Catcher in the Rye: Re-visited

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.” 
J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)


This might be the third time I am reading this book. And every time I do theres something new to discover. Its just one of those books which can very unconsciously trigger so many thoughts in your mind. Every time you read it, you relate it to yourself or somebody you know and it fits right in. 


All morons hate it when you call them a moron. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye.


Holden Caufield, the protagonist/narrator of the story is a character to whom I can relate to the least and at the same time, the most. Its because like him I, in-fact all of us for that matter can state bravely that we all hate phonies, but at some part of life we all become one, mostly unconsciously. But some  have the misfortune of knowing this deep down on a conscious level, which is like a burden that they carry, because they themselves fall under the category of the people they hate - "phonies", and they can't help it.
            The least because unlike Holden I will never have the guts to be as bold, as dauntless as to stand up against it and claim that what I want to be in life is just 'a Catcher in the Rye'

"when you are depressed the first thing you throw in the bin is your principles".

 Anyway, among the so many trails of thoughts which this book leaves, heres one for starters - 

Holden always keeps asking random cab drivers about where do they think the ducks in the Central Park go when the lake is all frozen. And as absurd as the question is, he gets all the more absurd answers to it. But he feels like its a quest which he is supposed to follow through no matter what.

When you are lost you tend to find the answers of your being, your existence in the most absurd questions. Do you really think Holden Caufield was interested where do the ducks or the fish for that matter go from the lake when its winter. Its just one of those things when getting the answers of such silly questions gives meaning to your life.

This quote from Catcher is one of my favorites :

"For is not every parent a catcher in the rye?

Is not every teacher a catcher in the rye?

Is not every good business leader a catcher in the rye?

Some of us choose to be the catcher. Some of us, like me, love the responsibility and embraces being a catcher in the rye in business. "

Sure. A little part of me dies a little when I miss someone who mistakenly goes off the edge of that crazy cliff. But, on the other hand, I become a better person for everyone I get to steer clear of the crazy cliff.

There are some of us who don’t really sign up to be the catcher and yet are put in that role. Many parents are that way. Not because they didn’t want to be but rather before you have a child it’s a little difficult to understand that crazy cliff is always there and you always have to keep at least a little eye on it. That is one reason I respect great parents.

And then teachers. Some begin a career as a teacher because they just love to teach. But as time goes on they realize a part of their responsibility is to watch those in the fields of rye to insure those who wander to close to the cliff that they at least know someone is paying attention. 

And then there are business leaders who go, go go. Always forward focused. And yet, over time, they realize to be the best leader a part of their role is to see the crazy cliff and catch people before they go over.

Ok. Maybe I’m nuts for seeing all this in the catcher in the rye but that is what I see.

And maybe that’s why I loved the book even when I was young.  A part of me wanted to be the catcher in the rye. I am sure anybody would have had me put in some institution if I had answered “be a catcher in the rye” when asked “so what do you want to be.”

But. Now that I am here, i.e., no longer that young?

Being the catcher in the rye may be the best job in the world.

I teach for india...

My name is Nehal and I Teach For India. 


"Teach For India is a nationwide movement of outstanding college graduates and young professionals who will commit two-years to teach full-time in under resourced schools and who will become lifelong leaders working from within various sectors toward the pursuit of equity in education" 


I teach 38 tiny 3rd graders in an under resourced School in Bibwewadi, Pune. The kids come from a very low income background, the common professions of the parents are auto-rickshaw drivers, security guards, watchman, plumber etc. Its hard enough for them to afford the education fees let alone books and stationary. But still we dream big and think that if we work hard, nothing is unachievable.

We need your help to keep this dream alive. We are trying to raise funds for our school for the purpose of making a small library and a Projector so that everyone can have access to amazing books, Literature and quality education.

The entire amount will be used for buying books for the library, projector, arranging field trips etc.

Also, If you would like to help in your own way or volunteer in our class, you are more than welcome to "Our little India". Any little help is more than appreciated.

For more details about Teach for India, visit www.teachforindia.org or you can contact me at nehal.jadon2011@teachforindia.org/ 
+918390554604

Thank you :) 


http://www.giveindia.org/iGive-NehalJ


Do not hesitate to donate through this Website - it is simple, totally secure and the most efficient way to help me reach my goal. The NGO I have chosen will receive your money quickly and effortlessly. You will receive tax benefits for your deduction in India.

