mass upsurge at Tahrir Square in Cairo on February 1

some thoughts on my blogging…

Many a times whenever I brood over whether I have been sincere with the nomenclature of my blog expression, I feel depressed. Having begun with such zeal and not being able to keep it up is saddening. Within me, I know, I haven't been sincere with. Or serious either.

Most of the time when I pick up the pen try jotting down thoughts, sooner or later ideas fades, language breaks, and what more--interest is lost. And in this way I have written dozens, which never crystallized! However, as always, the impulse to begin is so overwhelming that thoughts often force out into chunks now and then. Bizarre incongruity!

Remembering in The Last Leaf (O Henry) how poor Mr Behrman gave his life away trying to save one Joshy shows how remarkably he painted his 'masterpiece' with the ivy leaf. Yes, it is indeed a masterpiece, which only (I would argue) saved Joshy's life. But the first part of the story is which is in question. Perhaps this could be one reason why my thoughts fade away often--'a well prepared easel (which Mr Behrman kept) ready for the masterpiece to be drawn some day!' 

Well, Mr Behrman may not have practically been able to draw a masterpiece in terms of which the real world defines the word as. However, the painting is no less than a masterpiece. And it is this idea which O Henry wants to draw our attention to, I believe.

One another reason is perhaps about the world view, the attitude towards life I possess. It is the perception about the real world, the thought process, and the like..., if I have gotten the thing rightly. Relating this miniature entity with that of a vast thing 'world view' is itself disproportionate in the first place, they may say. But then, it will cease once the reader bears in mind clearly about the writer one is reading about.

Is anybody prohibiting me to do this? Is it not my own blog? Am I not free to write everything I want to? All such justifications are right, however. But my tools to such a pious task are unsharpened, unpolished and unprepared. Perhaps I landed accidentally on the life's journey. Perhaps I found the way by chance. Whatever, I have dreamt of treading on this path since past decade or more. Having nursed a feeling smoldering within for so long, can I even think of parting with? Why shouldn't I try to write then whatever I can? May be, in this exercise, one day Providence would bestow me with true grace…

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar...

                      t.s.eliot

Let me take this privilege
Let me wish you
For getting the chance to start
Life anew
At least I can wish you...
Happy New Year 2011.

It's a rubbery problem at CWG village Thu, Oct 7 12:47 PM

(http://in.news.yahoo.com/267/20101007/1742/tnl-it-s-a-rubbery-problem-at-cwg-villag_1.html)

The Commonwealth Games (CWG) Village is confronting a civic problem again. It is not the dirty loos or spit-stained bathrooms, but choked drains, which are now causing problems.

And this time, the athletes themselves are to blame.When some toilets used by the athletes were found clogged, plumbers were called in to clean them. They found that thousands of used condoms, which had been flushed down, were clogging the system.

(...)

The Delhi government has constituted 34 teams, headed by one officer each from the Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Civil Service (DANICS), to monitor housekeeping and cleanliness in the towers at the Village.Each team comprises electrical, plumbing, carpeting and housekeeping experts. A protocol team, headed by a DANICS official, has also been constituted for each tower. 

A Condom Vending Machine

So, when complaints of clogged toilets came, plumbers were promptly sent for cleaning. Condoms, being supplied free at the Games Village, are in huge demand. A large condom vending machine has been installed at the Village which contains at least 4,000 contraceptive packs.Officials said more than half the condoms in the machine have already been taken out. The condoms are available at the Games Village polyclinic.

"We have installed a big condom vending machine which contains at least 4,000 contraceptives. According to reports from the Village, more than 2,000 condoms have been used so far. We will refill the machine, if need be," a health official said.

The machine at the polyclinic contains four master cartons, each of which contains 960 packets and one packet contains two condoms.

To prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases during the CWG, the National AIDS Control Organisation, the Delhi State AIDS Control Society and the Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust have also installed condom vending machines at various Games venues, hotels and markets. Around 129 machines have been installed across Delhi to make condoms available round the clock. People have been hired to take care of the machines.

"The machines at the Village and other venues have been branded in sync with the CWG theme to spread the message of 'Play Safe'," an official said.

Condoms are always in demand at all residential quarters for athletes during every big international sporting event.There was a shortage of condoms in the Vancouver Winter Olympics held in February this year. Health officials there had provided one lakh free condoms to roughly 7,000 athletes and officials, but the supply ran short within four days of the start of the event.

In the Beijing Olympics Village, too, one lakh condoms were supplied, but the authorities had to replenish the stock at the start of the second week itself.In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the initial batch of 70,000 condoms vanished within days and the authorities had to order 20,000 on an emergency basis.

