Mother - Maxim Gorky and the ensuing ramblings

Finished reading "Mother" by Maxim Gorky. Read it online in want of access to a hard-copy. But it was engrossing enough so that I could complete it even online rather soon.

Before this, my only acquaintance with Russian literature was through the two "big ones" of Tolstoy - "Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace". The later is amongst my all time favourites.

And its interesting, even infuriating to see the two different societies and two different people they describe. Gorky's characters are the ones on whose blood Tolstoy's characters used to survive. And despite this obvious awkwardness of the situation, how real both kinds of characters have been through out the human history!

And see this anamoly along with the descriptions of the kind given in "A tale of two cities" (of French Revolution) or that in "Gone with the wind" (of American Civil War). The oppressed becomes the oppressor. We go nowhere near the ideal balance we would seek.

"The two people" always exist. This is what I had written in the poem titled Main Shoshit Hoon. An excerpt follows (You need unicode enabled browser to view this)

कह।नी घटन।एँ नहीं प।त्र बस बदलती रही

Another one which sarcastically claims -

कोई नहीं िमट। सकेग। यह।ँ से शोिषतों के न।म को
बन।य। मज़बूत हमें इतन। धन्यव।द भगव।न को |


For the whole poem, you can click here. If the link does not open directly, you might have to go to my Writings Page and look for this poem dated February 24, 2000.

Categories: Literature, Thoughts