GiveIndia will process every donation and provide you with a receipt for the same. Thank you for visiting my iGive page and supporting my cause.

http://www.giveindia.org/iGive-NehalJ

Twisted : Laurie Anderson

Twisted :Laurie Halse Anderson

It keeps coming back just like a boomerang, it just keeps coming back. I don't know if I have become obsessed with this or its just mere co-incidences but death\suicide\lost teenagers seem to be regular visitor on my booklist. But the only thing I can say that was different this time is that there was 'hope'. Before this book I have gone through experiencing people losing every hope they had to survive, broken beyond repair to be able to get through what was going on, eventually ending up extinct. But 'Twisted' tells a tale of recovery, not the process in general or a memo on how-to-not-lose-your-head, but the possibility of there being another way out.

Its true that I found this book on a list of "books similar to 'Thirteen Reasons Why' " , and the reason behind it was sufficiently complicated enough, even for me to understand. Maybe I have earned an obsession to these things until the point that I figure out every aspect and detail there is to it, the various reasons, their possible solutions and last of all the consequences. Makes me think maybe I should have studied Psychology. But who says you need to go through a college or a degree course just because you feel interested enough to know more (maybe if I were a Vampire and had a few decades or if I was a lucky one than a few hundreds to spare for education, I would have definitely given it a try). 

"I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at."

             — Laurie Halse Anderson (Twisted)

Coming back to "Twisted" , The title is explicit, there really could not have been an apt title that could have said it in just a word. "Twisted" is a story of "Tyler", a teenager who like every other has a lot of issues, mostly concerning his parents (father specifically). What makes it different than the other teenagers is that instead of the him feeling that he is the one only cornered, he actually is the one who is being cornered here. But you still can't blame others, a bad reputation tends to do that sometimes. In his case it was spray painting on his School walls some rude stuff, that too with spelling errors. His 'foul deed' as he call it put him on probation and community service along with the permanent entry in the bad records of every authority figure which weirdly includes his Dad (not in the literal sense of authority there).

And just as pointed out earlier bad reputation can have some very serious ill effects to it, Tyler gets blamed for a serious activity which is also being proclaimed as a crime, and thus he is being accused of being a criminal which certainly doesn't do much to raise his already declining morale. 

But it serves the purpose of highlighting every tardiness on his account, every slip, every class he missed, in other words even picking-his-nose is being considered a felony. He is being blamed for such atrocious behavior at all ends that at times even it makes him doubt that he really must have done all those things he is being blamed for, maybe in sleep, maybe he was sleep-walking or maybe someone drugged him. Having lived the same way ever since seventh grade, which was the first time he ever had the concept of 'what it must feel like to kill himself and see others regretting messing up with him would mean' entered his brain, he figures out that among the options available to him, this was by far the easiest and most tempting one.

He steals his father's gun along with a few bullets and a wad of cash but ends up throwing them in a chemical plant upstream ( the gun and the bullets). He is tempted from time to time later to use his freeway pass but something holds him up. At times its silly small bits like 'not leaving the mess on the carpet for mom to clean', 'not being a extra cleaning work to the janitors who have been very kind to him during his probational work with them', or simply 'an embarrassing autopsy report', but its pretty sure the reason holding him back is bigger and obvious than these.

The books ends with him resolving his issues with the bad grades in school and mostly his problems concerning his father, which is dealt with sufficient emotions, making it sarcastic and humorous in the beginning and eventual ending it up with tears. But the whole point remains - "He got out!" , He overcame the hurdles and found his way out of the labyrinth, which so many others fail to conquer. Which means theres always hope. No matter how big and complicated the labyrinth might be and no matter how lost and tired you might be, there is always a light at the end, that points to the EXIT and it ain't the one you had plainly in mind but the one you had subconsciously wanted, but hidden it behind all the hopeless thoughts.

"I scared myself, because once you've thought long and hard enough about doing something that is colossally stupid, you feel like you've actually done it, and then you're never quite sure what your limits are."
— Laurie Halse Anderson (Twisted)

         

Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst.

   They say that — "the best gift that you can give is time", I never completely understood this saying till now, after reading "The Gift" by Cecelia Ahern. Just to be clear; this is not a book review. Consider this more as more of the ramblings of a highly caffeinated person at @ 3 AM.

