Quote:“When I was a young man I observed that 9 out of 10 things I did were failures. I didn’t want to be a failure, so I did 10 times more work”=GBShaw
Adolf Eichmann, who ordered 5 million Jews to be killed escaped from the prisoner’s camp in 1946 and took a job as a Management expert in a hydro-electric plant at Tucman-Andes.
In 1960 he was kidnapped by the Israelis. brought to trial on 11 April,1961. He was sentenced to death on 15 Dec, although Israel does not normally employ the death sentence, and hanged on 1 June, ’62.
Everest
Men started to climb it in 1921, when Hillary was 2 years old and Tenzing norgay 7. Success was almost achieved in 1952 when a Swiss mountain guide, Raymond Lambert, and that same Sherpa Tenzing, got within 1000 feet of the top.
The ascent of Everest by Hillary and Tenzing began on I Sept 1952 and achieved on 29 May, 1953.
Quotes:
“No one ever really paid the price of a book, only the price of printing it”-Louis Kahn.
“I wish I were what I was when I wanted to be what I am now”- James Steinbeck.
“Untrained intelligence is as much use as a bottle without an opener”
“Many men would gladly be married – but not 24 hours a day”.
Hammurabi Code
The code opens with the enactment that “if a man has thrown a curse upon another man and it’s not justified the layer of the curse shall be slain”,. The second is similar recalling the witch finding ordeals practiced in this country up to a couple of centuries ago. But then come a number of laws having to do with matters of practical ethics and morality. A man who has harbored or fugitive slave shall be slain, but he who apprehends one in his fields and takes him back to his master shall be suitably rewarded. A man who out of laziness has neglected to repair his dykes with the result that his neighbors’ field is flooded, shall make good the latter’s; loss. A man, who is caught breaking into a house, shall be slain in the breach he has made in the wall and shall be buried there. If a fire breaks out and one of the fire fighters seizes the opportunity of stealing some of the victims’ goods, he shall be thrown himself into the blaze. If plotters against the state meet in the house of a wine seller and she does not seize them and deliver them up to the great house, she shall be slain.
If a priestess slips out of her convent and enters a wine shop for a drink, she shall be burned alive. A man, who has contracted a debt and cannot otherwise pay, may sell his wife, his son or his daughter as slaves, for a period of 3 years to his creditor-after which time they shall be allowed to return home and the debt will be liquidated. If a man’s wife is taken in adultery, she and her lover shall be bound together and thrown into the river: unless the husband allows his wife, live and the King lets his servant live. A man may divorce his wife should she prove barren but he must return to her father and her husband is under no obligation to return her dowry or bride price. If a man’s wife falls sick and he wants to marry another, she shall not be allowed to divorce her, but must maintain her in his house as long as she lives. If a man lifts up his hand against his father and strikes him, his hands shall be cut off. If he has knocked out the eye of a fellow citizen, his own eye shall be destroyed, if he’s knocked out a slave’s eye or broken one of his bones, he shall pay half the slave’s value to his owner. If a builder builds a house for a citizen, and the house falls down through bad workmanship, and kills the house holder that builder shall be slain. Likewise if a doctor treats a man with a metal knife for a severe wound, and the patient dies during the operation, the doctors’ hands’ shall be cut off, presumably to prevent similar mistake again.
“It’s the patient who should be treated, not the disease”.-Hippocrates.
Socrates
Born in 470 b.c. Among the more orthodox Athemans, Socrates, put forward the proposal was bound to b unpopular for his ideas,. He looked beyond Athens and Greece, upon man as the brother of all men and a citizen of the world.
This was looked upon as a lack of patriotism and it was not surprising, therefore, that sooner or later an attempt should be made to get rid of him.
When he was at length arraigned in 399 B.C. it was on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth of
Athens that he faced his 501 judges. To them he explained his life and actions, but when judgment was taken he was found guilty by a majority of 60.
His prosecutor demanded the death sentence. Socrates put forward the proposal that he should be fined half a talent. The judges were bound by law to accept one or other of the two proposals and they chose death.
Socrates might easily have escaped. But he refused to do so, and a month after the trial he drank the hemlock poison, cheerful among his weeping friends, with whom he had spent his last hours discussing the immortality of the soul. “Death is either a state of nothingness or a change of the soul from this world to another. Wherefore be of good cheer and be assured that no harm can happen to a good man either in life or after death. The hour of departure has come. We go over ways. I to die and you to live. Which is better, God only knows”.
In the group which had attended Socrates in his last hours and had listened to the last expressions of wisdom from the courageous man who was fired by the rightness of his convictions was his pupil Plato. Plato had been horrified by Socrates’ reception at his trial and by the final scenes in the death cell, in which he saw the intellectual blindness and cowardice of intellectually little men bent on destroying one of the great minds of all time.
Quotes:
“Sleep, riches and health to be truly enjoyed, must be interrupted” Jean Paul Friedrich Richter.
“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war” Admiral Hyman Rickover.
