A place to share - fun and serious thoughts, things and ideas you care about or are worth writing and sharing.
~By the people I like and the people like me.
A lot of companies are now encouraging their employees to snooze at work and boost their productivity.
Could napping at work actually increase productivity? A NASA study backs up the claim. The study shows that a nap of just 26 minutes can boost performance by as much as 34 percent.
Some companies are starting to respond to sleep-deprived workers by providing the time and space to nap during work hours. Studies show tired workers cost business about $150 billion a year in lost productivity. Napping Tips Here are some of tips from Dr. Sara Mednick and tidbits on making the most of your nap times:
Prime nap time is 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. That minidip in energy you experience is biological, not because you just ate lunch, Mednick said.
Stage 2 Sleep. There are different phases of sleep. Within 20 minutes, you experience "Stage 2" sleep, which increases alertness and motor skills.
Slow Wave Sleep. Within 40 minutes, you'll experience slow wave sleep, which increases memory.
REM Sleep. This is deep sleep you'll get if you nap for up to 90 minutes, and it increases creativity.
Low light and low noise will help you fall asleep faster.
Studies show that naps up to 90 minutes won't interfere with your sleep at night, so don't sleep too long. And don't nap within three hours of bedtime.
See some Famous nappers.
Winston Churchill – said he needed his afternoon nap to cope with his responsibilities.
Thomas Edison attributed his tremendous amount of energy to sleeping whenever he wanted to.
John D. Rockefeller took a nap every afternoon in his office.
Eleanor Roosevelt was known to take a nap before a speaking engagement.
William J. Clinton retired to his private quarters every afternoon at 3:00 for a 30-minute nap.
Connie Macktook a nap before every game.
Gene Autry used to take an hour nap in his dressing room between performances.
Ronald Reagan has the ultimate napping reputation even though his wife denies that he had a napping habit.
I have been reading about the Bill for the establishment Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) which will act as a single window clearance mechanism for Genetically modified (GM) crops.
This arises among the earlier nationwide debate on Bt Brinjal (GM brinjal) highlighted the concerns of all sections of the society including scientist on GM food in general and Bt Brinjal in particular. This also saw 10 state governments writing to the central government about the concerns they have with Bt Brinjal. All this at that time had lead to a moratorium on Bt Brinjal declared by the Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.
It aroused my curiosity on the topic and here are some things I found about GM crops in general. Please visit the sites in the link to know more.
In a nutshell the concern with GM are, The unpredictability and irreversibility of Genetic Engineering (GE) and the uncontrollability of GE crops in the environment coupled with studies pointing at the potential risk to human health and environment has resulted in a controversy across the world around the need for introducing such potentially risky organisms.
If you think you care enough for this, please sign a letter to Parliament to resolve the Bill.
Here are the highlights from the letter, that demands the revision of the problems with this bill:
* The approval of GM crops would be based on a presumption that GM crops are a potential solution to all agricultural problems and that the country’s food security crisis can be resolved by introducing GM crops. On the contrary, many scientists agree to fact that real solutions for today’s agricultural problems are in ecological farming methods. * The approvals also presume that the safety of a GM crop can be best assessed by the company which stands to benefit from the approval. * The bill proposes a centralized, technocratic decision making authority with no scope for democratic intervention. The apex authority is the BRAI with a chairperson and two members, all scientists with either a biotech or a health background. * BRAI gives no role to state governments in the approval of GM crops even though agriculture is a state subject under the Indian constitution. * BRAI sits inside the Ministry of Science and technology creating serious conflict of interest.Dept of Biotechnology – under the Ministry of Science &Technology, has the mandate of promotion of GE crops. DBT funds several GE crop development projects using public funds and is the nodal agency for redirecting funds from foreign governments to GE crop development projects. * Sections of the bill super cede the Right to Information Act and place the decision to disclose information for public interest with the authority instead of the Central Information Commission or the Delhi high court. The BRAI would kill any informed public debate on GE crops in future, one of the aspects that helped in stopping Bt Brinjal. * BRAI kills consumer choice and promotes GE polluters as it has no provision for labeling of GE crops, or liability of the crop developer due to economic losses by contamination.
