The Fountainhead & Bhagavat Gita - A Compare and Contrast

The Fountainhead is a famous philosophical novel written by Miss.Ayn Rand. It is based on the concept of individualism and epistemology.

An excerpt from Ayn Rand's  Philosophical Pinnacle - The Fountainhead:

Howard Roark: "Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the people! Your own work, not any possible object of your charity. I'll be glad if men who need it find a better method of living in the house I built, but that's not the motive of my work, nor my reason, nor my reward! My reward, my purpose, my life, is the work itself - my work done my way! Nothing else matters to me!"

What defines a man? How a person is judged? Which scale is used to measure him?

A man is defined by the way he communicates to the nature. The way he responds to the input gained from this universe. And what defines his responses? Responses are based on the array of things he noticed/experienced/learnt/did/influence/influenced from his childhood. In short, a man is defined by what he does. 

 People do things all the while. Action composes the materialistic world. Inaction is also an action performed in the state of hibernation. A man's action is born with his birth and dies with his death. It is the intermediate time between birth and death which injects meaning to a person's inane life. One must do only those things which makes him/her happy. Performing an action under compulsion is the greatest insult you spit on the face of truth. Be yourself. Everyone and everything is unique in this world. Everyone is gifted with some skills to perform their own actions. Chaos emerges when man fails to recognize what he is destined to do and decides to take other person's route. Doing something just because everyone else do the same spoils the real purpose of God's creation.  In our human body, every organ does some unique function. If nose gets envy of the delicious food chewed by its neighbor mouth and decides to refuse oxygen, it chooses its own demise. Even the blood groups are unique. None of the animals copy from others. They learn to do the basic actions like locomotion, reproduction and food-intake from their counterparts. But they never copy when it comes to choosing their destiny. They act only to fulfill their need of the hour. They short sell their actions in the life stock market. But, man, being the zenith of species, must live for a cause. He must be a longterm investor. Otherwise, he will lose his own definition of human being. He must remember that the sole purpose of human being is being human and being human is determined by our actions.

A creator conceives what his mind imagines, thereby opening the doors of our world to a new invention. He is the prime-mover of the world. A second-hander depends upon the creator for his lifeneeds. An action takes the straight route for a creator and it takes a proxy for a second-hander. 

 In Miss. Rand's words -

"The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary."

Such an intermediary is viewed as an act of charity by Bhagavat Gita and it is viewed as an act of killing the action by The Fountainhead. Never forget that the uncharitable Steve Jobs is hailed as the game-changer above the charitable Bill Gates. Steve Jobs criticized Mr.Gates as follows– “Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas.” Steve Jobs is the closest match for Rand’s Roark. 

Bhagavat Gita is the famous teachings of Lord Krishna to Arjuna in Kurukshetra. When Arjuna feared to do his duties in the battleground, Krishna told him the essence of karma yoga. Here, Man's action is defined as the 'Karma'.  People are here to do the actions to be performed. Both the books talk volume about the integrity associated with performing our actions. They say that the destined action is the greatest yoga ever done on any altar. This is where The Fountainhead and The Bhagavat Gita clasp their hands together. Rand says - ‘Feed the need, not because they depend on you, but because you like the action of public service.  Service is the action itself. Not the resultant of it.’ Krishna says – ‘Action must be performed without the dependence of its resultant'. My reward is the work itself.

In contrast to the above similarities between the two books of our discussion, Upanishads order men to be humble and selfless. But, The Fountainhead states that the man must be the proudest of all the creatures in our world. Because, he knows the purpose of his actions. He knows the effects and impact it can cause to his milieu. He can understand that performing an action is not just a transfer of energy from one form to another. But it is taking the current form of energy to the next level.

 Human mind could be the angel's philosopher stone or it could be the devil's horcrux. In Roark's conclusive speech, Ayn Rand states the following about human mind and its importance to stay aloof.  

"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. But the mind is an attribute of the individual, there is no such thing as a collective brain. The man who thinks must think and act on his own. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot not be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others. It is not an object of sacrifice."   

According to Bhagavat Gita, man must perform him karma in order to attain mukthi. It is the method of associating a humble man with the supreme universe. According to The Fountainhead, man must realize his mukthi in his karma. It is the method of associating the vast universe with the reverence of man’s superiority. 

Howard Roark could have been the Lord Krishna of our century.  But he won't, because there is only one Roark and only one Krishna.

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A Thousand Splendid Suns – Glittering amidst human darkness

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a novel written by the Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini.

The novel is witfully crafted around two characters – Mariam and Laila. The way Hosseini characterized these two Afghan women brought him loads of accolades. While the Afghan war acts as the cornerstone of the novel, Mariam and Laila are the two pillars of the story building block. Story is divided into four parts. First part tells the story of Mariam, second tells the story of Laila, third tells the story of Mariam and Laila in alternate chapters and a final part dedicated to the both.

With the success of ‘The Kite Runner’, Hosseini proves once again that he is one of those rare storytellers who can make a rock to weep. Some might criticize the author for his way of handling human emotions and sentiments. But, it is the reality prevailed in Afghanistan from 1979 to till date.  Afghanistan has attained a metamorphic transformation in the past three decades and the author’s description brings the Afghan beauty, Afghan war, Afghan men and women, their mindsets right in front of our eyes.

The intended audience for this novel is the whole world which watched their neighbor Afghans to die everyday in heaps. Even the Unites States entered the war only after they got their own burns. Hosseini’s writing comes as a blow to every nation which is complacent in its foreign policy. The main point proven by this war epic is that ‘whatever happens to our neighbor may well happen to us one day’. In the end, the author wins in establishing his views to the audience.

Tragedy epics do have some air of emotions which will place them under literature masterpiece category. No wonder that Shakespeare wrote more tragedies than comedies. In short, Khaled Hosseini wins our heart with his master story telling and three-dimensional character projections. Even after you turn the last page, the beauty of this story will remain etched in our hearts forever.

A novel can make us to immerse within the plot which will make us to feel the story. Or a novel can penetrate our heart, which will make us to live the story whenever we think about it. ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ falls in the latter category.

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