A Riddle!!!

Here is a beautiful riddle set within a poem.... see if you can unravel it. It's a Poem by Edgar Allan Poe and is called - A Valentine

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Loeda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines! -- they hold a treasure
Divine -- a talisman -- an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure --
The words -- the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!

And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets -- as the name is a poet's, too.
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto -- Mendez Ferdinando --
Still form a synonym for Truth -- Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do

I could not unravel the said name or the three words..... if you do... please let me know!

Interesting 'Bookie' Quotations

1. Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs – Christopher Hampton.
   
2. Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book – Edward Gibbon.
   
3. I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good – Seneca.
   
4. To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter – Aliester Crowley.
   
5. A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people – Thomas Mann.
   
6. The world is wide; no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of the world; and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from one another. – John Constable.
   
7. There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it - Bertrand Russell.


8. A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you - Daniel J. Boorstein.


9. The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you the knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination - Elizabeth Hardwick.


10. I have every sympathy with the American who was so horrified by what he had read about the effects of smoking that he gave up reading - Henry G. Strauss.


11. The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books - Katharine Mansfield.


12. A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy. - Edward P. Morgan.


13. Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx.


14. Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all. - Abraham Lincoln.


15. TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they'll have with twenty-six. Open your child's imagination. Open a book. - Author Unknown.

"Entry From The Backside Only: hazaar fundas of indian english" - Binoo K. John.

I got this book as a Birthday present from one of my friends in college. The title seemed interesting and I thought, the book would be humorous, and so I immediately settled down to reading the book. Wellllllll........ the only thing that turned out to be interesting about the book was it's title. Humorous - the book was not!!! not from any angle whatsoever!!!!!!!!

Mr. Binoo. K. John is apparently a journalist who has apparently written two other books which have been well received by society in general. Both are travelogues - one about Cheerapunji and the other about the Malabar Coast. Praises for these books find their place on the cover of 'hazaar fundas...'. Well, if that is true, then Mr. John should stick to writing travelogues and not venture to attempt either satire, humour or even sarcasm.

The overwhelming feeling that a reader gets on reading this book is:

firstly that Mr. John has tried a li'l too hard to be funny and in the process has lost out on whatever li'l laughs he could have otherwise hoped to generate,

secondly that he has been unable to decide whom he is addressing the book to: the foreigners to whom he seeks to explain India's obsession with English or to the Indian's themselves for whom he is attempting to hold a mirror and get them to laugh at themselves.

I believe that had he been trying to do the latter, the book would have been far friendlier and made for more interesting reading.

Thirdly that he has written this book at a time in his life when he has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do and so he has stretched what could have been an entertaining essay into a torture spanning 212 pages.

Fourthly the book leaves you wondering whose sense of logic is at fault: yours or Mr John's? He takes one or two illustrations of 'Indian-English' and proceeds to make generalisations about the country as a whole and all it's people. Sweeping statements like: ".... the cleanliness and civic sense which no Indian can be credited with...", "...he forsakes Hindi with the unquestioned and guiltless ease of all Indians, giving yet another example of how tenuous an Indian's link with his mother tongue is", find their way onto almost each and every page of this book.

In attempting to explain why people take to 'Indian English' he lambasts the users of such English as those who are desperately trying to climb the social ladder. The tone of his writing suggests that what he really wants to say is that such people who have the temerity to vilify the most sacred of languages should know their place and should not aspire above their rank and 'capabilities'. He clearly draws the distinction between the 'aspiring-Indian-English-using THEM' and 'the-well-read-socially mobile-correct English using US'. And he makes it very clear which side of the fence HE belongs to. He says that the major reason why Indians want to learn English is because they want to go to foren country. A read through this book, gives one the impression that he is the one targeting social acceptance among the pool of internationally renowned authors and thinks that distancing himself from his ill-bred and ill-mannered countrymen is the best way to do so.

However, to be fair to Mr. John, the book also has a few merits. The anecdotes and the quotes that he has chosen to show case Indian English are extremely funny and raise quite a few laughs. But as a critic in 'The Hindu' said: Had Mr Binoo John not attempted to explain humour that is self evident and pat himself on the back, the book would have made for some interesting afternoon read with 'some chai wai for company'.

Another appreciable fact which cannot escape any reader's notice is how well researched the book is. Mr. John has dug up anecdotes of usage of Indian English from as far back as the early colonial era and has researched and gone through obscure books found only in the dusty corners of libraries such as the 'Nehru Memorial Library' in New Delhi. All, with the sole intention of bringing out the various ways in which English has been used in this country.

But on the whole, this book is disappointing. It takes too many uncalled-for pot shots at the 'common man' in India for it to have gone down my throat at least!!!!

Travel and New Beginnings...