The average life span of a human being on our planet is 67.2 years, and when you look at it as an outsider, you find it sufficiently long enough to accomplish most of the things a person wishes to, in those 67.2 years.

      You learn to speak, learn to walk, you go to school and learn other things along with what its really like to have friends, you learn to face bullies or become one, you reach college and find the distance between now and the years after which you see yourself accomplished staring back at you, you find love, you lose love, you come across love again just to compromise with it and survive, you reach at that point in your life when you may or may not have accomplished all that you ever wanted to, but still are at peace with where you stand, you get married, live a life managing yourself between your work and family, eventually you reach old-age accompanying the various side-effects that follow through and reminisce about your past life, and then face death either as a friend or a foe. 

Those 67.2 years of average life would have been just perfectly long enough if this was exactly how our life goes (though it definitely does not appear highly tempting to me). But like most things, "life isn't perfect". We spent most of time crying over things, just to realize later that now we don't even remember the reason why did we shed even a single tear over it, let alone what the hell was "it"?

As an infant we cry over milk; toys; attention, as a kid we progress to crying when we fall; get hurt; get shouted at, further down the lane comes a phase when we cry over lost friends; for a few - declining academics, then we advance further to crying over Heartaches; heartbreaks; lost love and regrets, even after getting through all that, we manage to find some or other reason for crying, maybe out loud or a silent suppressing one with consideration to the fact that we are adults and are not supposed to be caught crying anymore. 

But what definitely follows is the fact that we waste most of our precious years crying over things which firstly don't matter and later become the things that puts us in strain even to remember what they really were in the first place.

    "Time" , is a highly rare and exotic commodity which is as crucial as 'air' and just like 'air', we share a minimum iota of it. Just think of everything that you ever wished to do at-least once in your life, your things-to-do-before-I-die list. Have you even accomplished a quarter of the stuff that you have unconsciously added to that list? Ever wondered what really are those things that you want to feature on that list? Ever really framed a list? You will be surprised at how much you limit yourself, only to realize later that it was all for nothing, just getting on through with the day just to face the exact same day all over again!

But with this highly caffeinated state of mind and an aftermath of reading two books back-to-back emphasizing on 'Death' and the little time that we own to hop and pop around this planet, I have realized that the things I fuss over are nothing compared to the misery some of the less fortunate ones have to face, and nothing can be more major or severe enough to devote my share of that little precious time of mine fussing over than the things I really wanted to do with my life, the things that I always wanted to be and the things I always wanted to do: My Things-To-Do-Before-I-Die List :)

I am improvising one right now :)

Because you may never know what you may run out of - Your time or the things that you want to do with it.

13 Reasons Why - Jay Asher: A Review

13 Reasons Why - Jay Asher

Ever wondered what it would be like to take a long break, a break from everything that sucks in your life, a break from all those people who have hurt you, a break from misery and embarrassment, a break from all the irritation and suffocation, a break from the regretted past, a break from feeling lost, a break from feeling like you don't belong, a break from "Life". Well, tough times tend to make people susceptible to wonder these at times, but even then most of us are even scared of facing ourselves feeling like this, scared of what are we thinking and scared that it might be true. And we move on from the thought a little haunted but always recovering. But what if someone does not recovers? Where does that leads them?

'13 Reasons Why' is the story of one such person - 'Hannah Baker' , giving up. Tired of being ridiculed by everyone, rumors haunting her reputation and its consequences, being pushed around over and over again, betrayed by friends, betrayed by everyone, facing every worst case scenario a teenager has ever came across, with no one to trust, no one to look upon to, no friend to seek help even when she tries, she finally begins to consider the idea of the so-called "easy way out" , but her entire journey through it makes it seem anything but easy. 

"Hello, boys and girls. Hannah Baker here. Live and in stereo...No return engagements. No encore. And this time absolutely no requests...I hope you're ready, because I'm about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended. And if you're listening to these tapes, you're one of the reasons why....I'm not saying which tape brings you into the story. But fear not, if you received this lovely little box, your name will pop up...I promise."

The story is narrated by "Clay Jensen", a friend of Hannah's who has received a set of mysterious tapes, its only after putting on the first tape that he realizes that these are Hannah's tapes, the ones she recorded right before she gave-up. 

