Comment by rg111 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rg111 | Hacker News Reader

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English:

Do you consider having a new layer in your thinking process "life changing"? Then, I would say-

1. Deep Work and So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport. He goes against famous ideas such as "follow your passion" and provides you with alternative actionable advice.

2. Black Swan by N. Nicholas Taleb. It makes you aware of unhinged "platonistic thinking" where stuff are "explained" looking back. And people expect to use these explanations in future. I also learned about silent evidence which is, of course, a type of survivorship bias and sampling bias. Whenever, I see a straigh-forward "explanation", alarm goes off inside mind- 'this is too simplistic, and thus oversimplified, and not entirely correct'.

3. Made to Stick by Cheap Heath and Dan Heath: this book explains why some ideas stick and why some don't. From this book, you also learn how to make ideas stick. You start to see the world in a different way.

4. Godel, Escher, Bach: others have already mentioned it. It is life changing. I am still reading it.

5. Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen: Indian past is generally seen as a golden age heavily tied to religion and faith. Sen, in an articulated, smooth, and scholarly way provides evidence in contrary. The past of India is also an age of reason, athiesm, debate, faithlessness, unorthodoxy, and opposing of religions. Sanskrit is the first language to have athiestic text, maybe.

Bengali:

I used to feel very bad about my ethnic identity, and felt ashamed about it. (I was 14/15.)

Then I read the book "Those Times" by Sunil Ganguly. It is a novel based on history and historical figures, the Bengali renaissance, the feminist movements of Bengal.

This was the first time I ever felt confident about my ethnic identity, and fount a history I could take pride in. Totally changed me. It was like finally having soil under my feet for the first time in my life.

Bouddha Dharma by Haraprasad Shastri: This is a history of Buddhism in Bengal region.

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These are just some of many. I am in my early 20s and I have read 250 books till now, and all read in recent years were carefully chosen. Many had meaningful impact in my life.

How popular is the practice of keeping Ganesha idol temporarily during Ganesha festival before dissolving it compared to the rest of India. I heard the reason for starting the practice of Ganesha Idol temporarily is to counter the spread of Buddhism by inventing this festival as entertaining. I am trying to find the correlation b/w popularity of Buddhism and temporary Ganesha idol.

> How popular is the practice of keeping Ganesha idol temporarily during Ganesha festival before dissolving it

Very popular.

> compared to the rest of India.

But not compared to the rest of India. This is how majority of worship is done.

In West Bengal (state where Kolkata/Calcutta is), there is Durga Puja, in Maharashtra (Mumbai) there is Ganesh puja.

Idols are made out of clay, then worshipped for a day (4 in case of Durga), then they are dissolved in water, preferably in the Ganges.

But environment laws and enforcement are getting stringent, and so the bigger statue is often not worshipped according to rituals, and a much, much smaller one is worshipped, and that is dissolved.

And mind you, these statues are no jokes. They are very carefully created by sculptors, some are work of higher art, and gets awarded by the President.

Indians are known to have many festivals. But there are different dominant festivals in different parts of India.

Moreover, not only statues, but elaborate decorations are created where the statue resides. There are some committees that spend US$100k-$200k for 1-5 days of the festival. These are now often corporate sponsored.

The total GDP of 4 days of Durga Puja in Calcutta is assumed to be US$4.2bn [0]. Although many holistic estimates (including parlor visits, etc. from one month before) put it at as high as $25-$30bn.

You could look at pictures [1][2][3] of these events, and I highly encourage you to do so.

Just note, whatever you see in those, are temporary, and kept for 5-15 days only.

Although these are religious in paper, they are practically secular.

[0]: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/creative...

[1]: https://youtu.be/yaOju_xXy-I

[2]: https://www.indiatoday.in/lifestyle/what-s-hot/story/top-5-d...

[3]: https://www.tripsavvy.com/famous-kolkata-durga-puja-pandals-...

“ I used to feel very bad about my ethnic identity, and felt ashamed about it”

I wish I spoke Bengali just to read Tagore in the original. First poet, at the age of 33, that I have ever appreciated. Brilliant.

Of course, an atheist would have trouble appreciating him

What? Not at all.

I am a total athiest, and I really like Tagore's poems.

See, Tagore not only wrote poetries and songs, he was a great essayist, as well.

