Inspired

.. by this post. I'm feeling a little lost right now, and looking for something to believe in, something to inspire me.

I read the Bhagavad Gita in college and was enthralled and charmed by the simple truth in its pages. Likewise, something in this post resonated with me, because I was told something very similar a few days ago.

 I became confused by Hindu morality and realised how different it was from Christian morality. I thought it was unfair that Krishna helped the Pandavas in the war. I didn’t understand this talk about dharma. What if your dharma was to be evil? The logic seemed at odds with the Christian one I had grown up on where the line between black and white, good and evil was very clear. None of this grey business. Of course, the grey business is what’s real and what’s interesting.

These shades of grey are something I want to explore. I remember speaking to Chimamanda at the GLF in 2011 about the characters in Purple Hibiscus, and she said how people are never just black or white, good or evil, that people are never simple, and she tries to reflect that in her characters. And I think that is just a very simple truth; the complexity of life, the philosophy behind it, those things are never simple, can never be explained in one text as one truth. It's something to explore, to discover.

If you would allow me to quit rambling and get back to the original point of this post, I am contemplating attempting the Mahabharata. I am currently reading a book about cops so mind numbingly boring that I cringe when I look at it. I'm not sure how many years it would take me to read the Mahabharata, but my love for mythology and philosophy says I must try. Onwards!