Back to Marriage

I have been pondering over this for a while now…


The fact is that when I left India I felt as if I’d escaped the constant marriage questions and you can go abroad if you want to but promise us you will get married at 24 comments…..( I’m 25 now), so you can imagine that when I came to this new country I had a reasonable amount of cultural baggage with me, so imagine my shock when my non-indian gal pal said that in her home country getting married was terribly old fashioned ,many of her cousins and friends were not married, in fact she was in a serious, committed relationship with her boyfriend for the past 8 years , they lived together but were not married and were not aspiring to either, what shocked me at the time was the statement “ marriage has become old fashioned”. I mean how can marriage become old fashioned; it’s something you have to do right? Like you have to get up in the morning, have to breathe, have to drink water, have to brush your teeth, have to get married!!!!

Anyway I thought it was a cultural thing, my friend’s German .A few days later, in my hostel the topic of conversation veered towards marriage “So you’re going to let your parents find a guy for you??” ,my Vietnamese friend asked, “Well yea, all my friends have done the same thing, so have my parents ,and yeah seems like a good idea!!” ,I replied.

“Yea , maybe my parents or grandparents had arranged marriages , but now a days lots of girls in China prefer to stay single, or put off marriage” ,a Chinese guy volunteered , “Happily??” I asked , “ Yes , Happily!!!” he said .

So you have the seemingly anti –soulmatistic concept of arranged marriage, maybe it isn’t anti-soulmatistic( I made up the word btw!!!) but the concept that arranged marriage is the only way the universe would get your other half to meet you is stretching it a bit too far.. I mean your other half that you’ve been searching from the beginning of time for and your parents like him???… before you???…. And he’s part of the narrow pool your parents are searching in doesn’t quite gel ..but maybe the universe is smart enough to want it to happen for sure; that it makes sure your soulmate is precisely the one your folks like first.

Anyway so I started feeling marriage was overrated, not romantic at all, just a legal contract, so that society acknowledges two people as a couple …no wonder we have people going against it , my convictions were validated further when I read an article two weeks back in the Times of India about couples who lived together who were having custody battles over their kids when they split up. Again I was shocked.. people not married to each other and having children.... in India???. I know maybe it’s not the mainstream, and might be prevalent only amongst the elite, but still it was different….

Then I read this article via one of Sharath’s posts it was about people who were married but planned on staying in different homes, in this case the couple found it just too inconvenient to stay together, so in one hand you have live-in relationships (where people move in together )on the other you hand you have married people who choose not to live together…. Oh well!!!

I’d pretty much lost faith in the whole process when this article bought back some hope. …..So what if us straight people had screwed it up ,didn’t value marriage and most of us bring it down to a contract of convenience of the first one that clicks….. Gay folks certainly are fighting for their right to marry, not something I see us hetro’s doing, we may want to get married , but not passionately, not so much for love it seems …

It wasn’t a legal wedding. Even so, it made me think the Right is correct in fearing same-sex unions. There is such power in this kind of brave and naked love that it may make the walls of Jericho come tumbling down.

So I thought Yes!!! there is hope for the world. A section of society does fight oppression and get married to the love of their life, and for a while I was alright, then I found this out…

Lance Bass from N’Sync was Gay, OK fine ,always kind off.. could guess that, so who was his love ??the partial reason for which he outed himself ???Reichen Lehmkuhl!!!OMG!!!
I knew Reichen , he and his then “husband” Chip came first in the only Amazing Race season I watched completely, back home in India , what struck me about the guys was that they were really intelligent ,sensitive, good looking and also looked very committed to each other ,and yes the couple won the race beating the other straight teams, I now found out that soon after the show they split up, and Reichen became a minor celebrity and started dating Lance Bass…..it isn’t my place to say this. .but Chip was better!! They;i.e. Chip and Reichen remain friends however it seems.

Any way so straight or not …everyone’s pretty much messed up the love concept!!

Found this blog on American Marriage …check out the latest entry…I bet you didn’t know what Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna was about !!!

Who wants to be the banker???

Yay… I always hated to be the banker….now it doesn’t seem too bad…and yea, debit cards seem the way to go!!!!!!
Monopoly moves with the times
Found out from Marginal Revolution

Last Anna Quindlen Post -Commencement Speech

I agree with Sharath , the speech is rather long… it was actually a choice between this one and the Mount Holyoke one, I like the Mount Holyoke one , but I felt this being written in 2006, was more current, but you can check out the 1999, Mount Holyoke commencement speech here, the content of the speech also seeped into one of her books

Novelist and Essayist Anna Quindlen Addresses the Class of 2006
Commencement Address, May 28, 2006

Women and men of the Class of 2006 at Colby College. I do a fair amount of public speaking. And, because of their virtuosity, I have always said that there are two people that I never want to follow on a program: Mario Cuomo and Hillary Rodham Clinton. However today I make a new vow: Francis—I'm never speaking after you again.

Commencement speeches are the toughest speeches I ever give.This is a hugely transformative moment in the life of you graduates and of all of your families. It’s also a day of great celebration, and I'm always keenly aware that I am now all that stands between you and your diplomas and the partying to come. So I'm going to be brief with you. My text is a simple one —you can remember it.

Be not afraid.

It's an old and honorable directive—you can find it with some variation in both the Old and the New Testament. That's because it's really the secret of life. C.S. Lewis once wrote "Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." So, Class of 2006, fear not.

Believe me, I have enough of a memory of my youth to know that it's really preposterous to say that at this moment. You are afraid. You're afraid of leaving what you know, you're afraid of seeking what you want, you're afraid of taking the wrong path, or you're afraid of failing at the right one. Your closest friends are going one way, you're going another, and from this small, serene, safe, gorgeous pond, you go down through the estuary to the ocean, and often the current will be harsh and the riptides will be tough. But you have to learn to put the fear aside, or at least refuse to allow it to rule you.

It is fear that always tamps down our authentic selves, that turns us into some patchwork collection of affectations and expectations, mores and mannerisms, some treadmill set to the prevailing speed of universal acceptability that causes a tyranny of homogeny, whether it's the homogeny of the straight world of the suits or the spiky world of the avant-garde.

The voices of conformity speak so loudly out there. Don't listen. People will tell you what you ought to think and how you ought to feel. They will tell you what to read and how to live. They will urge you to take jobs that they themselves loathe, and to follow safe paths that they themselves find tedious.

Only a principled refusion to be terrorized by these stingy standards will save you from a Frankenstein life that's made up of others' outside expectations grafted together into a poor semblance of existence.

You can't afford to do that. It's what's poisoned our culture, our communities, and our national character. No one ever does the right thing from fear, and so many of the wrong things are done in its shadow: homophobia, sexism, racism, religious bigotry. All of them are bricks in a wall that divides us and they're bricks cast of the clay of fear—fear of that which is different or unknown.

Our political atmosphere today is so disspiriting because most of our leaders are leaders in name only. They're terrorized by polls and focus groups, by the need to be all things to all people, which means that they wind up being nothing at all.

Our workplaces are full of fear—fear of innovation, fear of difference. The most widely used cliché in management today is to "think outside the box." The box is not only stale custom, it is terrified paralysis.

In my own business fear is the ultimate enemy. It accounts for censorship, obfuscation, the lowest common denominator of the news when sharp, free, fearless news is more necessary to us than ever before. Without fear or favor, the news business has to provide readers and viewers with stories, even if those stories are stories the powerful do not want you to hear or believe and do not want us to publish or disseminate.

Too often our public discourse fears real engagement or intellectual intercourse. It pitches itself at the lowest possible level. Always preaching to the choir so that nobody will get angry, which means nobody will get interested. What's the point of free speech if we're always afraid to speak freely?

Not too long ago I asked a professor of religion what she did to suit the comfort level of all those diverse students in her class. And she said, "It's not my job to make people comfortable. It's my job to educate them." I nearly stood up and cheered.

If we fear competing viewpoints, in this country of all countries, if we fail to state the unpopular or to allow the unacceptable to be heard because of some plain-vanilla sense of civility, that's not civility at all, it's the denigration of the human capacity for thought—the suggestion that we are fragile flowers incapable of disagreement, argument, or civil intellectual combat.

Colby College does not turn out fragile flowers. You have to be smart and sure and strong enough to overcome the condescending notion that opposing viewpoints are just too much for us to bear—in politics, in journalism, in business, in the academy. Open your mouths. Speak your peace. Fear not.

Believe me, you're not the only ones who sometimes lack courage. We parents have been paralyzed by fear as well, haven't we? When you were first born, each of you, I can guarantee that your parents' greatest glory was in thinking you absolutely distinct from every baby who had ever been born before. You were a miracle of singularity. You shouted "dog," you lurched across the playground, you put a scrawl of red paint next to a squiggle of green and we put it on the fridge and said, "Oh my god, oh my god, you are a painter, a poet, a prodigy, a genius."

But we are only human, and being a parent is a very difficult job—unpaid and unrewarded much of the time, requiring the shaping of other people—an act of incredible hubris. And over the years, we sometimes learned to want for you things that you did not necessarily want for yourselves. We learned to want the lead in the play, the acceptance at our own college, the straight and narrow path that often leads absolutely nowhere. We learned to fear your differences, not to celebrate them.

Sometimes we were convinced conformity would make life better or at least easier for you. Sometimes we had a hard time figuring out where we ended and you began.

So today guide us back to where we started. Help us not to make mistakes out of fear, or out of love. Learn not to listen to us when we are wrong. Begin today to say no to the Greek chorus that thinks it knows the parameters of a good life when all it knows is some one-size-fits-all version of human experience.

