an itinerant observer

1.       The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all And in the darkness bind them. In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie.” [The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien] And thus started, during my teens, a lifelong love affair with this epic trilogy – probably, the most popular work of all time from within the fantasy genre. That there can be reality in fantasy accompanied the realization that Tolkien’s Middle Earth is no different from the world that I inhabit. As happens in Middle Earth, there are hobbits, elves, dwarves, mythical and magical figures or creatures around me and in me – yet the beauty and evil, light and dark, of that human entity is paramount. I would like to call upon the  Tolkienian  in you to recall the conversation between Gandalf the wizard and Frodo Baggins a hobbit, and the presumably inconsequential ring bearer, in the 1st part, ‘...

“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all And in the darkness bind them. In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie.” [The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien] My fantastical imagination kicked in, all over again, when I bought a plaque for my garden. It said, “Not all who wander are lost”. If you l ooked closely at the small print you realized that this was a quote by J.R.R. Tolkien. For the ‘Tolkienians’ out there, I needn’t expand on the greatness of the epic ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ . I read those, for the first time, when I was in 8th grade. If I were to tell you the year I would be (carbon) dating myself. My father’s old tattered copy of ‘The Hobbit’ triggered it all. Needless to say I became a lifelong Tolkienian . With all due respect to the Trekkies out there, my Trekkie neurons had to create some harmonious living quarters with the Tolkienians . History repeats itself. Not surprisingly Rayaan, my son...