Well around ten days ago I returned from a short five day tour of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Quite obviously... we could not cover either state entirely. We spent around 2 1/2 days in Kerala..... and Boy did that place capture my imagination!!!!! One has to visit the place to truly realise why it is called God's Own Country...... we went only to Trivandrum and Kovalam... which are not even the most beautiful places in the state and THEY were soooo beautiful!

The very first thing that will strike you about Kerala are the coconut trees!!!! I only wish I could have captured on lens the scene outside the airplane window just before we landed at Trivandrum...... solid body of water on one side, and a solid mass of coconut trees extending for acres and acres on the other... separated only by a thin strip of white and brown sand!!!!!! Then you make your way out of the smallish airport and the next thing to strike you ... is how clean the city is! This is reflected not just outside the airport but all across the city and indeed every part of the state that we travelled. There is a beach right next to the airport and the clean soft brown sand, clear blue skies, the emerald waters of the sea and green coconut trees give you as warm a welcome as can be!!!

Even while touring around Trivandrum the cleanliness of the entire city keeps impressing itself upon you. Be it right outside the extremely busy Anatha-Padmanabha Swamy Temple or be it at the usual tourist attractions eg: The Palace, the Museum, The Zoo, The Art Galleries, 'VELI': A Tourist Village, or even the main Marketplace - and they are all maintained by the state government!!!!!! Also, the fact that they were all so obviously well looked after. I was extremely impressed. To think that a major tourist draw like Agra is not half as clean as small town Trivandrum which is not even the main tourist attraction of the state.

Kovalam.. I believe is slightly over-hyped and that the beach though very good is nothing to go sooo ga ga about! In fact there are other beaches in and around Trivandrum and Kovalam itself which are far less crowded and equally beautiful! However this is not to take away from the beauty of Kovalam or the fact that it's beach creates the perfect combination of crystal clear waters, white sand, blue skies (or the perfect sunrise or sunset - depending upon when you go) and of course the green coconut trees. Just that it was a li'l crowded when we went - blame it on the time of the year!

Even the highway out of Kerala and into Tamilnadu is lined with an unbroken line of thick coconut groves with banana trees growing in their shelter, with quaint red tiled houses with sloping roofs showing themselves here and there among the trees. The beauty is indescribable. By contrast and at the risk of hurting a few feelings.. Tamilnadu is no comparison!!! Neither cleanlinbess wise (the less said about this the better) nor Beauty wise. The coconut trees start thinning almost from the moment we enter Tamilnadu and get replaced by vast plain fields with green standing crop. We visited Kanyakumari, Madurai and Rameshwaram before flying out of Madurai and the only place that came close to matching Kerala in beauty was the highway leading upto Rameshwaram. The city itself, like Madurai and Kanyakumari is pretty dirty (and it seemed especially so after coming straight out of Kerala), but the highway leading into it makes up in beauty for what the rest of the city lacks. Just before entering Rameshwaram, you can see the Indian Ocean stretch out endlessly on either side of you.... it seems the road itself is going to end in the sea...... a li'l further and you can see the brown sand, the blue skies, the emarald-blue waters of the ocean and the green coconut trees again and I, for one, will never cease to recapture that scene everytime I close my eyes and think about it!!! As wordsworth aptly said, "and when..in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude." Unfortunately, the rest of the places that we visited in Tamilnadu are nothing to right home about... except of course that the Meenakshi Temple of Madurai is every bit as beautiful architecturally as the stories make it out to be. But apart from the highway to Rameshwaram and the Meenakshi Temple, Tamilnadu was disappointing after the heady high that Kerala had given us.

I have decided to go back to Kerala and explore the rest of that state. And this time I hope to do it slowly with atleast a week to 10 days in hand. I end this travelogue with the disclaimer that: the views expressed herein are merely the personal opinion of the author, formed mainly through the circumstances, the duration and the places covered by the author on this tour. The views expressed are reflective only of the places visited and not generalisations about the rest of the two states which the author has not had the good fortune of visiting. Still, any hurt caused to any person's sensibilities or sentiments is deeply regretted. (true law student ishtyle!!!!)

Now for the second part of this rather long post!!!!! For all those wondering where Books fit into the entire narrative - here is the answer. I bought two books on the tour - one the comparatively unremarkable "The Pilgrimage" by Paulo Coelho, and the second - "Ananda Math" by Bankimchandra. This second is slightly more momentous than the first since it is my very first Hindi book. (of course translated - from bangla). For a long time now I had been wanting to start reading some vernacular. English literature was good but I started to realise that vernacular literature too has a lot more to offer. My only two options were Hindi and Kannada (my mother tongue). I am slightly ashamed to say that though I can read and write in Kannada, I am nowhere near fluent. This is owing to the fact that I have lived all my life in Ranchi and Bokaro. Therefore Hindi was the only real option.