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone on March 10, 1876. For months since the just feeble twang there had been no progress. Then today the faithful Watson was listening, as usual, they had adjusted both machines and a dozen times during the morning. Suddenly, perfectly, frighteningly clear came the words: “ Mr. Watson, come here. I want you!”
Bell had spilt a flask of acid down his clothes. Being a poor man unable to buy himself anymore, he was appalled at what he had done. If Watson would only dash in from the next room, help with bowls of water while he moped, the trousers might yet be saved.
But to Watson, the crisis, whatever it might be was trivial. Bell’s word had come to him, not through the air, but along wires, had emerged from his little receiver loud and clear. He ran into the next room, blurted out the news and drove all thoughts of trousers from Bells mind. Like children playing some game a vocal musical chairs, they hopped from one room to the other, reciting poems to each other, singing snatches of song.
Guglielmo Marconi was born on 25 April, 1874. Suddenly he realized that if the phenomenon of wireless telegraphy were to have practical use the waves from the transmitter would have to go round or through buildings and hills. In fact the waves would have to follow the curvature of the earth, or they would get as far as the horizon and disappear into space. The two brothers had been using a visual system of return signaling, with Alfonso waving a handkerchief to tell his brother up in the attic whether he had read the message. For this next experiment, visual signaling would be useless. Guglielmo gave his older brother a hunting rifle and told him to go with the receiving apparatus to the far side of the hill behind the house.
Alfonsos walked over the rim of the hill, carrying heavy experiment, took 20 minutes. Marconi watched from his attic window until his brother disappeared. “After some minutes, I started to send, manipulating the Morse key, and then in the distance, a shot echoed down the valley”, he wrote later.
And so, in Sept. 1895 the first practical transmission was made.
Albert Einstein born on March 4,1879 in the German town of Wurttemberg.
To a colleague in Princeton who was late for an appointment in the town, he remarked, “Don’t worry, why should I mind that you are late meeting me? Am I less capable of reflecting on my problems here then at home,?
Showing a much chewed pencil he said,” Here is my laboratory”. So approachable was he.
He died in 1955. Known for his Theory of Relativity which led to the Atomic fusion. He encouraged Roosevelt to produce the Bomb and this ultimately led to the end of the II World War by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There were only 3 atomic bombs produced. One was tested over Alamagordo, New Mexico.
Hiroshima was atom bombed on Aug 6,1945.
The pilot dragged “Enola Gay” into a steep climbing turn to port, threw open the throttles, headed South East.
Suddenly the sky exploded.
For the inhabitants of Hiroshima, 30000 feet below, there was the same huge flash of light and for those of them in the street immediately below the air burst bomb, nothing else. They were incinerated, turned in an instant to ashes and dust, dust which was blasted away a moment later by the huge, rushing wind which followed. But for those a mile and more from the centre of the explosion there came first the tremendous flash of light, then the feeling of sudden intense heat, then the blast which picked up houses, threw them across the street, across the pitiful fire picked up an entire hospital, a cinema and a hotel, flung them into the river. For those in the city itself there was little recollection of noise.
To each survivor and perhaps 200000 had died instantly-it seemed that the bomb had been a personal bomb, demolishing his own house, or office or factor, but sparing the rest of the city. There was a thick choking cloud of dust over everything and at half past eight in the morning it seemed as though the sun had set. One of the survivors, quoted in John Hersey’s remarkable account,”Hiroshima”,saw the house he was about to enter collapse in front of him and assumed that it had received a direct hit on the roof. Then he noticed that the walls had fallen inwards not outwards. He also noticed and was too shocked and dazed to feel surprise that a squad of soldiers who had been underground in the hillside opposite, digging a deep and complex shelter were staggering out into the dust filled air, blood pouring from their wounds.
The bomb had been exploded in the air above a level expanse of wooden houses, and of these 4 square miles of habitation had been absolutely and totally destroyed-knocked down, smashed to pieces by the blast, burnt to ashes. The Ferro concrete buildings, most of them were specially reinforced against earthquakes had withstood the blast but were gutted by fire. Their contents, including the people inside them, vanished within seconds. People like Mr.Tanimoto, sheltered by the building he had hoped to enter, and two miles from the explosion, stood a chance of survival: yet many of these, who considered themselves safe, were dead within a year from the poisonous effects of radio activity. These brought the total casualties from one bomb within a year to over a quarter of a million. These would have been far more serious had not the large scale evacuation of Hiroshima begun, as we have seen in earnest so that the 1940 census figure had been reduced by almost a third.
On the one hand, the scale of the disaster was vastly increased by the panic stricken exodus, after the bomb had fallen of almost all the rest, so that thousands trapped among fallen masonry were left to die. Almost all fire and rescue services were abandoned: it was a month before any clearing away could be started, before the bodies of those who had been left to die could be cremated.
The effects of the bomb over Hiroshima- the first atomic bomb to be dropped on an enemy target. Of the 3 which had been constructed by the end of the II W.W, the I was tested successfully in New Mexico in July, 1945, the second destroyed Hiroshima, a few weeks later and the third, 3 days after that, did the same to the Japanese port of Nagasaki-the effects are still being studied, in the II and III generation of survivors, for genetic changes of which many have been noted.
