• CLANDESTINE CLASSICS
  
  There is a move afoot by a British publishing company to reinvent literary classics like Pride & Prejudice, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series, Jules Verne's science fiction novels, etc by sexing them up with erotic passages These rewritten classics will be called "Clandestine Classics" most appropriately. What Jane Eyre could subtly hint at in a sub-textual manner will now be openly flaunted. Thus, Elizabeth Bennet will find Darcy "hot and spicy" Dr Watson that great chamcha of Sherlock Holmes will be shown to have had the joy of knowing other men. Even Captain Nemo of 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea will have a passionate undersea romance. The publisher is of the opinion that the reader always waned to see the erotic undercurrent brought out in the open but this was denied to him because of the prevailing codes of Victorian prudishness.
  
  We should see this development in the context of the spate of books on Vampires and Dark Knights, the staid Mills & Boon shifting from romance to bolder stories, even historical figures like Abraham Lincoln being shown as a vampire slayer, etc. The tastes of the reading and viewing public have no doubt changed over the last century and a half and the marketeers know what the buyer wants. But in this process the tinkerers of classics are moving away from the values, traditions and cultural mores which define the best of human society. What is the use of making a classic more appealing and in the process losing the charisma of the original? Would this not be some sort of sacrilege?
  
  The argument in favour of revisionism could be that the present day generation is fast losing the reading habit and is addicted to movies, television, computer games, social networking, etc and to wean them from these and bring them back to the printed text you need some titillating stuff, not something which your grandmother might have enjoyed wearing long sleeved blouses with high collar, reading with a pincenez perched on her nose.
  
  If one looks at the genre of fiction published these days, the old classics dont have the chance of a snowflake in hell of getting the attention of the youngsters addicted to hardcore erotica and violent games. So, this gimmick may work to some extent in reviving interest in classics. But then the authors of these classics would have turned in their graves !!
  
  I had in an earlier post reproduced the classic fairy tale of Red Riding Hood as revised by Roald Dahl in his "Revolting Rhymes" Here is another example of his revolting rhyme- Cinderella Retold
  
  CINDERELLA
  ----------------
  
  I guess you think you know this story.
  You don't. The real one's much more gory.
  The phoney one, the one you know,
  Was cooked up years and years ago,
  And made to sound all soft and sappy
  just to keep the children happy.
  Mind you, they got the first bit right,
  The bit where, in the dead of night,
  The Ugly Sisters, jewels and all,
  Departed for the Palace Ball,
  While darling little Cinderella
  Was locked up in a slimy cellar,
  Where rats who wanted things to eat,
  Began to nibble at her feet.
  
  She bellowed 'Help!' and 'Let me out!
  The Magic Fairy heard her shout.
  Appearing in a blaze of light,
  She said: 'My dear, are you all right?'
  'All right?' cried Cindy .'Can't you see
  'I feel as rotten as can be!'
  She beat her fist against the wall,
  And shouted, 'Get me to the Ball!
  'There is a Disco at the Palace!
  'The rest have gone and 1 am jealous!
  'I want a dress! I want a coach!
  'And earrings and a diamond brooch!
  'And silver slippers, two of those!
  'And lovely nylon panty hose!
  'Done up like that I'll guarantee
  'The handsome Prince will fall for me!'
  The Fairy said, 'Hang on a tick.'
  She gave her wand a mighty flick
  And quickly, in no time at all,
  Cindy was at the Palace Ball!
  
  It made the Ugly Sisters wince
  To see her dancing with the Prince.
  She held him very tight and pressed
  herself against his manly chest.
  The Prince himself was turned to pulp,
  All he could do was gasp and gulp.
  Then midnight struck. She shouted,'Heck!
  Ive got to run to save my neck!'
  The Prince cried, 'No! Alas! Alack!'
  He grabbed her dress to hold her back.
  As Cindy shouted, 'Let me go!'
  The dress was ripped from head to toe.
  