Starting to read in Hindi was not completely without hiccups. The translation was an extremely good one and had been able to recreate the magic of story while at the same time not letting anything get 'lost in translation'. It was also in Shudh Hindi. This meant that for a novice like me whose only other exposure to Hindi literature had been the Hindi text books at school, understanding some of the words and phrases were slightly difficult. But as the novel progressed and I got used to the language, my speed increased and so did my comprehension. I am extremely glad that I have made this beginning and hope that I continue this newly acquired taste right through.

The book of course was extremely good, the narrative tight and gripping. It offers an insight into one of the political movements in Bengal against the Muslim ruler of the time, prior to the takeover by the British. However the one thing that kept nagging me throughout was how communal and shortsighted (with respect to the British) the book was. Once when Jeevanand (the protagonist) captures a British Captain in a war, he seeks to befriend him by saying that their war is against the Muslims and not the British, whom they consider their friends. Also, the army of the Vaishnavas took great pride and pleasure in burning down all villages populated by the Muslims. But just when you seek to end with the thought that Bankimchandra was probably not as secular and patriotic as he is made out to be, comes the last two pages of the book and the monologue by a swamiji who was also a healer. He seeks to explain why the vaishnavas failed to rule Bengal in spite of all their devotion, and 'good deeds'. He tells the protagonist that their main fault lay in their bigotry and the fact that they had failed to correctly assess the British. He also takes an extremely realistic view of things and says however, that the defeat of the vaishnavas at the hands of the British was not necessarily a bad thing but was something which had been pre ordained. Their beloved Bharat Mata would be best served at the hands of the British since they would pull her out of the middle ages and put her firmly on the path to modernity.

Some more poetry.

I recently found this wonderful site full of poetry called "The Wondering Minstrels". For those interested, I have added this site to my list of "I also Visit" sites. It was while I was trawling through their site, that I came across this excellent poem by W.H. Auden about the partition of India and the nature of the 'task' that radcliffe was assigned. The poem is a wonderful description of the situation then and the role that, I believe this poem proves, the British played in the whole saga, either by omission or commission. The Poem is called 'Partition' and I have reproduced it here: -

"Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
"Time," they had briefed him in London, "is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.
"Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.

The next day he sailed for England, where he could quickly forget
The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot."

- W.H. Auden.

Law in Poetry - I

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

- Portia's 'Mercy Speech' in "Merchant of Venice" - Act IV, Scene I.

The Law That Lawyers Know About!!!
(copied from http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1392.html)

The law the lawyers know about
Is property and land;
But why the leaves are on the trees,
And why the wind disturbs the seas,
Why honey is the food of bees,
Why horses have such tender knees,
Why winters come and rivers freeze,
Why Faith is more than what one sees,
And Hope survives the worst disease,
And Charity is more than these,
They do not understand.

- H.D.C. Pepler.

Both these poems reflect two different views about the law and the lawyers. While the first portrays a lawyer who understands the 'soft law' as it were and feels free to use concepts other than strictly legal ones such as religion and morality to try and achieve the ultimate aim of justice, the other one condemns the law and lawyers as being mainly positivistic in their approach and being insensitive to ethics, morality and the natural laws.

It is for each to decide which version to accept. All that I say is, lawyers do what they can to achieve the best for their clients. Just as members of any other profession do.

A 'Bookie's' Dilemna.....

A strange problem seems to have assailed me these days. Though my hunger to read more and more books has not diminished, my reading speed seems to have come down considerably. This has meant that along with the other things that I have to fit into the mandatorily allotted 24 hours, (most notably eating, sleeping and pursuing legal studies), I barely get anytime at all to devote to reading. I am also afraid that the laziness which has been creeping up stealthily on me for the past 3 1/2 years has finally caught up even with my book-reading habit. I had a good mind to blame the complex legal language that we are forced to 'interpret' and 'reinterpret', as the reason for all these ills. The only thing that deterred me from doing so was the 'sudden' realisation that this peculiar illness does not seem to have striken my fellow law school-ites at all. They are still busy devouring all the books that they can get their hands on. To top it all off, a subsidiary illness that has befallen me is the leave-books-half-read illness. This illness, let me warn you it is an extremely irritating, guilt inducing and depressing sort of illness with no known cure except a cast iron willpower.

Therefore, I have decided on a new-and-early new year's resolution:
1. Read all the books you want to,
2. Finish them all,
3. Do not let the ignominy of having to return books to the library - unread after having gotten it re-issued fall on you,
4. Also if possible, avoid having to reissue books from the library. Finish it within the original three days.

These resolutions, if at all I keep them, (i'll write a post on the fate of most of my new year resolutions another day) ought to bring me slowly back to my old self. So... wish me luck!!!