Happy New Year!

Hindustan Times - By the River Pampa I Stood

The Hindu -By the River Pampa I stood

The Pioneer on "By the River..."

Mistletoe ( A Christmas poem)

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.


-Walter de la Mare

The Little Drummer Boy (A Christmas song)

Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A new born King to see, pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum
To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

So to honor Him, pa rum pum pum pum,
When we come.

Little Baby, pa rum pum pum pum
I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum
I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum
That's fit to give the King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum,
On my drum?

Mary nodded, pa rum pum pum pum
The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum.

****

The words and music to the Christmas song Little Drummer Boy was composed by Katherine K. Davis, Henry Onorati and Harry Simeone in 1958. The most notable rendition was created by the most unlikely combination of Bing Crosby and David Bowie. This version of Little Drummer Boy was a massive hot for the artists and was in fact Bing Crosby's most successful recording since the legendary White Christmas.

Excerpt 2 - By the River Pampa I Stood

This book is now available online from

www.indiaclub.com
or
www.dkpd.com

Gift yourself and your loved ones this Christmas, a copy of "By the River Pampa I stood"

Christmas Time

That evening had been a lovely one. And so is its memory. Like a peacock feather tucked away between the pages of a favourite book, to be retrieved occasionally; to be cherished forever. There was plenty to eat and plenty of music. She danced with the little ones and sang merry old Malayalam songs for them.

Memories, like diamonds, have a way of getting more precious with time.

For Christmas every year, she was unanimously chosen by the children to be their Santa (or Christmas Papa as he is known in Kerala). She would fish out the famous red gown with frilly edges from her kaalpetti – her mother’s wooden bridal dowry box with intricate carvings and brass knobs and edges – and press it well to remove creases, taking care to adjust the heat lest the frilly nylon edges get burned. The children loved to do her face and her patience with them was remarkable. She would sit still on a chair for hours while the children cut out beards and moustaches out of cotton rolls and pasted them on her face with glue made of flour and water. When she emerged from the chair, lo and behold, we had our Santa!

This practice had begun when I was a little girl. And this practice continues now, when Laya's cousins enjoy creating a Santa out of their great grandmother, Annammachi.

Santa and the little ones would then go carol singing from room to room inside the Gold House:

Joy to the world; the Lord is come.
Let earth receive her King.
Let ev’ry heart prepare him room
And heav’n and nature sing……

The maids in the kitchen would grumble about the missing ladles and spoons and tins. These were the musical instruments that accompanied the singing. In any case, the cacophony heralded the spirit of Christmas into the Gold House, which at other times wore a lost and forlorn look.

She made mounds of mouth-watering cookies and cakes at Christmas. The aroma of baking filled the house and the courtyard. Munching hungrily, we would gather around her, begging for a tale.

A brilliant storyteller she was, indeed. She could hold a listener with bated breath at the edge of his seat for hours, engrossed in her tale. And clamouring for more at the end of it.

Geeta Abraham Jose (By the River Pampa I stood)

Excerpt-1 By The River Pampa I stood

Daughter Dearest

Nevertheless, Mathen prayed for a little daughter whom he would treasure as the apple of his eye. His house would then reverberate with the sound of the bells on her tiny gold anklets and the ripples of her laughter. He would carry her on his shoulders and walk through the luxuriant green paddy fields where dark skinned workers toiled from dawn to dusk, singing as they toiled:

Ponnumpurackale Thampurane , thai
Ponnu manasulla Thampurane , thai….
(The Master of The Gold House, thai
With a heart made of gold, thai….)
Ponnumpurackale pennungale, thai
Ponnin niramulla pennungale thai….
(The Ladies of The Gold House, thai
With their colour of pure gold, thai…)

The singing would stop abruptly and the dark skinned workers would turn around to marvel at the fair daughter of the Master, as she rode piggyback on his back.
These dreams of Mathen seemed to have come true with the birth of Annamma on a bright, sunny morning.
It was summertime. The jasmines were in bloom in the garden and their fragrance hung in the air around the Gold House like an invisible cloak. Birds sang merrily in the garden.
- Geeta Abraham Jose (By the River Pampa I Stood)

When you open the book....

......you are greeted by the following quote:


"You cannot step twice into the same river
for the waters are continually moving on"

- Hereclitus


Food for thought....

Hey, what's this book about?

There is an ethnic Christian community with a two millennium old heritage in the southernmost part of India, where nature has endowed the land and the people with an abundance of grace and beauty. The land is popularly known as "God's Own Country". The people belonging to this particular community are known as Syrian Christians or Nasranis.

