Hey Guyz…..I'm back with a bang. Fully charged and ready to take on the next year's challenges after the most relaxing and refreshing holiday in the best place on planet Earth: monsoon drenched Kerala. Missed you guys…I'm catching up with everyone.
In the meantime, here's an excerpt from a wonderful book on Bombay, that I read during my vacation. It takes you right from the crown to the underbelly of the city and never ceases to amaze you with facts about this great city, that the author gathered by befriending people from every section of the society- from slum dwellers, killers, smugglers and prostitutes to movie stars , cops and politicians. This non fiction book reads like a novel that you simply cannot put down.
Excerpt - Maximum City : Bombay Lost and Found
You have to break the laws to survive. I break the law often and casually. I dislike giving bribes, I dislike buying movie tickets in black. But since the legal option is so ridiculously arduous – in getting a driving licence, in buying a movie ticket—I take the easy way out. If the whole country collectively takes the easy way out, an alternative system is established whose rules are more or less known to all, whose rates are fixed. The 'parallel economy', a traveling partner of the official economy, is always there; turn your head a little to the left or right and you'll see it. To survive in Bombay, you need to know its habits. If you have a child, you have to know how much 'donation' to give to the school to get admission. If you have a traffic accident, you have to know how much to give to the cops to dispose of the matter and how much to give to the father of the child you've run over to stop the mob from lynching you. If you're a tenant, you have to know how much to demand in key money from the landlord to move out. The parallel economy is fed on a diet of judicial rot. The system of justice, supreme legacy of the British, is in tatters, starved by a succession of governments afraid of its power over them.........
- Suketu Mehta ( Maximum City)
Friday, August 10, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Excerpt 4 - Off to GOC
....Outside the window, the brown countryside was gradually giving way to a green one. Swaying coconut palms- myriads of them- welcomed us to the land of coconuts.
Lush green paddy fields flowed past. The purple lines of hilltops rose behind them on the horizon, scalloping the sky. Slowly, the sun rose above them, heralding the birth of a new day.
I was in God's own country where the sun smiled, the rain danced and thunder applauded as nature sashayed down the catwalk in all her finery. Here, nature was endowed with an abundance of beauty, grace and charm in such measure that tourists often exclaimed, "Surely, this must be God's own country!", and the tourism people decided to use this expression to their advantage in luring more tourists to Kerala.
God’s own country with its fields and rivers, lapping lagoons and bewitching backwaters was a treat to the eyes. I looked out of the window at the scenes racing backwards as the train raced forward. But I was hardly appreciating the beauty of the land. My mind was racing. Racing backwards. Through months, through years, through decades……………
-Geeta Abraham Jose (By the River Pampa I stood)
Dear blogger friends,
Yay! I'm off on a vacation to Kerala. Will miss you all. See you in August. Have fun, keep writing and KEEP SMILING!!!!
Lush green paddy fields flowed past. The purple lines of hilltops rose behind them on the horizon, scalloping the sky. Slowly, the sun rose above them, heralding the birth of a new day.
I was in God's own country where the sun smiled, the rain danced and thunder applauded as nature sashayed down the catwalk in all her finery. Here, nature was endowed with an abundance of beauty, grace and charm in such measure that tourists often exclaimed, "Surely, this must be God's own country!", and the tourism people decided to use this expression to their advantage in luring more tourists to Kerala.
God’s own country with its fields and rivers, lapping lagoons and bewitching backwaters was a treat to the eyes. I looked out of the window at the scenes racing backwards as the train raced forward. But I was hardly appreciating the beauty of the land. My mind was racing. Racing backwards. Through months, through years, through decades……………
-Geeta Abraham Jose (By the River Pampa I stood)
Dear blogger friends,
Yay! I'm off on a vacation to Kerala. Will miss you all. See you in August. Have fun, keep writing and KEEP SMILING!!!!
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Book Excerpt: Broken Wings
Every time I went to the fields I returned disappointed, without understanding the cause of my disappointment. Every time I looked at the grey sky I felt my heart contract. Every time I heard the singing of the birds and babbling of the spring I suffered without understanding the reason for my suffering. It is said that unsophistication makes a man empty and that emptiness makes him carefree. It may be true among those who were born dead and who exist like frozen corpses; but the sensitive boy who feels much and knows little is the most unfortunate creature under the sun, because he is torn by two forces. the first force elevates him and shows him the beauty of existence through a cloud of dreams; the second ties him down to the earth and fills his eyes with dust and overpowers him with fears and darkness.
Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow. Solitude is the ally of sorrow as well as a companion of spiritual exaltation.
The boy's soul undergoing the buffeting of sorrow is like a white lily just unfolding. It trembles before the breeze and opens its heart to day break and folds its leaves back when the shadow of night comes. If that boy does not have diversion or friends or companions in his games his life will be like a narrow prison in which he sees nothing but spider webs and hears nothing but the crawling of insects.
That sorrow which obsessed me during my youth was not caused by lack of amusement, because I could have had it; neither from lack of friends, because I could have found them. That sorrow was caused by an inward ailment which made me love solitude. It killed in me the inclination for games and amusement. It removed from my shoulders the wings of youth and made me like a pong of water between mountains which reflects in its calm surface the shadows of ghosts and the colours of clouds and trees, but cannot find an outlet by which to pass singing to the sea.
Thus was my life before I attained the age of eighteen. That year is like a mountain peak in my life, for it awakened knowledge in me and made me understand the vicissitudes of mankind. In that year I was reborn and unless a person is born again his life will remain like a blank sheet in the book of existence. In that year, I saw the angels of heaven looking at me through the eyes of a beautiful woman. I also saw the devils of hell raging in the heart of an evil man. He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life will be far removed from knowledge, and his spirit will be empty of affection.