There’s plenty to fear out there. You know that every time you pick up a newspaper. Two years ago I gave into it myself, writing a column at just this time called "An Apology to the Graduates," telling the Class of 2004 how sorry I was about the unremitting stress they had been under all their young lives. In part I wrote, "There's an honorable tradition of starving students; it’s just that between outsourcing of jobs and a boom market in real estate, your generation envisions becoming starving adults. Caught in our peculiar modern nexus of prosperity and insolvency, easy credit and epidemic bankruptcy, you also get toxic messages from the culture about what achievement means. It is no longer enough to make it, you must make it big. You all will live longer than any generation in history, yet you were kicked into high gear earlier as well. Your college applications look like the résumés for midlevel executives. How exhausted you must be."

Well, here is what might await you. You will, I am sure, be offered the option of now becoming exhausted adults, convinced that no achievement is large enough, with résumés as long as short stories. But what if that feels like a betrayal of your true self? A forced march down a road trodden by other feet at the end of which is nothing you truly care for?

Fear not. Remember Pinocchio? Each of you has a Jiminy Cricket. It is you, your best self, the one you can trust. The only problem is that it is sometimes hard to hear what it says because all of the external voices and messages are so loud, so insistent, and so adamant.

Voices that loud are always meant to bully. Do not be bullied. You already know this. I just need to remind you. You already know how important courage is. After all you chose as your class speaker someone from a small village in Zimbabwe who got on a plane to transcend hemispheres, customs, and cultures to come to Colby College. You can look at him and know that a flying leap of fearlessness is possible.

Just think back. You know how to do this. Think back to first grade – to yourself in first grade when you could still hear the sound of your own voice in your head. When you were too young, too unformed, too fantastic to understand that you were supposed to take on the protective coloration of the expectations of those around you. When you were absolutely, certainly, unapologetically yourself.

I have a pocket-sized edition of the Tao that I keep on my desk. I read a passage from it every day, and the section I like best says, "In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present."

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

We live in a world in which the simple, the generous, the enjoyable, the completely present, above all the simply yourself, sometimes seems as out of reach as the moon. Don’t be fooled. That’s not because anyone has found a better way in the millennia since the Tao was written. It is because too often we are people enslaved by fear.

The ultimate act of bravery doesn’t usually take place on a battlefield. It takes place in your heart when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclinations, and your soul by listening to its clean, clear voice of direction instead of following the muddied messages of a timid world.

Samuel Butler once said, "Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on." That sounds terrifying, doesn’t it, and difficult too, but that way lies music. So, Class of 2006 pick up your violin, lift your bow, play your heart out.

Congratulations and courage.

Anna Quindlen-Rememberance of things past

Quindlen: Remembrance of Things Past
There is now only a single woman on the court. Imagine the world if homes, businesses, schools, had one woman for every eight men.
By Anna Quindlen
Newsweek


In the glow of modern progress, the stories I tell my children about my girlhood sound as ancient as the Parthenon, beginning with my impossible (and improbable) dream of being an altar girl. The classified ads divided by sex, the working women forced out of their jobs by pregnancy, the family businesses passed unthinkingly to sons-in-law while the daughters stood by: the witnesses to those artifacts are going gray and growing old.
One of the most haunting reminders of those bad old days is on my desk, in a book to be published this spring titled "The Girls Who Went Away." I knew instantly who they were: the girls who disappeared, allegedly to visit distant relatives or take summer jobs in faraway beach towns, when they were actually in homes for unwed mothers giving birth and then giving up their children. They came back with dead eyes and bad reputations, even though, like some of those in Ann Fessler's book, they may have gotten pregnant the first time out. And they came back riddled with pain and rage and an unspeakable sense of loss. "I'd have an abortion any day of the week, before I would ever have another adoption—or lose a kid in the woods—which is basically what it is," recalled one woman bitterly.
That's what a pregnant 16-year-old might well do today: have the abortion. Or she might have the baby and raise it with her family's help, or give it up for adoption after handpicking the adoptive parents and drawing up a contract allowing her to visit the child from time to time. It's a whole new world, in which female sexual behavior is no longer a moral felony. But those of us of a certain age remember those other girls, who were expected to serve a life sentence. Their parents called them whores and threw them out of the house, or simply pressed their lips tight and pretended nothing had happened while their daughters died inside. In "The Girls Who Went Away," one recalled, "It was the beginning of it being invisible."
The number of us who remember being invisible is dwindling. Coretta Scott King remembered when a black woman was seen in some quarters only as a hired domestic, Betty Friedan when a white woman was often treated like a major appliance or a decorative home accent. But both of them are now gone. Sandra Day O'Connor, who with little fanfare stepped down from the high court recently, remembers when a lawyer could tell you, without a hint of apology, that his firm never had and likely never would hire a woman associate.
O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court justice, was never known as a feminist firebrand. But she had what I think of as transformative experience, something that can't help but suffuse your life and your mind. She carried within her the memory of what it was like to be reflexively devalued despite being smart and capable. I think it's probably a good thing for a judge to have faced down that sort of organized systemic injustice. One argument is that it's not supposed to matter, that judges are simply there to consider the statute as written, as though the law were algebra and its subject numbers. But jurisprudence is not math, and judges are not automatons but people who have been undoubtedly and sometimes mysteriously marked by what they remember, or choose to forget.
The justice who nominally replaced O'Connor, Samuel Alito, was questioned closely during his confirmation hearings about his membership in a group that opposed the admission of women to Princeton, his alma mater. Justice Alito appeared to recall little of the controversy. But I do. I remember the condescending andinsulting way women were discussed when various Ivy League institutions considered granting the honor of their Y-chromosome diplomas, the questions about whether Yale women could be permitted to use the pool at the Yale Club. One Princeton alum told The New York Times in those days, "Girls are being sent to Princeton less to educate them than to pacify, placate and amuse the boys." It was certainly an education, to witness the resentment and outrage that erupts when the invisible insist on being seen, even acknowledged.
That was a long time ago. In the light of progress the shadows fade, yet how vivid they still sometimes seem. There is now only a single woman on the Supreme Court. Imagine the world if homes, businesses, schools, had only one woman for every eight men. It would be an odd sort of world, wouldn't it? Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg surely can remember well when abortion was often a do-it-yourself affair, when an accidental pregnancy sometimes meant an exile into a hidden and unacknowledged hell. I suppose the landscape seems very different to her than it did when she was one of the lawyers arguing before the high court that it was impermissible to force pregnant teachers to give up their jobs because of the ridiculous presumption that expectant mothers are unable to work. Yet today she finds herself where she has so often been in the past: the only woman among a coterie of men. Not quite invisible. Not quite.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com
/id/11569326/site/newsweek/
________________________________________
© 2006 MSNBC.com

A face in the crowd -Anna Quindlen

I've decided to break up what was the previous post into a series...

The Face in the Crowd
Looking someone straight in the eye is an age-old incentive to do the right thing, but there's precious little of it in the computer age.
By Anna Quindlen
Newsweek
March 20, 2006 issue -

Terrible things happened to Imette St. Guillen between the time she left her friends in lower Manhattan and when she was found dead, wrapped in a garish floral bedspread, amid trash and weeds miles away in Brooklyn. She'd been tied up, raped and strangled. A sock had been jammed in her mouth and her hair had been hacked off. And those were just the external signs. The real horror show had to have been what was going on in the 24-year-old graduate student's head.
But there was one detail that haunted women talking about the murder, as they did in the city over and over again. It was what the assailant did to Imette's face. He covered it with horizontal strips of packing tape. The pretty woman with the dark eyes in all the newspaper photographs was effectively obliterated. The man who killed her also defaced her, in the most glaring sense of that term.
It's commonplace for rapists to cover a victim's face, perhaps with a pillowcase or a piece of clothing. Sometimes it's so she can't identify him; sometimes it's so she becomes a nothing, a body absent that part that is most associated with individuality and humanity. But it's not just criminals inclined to turn women into nonentities. In the same edition that carried news of Imette's murder, The New York Times ran a story about two fashion designers in Paris who put masks on the models in their shows so that the women were completely faceless. "I didn't want any distraction from the line," one said.
The greatest challenge of this century is going to be to avoid becoming a faceless society, with all that suggests and portends. The change in the way modern human beings know one another, and the world, has happened so incrementally and yet so quickly that it's almost impossible to assess its ultimate psychological cost. Only four decades ago, half a lifetime, daily life was different in so many conventions of communication. A phone was anchored to the wall, an instant message was a hand-delivered greeting card and a blind date took place in a restaurant.
Today many people are having online relationships with acquaintances or friends they've never really met—and who may be nothing at all like the selves they describe. The poor child who once could count on the bullying to stop once the school bell had rung now discovers it can go on endlessly through the miracle of the chat room, and worse than before, since it's much easier to wound without the sight of wounded eyes. Looking someone straight in the eye is an age-old incentive to do the right thing, but there's precious little of it in the computer age.
The power of the human face is why the notion of a face transplant, recently performed in France, makes the public queasy. Personality may be the wine, but the face is the label others learn to recognize. Even animals assess one another's intentions by the cast of the eye, the curl of the lip. A face-to-face meeting often means the difference between understanding and estrangement. In her memoir, "Autobiography of a Face," the writer Lucy Grealy described life after childhood cancer left her with much of her lower jaw gone or distorted and the night on which she felt happiest and most free: Halloween, when she could wear a mask. This is the age of the mask: the homogenized unreadable expression courtesy of the plastic surgeon, the anonymous fantasy love affair via the Internet.
So many of the old conventions have gone the way of the TV antenna—privacy, downtime, the line between work life and home life that was once delineated by the ride on the train or the closing of the apartment door. The message that begins "I can't come to the phone right now" is a lie. Everyone can come to the phone all the time. Soon, business people forced into studying spreadsheets, reading paperback best sellers and perhaps even making desultory conversation with the person in the next seat will be able to use their cell phones in the air. The BlackBerry device alone makes it seem as though we're living in a '50s futuristic film. The paradox is that all this nominal communication has led to enormous isolation, with people hunched over their handhelds or staring into the screen of the computer. There is the illusion of keeping in touch, but always at arm's length.
Sometimes it seems that what people want most is the one thing they no longer have: human contact. The person on the other end of the phone who believes the bill is actually mistaken, and who is apologetic. The friend who comes over for a cup of tea instead of sending a text message. Young women like Imette St. Guillen who go out on a Saturday night in cities like New York—they carefully choose the earrings, the jeans, the lipstick. Sometimes they're just blowing off steam, getting together with girlfriends. But often they're looking for something different, something more, someone who will see them across a field of restaurant tables, really see them. In a society that has too often become isolating and inhuman, they're looking for that one face in the crowd. Maybe everyone is.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com
/id/11785818/site/newsweek/page/2/
________________________________________
© 2006 MSNBC.com

From Newsweek and Wikipedia...