It was weeks before all of the survivors had a clear idea of what had happened to them. Many became ill, vomiting almost incessantly, and this led them to blame a gas attack because of the strong smell of ionization (the familiar electric smell) given off by the bombs fission. Some without visible wounds or burns died within a few hours, for no apparent reasons and this too, heightened false rumors of a gas attack.
In Hiroshima some of the buildings damaged in the blast of the atom bomb have been left unrepaired as a perpetual monument.
Quotes:
“The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives”-American Indian Proverb.
“If you add to the truth, you subtract from it”
“A penny saved is a penny earned. And a penny spent is a penny enjoyed”
“I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a King who did not love reading-Macaulay.
“The larger the island of Knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder”-Ralph Stockman.
Excerpts from Leon Uri’s “The Exodus”
Karen heard the name of Frank and Mueller an Himmler and Rosenberg and Streicher and Kaltenbrunner and Heydreich . She heard the names of thousands of lesser ones.Ilsa Koch, who won infamy by making lampshades out of human tattoed skins, and of Dieter Wisliczeny, who played the role of stockyard goat lending the sheep to slaughter, or Kramer, who sported in horse whipping naked women. The name of the greatest killer of them all came up over and over again:Eichmann , the German Palestinian who spoke fluent Hebrew and was the master of genocide
Genocide-carried out with the precision and finality of a machine. At first the efforts of the Germans had been clumsy. They killed by rifle. It was too slow. They organized their transport and their scientists for the great effort. Steel covered trucks were designed to lock in and gas to death prisoners enroute to burial grounds. But even the gas vans proved slow. Next came the crematoriums and the gas chambers capable of killing 2000 people in a half hour-10000 on a good day in a major camp.
And Karen heard of thousands of prisoners who threw themselves on the quick mercy of electrified barbed wire to cheat the gas chambers.
And Karen heard of the game of deception that was played to tear children away from their mothers under the guise of resettlement, and of trains packed with the old and feeble. Karen heard of the delousing chambers where prisoners were given bars of soap. The chambers were filled with gas and the soap was made of stone. Karen heard of mothers who hid children in their clothing, which was hung up on pegs before going into the Chambers. But the Germans knew the ruse and always found the little ones.
She heard of SS Hampsturns-fuehrer Fritz Gebauer, who specialized in strangling women and children bare handed and who liked watching infants die in barrels of freezing water.
She heard of Heinen who perfected a method of killing several people in a row with one bullet, always trying to beat his previous record.
She heard of Frank Warzok, who liked to bet on how long a human could live hanging by the feet.
She heard of Ober Sturmbann fuehrer Rokita, who ripped bodies apart.
She heard about Wilhaus at Janowska. She heard his hobby, was throwing infants into the air and seeing how many bullets he could fire into the body before it reached the ground.
Was her family among the bodies which were melted to fat in the manufacture of soap at Danzig?
Auschwitz with its warehouse of human hair for the manufacture of mattresses!
Auschwitz, where the fold teeth of the dead were methodically pulled and melted down for shipment to Himmler’s Science Institute..Auschwitz, where an especially finely shaped skull would be preserved as a paperweight.
Bees
A bee beats the air with its wings at the rate of 16000 times a minute. Air sac in her thorax fills in flight and make her buoyant. A bee has 5 eyes and an eye consists 6000 lens whereas a man’s has only one. It can thus see the angles of individual specks of dust upon the ground; the pores of the young leaves, the play of the sun of the rough bark of elms, every separate wimple in the flashing stream.
Quote:
“You can suffocate a thought by expressing it in too many words”-Frank Clark.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Jothi's Private notes...
On Writing:
Hemingway began his day by sharpening 20 pencils.
Victor Hugo used to keep his feet immersed in warm water as he wrote.
Anthony Trollope-despite his full time job in the post office was able to write two dozen novels of considerable length, by regularly working at them for 3 hours a day completing a quota of 750 words a day at the fixed rate of 250 words an hour.
Churchill used to shut himself up every morning and would not emerge until he had written 3000 words.
Herbert Spencer once hazarded the view that a monkey tapping a typewriter for millions of years might finally blunder into the production of a great epic.
Every man has at least one book in him, if only he would try to write it.
Astrology
Is fun, no doubt, in its amiable Micawber role of assuring us that something is likely to turn up. As for misfortunes, we may think our stars that what they foretell do not usually come true. Of course, astrologers are not wrong all the time. That would be impossible. Even a clock that has stopped tells the correct time twice a day!
Public Opinion
Deference to popular opinion may be all right, if you merely want to get on in the world. But if the worlds’ first aviators had differed to public opinion, they would not have got up into the skies. They were considered crazy to think of flying about in a machine heavier than air.
Joke:
Send me an e-mail said the boss. And the employee wondered how the boss could ask him to send a female.
A gala day was mistaken for a gal a day!
Quotes:
Nothing gives a person more leisure than being on time for appointments!
