All things Quixotic

Cervantes' "Don Quixote" has been very popular since centuries, despite its gargantuan proportions. It deals with the eponymous idealistic knight, his brains addled with reading the chivalrous literature popular in his time, setting out to replicate the adventures in them. His illiterate squire, Sancho Panza, provides an apt foil with his homegrown wisdom.

It is not widely known that Orson Welles set out to film a contemporary version of the novel, the film sadly remaining unfinished.

The son of the legendary director Bunuel, worked as assistant director in this film. The musical starring Peter O'Toole, Sophia Loren & James Coco, though taking enormous liberties with the text, remained faithful to the spirit of the novel.

The Spanish philosopher Unamuno, claiming to be more Quixotist than Cervantist, wrote "My Lord Don Quixote" a metaphysical analysis of the character.

Graham Greene turned the title character into a Catholic priest in his "Monsignor Quixote." He, like his mythical ancestor, remained an idealist in a cynical, materialist world. His Sancho was the communist ex-mayor of their hometown El Toboso, the native place of the "peerless" Dulcinea, the idol of the fictional Don. This was also made into a film starring Alec Guiness as the Monsignor.

Rushdie's metafiction "Quichotte" rounds up this "Quixotic" essay.

Boolean Algebra & Spirituality

Boolean algebra deals with only two states, true or false or expressed in numerical digits 1 or 0. This was applied by Claude Shannon, the father of information technology in his landmark paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication." It can also be represented by an electrical circuit which can only be "on" or "off". By means of splitting any logical process into a number of options which require only "yes" or "no" answers, complex problems can be solved. This also may be considered as the nucleus of computer programming.

Now it can be examined how this idea can be applied to spirituality. The human aspirations can be categorised into worldly or spiritual ambitions. The wordly life is in accordance with nature, I e., devoted to the pursuit of sensual pleasures & the acquisition of wealth. The spiritual life, in direct opposition to the above, consists in renouncing sensual pleasures & embracing voluntary poverty. The two can never be reconciled (except in the sermons in churches, discourses in mosques or "pravachanas" in temples, which are at best only palliatives to go through the travails of life & at worst "politically correct" statements.

True spirituality presupposes "Chittavritti Virodhaha" as stated in Patanjali Yoga Sutras or "A life against nature" as stated in Kathryn Hulme's classic novel. The Qur'an says "Requite evil with what is better & your enemy will become your friend. But none will attain this attribute save those who patiently endure." (Surah 41, Verse 35). This is in accordance with the earlier Biblical injunction of "turning the other cheek" & the idea of the meek inheriting the earth. This also illustrates that the wordly impulse to take revenge on our enemies is opposed by the spiritual way. 

It is pertinent to note that in the "Dhammapada", the canonical text of Buddhism, out of the ten perfections aimed at by the aspirants, four are "renunciation", "patience", "loving kindness"& "equanimity."

To take Boolean Algebra to extreme spiritual limits, 1 or "on" can denote the Godhead & 0 or "off" can denote the physical world. Sankara's Advaita Aphorism "Brahma Satyam, Jagat Mithya" can also be another facet of this.

Composers's single Violin Concertos

It is a strange phenomenon that most famous composers wrote only one violin concerto. The list starts from Beethoven (though he wrote a triple concerto featuring the violin also), Brahms (though he wrote a double concerto featuring the cello also), Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Mendelssohn, Elgar & most famously Bruch, whose only remembered piece is the violin concerto, albeit a magnificent one. But it is to be remembered that all these single violin concertos are the staples of the concert stage, & the showpieces of the virtuosos.

But the glorious exception is the most supremely gifted Mozart, who though a virtuoso Pianist, was also a violinist & composed no less than five violin concertos, the last being the famous "Turkish" so called because of the unison chromatic crescendos among other things.