What "Equations of a being" means to Ashutosh Gupta

Today we have Ashutosh Gupta the author of "Equations of a being" to discuss the importance of "Equations of a Being" in his life.

Over a span of seven years, writing has helped me forage for my sincerity and genuineness. In writing alone, I have found them all concentrated. This seven years of continuity is the only thing which holds the equations of my existential hues. ‘Equations of a Being’ is a raw and a fervent reflection of this continuity.

Since the day I started writing, I have never been infatuated with the escalations of creativity which come so casually and with so much certitude while romanticizing with inanimate things. A metaphor getting tied to another metaphor so intricately, has seldom given me a joy to reminisce. My writing was born out of the vagueness of things that were intangible and yet were animate, both within and without. I have never chased this vagueness using a rush of creativity but either a rush of madness or a rush of sanity. The vagueness of the crumbling humanhood is something I have chased the most, and I desire to chase it further, maybe all my life. In 'Equations of a being', readers will find the footprints of this eternal chase.

The idea behind the book rests on the joy of revisiting and rediscovering. The idea occurred to me when I read the analects of Confucius. The way that book realigned my thoughts every time I went through it, yet affecting me cumulatively, certainly reflected the purpose of literature which I had envisaged.

The primary role of a thinker is to lay down different interpretations of emotions. It’s like gradually unfolding a paper, where every fold represents an interpretation. Within this unfolding lies a strange assurance of getting closer to truth. However, realism is beyond those folds of paper, and thereby is beyond any unfolding. It is a blatantly expressed confession, with no filters in between. This book is a blend of these abstract ideas of truth and realism. There are thought pieces in this book which reflect those intermittent pauses of interpretations, and there are thought pieces which reflect those straight-out confessions. By turning the pages of the book, readers will go through the stretches of such interpretations and such realism.

Our intellect is bounded by the times we live in, but what good our expressions can do if they cannot depict the standards and anomalies of contemporary times. Our emotions are bounded by the conundrums of nature, but without them, what else will carry the palpability of human spirit across ages. Our imagination is boundless, but without this boundlessness, what else will stimulate and provoke the faculties of posterity. I believe that writing cannot serve any absolute purpose if it gives any of these human attributes a miss. This book is a literary manifestation of this belief of mine.

Being forever fettered by one's musings with none of them being about oneself, has an endearing ambiguity of an unparalleled nature. Much of my life has been spent in impersonal musings, which has sustained the very architecture of my life. In the matters of love though, I have ended up enduring extreme tiredness. Whenever I have strolled along the edges of love, my need for its great truth and my want for its great passion have collided and collapsed. Through this book I have tried to tell the story of this need and this want, and maybe have unintentionally reflected upon the choice that I have already made.

Connecting the fundamental existence of a man and a woman, a sanguine thread not soaked with the passion or romance, tradition or orthodoxy, does exist between them. But can such a thread be visible and touchable for men and women standing on two separate ends of contemporary Feminism, and firing one outlandish expression after another? I have foraged for that thread among men and women through this book.

All in all, I have shared a tremendous world within me, by sharing 'Equations of a Being', knowing well enough that this world was incomplete and maybe was on the verge of completeness. The honor of achieving that completeness should be and has been left for the devourers of literature.

Book can be found at - Amazon and Flipkart 

Review from other readers can be found at GoodReads