Young’s Law: I+ E= M, (Intelligence + Effort= Merit)
Emile Coule told of the wonders one could work by telling oneself every morning and several times during the day,” Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better”.
“The impossible is often the untried.”
Vasco da Gama
B;1460 at Sines,
He was given the latest designed 3 ships-2 of 120 tons and one of 50 tons, then comparatively larger than those used by Diaz. Da Gamma commanded one ship, his brother Paul another and an old friend Nicolau Coelho, the third. In addition there was a small stores hip. Sufficient stores were taken onto last for at least two years consisting of hard biscuits , meat, wine , with rice, codfish and cheese for fast days. Gama also took things like mirrors, bells, fine clothes.
He sailed for
Though received by the friendly King, the Arabs there were jealous and managed to bring a fight between Hindus and Gama. Gama was himself kidnapped and would surely have been murdered had it not been for the swift action of his brother, who seized some leading citizens of
The return was full of troubles… storms, diseases became common. Only one third lived to see
Robinson Crusoe’s prototype was Alexander Selkirk.
First men to fly in balloon were Pilatre de Rozier and Marquis d’Arlandes on Nov 20, 1785, in the presence of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
However the first astronauts were a sheep, a cock and a duck. They made their historic flight at
Rosetta Stone inscription-key to Egyptian history- found by Napoleon’s soldier in
Quotes:.
He who likes to generalize, generally lies
. Suez Canal:
Was suggested to Napoleon by experts around 1800.
Built by N. Ferdinand de Lesseps and inaugurated in Nov 17-20, 1869.
Connects Mediterranean with Red Sea, flowing through the
Took ten years
Cuts the distance by two thousand leagues.
A sweet water canal was dug by the side of the real one to supply water to the workers-forced labour- from
60 Monster dredging machines specially designed, removed sand at the rate of 2 million cubic metres a month.
Cost about 500 millions francs.
achievement brought about by a single Frenchman.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Jothi's Private Notes made Public
A poem which is a good example for “auditory imagination”.
The Cataract of Lodore- Robert Southey.
The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging
Its caverns and rocks among:
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and wringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around,
With endless rebound,
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in:
Confounding and astounding.
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.
Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dropping and skipping,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And tossing and
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dining and spinning,
And dropping and jerking,
And gurgling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving
And moaning and groaning,
And glittering and struggling,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and scurrying,
And thundering and floundering,
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling
And driving and riving and striving
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And cluttering and battering and shattering,
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing
And so never ending, but always descending
Sounds and motions, forever and ever are blending
All at once and all over, with a mighty uproar
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
Benjamin Franklin’s Virtues:
1. Temperance: - Eat not to dullness: drink not to elevation.
2. Silence: - Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself: avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order: Let all your things have their places: let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought: perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, i.e. waste nothing.
6. Industry: Lose no time, be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit think innocently and justly and if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation: Avoid extremes: forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes or habitation..
11. Tranquility: be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity: Rarely use wine but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
Quotes:
“Being in love is like a sweet dream. Marriage is the alarm clock”- S.S. Tang.
“Friendships multiply joys and divide grieves”- H.G. Bohn.
“Isn’t it strange how often small talk comes in large doses?”
Democracy is a large balloon filled with hot air and sent up into the skies for all simpletons to gape at, while the smart ones went round and picked their pockets- Bernard Shaw.
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind-Einstein.
Conversation means being able to disagree and still continue the discussion- Dwight Macdonald.
“IS life worth living?”
“IT depends on the liver!”
“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never scoring”
Youth looks ahead. Old age looks back. Middle age looks worried
The Cataract of Lodore- Robert Southey.
The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging
Its caverns and rocks among:
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and wringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around,
With endless rebound,
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in:
Confounding and astounding.
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.
Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dropping and skipping,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And tossing and
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dining and spinning,
And dropping and jerking,
And gurgling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving
And moaning and groaning,
And glittering and struggling,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and scurrying,
And thundering and floundering,
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling
And driving and riving and striving
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And cluttering and battering and shattering,
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing
And so never ending, but always descending
Sounds and motions, forever and ever are blending
All at once and all over, with a mighty uproar
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
Benjamin Franklin’s Virtues:
1. Temperance: - Eat not to dullness: drink not to elevation.
2. Silence: - Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself: avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order: Let all your things have their places: let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought: perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, i.e. waste nothing.
6. Industry: Lose no time, be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit think innocently and justly and if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation: Avoid extremes: forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes or habitation..
11. Tranquility: be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity: Rarely use wine but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
Quotes:
“Being in love is like a sweet dream. Marriage is the alarm clock”- S.S. Tang.
“Friendships multiply joys and divide grieves”- H.G. Bohn.
“Isn’t it strange how often small talk comes in large doses?”
Democracy is a large balloon filled with hot air and sent up into the skies for all simpletons to gape at, while the smart ones went round and picked their pockets- Bernard Shaw.
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind-Einstein.
Conversation means being able to disagree and still continue the discussion- Dwight Macdonald.
“IS life worth living?”
“IT depends on the liver!”