  She ran out in her underwear,
  And lost one slipper on the stair.
  The Prince was on it like a dart,
  He pressed it to his pounding heart,
  'The girl this slipper fits,' he cried,
  'Tomorrow morn shall be my bride!
  I'll visit every house in town
  'Until I've tracked the maiden down!'
  Then rather carelessly, I fear,
  He placed it on a crate of beer.
  
  At once, one of the Ugly Sisters,
  (The one whose face was blotched with blisters)
  Sneaked up and grabbed the dainty shoe,
  And quickly flushed it down the loo.
  Then in its place she calmly put
  The slipper from her own left foot.
  Ah ha, you see, the plot grows thicker,
  And Cindy's luck starts looking sicker.
  
  Next day, the Prince went charging down
  To knock on all the doors in town.
  In every house, the tension grew.
  Who was the owner of the shoe?
  The shoe was long and very wide.
  (A normal foot got lost inside.)
  Also it smelled a wee bit icky.
  (The owner's feet were hot and sticky.)
  Thousands of eager people came
  To try it on, but all in vain.
  Now came the Ugly Sisters' go.
  One tried it on. The Prince screamed, 'No!'
  But she screamed, 'Yes! It fits! Whoopee!
  'So now you've got to marry me!'
  The Prince went white from ear to ear.
  He muttered, 'Let me out of here.'
  'Oh no you don't! You made a vow!
  'There's no way you can back out now!'
  'Off with her head!'The Prince roared back.
  They chopped it off with one big whack.
  This pleased the Prince. He smiled and said,
  'She's prettier without her head.'
  Then up came Sister Number Two,
  Who yelled, 'Now I will try the shoe!'
  'Try this instead!' the Prince yelled back.
  He swung his trusty sword and smack
  Her head went crashing to the ground.
  It bounced a bit and rolled around.
  In the kitchen, peeling spuds,
  Cinderella heard the thuds
  Of bouncing heads upon the floor,
  And poked her own head round the door.
  'What's all the racket? 'Cindy cried.
  'Mind your own bizz,' the Prince replied.
  Poor Cindy's heart was torn to shreds.
  My Prince! she thought. He chops off heads!
  How could I marry anyone
  Who does that sort of thing for fun?
  
  The Prince cried, 'Who's this dirty slut?
  'Off with her nut! Off with her nut!'
  Just then, all in a blaze of light,
  The Magic Fairy hove in sight,
  Her Magic Wand went swoosh and swish!
  'Cindy! 'she cried, 'come make a wish!
  'Wish anything and have no doubt
  'That I will make it come about!'
  Cindy answered, 'Oh kind Fairy,
  'This time I shall be more wary.
  'No more Princes, no more money.
  'I have had my taste of honey.
  I'm wishing for a decent man.
  'They're hard to find. D'you think you can?'
  Within a minute, Cinderella
  Was married to a lovely feller,
  A simple jam maker by trade,
  Who sold good home-made marmalade.
  Their house was filled with smiles and laughter
  And they were happy ever after.
  ------------------------------------------------------------
  
  Now, dont you think that is something children today would love?

REMEMBERING LINCOLN
-----------------------------------------

In the course of history, over the ages, we have seen many a great
leader stride the stage like a colossus, leaving their mark on the
sands of time. They have been known for stirring their people to cast
off the yokes  of superstition, ignorance, foreign rule, slavery and
many more evils which beset the world. Their speeches have an
electrifying effect  even centuries after they were first delivered ,
whether it be Mark Antony's "Friends, Romans and countrymen, lend me
your ears. The evil that men do liveth after them but the good is oft
interred with their bones "( funeral oration after Julius Caeser's
assassination) 

 or

 Churchill's war time speech "I have nothing to
offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

 or 

Jawaharlal Nehru's speechon the midnight of 14/15th August 1947, " Long years ago, we made a
tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our
pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the
stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A
moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from
the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation,
long suppressed, finds utterance" 

or

Nehru's emotional speech on the evening of 30th January 1948 on hearing about Gandhiji's assassination:
"Friends and Comrades, the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere. I do not know what to tell you and how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we call him, the Father of the Nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that. Nevertheless, we will not see him again as we have seen him for these many years. We will not run to him for advice and seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not to me only but to millions and millions of this country."                                   



 But by far the best remembered isthe memorial speech given by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysberg on 19th
November, 1963,in honour of the soldiers who laid down their lives in
the civil war. This is what he said :-

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,
or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are
met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting
and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we
can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add
or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say
here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the
living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us
to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from
these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which
they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of
the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth."

