The whole aim of a great culture is to lift man up to something which at first he is not, to lead him to knowledge though he starts from an unfathomable ignorance, to teach him to live by his reason, though actually he lives much more by his unreason, by the law of good and unity, though he is now full of evil and discord, by a law of beauty and harmony though his actual life is a repulsive muddle of ugliness and jarring barbarisms, by some high law of his spirit, though at present he is egoistic, material, unspiritual, engrossed by the needs and desires of his physical being. If a civilization has not any of these aims, if can hardly at all be said to have a culture and certainly in not sense a great and noble culture. But the last of these aims, as conceived by ancient India, is the highest of all because it includes and surpasses all the others. To have made this attempt is to have ennobled the life of the race; to have failed in it is better than if it had never at all been attempted; to have achieved even a partial success is a great contribution to the future possibilities of the human being.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Shonar
Born in '72, Shonar's dream for nearly half her life was to work in any capacity whatsoever with animals. After graduation, her career map started shaping up-writing about music, reporting on environmental issues for National TV, exploring every nook and corner of the country as a travel writer, working as a farmhand milking cows and ploughing land... it may not have been the exact original plan, but all that freedom and exposure worked silently towards the realization of the love she had for the country. with the intense need to go beyond eliches and explore deeper than what was apparent to the eye, she has now written her first book, Of Past Dawns and Future Noons. In spite of having written innumrable articles on varied subjects, neither has she received any formal training in the art of writing, nor does she consider herself as a self-made writer in the strictest sense. "It's all to do with inspiration...when it comes, no power on earth form of expression. You don't have to be a writer to write or a painter to paint-all you have to be is 'open' and the inspiration will do the rest." She spends her time between Delhi and Pondicherry, and when occasion, time and good fortune permit, she can be found walking somewhere in the HImalayas.
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