Because I like Anna Quindlen…..

A Cubicle Is Not a Home
Maybe this younger generation is populated by those who are willing (or able) to trade slightly less money for slightly more contentment.
By Anna Quindlen
Newsweek
May 29, 2006 issue -

Creeping codgerism is an inevitable effect of getting older, a variation of memory loss. When I complain that my daughter's skirt looks more like a belt, or that my sons keep vampire hours, those are the churlish carpings of a woman years removed from the days when her own dresses were sky-high and her idea of a good time was sleeping until noon. "Turn down that music," I have been known to yell, and my only saving grace is that I hear the words through a filmy curtain of generational déjà vu.
Perhaps that is the kindest way to explain why Hillary Rodham Clinton veered off the grid of common sense to complain in a speech recently that young people today "don't know what work is." As she talked of an unfortunate sense of youthful entitlement and the good old days when there was only a single TV in her own home, it seemed as though any minute she would soar to the rhetorical heights of codger deluxe and describe walking five miles through the snow to school.
The senator was indulging in a time-honored tradition, the older generation's complaining that the younger one is not like them, and therefore somehow not as good. Maybe there is anecdotal evidence of absurd indulgence on television: teenage girls' being gifted with BMWs at lavish birthday parties or peevish brides obsessing over ice sculptures. But for every one of those you can find plenty of young people waiting tables to put themselves through college or waking before dawn to get to the construction site or the firehouse.
If it's anecdote that tells the story, consider this: In 1974, I graduated from college. I'd paid my own way the last two years with jobs as a resident assistant and a newspaper summer intern. I rented a small, cheap one-bedroom apartment in lower Manhattan and started work as a reporter. I still have the Royal typewriter I used to write my stories.
Only a fool would think that experience had any resonance for the class of 2006. To earn the money to pay for a year at a fine liberal-arts college today, a student would have to have a summer job robbing banks. There are no cheap one-bedroom apartments in lower Manhattan. In fact, the monthly rent today on my former apartment is probably about the same as my total annual tuition was in 1974. And the use of computers means that when these students begin working, they are essentially at the office every hour of every day.
What lesson have they learned from watching their parents leave for the office early, come home late, check e-mail at midnight? If they've seen their elders laid off from a company to which they'd given the best years of their lives, young people may have concluded that loyalty to the corporation is a historical artifact. If they've watched marriages buckle and work tasks displace family time, they may vow to find jobs that accommodate their own kids. If they've been listening to the drumbeat of burnout, downsizing and stress, the tom-tom of modern existence, maybe they've decided that they intend to try to have a life life as well as a work life. I, for one, can't argue. My father traveled constantly on business. Is it coincidence that I've somehow finagled a job that allows me to work at home?
An executive at a group that looks at law firms said recently that the rate of attrition among young lawyers at big firms is now greater than ever before. Some newly minted attorneys wanted more of a sense of serving the public weal than a corporate practice provides. This makes sense because the younger generation in this country has done more volunteer work than any other in history. When you're watching girls gone wild in Cancún, don't forget kids gone philanthropic in New Orleans, where some students spent spring break helping out post-Katrina.
But many associates just don't value the life of a big-firm drone, which in countless articles and books has been portrayed as a cross between being an indentured servant and a prisoner of war. Sure, the money's great. But maybe this younger generation is populated by those who are willing (or able) to trade slightly less money for slightly more contentment. I'm part of the generation that said it wanted to change the world, and it did. We let the 40-hour workweek morph into the 60-hour workweek and even the 80-hour workweek.
Senator Clinton was jolted out of the codger cul-de-sac by a well-placed, highly educated source: her daughter, Chelsea, who is 26, and who reprimanded her mother with this news flash: "I work hard. My friends work hard." The mystery is why Hillary didn't run her ham-handed remarks past Chelsea before she pandered to a Chamber of Commerce audience with stale old stereotypes, and why more of us don't listen to what our kids say about what they've learned from our mistakes. If the experience of their exhausted, insomniac, dispirited elders makes them decide they'd prefer not to go straight from the classroom to the cubicle to the coffin, it doesn't mean they're lazy. It means they're sane.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com
/id/12889485/site/newsweek/page/2/
________________________________________
© 2006 MSNBC.com

Punyakoti

This story used to bring tears to my eyes whenever I heard it as a small child, I used to feel so bad for the mother cow and her calf, I don’t get as senti nowadays reading it ,nonetheless thought I would share it, I’ve been searching on the internet for ancient Indian, mythological or historical stories I’ve grown up reading that are easily available to read online….. Amar Chitra Katha, Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan types..looks like I have to continue searching…..

GOVINA HAADU
(Song of the cow)
Background Introduction by Dr. Shantinath
________________________________________

