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Reading Club
MATRIX has seeded a new activity – MATRIX Reading Club. The club is an attempt to bring together people who are passionate about reading. It seeks to broaden horizons and light sparks of interest. A meeting could be loosely structured around a few books; the talk could veer around to an interesting article in the newspaper or to the world of books and authors galore. The inception of the idea took place last semester but in that chaotic time, it could not bear fruit.
This semester there have been five meetings so far. The meetings take place every Saturday at 11pm in the C Mess Night Canteen. The members of the club include: Devika, Ankit Agrawal, Himanshu Bhandoh, Akshay Walia, K. Prithvi, Sarthak Pal, Sarthak Patnaik, Syam Murali and Achal Kumar Mall.
The Reading Club has succeeded in creating a symphony of genres with a typical meeting encompassing one book from science fiction, another from the classics and yet another on Indian history. Most of the works discussed have been by western authors except historian Ramchandra Guha’s. Indian authors would be the focus in subsequent meetings for which suggestions include Indulekha and works by Kiran Desai.
One of the meetings went as follows:
In the last meeting, we had decided to discuss Bourne series by Robert Ludlum, The White Tiger by Arvind Adiga and India after Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha. We started with a talk between Ankit and Neha about the historian. When Ankit mentioned Jayprakash Narayan, Syam took over with an analysis of Indira Gandhi and her rule. That was followed by feudalism and communism in Kerala. I came to know Kerala has 140 Vidhan Sabha and 19 Lok Sabha seats. Somewhere in between, there was Ayn Rand and not believing in her philosophy thrown in. Syam was talking about objectivism, the philosophy that she propagated. I've never read her and took it as objectivism i.e. sticking to truth. Talked about how every author, unless they are a historian writing in black and white, is subjective. The author’s views do seep in. I gave an example of Gone with the Wind, where Margaret Mitchell paints blacks as an integral part of the family in South America. That led to the etymology of the word lynching, traced to Willie Lynch's methods by Achal. There was another digression on objectivism as Achal tried to reason that unless reader believes in the work, it can't be objectified.
Science fiction also found a way in with Neha talking about The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin and The Foundation by Issac Asimov. Then, there was a discussion on Ghost in the Shell series. We didn't much get to Arvind Adiga except that the book begins with a village in Gaya.
The above description of a meeting tells about the stimulating discussions that take place, providing members both knowledge and entertainment.
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