'Vacations' is a slight misnomer for this post since today is officially the last day of mine. I'm bunking a week of college and therefore have a few days of grace! However this post is more about what I have been doing the last two and a half months...
More than anything the last few months have been about travelleing from place to place... not so much exotic travelling (though that too is included)as just general good use of the Indian Railways. Here's a synopsis:
March 13th - Kolkata to Ranchi.
March 15th - Ranchi to Mumbai.
Sometime in April - Mumbai to Matheran.
Sometime in April - Mumbai to Alibaug.
May 1st - South Mumbai to Thane. (this, believe me, is atleast as eventful a journey as between two cities)
May 4th - Mumbai to Ranchi (in course of which I lost my well loved Mobile phone)
May 11th - Ranchi to Bangalore.
May 17th - Bangalore to Vellore and back.
May 20th - Bangalore to Toranagallu.
May 21st - Toranagallu to Bangalore.
May 23rd - Bangalore to Wayanad (Road trip)
May 26th - Wayanad to Bangalore.
May 28th - Bangalore to Ranchi.
Whew! have a week's respite before I make the return trip from Ranchi to Kolkata.
hmm.. maybe I'll do a post on Toranagallu, Vellore and Wayanad...some other time.. till then ciao.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Changes
Hmm... so i've changed the name of my blog (for those who don't know.. the earlier name was - "There are books and there are BOOKS")... since I was anyway not sticking to the blog name and the stated purpose... I thought it might be slightly less embarrassing to change the name itself! Also, this name serves to accomodate my indecisive self ... hence the 'other things'. :-)
Waiting for the Barbarians
I'm back after a long hiatus (not that anybody would have noticed) and the come-back post is again poetry. There is a lot to write about - I made another trip to another part of Kerala, read quite a few new books, and in general have quite a few things to write about. Am at home and jobless for the next one week or so and therefore hope to clear a lot of posting-backlog within this time.
In the meanwhile, I came across this poem while trawling randomly through 'Wondering Minstrels'. It's been written by Constantine Cavafy and has been translated by Edmund Keely. It is meant to portray the ultimate hollowness for tyranny. I ask, how different is our Democracy? See if you agree too.
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
In the meanwhile, I came across this poem while trawling randomly through 'Wondering Minstrels'. It's been written by Constantine Cavafy and has been translated by Edmund Keely. It is meant to portray the ultimate hollowness for tyranny. I ask, how different is our Democracy? See if you agree too.
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
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!
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!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Interesting 'Bookie' Quotations
- Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs – Christopher Hampton.
- Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book – Edward Gibbon.
- I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good – Seneca.
- 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.
- A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people – Thomas Mann.
- 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.
- There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it - Bertrand Russell.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books - Katharine Mansfield.
- 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.
- Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx.
- Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all. - Abraham Lincoln.
- 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.
Monday, January 7, 2008
"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!!!!
Sunday, January 6, 2008
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)