“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never scoring”
Youth looks ahead. Old age looks back. Middle age looks worried
Monday, October 27, 2008
Jothi's private notes made public
“A man’s life is dyed the colour of his imagination”- Marcus Aurelius.
“The trouble with sleep is the going to and coming from”- Bob Kaufman
“A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice”-E.W.Howe.
“Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great”-Comte de Bussy Rabutin
The Last Moments of Socrates
Plato has described Socrates last night on earth in the dialogue “Phaedo”. Socrates spent that night, as he had most of the others discussing philosophy. The subject was:” Is there a life after death”. He listened calmly about the subject from his disciples in the gaol.
When the attendant brought the poison cup in, Socrates said to him in a calm and practical tone, “Now you know all about this business.. You must tell me what to do”.
“You drink the hemlock and then you get up and walk about” the attendant said, “...Until your legs feel heavy. Then you lie down and the numbness will travel to your heart”.
Socrates very deliberately and coolly did as he had been told only pausing to rebuke his friend for sobbing and crying out as though he had not done the wise and right thing. His last thought was a small obligation he had forgotten. He removed the cloth that had been placed over his face and said,”Crito, I owe a cock to Asdepius-be sure to see that it is paid”.
Then he closed his eyes and re-laid the cloth and when Crito asked him if he had any other final directions, he made no answer.
Plato was the disciple of Socrates and Aristotle was the disciple of Plato and Alexander was the disciple of Aristotle.
- 2 – Leonardo da Vinci
He used to write from right to left. If one wanted to read his papers, he had to keep the paper in front of the mirror and read. His favorite sport was taming a horse. He was so strong that he could bend a horse shoe in one hand. The notebooks of his prove that in military science he was ready for the II W.W. He had designed a 33 barrel gun, firing at a time 11 shots, made time fuses, hand grenades, gas bombs etc..
“You don’t waste time, time wastes you”- Gene Fowler
“Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who’s not hungry gets the best of the argument”
“It’s possible to own too much. A man with one watch knows what time it is: a man with two watches is never sure”- G. B. Shaw
“Professional football is like a nuclear warfare.. There are no winners, only survivors”- Frank Gifford
“English is a funny language... A fat chance and a slim chance are the same thing”-Jack Herbert.
“How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever”- David Norris
“I fear 3 newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets”- Napoleon
“Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn’t seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces”. Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Reading on a train
A newspaper is public property on a train. I made this unpleasant discovery the other day when I made the folly of taking one along with me.
I took my seat and looked around. All my fellow passengers had that bored, vacant look-so common on Mondays. Some were staring out of the window, others were not particularly communicative among themselves. Ah! I thought, now to catch up with the day's news. No sooner did I take the newspaper out of my bag, a remarkable transformation seemed to come over the people in the carriage. I began to feel uncomfortable for it seemed everyone's eyes were focussed on me. Why had I become so interesting? I brushed back my hair-unnecessarily, I thought. I checked my buttons-they were all right. I checked my shoelaces-nothing wrong there either. In embarassment, I buried my nose deep in the newspaper.. It was not long before the mystery was solved.
A tap on my shoulder by the person sitting on my right was followed by a request for a sheet. The person sitting in front, emboldened, asked for another. Within no time my hands felt light, for I was left with only one sheet. When I had finished with it, I had to stare hard at the one who started it all. He looked at me at last and with considerable reluctance exchanged his sheet with mine.Meanwhile, I noticed the other sheets had also changed hands. One had even reached the other end of the row and I can vouch, that the reader (who had arrived later) did not know who its owner was.
Of course, I had a tough time collecting the sheets when I reached at my destination.
I tried a magazine(of all the things a film magazine) the next day. It was still more uncomfortable. The fellow passengers crowded on me, and, breathing down my neck, took in the gossip and the photographs. One even casually asked me to wait as I was about to turn a page. A magazine, I found out, has the advantage of being pinned and so its pages cannot go around. But take your eyes off it, even but for a moment, and the magazine will be out of your hands.
Since then I have made many 'friends' on the train. It took me but a few days to recognise a unique breed of commuters. Its members can be seen attaching themselves like magnets to a person who had b(r)ought a newspaper. They are a most well-informed and friendly lot, I should say.
Last night, I had a dream-and a sweet dream it was. In it, I took my seat and the usual gang was there waiting expectantly. But their eyes bulged when I took out a copy of War and Peace instead of the usual newspaper. They all made a mad rush to the door leaving me alone with my pipe and my book.
I took my seat and looked around. All my fellow passengers had that bored, vacant look-so common on Mondays. Some were staring out of the window, others were not particularly communicative among themselves. Ah! I thought, now to catch up with the day's news. No sooner did I take the newspaper out of my bag, a remarkable transformation seemed to come over the people in the carriage. I began to feel uncomfortable for it seemed everyone's eyes were focussed on me. Why had I become so interesting? I brushed back my hair-unnecessarily, I thought. I checked my buttons-they were all right. I checked my shoelaces-nothing wrong there either. In embarassment, I buried my nose deep in the newspaper.. It was not long before the mystery was solved.
