Shakespeare in (my) Life

As soon as our English teacher entered class and we were done with singing the glory of God (yes we had to do it before and after each period!), almost invariably everyone mumbled something like…”Ah! This blessed Shakespeare, how much more…eeyuck!” We seemed to be jinxed by his power. Centuries after he had decided ‘to not be’, his gloomy irritating presence loomed over our heads and in our text books. It puzzled us why world over Shakespeare was an integral part of English Literature…and we had some pretty good arguments to support our cause, which was mainly-BAN Shakespeare.

I remember one of my friends trying to memorize the play lines before the exams in a frenzy and total disarray grumbled ‘God this guy doesn’t even know proper English and we learn this in the name of English literature??’ Obviously us helpless souls shared her pain and seized the opportunity to curse him some more before going back to those ill fated books and guides. Well, our teachers did try to show us reason and persuade us to give him a chance.
Oh yes first let me tell you about Ms. Bhowmick (though I need to devote a whole blog to her:-) ), she was our favorite teacher, taught us English. She was the one who told us the rights from wrongs, told us ingrates(that was her favorite word!) about the world, its fallacies its niceties. She was on a constant rampage as far as our pronunciations were concerned, Miss I still remember that clerk is pronounced as clark though I often get a ‘Sorry what did you say’ when I use it. One of her missions in life was to make us realize the worth of Shakespeare, she could go on for hours about his significance, value and appeal. But we were a group of obstinate young girls, we believed everything she said but this. We mused, she’s just trying to justify the great blunder by the literates world over. It’s a mistake we told each other and some times a daring few told her too. And then to add to our agonies Mr. John Madden had to go and make a movie about this evil lunatic! Yes those were our thoughts. We saw ‘Shakespeare in Love’ (courtesy Ms. Bhowmick), our perspective and weird ideas didn’t take a U-turn after watching the film, but yes it helped us see him in a different light. For the first time we thought of him as an actual being, who existed who had feelings, rather than some stupid creator of the garbage forced onto us. Human in thought and action rather than an epitome of English literature.
The agony went on for years but gradually we did make sense of his senseless characters. Our hate only equation with Shakespeare changed to a love-hate relationship. First, the hate had nothing to do with Shakespeare, it was caused by the ISC board which expected that we mug up the lines of the plays he took months to write and produce them on paper in those three hours of examination! Believe me that was true suffering and anguish.
Love because we realized that our teachers were right. That it was truly fascinating how way back in the 16th century this man could envision the world in future. How could he etch out his characters so marvelously? It is mesmerizing the way his naïve plots tell the story of human nature so superbly. His protagonists seem so genuine now. The likes of Macbeth and Hamlet are part of our day-to-day lives. (Yes but one funny thought is how men of those times portrayed the characters of the lovely beautiful women he described :D) Romeo and Juliet which as adolescents seemed filmi and over-dramatized, remains carved now in our memories as one of the greatest romances we’ve read! And yes the quotes we wanted to hate so much, their relevance is so clear now! How beautiful and meaningful they sound.
‘All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts..’
These lines from ‘As you like it’ endeared me; so simply put yet they sum up our lives so well. Then obviously my love for ‘To be or not to be…’ is quite clear from my earlier blogs, I guess. I also admit to a liking for his language now, that sense of being unique and different with the keen flavour of the olden times added to it, makes it impossible not to savour it. My urge to read more, to devour his work leads me to my father’s study to pick up ‘The Complete works of Shakespeare’. Now when I go through it(with a more mature outlook) I realize why it is a sort of bible for English literature and why my father who misplaced all his books still has this one perched on top of his study’s shelf since donkey’s years!

To end in true shakespearn style, thy ought read his great works lest you become a regretful soul ...oops that is a weird goof up. I agree no one can imitate the master, least of all me with my limited literary skills, but you get the essence..eh?