Slavishly devoted

A Pair of Chinese Imperial Yellow Peking Glass Square Bowls,

19th century, each decorated with two sides having stylised facing dragons and two sides with dragon faces.

 

Aravind Adiga's novel The White Tiger is, as described by The Times, "A masterpiece". Adiga's quotation of the Indian poet Iqbal's words: "The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave", was for me the seminal moment in the entire book.

 

In a recent conversation with a friend I was stating a recognition that my expectations were often too high, and that resulted in disappointment. It led me to wonder whether one should lower one's expectations, to reduce this occurrence. But lowering expectations also means lowering standards. And lowering standards often means ignoring an innate sense of beauty.

 

Let me use an example, if I haven't already lost your interest, or understanding in what I am trying to say. If I go and stay in an hotel and have great expectations that it will be up to the standard of its five star rating in respect of say aesthetics, when it turns out to be less than my expectations, then I am disappointed. It is not easy to lower one's expectation, because I cannot alter my understanding of what constitutes beauty.

 

And however many disappointments one experiences, when one encounters truly outstanding beauty, that in itself is a huge reward. One could therefore argue that Iqbal's words mean quite the reverse, if beauty is innate. When you have a sense of beauty you are a slave to disappointment, because much of what we see is not pretty, in any sense of the word.