A tap on my shoulder by the person sitting on my right was followed by a request for a sheet. The person sitting in front, emboldened, asked for another. Within no time my hands felt light, for I was left with only one sheet. When I had finished with it, I had to stare hard at the one who started it all. He looked at me at last and with considerable reluctance exchanged his sheet with mine.Meanwhile, I noticed the other sheets had also changed hands. One had even reached the other end of the row and I can vouch, that the reader (who had arrived later) did not know who its owner was.
Of course, I had a tough time collecting the sheets when I reached at my destination.
I tried a magazine(of all the things a film magazine) the next day. It was still more uncomfortable. The fellow passengers crowded on me, and, breathing down my neck, took in the gossip and the photographs. One even casually asked me to wait as I was about to turn a page. A magazine, I found out, has the advantage of being pinned and so its pages cannot go around. But take your eyes off it, even but for a moment, and the magazine will be out of your hands.
Since then I have made many 'friends' on the train. It took me but a few days to recognise a unique breed of commuters. Its members can be seen attaching themselves like magnets to a person who had b(r)ought a newspaper. They are a most well-informed and friendly lot, I should say.
Last night, I had a dream-and a sweet dream it was. In it, I took my seat and the usual gang was there waiting expectantly. But their eyes bulged when I took out a copy of War and Peace instead of the usual newspaper. They all made a mad rush to the door leaving me alone with my pipe and my book.
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Morning Walks`
I like my morning walks..and I have been doing it religiously for several years. I had to take to it because my playing cricket years were over. I played till my forties.. and even now get to play a match or two every year..which leaves me aching all over the next day..Once a cricketer , always a cricketer, they rightly say. But, of late, I often wish I had taken my father's advice seriously..which was to take to tennis rather than cricket. But that was unthinkable then. I was already deeply committed to that sport. But the reason why I regret not taking dad's suggestion is that , tennis doesn't require a team. All you need to do is to land up with your racquet in the club and find someone to have a hit with you. But it's not so with the case of cricket. You gotto find an entire team. Which is difficult for a man well in his forties.
So the walks have replaced cricket. And I am fortunate to have a couple of close friends who live in the same block as I. It's become a habit for us to generally wake up each other around 5'o with 'missed calls'. And then they come to my house and then we start off on our one hour walk. So addicted are we to the walks that we can't imagine how others don't take the trouble of coming out in that early hours and enjoy the fresh air. There's simply something magical about the hour. We leave our houses even as its dark, and by the time, we make a u-turn , it's dawning. And the birds are chirping, the insects humming. I am lucky to be inMysore, a small town in South India..which has a small hillock in the eastern parts..so it's a beautiful sight to witness the sun rising from behind the Chamundi Hill. I have never tired of the scene. It puts me in a good mood for the rest of the day. The part of the town in which I reside was actually the outskirts of the town. So in the initial years, i.e. in the 90's the walks were country walks really. There was a mud road which lead to the fields where jowar,ragi,cocunut trees were grown. Only one bus used to pass us. And since it was the bus carrying villagers from a nearby village to the market with their vegetable produce for sale, we hated it. For the bus would leave a trail of beedi smoke besides its own diesel fume. But things have changed drastically now. The mud road is now a ring road. And our walks are interrupted to give way to those huge, monstrous looking trucks which ply the highways during the night. So often we deviate to the parallel roads to keep ourselves from breathing the diesel fumes instead of fresh oxygen. But still there are lots of pleasures left. For instance, there's one tree which bears a wild variety of flower , whose fragrance, especially during a particular part of the year, pervades a goodly half a kilometre!
My friends do opt to stay at home once in a while. Even then ,I enjoy my walks. Those days I have my ipod for company. The music provides me the right rhythm. Often I concentrate on the lyrics, the music and the walk is pleasure filled. Going out on walks on your own is quite an experience indeed. You can start meditating on your future plans, or for the day ahead. You can set your own pace. And no one to disturb your thoughts.
And when there is a holiday, we decide to go around the Kukkaralli lake which is at a striking distance. The University of Mysore, with the assistance of the state government, has helped preserve, nay , beautify the lake which had inspired such legendary writers as R.K.Narayan and the famous Kannada poet, Kuvempu. If one goes around the bund we will have taken a walk of nearly four kilometres. There are a couple of islands where there are birds like spoonbills, pelicans,cormorants, darter birds. etc.making early morning noises , and the rising sun reddens the water. Altogether , it is a beautiful place indeed.
There is another special place where we go to a couple of times in a year. And that's the 1000 steps up to Chamundi Hill itself. Once upon a time we could climb it in ten minutes flat and come down in five. But not so now. We do it leisurely. As we go higher, our lungs pant for air, and the heart goes pounding away..We have to take breaks regularly. We stop to take in the view of the city down below. The buses, and the cars on the Nanjangud road look like insects, and there, is it really the water tank near our home? So goes the conversation. Sometimes our kids joins us. Then it is a different experience totally. The tender coconut tastes really good at the end of the climb.
