I thick therefore I am

I was going through New York Times best books of 2006 list. My eyes stopped at The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It would be wrong to say that I was surprised to see the book included in the list. I had purchased it after a very strong recommendation by a friend. Even then I just didn't pick it up from the bookstore. I read the reviews over the internet, read the reviews on the front cover, end cover and various pages at the start of the book. It seemed that this was a work of sheer genius as all the critics were full of praise for the book. Well, I could not comprehend it.

Frankly, I was waiting for the book to reach a climax but it never did. Having watched so many futuristic B-movies where the future of humans is bleak usually after third world war, the book was like a script right out of such zombie movie. But so many critics could not be wrong. May be I fail to understand the point of the book or it was so subtle that it couldn’t penetrate my thick head.

I started thinking about other books or things I could not comprehend. When I was in London, I purchased a few books which also included "Kafka on the shore" by Haruki Murakami. However, I started other books and procrastinated reading it. As soon as I was left with one or two books to read, I would go to the bookstore and buy few more books. In this way I was not able to read this one even after 6 months on my shelf. Then my flat mate went to Pakistan for 15 days. When he came back, he told me that this book is a badge of intellectualism in Pakistan as he found that all his delusional (my addition) friends were either displaying it on their bookshelf or reading it. So he borrowed it from me to read it. Upon returning it he says that it is ground breaking.

I didn't read it for a few more months. But then when I was about to come back to Pakistan, I was voraciously reading books so that I know what books to keep and what to leave in London. I picked it up. It was one twisted book. It was more along the lines of magic, fantasy and a little incest. I was shocked. Either I am dumb (more probable) or the definition of intellectual has changed over time.

I would have been better off reading science fiction. It’s been a long time since I read some science fiction and with intellectual writing at such lows, I am afraid of what I will find in Science Fiction novels _ transsexuals ruling the world. Sorry I could not help bring that in. Actually I was thrown off by "In the line of beauty" critically acclaimed fiction book written by Alan Holinghurst about a guy falling in love with a 'council worker'. After reading a few pages, it turned out that the 'council worker' was a man. However, I thought that just might be a distraction but when there was an explicit description of gay sex in a park, I shut down the book.

My non-intellectualism is not only revealed through books. Sometimes, it is such simple things as movies. When I was a kid, the movies I had marked not to see were the ones that got nominated for Oscar. It started because I had watched 'My Left Foot' when I was at an age when I should be watching "Herbie goes bananas". At that young age, nothing could beat "Top Gun". (I recently watched it on TV assuming that I would get the same kick out of it as I did more than 15 years ago. Turned out to be one cheesy movie.) However, after watching "Top Gun", I assumed that next film would be action packed as we were in an age when action movies reigned supreme and watched Indian movies in those days seeing who plays the lead role whether Amitabh, Mithun, Anil Kapoor or Jackie Schroff (an indicator of whether the movie was an action movie). Then a time came when I used to decide which movie to watch based on which 'hot' heroine is in the movie. Anyway, the next Tom Cruise movie was Oscar nominated "Born on Fourth of July". After that I had enough of critically acclaimed and award nominated movies. For the next five years I watched cheesy, high school and zombie movies. With the arrival of "Pulp fiction" I regained my interest in critically acclaimed movies and have never looked back since then though many of you might find this movie a load of crap.

When one is not gifted with intellect, it is not limited to books and movies. It extends much beyond to fine arts as well. I can understand people buying and collecting paintings of van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, and Rembrandt etc. but coughing out more than a million pound sterling at a Sotheby’s auction of Andy Warhol's depiction of Campbell Soup Can... I mean the picture isn't even aesthetic in usual sense. Am I missing something over here?

Even for a masterpiece, I cannot comprehend dishing out an absurd amount. Some of those paintings are so child like yet since that squiggle is by the maestro, there must be something in it. Some delicious inside joke, a pun at the authorities, a reflection of his beliefs, a capture drama unveiling in a single instant. Cut the bullshit please. He just put a few strokes on the canvas in a fit and the critics are trying to read something in it.

On reading too much into something, reminds me of matriculation and intermediate Urdu exam where we have to explain the verses of poem in the Board exam. 4 or 8 verses of a poet will be given to translate in simple Urdu and explain their meaning. A student will answer by mentioning the poem and poet's name followed by a brief history of the poet and if the poem was written in some particular difficult time for the poet, a brief description of the times as well. This is followed by hair splitting of the verses where the poet expresses his love for his beloved (to be interpreted as Almighty) which is further explained by interspersing some verses from this poet's or other poets' poem to drive the point home. The answer is finished off with the summary of remaining verses of the original poem. Oh please!!! The real story is that the poet was a drunkard and a womanizer and described his yearning for those 'sinful' acts in thinly disguised verses. But we with our uptight morals interpret it as his yearning to meet his maker and elation which comes with attaining sainthood.

I think that my nonintellectualism was evident when I was a kid. I hated the stories in my text books. I'd rather read "I'm OK, You're OK" than to be forced to read a story where the farmer explains to his son at the deathbed when they couldn't break twigs tied together that if they are united, nothing could break them whereas its very easy to break a single twig. Though we were never expected to read classics from cover to cover, yet text books included the most boring and moralistic extracts from old Urdu classics with major culprit being Deputy Nazir Ahmed with his stories about obedient daughters, disobedient sons etc. We also had writers like Manto, Prem Chand, and Ismat Chugtai etc. but no, I had to read Akbari and Asghari… That’s why I could not become an intellectual.