The person who delivered this address was not a Harvard educated sauve
president of impeccable erudition  like Roosevelt, Kennedy or Obama,
but a lean and lanky person  with sunken cheeks, scraggy beard  and
unkempt hair who had never stepped on the portals of a college and was
once a backwoods man cutting logs of wood with his axe, living  in a
cabin.

Childhood and early years

-----------------------------------

Abraham Lincoln was born to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks at

Hodgenville. Kentucky   on 12th February 1809. He was their second

child, the first being Sarah, his elder sister. Nancy could read and

write while Thomas was illiterate.   They built for themselves a log

cabin and tilled the soil where nothing grew before. It was here that

little Abraham spent seven years of his childhood. They then moaved to

Perry County, Indiana where his mother died of milk sickness at the

age of 34 when Abraham was only nine years old. Thomas married a widow

Sarah Bush Johnston who had three children by her first marriage. She

was a strong and affectionate woman with whom Abraham quickly bonded.

Though both his parents were  illiterate, Sarah encouraged Abraham to

read. It was while growing into manhood that he received his formal

education—an estimated total of 18 months—a few days or weeks at a

time. Reading material was in short supply in the Indiana wilderness.

Neighbors recalled how Abraham would walk for miles to borrow a book.

He undoubtedly read the family Bible and probably other popular books

at that time such as Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrims Progress and Aesop’s

Fables.

In March, 1830, the family again migrated, this time to Macon County,

Illinois. When his father moved the family again to Coles County,

22-year-old Abraham Lincoln struck out on this own, making a living in

manual labour.  At six feet four inches tall, Lincoln was rawboned and

lanky, but muscular and physically strong. He spoke with a backwoods

twang and walked with a long-striding gait. He was known for his skill

in wielding an axe and early on made a living splitting wood for fire

and rail fencing. Young Lincoln eventually migrated to the small

community of New Salem, Illinois where he lived till 1837 and  over a

period of years he worked as a shopkeeper, postmaster, and eventually

general store owner. He impressed the residents with his character,

wrestled the town bully, and was lovingly called "honest Abe" It was

here that Lincoln, working with the public, acquired social skills and

honed story-telling talent that made him popular with the locals.

Lincoln who was  6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 180 pounds was

drafted to fight  Black Hawk War  which broke out in 1832 between the

United States and Native Americans, the volunteers in the area elected

Lincoln to be their captain. He saw no combat during this time, save

for “a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes,” but was able

to make several important political connections.

After joining the Whig Party, Lincoln made an unsuccessful bid for the

Illinois legislature in 1832. He did not lose heart, and tried again

in 1834, 1836, 1838 and 1840 winning all the four times. He studied

law on his own in  his spare time and became a lawyer in 1836. he next

year Lincoln made a second flatboat trip to New Orleans. Afterwards he

moved to New Salem, Illinois, where he lived until 1837. While there

he worked at several jobs including operating a store, surveying, and

serving as postmaster. He impressed the residents with his character,

wrestled the town bully, and earned the nickname "Honest Abe."

Lincoln, who stood nearly 6-4 and weighed about 180 pounds, saw brief

service in the Black Hawk War, and he made an unsuccessful run for the

Illinois legislature in 1832. He ran again in 1834, 1836, 1838, and

1840, and he won all four times. Lincoln was a member of the Whig

Party; he remained a Whig until 1856 when he became a Republican.

Additionally, he studied law in his spare time  teaching himself by

reading Blackstone's commentaries on the laws of England.    He became

a lawyer in 1836.  Around this time, he is said to have met and became

romantically involved with a girl called Anne Rutledge. Before they

had a chance to be engaged, a wave of typhoid fever came over New

Salem and Anne died at age 22. Her death was said to have left Lincoln

severely depressed.