The story is set in "God's Own Country" and the backdrop is a typical Syrian Christian family - its ups and downs, its joys and sorrows, its secrets......The story spans over a century taking the family from the zenith of glory to imminent decay.

The plot is a purely fabricated one but the backdrop, lifestyle etc are original and give an insight into the life of a typical family in Kerala.

More details to follow....

By The River Pampa I Stood

To all my online friends,

You will be glad to hear that my debut novel

"By The River Pampa I Stood"

is being launched by Srishti Publishers in Delhi
on 9 Dec 2006. There will be a book reading session
at Oxford Bookstores in Delhi on the same day
and later on in Bangalore and Chennai.
The book will hit the bookshelves in Indian bookstores
in the second week of December as a gift
at Christmas for book lovers.

Hope you will buy it, read it, enjoy it
and post your comments.

Geeta Abraham Jose

Never Stop Dreaming

It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.
Never stop dreaming.
Not everyone can see his dreams come true in the same way.
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
The world's greatest lie: At a certain point in out lives we lose control of what's happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate.
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything because it's all written there.
If you can concentrate on the present, you'll be a happy man…the secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better…Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.
Everything has been written by the same hand.
All things are one.
Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the language of the world.
Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him.
Wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.
You've got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense.
There is only one way to learn. It's through action.
Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.
This natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise.
The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect.
No heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.
Most people see the world as a threatening place, and because they do, the world turns out indeed to be a threatening place.
When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.
No one fails to suffer the consequences of everything under the sun.
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Without love, dreams would have no meaning.
Love is the pure language of the world...A language without words…the one true language of the universe. It requires no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time.
Love is the force that transforms and improves the soul of the world.
No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.
A philosophy of life: I'm an adventurer, looking for treasure.
- Quotes from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Scarlett's musings

All her life she had heard sneers hurled at the Yankees because their pretensions to gentility were based on wealth, not breeding. But at this moment, heresy though it was, she could not help thinking the Yankees were right on this one matter, even if wrong in all others. It took money to be a lady. ... She shrugged in irritation. Perhaps these people were right and she was wrong but, just the same, these proud fools weren't looking forward as she was doing, straining every nerve, risking even honor and good name to get back what they had lost. It was beneath the dignity of many of them to indulge in a scramble for money. The times were rude and hard. They called for rude and hard struggle if one was to conquer them. Scarlett knew that family tradition would forcibly restrain many of these people from such a struggle -- with the making of money admittedly its aim. They all thought that obvious money-making and even talk of money were vulgar in the extreme. ... But she was going to be poor all her life. She wasn't going to sit down and patiently wait for a miracle to help her. She was going to rush into life and wrest from it what she could. Her father had started as a poor immigrant boy and had won the broad acres of Tara. What he had done, his daughter could do. She wasn't like these people who had gambled everything on a Cause that was gone and were content to be proud of having lost that Cause, because it was worth any sacrifice. They drew their courage from the past. She was drawing hers from the future.
-Margaret Mitchell (Gone With The Wind)

All men are equal

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?...
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

-William Shakespeare (Merchant of Venice)

The Twins

They never did look much like each other, Estha and Rahel, and even when they were thin-armed children, flat-chasted, wormridden and Elvis Presley-puffed, there was none of the usual "Who is who?" and "Which is which?" from oversmiling relatives or the Syrian Orthodox bishops who frequently visited the Ayemenem House for donations.

The confusion lay in a deeper, more secret place.

In those early amorphous years when memory had only just begun, when life was full of Beginnings and no Ends, and Everything was Forever, Esthappen and Rahel thought of themselves together as Me, and separately, individually, as We or Us. As though they were a rare breed of Siamese twins, physically separate, but with joint identities.

Now, these years later, Rahel has a memory of waking up one night giggling at Estha's funny dream.

She has other memories too that she has no right to have.

-Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things)

Another Lost Sailor

Lost Sailor

They were the perfect couple,
Everyone knew their love,
but one day in April, he had to go away,
he set his ship and left.
Eternal love he promised, I'll come back he said,
giving her a kiss, with tears on her face,
good bye she said to him.

Ship by ship were coming, none of them brought her, her love, as the weeks passed by, she waited on that port,
wearing the same dress, so in case he came,
he wouldn't be confused, but that day never seemed to come,
alone she stayed.

Her hair grew long, her pain grew more,
her smile vanished from her face, her hopes were short,
her dreams were gone, the ocean took her love,
and never got it back, never saw him again,
her lost sailor was her eternal love, in the sea she lost her soul.

