My bond with bard

It is rightly said that a man who keeps the company of books can never be alone. The authors he reads become his friends. Similarly during my first post-graduation in English, I had developed special predilection for William Shakespeare. The more I explored the brain of the Bard of Avon through his classics,the better I began to understand the various aspects of life.

Shakespeare’s King Lear had got an instant hold on me as on the one hand the play was being taught in our class, on the other, it was being enacted in a relative’s home. Like King Lear my old uncle, a retired school teacher, committed the same hamartia. Owing to the lack of judgement, they surrendered their entire property to their wicked children. Once the nefarious children grabbed the wealth, they threw the respective fathers out of homes. During my several meetings with my uncle, before the final catastrophe, I had tried my best to awaken him to the reality and dissuaded him from showering the wealth on his children as long as he was alive. Unfortunately, like King Lear, my uncle too turned a deaf ear to his well-wishers’ advice.

My deep readings of Shakespeare were not only blissful experiences rather they have been eye openers too. Still all across the world we have countless ungrateful kids like Goneril and Regan, the two pernicious daughters of Lear and hapless parents who are left in the lurch during the twilight phase of their lives.

While reading Hamlet, my heart filled with ache over one more case of insatiable greed of man. Much to my horror, a younger brother (Claudius) plotted the killing of his elder brother (senior Hamlet). Having got his own brother murdered, the diabolical man usurped the throne and married his brother’s wife. But finally the poetic justice was done when eventually after a long delay the victim’s son Hamlet resolved his proverbial Hamlet’s dilemma and avenged the killing of his father.

As our professor analysed the underneath cause of Hamlet’s hesitation in taking revenge, we were all amazed by that psychoanalysis. The inordinate delay was due to the subconscious sexual fixation of a son for his own mother (Oedipus Complex). But I can never forget my memories of Hamlet because of a big reprimand.

One day in a casual conversation, my grandmother stated that sons loved their mothers more whereas daughters loved fathers more. Unable to control my instinct, I began to talk abut Oedipus Complex and asserted that children’s subconscious sexual inclinations towards the parent of opposite sex are actually responsible behind this behaviour. Hearing my lecture, my grandmother started burning with fury and gave me a piece of her mind. Unfortunately, no author friend came to my rescue.

Years have rolled by, now I teach the works of Shakespeare, my life long friend and teacher, to my students.