Marriage and political career

---------------------------------------------

In Springfield in 1839 Lincoln met Mary Todd  a high spirited, well

educated woman from a distinguished Kentucky family.  Three years

later they were married and over the next 11 years had four children:

Robert (1843-1926), Edward ("Eddie") 1846-1850, William ("Willie")

1850-1862, and Thomas ("Tad") 1853-1871. Lincoln became a successful

attorney, and the family bought a home at the corner of Eighth and

Jackson in 1844.

In 1844, Abraham Lincoln partnered with William Herndon in the

practice of law. Though the two had different jurisprudent styles,

they developed a close professional and personal relationship. Lincoln

made a good living in his early years as a lawyer, but found that

Springfield alone didn’t offer enough work, so to supplement his

income, he followed the court as it made its rounds on the circuit to

the various county seats in Illinois.

In 1846 Lincoln ran for the United States House of Representatives and

won. While in Washington he became known for his opposition to the

Mexican War and to slavery. He returned home after his term and

resumed his law practice more seriously than ever. Early in 1851

Lincoln's father died.

Lincoln served one term (1847-49) as a member of the U.S. House of

Representatives, where he opposed the Mexican War--Whigs did

everywhere--as unnecessary and unconstitutional. This opposition was

not a function of internationalist sympathy for Mexico (Lincoln

thought the war inevitable) but of feeling that the Democratic

president, James Polk, had violated the Constitution. Lincoln had been

indifferent about the annexation of Texas, already a slave territory,

but he opposed any expansion that would allow slavery into new areas;

hence, he supported the Wilmot Proviso, which would have barred

slavery from any territory gained as a result of the Mexican War.

 His foray into national politics seems to be as unremarkable as it

was brief. He was the lone Whig from the state of Illinois, showing

party loyalty, but finding few political allies. He supported Zachary

Taylor for president in 1848. His criticism of the war made him

unpopular back home and he decided not to run for second term, but

instead returned Springfield to practice law. He did not run for

Congress again, returning instead to Springfield and the law.

Lincoln "was losing interest in politics" when the Kansas-Nebraska Act

was passed by Congress in 1854. This legislation opened lands

previously closed to slavery to the possibility of its spread by local

option (popular sovereignty); Lincoln viewed the provisions of the act

as immoral. Although he was not an abolitionist and thought slavery

unassailably protected by the Constitution in states where it already

existed, Lincoln also thought that America's founders had put slavery

on the way to "ultimate extinction" by preventing its spread to new

territories. He saw this act, which had been sponsored by Democratic

Senator Stephen A. Douglas, as a new and alarming development.

Lincoln vied for the U.S. Senate in 1855 but eventually threw his

support to Lyman Trumbull. In 1856 he joined the newly formed

Republican Party, and two years later he campaigned for the Senate

against Douglas. The main reason for this was the Supreme Court

decision in 1857  in the case of Scott v. Sanford, declaring African

Americans were not citizens and had no inherent rights. Though Abraham

Lincoln felt African Americans were not equal to whites, he believed

the America’s founders intended that all men were created with certain

inalienable rights. Lincoln decided to challenge sitting U.S. Senator

Stephen Douglas for his seat. In his nomination acceptance speech In

his speech at Springfield in acceptance of the Republican senatorial

nomination (June 16, 1858) Lincoln suggested that Douglas, Chief

Justice Roger B. Taney, and Democratic presidents Franklin Pierce and

James Buchanan had conspired to nationalize slavery. In the same

speech he expressed the view that the nation would become either all

slave or all free: "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

The underdog in the senatorial campaign, Lincoln wished to share

Douglas's fame by appearing with him in debates. Douglas agreed to

seven debates: in Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg,

Quincy, and Alton, Ill. Lincoln knew that Douglas--now fighting the

Democratic Buchanan administration over the constitution to be adopted

by Kansas--had alienated his Southern support; and he feared Douglas's

new appeal to eastern Republicans now that Douglas was battling the

South. Lincoln's strategy, therefore, was to stress the gulf of

principle that separated Republican opposition to slavery as a moral

wrong from the moral indifference of the Democrats, embodied in

legislation allowing popular sovereignty to decide the fate of each

territory. Douglas, Lincoln insisted, did not care whether slavery was

"voted up or voted down." By his vigorous showing against the famous

Douglas, Lincoln won the debates and his first considerable national

fame catapulting him into national politics.  He did not win the

Senate seat, however; the Illinois legislature, dominated by

Democratic holdovers in the upper house, elected Douglas.

