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Birthday''' today: John KEATS...

Hey people. I am back on my page after a while this time. I don't like it. Feel I 'll have to pen a song dedicating to myself. And the way it goes, it will have no other title than, 'My Lazy Dreams'. And so I thought I will mark today as the day of my return to the page. Let me jot down some of my favourite quotes as essenatial echoes of the poet who died young but will live forever through his words... We remember John Keats today... and feel the power of words in our faces... once again. _____________________________________________ I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top. ~  John  Keats ______________________________________________ I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute. ~  John  Keats _______________________________________________ My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk. ~  Joh

The Things we can do...

It is October. A fresh start to the final phase of the year. This time marks few occasions worth remembering... England will celebrate Children's Book Week. Countries as far as Cyprus and Nigeria share the Independence day today. It is the International day for Non-violence tomorrow. On the 5th, we have International World Teachers' day. For the United States, October is the National Arts & Humanities Month. In India, Rajasthan gears up for the International Folk festival, while Bhutan celebrates Jampa Lhakhang Drup Festival later this month. I guess that will do to let people 'go out' and celebrate; to mark the occasions with colours and smiles. We will talk and resolve, teach the young and join hands with the old. We commit ourselves to the nation, and revere the Arts. Each occasion is valued and marked by the community followers. While these events and more take place, I would like to enthuse our genial spirits, trying to infuse our sense of actions and

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Reading this amazing novel ( Death at Intervals ) by Saramago. Oh,, what can I say about it... The more you read Saramago, the more enchanted you feel. Food for thought! Yes, feels as if this guy is inexhaustible. In this book, he plays with the idea of Death. I am at the place where it is best to be in a good book: right in the middle of it. Woof, what unbelievable pages I am reading; these are some thoughts that Saramago, taking you by the arm, show once; then twice. At this stage of the book, I’d share a thought that he’s held in his arms for us to hold and think about: "By the way, we feel we must mention that death, by herself and alone, with no external help, has always killed far less than mankind has."  p. 98 In the context of the narrative, these words appear at a point, where you are taken aback, with eyes opening to the extent of your mind noticing it. The pages that follow, have opened up the argument in the most subtle of wa

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Hello everyone... Its been a few days since I posted my last. What has made do it today is my coming across certain words... It is my first meeting with the (words of) Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, and I will soon learn the correct pronunciation of the name :)  Well, I read a few poems by him today... and boy oh boy... words can move the heaviest stone, I say. There is something which stirs inside you, reading a word followed by another and then another... till the immovable stone has already moved under its own weight; with the movement, you catch the beat of your heart... Would like to share with you, one poem by Czeslaw Milosz: . . .                        Love Love means to learn to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many. And whoever sees that way heals his heart, Without knowing it from various ills A bird and a tree say to him: Friend. Then he wants to use himself and things So that they stand in the glow of ripenes

First Impressions...

Finished the book that has had a few rounds on this blog: The Cave . As a general practice, after finishing a novel, I rush to find some well written reviews on the book that I'd picked, held and savoured literally. :-) The reason for this hasn't got so much to do with the desire to know more on the themes etc. , as it is with the immediate and natural feeling to share your reading with someone. And since I normally end up in vain in finding reciprocating voices to share something like reading, one of the best things to do is to search and find few other pages of writing which, given a chance, could speak to you about that reading on similar terms of understanding. It also helps to come across varying points of view ( find many I argue with vehemently :) ). Anyway, to review the book on my own is going to utilise energy elsewhere and for another time ( hope that comes soon), but what takes most of my imagination, after stepping over the threshold of a novel's ending, is

Reading of a book

Read some pages from Saramago’s The Cave today. I am so delighted to read these lines that I want to share them with you. Couldn’t help it really. I am halfway through this novel. It is a simple story about a small family. The head of the family, Cipriano Algor, wakes up early in the morning one day, to complete some work. He gets up and decides to go out and see the following:         “The dense foliage of the mulberry tree still had a firm grip on night, it would not let it leave just yet, the first dawn twilight would linger for at least another half an hour. He glanced at the kennel then looked around him, surprised not to see the dog. He gave a low whistle, but there was still no sign of Found. The potter went from perplexed surprise to outright concern, I can’t believe he’s just gone, he muttered. He could call out the dog’s name, but he did not want to alarm his daughter. He’ll be out there somewhere, on the trail of some nocturnal creatur

QuoteS of the day

  Feel like posting some quotes with the word 'echo'.    Activities like reading, writing, and thinking, essentially have words at their disposal as echoes of something I mightn't be able to name. Perhaps that's the reason we should let these echoes be. As is presented time and again by authors of good literature, something becomes an irrefutable spark which is given some form with the bits we call words. These echoes belong to everyone; and that is why the creator shares it by freeing it from the struggling, fidgeting artist's inadvertent grasp.   "Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening."                                                                   — Rainer Maria Rilke   "for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a

On this Day...

