On Alang and Howard Roark
One of the most haunting memories that I have… pertains to reading epical and epochal “Fountainhead”… Among so many questions that it raised… was… Can a Roark become a Keating? And how to avoid becoming Keating… if you are Roark?
This question, mind you, is an existential one… for everyone… who had ever been a Roark… for he would vouch that being Roark is no mean task in the world, which is inhabited by the multitudes of Keatings and Tooheys… absolutely existential.
Often, I have found myself battling with same question… do I have the abilities of Roark… can I preserve Roark within me…
Like for instance, when I was studying in IIT Bombay… I was least bothered with what kind of grades I am getting or what kind of summer internship I would be able to procure… I hated the crass commoditization that had been done to the education of Business Management… I used to dwell into far more pertinent questions- Why do we need options and futures… is it a ploy to reduce risk (rather transfer the liability of risk) to increase profits, and experiences have often lead us to realize that this continual transfers of risk… shift the liability of risk to the weaker and marginalized players. (Time proved me right, today, similar question are being asked to the Merchant and Investment Bankers… and a crass and crude effort is being stage-managed to save Capitalism… doling out 1000 of billions of dollars to ailing and dying corporations, parts of which are used to pay retention bonus to the perpetrators!!! I remember the same world did not have tenth the amount to help dying Africa to meet its Millennium Development Goals)
Anyways… then came Delhi, that started changing the Roark within me… the city asked me… which Car do I drive… what can I achieve, out of turn, from my hallowed position … and not how did you achieve the hallowed position. In my weakest moments, I wished I was Keating… and knew that I am not.
It took a Cairo to revive Roark… resuscitate it … and the process was slow… initially I tried to save those greenbacks… I argued one of those can earn me 45 in India … money, initially, was more important than experience… for it would had bought me a car and some modicum of respect back home… well, strange but true.
However… my perception towards life started changing after meeting every Mariam, every Heidi, every Kaveh… life is so much more than ephemeral desires… suddenly, I wanted to meet people… an art that I had forgotten since my IIT days… when with a backpack, I used to wander in the Sahyadris… with a desire to sleep in desolate temples, eat whatever offered by poor folks of village. This wish took me to small villages of Egypt… to Syria… to Jordan… to West Bank and to Jerusalem… every step I took… changed me... revived the Roark within me… I forgot being Keating… though I knew, Keating is down, but not out.
And once I was back in Delhi… yes Keating raised its head… through same and different faces… faces that asked me- where was my car… this time I was more resolute… thanks to the life that I had already seen…
This blog, however, is not about this perpetual battle between a Keating and Roark. It is about how I tried to be Roark… once upon a time in a small place called Alang.
Alang is world’s largest Ship-Breaking yard… tucked in one corner of India… in the state of Gujarat and in the district of Bhavnagar
At that point of time, I was working in Jamnagar in soon-to-be largest Greenfield refinery of the world… somehow, among the multitudes of zombies inhabiting the place… I was one… my only two refuge was my friend Saurabh Agarwal… and my best friend, who lived in Allahabad and always a phone call and a letter away.
To escape the constraining atmosphere, I used to rush to Bombay, Diu and whatever places… whenever I could avail a few holidays. During one such escape I reached Somnath… the experience of which turned me into a spiritual being… in a sense. During another such escape, I reached the town of Bhavnagar… to see the Jain temples of Palitana.
It was there somebody told me about Alang… I had heard its name earlier too… but never knew its exact position… and now that I was very near to the place, there was no going back. No going back!!!!!!!
Alang is one of the most surreal spectacles one can ever dream to see, ever!!!! I have seen massive human endeavors- Reliance Jamnagar Complex, Dabhol Power Corporation… and believe me everything pales in comparison. Everything.
When I was seeing this humungous scenery… of ships everywhere… knocked, semi-knocked and about to be knocked- I was reminded of the Guy Francon’s Connecticut Granite Quarries, where Roark toiled for months… rather than “compromise his drawings, and his ideals, to the whims of his clients”. It is at this quarry, he met his lady love- inspiration, Dominique….
Something snapped in me… I wanted to enact Roark… in Alang. It was a sudden rush of passion… some unknown inspiration that beckoned me… I decided to stay back… caring two hoots about a waiting boss. I stayed there for two days… still making up my mind… And on one such day… I joined a gathering of few migrant Bihari laborers, one of whom was reciting Ramcharitmanas… and giving a lucid explanation of it all…
He was reciting the portion of the story, where Sugreev tells Hanuman about his powers (Hanuman was cursed to forget all his powers)… the elderly man then goes on to say… that there is no bigger malaise that to forget one’s own ability and live a listless life... when the gathering was over… I stayed back and told him my story… and my intention of staying back!!!
I remember his face and his empathetic smile… he said Saheb!!! You have the ability to think like this, you are special… don’t waste yourself either here or there… move ahead… there is so much to be changed in this world… and you can
Today, when I look back- I feel indebted to that man!!! For showing me the true path… I haven’t achieved big things… but yes made some difference in some lives… of those Indians, who were stranded in Lebanon during 2006 war, here in Afghanistan….
I will continue doing that… and moving towards a grand dream of mine… and if I am not able to make any difference… I would at least tell my dreams to my sons… who can, thereafter, take it over from me.
