Atlas Shrugged. But I Stayed Firm.

Whether you’re a teenager feeling alienated about the world not appreciating you, a senior Republican seeking to curb government spending in the economy, or somewhere in between, Ayn Rand is quite likely to pop up in conversation. Champion of libertarianism, ardent advocate of individualistic thought and action, cheerleader of capitalism taken to its free-market extreme – it’s hard to ignore Ayn Rand. Over 50 years after the publication of her masterpiece “Atlas Shrugged”, Ayn Rand’s books still sell in the millions every year. Which is quite normal, if you’re one of the best-selling and most influential authors of all time. What’s not very normal, though, is the fact that there are even dating sites exclusively meant for the followers of Ayn Rand.

Now that would be decidedly odd – two objectivists dating each other. Would the rules of dating be twisted in their case? Think about it – objectivists despise altruism and regard selfishness as the ultimate virtue. So if an objectivist girl tries to break up with her boyfriend, what would she do? Would she shower him with acts of altruism until he can’t take it any longer?

“Honey, you’ve been cooking all my meals for me. You’ve been granting all my wishes in the bedroom. Last weekend you whisked me away on a surprise trip. You’ve been cleaning up after me every single time. I can’t take this anymore!!! Just break up with me already, will you, instead of subjecting me to such extreme levels of relentless altruism???”

Or imagine two objectivists that meet online, start chatting and fall in love with each other. But when they finally meet, the guy decides that he wants nothing to do with the girl.

Girl (visibly hurt and disappointed): But why do you want to break up? You said I always reminded you of Ayn Rand – the way I spoke and expressed my thoughts. Do I not remind you of Ayn Rand any longer?

Boy: That’s the trouble – you do! It was fine as long as you spoke like Ayn Rand – but you also look like Ayn Rand!

I’ve always had a strange equation with Ayn Rand. It all started back in the days of school when I managed to garner an unjustified reputation for being a voracious reader. Don’t get me wrong – I do like reading and I think it’s far more enriching than all of TV and most of the movies – but I’ve never been a voracious reader. I wish I was – but a combination of a short attention span, other avenues of distraction, lack of patience, etc. has meant that I really don’t read as much as I would like to.

And you know how it is in school – it’s easy to get stereotyped. You tend to get placed into one of the buckets that are so prevalent – the geeky type, the athletic type, the hoodlum type, and so on.  And because I came across as a quiet type and was competent at English, people assumed that all I did with my spare time was read. Maybe it was also because I enjoyed writing and didn’t have any other claim to fame – in terms of being a supreme athlete, or playing a guitar and being all musical, or getting involved in an infamous scandal involving drugs or alcohol, or being a ladies man – that I was bracketed as an intellectual that spent all his time reading. Well, ok…I exaggerate – no one really thought of me as an intellectual. But yes, the reading reputation stuck.

And you know how it is with Ayn Rand – anyone who reads books would most likely have read Ayn Rand, or claimed to, at any rate. So the minute I told someone that I hadn’t read Ayn Rand, their jaw would drop and they would exclaim in a state of shock, “What??? You HAVEN’T read AYN RAND??? But I thought you read a lot!!!” And I’d look away apologetically and mumble something about meaning to get around to it. And the truth is, I did get around to it – more than once. Or maybe it was only once. But it was just too intimidating – a thousand-page book written in really tiny font – it just scared the pants off me. Plus it was supposed to be philosophical – and even though I didn’t think of myself as having soap-dish levels of shallowness – I generally steered clear of philosophical books. I liked reading for fun – this did not seem like fun at all. It always felt easier to just look sheepish and put up with the shocked proclamations rather than to read Ayn Rand. So yes…I figured that was the end of that. Life rolled on and I started working and reading even lesser than in the student days.

But this year, I resolved (even though I’m not generally a New Year’s Resolution sort of chap) to read more. So far, I’ve stuck to the resolution – having managed to finish off three books since the beginning of the year. And that’s when this thought suddenly crept into my head and has refused to let go ever since – why don’t I give Ayn Rand another crack? I didn’t know if it was just false bravado fuelled by the misplaced confidence of having read three books within a month – but it was one of those thoughts that you just knew would not go away until you actually went ahead and did something about it. So I checked with a Rand fan for further encouragement, and with that little bit of push, I finally summoned the courage to take on Ayn Rand.

I dropped in at a bookstore on my way back from work. When I reached the bookstore, it was among the first books I could see. They even had a sale going on – a 20% discount. This was it – all the stars were aligned, the entire universe was conspiring towards me picking up “Atlas Shrugged”. Except, when I actually picked it up, I could feel all the confidence just draining away from me, the way a foot soldier might feel when he suddenly discovers that he’s going into battle against cavalrymen. Or the way a sheep might feel when it accidentally stumbles into an abattoir. Or the way Income Tax officials might feel when facing Nitin Gadkari if the BJP comes to power. Or the way a recently quit alcoholic might feel if you handed him a bottle of 40-year-old single malt. Or the way Narendra Modi might feel if he’s stranded on a desert island with a dozen of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s most promising new recruits. Well, you get the picture.

It really does look terribly scary – there is an inverse relation between the size of the font and the thickness of the book. And it’s not a favorable inverse relation like in a children’s storybook – it’s the inverse relation exploited to such good effect by the people who draft the terms and conditions so that no one would read them. How could I read a thousand pages of terms & conditions? Once again, I felt like I just wouldn’t be able to do it – but eventually I managed to pull myself together by remembering tales of heroic inspiration and went ahead and bought the book.

Now, if only I could get around to actually reading it, rather than writing about it!