"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

-Wayne W. Dyer

These two years of my M.A. journey taught me a lot. The way of looking at things has changed after studying the texts that we have in our syllabus or discussed in the class. That became possible only by literature. Every writer has a purpose in their text; to give advise about morality, truth, love, war, nature, mistakes etc. All thing of the literature gate connected with contemporary events or things, and gives the right way to look at that events or things. As Boris Pasternak says,

"Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary

about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something

extraordinary."

-Boris Pasternak

Through the simple telling literature tells complex things. And sometimes using simple common things makes them difficult to understand. Like Julian Barnes use the theme of Love and memory and makes thing very difficult to understand. But it teaches also how to deal with it. Literature is a big ocean, the more you go deep the more you will get. Now let me throw some light on how literature shaped me ?

These five years with literature gave me my better version ! The interpretation of things, self-awareness, doubting the things, crosschecking and many other things that I have learned from literature. Literature is not only for delight, fun and entertainment it teaches life lessons also. As I have learned many things from "Gun Island" by Amitav Ghosh that I want to share here. The first thing is,

Cultivate the habit of taking note

The protagonist of the novel Dinanath Dutta has a habit of documenting things. He keep recorder with him and write down the things in a diary. So whenever he wants to find out about something he sees it in the diary and get from that. And another example of another novel by Julian Barnes's "The Only Story", that what happens if you don't write or document things...

“You understand, I hope, that I’m telling you everything as I remember it? I never kept a diary, and most of the participants in my story – my story! my life! – are either dead or far dispersed. So I’m not necessarily putting it down in the order that it happened. I think there’s a different authenticity to memory, and not an inferior one. Memory sorts and sifts according to the demands made on it by the rememberer’’.

-Paul (The Only Story)

So we can try to keep document, another problem that people won't believe if you haven't any proof ! That is why also we have to do so. We don't require pan and paper now, most of all have mobile phones. So with the help of technology, we can document things easily.

Be strong and start working

Another thing is if you are working against a big corporate or politicians you may face problems. As Piyali Roy has faced during her work against the refinery; that polluting a river. So you have to stay strong and without fear, you have to work. Nowadays we can see if a person talking against big politicians, corporates or officials they are scolededy by them, they also harm them! But you have to face all the things and have to do work.

Don't judge a book by its cover

I had a very bad habit of judging people at first glance. But after studying various texts I learn that don't judge people by a first glance or by their look. We have to put ourselves at their place and think about what we will do if we are at that place. If people are displaying their skills that doesn't mean they haven't been skilled. We are living in a post-truth era now, so we can't believe what people tell us. We have to doubt all the things. As our professor, Dilip Barad sir used to tell us ખેડ, ખાતરી અને ખંજવાળ જાતે જ કરવી ! This site developed from the literature. We can get multiple views of one story. So I learned these all things from literature.