Amen!
This question, mind you, is an existential one… for everyone… who had ever been a Roark… for he would vouch that being Roark is no mean task in the world, which is inhabited by the multitudes of Keatings and Tooheys… absolutely existential.
Often, I have found myself battling with same question… do I have the abilities of Roark… can I preserve Roark within me…
Like for instance, when I was studying in IIT Bombay… I was least bothered with what kind of grades I am getting or what kind of summer internship I would be able to procure… I hated the crass commoditization that had been done to the education of Business Management… I used to dwell into far more pertinent questions- Why do we need options and futures… is it a ploy to reduce risk (rather transfer the liability of risk) to increase profits, and experiences have often lead us to realize that this continual transfers of risk… shift the liability of risk to the weaker and marginalized players. (Time proved me right, today, similar question are being asked to the Merchant and Investment Bankers… and a crass and crude effort is being stage-managed to save Capitalism… doling out 1000 of billions of dollars to ailing and dying corporations, parts of which are used to pay retention bonus to the perpetrators!!! I remember the same world did not have tenth the amount to help dying Africa to meet its Millennium Development Goals)
Anyways… then came Delhi, that started changing the Roark within me… the city asked me… which Car do I drive… what can I achieve, out of turn, from my hallowed position … and not how did you achieve the hallowed position. In my weakest moments, I wished I was Keating… and knew that I am not.
It took a Cairo to revive Roark… resuscitate it … and the process was slow… initially I tried to save those greenbacks… I argued one of those can earn me 45 in India … money, initially, was more important than experience… for it would had bought me a car and some modicum of respect back home… well, strange but true.
However… my perception towards life started changing after meeting every Mariam, every Heidi, every Kaveh… life is so much more than ephemeral desires… suddenly, I wanted to meet people… an art that I had forgotten since my IIT days… when with a backpack, I used to wander in the Sahyadris… with a desire to sleep in desolate temples, eat whatever offered by poor folks of village. This wish took me to small villages of Egypt… to Syria… to Jordan… to West Bank and to Jerusalem… every step I took… changed me... revived the Roark within me… I forgot being Keating… though I knew, Keating is down, but not out.
And once I was back in Delhi… yes Keating raised its head… through same and different faces… faces that asked me- where was my car… this time I was more resolute… thanks to the life that I had already seen…
This blog, however, is not about this perpetual battle between a Keating and Roark. It is about how I tried to be Roark… once upon a time in a small place called Alang.
Alang is world’s largest Ship-Breaking yard… tucked in one corner of India… in the state of Gujarat and in the district of Bhavnagar
At that point of time, I was working in Jamnagar in soon-to-be largest Greenfield refinery of the world… somehow, among the multitudes of zombies inhabiting the place… I was one… my only two refuge was my friend Saurabh Agarwal… and my best friend, who lived in Allahabad and always a phone call and a letter away.
To escape the constraining atmosphere, I used to rush to Bombay, Diu and whatever places… whenever I could avail a few holidays. During one such escape I reached Somnath… the experience of which turned me into a spiritual being… in a sense. During another such escape, I reached the town of Bhavnagar… to see the Jain temples of Palitana.
It was there somebody told me about Alang… I had heard its name earlier too… but never knew its exact position… and now that I was very near to the place, there was no going back. No going back!!!!!!!
Alang is one of the most surreal spectacles one can ever dream to see, ever!!!! I have seen massive human endeavors- Reliance Jamnagar Complex, Dabhol Power Corporation… and believe me everything pales in comparison. Everything.
When I was seeing this humungous scenery… of ships everywhere… knocked, semi-knocked and about to be knocked- I was reminded of the Guy Francon’s Connecticut Granite Quarries, where Roark toiled for months… rather than “compromise his drawings, and his ideals, to the whims of his clients”. It is at this quarry, he met his lady love- inspiration, Dominique….
Something snapped in me… I wanted to enact Roark… in Alang. It was a sudden rush of passion… some unknown inspiration that beckoned me… I decided to stay back… caring two hoots about a waiting boss. I stayed there for two days… still making up my mind… And on one such day… I joined a gathering of few migrant Bihari laborers, one of whom was reciting Ramcharitmanas… and giving a lucid explanation of it all…
He was reciting the portion of the story, where Sugreev tells Hanuman about his powers (Hanuman was cursed to forget all his powers)… the elderly man then goes on to say… that there is no bigger malaise that to forget one’s own ability and live a listless life... when the gathering was over… I stayed back and told him my story… and my intention of staying back!!!
I remember his face and his empathetic smile… he said Saheb!!! You have the ability to think like this, you are special… don’t waste yourself either here or there… move ahead… there is so much to be changed in this world… and you can
Today, when I look back- I feel indebted to that man!!! For showing me the true path… I haven’t achieved big things… but yes made some difference in some lives… of those Indians, who were stranded in Lebanon during 2006 war, here in Afghanistan….
I will continue doing that… and moving towards a grand dream of mine… and if I am not able to make any difference… I would at least tell my dreams to my sons… who can, thereafter, take it over from me.
Amen!
2 comments:
Insha Allah!!!
God Bless You !!
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