-Kahlil Gibran (Broken Wings)
Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow. Solitude is the ally of sorrow as well as a companion of spiritual exaltation.
The boy's soul undergoing the buffeting of sorrow is like a white lily just unfolding. It trembles before the breeze and opens its heart to day break and folds its leaves back when the shadow of night comes. If that boy does not have diversion or friends or companions in his games his life will be like a narrow prison in which he sees nothing but spider webs and hears nothing but the crawling of insects.
That sorrow which obsessed me during my youth was not caused by lack of amusement, because I could have had it; neither from lack of friends, because I could have found them. That sorrow was caused by an inward ailment which made me love solitude. It killed in me the inclination for games and amusement. It removed from my shoulders the wings of youth and made me like a pong of water between mountains which reflects in its calm surface the shadows of ghosts and the colours of clouds and trees, but cannot find an outlet by which to pass singing to the sea.
Thus was my life before I attained the age of eighteen. That year is like a mountain peak in my life, for it awakened knowledge in me and made me understand the vicissitudes of mankind. In that year I was reborn and unless a person is born again his life will remain like a blank sheet in the book of existence. In that year, I saw the angels of heaven looking at me through the eyes of a beautiful woman. I also saw the devils of hell raging in the heart of an evil man. He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life will be far removed from knowledge, and his spirit will be empty of affection.
-Kahlil Gibran (Broken Wings)
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
More on Optimists and Pessimists
The optimist is a person who wakes up in the morning and shouts: "Good Morning, God!" The pessimist is a person who wakes up in the morning and groans: "Good God! It's morning!"
(this is my favourite quote on optimists and pessimists- I don't know who said it)
Here are some more:
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
-Mark Twain
The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.
-Kahlil Gibran
An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
-Rene Descartes
An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight. The truly wise person is colorblind.
-Albert Schweitzer
Always borrow money from a pessimist, he doesn't expect to be paid back.
-Anonymous
An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be
-Anonymous
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
-William Arthur Ward
Don't ever become a pessimist; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events.
-Robert Heinlein
Any more quotes on Pessimists and Optimists????
(this is my favourite quote on optimists and pessimists- I don't know who said it)
Here are some more:
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
-Mark Twain
The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.
-Kahlil Gibran
An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
-Rene Descartes
An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight. The truly wise person is colorblind.
-Albert Schweitzer
Always borrow money from a pessimist, he doesn't expect to be paid back.
-Anonymous
An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be
-Anonymous
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
-William Arthur Ward
Don't ever become a pessimist; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events.
-Robert Heinlein
Any more quotes on Pessimists and Optimists????
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Optimist or Pessimist?????
I found this at Hillgrandmom's and set to find out where I stand. And here's the result:
| You Are a Realist |
 You don't see the glass as half empty or half full. You see what's exactly in the glass. You never try to make a bad situation seem better than it is... But you also never sabotage any good things you have going on. You are brutally honest in your assessments of situations - and this always seems to help you cope. |
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Book Excerpt: The Origin of Species
Thus ends this highly controversial book:
Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity; for the manner in which all organic beings are grouped, shows that the greater number of species of each genus, and all the species of many genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity as to foretell that it will be the common and widely-spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups, which will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant species. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
- Charles Darwin (The Origin of Species)
Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity; for the manner in which all organic beings are grouped, shows that the greater number of species of each genus, and all the species of many genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity as to foretell that it will be the common and widely-spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups, which will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant species. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
- Charles Darwin (The Origin of Species)
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Book Excerpt: The Audacity of Hope
......Almost by definition, faith and reason operate in different domains and involve different paths to discerning truth.
The story of Abraham and Isaac offers a simple but powerful example. According to the Bible, Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his "only son, Isaac, whom you love," as a burnt offering. Without argument, Abraham takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded. Of course, we know the happy ending—God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute. Abraham has passed God's test of devotion. He becomes a model of fidelity to God, and his great faith is rewarded through future generations. And yet it is fair to say that if any of us saw a 21st century Abraham raising the knife on the roof of his apartment building, we would call the police; we would wrestle him down; even if we saw him lower the knife at the last minute, we would expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away and charge Abraham with child abuse. We would do so because God doesn't reveal Himself or His angels to all of us in a single moment. We do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that are possible for all of us to know, understanding that a part of what we know to be true—as individuals or communities of faith—will be true for us alone.
This is not to say that I'm unanchored in my faith. There are some things that I'm absolutely sure about—the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace.
- Barack Obama (The Audacity of Hope)
The story of Abraham and Isaac offers a simple but powerful example. According to the Bible, Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his "only son, Isaac, whom you love," as a burnt offering. Without argument, Abraham takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded. Of course, we know the happy ending—God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute. Abraham has passed God's test of devotion. He becomes a model of fidelity to God, and his great faith is rewarded through future generations. And yet it is fair to say that if any of us saw a 21st century Abraham raising the knife on the roof of his apartment building, we would call the police; we would wrestle him down; even if we saw him lower the knife at the last minute, we would expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away and charge Abraham with child abuse. We would do so because God doesn't reveal Himself or His angels to all of us in a single moment. We do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that are possible for all of us to know, understanding that a part of what we know to be true—as individuals or communities of faith—will be true for us alone.
This is not to say that I'm unanchored in my faith. There are some things that I'm absolutely sure about—the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace.
- Barack Obama (The Audacity of Hope)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)