, all clues left by Jacques Sauniere, all cryptography involved and the final disclosure of Sophie as Merovingian were all but a matter of fiction. I doubt Brown claims that the Holy Grail is there in the Louvre as is indicated in the end.
A little confusion also arises from the fact that Dan Brown gives an accurate description of the documents, rituals etc. (he has mentioned it in the very beginning) and therefore at times, I also got a doubt if it is real or fiction. For example, consider the books that Teabing shows to Sophie for explaining Holy Grail. Now, are they real or fictitious? I take them for real.
And even on the controversy over Jesus’ marriage, I understand that the priests and bishops of Church would practice celibacy but I am not sure if they teach and preach the same. Is marriage an evil for Church and if so, how do they justify creation? Should a married person divorce when he understands Bible from his heart or when he wants to become a priest and serve God? Pardon me for allowing my mind to wander so randomly but I just wish to emphasize that being a married person doesn’t make any difference in your having godly attributes and Krishna is the best example for the same.
The controversies to me are baseless. Does it really matter if any Merovingian is alive on this earth? I mean the son/daughter of a good father turns out bad in this world. Here, we have a span of more than 20 generations. How does it matter even if the Priory of Sion is trying to protect them and why should the Church be bothered about them? You’ve to see where you stand, what you want to believe in and just do it!
I believe that Dan Brown has indeed created a work which shacks your faith but at the same time it is a good thing to understand another perspective. Does it really matter if Jesus Christ was ‘Son of God’ or a mere human being who achieved apotheosis in his lifetime? He had inspired many during his lifetime anyways and His life and actions are still worth emulating.

Disclaimer: The above post is not an effort to disregard Bible, Christianity or its practices. I am just trying to emphasize that one should try to penetrate the surface and get the essence rather than just allowing oneself to get entangled in the spider’s web. When we understand the true inner meaning/essence, we really follow and don’t remain as mere followers.

The Da Vinci Code

I was a little apprehensive about posting this entry, given the fact that I am possibly the last person on the earth (at least among the visitors of this blog) to read this novel. For long, I was trying to get my hands on it and considering its popularity, I finally decided to spend some bucks on it. And the book was worth the money, or rather much more than that!
Angels & Demons (A&D) is another Dan Brown’s that I had read before (a good one) and I found The Da Vinci Code similar to it in terms of the plot, characters and even the sequence. But there was so much more to it that never made me feel that the repetition made it boring.
Actually, the anagrams, cryptography, the whole Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, Sangreal and Holy Grail affairs were far more interesting and deeper than the ambigrams and running around across the Vatican in A&D.
In fact, the only thing where it lagged A&D was the suspense. Here, it was far too obvious, considering the knowledge and power that ‘The Teacher’ wielded and the fact that not another character developed till last few chapters seemed suspicious (except Bezu Fache and the clouds of suspicion created over him in the middle were actually a beauty to see). The ending too was a little disappointing – I mean Holy Grail wasn’t expected to be found but the way speed and excitement were built in the middle was something Brown couldn’t continue till the end (personal opinion).
I would like to shift the focus on the peak part of the novel (the purpose for which I wrote this blog regardless of the apprehension). And that is – the Holy Grail. Personally, I didn’t know much anything about it or related stuff and I doubt if anyone other than Christians (I doubt many of them would know much about it) or Christianity historians and symbologists would know much about it, but in this sense, it was a great eye opener.
The few pages in middle where Langdon and Teabing disclose fundaes about Holy Grail and Mary Magdalene were awesome. The sequences and secrets were quite convoluted but yet well-woven with documents, cryptology and etymology – especially when all were directly or indirectly, but in a simple way, related to the ‘sacred feminine’.
On the issue of Jesus Christ, I, in fact never knew that Bible proclaimed Him as ‘Son of God’ and always considered Him to be a member of the rare group of people who had achieved apotheosis in their lifetime. I don’t deny the possibility of him coming as an Avataar. If the Church deliberately changed the reality, I doubt that there was a good reason to do so because whatsoever was the case, I doubt it changes the basis of following Him. In that sense – “The divinity of Jesus was decided by the Council of Nicaea” as the book mentions invites intrigue, pity and humor. I also loved Napoleon’s quote – “What is history but a fable agreed upon?” and we are literally observing this in the history class books of Rajasthan where a lot of condemnation of Christianity and their practices have been introduced after the BJP Government came into power.
Cryptography & Sacred Feminine, Opus Dei & Corporal Mortification, Priory of Sion & Issac Newton as grandfather, Knights Templar & Sangreal, Merovingian and Holy Grail, Jesus Christ & Mary Magdalene – just too much! I am not much of a reader but I find that the book is a thriller beyond match, especially because it creates the fiction around facts and that too something that hits directly in the head. Hail Brown!