Hannah has been thinking about it from quite a while which gave her enough time to record a series of Tapes about the 13 people who finally led her to end her life. Theres a pattern that they are supposed to follow by sending the tapes to the next person on Hannah's list, and they do so not out of the scare that she gave them but more out of guilt and thinking it as the only way they could help her now by letting out the truth of how she felt to people who made her feel that way. Through those tapes Hannah not only wants them to know what she went through because of them and make them feel guilty but also at the same time she wants to tell them that she tried. She tried really hard to not give-up, tried to trust these people again only to let herself down again, she even tried to seek help whenever possible but every time found herself facing a solid useless wall. Which lead her to the final step of eventually giving up.

"No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. Oftentimes, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same." 

 "I wanted people to trust me, despite anything they'd heard. And more than that, I wanted them to know me. Not the stuff they thought they knew about me. No, the real me. I wanted them to get past the rumors. To see beyond the relationships I once had, or maybe still had but that they didn't agree with. " 

"When you try rescuing someone and discover they can't be reached, why would you ever throw that back in their face? "

"Everything...affects everything"  

                                 —Hannah Baker

Through out the book we see Clay's perspective while he is listening to those tapes and even though we are not the ones on Hannah's list, yet we can feel each and every emotion that Clay displays as closely as him, his anger, his hurt, his frustration and helplessness when he knows heres a friend who is giving up and who is looking out for someone to help her but still he can't help her because its too late to do so. We can sense his fear mixed along with anticipation that any time now he will listen to the tape which is about him and he will know, how he affected Hannah's life and her decision to abandon it. This is definitely one of those books that makes you cry sheer out of frustration and helplessness. Its rare for me to shed tears while reading a book, but to know what Hannah went through in the little life that she led and then to know that Clay (who liked her so much and would have definitely helped her out if he knew, which now seems pretty unobservant of him even to him, because there were signs!!!) getting to know all those things through Hannah (in the form of her tapes). Everything feels like a situation where you are standing right next to a person who is jumping off a cliff and crying for your help, but only you can't. And when you finally can, its too late.

"You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything." 

The only thing I disliked about the book, later became the very thing I adored about it. Initially you get a little confused when Clay is listening to the tapes that whether its Hannah's words or things that are on Clay's mind? Because theres no indication used to separate them and after every line of Hannah's, we get to peek into what's on Clay's mind, it maybe about what Hannah just said or simply other related and non-related things. But eventually the confusion disappears and it becomes more of an in-direct interaction between them, between us. This way of writing the story made sure that the reader feels involved by being at Clay's position, asking the very own questions to her that Clay has on his mind, feeling all those things which he feels, and through him what Hannah feels. 

"A flood of emotions rushes into me. Pain and anger. Sadness and pity. But most surprising of all, hope." 

And then to conclude : After reading the book, the eventual question that arises is - "Is it right? Is it right to give up, no matter how severe the circumstances may be?" 

But instead of finding an answer to this question theres a far positive and better theory revealed in the book which is - Everyone no matter how rigid and non-trusting they might be, they seek help, and its the lack of it, that eventually leads them to take these steps. The right help provided just at the right moment can aid people back to safety. No matter how shaken people might be from what they have experienced and even more from the fact that they are giving serious thoughts to ending up their livese for it, they want to trust people to help them. And they definitely want to come out of this fear, not feel the way they feel about the world, more importantly about themselves, they just need someone to assure them. Someone to trust and to know that their trust won't break again. They want to know simple things like "the world is really a better place to live in" (though it might be a lie, but still it helps) and it is definitely here that they belong.

" If you hear a song that makes you cry and you don't want to cry anymore, you don't listen to that song anymore.
But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide not to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head." 

Here's a Poem written by Hannah in one of her those days when she was using Poetry as a way to be happy again, didn't really turn out that way:

Official website:

http://www.thirteenreasonswhy.com/

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower : Stephen Chbosky

 The Perks Of Being A Wallflower : 
By Stephen Chbosky

           Have you ever wondered what it would be like to receive letters from someone you've never met? In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie, a 14 year old boy just entering high school, writes to a mystery person about life, love, and all the other things involved with growing up. He stands on the outside of life, making beautiful observations about how life doesn't always make sense. The people surrounding him make many efforts to have him "live his life" rather than sit on the sidelines. These attempts, along with the pains of growing up help Charlie to come to shocking realizations about his past. Stephen Chbosky has created an amazingly accurate picture of an introverted teenager growing up. Charlie is one of those rare characters who feels like a friend you never want to lose. This novel paints a beautiful picture that everyone should see.

