Simply Do It: Do It Simply

Description

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

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Martin Kämpchen, born in 1948 in Germany, has spent forty years of his life in India. After studying in the USA, Paris and Vienna, he earned a PhD in Literature and went to India to teach German in Kolkata. After four years he returned to university in Chennai and Santiniketan, earning a PhD in Religious Studies. He translated Sri Ramakrishna and Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry from Bengali into German. He wrote, translated and edited books about Indian life, thus becoming one of the important cultural links between India and Germany. The present book introduces the author to Indian readers.
Matthew Pritchard is a postdoctoral research fellow in music at the University of Cambridge, where he researches and writes on the history of music theory and aesthetics in Europe, and particularly Germany, from the late eighteenth century to the present. Through trips to Santiniketan he also continues research on Rabindrasangit and other traditions of Bengali music begun during a year at Visva-Bharati University from 2009-10. Aside from research, he translates texts, usually of either musical or philosophical interest, from German and Bengali.

ABOUT THE BOOK
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Speech is not silver and silence is not gold. Gold is instead the right amount of speech and silence.’ This is how Martin Kämpchen overturns a popular saying and probes into the meaning of speech and silence beyond clichéd thinking. In curt, pointed literary texts the author describes everyday activities–waking, breathing, greeting, offering praise, remembering, sleeping or listening. He breaks open the thoughtless routine with which we normally carry them out, trying to discover their authentic value. Drawing from the wisdom of Indian and Christian contemplative thought, Kämpchen however firmly relates his texts to our 21st century’s search for a simple, truthful life-style.