Ever wondered on the things that we appreciate? books, music, dance, food... Indians specialise in likening uniquely cultural / scientific things to things familiar from the home land. Like - minestrone soup to rasam, tetziki to raita, refried beans to rajma, evolution to dasavatharam, ballet to odissi/ baratanatyam, why this kolaveri to subapantuvarali, anything nice that the wife cooks to his mother's cooking... Books are the ultimate in terms of proportionality of familiarity to appreciation. We predominantly read from the protagonist's point of view. Where they react in the manner that we might ourselves react, we read with greater interest. When the author thinks differently, we say the book is boring/ outrageous/ irrational. What a narrow mind it is that refuses the person who has thought and written his words...
Maybe there is a subconscious compulsion to compare every thing that we see to things that are familiar to us. And we appreciate only those that strike a resonant chord. Would this mean that sufficient familiarity with any given thing would make us appreciate it? How then do we form our dislikes? Other than instanteaneous allergic/ unpleasant reactions, how does one know that something is amiss?
Maybe there is a subconscious compulsion to compare every thing that we see to things that are familiar to us. And we appreciate only those that strike a resonant chord. Would this mean that sufficient familiarity with any given thing would make us appreciate it? How then do we form our dislikes? Other than instanteaneous allergic/ unpleasant reactions, how does one know that something is amiss?