By Neetu Chandra in New Delhi

                         Spontaneous or conscious?

When we write an application we tend to select every word carefully for the very obvious reason; trying our best to be as convincing, and as politely as possible. In other words, we are making a conscious attempt in trying to get across what we want to. We are careful to be error free also, especially when writing a job application.

A work of art (a prose piece, for instance) is a conscious attempt. Because each moment the writer knowingly tries to decide which word (or sentence structure) he should use so that he can transmit his idea successfully and accurately. But the goal of the writer here shifts from that of writing an application. In creating a literary art the job is still more difficult, as he has to reach to the other person's heart or stir up his emotion, so to say. Again the question of making the reader accept (or atleast agree to) his thought or viewpoint remains, however infinitesimal. The success, or rather its degree depends very much on how appropriate his expression of the idea is. He selects each word deliberately and carefully reflecting again and again on his choice. He reconsiders about how effectively he has been able to put the language into accomplishing his task. Before being able to give a full shape to his idea the writer has been doing conscious mental exercise successively over a period of time. Thus, he is consciously present everywhere in the narrative simply because the words or sentences are present. The ideas or scenes or incidents etc woven into the text are infact contrived by the writer himself. Therefore, even a work of art is a deliberate creation designed according to the writer's wish.

So, if it is necessary to be so much conscious, then, how can we claim that literary writing should always be 'spontaneous' or that an 'art (is) for art's sake' only? If even a word is chosen after a careful consideration of so many factors that by the time the it is finally selected the author has already entered into the territory of deliberate consciousness.

Therefore, I do not know how I can be spontaneous without actually being conscious.

at the rly. stn. lavatory in bhubaneswar

'They are charging more', I thought. I dropped a five rupee coin on the table and he let me in. I gave my very heavy Sree Leathers' travelling bag to this middle-aged fine gentleman, which he readily agreed to keep. (I haven't seen earlier a lavatory caretaker so neatly dressed in jeans and stripped white shirt with a waist belt and polished shoes. Normally, as I know, they are in a gamcha or half pant and slippers.) I rushed in. I could see crowds of people standing guarding the toilet doors. I understood what I have to do. After waiting for about 10 minutes the door on which I was standing guarding opened and a young chap came out. Following others, I too picked up the gallon from inside the toilet and ran to fill it with tap water from where people were bathing in a row. I knew I was getting late. (whenever I want it doesn't come and when it shouldn't, it does!) I was worried, for, if I am unable to sieze this crucial moment I may not get the next soon, I thought. (Everything was there--location, infrastructure, and ofcourse 'it want's to come').

As I returned I saw my toilet was already occupied. What to do. Nothing but wait. After sometime I saw one another door opening. I rushed in to occupy. But the 'guard' told me that he has already reserved it (indicating towards a gamcha which he had put on the door, as if the way we reserve seats when the bus or train is overcrowed, I thought!). "I am going to fill the gallon now", he told. "It is very urgent", I pleaded. The kind man could sense the genuiness of my request and allowed me to go in, although reluctantly. And I could very well understand his complsion. Finally I emtied myself! I thanked him with my full heart.

Later, when I went to collect my travelling bag, I was surprised to find that the caretaker did not even ask me to pay an extra charge for keeping the travelling bag! Instead of paying more, I had in fact paid less, I thought.

A railway platform in orissa

"It gave my feeling," Tennyson said to his son (after writing this great poem), "about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life...."

...I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

He works his work, I mine.

Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles

...strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

(Excerpts from:
ULYSSES by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.)

The White Tiger

In a letter written to Mr Jiabao, Adiga seemed reporting him the stark reality that he sees in our society through his investigative eyes. Written in a story mode, he has actually done to unravel the mysteries which are otherwise hidden. In the guise of an absorbing story told lucidly, he has successfully hammered home the idea of real and hidden India. To me, perhaps this is one of the most important reasons for which Arvind Adiga has been awarded the Booker Prize. He is also a master narrative because, as already said, the language he has used is simple and easy-to-understand (for an ordinary reader, like me). In bringing out to brightness what he calls 'the Darkness', never seemed like overshooting the sight. Although I am only half way through it, I am quite sure that he has made a sense, he means what he does. Some may disagree about the arguments (I consider them as facts; 'reality in its potentiality'), but I believe that the grass root situation is no different.

Yes, "we are in the coop Mr Jiabao", we are in the coop!

So, Three Cheers to Mr Adiga: one to him, one to his award and one for the most powerful letter he has written.