I did so by visiting Green Peace India site. http://greenpeace.in/safefood/change-brai-bill-stop-gm-food-india/
Now as more and more are living away from home, we have to make the healthy food choices ourselves. Its easy to just dive into the short cuts of cooking, open that Noodles pack and be done in 2 minutes. Before you do that, just think of all the heath benefits you are depriving your body. I believe if we know our food better its more likely that we will eat them well. Here is a fun way of knowing the benefits of the fresh food just based on thier color, it cannot be any simpler than that. So next time you are out shopping for produce, have a little fun with the COLORS you pick.
Crack the Color Code:
When selecting produce, no one tint rises above the rest. Know more of what each hue bring you.
GREEN: These foods contain cancer-protecting phytochemicals, like isothiocyanates. And loaded with antioxidants that may reduce the risk of macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness.
Green Beans, Spinach, Broccoli, Kiwis, Cabbage, Capsicum, Coriander leaves.
YELLOW: Sun-colored produce is full of vitamin C, which helps heal wounds and also blocks some skin damage caused by free radicals.
Pears, Pineapples, bananas
ORANGE: These have beta-carotene, which may help boost immune function and protect against free radical damage. Nutrients in citrus fruits also improve oral health.
Oranges, peaches, carrots
RED: Produce in this hue has lycopene, a noted cancer fighter, and ekkagic acid, whch may help reuce DNA dmage. Flavonoids - found mostly in berries and cherries - boost antioxidant defense, protect individual cells from free-radical damage, and fight heart diseases, and may help maintian cognitive funstion and put the brakes of aging.
Red capsicum, strawberries, tomatoes, watermelons
BLUE and PURPLE: Grapes and purple cabbage have anthocyanins, which may protect cells from oxidative damage and slow the signs of aging. The nutrients that make them dark in color also help cognitive function and have antioxidant properties that may fight cancer.
Blueberry, grapes, purple cabbage
WHITE: Onions and garlic contain allicin and quercetin, both of which have been associated with reduced heart disease risk and increased immune function. Cauliflower contains cancer fighting sulforaphane.
Onion, garlic, mushrooms
While this gets you started, the list doesn’t end here, include all you favorite vegetables and fruits to the color list.
Yes, up 8 GB on board; 16 GB microSD pre-installed; supports up to 32 GB microSD
Yes, microSD Card slot: supports 32 GB
Yes, 512 MB flash memory / 512 MB SDRAM; 4 GB eMMC + 4 GB media card included; Expandable memory – support for microSD card
up to 32 GB
Connectivity
Micro USB, HDMI Micro connector
HDMI out port, kickstand, and micro USB
Micro USB
Comparing the BlackBerry Torch and the iPhone 4
Screen
If we're going to compare numbers, the iPhone 4's screen wins hands down, with a much higher resolution 640x960 pixels, 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen, but don't rule out the BlackBerry Torch's 360x480 pixel, 3.2-inch display. It's crisp, bright and flawless, just as the BlackBerry Bold 9700's is.
The iPhone's resolution may be higher, but seeing as it has more pixels than the human eye can actually see, it's more show over substance.
It is very responsive though and for this reason, the iPhone wins, but after all Apple has had much more practice with capacitive screens than BlackBerry, so you'd kind of expect them to win this one anyway.
Winner: iPhone 4
Processor
The iPhone 4's 1Ghz processor may pack a punch, but this doesn't mean it runs faster than the BlackBerry Torch 9800's. The latter may only pack in a 624MHz processor, but BlackBerry memory management is much better than the iPhone's.
At some points, the iPhone struggles and without full fat multitasking, this is a little bit disappointing.
The BlackBerry Torch, however, steams along and doesn't need an enhanced processor to power multitasking as the iPhone 4 does.
Winner: BlackBerry Torch 9800
Browser
The iPhone 4's Safari browser was certainly the best on a smartphone up to now, but the BlackBerry Torch 9800's WebKit browser beats the iPhone's. Firstly, it supports tabbed browsing. Sure, you can access multiple pages on the Safari browser, but it's not as smooth as switching between tabs.