"So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I am still trying to figure out how that could be."

       I cannot deny that I really loved Charlie’s character; he is so honest, real, blunt, and likable. From the start it seems that Charlie has a unique way of thinking and acting, and you may spend a lot of time trying to work out what’s “wrong” with him. After a while I realized that I relate to Charlie a lot more than I thought, and that we all probably relate to Charlie in some way or another. Thankfully, the book is wonderfully written and the language it conveys is very real and authentic.

"I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have".

    The thing that kept me interested in the book through out was Charlie's resemblance to the protagonist in 'Catcher In The Rye'. Because Charlie’s voice really did remind me of Holden’s and Holden has always been one of my favorite characters. Both of them sound young, but not necessarily immature young. They sound like kids who are confused about things, but really really do want to figure them out. And both of them are so honest. And they are smart, but very much unaware of how smart they are which makes it all the more intriguing.

“Sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.”

      One of my favorite things about the book was Charlie’s relationship with his English teacher, Bill. Bill gives Charlie a lot of books to read – books that the rest of the class isn’t being asked to read – and he makes him write essays about them. These include The Catcher in the Rye (of course), On the Road, To Kill a Mockingbird, Peter Pan, Hamlet, The Stranger, Walden, The Naked Lunch, Fountainhead and more. And at one point, Charlie says the following:

"I am starting to see a real trend in the kind of books Bill gives me to read. And just like the tape of songs, it is amazing to hold each of them in the palm of my hand. They are all my favorites. All of them."

He also says, Sometimes, I think Bill forgets that I am sixteen. But I am very happy that he does, which echoes my suspicion that it’s better to give teenagers books that will challenge them and make them think than to just assume they won’t understand anything.

His list includes two of my favorite books and provided me with a very worthy To-Read list for this month :)

"I guess what I’m saying is that this all feels very familiar… And all the books you’ve read have been read by other people. And all the songs you’ve loved have been heard by other people. And that girl that’s pretty to you is pretty to other people. And you know that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are describing ‘unity’” (95-96).

One last thing: There’s a surprising revelation towards the end of the book, and although I of course won’t spoil it for you, I just wanted to say how much I liked the way it was dealt with. Basically, Charlie has to deal with something terrible coming from someone he loves, and the book didn’t oversimplify things in the least. Charlie’s love for the person is still there, and it is one of the main reasons why he is so hurt, why everything is so difficult to deal with. And you don’t often see books acknowledging this when dealing with this particular issue. It although being highly critical and one that somewhere defines a lot of things in Charlie's behavior, is not blown out of proportion and is given the exact amount of consideration that it deserves, keeping enact all the feelings

 I am definitely looking forward to the film adaptation of the novel which is under production, with Stephen Chbosky writing the screenplay for the movie and Emma Watson & Logan Lerman as the main actors.

Heres a Poem from the book, which was written by Charlie's friend Michael (as his suicide note):

• Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
  he wrote a poem
  And he called it "Chops"
  because that was the name of his dog
  And that's what it was all about
  And his teacher gave him an A
  and a gold star
  And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
  and read it to his aunts.

• Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
  he wrote a poem
  And he called it "Autumn"
  because that was the name of the season
  And that's what it was all about
  And his teacher gave him an A
  and asked him to write more clearly
  And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
  because of its new paint.

• Once on a paper torn from his notebook
  he wrote a poem
  And he called it "Innocence: A Question"
  because that was the question about his girl
  And that's what it was all about
  And his professor gave him an A
  and a strange steady look
  And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
  because he never showed her.

• That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
  he tried another poem
  And he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
  Because that's what it was really all about
  And he gave himself an A
  and a slash on each damned wrist
  And he hung it on the bathroom door
  because this time he didn't think
  he could reach the kitchen.......

"But because things change. And friends leave. And life doesn’t stop for anybody."

• • "I know that things get worse before they get better because that's what my psychiatrist says, but this is a worse that feels too big."

For more details on the book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perks_of_Being_a_Wallflower