So the walks have replaced cricket. And I am fortunate to have a couple of close friends who live in the same block as I. It's become a habit for us to generally wake up each other around 5'o with 'missed calls'. And then they come to my house and then we start off on our one hour walk. So addicted are we to the walks that we can't imagine how others don't take the trouble of coming out in that early hours and enjoy the fresh air. There's simply something magical about the hour. We leave our houses even as its dark, and by the time, we make a u-turn , it's dawning. And the birds are chirping, the insects humming. I am lucky to be inMysore, a small town in South India..which has a small hillock in the eastern parts..so it's a beautiful sight to witness the sun rising from behind the Chamundi Hill. I have never tired of the scene. It puts me in a good mood for the rest of the day. The part of the town in which I reside was actually the outskirts of the town. So in the initial years, i.e. in the 90's the walks were country walks really. There was a mud road which lead to the fields where jowar,ragi,cocunut trees were grown. Only one bus used to pass us. And since it was the bus carrying villagers from a nearby village to the market with their vegetable produce for sale, we hated it. For the bus would leave a trail of beedi smoke besides its own diesel fume. But things have changed drastically now. The mud road is now a ring road. And our walks are interrupted to give way to those huge, monstrous looking trucks which ply the highways during the night. So often we deviate to the parallel roads to keep ourselves from breathing the diesel fumes instead of fresh oxygen. But still there are lots of pleasures left. For instance, there's one tree which bears a wild variety of flower , whose fragrance, especially during a particular part of the year, pervades a goodly half a kilometre!
My friends do opt to stay at home once in a while. Even then ,I enjoy my walks. Those days I have my ipod for company. The music provides me the right rhythm. Often I concentrate on the lyrics, the music and the walk is pleasure filled. Going out on walks on your own is quite an experience indeed. You can start meditating on your future plans, or for the day ahead. You can set your own pace. And no one to disturb your thoughts.
And when there is a holiday, we decide to go around the Kukkaralli lake which is at a striking distance. The University of Mysore, with the assistance of the state government, has helped preserve, nay , beautify the lake which had inspired such legendary writers as R.K.Narayan and the famous Kannada poet, Kuvempu. If one goes around the bund we will have taken a walk of nearly four kilometres. There are a couple of islands where there are birds like spoonbills, pelicans,cormorants, darter birds. etc.making early morning noises , and the rising sun reddens the water. Altogether , it is a beautiful place indeed.
There is another special place where we go to a couple of times in a year. And that's the 1000 steps up to Chamundi Hill itself. Once upon a time we could climb it in ten minutes flat and come down in five. But not so now. We do it leisurely. As we go higher, our lungs pant for air, and the heart goes pounding away..We have to take breaks regularly. We stop to take in the view of the city down below. The buses, and the cars on the Nanjangud road look like insects, and there, is it really the water tank near our home? So goes the conversation. Sometimes our kids joins us. Then it is a different experience totally. The tender coconut tastes really good at the end of the climb.
Monday, September 22, 2008
My Affair with the BTS
I vividly remember the first time I boarded a BTS bus. That was a couple of years ago. I was new to the city and was struggling to adjust to the new setting. I had finally managed to get a job in a private company which was about three kilometres from my room. I fell into the routine of sauntering to my work. A few days of this and I was fed up. You know-the crowded pavements, the signal lights, the beggars, the hawkers and other innumerable distractions. I barely managed to get to the office in time. It was then that I decided to use the cheapest means of public transport available, for the first time.
I arrived at the nearest bus stand dressed immaculately. And a bus came and left without me. For try as I might, I couldn't get into it. I was stunned by the surge of the mob. It was a force that I had not reckoned with. ah! I thought, looking around at the almost deserted place, at least, I could get into the next bus. Within seconds, however, to my dismay, a new crowd had assembled around me and seemed rarin' to go. I got into the next one mainly because I took it up as a challenge to my manhood. Of course, I hated the trip. There was no place to park my legs properly. It was as hot as an oven inside. And only with a superhuman effort (it involved some desperate shoving and some even more desperate shouting) could I manage to alight from the bus at my destination. My clothes were all crumpled up by then
Since that day, I have had a love-hate relationship going on with the BTS. For one thing, it keeps me physically fit. I run towards the bus, the moment it is sighted, with my heart pounding. And once inside, I believe, the tons of pressure on me from all sides does good to my muscles. At the very beginning of the day, it puts me in a mean and aggressive mood that seems so necessary in day-to-day activities of late. I am reminded by it that life isn't exactly a smooth, enjoyable ride-especially for a person belonging to the middle class. And that it is a very competitive world today. It does emphasize the point 'might is right' to an extent. But it also shows that a withering, doddering individual (like me) can survive in this cruel world-provided he is shrewd enough.
Well, I am a veteran commuter of sorts now. And I have a few tips to those who have settled recently in the city and who commute to work in a BTS bus.
All is well if there is a queue in the bus stand. But if there is not one, take heed. When a bus arrives, never ever make the mistake of standing on the either side of the entrance. You will not even get a foothold that way. Instead position yourself in the middle of the stream of the onrushing commuters. You will find yourself inside the bus without any big effort on your part.