September the 6th, 1847; Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves in with Ralph Emerson and his family at Concord. There are people who are not fascinated by numbers and I ought to respect their relative nonchalance in upholding logic and reason, but probably for the sake of posterity alone, I shall talk about the book he published much later. In Walden, or Life in the Woods, Thoreau recounts his experience of two years, two months and two days of time spent on the site he must have beheld in a state of freedom. He writes:           "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as t

Echo of the day

"The stupider, the clearer. Stupidity is brief and straight-forward, while intelligence is tortuous and sneaky. Intelligence is crooked, while stupidity is honest."          ~ Dostoevsky, Ivan, in The Karamazov Brothers Re-imagining some of the passages from this book is a pleasure. The book has a rare quality of warmly adopting and embracing the reader. A voice from this book is echoing in my head. Above quoted words of the character, Ivan, clearly reflects not only on the beautiful paradox found with human beings, but also on the tripatrite design of the text which is perfeclty balanced between the lives of the three borthers. While Ivan's words characterise his brother Dmitri's straight-forwardness, they dawn upon his own person as an honest confession to be what he is: a thinker. As a third, these words encapsulate the nature of the youngest of them, Alyosha, since he is both; a sythesis of these indubitably human characteristics, and the paradox personified.   

A Reply to 'Ten things' and more...

     "I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old."          ~  Charles  Baudelaire Few days ago, I came across a post by my friend. It talked about one's childhood memories; things that seem to've been slipped from one's mind long ago, but come to life in the blink of the mind's eye. Objects, paper, photographs, cards, various things, which bear the stamp of one's lived experience, weave moments in time that are etched somewhere forever.      Reading about the discovery of a person's realization of time spent in happiness, imagination and vigour, leads you towards your own memories triggered out of nowhere; a place made up of no place; perhaps from what we call the recesses of the mind.     Reminiscing about a past that has surely passed but left its permanent mark - like some undying embers in a distant field, witnessed on a silent evening in a corner of one's world, I feel driven to underline the impressions of the lanes of

WORDS...

Dear You, I plan to start a new thread today under the label, ‘Words_for_Birds’. Words constitute languages. Ever wondered what we’d do without them, even when it is interesting to wonder what we do ‘with’ them at various occasions? :)  This word is important in the sense that we, speakers of English as second language, need to be aware of the aspect of avoiding unnecessary repetition of words, especially in writing. So, here we go. What do we call when someone is making unnecessary use of two or more words to express one meaning? It is called tautology,,e.g. the phrase “a beginner has just started”, is a case for tautology. Or “he saw with his own eyes” or “true fact”. Such a statement would be a tautologous statement. To such a user I can say, “Stop tautologizing!” . His speech was full of tautologies. Tautology is a defect we should be aware of while speaking or writing. It’s a common defect with users. There are other synonymous (similar) words meaning for this, which can b

Pondering...

The first entry of this blog used as its title a phrase that is dear to me. Preponderant ponderability. I could imagine a few stalwarts of literature who, for me, exercise it in their work. Wilde, Hesse, Proust, Bellow, Saramago, and the heavyweight, Shakespeare. In the last post, echoes of words found pages of a novel I am reading these days, The Cave. I consider myself fortunate to have read some books by Saramago and the few that are left, beckon me everyday.                 It has been two months today, since I read about the news of the artist’s death. Ever since, having come across pages of sudden dedication as well as criticism, I have felt a strong desire to write about my thoughts and experience on reading his work. So much so that I decided, after posting my last last night, to create some sort of an exclusive space for one of my favourite writer.                 Shall I start another blog-dedication to Saramago? It is churning in my min

Beginning of a beginning

One who lets words be, knows they are capable of the occasional wonders and surprises that spring right in front of you just when you have lost all hope and have had your share of contemplation of the Hamletian murmur, "Words, words, words."       The opening of fifth chapter of José Saramago's The Cave , adresses a similar predicament. To my utter surprise, the words on the page complemented the exact problem that had occupied a good portion my day today. The problem of a beginning. How do we begin anything? How does that thing begin which, before its much anticipated inception has been pondered on lest something turns out into a chaos? The fear of beginning a thing (like a creative initiative, a responsible task for one's job) is something, I believe, a lot of you could share with me. How to begin your writing? How do we begin teaching in a class even? What repercussions can, a not so discreet, a beginning have on the rest of t