n 1860, political operatives in Illinois organized a campaign to

support Lincoln for the presidency. On May 18th at the Republican

National Convention in Chicago, Abraham Lincoln surpassed better known

candidates such as William Seward of New York and Salmon P. Chase of

Ohio. Lincoln’s nomination was due in part to his moderate views on

slavery, his support for improving the national infrastructure, and

the protective tariff. In the general election, Lincoln faced his

friend and rival, Stephan Douglas, this time besting him in a four-way

race that included John C. Breckinridge of the Northern Democrats and

John Bell of the Constitution Party.  Lincoln received not quite 40

percent of the popular vote, but carried 180 of 303 Electoral votes.

Abraham Lincoln selected a strong cabinet composed of many of his

political rivals, including William Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward

Bates and Edwin Stanton. Formed out the adage “Hold your friends close

and your enemies closer”, Lincoln’s Cabinet became one of his

strongest assets in his first term in office… and he would need them.

Before his inauguration in March, 1861, seven Southern states had

seceded from the Union and by April the U.S. military installation

Fort Sumter, was under siege in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. In

the early morning hours of April 12, 1861, the guns stationed to

protect the harbor blazed toward the fort signaling the start of

America’s costliest and most deadly conflict.

Civil War

-------------

By the time of Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861, seven states had

seceded from the Union.Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural

Address: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in

mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not

assail you.... You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the

government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve,

protect and defend it."

His conciliatory inaugural address had no effect on the South, and,

against the advice of a majority of his cabinet, Lincoln decided to

send provisions to Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. The fort was a

symbol of federal authority--conspicuous in the state that had led

secession, South Carolina--and it would soon have had to be evacuated

for lack of supplies. On Apr. 12, 1861, South Carolina fired on the

fort, and the Civil War began.

Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to

defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on

Fort Sumter and forced its surrender.. Four more slave states joined

the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had

begun.

Abraham Lincoln responded to the crisis wielding powers as no other

present before him. He distributed $2,000,000 from the Treasury for

war materiel without an appropriation from Congress; he called for

75,000 volunteers into military service without a declaration of war;

and he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, arresting and imprisoning

suspected Confederate sympathizers without a warrant. Crushing the

rebellion would be difficult under any circumstances, but the Civil

War, with its preceding decades of white-hot partisan politics, was

especially onerous. From all directions, Lincoln faced disparagement

and defiance. He was often at odds with his generals, his Cabinet, his

party, and a majority of the American people.

Democrats accused Lincoln of being a tyrant because he proscribed

civil liberties. For example, he suspended the writ of habeas corpus

in some areas as early as Apr. 27, 1861, and throughout the nation on

Sept. 24, 1862, and the administration made over 13,000 arbitrary

arrests. On the other hand, Lincoln tolerated virulent criticism from

the press and politicians, often restrained his commanders from

overzealous arrests, and showed no real tendencies toward becoming a

dictator. There was never a hint that Lincoln might postpone the

election of 1864, although he feared in August of that year that he

would surely lose to McClellan. Democrats exaggerated Lincoln's

suppression of civil liberties, in part because wartime prosperity

robbed them of economic issues and in part because Lincoln handled the

slavery issue so skillfully.