PS: Anyone who knows about some good source for related reading may let me know.

PPS: There is an illustrated version of the book available for around 600 bucks. A little hefty for us poor but a really good one with more than 150 pictures placed at relevant positions. It’s worth buying for those who can manage. I’ll just borrow ;-)

PPPS: I had seen the movie trailers before reading the book and I just thought that the movie will be a great piece as the novel is so popular. Mayank told me at that time that it is not necessary but I didn’t get it. Now, even I doubt that it would be easy to fill up this much information in a 2-3 hr movie. But the cinematography looks great prima facie, after all the locations too are mostly real. I’m going to watch it anyway!

The Pyramids are beautiful, aren't they?

This thought struck me an hour or so after my final presentation May 2. When I started thinking over it, I realized how this applies so beautifully in our context too.

Even after studying Chemical Engineering for the last four years, I daresay I'm fully confident even in a single topic and I am very sure that many of my batch mates would agree with me on this (I hope ;-) ). Mostly, it is about mugging before the exams and really not about learning. To reinforce my claim, most of us are out with a non-technical job.

For an average and sincere student, I think no one enjoys the engineering student life more than an IITian and when I say it, I literally mean it. I have seen people from other engineering colleges fighting real hard with labs, assignments and projects whereas most of us in IIT peacefully manage all these and yet again when I say "manage", most of the times, it is through faulty and dubious means.

I really feel that the real fight is in clearing the JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) and once we are done with it, not much is left to do. I mean it depends on what your aspirations are but the fact remains that you can get away without doing much. The placement results are too evidence to the above claim.

Having said all this, the life still remains busy for those who involve themselves into other activities, whether with a sense of aspiration or ambition. There is a lot of running around and time-management involved in all these activities. Albeit I haven't been a major success on the academic or non-academic front, I sure have done a lot of running around. And I really feel it helps. Because considering the academic scenario of IITB that I've presented above, I question myself if I have learnt anything in the past four years?

The answer is yes because o/w this post wouldn't have come. And to mention the two most important of them, they are 'common sense' and 'how to deal with people'. Not that I didn't had common sense when I came here and that I just 'deal' with people now. The 'common sense' here is used in a broader and holistic sense and it has surely developed over the last four years. When it comes to 'dealing with people', it is essentially about coordinating and developing this ability to work with them rather than the usual meaning of 'taking work out of them'.

Developing these two take time and more so experience and that's why I said that one needs to involve himself/herself into many things which give opportunities to experience. And as I said, a lot of running around is required. There was a very common observation across most of the final year students in the last few days – all of us were just feeling like running away from this place. I see it as the result of tiredness of all this running around and now that there was a window to escape, we were all going restless.

Like Santiago of 'The Alchemist', I felt like asking the old sorcerer about all these efforts and that were they really required. But I knew that the answer I ought to get was the same that Santiago got - "If I had told you, you wouldn't have seen the Pyramids. They're beautiful, aren't they?" The efforts and patience anticipated for these small but highly important learning is a lot and only when they are spent, we get to see Pyramids at times too. And the Pyramids are really beautiful too :-).

Have I stopped blogging?

Not really! I know that it is more than a month that I posted but these were the final days at IITB – full of treats and lukkha interspersed with things like exams, CD writing, late night chats etc. The life literally had become so frivolous that you couldn’t expect good ideas or happenings to originate (especially purposeful). Actually a few ideas struck, but then I was too lazy and "busy" to ponder and write on them.
Thankfully, I have written down some of the titles which I can expand upon even now and I’ll try to do so. It also came to my mind that I can post some fillers (some things which aren’t my original but are worth sharing and expanding upon in the blog) but again the laziness factor crept into the picture.
I hope that after writing all this, I’d be able to continue with the blogging at least for the coming two months when I am free and I am home.