I recall drinking sherry in California and dreaming of England, where I ate dalmoth and dreamed of Delhi. What is the purpose, I wonder, of all this restlessness? I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the human experience of restlessness and the longing for places and experiences that shape our memories.
In this quote, Vikram Seth expresses a deep sense of restlessness and yearning that comes from traveling and experiencing different cultures. He contemplates the purpose behind this restlessness, suggesting that it may lead to a collection of memories that evoke nostalgia in the future. This highlights the paradox of human desire to explore while simultaneously feeling a connection to one's roots, illustrating the complexities of identity and belonging.
In practice
In a travel blog discussing the emotional aspects of exploring new places.
I am careful about fiction. A novel is not a tract or an essay. If I want to write about land reforms, or Hindu-Muslim relations, or position of women, I can do it as it affects my characters as in 'A Suitable Boy.' I could only write about issues specifically through essays. But I'll do that only if I have something worthwhile to say.
So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.
Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music-not too much, or the soul could not sustain it-from time to time.
But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they're bad they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they're good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch.
You have to learn a few things, which you do along the way, but basically, poetry is a matter of the ear. Iambic pentameters or what constitutes a stanza comes naturally - your ears will know.
The problem with too beautiful a view is that it's alright for the mulling stage. But for the writing stage, you want to be somewhere without a view, especially if it is very different from what you're writing.
There's a belonging problem in Hollywood. Who dictates who belongs? The very body who dictates that looks all one way.
Obviously you have to make a profit to put out a newspaper. I'm not an idiot. But when the margins are in excess of 25 per cent you're talking about greed.
I've had people say to me, 'You'll never sell handbags. You don't work with leather, and leather is luxury.' To me, it's the complete opposite: leather is everywhere - it's so cheap a material; it's so mass produced. Over 50 million animals a year are killed just for fashion. For me, it doesn't have a luxury element to it.
Of her own experience she had no memory of the thing happening; but in her instinct, which was the experience of all mothers of wolves, there lurked a memory of fathers that had eaten their new-born and helpless progeny.
Beauty is self-defined, perceived and understood without ambiguity. It's the stuff that lies under the skins of our individual existences.
He who has no vision of eternity has no hold on time.
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