The browser also uses your text size preferences to resize text within the browser - ensuring it's always the size you want it to be. The Blackberry webKit browser also renders websites much better than the previous browser, finally!
Winner: BlackBerry Torch 9800
Applications
Although BlackBerry will be introducing new APIs to developer, including access to the HTML 5-powered WebKit browser API and carrier billing, applications still come secondary to the App Store's offering. Sure, BlackBerry offers more CRM apps for business users, but for consumers, the iPhone easily conquers BlackBerry.
BlackBerry apps are also notably more expensive than iPhone applications, while there's a lot less choice in App World. You may be able to buy BlackBerry apps from third parties unlike for the iPhone, but iPhone apps are much more inventive and cover a wider range compared to BlackBerry.
Winner: Apple iPhone 4
Keyboard
As every touchscreen phone user will agree, touchscreen keyboards are great once you've got used to them - the iPhone's most certainly included. But hardware keyboards just work, no getting used to required.
This is especially the case when using one so marvellous as the BlackBerry Torch's. Although you can opt to use one of the Torch's virtual keyboards (there are four choices - landscape Qwerty, portrait Qwerty, Alphanumeric and BlackBerry's Suretype), we'd highly recommend using the hardware slide out Qwerty if you're planning on writing a long email.
Winner: BlackBerry Torch 9800
OS
With two new operating systems battling it out, it's no wonder this is a hard call. the iPhone 4's iOS4 was a big improvement over previous iPhone operating systems, down to its multitasking capability, universal inbox and better exchange support.
The BlackBerry already supported these, so instead RIM has added a number of more consumer friendly features into the mix including easier set up for email and social networking, plus push support for RSS feeds, enhanced homescreen customisation, plus a universal search tool that competes with Apple's Spotlight search.
Winner: It's a draw
Storage
The iPhone has always excelled when it comes to storage, but to the annoyance of many users, there's still no microSD card slot for you to bump up the memory.
The BlackBerry Torch 9800 ships with a 4GB memory card, but you can give your phone a boost with a microSD card up to 32GB, and more when high capacities become available.
Winner: BlackBerry Torch 9800
Camera
Both the iPhone 4 and the BlackBerry Torch 9800 have seen a higher resolution camera installed compared to previous versions. Both 5-megapixels, the iPhone 4's camera supports HD video recording, where the BlackBerry's camera only shoots in SD (VGA resolution).
BlackBerrys have always had great image quality and the Torch 9800 is no different. However, the iPhone 4's camera offers much crisper photos, and a secondary video camera too!
Winner: Apple iPhone 4
Battery life
Kudos does have to go to Apple here - the company has finally managed to produce a phone that lasts all day. However, RIM has always produced handsets that offer the stamina of a horse, because of the company's data management.
The iPhone may have a higher capacity battery (1420mAh in comparison to the Torch's 1300mAh), but it won't keep going for days on end like the BlackBerry will.
Winner: BlackBerry Torch 9800
Verdict:
Both Apple and RIM have introduced two amazing smartphones to the market this year, and in fact, RIM could see its devices becoming mainstream consumer products with the BlackBerry Torch 9800. But which wins?
The iPhone is definitely suited to Apple fanbois, where the BlackBerry Torch could be battling for the Android market, or just those who want something different.
If RIM places advertising in the correct place and networks offer better deals than the iPhone, Apple could be looking at the next revolution right there.
Therein lies the biggest drawback with the BlackBerry Torch. RIM uses a processor that's slower than those in recent iPhones and in just about every Android released in the last few months. It's hardly noticeable when you're thumbing through the software with the track pad, but the slowness is amplified when touch-navigating. If you slide a finger to the left, you expect the screen to move immediately.
The BlackBerry Torch has a respectable 5-megapixel camera with a flash but no front-facing camera for video chat as do the iPhone 4 and HTC's Evo 4G
The BlackBerry Torch tries hard to be the phone for both the office and the home. Although it does some things well, it's neither the strongest office tool nor the ideal touch-screen device.
Lessons have been learned, and the BlackBerry Torch tries hard to be the phone for both the office and the home. The idea here is that you won't have to carry around two phones. In that sense, it works well.