The Constitution protected slavery in peace, but in war, Lincoln came

to believe, the commander in chief could abolish slavery as a military

necessity. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of Sept. 22,

1862, bore this military justification, as did all of Lincoln's racial

measures, including especially his decision in the final proclamation

of Jan. 1, 1863, to accept blacks in the army. By 1864, Democrats and

Republicans differed clearly in their platforms on the race issue:

Lincoln's endorsed the 13th  Amendment to the Constitution abolishing

slavery, whereas McClellan's pledged to return to the South the rights

it had had in 1860.

The Union Army’s first year and a half of battlefield defeats made it

especially difficult to keep morale up and support strong for a

reunification the nation. With the hopeful, but by no means conclusive

Union victory at Antietam on September 22, 1862, Abraham felt

confident enough to reshape the cause of the war from “union” to

abolishing slavery. Gradually, the war effort improved for the North,

though more by attrition then by brilliant military victories. But by

1864, the Confederacy had hunkered down to a guerilla war and Lincoln

was convinced he’d be a one-term president. His nemesis, George B.

McClellan, the former commander of the Army of the Potomac, challenged

him for the presidency, but the contest wasn’t even close. Lincoln

received 55 percent of the popular vote and 212 of 243 Electoral

votes. On March 28, 1865, General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army

of Virginia, surrendered his forces to Union General Ulysses S. Grant

and the war for all intents and purposes was over.

Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded

an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was

flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms

and join speedily in reunion.

The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural

Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in

Washington, D. C.: "With malice toward none; with charity for all;

with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us

strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's

wounds.... "

Assassination

-----------------------

Lincoln's victory in that election thus changed the racial future of

the United States..Reconstruction began during the war as early as

1863 in areas firmly under Union military control. Abraham Lincoln

favoured a policy of quick reunification with a minimum of

retribution. But he was confronted by a radical group of Republicans

in the Senate and House that wanted complete allegiance and repentance

from former Confederates. Before a political battle had a chance to

firmly develop, Lincoln was assassinated on Good Friday  April 14,

1865, by well-known actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes

Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Lincoln was taken from the

theater to a Petersen House across the street and laid in a coma for

nine hours before dying the next morning. His body lay in state at the

Capitol before a funeral train took him back to his final resting

place in Springfield, Illinois.

A tearful nation paid homage and the poet Walt Whitman wrote his

beautiful poem 'O CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN'  which is a fitting elegy for

this great American patriot.

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

   But O heart! heart! heart!

     O the bleeding drops of red,

       Where on the deck my Captain lies,

         Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

   Here Captain! dear father!

     This arm beneath your head;

       It is some dream that on the deck,

         You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

   Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

     But I, with mournful tread,

       Walk the deck my Captain lies,

         Fallen cold and dead.

AURAT TERI YEHI KAHANI
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This is not fiction. It actually happened in a village near Bangalore a couple of days back. Gangamma aged 23 made a suicide pact with her mother Kote Lakkamma to commit suicide and also poison her three year old son Ranjan.

Gangamma's husband had deserted her as soon as the child was born to live with another woman. He has not been heard of since.  His parents taking pity on Gangamma gave her and her mother a house and helped her monetarily as a kind of expiation for their son's sin. Her mother took up a job as an attender at a college leaving her alone in the house with her child. Gangamma  developed a friendship with her neighbour Jayamma's  son Isha which led to love and intimacy resulting  in her getting pregnant. They kept their affair a secret  Her  relatives noticed the physical changes in her and on close questioning she had to disclose the truth. By then  the pregnancy had advanced too far to abort the child. Relatives and village elders asked her to convince Isha to marry  her. She contacted Isha several times pleading with him to marry her but he apparently was not prepared for it. . She called Isha nine times within the span of two hours on the night she committed suicide and each time he refused to  marry her. Disappointed and distraught, fearing ignominy and ostracism from society,  mother and daughter thought they had reached the end of the tether and there was no way out but to end their lives. They could not imagine life for the three year old orphan after their death and thought it best to end his life as well.The mother brought the pesticide from the college laboratory and they both carried out their ghastly plan after bolting the door. Their neighbours found them lying unconscious when they broke the door next morning and on rushing them to the  nearest hospital they were declared dead on arrival.  She left two suicide notes one for Isha saying  " Isha just forgive me and lead a happy life. I dont want to create troubles for you. You are not responsible for the current situation. I am responsible for everything. Dont worry, my death will not cause any problems for you. Sorry Isha, sorry, sorry, sorry, forgive me"  The other suicide note was for her relatives "No one is responsible for my death. I am responsible for  all the problems. I should not have done this. Forgive me".

