We are so obsessed with watching, reading about movies/stories where good triumphs over evil. Since tender age we have been used to watching gargantuan, abominable looking demons being slayed by beautiful, brave humans/gods symbolizing victory of good over bad.
In my case, I was very fond of watching many mythological television programs. Well, those guys used to show good and bad in such a transparent way that even though being a kid I was able to comprehend almost everything that was going on. I was able to appreciate that a gargantuan, demon crying "Ha Ha Ha" deserves to be teared apart with use of a super powerful arrow or deserves to be beheaded by a Chakra.
Even besides mythological programs, life used to be so simple on TV. Villains were like Gabbar Singh who deserved no sympathy for amputating hands of poor Thakur.
Anyways, the point is that it was so easy to differentiate between good and evil.
Is life really so simple? Can we easily distinguish between good and bad? Can't a good person be bad or a good person be bad? Truth is, we can never really say that a person is absolutely good or completely bad. If we believe in theory of God residing in everyone, it becomes easier to comprehend that everybody can be good and everybody can be bad.
In real life, we can never find pure villains and pure heroes. The fact is, it is circumstances which make someone hero or villain. Movies have shown this very nicely in recent Hollywood flicks like MegaMind, Despicable me. I happened to like both. Even now, days of monsters are far from over. They live on in forms like Voldermort.
When I think of a villains who has touched my life real deeply one name stands apart. That’s Andrei Taganov. That man had (or has?) been my role model in so many things. The man was initially portrayed as Villain by Ayn Rand in her novel We the Living; as we keep on reading novel he turns into the hero and hero ends up turning into villain. The transformation spanned across the novel was really touching. A hardcore communist; who is supposed to be antagonist of objectivist Ayn Rand turns out to be hero by the end of novel. That’s something which is really mind boggling. So what did this guy really do which affected me so deeply that I used to have a note stuck on monitor of my computer saying “Be Andrei Taganov”. Well, let’s go to a nice webpage to understand this.
http://therationalfool.blogspot.in/2006/03/conversation-with-kira-argounova.html
Let’s take some part of this page if you don’t want to read it or it disappears by when you read it.
I think it would be really difficult for me to find words which explain what I liked in Andrei with perspicuity. I can just say that I think (used to think?) that if I ever love a girl, it has to be unshakable, perpetual, and most importantly absolutely unconditional as Andrei’s love for Kira did. He held Kira in highest reverence till he was alive. He helped her in any possible way he thought he could; even though she failed to return the same. Well, to get real feeling of all this you got to read the novel.
The sad part of the story was, the destiny Miss Rand chose for Andrei and off course Kira as well. That’s why I decided to think of an alternative ending for the story when I think of this novel. In my version of story, when Leo runs away, Kira ultimately realizes that Andrei is really what she thought Leo ever was and they decide to live happily ever after.
It’s just a pity that Kira failed to see Leo and Andrei both for what they were rather than living in her own fantastical world. But well, that’s how delusional people become in some cases. More on that delusion later someday.
In my case, I was very fond of watching many mythological television programs. Well, those guys used to show good and bad in such a transparent way that even though being a kid I was able to comprehend almost everything that was going on. I was able to appreciate that a gargantuan, demon crying "Ha Ha Ha" deserves to be teared apart with use of a super powerful arrow or deserves to be beheaded by a Chakra.
Even besides mythological programs, life used to be so simple on TV. Villains were like Gabbar Singh who deserved no sympathy for amputating hands of poor Thakur.
Anyways, the point is that it was so easy to differentiate between good and evil.
Is life really so simple? Can we easily distinguish between good and bad? Can't a good person be bad or a good person be bad? Truth is, we can never really say that a person is absolutely good or completely bad. If we believe in theory of God residing in everyone, it becomes easier to comprehend that everybody can be good and everybody can be bad.
In real life, we can never find pure villains and pure heroes. The fact is, it is circumstances which make someone hero or villain. Movies have shown this very nicely in recent Hollywood flicks like MegaMind, Despicable me. I happened to like both. Even now, days of monsters are far from over. They live on in forms like Voldermort.
When I think of a villains who has touched my life real deeply one name stands apart. That’s Andrei Taganov. That man had (or has?) been my role model in so many things. The man was initially portrayed as Villain by Ayn Rand in her novel We the Living; as we keep on reading novel he turns into the hero and hero ends up turning into villain. The transformation spanned across the novel was really touching. A hardcore communist; who is supposed to be antagonist of objectivist Ayn Rand turns out to be hero by the end of novel. That’s something which is really mind boggling. So what did this guy really do which affected me so deeply that I used to have a note stuck on monitor of my computer saying “Be Andrei Taganov”. Well, let’s go to a nice webpage to understand this.
http://therationalfool.blogspot.in/2006/03/conversation-with-kira-argounova.html
Let’s take some part of this page if you don’t want to read it or it disappears by when you read it.
Fool: At Andrei's grave you had wondered
if you had killed Andrei Taganov. Did you kill Andrei, Kira?
Kira: Yes, I think I killed Andrei…I was definitely an accomplice to his murder.
Fool:What was Andrei Taganov to you?
Kira: Just a friend.
Fool: And you were just Andrei's friend, too?
Kira: No, I was Andrei's love, his life, his only one, and his highest reverence.
Fool: Kira, you killed your friend, who held you in his highest reverence and to whom you were his life? Why?
Kira: Yes, I think I killed Andrei…I was definitely an accomplice to his murder.
Fool:What was Andrei Taganov to you?
Kira: Just a friend.
Fool: And you were just Andrei's friend, too?
Kira: No, I was Andrei's love, his life, his only one, and his highest reverence.
Fool: Kira, you killed your friend, who held you in his highest reverence and to whom you were his life? Why?
Fool: But he was not your life, and you
didn't hold him in your highest reverence?
Kira: No, I wonder why I did not.
Kira: No, I wonder why I did not.
Fool: Kira, the last time you saw Andrei,
when you ran after him in the snow, without a coat, without a care about what
Leo might think, you were going to tell Andrei something that you couldn't tell
him in Leo's presence. What did you want to tell him?
Kira: I was afraid of losing Andrei…for ever. I was afraid that I would never see him alive again. I couldn't bear the thought of losing him. Andrei was everything I thought Leo was, Leo could have been. I didn't see it so clearly until then, what might have been between Andrei and me, but it was too late. I wanted Andrei to know that.
Fool: Is that what Andrei meant, when he said, "If we don't say anything - and just leave it to… to our silence, knowing that we both understand, and that we still have that much in common?
Kira: I was afraid of losing Andrei…for ever. I was afraid that I would never see him alive again. I couldn't bear the thought of losing him. Andrei was everything I thought Leo was, Leo could have been. I didn't see it so clearly until then, what might have been between Andrei and me, but it was too late. I wanted Andrei to know that.
Fool: Is that what Andrei meant, when he said, "If we don't say anything - and just leave it to… to our silence, knowing that we both understand, and that we still have that much in common?
The sad part of the story was, the destiny Miss Rand chose for Andrei and off course Kira as well. That’s why I decided to think of an alternative ending for the story when I think of this novel. In my version of story, when Leo runs away, Kira ultimately realizes that Andrei is really what she thought Leo ever was and they decide to live happily ever after.
It’s just a pity that Kira failed to see Leo and Andrei both for what they were rather than living in her own fantastical world. But well, that’s how delusional people become in some cases. More on that delusion later someday.
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