But it's neither the strongest office tool nor the ideal touch-screen device.
The new upgraded BlackBerry OS 6 isn’t too different from BlackBerry OS 5, experts say. Besides, it lacks features that will make users choose BlackBerry over devices running on iOS or Android. The Torch display at 3.2 inch doesn’t excite customers because it is lower to the display of iPhone 4 and Droid X, considering when a larger screen makes the experience that much more enriching.
Jerome David Salinger was born in New York City in 1919. Apparently, many events from Salinger’s early life appear in The Catcher in the Rye. He too spent his youth being shuttled between various prep schools before his parents finally settled on the Valley Forge Military Academy
Though controversial, the novel appealed to a great number of people. Salinger’s writing seemed to tap into the emotions of readers in an unprecedented way. Salinger's Holden seemed to stand for young people everywhere, who felt themselves beset on all sides by pressures to grow up and live their lives according to the rules, to disengage from meaningful human connection, and to restrict their own personalities and conform to a bland cultural norm. Many readers see Holden Caulfield as a symbol of pure, unfettered individuality in the face of cultural oppression.
About the Book:
Holden Caulfield, a troubled teenager, narrates the novel from a psychiatric facility a few months after the events of the novel, with his tone varying between disgust, cynicism, bitterness, and nostalgic longing.
He fears and does not know how to deal with conflict, confusion, and change, and avoids to deal with complexities of the world around him. He feels alienated, alone and victimized as though the whole world was against him.
You sense a major conflict within Holden’s psyche. One Part wants to connect with other people on an adult level, while other wants to reject the adult world as “phony,” and to always retreat into his own memories of childhood. He is constantly retreating to alienation as a form of self-protection; dealing with the painfulness of growing up and his presumed phoniness of the adult world.
At the beginning of the novel, Holden’s sense of disadvantage and corresponding bitterness seem somewhat strange, given his circumstances: he’s clearly a bright boy from a privileged New York family. As the book progresses, however, we learn that Holden has built a cynical psychological armor around himself to protect himself from the complexities of the world.
Through this Catcher in the rye fantasy you see different sides of him very evident, one side reflects his innocence, belief in pure, uncorrupted youth, his desire to protect it and on the flip side it also shows his extreme disconnection from the reality and his naïve view of the world.
Quotes :
" 'Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.' 'Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.' Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right—I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game. "
As Spencer, Holden's teacher lectures him about the importance of playing by the rules. The conversation succinctly illuminates key aspects of Holden’s character. We see his silent contempt for adults, which is evidenced by the silent ridiculing and cursing of Spencer that Holden hides beneath his nodding, compliant veneer.
"The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. . . . Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you."
As Holden enters the museum he has visited as a kid on his school trips, he realizes how the displays' remain completely unchanged, and it troubles him how he changes each time he returns. The museum presents him with a vision of life he can understand: it is frozen, silent, and always the same. They represent the simple, idealistic, manageable vision of life that Holden wishes he could live.
". . . I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. "
When Holden's little sister asks him what he wanted to do in life, he responds with this image, it reveals his fantasy of idealistic childhood and how he would be a protector of the innocence. We also get another glimpse of how Holden prefers to retreat into his own imaginary view of the world rather than deal with the reality around him. He acknowledges that his idea is “crazy,” yet he cannot come up with anything more pragmatic; he has trouble seeing the world in any other way. Revealing the oversimplification of his worldview.
Joseph Heller was born in Brooklyn in 1923. He served as an Air Force bombardier in World War II. The novel draws heavily on his Air Force experience and presents a war story that is at once hilarious, grotesque, cynical, and stirring.
About the Book:
Catch-22 relies heavily on humor to convey the insanity of war, presenting the horrible meaninglessness of armed conflict through a kind of desperate absurdity rather than through graphic depictions of suffering and violence
Catch -22 has an uncanny portrayal of characters during World War II that are in a way caught in the military bureaucracy. One of the most terrifying aspects of Catch-22 is the fact that the lives and deaths of the men in Yossarian’s squadron are governed not by their own decisions concerning dangerous risks but by the decisions of an impersonal, frightening bureaucracy. The men must risk their lives even when they know that their missions are useless, as when they are forced to keep flying combat missions late in the novel even after they learn that the Allies have essentially won the war. The bureaucrats are absolutely deaf to any attempts that the men make to reason with them logically; they defy logic at every turn. Major Major, for example, will see people in his office only when he is not there, and Doc Daneeka won’t ground Yossarian for insanity because Yossarian’s desire to be grounded reveals that he must be sane.