What does this sordid tale tell us about our society and our double standards in respect of moral values when it comes to women? The husband deserts his young wife with a newborn child,  the friend and companion to whom she turned for solace ultimately succumbing to his vile designs disowns her lets her down badly even after repeated pleas to save the situation. Betrayed twice by two men one her lawfully wedded spouse and the other a friend companion turned lover. Reminds me of the poem by Oliver Goldsmith:

WHEN lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
 
The only art her guilt to cover,        
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover
And wring his bosom, is—to die.

But her ultimate sacrifice did not wring the bosom of her lover nor send pangs of guilt in her spouse. There was not a touch of complaint or accusation in her suicide note. She took the entire responsibility on herself.  I think her mother did a  mistake in taking up a job leaving her all alone in the house  instead of finding her daughter a  job and looking after the child. This would have made Gangamma worldly wise to some extent, if not street smart. She would have been better able to face the crisis. In the West girls in similar situation would have no second thoughts but to bring up the child born out of wedlock as a single  mother, no qualms about it nor does the society there look down upon such women. Probably our society would take another century to come anywhere near such liberalistic views. It would also need better education for  the girl child and the adolescents.  Till then, our women will continue to suffer in silence seeking nothing but the ultimate solution to put an end to their misery. We do nothing about it, taking the fatalistic view - aurat teri yehi kahani !

I Think, Therefore I Am

Famous words of Descartes written four hundred years ago.

Does it mean if u cease to think, u cease to be? Or u control your thoughts and u control yourself? Is thought your master or you his?

I heard a simple parable today from my Yoga teacher. A youth eager to seek self- r ealisation and and attain enlightenment, went to a revered Master entreating him to take him as a disciple and help achieve his desired goal. The Master asked him to take a round of the Monastery , talk to other disciples and comeback to him.

The youth went round the monastery and talked to some of the Master's disciples. He asked them how long they had been there and whether they had achieved self-realisation. One replied " I am trying to achieve it for the last twenty years and I think I am on my way to enlightenment. Another said " I have been here for thirty years and am yet to reach my goal though I feel i am very near" The youth, disappointed, came back to the Master and told him : "I cannot wait for so long. Show me a short cut so that I can achieve enlightenment instantaneously" " Well, my son" replied the Master, " there is a much shorter route of course. All that u have to do is to come here at sunrise tomorrow and take one round of the monastery. There is, however, one condition. While circumambulating, u must not think of the camel.If u think of a camel even once, u have to start all over again" The youth was delighted. He had never seen a camel and would certainly not think about it while performing the assigned task. He promised to come the next morning at sunrise.

The Next day, the youth came at sunrise, his mind fresh and determination writ large on his face. He started from the door of the monastery and went a few yards when he was reminded of the stern warning of the Master "U shall not think of the camel" The boy thought "Woe betide me! Why should I have been reminded of this warning? Oh all my efforts have gone waste." He was back at the door starting his round. But the thought of the camel would just not leave him and every time he would return frustrated to start afresh. This went on and on till the youth realised his folly and fell at the feet of the Master asking for forgiveness for his impetuosity in seeking a short cut.

We can never control our thoughts. We can, however, learn to control our minds. The mind is the fountainhead of all thoughts and if we block the source, the flow downstream can be controlled. Easier said than done! Yes, but therein lies the secret of spiritual enlightenment.

Thinking about the plight of the youth, I was reminded of the original sin according to the Bible. God specifically forbade Adam and Eve from eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. And they did exactly that and thus began the fall of Man. The serpent was incidental. The temptation ( serpent) lies within each of our minds. The more u r asked not to do a certain thing, the more determined u would be to do it. Often just as a matter of defiance or for the heck of it.