In the region of Karnataka with fifty six counties, there lived with inexplicable splendor, a cowherd by the name of Kaalinga.
In the direction of the rising sun that illuminates the mountain peaks with reddish glow of dawn, there is a wonderful forest.
There are seven eastern mountains with a lush forest extending over twelve yojanas (one yojana is 12 miles). The forest is very dense with trees like Champak, mango, Jamun (wood apple), teak, rosewood, jakaranda, tamarind, bilva trees, banians, ficus, bamboo, kapok, sandalwood and various other trees in great many numbers.
There are myriads of flowers like Jasmine, champak, suragi, ketaki and many other kinds. Also, there are many fruit trees like Jack fruit, mangoes, jamun, plaintains, areca, coconut and many others. The forest is filled with abundant fruits and emblazoned with flowers.
Deep in the forest live many wild animals. Wild boar, wild buffalo, bison, bears, tigers, leopards, spotted deer, elephants, wolves, jackals, rabbits, wild cats, monkeys and snakes inhabit the forest. Tigresses and lionesses roam the forest with their cubs.
Birds like parrots, cuckoos, peacocks, pigeons, wild hens, kites, eagles, vultures, swans, ducks, geese and weaver birds impart great beauty to the forest.
From these mountain peaks, arise many streams filled with pure water and merge in the holy rivers flowing into the ocean.
Amidst the mountains, in the forest, the cowherd Kaalinga hada cattle pound. The cattle grazed in the mountain slopes and drank from the streams. In the evening, the cows would rush back to the pound remembering their young ones. On seeing their mothers, the calves delightedly romped around and suckled happily.
One beautiful morning, as usual, the cowherd woke up early in the morning, bathed in the river, placed the fragrant dark musk tilak (auspicious mark) on the forehead and tied his hair into a handsome knot. He wore a brief, covering it with a loin cloth and adorned himself with jewelry. He wore a red coral necklace with pendants and medallions, slipped on the emerald wrist band, armlets, anklets and a sapphire signet ring. He wore the epaulets with pale saffron coloured garments, put on a blue turban and wrapped himself in a white silken cloak.
Thus adorned, he sat under a mango tree and started playing his silver flute. He beckoned his cows by playing the flute. The music that emanated sounded like he was calling each cow by it's name, "Oh, Parvati, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Manikya (ruby) youall come", "Devi, Nirmala, Dharmavati, you too come", "Oh, Ganga, Gowri, Thungabhadra, Bhrungakuntala, you come", "Punyakoti, Kamadhenu, Punya vahini, Bhagya lakshmi.... all of you come". The cows on hearing his loving, affectionate, happy and melodious call, came and surrounded him and let their milk flow into the pots.
When the pots were filled with milk, the cowherd guided the cows towards the forest invoking the name of Govinda. The herd travelled slowly towards the forest. There were many animals in the herd; there were gentle cows, there were naughty cows, there were young bulls and there were rogue bulls. The herd passed slowly like a big dark water bearing cloud from the ocean going towards the land. They feasted on the tender green grass and had their fill of sweet water until they became satiated. After they fed and rested, the cowherd called them back and all the animals started going back to the pound, keeping steps with the tinkling bells around their necks.
In the midst of the sprawling mountain range, by the foot hill in a cavern, lived a magnificent tiger by the name of Adbhutaor wonderful. Not having had a meal the whole of the previous week, he was very hungry. Hiding at the entrance of the cave, he was, with rapt attention listening to the sounds from outside the cave. He heard the tinkling of the bells and smelling food, charged at the cows with lightning speed letting out a thunderous roar.
The frightened cows ran pell-mell scattering in each and every direction and got away from the reach of the tiger. The tiger, enraged at the site of the prey escaping , looked around and gazed at a lone cow walking slowly quite unaware of the tiger. The tiger, having found another prey, stood in the path of the cow and blocked the passage of the cow Punyakoti. The tiger said unto himself, "verily, I found my food today".
The tiger confronted Punyakoti and roared, "Hey, you cow, you eat up crops in the fields and destroy the fields, providence has sent you to me, I will make a meal of you today".
Punyakoti replied, "Oh, great tiger, I do not lay the land waste, I do not eat up the crops, I graze on the grass in the forest and drink from the streams, I provide milk for the children and help the mankind, I only follow my master's orders. Please let me pass".
The ferocious tiger thundered, "you are my prey, I will break your neck, bite your head off and suck your blood".
Punyakoti entreated the tiger, "Lord tiger, I have a child at home, let me go and suckle him. I shall return to you after seeing him".
"I have found my prey when I am hungry. If I let you slip away, you wont come back" said the tiger.
Punyakoti answered "Truth is my mother, truth is my father, truth is my friend, truth is my relative, if my action is contrary to my promise, it will not please my God Sri Hari".
"You are a female not worth believing. Even Pandavas' wife( Draupadi) did not keep up her promise" said Adbhuta the tiger. "Once you escape, will you really come back? I shall not let you go".
The cow replied, "how can I assure you that I will come back soon? Oh tiger, I do not covet dishonour in this world by uttering untruth". "I shall make an extraordinary promise". "Listen ye tiger, I swear in the names of Trimurtis, (Brahma the creator, Vishnu the sustainer and Shiva the destroyer), I swear in the names of the Sun, the Moon and mother earth, I swear in the names of the gods of the eight directions". "The nine planets and stars as my witnesses, the great serpent Adiseshaas my witness, the four Veda scriptures as my witnesses and the boundless sky as my witness, I shall tell you the truth about me". "The holy Vedas are my breath, the sun and the moon are my eyes, the virtue of goodness is my body, the four directions are my legs, the rays of light that reach the earth and beyond are my hair, the world is my udder, four nipples are four states of exaltation, my milk is the nectar of immortality, my hump is the holy mount Meru, my progeny is the Yagnyas and Tapas (penance) and Salvation is my name".
"I seek approval and blessings of the Trimurtis, all the gods, the Gandharvas (celestial beings), the Garudas, the Yakshas, the Sidhas and other great divinities".
"This body of mine is perishable and I shall not desecrate myself by deviating from the path of Dharma (righteousness) for the sake of this mortal body. This life of mine is short lived like an air bubble on the surface of water, but my actions of righteousness and truth are eternal and that is what I shall do".
The tiger acquiesced to the supplication of Punyakoti and allowed her to go to visit her calf. The cow hurried to the pound and all the members of the herd received her with great rejoice.
Punyakoti told the calf, "come my child, drink from my breast for the last time". "I was attacked by a wicked tiger who wants to eat me. He gave me reprieve that I may feed you and bid farewell. I have promised to return to him". "My son, never go alone near that craggy mountain, the tiger will kill you".
The calf asked the mother, "Oh mother, why do you not stay here like others? Why is it that you have to die?". Overwhelmed with grief, the calf could talk no more.
The cow replied, "You are destined to live long and live well". "I cannot break my promise. I will definitely go back to the tiger. Lord Sri Hari does not approve of my being untrue".
"Mother, who will take care of me? By whose side shall I sleep at night? Whose breast will I suckle?" asked the calf.
Punyakoti addressed the other cows, "my sisters and my aunts, please care for my orphan child as your own". "Neither admonish and gore him if he comes in front of you nor kick him if he is behind you, treat the orphan with kindness".
The cows said, "why do you go back to the tiger, Punyakoti?" "Why do you have to die?" "We all will come with you if you go".
Punyakoti replied, "it is not proper that you should come with me". "This is the result of my past karmas (deeds) and I cannot escape from that". The other cows assured Punyakoti that they will take care of her son as their own child.
"My son, you are an orphan now. I shall be devoured by the tiger. This day, our relationship will end and the bond between us will be broken". So saying, Punyakoti embraced her child.
"Do not grieve for me, live on this earth according to Dharma" (righteousness) were the words of wisdom she offered. With a heavy heart, Punyakoti went to the river to take the purifying sacrificial bath.
At the river, Punyakoti invoked the spirits of the holy rivers Ganga, Yamuna, Thungabhadra, Kaveri and other rivers and completed the ablutions. Remembering the name of Lord Sri Krishna, praying for salvation, she walked calmly towards the cave and called out the tiger.
"Oh tiger, here I am as I promised. I have incurred sin for having kept you hungry and waiting. Delay no more, your food is here. Warm blood is flowing through my heart and there is plenty of meat. Dine on this to your hearts content. May you live long".
On hearing these words of Punyakoti, a great transformation came upon the tiger. He became filled with remorse and said, "you area divine being". "I cannot and will not kill and eat you. Now, you are like my elder sister. It is fit and proper that I offer my life at your feet. I am a sinner who has done great injustice to many. I have killed hundreds of animals. This kind of life must end now" and fell at the feet of Punyakoti.
Said Punyakoti to the tiger, "You do not have to give up your life, eat me and satisfy your hunger". "Lord Shivawill bless me for my sacrifice."
The tiger shed tears profusely and was very sorry for the cruel deeds of his in the past. He prayed to the Trimurtis for moksha (salvation), bowed to the gods of eight directions and hurled himself down from the mountain cliff and breathed his last.
The goddess of the forest (vanadevi) was happy that there would be no more killing, the Trimurtis approved of the tiger's repentance and gods in the sky caused a shower of flowers on earth. The soul of the tiger attained presence of Brahma, Lord Shiva accepted the tiger skin and Lord Vishnu blessed the cow.
Punyakoti slowly walked back to the great happiness and joy of the herd. They crowded around Punyakoti, eager to know what transpired. Punyakoti told them that Lord Shiva granted moksha to the tiger and she came back. All the cows jumped with joy marveling at the turn of events and offered prayers to their lord, Sri Krishna.
Kaalinga the cowherd prostrated at the feet of Punyakoti and said that he was blessed for having such a great and divine being amidst them.
Punyakoti proclaimed that her progeny and Kaalingas descendents should worship Lord Krishna at the time of winter solstice forever and ever. Lord Sri Krishna will grant all favours to those who listen to the story of Punyakoti with reverence.

Background Introduction:
Govina Haadu (Song of the Cow)
Govina kathe (Story of the Cow)
THE SAGA OF THE SACRED COW.
Govina Haadu is the same poem known by the above names. In southern Karnataka, the first name is used and in northern Karnataka, the second name is used.
This explanation is meant for those who are not familiar with the Indian mythological stories. The original story appears in Mahabharata epic in the section of Shanti Parva or "chapter of Peace". At the end of Mahabharata war, Yudhishthira, the eldest of the five Pandavas, asks the Grand sire, Bhishma for advise. Bhishma, laying down on death bed, comprised of arrows and awaiting an auspicious time to die, advises Yudhishthira on matters spiritual and worldly. During this discourse, Bhishma talks about truth as an integral part of righteous living and illustrates how even non human beings are bound by the laws of truth. Based on present archeological evidence available, scholars have determined that Mahabharata war took place not later than2500 B.C. In the original epic of Mahabharata, this story of the cow is mentioned as to have taken place in Karnataka (which was also known as Chappannaru Desha, meaning comprising of 56 counties or human habitations). There are minor descriptions of vegetation and animals of Karnataka. This story of the truthful cow was later, the subject of a poem known as "Govina Haadu" or the "Song of the Cow" in Kannada language. The author of "Govina Haadu" and his time are unknown. Based on the description of the land, certain flowers and animals, it appears the location of this story is around Neelagiri mountains. Although present day language in that area is Tamil, it was previously a Kannada area and was a part of "Chappanaru Desha", or "Karnata Desha" or "Karnataka" as it was variously called.
This poem is widely known in Karnataka with minor variations of certain words. In one version, the word "Karnata Desha" is used as told in the original story contained in Mahabharata. Another version states "Aivattaru Desha" (means 56 countries, most probably human habitations or towns) which was also another name of Karnataka. This is probably a later version. There are minor variations in the language of these two versions although the verses are the same. From these variations, it appears that the older version was prevalent in the areas of Southern parts of Karnataka and the later version appears to be more prevalent around Northern Karnataka. However, this story is known from antiquity.
In this story, animals are capable of talking, thinking and discriminating between righteous and wrong actions. They are like human beings in every way except their bodily forms. Just like the goal of humans is to achieve salvation, the animals' goal is also salvation and joining god or the supreme being in the end.
The characters in the story, all the animals, cows, the tiger and the cowherd have got names. The cows are named Ganga, Gowri, Thungabhadra, Parvati, Lakshmi, Saraswati,. Kamadhenu, Bhagyalakshmi ... and many others. One of the cows in the herd is PunyaKoti. These are all the names of rivers and goddesses given to cows. The name Punya Koti is formed by two words, Punya and Koti.Punya means holy, sacred, good, meritorious, virtuous, pious, auspicious, propitious etc. Koti means ten million, millionaire, group or class. Another meaning is, the highest point, extremity etc. The name Punya Koti applies to an extremely pious and virtuous being. It is a very apt name for this cow.
The tiger has a name too. His name is Adbhuta which means wonder, wondrous, marvelous, miracle, surprise, astonishment, like of which did not take place before, etc. This Felix Tigris extraordinaire deserves the name Adbhuta.
The name of the cowherd is Kaalinga. Kaalinga is a black cobra. When one is given this name, it is a shortened form of Kaalingamardana, he who has vanquished the great serpent Kaalinga, a name of Lord Sri Krishna who tended cows or was a cowherd in his childhood.
The names of all characters here reflect their spiritual aspects. It is not that only humans have souls and aspiration of salvation, but the animals also have souls and similar aspirations. This is in conformity with the idea of all forms of life are different manifestations of the same supreme being.

From here

Poetry

The Patriot
I am standing for peace and non-violence.
Why world is fighting fighting
Why all people of world
Are not following Mahatma Gandhi,
I am simply not understanding.
Ancient Indian Wisdom is 100% correct,
I should say even 200% correct,
But modern generation is neglecting-
Too much going for fashion and foreign thing.

Other day I'm reading newspaper
(Every day I'm reading Times of India
To improve my English Language)
How one goonda fellow
Threw stone at Indirabehn.
Must be student unrest fellow, I am thinking.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I am saying (to myself)
Lend me the ears.
Everything is coming -
Regeneration, Remuneration, Contraception.
Be patiently, brothers and sisters.