Quotes:
"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."
"'Catch-22...says you've always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.'But Twenty-seventh Air Force says I can go home with forty missions.''But they don't say you have to go home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That's the catch. Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twenty-seventh Air Force order by making you fly more missions, you'd still have to fly them, or you'd be guilty of disobeying an order of his. And then the Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters would really jump on you.'"
"Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action."
We all now know what Catch-22 means, it does not need any explaining…here is how it started…catch-22s' from the novel CATCH-22
· Colonel Korn uses the same twisted logic as Catch-22 in the information sessions. Under Colonel Korn's rule, the only people permitted to ask questions are those who never do. Korn's rule is a logical trap that makes questions impossible to ask.
· Yossarian's plea to be sent home on the basis of insanity is useless because, according to Catch-22, insane men who ask to be grounded are in fact sane, and thus able to fly. Truly crazy people are instead those who agree to fly more missions. Catch-22 makes it impossible to be sent home on the grounds of insanity.
· Army regulation Catch-22 says you've always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to do, even if it goes against army regulation. The men have no refuge from the illogical power of the rule because officers are infallible, even if they are wrong, which they never are.
· The only one with any right to remove Mudd's belongings from Yossarian's tent was Yossarian. And, it seems to Major Major, Yossarian has no right. Thus, no one may move Mudd's gear. It's another Catch-22 trap.
· Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen's punishment of filling up holes is not a steady job. He loses it each time he finishes his sentence. To keep it, he must go AWOL again, which is impossible because he will be sent to the stockade. Wintergreen says this is another Catch-22. Similarly, Major Major's orders are very much in the spirit of Catch-22. Sergeant Towser may admit men to see Major Major, but only when he is not there. Major Major's orders make it impossible for anyone to see him.
· Each time Captain Black triumphs over his competitors, he becomes angry for their failure to follow his example. Each time they follow his example, he racks his brain for some new reason to be angry with them again. Thus, Captain Black is impossible to please because pleasing him makes him angry. Similarly, Captain Black's loyalty oath is voluntary, but failure to agree to it will result in death. Thus, the voluntary agreement is not really voluntary.
· The more it rains, the worse the men suffer. The worse they suffer, the more they pray that it will continue raining. The rain makes life miserable, but once it lets up, they must fly the dangerous mission to Bologna. Either way they must suffer.
· Luciana confuses Yossarian with her illogical response to his marriage proposal. She will not marry him because he is crazy and he is crazy because he wants to marry her. The circular argument is like Catch-22 in that his desire to marry Luciana hinders the marriage, just like his desire to be grounded prevents his grounding.
· The old woman learns that Catch-22 gives soldiers the right to do anything that the citizens cannot stop them from doing. The soldiers are justified in their unjust actions simply because they have the power. Yossarian realizes that Catch-22 does not exist, but it makes no difference. What does matter is that everyone thinks it exists, and this belief gives Catch-22 the power to repress the believers.
What it is: "….You'll be told we Indians invented everything from the Internet to hard-boiled eggs to spaceships before the British stole it all from us. Nonsense. The greatest thing to come out of this country in the ten thousand years of its history is the Rooster Coop. Go to Old Delhi, behind the Jama Masjid, and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundreds of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages…….. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they're next. Yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with human beings in this country. Watch the roads in the evenings in Delhi; sooner or later you will see a man on a cycle-rickshaw, pedaling down the road, with a giant bed, or a table, tied to the cart that is attached to his cycle. Every day furniture is delivered to people's homes by this man - the deliveryman. A bed costs five thousand rupees, maybe six thousand…….he unloads the furniture for you, and you give him the money in cash - a fat wad of cash the size of a brick. He puts it into his pocket, or into his shirt, or into his underwear, and cycles back to his boss and hands it over without touching a single rupee of it! A year's salary, two year's salary, in his hands, and he never takes a rupee of it ……….He puts down where he is meant to, and never touches a rupee. Why? Because Indians are the world's most honest people like the prime ministers booklet will inform you? No. It is because 99.9 % of us are caught in the Rooster Coop just like those poor guys in the poultry market. ………..Why doesn't that servant take the suitcase full of diamonds? He's no Gandhi, he's human, he's you and me. But he's in the Rooster Coop."
