Sunday, August 27, 2006

The world that is..

The whims and caprices of few men, are largely responsible for the difference between the world that is and the world that could have been or the world that should have been or the world that might have been, for many others.


So,there was Howard Huges,the aviator,who built Hercules the largest flying boat with the largest wingspan marrying a soon-to-be outdated technology — flying boats — to a massive airframe using some truly ingenious engineering innovations.

After lots requests to N number of friends to download the movie for me and after missing it N-1 times on the TV, I was finally able to catch the last part of the movie yesterday and I truly loved it.

Coming back to the theme of the post imagine what would have been of the most of the world if the Soviet had not invaded Afghanistan,Osama Bin Laden and much of the terrorism would not be there.There are ofcourse and will always be several other examples to support this theory. These days I prefer to call all of my vacuous thoughts as theories.

I am thrown back into a deluge of unrestrained thoughts everytime I think of the book Animal Farm and Geroge Orwell's profound words

"All animals(men) are equal,but some animals(men) are more equal"

Found the english translation of my favorite poem by Mirza ghalib "Hazaaron khwahishen aisi" on this wonderful website which is an anthology of some of the most beautiful poems ever written.

These words truly encircle and might for a long time to come define my state of mind.

HazaaroN KHwahishaiN ‘eisee ke har KHwahish pe dam nikle
bohot nikle mere armaaN lekin fir bhee kam nikle

Here's the translation..

A thousand desires such as these,that each takes a lifetime (an eternity)
I found many desires and yet they aren’t enough

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Violence

I am a firmly believe in the ideology that "Violence always begets violence". Anybody who has gone through the history of middle east clubed with jewish history will agree.


Here is an interesting article related current scenario of Israel -Lebanon conflict.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Still...

" At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life ..."


Well they say people like me are still sleeping.

But here's the good news there's a new bookstore in Vadodara,huge,almost three times as big as crossword which was the only one till date.Real feast I must say,got myself "War and Peace " by leo Tolstoy and "Made in America" by Sam Walton.


In case I forgot to mention I didn't die in floods.Because we make a tryst with destiny every new day.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

If only I knew

If you would be in my shoes you would understand that most exasperating and hillarious thing in the world is to have sudden sporadic mild strokes of alzheimer's disease.Imagine staring the computer screen,rather flat computer screen after opening blogger window because you have forgotten what you wanted to write.

I wanted to tell you about ghettos,my experience with them,of why I believe ghettoism is most detrimental thing to happen to versimilary united India.

I wanted to tell you about, "The arguementative Indian" and the veritable ingenuity in Amartya Sen's approach to focus on the argumentative tradition in India in his writings on Indian culture and history, away from the banal and trite religious approach.Infact I was really suprised to read about Caravaka,the atheist school of thought in ancient India.I was absolutely ecstatic after reading this line in the book,a quote by Raja Ram Mohan Roy.


"Imagine how terrible the day of your death would be,when people would go on speaking and you wouldn't be able to argue back"

And atlast about the magic Gregory David Roberts aka Shantaram can create with his literary prowess.
But I am in no mood right now,I have come to realise that just as success after hardwork can be the most beautiful thing in the world to happen to you,failure after the same can be the most bewildering thing in the world.