Alone she stayed, she never got any news from him,
as the years passed by, reflected in her eyes,
the time and pain she felt, her tears went to the ocean,
in vain she cried for him, she became part of the sand,
another love she never got, they called her the widow of the ocean, the sun dried her hair, the time on her eyes were, her love never saw again, she didn't want to give up,
believing he would come, but the ocean took her love,
and never got it back, never saw him again,
her lost sailor was, her eternal love,
in the sea she lost him.


- Cesar A. Miranda

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

The free bird leaps
on the back of the win
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and is tune is heard
on the distant hillfor the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
an the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

Maya Angelou

Lost Sailor

The compass card is spinnin'.
The helm is swingin' to and fro.
Ooh, where's the Dog Star?
Ooh, where's the moon?

You're a lost sailor. You've been too long at sea.
Now the shore lights beckon. Yeah, there's a price for bein' free.

Some days the gales are howlin'. Some days the sea is still as glass.
Ooh, reef the mainsail.
Ooh, lash the mast.

You're a lost sailor. You've been too long at sea.
Now the shore lights beckon. Yeah, there's a price for bein' free.

Yeah, the sea bird's cryin',
And there's a ghost wind blowin'.
It's callin' you to that misty swirlin' sea.
Till the chains of your dreams are broken,
No place in the world you can be.

You're a lost sailor. You've been too long at sea.
Now the shore lights beckon. Yeah, there's a price for bein' free.

Driftin'. Yeah, driftin'. Yeah, driftin' and dreamin'.
There's a place you've never been.
Maybe a face you've never seen.
You can hear 'em callin' on the wind.

Go on and drift your life away, driftin' and dreamin'.
Drift your life away, maybe goin' on a dream.
Maybe goin' for a feelin', goin' for a feelin' --
Drift your life away.

John Perry Barlow

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust,
I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air,
I'll rise.

- Maya Angelou

Remembrance Day

PLEASE WEAR A POPPY.
"Please wear a poppy," the lady said
And held one forth, but I shook my head.
Then I stopped and watched as she offered them there,
And her face was old and lined with care;
But beneath the scars the years had made
There remained a smile that refused to fade.

A boy came whistling down the street,
Bouncing along on care-free feet.
His smile was full of joy and fun,
"Lady," said he, "may I have one?"

When she'd pinned it on he turned to say,
"Why do we wear a poppy today?"
The lady smiled in her wistful way
And answered,
"This is Remembrance Day,
And the poppy there is the symbol for
The gallant men who died in war.
And because they did, you and I are free -
That's why we wear a poppy, you see."

"I had a boy about your size,
With golden hair and big blue eyes.
He loved to play and jump and shout,
Free as a bird he would race about.
As the years went by he learned
and grew and became a man - as you will, too.
"He was fine and strong, with a boyish smile,
But he'd seemed with us such a little while
When war broke out and he went away.
I still remember his face that day
When he smiled at me and said,
Goodbye,I'll be back soon,
Mom, so please don't cry.
"But the war went on and he had to stay,
And all I could do was wait and pray.

His letters told of the awful fight,
(I can see it still in my dreams at night),
With the tanks and guns and cruel barbed wire,
And the mines and bullets, the bombs and fire.
"Till at last, at last, the war was won -
And that's why we wear a poppy son."

The small boy turned as if to go,
Then said, "Thanks, lady, I'm glad to know.
That sure did sound like an awful fight,
But your son - did he come back all right?"

A tear rolled down each faded cheek;
She shook her head, but didn't speak.
I slunk away in a sort of shame,
And if you were me you'd have done the same;
For our thanks, in giving, if oft delayed,
Thought our freedom was bought - and thousands paid!

And so when we see a poppy worn,
Let us reflect on the burden borne,
By those who gave their very all
When asked to answer their country's call
That we at home in peace might live.
Then wear a poppy!
Remember - and give!
~~By Don Crawford

Children are like Jam

Children are like jam: all very well in the proper place, but you can't stand them all over the shop - eh, what?'

These were the dreadful words of our Indian uncle. They made us feel very young and angry; and yet we could not be comforted by calling him names to ourselves, as you do when nasty grown-ups say nasty things, because he is not nasty, but quite the exact opposite when not irritated. And we could not think it ungentlemanly of him to say we were like jam, because, as Alice says, jam is very nice indeed - only not on furniture and improper places like that. My father said, 'Perhaps they had better go to boarding-school.' And that was awful, because we know Father disapproves of boarding-schools. And he looked at us and said, 'I am ashamed of them, sir!'

- E.Nesbit (The Woodbegoods)

On Giving

You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?