Once inside the bus, the rule is not to relax. To get a seat should be your next goal. Otherwise, you will have to stand at an awkward angle, or get your legs trampled upon. (By the way, you are better off wearing shoes-the thicker, the better). You also stand a chance of losing your purse while standing. And not to forget, the discomfort of having someone breathing down your neck. So you should be very alert, mentally as well as physically. Don't park yourself behind the driver or in the enclosure near the entrances. Leave them to those 'softies' who are not interested in a seat. (They have given up the race already).
Instead stand in the aisle and be on the lookout for the signs from those seated. A hand placed on the bar in front (if already there, watch out for the tightening of the grip); a glance backward at a friend sitting at the back; collecting things in hand; a sudden interest in the surroundings-all are sure signs of a seat about to be vacated. The things they carry also provide valuable clues. (Flowers, fruits mean either a temple or a hospital en route). Boarding the same bus everyday is advantageous in that you will recognise those regulars who get down at various stops.
The thing to do directly, once you catch one of those signs is to quickly maneuver yourself so that you end up beside the seat about to be given up. Ease into the seat even as it is being vacated. A moment's hesitation and you lose a good opportunity. This part is quite difficult at first. You can learn a few things by observing an expert 'blocker'. Observe how adroitly he makes use of his hands and body to fence off the seat, leaving no chance to anyone else.
Never stand near those with blank eyes; or beside those enjoying a doze. Nor beside those with noses buried deep in some book or periodical-or those totally absorbed in talking. The chances are that they are terminus- to- terminus commuters.
Finally, have faith in your intuitive powers. it becomes sharper with experience. You then instinctively know who will be getting down at the next stop or two.
Good luck!!
I arrived at the nearest bus stand dressed immaculately. And a bus came and left without me. For try as I might, I couldn't get into it. I was stunned by the surge of the mob. It was a force that I had not reckoned with. ah! I thought, looking around at the almost deserted place, at least, I could get into the next bus. Within seconds, however, to my dismay, a new crowd had assembled around me and seemed rarin' to go. I got into the next one mainly because I took it up as a challenge to my manhood. Of course, I hated the trip. There was no place to park my legs properly. It was as hot as an oven inside. And only with a superhuman effort (it involved some desperate shoving and some even more desperate shouting) could I manage to alight from the bus at my destination. My clothes were all crumpled up by then
Since that day, I have had a love-hate relationship going on with the BTS. For one thing, it keeps me physically fit. I run towards the bus, the moment it is sighted, with my heart pounding. And once inside, I believe, the tons of pressure on me from all sides does good to my muscles. At the very beginning of the day, it puts me in a mean and aggressive mood that seems so necessary in day-to-day activities of late. I am reminded by it that life isn't exactly a smooth, enjoyable ride-especially for a person belonging to the middle class. And that it is a very competitive world today. It does emphasize the point 'might is right' to an extent. But it also shows that a withering, doddering individual (like me) can survive in this cruel world-provided he is shrewd enough.
Well, I am a veteran commuter of sorts now. And I have a few tips to those who have settled recently in the city and who commute to work in a BTS bus.
All is well if there is a queue in the bus stand. But if there is not one, take heed. When a bus arrives, never ever make the mistake of standing on the either side of the entrance. You will not even get a foothold that way. Instead position yourself in the middle of the stream of the onrushing commuters. You will find yourself inside the bus without any big effort on your part.
Once inside the bus, the rule is not to relax. To get a seat should be your next goal. Otherwise, you will have to stand at an awkward angle, or get your legs trampled upon. (By the way, you are better off wearing shoes-the thicker, the better). You also stand a chance of losing your purse while standing. And not to forget, the discomfort of having someone breathing down your neck. So you should be very alert, mentally as well as physically. Don't park yourself behind the driver or in the enclosure near the entrances. Leave them to those 'softies' who are not interested in a seat. (They have given up the race already).
Instead stand in the aisle and be on the lookout for the signs from those seated. A hand placed on the bar in front (if already there, watch out for the tightening of the grip); a glance backward at a friend sitting at the back; collecting things in hand; a sudden interest in the surroundings-all are sure signs of a seat about to be vacated. The things they carry also provide valuable clues. (Flowers, fruits mean either a temple or a hospital en route). Boarding the same bus everyday is advantageous in that you will recognise those regulars who get down at various stops.
The thing to do directly, once you catch one of those signs is to quickly maneuver yourself so that you end up beside the seat about to be given up. Ease into the seat even as it is being vacated. A moment's hesitation and you lose a good opportunity. This part is quite difficult at first. You can learn a few things by observing an expert 'blocker'. Observe how adroitly he makes use of his hands and body to fence off the seat, leaving no chance to anyone else.
Never stand near those with blank eyes; or beside those enjoying a doze. Nor beside those with noses buried deep in some book or periodical-or those totally absorbed in talking. The chances are that they are terminus- to- terminus commuters.
Finally, have faith in your intuitive powers. it becomes sharper with experience. You then instinctively know who will be getting down at the next stop or two.
Good luck!!
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