"The trustworthiness of servants is the basis of the entire Indian economy."
"Never before in human history have so few owed so much to so many. A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 percent - as strong, as talented, as intelligent in every way- to exist in perpetual servitude; a servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man's hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse."
Why and how it works: "Why does the Rooster Coop work? How does it trap so many millions of men and women so effectively? Secondly, can a man break out of the coop? what if one day, for instance, a driver took his employers money and ran? What would his life be like?
The answer to the first question is that the pride and glory of our nation, the repository of all our love and sacrifice…….the Indian family, is the reason we are trapped and tied to the coop.
The answer to the second question is that only a man who is prepared to see his family destroyed - hunted, beaten and burned alive by the masters- can break out of the coop. That would take no normal human being, but a freak, a pervert of nature."
Half-baked:
"The thing is, he probably has. .. what, two, three years of schooling in him? He can read and write, but he doesn't get what he's read. He's half-baked. The country is full of people like him, I'll tell you that. And we entrust our glorious parliamentary democracy"—he pointed at me—"to characters like these. That's the whole tragedy of this country." …..."The Autobiography of a Half-Baked Indian." That's what I ought to call my life's story. Me, and thousands of others in this country like me, are half-baked, because we were never allowed to complete our schooling. Open our skulls, look in with a penlight, and you'll find an odd museum of ideas: sentences of history or mathematics remembered from school textbooks (no boy remembers his schooling like one who was taken out of school, let me assure you), sentences about politics read in a newspaper while waiting for someone to come to an office, triangles and pyramids seen on the torn pages of the old geometry textbooks which every tea shop in this country uses to wrap its snacks in, bits of All India Radio news bulletins, things that drop into your mind, like lizards from the ceiling, in the half hour before falling asleep—all these ideas, half formed and half digested and half correct, mix up with other half-cooked ideas in your head, and I guess these half-formed ideas bugger one another, and make more half-formed ideas, and this is what you act on and live with. The story of my upbringing is the story of how a half-baked fellow is produced. But…...Fully formed fellows, after twelve years of school and three years of university, wear nice suits, join companies, and take orders from other men for the rest of their lives. Entrepreneurs are made from half-baked clay. "
The modern India as described by Adiga's Balram:
"Please understand Your Excellency, that India is two countries in one: an India of light and an India of darkness. The ocean brings light to my country. Every place on the map of India near the ocean is well off. But the river brings darkness to India-the black river."
"To sum up-in the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with big bellies, and men with small bellies. And only two destinies: eat or get eaten up."
"These are three main diseases in this country: cholera, typhoid and election fever. The last one is the worst; it makes people talk and talk about things that they have no say in."
"the dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor- they never overlap, do they? See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of? Losing weight and looking like the poor."
"The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out and read. Instead of which , they're all sitting in front of color TVs and watching cricket and shampoo advertisements."
A narrator like Balram Halwai is seldom seen, he sure is a complicated man. Balram teaches us the religion doesn't create virtue and money doesn't solve every problem.
"One day a cunning Brahmin, trying to trick the Buddha, asked him, "Master, do you consider yourself a man or a god?" The Buddha smiled and said, "Neither. I am just one who has woken up while the rest of you are still sleeping."
"To break the law of his land-to turn bad news into good news- is the entrepreneur prerogative."
"I don't understand why other people don't buy chandeliers all the time, and put them everywhere. Free people don't know the value of freedom, that's the problem."
"Because the desire to be a servant had been bred into me: hammered into my skull, nail after nail, and poured into my blood, the way sewage and industrial poison are poured into Mother Ganga."
"When the work is done I kick them out of the office: no chitchat, no cups of coffee. A White Tiger keeps no friends. It's too dangerous."