You want one glass lassi?
Very good for digestion.
With little salt, lovely drink,
Better than wine;
Not that I am ever tasting the wine.
I'm the total teetotaller, completely total,
But I say
Wine is for the drunkards only.

What you think of prospects of world peace?
Pakistan behaving like this,
China behaving like that,
It is making me really sad, I am telling you.
Really, most harassing me.
All men are brothers, no?
In India also
Gujaratis, Maharashtrians, Hindiwallahs
All brothers -
Though some are having funny habits.
Still, you tolerate me,
I tolerate you,
One day Ram Rajya is surely coming.

You are going?
But you will visit again
Any time, any day,
I am not believing in ceremony
Always I am enjoying your company.

-- Nissim Ezekiel

Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher
To force the pace and never to be still
Is not the way of those who study birds
Or women. The best poets wait for words.
The hunt is not an exercise of will
But patient love relaxing on a hill
To note the movement of a timid wing;
Until the one who knows that she is loved
No longer waits but risks surrendering -
In this the poet finds his moral proved
Who never spoke before his spirit moved.

The slow movement seems, somehow, to say much more.
To watch the rarer birds, you have to go
Along deserted lanes and where the rivers flow
In silence near the source, or by a shore
Remote and thorny like the heart's dark floor.
And there the women slowly turn around,
Not only flesh and bone but myths of light
With darkness at the core, and sense is found
But poets lost in crooked, restless flight,
The deaf can hear, the blind recover sight.

-- Nissim Ezekiel


More About People
by Ogden Nash
When people aren't asking questions
They're making suggestions
And when they're not doing one of those
They're either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes
And then as if that weren't enough to annoy you
They employ you.
Anybody at leisure
Incurs everybody's displeasure.
It seems to be very irking
To people at work to see other people not working,
So they tell you that work is wonderful medicine,
Just look at Firestone and Ford and Edison,
And they lecture you till they're out of breath or something
And then if you don't succumb they starve you to death or something.
All of which results in a nasty quirk:
That if you don't want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.


If You Forget Me
If You Forget Me
I want you to know one thing.
You know how this is: if
I look at the crystal moon,
At the red branch of the
Slow autumn at my window,
If I touch near the fire
The impalpable ash or the
Wrinkled body of the log,
Everything carries me to you,
As if everything that exists:
Aromas, light, metals,
Were little boats that sail
Toward those isles of yours
That wait for me.
Well, now, if little by little
You stop loving me I shall
Stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly you forget me do not look for me,
For I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
The wind of banners that passes
Through my life, and you decide
To leave me at the shore of the heart
Where I have roots,
Remember that on that day, at that hour,
I shall lift my arms and my roots will
Set off to seek another land.
But if each day, each hour,
You feel that you are destined for me
With implacable sweetness,
If each day a flower climbs up
To your lips to seek me, ah my love,
Ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated,
In me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
My love feeds on your love, beloved,
And as long as you live it will be
In your arms without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in neverending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazedand gazedbut little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

Love not me

Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part:
No, nor for a constant heart!
For these may fail or turn to ill:
Should thou and I sever.
Keep, therefore, a true woman's eye,
And love me still, but know not why!
So hast thou the same reason still
To dote upon me ever.

John Wilbye

Love- What Is Love
To friends at home, the lone, the admired, the lost
The gracious old, the lovely young, to May
The fair, December the beloved,
These from my blue horizon and green isles,
These from this pinnacle of distances I,
The unforgetful, dedicate.
Robert Louis Stevenson

About Coffee and the one you love.

Glenn Frey - The One You Love

This video is pretty funny, not because it was meant to be , but because it was made in 1982!! But the song is awesome its by Glenn Frey from The Eagles, actually I would recommend you to just listen to the song and not pay too much attention to the video, especially if you’re listening to it for the first time ….I think one of my friends from undergrad had a compilation with this song in it ..
Check out the lyrics

Artist: Glenn Frey

Song: The One You Love

I know you need a friend, someone you can talk to
Who will understand what you're going through
When it comes to love, there's no easy answer
Only you can say what you're gonna do
I heard you on the phone, you took his number
Said you weren't alone, but you'd call him soon
Isn't he the guy, the guy who left you cryin'?
Isn't he the one who made you blue?
When you remember those nights in his arms
You know you gotta make up your mind

Are you gonna stay with the one who loves you
Or are you goin' back to the one you love?
Someone's gonna cry when they know they've lost you
Someone's gonna thank the stars above

What you gonna say when he comes over?
There's no easy way to see this through
All the broken dreams, all the disappointment
Oh girl, what you gonna do?
Your heart keeps sayin' it's just not fair
But still you gotta make up your mind

Are you gonna stay with the one who loves you
Or are you goin' back to the one you love?
Someone's gonna cry when they know they've lost you
Someone's gonna thank the stars above

What made me look it up ???
This other good ol’ song covered by Glenn Frey, played on Launch and served as inspiration …

Artist: Glenn Frey

Song: Wild Mountain Thyme


O the summer time has come
And the trees are sweetly bloomin'
And the wild mountain thyme
Grows around the bloomin' heather
Will ye go lassie go?

And we'll all go together
To pull wild mountain thyme
All around the bloomin' heather
Will ye go lassie go?


I will build my love a bower
By a cool crystal fountain
And around it I will pile
All the wild flowers from the mountain
Will ye go lassie go?

And we'll all go together
To pull wild mountain thyme
All around the bloomin' heather
Will ye go lassie go?


If my true love should not come
Then I'll surely find another
To pull wild mountain mountain thyme
All around the bloomin' heather
Will ye go lassie go

And we'll all go together
To pull wild mountain thyme
All around the bloomin' heather
Will ye go lassie go?

And we'll all go together
To pull wild mountain thyme
All around the bloomin' heather
Will ye go lassie go?

Something to think about –

The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.
From the movie -You've got mail

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.

~Marlene Dietrich

You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

-From the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's

One more...

Our man Sharath is at it again , this time at Greg Mankiws blog…. I admit I’m not the best economist in town , but I do read this blog once in a while , and linked to the depth/breadth entry yesterday, anyway Dr. Mankiw , posts a letter Sharath sent him , Sharath mentions how Dr. Mankiw and people who write comments influenced his thoughts about economics and the United States.

If you’re interested in Indian Economics , the links in the comments section may be of interest….

Milan Kundera

Thanks to a post in Marginal Revolution I looked up Milan Kundera , thinking he was Indian , well turns out he’s Czech ,but nonetheless I really like the few quotes attributed to him that I looked up. His books are definitely going to become a part of my “ must read" list . In fact got 'inspired' to compile the previous post based on extracts from/reviews of Kundera's books

Identity (1998)
• I can't shake off the idea that after death you keep being alive. That to be dead is to live an endless nightmare. (8)
• ...this is the real and the only reason for friendship: to provide a mirror so the other person can contemplate his image from the past, which, without the eternal blah-blah of memories between pals, would long ago have disappeared. (10)
• It is always that way: between the moment he meets her again and the moment he recognizes her for the woman he loves, he has some distance to go. (36)
• How could she feel nostalgia when he was right in front of her? How can you suffer from the absence of a person who is present? (40)
• ...you can suffer nostalgia in the presence of the beloved if you glimpse a future where the beloved is no more... (40)
• ...the eye... the point where a person's identity is concentrated... (63)
• You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange. (78)
• Today we're all alike, all of us bound together by our shared apathy toward work. That very apathy has become a passion. The one great collective passion of our time. (82)
• Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's very beautiful. But what would they nourish their intimate talk with? However contemptible the world may be, they still need it to be able to talk together. (82)
• ...no love can survive muteness. (82)
• ...pain doesn't listen to reason, it has it's own reason, which is not reasonable. (129)
• ...he felt as if she no longer existed for him, had gone off somewhere, into some other life where, if he should meet her, he would no longer recognize her. (137)
• As you live out your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom. (146)
• Since the insignificance of all things is our lot, we should not bear it as an afflication but learn to enjoy it. (146)
• [Chantal looking down at Jean-Marc as he sleeps...]
She said: "I get scared when my eye blinks. Scared that during that second when my gaze is switched off, a snake or a rat or another man could slip into your place." (168)

The Joke (1967)
• No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)• .
• In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia...
• To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.
• A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.
• ...when we ignore the body, we are more easily victimized by it.
• But is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about?
• Chance and chance alone has a message for us... Only chance can speak to us.
• ...it was the call of all those fortuities... which gave her the courage to leave home and change her fate.
• ...it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.
• Dreaming is not merely an act of communication; it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself.
• The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful.

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring — it was peace.

• A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality.
o New York Review of Books (19 July 1984)

• The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually being forgotten by man and thus the novelists' discoveries, however old they may be, will never cease to astonish.
o As quoted in The Guardian (3 June 1988)

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.


We must never allow the future to be weighed down by memory. For children have no past, and that is the whole secret of the magical innocence of their smiles.


The stupidity of people comes from having an answer to everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything... it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than to ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties.


Happiness is the longing for repetition.


The serial number of a human specimen is the face, that accidental and unrepeatable combination of features. It reflects neither character nor soul, nor what we call the self. The face is only the serial number of a specimen.

We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always a sketch. No sketch is not quite the right word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch of nothing, an outline with no picture.

“It is wrong, then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences … but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.”

Inexperience is a quality of the human condition. We are born one time only; we can never start a new life equipped with the experience we've gained from a previous one. We leave childhood without knowing what youth is; we marry without knowing what it is to be married; and even when we enter old age, we don't know what it is we're heading for: The old are innocent children of their old age. In that sense, man's world is the planet of inexperience.

Eternal Return

From Wikipedia ....where else????

Eternal return (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a concept which posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to do so, in the same form an infinite number of times. The concept has roots in ancient Egypt, and was subsequently taken up by the Pythagoreans and Stoics. It figured prominently in the philosophies of Heraclitus of Ephesus and of Anaximander. With the decline of antiquity and the spread of Christianity, the concept fell into disuse.

