Deep Upanishadic angst

Normally the Upanishads or the Bible or bits of the sacred Gurubani are more than enough to restore perspective to a bruised and unhappy spirit. But what do you do if nothing, not even a transfusion of thayir saadam (dahi-chawal) seems to work? Everything seems to get on your nerves: the weather, the power cuts, the workplace, friends, relatives, yourself! It’s year-end blues, you tell yourself. Or, I need a holiday. Or retail therapy — shop till you drop! Or, just a new love interest?

But those Good Books don’t let you off easy. In they clump, sternly raising the finger of perspective, telling you that these devices are nothing but elaborate dodges from the fact that life is really a very mundane business of "getting and spending and laying waste our powers".

It seems so deliciously easy to fall in love with a Guru, lay your burdens on another. In fact, I just met up with a bunch of affluent South Delhi women who are besottedly in love with a white guru, while Saturday in Delhi saw a workshop at the India Habitat Centre by another very happening young man whose followers call him "an enlightened master". One can only feel glad that people are able to take comfort where they find it, that help is at all available. It is certainly much nicer than going to a shrink and less expensive, too.

But what of the many sceptics who nevertheless want God, the ones with a stern Upanishadic code, wanting succour but with major ego hassles about "submitting" to gurus? Who feel boxed in and air-deprived with too many people around?

Well, dust your hands and get back into the fray. See movies likeòf40ó Gladiator or òf40óCharlie’s Angels. All that ritual enactment is great stuff. Catharsis does occur, a soul detox that Aeschylus, Sophocles and Aristophanes would have (to toss the historical salad a bit) given a clear thumbs-up to. As simple as that? Yes. Two and a half hours in cushioned darkness with surround sound and 70 mm is soul therapy at its most entertaining. Caramelised popcorn is a soothing optional extra. Better still, catch a schmaltzy, five-hanky flick on TV that makes you weep sentimentally, something like òf40óIt Could Happen to You. Escapism? Sure, why not? It’s like going to a spa for the mind. Your battered mental muscles are massaged with fragrant oils, wrapped in revitalising seaweed or mud, you’re steamed and rubbed glowingly dry, all for a hundred bucks.

I figure the movies justify God’s way to man. The Good Books I loveòf40ó approve of the movies. Why else did Brahma feel impelled to cull the essence of the Vedas into a Fifth Veda called the Natya Shastra, "for the upliftment and delight of people"?