It should be interwoven with the real world but maybe not entirely true to fact or-else it should be completely blown out imaginary fiction
· The 1st type: When I finish a book, I expect to have learnt something about reality, be it related to a place, person, period in time, an issue or an event effecting the world we live in. The reason is simple, while a story can take me anywhere anyplace but when I close a book, I come back to the real world, which I think is a bigger story, the one that I am a small part of . If the story in the book can put some perspective into "my story", that would be amazing…. right. Heck it can drive you to make a critical move in the story, a passive one if not active. Everyone should be aware of 'their' story.
Now one can say…read the newspaper or history books for that. The problem I find with that is sometimes the straight facts do not have the capability of staying with you, something only a story is capable of doing, it brings the person and events to life. You can walk, smell, feel and experience the fact. The before and after is there…mostly.
· The 2nd type: The ones that takes you on a fantastic ride, you get to known the unknown, the weird, the spectacular and the imaginary. The ones like Harry Potter series, or Alice in wonderland for instance. Here you can be anyone and anything is possible, you are free to make whatever out of it without worrying that you get it right.
The following words from Steinbeck's Journal shape his long career. From his journal entry….. "In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other"
About the Book:
Of Mice and Men is in one sense an anachronistic text, insisting on its artistry, not its historicity. Never a true social chronicler, Steinbeck deliberately de-historicizes each novel of the late 1930's. It is not about the resistance of California's landed elite to the economic threat the newcomers posed, nor it is about the refugees from the Dust Bowl states who camped besides roads, in overcrowded Homervilles, in filthy camps, scratching out a new beginning.
It’s a tale of commitment, loneliness, hope, and loss.
Quotes I liked:
Despite George's impatience and annoyance with Lennie they have an amazing friendship, they always talked how they were different from other guys:
"Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place....With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us….But not us! An' why? Because...because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why."
"Carl's right, Candy. That dog ain't no good to himself. I wisht somebody'd shoot me if I got old an' a cripple." "You seen what they done to my dog tonight? They says he wasn't no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody'd shoot me. But they won't do nothing like that. I won't have no place to go, an' I can't get no more jobs."
I loved the way Steinbeck described the landscape…you can almost see the picture drew itself in front of you….leaf by leaf….sunray by sunray…and soft forest sound….and all the colors coming to life.
"The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees--willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter's flooding; and the sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool. On the sandy bank under the trees the leaves lie deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them"
"Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones."
"At about ten o'clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows, and in and out of the beam flies shot like rushing stars."
"Although there was evening brightness showing through the windows of the bunk house, inside it was dusk."
"Already the sun had left the valley to go climbing up the slopes of the Gabilan mountains, and the hilltops were rosy in the sun."
As the book celebrates the 50th anniversary in July 2010, it continues to be enormously popular among readers and remains one of the best I have read. Narrated by a 6 year old girl - Scout Fitch, the story reflects innocence against a very serious back drop of racism. In 1950's a black man in a southern state of America is falsely accused of raping a white girl. Atticus her widowed father is appointed as the defense attorney. Scout and Jem, her elder brother, witness the unjust consequences of prejudice and hate while at the same time witnessing the values of courage and integrity through their father's example.
Apparently there are many autobiographical parallels: The character of Atticus Finch, Scout's father, was based on Lee's own father, a liberal Alabama lawyer and statesman who frequently defended African Americans within the racially prejudiced Southern legal system. Lee, the tomboy (Scout) is the daughter of a respected small-town Alabama attorney. Scout's friend Dill was inspired by Lee's childhood friend and neighbor, Truman Capote
Quotes I like:
Atticus tells his girl…. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
Atticus tells his children the reason he choose to take this difficult and unpopular case…."They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."
"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
"It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived."
Other things I liked in the book:
I really like the father - children bond and the understanding they have irrespective of the age gap and the mutual respect they share. Specially the relation between the father and daughter. Scout always learn a lot from her father, just laying in his lap while he read the newspaper, sometimes aloud for her and you are amazed how much a child learns by observing an adult. She definitely has a unconventional take on certain things much like her father, and both are subjected to objection and criticism from others.