Many of his essays would be highly appreciated by athiests and progressives (I mean the real progressives, not current US-style ones). Same goes for many of his novels and plays.

His romantic poems and love songs are top-notch.

I know because I have been immersed in Tagore culture from my childhood.

He was a thiest, but definitely not in the usual way. Many of his songs that belong to the "Worship" sect, can be, and is interpreted as romantic songs a lot.

He was definitely a progressive.

Try reading this through G Translate maybe- https://www.tagoreweb.in/Stories/lipika-147/kortar-bhut-2533 .

Fun fact: that he was progressive and wrote romantic poems and songs irked Swami Vivekananda, and they did not talk with each other despite being from the same period.

I dont know much about Tagore, but I do know he was a progressive, champion of Indian independence, author of two national anthems (Bangladesh and India), friend of Ghandi and correspondent of Borges.

That sounds like I “know” a lot, but those are useless facts. All I really know of Tagore is the Gitanjali because its his only work I have read.

With my limited knowledge at hand, I cannot fathom how an atheist can appreciate the full depth of Tagore’s poetry. Im sure Bertrand Russel appreciated the Gitanjali as a great work of art when it was published but how could he have truly appreciated Tagore’s description of total surrender to God as a bride (representing Tagore, a heterosexual man) succumbing to her groom? An imagery we see in the Song of Songs, btw.

Perhaps instead of saying “how can an atheist appreciate Tagore”, I should written: “how can an atheist appreciate Tagore’s Gitanjali?” (Which I suspect Tagore himself would consider his greatest work?)

I feel the same way with religious art. Millions of tourists in Italy see Caravaggio’s “the denial of Peter”. Its easy for anyone who has grown out of youthful immaturity to appreciate the chiaroscuro, but how can a non-believer be moved in the way a believer is? The painting is more than the betrayal of a friend that anyone can understand - a believer (as a basic tenant of Christianity) holds that personal sin is recreating the betrayal of Peter. That is, a believer sees himself in Peter denying Jesus.

Not all “religious” art, mind you. Michaelangeo’s Il Davide is a good looking naked chap holding a slingshot.

EDIT: As a Catholic, I understand the Hindu Tagore, or muslim Sufis far better than atheists. Or, rather, we understand each other; we understand the difficulties of a faith journey.

Yes, Gitanjali can be appreciated better by theists. Although the art is of high class, and can be appreciated by athiests, too.

As I said, Tagore wrote a lot of novels, plays, songs, and essays. Tagore's body of creation is formidably vast. I would put the number of people awarded PhD each year for their work on Tagore and/or his work at 10-20.

> Which I suspect Tagore himself would consider his greatest work?

Haha, not really. We have an inside joke that more or less says that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for one of his weaker works.

And I concur. There are much better works by Tagore than Gitanjali. I have one bilingual Gitanjali sitting right on my shelf across the room where I am.

I grew up reciting poems of Tagore since I was literally 3 and a half. I still do it, but I'm special occasions.

As a literature lover, I also appreciate other forms of religious art.

I like reading poems called Vaishnava Padavalis. They are divine songs dedicated to Krishna or Chaitanya [0] with 2-3 meaning per each poem. These are among the best works of art I have ever seen.

Same goes for Charyas, poems written to propagate a special form of Buddhism, written in proto-Bengali, about 1000 years ago.

I also enjoy kirtanas.

These are all religious, and they don't stop me from enjoying them.

Many athiests enjoy religious art. But they have to be art. When it stops being art, and becomes too much about faith or devotion, I stop enjoying it.

> friend of Gandhi

They also disagreed a lot. If you read Gandhi's works, you would see that he is the king of luddites. Rabindranath was more forward-thinking.

Tagore wanted industry, education, uplifting of the masses, and admired science. He opposed Gandhi on the issue of boycotting British industries among others.

I have never really read Tagore in translation. I would not know what to suggest you. But I strongly suggest that you read other works of him.

> Hindu Tagore

Not really. He was a Brahmo [1]. They were the Protestants to Hinduism (this is oversimplified, ofc). They did not believe in statue-worshipping, caste, superstitions, etc. Brahmos were monotheistic and puritan among other things.

My study of Tagore is limited. But it is still non-trivial. I have visited his house (very well-preserved university and museum) multiple times and also Visva Bharati.

I am happy to answer if you have any other questions.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaitanya_Mahaprabhu

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmo_Samaj

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