It is a purely physical concept, involving no "reincarnation," but the return of beings in the same bodies. Time is viewed as being not linear but cyclical.
The basic premise is that the universe is limited in extent and contains a finite amount of matter, while time is viewed as being infinite. The universe has no starting or ending state, while the matter comprising it is constantly changing its state. The number of possible changes is finite, and so sooner or later the same state will recur.

And in this sense, I say, the world was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive, though my grave be England, my dying place was Paradise, and Eve miscarried of me before she conceived of Cain. (Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici of 1643:
Part 1:59)

History repeats itself ???


I think so , no matter what we keep drawing the same situations to ourselves, I’ve seen it happen with friends , I’ve seen it happen with myself …it’s like life is one cycle of the same event, maybe different characters ,different places, different times but same event nonetheless. I’d say Rattssss!!!…. How can I not get away from the past…maybe it involves some major reconfiguring of the brain… but even that doesn’t seem to work… maybe our lives are karmically designed to suck…

I don’t know but I cant think of any other reasonable explanation right now … ponder over Nietzsche in the meanwhile

The Greatest Burden.
What if a demon crept after thee into thy loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to thee: "This life, as thou livest it at present, and hast lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence-and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!"- Wouldst thou not throw thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so spake? Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou wouldst answer him: "Thou art a God, and never did I hear anything so divine! "If that thought acquired power over thee as thou art, it would transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything: "Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity! Or, how wouldst thou have to become favorably inclined to thyself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?

Looking up reviews and summaries on the internet , it seems that the intent of the passage is that one must live one's best life, do only things which one wouldn’t mind repeating over and over again, a very effective decision method I’d say… but what if you’re bad at making decisions ???

The English Divide

Posted by Barkha Dutt

Managing Editor, NDTV 24x7

Saturday, June 24, 2006:

One of the most awkward - and yet, strangely compelling - things about journalism is that sometimes your work makes you hold a mirror to your own life.

This past week, a quiet, but determined 16-year-old became an unexpected reflection of my education.

I have always believed that my school and college years were the first architects of my personality; like every middle-class Indian, I take pride in where I studied and what I was taught. And yet, the gentle idealism of this young girl made me pause to wonder: Had my public-school education been shamefully elitist?

At first, the story seemed straightforward enough. Garima Godara, a CBSE topper, with an astonishing 97.6 per cent had taken the entrance exam for the Delhi Public School (Dwarka), the school closest to her village.

The daughter of a police constable who earned less than Rs 6,000 a month, the school's fees would have been a problem. But the family was undeterred; perhaps there would be a scholarship or a loan; surely the school would be keen to admit the girl who had topped the national capital's merit list.

Garima's proud father had spent months battling the entrenched patriarchy of his peers, fending off nosy neighbours who gossiped about why she didn't spend enough time in the kitchen. Now, he was even more determined to give his daughter the best education her marks could buy.

This could have been the story of New India and its emerging, self-made middle class; a proud milestone for a country that dares to dream.

Instead, here's what happened: DPS turned her down. Her results were good, it conceded. But marks aren't everything, said the school principal to NDTV, and besides, her English was poor, and just didn't cut the grade.

Later, listening to Garima in the studio, it was hard not to feel both angry and moved. Angry because of the obvious injustice: not only was she as bright as her results indicated; there was nothing about her spoken English that suggested that she would have been unable to keep pace with the syllabus.

Yes, she spoke with a regional accent that some would consider insufficiently sophisticated. But there was no doubt that she could not only follow a complex argument, she could also make herself understood to any English speaker.

But it was her calm that was almost heart breaking; a quiet courage that belied her teen years. It was almost as if we were more outraged and indignant than she was. During the course of the programme, a principal from a well-known school in Dehradun called in, offering her admission and a scholarship; others promised to get DPS to change its mind.

But betraying only the slightest sense of hurt, she said firmly that her aim now was to show DPS that she would do better than any of its students. She had already got herself admitted to another school, and DPS could quite simply, take a walk.

As she spoke, viewers clearly shared my anger. The online poll showed that 90 per cent of viewers believed that the English language exerted a disproportionate influence over the education system.

Yet, were we all being hypocritical and dishonest? This time it was DPS under the microscope, but were any of us any different?

Let's say she continued to do outstandingly well in school. The next stage would be college. I pictured her trying to take the entrance interview at my old college, Delhi's St Stephen's. Would she get in? And even if she made the cut, how would other students react to her presence? Would they admire her for her academic brilliance? Or would they snigger at her accent, titter each time she made a grammatical error and then, melt away, leaving her alone to find her own friends?

Garima's story is a metaphor for India's twisted tryst with the future. I learnt after the programme was over - and it is significant that neither she nor her parents brought this up themselves - that she is an OBC.

For some months now, as the debate over reservation has raged, opponents of the quotas have made the same point again and again: we should be a society where merit matters. It's a compelling argument, and one that I have personally supported.

But what do the anti-quota street fighters have to say now? Here's a girl who competed in the mainstream, her own Hindi medium DAV pitched against the trendier, richer, big names. But her merit was swallowed up by prejudice.

Is it any wonder then that supporters of reservation believe that the system is stacked against them, and that merit is a con-word used by upper-caste tricksters?

Her story is also a scathing comment on the class divide in India. It is fashionable for marketeers and economists to talk about the burgeoning middle class. Each day a new figure is conjured up to demonstrate the size of the Indian market, and the clout of the new middle class; is it 250 million this week or has it already reached 300 million?

We embrace these statistics, because we like the idea of India as this century's favourite financial destination. We feel flattered when Time magazine puts our country on its cover, and we talk glibly, especially to foreigners, of social mobility and how the gap between the rich and poor is closing; we argue that India's tomorrow is being built by its industrious and enterprising middle class, and we feel like the future is unfolding, right here and right now.

But here's what we never admit. We're just the worst sorts of snobs.

The social mobility of the last decade has meant that the new middle class does not consist of people like us. Instead, it is made up of people like Garima, who we still find excuses to exclude; we sneer at their lack of Westernized sophistication; make fun of their accents, and we try and ensure that our children have nothing to do with theirs.

Finally, Garima's story exposes India's paradoxical relationship with the English-language. Nobody in the world speaks English like us. We have our own idioms, our own words and our own accents.

We pretend to love our own English and brag about how it is India's great selling point; the reason we dominate the global outsourcing business. But of course deep down we know that our English is not the English that the West really wants. And so, each time we talk to Britons or Americans, we subtly alter our diction and inflection.

When we set up our call centers, we drop the subtlety entirely and start accent classes to teach our young people to abandon the speech patterns of our own society and to migrate to a virtual, linguistic middle America, where they become impersonators of people they will never meet and never know.

But within India, we still treat our own English as the great social decider. We laugh at regional accents, smirk at those who make grammatical errors and feel most at home with those who talk like us.

Everyone else belongs on the other side of the English divide. And as it turns out, the other side of the class and caste divide as well.

Maybe we cling so tightly to this tiny community because secretly we are just insecure. Outside of our little bubble, India is changing. Every major institution in recent times - Parliament, the bureaucracy, the military, our colleges and schools - is being forced to re-write the rules.

A new breed of Indians who no longer look towards the West for self-affirmation, is making its presence felt. We like to call this a decline in quality. But actually, it's the rest of India waiting to get in.

How long are we going to keep the gates shut?

“The Trade off between Breadth and Depth”.

A good link I got from Sharath’s blog, I’ve been pondering about the same as well, not that I claim to have much breadth of knowledge and I certainly do not have depth.
Anyway here it is from Greg Mankiw’s blog “The Trade off between Breadth and Depth”. The comments are interesting as well.

The Human Ancestry Project

I so wanted to do this , thanks to a friend for telling me about the project in the first place , thanks to Sinduri for dissuading me by telling that there was a lot I could do with the 100+ dollars I’d have to spend. I was curious to find out about my ancestry, it would be my gift to my father, actually I thought I would probably actually pay for him to send his sample across, he’s really into tracing roots and building family trees and following ancient outdated rituals.

Anyway, wanted to see what the results were for desis who had tried, well it seems there weren’t any astounding finds, we all come from the same gene pool , no major differences it seems ( I hope you don’t call me prejudiced, but I’d be equally interested if I had ancestors from ancient Egypt or China or Australia or any such exciting place)….. I’d heard theories of us having Greek ancestors, based on my mother tongue

Tulu itself is known for a heavy Greek influence

I found this on a webpage on Coorg ,it's been defunct for a while , see the note on seafarers here and a reference to a script here, "the ancient form of Kannada " mentioned is actually Tulu, and the drama is a tulu-greek one ,

A Greek drama of the age records Tulu words spoken by local characters from Coastal Karnataka.

from here.

I could not find anymore links on the internet ,have to search. We even had a newspaper cut out of the news article that my father took when the story came out ,I wanted to see if there indeed was a connection, though if it was a case of invasion it would certainly not be anything to be happy about, the idea of your ancestors being oppressed by your other ancestors , also another fact- my dad doesn’t particularly like Greece, this comes from his personal experience , so I doubt he shares my “enthusiasm” to trace our roots back there, I'm not particularly fixated on Greece,i've just included links so you know what I'm talking about..but it's interesting to find out about your earliest ancestors isn't it? Especially when right now we can trace back only a few generations. I want to find out about my native ancestors ; and also the link back to the African who started it all.

I doubt this test will trace obscure parts of our ancestry, I’m sure Indians have obscure ancestors , what with invasions and coming from coastal areas , etc ,etc.

I think the way this study works is to link to the closest match that they think makes sense , so if your tribe was founded by Red Indians who caught a boat to India, they may not realize it , and may link you to a group who are genetically similar to Red Indians, who would be nearer to your geographical location and thus have a greater chance of contributing to your Gene pool ( in the case of native Americans just guessing Russians or Chinese)…so for us Indians who might have obscure ancestors (whom the annals of history and time have forgotten) , we might not yet find out who they are …
I really wanted to contribute to Science though , maybe will do so when I get a job….

Identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

I’ve done something similar before, but I’ll repeat myself so that it gets done in my list of 43 things…. this was tough..but I decided to do it in one shot…

1. a cheery email, phone call or sms from my family and/or friends
2. weekends
3. working on something I love
4. thoughtful people
5. shopping
6. reading a good book
7. old photographs
8. knowing that some people love me unconditionally, it's ok that most of them are my family
9. old songs
10. loving people who are worth it
11. old friends
12. reading up on things I’m interested in
13. going through old entries in my blog
14. hear my favorite song playing
15. reading old cards and letters
16. going through my old storybooks
17. the flight back home
18. positive people
19. genuine people
20. making my parents proud
21. hugs & kisses
22. dancing
23. “dressing” up
24. hearing good news about friends
25. walking
26. rainy days
27. people remembering my birthday
28. The Garden Collection Fragrances by Victoria’s Secret
29. Bookstores and libraries …
30. The Eagles …I can’t tell you why….again!!
31. finding inspiring quotes…
32. the fact that I’ve been teaching for 4 years now
33. sweet imaginings
34. peaches and plums
35. a good movie
36. just the “right amount of friendly” staff in restaurants and other places
37. memories
38. getting back in touch with old friends .
39. living life on the edge LOL!! Yea right
40. having no regrets
41. my friends
42. reading through greeting cards in the store
43. the cosmetics section
44. people who make me laugh
45. ready smiles
46. poster sales
47. posters
48. Snoopy/Charlie Brown/The peanuts
49. Ziggy
50. interesting small stores
51. clear skies ,where you can see the stars at night
52. things that money can’t buy
53. sometimes visiting some remote part of India where forests and hills still exist
54. English text books from school
55. reading Ruskin Bond
56. Indian story books I used to read when I was younger
57. even if I don’t read them now , knowing that my enchanted wood , wishing chair, chimney corner stories etc etc are still there with me
58. the smell of fresh laundry
59. mom made food
60. ...a warm smile from a stranger
61. people calling me sweety!!!
62. long drives, windows open and not too bumpy a road, then I just get sick!!!
63. a tax return
64. going through old slam books and autograph books, from school and college
65. a secluded beach
66. ... random acts of kindness
67. listening to a song, and thinking that the lyrics were meant for me
68. Chaat
69. strawberry milkshakes
70. Christmas/new year greeting cards
71. displaying my received greeting cards for the year as wall decoration or just putting them on top of a table at home
72. diversity
73. earrings
74. skirts
75. Elmo
76. Dancing for the sake of it.
77. summer days, summer nights
78. five star hotels
79. pictures of European castles
80. photographs of nature at its best
81. cherishing the simple pleasures in life
82. the TV show FRIENDS
83. soft toys that some one I loved bought for me , or ones that I bought for myself
84. Traveling
85. chicken soup for the soul books
86. Serendipity
87. Roller coasters
88. unexpected treats/gifts
89. having conversations/rendezvous’ that you don’t want to end
90. meeting kindred spirits
91. people calling me using a nick name/pet name something other than my given name, lately people have been calling me tashasays : ) !!!
92. people just dropping in to say hi
93. completing long lists
94. people who are just soooo ‘lovable”
95. knowing that people care
96. an unextected windfall, or magically finding an unexpected 20$ tucked in my purse or piggy bank
97. payday
98. gmail ,gtalk, firefox, you tube….
99. puppies , baby kittens…
100. reading letters in my friends handwriting , parents handwriting

Inspirational

From the Internet -

A Kind Word
What is the value of a kind word?
In January of 1986 I was flipping through the channels on TV and saw the closing credits for a PBS show called "Funny Business," a show about cartooning. I had always wanted to be a cartoonist but never knew how to go about it. I wrote to the host of the show, cartoonist Jack Cassady, and asked his advice on entering the profession.
A few weeks later I got an encouraging handwritten letter from Jack, answering all of my specific questions about materials and process. He went on to warn me about the likelihood of being rejected at first, advising me not to get discouraged if that happened. He said the cartoon samples I sent him were good and worthy of publication.
I got very excited, finally understanding how the whole process worked. I submitted my best cartoons to Playboy and New Yorker. The magazines quickly rejected me with cold little photocopied form letter. Discouraged, I put my art supplies in the closet and decided to forget about cartooning.
In June of 1987 -- out of the blue -- I got a second letter from Jack Cassady. This was surprising, since I hadn't even thanked him for the original advice. Here's what his letter said:

Dear Scott
I was reviewing my "Funny Business..." mail file when I again ran across your letter and copies of your cartoons. I remember answering your letter.
The reason I'm dropping you this note is to again encourage you to submit your ideas to various publications. I hope you have already done so and are on the road to making a few bucks and having some fun too.
Sometimes encouragement in the funny business of graphic humor is hard to come by. That's why I am encouraging you to hand in there and keep drawing.
I wish you lots of luck, sales and good drawing.
Sincerely
Jack

I was profoundly touched by his letter, largely I think because Jack had nothing to gain -- including my thanks, if history was any indication. I acted on his encouragement, dragged my art supplies out of storage and inked the sample strips that eventually became Dilbert. Now, seven hundred newspapers and six books later, things are going pretty well in Dilbertville.
I feel certain that I wouldn't have tried cartooning again if Jack hadn't sent the second letter. With a kind word and a postage stamp, he started a chain of events than reaches all the way to you right now. As Dilbert became more successful I came to appreciate the enormity of Jack's simple act of kindness. I did eventually thank him, but I could never shake the feeling that I had been given a gift which defied reciprocation. Somehow, "thanks" didn't seem to be enough.
Over time I have come to understand that some gifts are meant to be passed on, not repaid.
I expect at least a million people to read this newsletter. Each of you knows somebody who would benefit from a kind word. I'm encouraging you to act on it before the end of the year. For the biggest impact, do it in writing. And do it for somebody who knows you have nothing to gain.
It's important to give encouragement to family and friends, but their happiness and yours are inseparable. For the maximum velocity, I'm suggesting that you give your encouragement to someone who can't return the favor -- it's a distinction that won't be lost on the recipient.
And remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.

Have a great holiday. Thanks to all of you for giving me a spectacular year.


-Scott Adams scottadams@aol.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You are what your deep, driving desire is.
As your deep, driving desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny.
-Brihadaranyaka Upanishad IV.4.5
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Knowing God's own time is best,
In a patient hope I rest…..
-John Greenleaf Whittier

Love Stories

Story’s like these seriously mess you up for life…as an example look at me!!!! Anyway Happy Reading!!!

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
Kim Champion
Many years ago, my uncle owned a restaurant at a small airport in Illinois. My mother was the assistant manager and I was the hostess. One afternoon, my mother and I went to a diner for lunch. Our waitress, Debbie, was so sweet that we took an immediate liking to her, and my mother offered her a job at my uncle’s restaurant on the spot. Debbie accepted.
We invited her to our home for dinner that evening and during our conversations with her, we learned that she had never married and that she had no boyfriend. She told us that five years before while on a flight back east, she met "her pilot" and that it was love at first sight.
She was very nervous as she was boarding the plane and the pilot was standing in the doorway greeting passengers. He must have noticed how afraid of flying she seemed, and he struck up a conversation with her. They spoke less than ten minutes, and he assured her he would fly her safely to her destination. She told us it was "love at first sight," and we told her there was no such thing. Although she never saw her pilot again, she never forgot the feeling she had in her heart when their eyes met.
Mother and I had a plan. Since she was so in love with her pilot, we decided to fix her up with one of the many single pilots that came into the restaurant to eat in between flights. We approached John, one of the pilots, and told him about Debbie. He agreed to meet her for a dinner date on one of his nights off.
We sat him at a nice table with candlelight and fresh flowers. When Debbie arrived, we walked her to the table to introduce her to her date. As we approached, Debbie stopped dead in her tracks, tears welled up in her eyes, her hand went to her heart, and though I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, she said, "My pilot, it’s my pilot!" He stood dumb struck and embraced her.
We later learned that he, too, had fallen in love with "his passenger" five years ago on that flight back east.
The last we heard from Debbie was in a letter from Guam. When people tell me there is no such thing as love at first sight, I tell them this story and show them the photo Debbie enclosed with her letter, a photo of her family, her husband, John, in his pilot’s uniform and their two beautiful daughters.

My favorite chapter from my favourite book, by my favorite author, when I was 15, you can probably make out when you read it!! I also haven’t advanced much as reader...

"Chapter XVIII." by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942)
From: The Story Girl. by L. M. Montgomery. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1911.