Paro's Prayers

I am doing a double post today! The reason being this image of a place in Paro, Bhutan, which once again, the keen observer beheld one day: http://sonamdema.blogspot.com/2010/08/chillip-who-wanted-bhutanese-candy.html#comments You need altitude to melt attitude. That is my first imaginative reaction to the mountain peaks and the flying swabs of clouds from a point of view which makes me say: WoW ! In contrast to the last image I mentioned, this one lacks green but blooms in blue. The soil of the earth tries to match the glow of the sky; and in between lie the mountains. All I can do is wonder... wonder in my mind who longs to wander... in the same swabs of clouds, on this same ground of land. This image inspires too; with expressions like,,, Glow of the day. Flight of inspiration. Altitudinal Imagination. 'Image of the View' Nothing to shield Nature grows in trees The glories of the field The wind and its breeze. Cotton-swabbed clouds fly down upon you Rays of sunlight st
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“If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence” ~ George Eliot Last Sunday evening, after finishing my reading session, I was taking a stroll in the lawns outside the library when I noticed the area to be mostly empty with overcast skies above. I decided to stand still in the midst of this beautiful place. How many times during a day or even a week do we observe our surroundings like I am doing now, I asked myself. I looked at the grass, the trees and the rock stones that lay wonderfully encapsulated in the softness promised by this landscape. But the question was still flickering my mind. To a natural surprise, I saw butterflies emerge from the hedges, evening birds chirping on the trees and welcoming more of their brethren as if to join for one final conference of the day, before settling over the branche

Coetzee's words ...

It always interests me when the writer of a novel, creator of a song or the artist in general, reflects his thoughts on Arts itself. What is it to write? What is it to read or observe a painting? There are two quotations by J. M. Coetzee that indicate certain responses to these questions. I would like to refer to them in tandem because the function of writing and reading has, in my view, a lot to share and contextualize as far as books are concerned. "...reading is being the arm and being the axe and being the skull; reading is giving youself up, not holding yourself at a distance and jeering." ~ J. M. Coetzee, The Master of Petersburg The way Coetzee defines the role of a reader deserves more than a passing mention. That's because the idea of reading as not just another activity to while away time but to commit yourself to the act is something that gives to the writing (the kind Coetzee is concerned with) its first deserved worth. Each book we pick up and start r
Today's post has no direct Quotes. I am writing it after being purely inspired by Sonam Dema's image of Thimpu, Bhutan. Here is an image of a rainbow adorning the landscape of the city captured one afternoon by its fortunate witness: http://sonamdema.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html The beautiful scenery so naturally lets loose words and I wonder if quotes of great men, for instance the so called transcendentalists, start echoing with the 'image' of imagination which inspires the witness to see. It can't be helped. I am reminded of words by Thoreau: "The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of rainbow which I have clutched." ~ Walden " The true harvest of my daily life....". Priceless words. Thoreau must have been a witness himself to sights like these. I can only imagine. Or go out there and see for myself. But as

Through the Echoes . . .

Almost an year ago I knocked the door of the room in the hostel where I met my friend Almeiz for the first time. A well built Kyrgyz lad whom I'd disturbed from an afternoon sleep. The room was as all rooms are meant to be; so I will reminisce about something else. To my surprise I discovered that my friend couldnt speak English at all. And to his inconvenient awareness, I would do no better, as Kyrgyz or Russian to me were as new as today's rain. Later, as we both started understanding each other through a new 'other' language: a result of our hardwork over the days in building words combined with some crisp sign-gesturing, we realized some time later that, on that first day itself, we welcomed each other with friendly intent. But I would like to go back again to that first afternoon in the room. As I took seat against the table and looked in front, an unlit wall-lamp beckoned me to feel at home. The next moment my table was struck to life with the beautiful wa

Second Coming.

Hey. Its been a while since the last post; quite a while. But this time I intend to remain active. Want to start with a quotation ofcourse: "A smile is the chosen vehicle for all ambiguities." ~ Herman Melville I was reading these words few days ago somewhere. Couldn't help smiling myself. How true Melville is I started wondering. And suddenly , like a whirlwind, I am reminded of numerous instances where, while reading the novels that we read, faint flickering smiles accompany our faces, just like our thoughts escort the writing's ambiguous paradoxes which (if considered naturally) help in rendering our own life experiences. Ambiguity, sharing the most natural of connections with the Arts we create, render, imagine and yield to, reflects the essence of what we are. You might wonder and ask me, :"does it"? I reply, with an equally mysterious smile that Melville intends to ponder on through his words, "perhaps".