The Verdict: Inconclusive

I thought that once I read the last line of the novel, I would be able to pass my verdict. But The Fountainhead has left me more confused now than at the end of the first chapter.

The whole time I was reading the book, my effort was focused on defragmenting it, making sense of it, applying it to myself. Throughout, I was tossed around, from one extreme to another. There are words Ayn Rand has written that I hate for their seeming illogicality and impracticality. And then there are paragraphs after paragraphs that I have marked, loving every word.

It is this theme of extremes that Ayn Rand has adopted in the book, most obviously with her characters Howard Roark and Peter Keating. She is extreme in her stand, going against all that is considered conventional or mainstream, redefining ‘selfless.’ What the world has deemed selfish and evil she brands noble. And it shakes your very core.

The Fountainhead is not just another tale with philosophical overtones. Words fail me at this moment to adequately describe its impact, an impact so violent and possessing. It elicits an inner battle, where the mind is shredding every page in an attempt to swallow the words they hold.

I am torn. I cannot decide whether I loved the book or hated it. But I know it is one of these emotions or both subsisting simultaneously.

I laugh out loud at the insanity of the words I just wrote. And that’s the only way, I believe, I can aptly describe this book. It’s insane!

The Right Door?

I put the key in. I turned.
The door will open two months from now. Only then will I be able to tell whether I chose the right door or not. But it is a risk I chose to take, all calculations included.

I'm not going to tell you its the right one but Mel, you're Mel. You're going to be fabulous wherever you work...

Mel, if you feel like coming home do so. There are always opportunities here.

I obviously am happy for you either way. You make the right choices..

As long as you're happy with your decision, and you've come to it with all that is important to you, that's what matters in the end...

Seriously though, I'm sure you thought long and hard about it, and I'm sure it'll all work out for the best. Things have a funny way of doing that.

The Key To Our Success

It was in the shape of a key, mounted on a small wooden block. It bore my name on the front. Red letters embossed on a gold plate, MELANIE NORONHA stared up at me. They called it the key to our success.

She came up to the podium and said there was little she could say to us that we didn't already know. All she had with her were a few words of wisdom her grandmother told her a few days before she was married, words she felt were apt for us as we stepped out of the doors of Symbiosis and into the real world.

She told us to be prepared for change, to adjust, to be open enough to accept a different way of life. She reminded us that there was no 'I' in team and that the right way is the only way. If there is an opportunity to do some good for someone else, do it. And children, always take care of your parents. They have given you so much.

We have come full circle from that Lighthouse Day, my first day at university. It guided the way to this day, where our faculty and management bid us farewell. Kiran Bedi spoke to us that day about the number of keys we have in our hands, opening doors to great opportunities.

I look back, feeling good that I used a lot of those keys. There are no regrets.

I stand now at the end of a long road, deciding which path to take to move ahead. I stand here, with this key in my hand. This key to my success. And I wonder which door it will open.