And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?

Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.

And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;

They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;

And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving

And is there aught you would withhold?

All you have shall some day be given;

Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.

You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.

And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?

And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?

See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.

For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.

Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;

For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.
- Kahlil Gibran

The Thorn-birds

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the price of great pain... or so says the legend...
- From The Thornbirds (Colleen McCollough)

Time is a Lie

"I think of all that is happening elsewhere, as I lie here. Nearby, I can hear the sounds of a road crew. Somewhere else, monkeys chatter in trees. A male seahorse becomes pregnant. A diamond forms, a bee dances out directions, a windshield shatters. Somewhere a mother spreads peanut butter for her son's lunch, a lover sighs, a knitter binds off the edge of a sleeve. Clouds gather to make rain, corn ripens on the stalk, a cancer cell divides, a little league team scores. Somewhere blossoms open, a man pushes a knife in deeper, a painter darkens her blue. A cashier pours new dimes into an outstretched hand, rainbows form and fade, plates in the earth shift and settle. A woman opens a velvet box, male spiders pluck gently on the females' webs, falcons fall from the sky. Abstracts are real and time is a lie, it cannot be measured when one moment can expand to hold everything. You can want to live and end up choosing death; and you can want to die and end up living. What keeps us here, really? A thread that breaks in a breeze. And yet a thread that cannot be broken." ~Elizabeth Berg ( Never Change)

The Golden Road

Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road. It was a fair highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine were blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh charm and a new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.
On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in fragrances aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in gossamer fancies and iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the boon of dreams; the years waited beyond and they were very fair; life was a rose-lipped comrade with purple flowers dripping from her fingers.
We may long have left the golden road behind, but its memories are the dearest of our eternal possessions; and those who cherish them as such may haply find a pleasure in the pages of this book, whose people are pilgrims on the golden road of youth.

- L.M.Montgomery

A Time to Every Purpose

To every thing there is a
season, and a time to every purpose under the
heaven: a time to be born, and
a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to
pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time
to break down, and a time to build
up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to
dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time
to gather stones together; a
time to embrace, and a time to refrain from
embracing; a time to get, and a
time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to
cast away; a time to rend, and a
time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a
time to speak; a time to love, and
a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of
peace.

Ecclesiastes 3, 1-8

Time

One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the arches of an old arcade without meeting an instrument of time. Time is visible in all places. Clock towers, wristwatches, church bells divide years into months, months into days, days into hours, hours into seconds, each increment of time marching after the other in perfect succession. And beyond any particular clock, a vast scaffold of time, stretching across the universe, lays down the law of time equally for all. In this world, a second is a second. Time paces forward with exquisite regularity, at precisely the same velocity in every corner of space. Time is an infinite ruler. Time is absolute.

-- Einstein

Through the Eyes of a Kid

When I look at a patch of dandelions, I see a bunch of weeds that are going to take over my garden.

Kids see flowers for Mom and blowing white fluff you can wish on.



When I look at an old, desolate man and he smiles at me, I see a smelly, dirty person who wants money and I look away.

Kids see someone smiling at them and they smile back.



When I hear music I love, I know I can't carry a tune and don't have much rhythm, so I sit self consciously and listen.

Kids feel the beat and move to it. They sing out the words. If they don't know them, they make up their own.



When I feel wind on my face, I brace myself against it. I feel it messing up my hair and pulling me back when I walk.

Kids close their eyes, spread their arms and fly with it, until they fall to the ground laughing.



When I pray, I say "thee" and "thou" and "grant me this, "please give me that".

Kids say "Hi God. Thanks for my toys and my friends. Please keep the bad dreams away tonight. Sorry, I don't want to go to heaven yet. I would miss my Mum and Dad."



When I see a mud puddle, I step around it. I see muddy shoes and dirty carpets.

Kids step in it. They see dams to build, rivers to cross and water to play with.



I wonder, are we given children to teach or to learn from?



Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and see they were the big things.

(Anonymous)

When I Asked God

When I Asked God for Strength
He Gave Me Difficult Situations to Face
When I Asked God for Brain & Brawn
He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to Solve
When I Asked God for Happiness
He Showed Me Some Unhappy People
When I Asked God for Wealth
He Showed Me How to Work Hard
When I Asked God for Favors
He Showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard
When I Asked God for Peace
He Showed Me How to Help Others
God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted
He Gave Me Everything I Needed

- Swami Vivekananda

To Risk It

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement,

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return,

To live is to risk dying,

To hope is to risk despair,

To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow,

But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.

Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.

Only a person who risks is free....
(Arthur William Ward)