And here is another superlative piece of masterly non-cognitive detatchment from the "Buddhagosha" . The disciple asks the master Mahatissa "Perhaps your reverence has met a certain lady?" and the Master replies " I know not whether man or woman passed. A certain lump of bones went by this way"

Poor Barkha

After the Radia Niira tapes expose there has been a sea change in the firebrand tv journaist and anchor Barkha Dutt. The former eloquent, ebullient, cocksure, brilliant selfconfident Barkha has turned into a gloomy and crestfallen Barkha who has lost her halo as she continues bravely with her interviews. Yesterday I saw her on NDTV interviewing Kapil Sibal the Minister in charge of telecom. It was a totally different Barkha, meek, submissisve and lacking the fire and chutzpah in her cross examination. Kapil Sibal is a great lawyer besides being a politician. It was hard to pin him down or get anyting worthwhile about the 2G scam from his mouth and for once he was the one who was grilling Barkha at several points during the interview. What a fall was there, my countrymen ! It takes years to build up a re putation and all it takes is a small slip and hobnobbing with lobbyists and being unfortunate enough to be caught in the act by the phone tappers from Enforcement Directorate to bite the dust. Gone in a minute ! Will she ever regain her pre-eminence in tv journalism? Dumb question !

I like Chetan Bhagat as a novelist. His style is racy, saucy and gripping. But when he ventures into pastures new such as writing on politics in the Times of India, I can sense his limitations. He first wrote that everyone should boycott the Commonwealth Games. Post the successful conclusion of CWG he applauds the athletes who got a total of 101 medals 38 of them Gold, earning second position for India, but continues to castigate the establishment for massive bungling and corruption and wants the culprits to be punished, sent to jail no less. He recommends that an independent accounting firm be entrusted with the job of probing the misappropriations. Now we all know how Ramalingam Raju siphonend off 10,000 crores right under the nose of Price Waterloo Cooper, an internationally known accounts and auditing firm. If Raju could hoodwink PWC by forging Fixed Deposit receipts what can we expect such firms to unravel from the adroit bueaucrats who are adept at throwing red herrings in the path of even seasoned CBI investigators and leading them up the garden path? For that matter what did the multinational auditing firms do when Enron went bust in USA ? It was a whistle blower from inside who spilled the beans. As for sending the culprits to jail, Bhagat does not know the labyrinthine ways of justice in this country. The Ayodhya case took 60 years to get a verdict and that too is being challenged in the supreme court. A person booked as a terrorist in 1993 is a superstar today, preaching Gandhian principles in his movies, merrily moving about in his Ferrari and private aircraft.
So, Mr.Bhagat, perish the thought of sending the CWG scamsters to jail.

Leave politics to seasoned political analysts and columnists and concentrate on your next novel.

random scribbling

What happens when you stop blogging for a long long time?

You are rid of writer's cramps

You get more time to read the papers, watch tv and spend time with missus.
you can devote more time to social networking.
You can bask in the glory of your past blogs which of course have been read only by a handful of your friends out of sheer courtesy.
You can sit in the lotus position and meditate on your navel as Buddha did, though chances are slim of your attaining Nirvana.
Try your hand at new pursuits like gardening, bird watching (avian not homo sapiens) solving crossword puzzles
Spare the computer keyboard from wear and tear.

Spend more time chatting with your friends on G talk or Yahoo Messenger
Read the newspaper from the mastline to the bottomline where the printers and editor's name are shown covering everything in between like classified ads,cartoons, today's engagements, editorials, middles and letters to the editor. In fact good idea to start writing letters to the editor.
Well, I am going to shoot out a letter right now to the Edtor, supporting Jaswant Singh's views on Jinnah and recommending that the Govt., of Pakistan bestow a Nishan-e-Pakistan on him as they did to Morarji Desai in the seventies.

Well, all this fits in neatly as a new blog, despite my being in a denial mood.

Three cheers to Bloggers in hibernation. You h ave nothing to lose but your skin. Cast off your skin and come out in resplendent colours to resume your blogging !