CHAPTER XVIII
HOW KISSING WAS DISCOVERED
AN August evening, calm, golden, dewless, can be very lovely. At sunset, Felicity, Cecily, and Sara Ray, Dan, Felix, and I were in the orchard, sitting on the cool grasses at the base of the Pulpit Stone. In the west was a field of crocus sky over which pale cloud blossoms were scattered.
Uncle Roger had gone to the station to meet the travellers, and the dining-room table was spread with a feast of fat things.
"It's been a jolly week, take it all round," said Felix, "but I'm glad the grown-ups are coming back to-night, especially Uncle Alec."
"I wonder if they'll bring us anything," said Dan.
"I'm thinking long to hear all about the wedding," said Felicity, who was braiding timothy stalks into a collar for Pat.
"You girls are always thinking about weddings and getting married," said Dan contemptuously.
"We ain't," said Felicity indignantly. "I am never going to get married. I think it is just horrid, so there!"
"I guess you think it would be a good deal horrider not to be," said Dan.
"It depends on who you're married to," said Cecily gravely, seeing that Felicity disdained reply. "If you got a man like father it would be all right. But s'posen you got one like Andrew Ward? He's so mean and cross to his wife that she tells him every day she wishes she'd never set eyes on him."
"Perhaps that's why he's mean and cross," said Felix.
"I tell you it isn't always the man's fault," said Dan darkly. "When I get married I'll be good to my wife, but I mean to be boss. When I open my mouth my word will be law."
"If your word is as big as your mouth I guess it will be," said Felicity cruelly.
"I pity the man who gets you, Felicity King, that's all" retorted Dan.
"Now, don't fight," implored Cecily.
"Who's fighting?" demanded Dan. "Felicity thinks she can say anything she likes to me, but I'll show her different."
Probably, in spite of Cecily's efforts, a bitter spat would have resulted between Dan and Felicity, had not a diversion been effected at that moment by the Story Girl, who came slowly down Uncle Stephen's Walk.
"Just look how the Story Girl has got herself up!" said Felicity. "Why, she's no more than decent!"
The Story Girl was barefooted and barearmed, having rolled the sleeves of her pink gingham up to her shoulders. Around her waist was twisted a girdle of the blood-red roses that bloomed in Aunt Olivia's garden; on her sleek curls she wore a chaplet of them; and her hands were full of them.
She paused under the outmost tree, in a golden-green gloom, and laughed at us over a big branch. Her wild, subtle, nameless charm clothed her as with a garment. We always remembered the picture she made there; and in later days when we read Tennyson's poems at a college desk, we knew exactly how an oread, peering through the green leaves on some haunted knoll of many fountained Ida, must look.
"Felicity," said the Story Girl reproachfully, "what have you been doing to Peter? He's up there sulking in the granary, and he won't come down, and he says it's your fault. You must have hurt his feelings dreadfully."
"I don't know about his feelings," said Felicity, with an angry toss of her shining head, "but I guess I made his ears tingle all right. I boxed them both good and hard."
"Oh, Felicity! What for?"
"Well, he tried to kiss me, that's what for!" said Felicity, turning very red. "As if I would let a hired boy kiss me! I guess Master Peter won't try anything like that again in a hurry."
The Story Girl came out of her shadows and sat down beside us on the grass.
"Well, in that case," she said gravely, "I think you did right to slap his ears–not because he is a hired boy, but because it would be impertinent in any boy. But talking of kissing makes me think of a story I found in Aunt Olivia's scrapbook the other day. Wouldn't you like to hear it? It is called, 'How Kissing Was Discovered.' "
"Wasn't kissing always discovered?" asked Dan.
"Not according to this story. It was just discovered accidentally."
"Well, let's hear about it," said Felix, "although I think kissing's awful silly, and it wouldn't have mattered much if it hadn't ever been discovered."
The Story Girl scattered her roses around her on the grass, and clasped her slim hands over her knees. Gazing dreamily afar at the tinted sky between the apple trees, as if she were looking back to the merry days of the world's gay youth, she began, her voice giving to the words and fancies of the old tale the delicacy of hoar frost and the crystal sparkle of dew.
"It happened long, long ago in Greece–where so many other beautiful things happened. Before that, nobody had ever heard of kissing. And then it was just discovered in the twinkling of an eye. And a man wrote it down and the account has been preserved ever since.
"There was a young shepherd named Glaucon–a very handsome young shepherd–who lived in a little village called Thebes. It became a very great and famous city afterwards, but at this time it was only a little village, very quiet and simple. Too quiet for Glaucon's liking. He grew tired of it, and he thought he would like to go away from home and see something of the world. So he took his knapsack and his shepherd's crook, and wandered away until he came to Thessaly. That is the land of the gods' hill, you know. The name of the hill was Olympus. But it has nothing to do with this story. This happened on another mountain–Mount Pelion.
"Glaucon hired himself to a wealthy man who had a great many sheep. And every day Glaucon had to lead the sheep up to pasture on Mount Pelion, and watch them while they ate. There was nothing else to do, and he would have found the time very long, if he had not been able to play on a flute. So he played very often and very beautifully, as he sat under the trees and watched the wonderful blue sea afar off, and thought about Aglaia.
"Aglaia was his master's daughter. She was so sweet and beautiful that Glaucon fell in love with her the very moment he first saw her; and when he was not playing his flute on the mountain he was thinking about Aglaia, and dreaming that some day he might have flocks of his own, and a dear little cottage down in the valley where he and Aglaia might live.
"Aglaia had fallen in love with Glaucon just as he had with her. But she never let him suspect it for ever so long. He did not know how often she would steal up the mountain and hide behind the rocks near where the sheep pastured, to listen to Glaucon's beautiful music. It was very lovely music, because he was always thinking of Aglaia while he played, though he little dreamed how near him she often was.
"But after awhile Glaucon found out that Aglaia loved him, and everything was well. Nowadays I suppose a wealthy man like Aglaia's father wouldn't be willing to let his daughter marry a hired man; but this was in the Golden Age, you know, when nothing like that mattered at all.
"After that, almost every day Aglaia would go up the mountain and sit beside Glaucon, as he watched the flocks and played on his flute. But he did not play as much as he used to, because he liked better to talk with Aglaia. And in the evening they would lead the sheep home together.
"One day Aglaia went up the mountain by a new way, and she came to a little brook. Something was sparkling very brightly among its pebbles. Aglaia picked it up, and it was the most beautiful little stone that she had ever seen. It was only as large as a pea, but it glittered and flashed in the sunlight with every colour of the rainbow. Aglaia was so delighted with it that she resolved to take it as a present to Glaucon.
"But all at once she heard a stamping of hoofs behind her, and when she turned she almost died from fright. For there was the great god, Pan, and he was a very terrible object, looking quite as much like a goat as a man. The gods were not all beautiful, you know. And, beautiful or not, nobody ever wanted to meet them face to face.
"'Give that stone to me,' said Pan, holding out his hand.
"But Aglaia, though she was frightened, would not give him the stone.
"'I want it for Glaucon,' she said.
"'I want it for one of my wood nymphs,' said Pan, 'and I must have it.'
"He advanced threateningly, but Aglaia ran as hard as she could up the mountain. If she could only reach Glaucon he would protect her. Pan followed her, clattering and bellowing terribly, but in a few minutes she rushed into Glaucon's arms.
"The dreadful sight of Pan and the still more dreadful noise he made, so frightened the sheep that they fled in all directions. But Glaucon was not afraid at all, because Pan was the god of shepherds, and was bound to grant any prayer a good shepherd, who always did his duty, might make. If Glaucon had not been a good shepherd dear knows what would have happened to him and Aglaia. But he was; and when he begged Pan to go away and not frighten Aglaia any more, Pan had to go, grumbling a good deal–and Pan's grumblings had a very ugly sound. But still he went, and that was the main thing.
"'Now, dearest, what is all this trouble about?' asked Glaucon; and Aglaia told him the story.
"'But where is the beautiful stone?' he asked, when she had finished. 'Didst thou drop it in thy alarm?'
"No, indeed! Aglaia had done nothing of the sort. When she began to run, she had popped it into her mouth, and there it was still, quite safe. Now she poked it out between her red lips, where it glittered in the sunlight.
"'Take it,' she whispered.
"The question was–how was he to take it? Both of Aglaia's arms were held fast to her sides by Glaucon's arms; and if he loosened his clasp ever so little he was afraid she would fall, so weak and trembling was she from her dreadful fright. Then Glaucon had a brilliant idea. He would take the beautiful stone from Aglaia's lips with his own lips.
"He bent over until his lips touched hers–and then, he forgot all about the beautiful pebble and so did Aglaia. Kissing was discovered!
"What a yarn!" said Dan, drawing a long breath, when we had come to ourselves and discovered that we were really sitting in a dewy Prince Edward Island orchard instead of watching two lovers on a mountain in Thessaly in the Golden Age. "I don't believe a word of it."
"Of course, we know it wasn't really true," said Felicity.
"Well, I don't know," said the Story Girl thoughtfully. "I think there are two kinds of true things–true things that are, and true things that are not, but might be."
"I don't believe there's any but the one kind of trueness," said Felicity. "And anyway, this story couldn't be true. You know there was no such thing as a god Pan."
"How do you know what there might have been in the Golden Age?" asked the Story Girl.
Which was, indeed, an unanswerable question for Felicity.
"I wonder what became of the beautiful stone?" said Cecily.
"Likely Aglaia swallowed it," said Felix practically.
"Did Glaucon and Aglaia ever get married?" asked Sara Ray.
"The story doesn't say. It stops just there," said the Story Girl. "But of course they did. I will tell you what I think. I don't think Aglaia swallowed the stone. I think it just fell to the ground; and after awhile they found it, and it turned out to be of such value that Glaucon could buy all the flocks and herds in the valley, and the sweetest cottage; and he and Aglaia were married right away."
"But you only think that," said Sara Ray. "I'd like to be really sure that was what happened."
"Oh, bother, none of it happened," said Dan. "I believed it while the Story Girl was telling it, but I don't now. Isn't that wheels?"
Wheels it was. Two wagons were driving up the lane. We rushed to the house–and there were Uncle Alec and Aunt Janet and Aunt Olivia! The excitement was quite tremendous. Every body talked and laughed at once, and it was not until we were all seated around the supper table that conversation grew coherent. What laughter and questioning and telling of tales followed, what smiles and bright eyes and glad voices. And through it all, the blissful purrs of Paddy, who sat on the window sill behind the Story Girl, resounded through the din like Andrew McPherson's bass–"just a bur-r-r-r the hale time."
"Well, I'm thankful to be home again" said Aunt Janet, beaming on us. "We had a real nice time, and Edward's folks were as kind as could be. But give me home for a steady thing. How has everything gone? How did the children behave, Roger?"
"Like models," said Uncle Roger. "They were as good as gold most of the days."
There were times when one couldn't help liking Uncle Roger.