A dissent for mothers day.

Yester day was Mothers day. It was not celebrated with as much funfare as was done for Valentines day in India.But i was surprised to read a dissent voice in the net against it.

I hate the way the holiday makes all non-mothers, and the aughters of dead mothers, and the mothers of dead or severely damaged children, feel the deepest kind of grief and failure. The non-mothers must sit in their churches, temples, mosques, recovery rooms and pretend to feel good about the day while they are excluded from a holiday that benefits no one butHallmark and See's.

Short and Simple Annals

Lot of people dislike short stories. But I on the other hand loves to read short stories. For me Somerset Maugham's collection of short stories are the greatest. Who could forget The short story classics like Guy De Maupesant, O'Henry etc.In the Literary Blog The Elegant Variation a blogger defends short stories.

To me, the short story differs from the novel in the way that, say, a watercolor differs from an oil, or a concerto differs from a symphony. Each form is telling a story, but the medium chosen by the artist informs (thank you, Mcluhan) the message. Obviously, an author doesn't choose to write a short story instead of a novel because it's shorter. She writes it because the shorter form suggests something different about the objectives of the narrative than does the longer form. For me, the short story generally conveys an existential situation, rather than a fully-fledged narrative plot. Of course things happen within the pages of a compelling short story, sometimes startling things, reversals of character,of fortune.

Fiction for Class XII

I saw a beautiful reference to the merits of reading fiction in web.

Aristotle claimed that poetry—he meant the epics of Homer and the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, which we would now call fiction—is a more serious business than history. History, he argued, tells us only what has happened, whereas fiction tells us what can happen, which can stretch our moral imaginations and give us insights into ourselves and other people.

Reading fiction always facinated me right from my child hood.Unfornutely this habit wanes in the present generation.In our present curriculam of studies class X and class XII students are not aware of the rich heritage of books the languages have. why not fiction was introduced to class X and class XII in both english and reginal language? Jayakanthan in tamil and some beautiful classic like Jane Austin be introduced to them. This will help them in future to cultivate reading habits for them. When they took a mindblogging and streneous carrer, this habit may help them relax a little at times of stress.

"a poem will travel in time and space, and last beyond the moment of its conception."

A beautiful discription

Somerset Maugham never disappointed me. i was and am an ardant fan of his short stories. I happened to read his collection of short stories again. A beautiful page from his short story.

"On each bank of the river were mangroves and nipah palm, and behind them the dense green of forests. In the distance stretched blue mountains, range upon range, as far as the eye could see.She had no sense of confinement nor gloom, but rather of openness and wide spaces where the exultant fancy could wander with delight.The green glittered in sunshine and the sky was blith and cheerful. the gracious land seemed to offer her a smiling welcome."

-- a passage from short story "The Force Of Circumstance" by Somerset Maugham.

Read the full story:

Massacare by Maoists

Web dunia has posted an interesting article in tamil about massacre of 76 jawans by Maoists. The article was well analysed. But the underlying sympathy to Maoists is unnecessary.Corruption,misrule and greed of politicians as well as multinational corporations are responsible for the current state of affairs.In the name of sympathising with the tribal people justifying the resurgence of Maoists is not acceptable. One can not replace an evil with another evil. IF and When Maoists took control of Delhi(Indian intelligence agency predicted it to happen by 2050) There won't be any MIDDLE CLASS.They will be destroyed and wiped out.Rich class would have flown away by that time.The development and intelligentsia is beyond the understanding of present crop of Maoists leaders.What happened in china when Mao Took over and Pol Pot regime in Cambodia are recent history . In the name of cultural revolution Red guards displaced Millions of people from their home resulting in chaos and economic disarray through out china.In Cambodia POLPOT nearly WIPED OUT millions of them with out a trace.

Arundhati Roy in her article on Maoist massacre completely sided with the cause of mock courts and annihilation. In a well written article she exposed the nexus P.Chidambaram had with the mining mafia and land graping in the name of development.I completely agree with her views but her solution to the problem is not agreeable to me. we must find a way democratically not by police goons or maoists massacre.

Modern Day Thought

While browsing the net i came across a lovly poem by Michael Dennis Browne.

Today I explained telepathy to you,
and telephone, and television,
on the way to day care,

and I said, sometimes when I'm at work
I'll think of you,
and if I could send you that thought with my mind,

you'd get it right then,
and maybe you'd smile, stopping a moment at whatever
you were doing, or maybe not

but just going on with it, making a mask out of paper plates
and orange and green cards
with markers and scissors and paste,

or screaming circles in the gym
either being a monster
or being chased by a gang of them, but still you'd get

the picture I was beaming
and you'd brighten inside and flash me something back,
which I'd get, where I was, and smile at.

That's telepathy, I said
pulling into the parking lot,
looking at you in the mirror.

Don't spoil his future

I saw a news item in today’s Hindu. A thirteen year old Pakistani boy mistakenly boarded Indian bound Samjautha` Express. The boy was actually fleeing from home in order to escape from his father’s wrath on his low marks obtained in recent examination.The boy was dully arrested at the border and handed over to the police. He faces a possible 5 years prison sentence. Is it right on our part to spoil a carrier of a child who has mistakenly drifted across the border? I wish our judicial authorities have enough sense to release the innocent boy and hand over to Pakistani authorities.

An Old Lady at the Crossing

When we are studying in school we have been repeatedly told to help the elders who are unable to cross the road by them during the busy flow of traffic. Even our moral science class had illustrations of aged old lady standing at the edge of road trying to make an attempt to cross but unable to do. In the next picture a school boy wearing uniform took her hand and navigates to the other side through never ending traffic at the zebra crossing.

But I had my astonishment when I saw a poem by Mary Dow Brine” Somebody’s mother”. The entire story that was illustrated as a cartoon in Moral science classroom was told in the poem by her. I came across the poem in the web site Almanac

And the woman's feet were aged and slow.
She stood at the crossing and waited long,
Alone, uncared for, amid the throng
Of human beings who passed her by
Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eye.


Read the full poem

The Kite Runner

I am skeptical of reading books by non-English speaking authors. Very few authors only impressed me. R.K.Narayan is a giant among them all. Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is an exceptionally good novel. It touched my heart beyond comparision. The setting up of God’s own country as a back drop for the novel, the intelligent mixing of native Malayali characters with their rich culture, the double crossing politicians and the final act of forbidden sex made the novel interesting read to the end.

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is another novel that mesmerized me. Though it got rave reviews I resisted reading it for a long time. Finally when no other book took my attention The Kite Runner invited me from The Eloor Library shelf and I took a risk. When I was in to the second chapter I was completely drawn into it. If any book fails to hold my attention with in first ten pages I would eventually abandon it. Set in Afghanistan the story depicts the country from their monarch days to Soviet invasion till and subsequent talibanisation through the eyes of protagonist. The brutalization of the society after the Taliban took over sends shock waves when you read it.


However towards the end the story revert back to ordinary melodramatic novel with predictable situations. The inner conflict the protagonist undergoes when he witnessed the crime done to his childhood friend and his subsequent inaction torments him through out his life. That conflict and his hunger for redemption alone set the novel apart till the end.

Very good read after a long time.

In ''The Kite Runner,'' Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence -- forces that continue to threaten them even today.—New York Times