Quotes & Verses

The Best Cigarette

2007-06-24T18:50:00.000+05:30

Noted for their intelligent humor, accessibility and observations on daily life, Billy Collins' popular poems come alive further in a series of animated poems produced by JWT-NY. Here is one of of them, The Best Cigarette. (via zigzackly.)

New words for 2007

2007-01-26T01:12:00.000+05:30

* SALAD DODGER. An excellent phrase for an overweight person.

* SWAMP-DONKEY A deeply unattractive person.

* TESTICULATING. Waving your arms around and talking cr@p.

* BLAMESTORMING. Sitting round in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a Project failed, and who was responsible.

* SEAGULL MANAGER. A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, cr@ps on everything, and Then leaves.

* ASSMOSIS. The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

* SALMON DAY. The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.

* CUBE FARM. An office filled with cubicles.

* PRAIRIE DOGGING. When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on. (This alsoapplies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)

* SITCOMs. Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay homewith the kids or start a "home business".

* SINBAD.Single working girls. Single income, no boyfriend and desperate.

* AEROPLANE BLONDE. One who has bleached/dyed her hair but still has a 'black box'.

* PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE. The fine art of whacking the cr@p out of an electronic device to get itto work again.

* ADMINISPHERE. The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank andfile. Decisions that fall from the "adminisphere" are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed tosolve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded "administrivia" - needless paperwork and processes.

* GOING FOR A McSH!T. Entering a fast food restaurant with no intention of buying food, you're just going to the bog. If challenged by a pimply staff member, your declaration to them that you'll buy their food afterwards is knownas a McSh!t with Lies.

* 404. Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 NotFound" meaning that the requested document could not be located.

* AUSSIE KISS. Similar to a French Kiss, but given down under.

* OH - NO SECOND.That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just Made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all').

* GREYHOUND A very short skirt, only an inch from the hare.

* JOHNNY-NO-STARS. A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The 'no-stars' comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wear to show their level of training.

* MILLENNIUM DOMES. The contents of a Wonderbra, i.e. extremely impressive when viewed fromThe outside, but there's actually naught in there worth seeing.

* MONKEY BATH. A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: "Oo! Oo! Oo!Aa! Aa! Aa!".

* MYSTERY BUS. The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you're in the Toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in.

* MYSTERY TAXI. The taxi that arrives at your place on Saturday morning before you wakeup, whisks away the stunner you slept with, and leaves a 10-Pinter in your bed instead.

* BEER COAT. The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a booze cruiseAt 3:00am.

* BEER COMPASS. The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home after booze cruise, even though you're too drunk to remember where you live, how you got here, and where you've come from.

* BREAKING THE SEAL. Your first pee in the pub, usually after 2 hours of drinking. After breaking the seal of your bladder, repeat visits to the toilet will be required every 10 or 15 minutes for the rest of the night.

* TART FUEL.Bottled premixed spirits, regularly consumed by young women.

* PICASSO BUM. A woman whose knickers are too small for her, so she looks like she's Got 4 buttocks.

Thanks to Rishab via email.

Video: I Have A Dream

2007-01-15T17:58:00.000+05:30

In 1963, King lead the historic march on Washington, where he delivered his well-known and oft quoted 'I Have A Dream' speech to over 250,000 people.

Charles Simic: Breasts

2007-01-09T13:25:00.000+05:30

I love breasts, hard
Full breasts, guarded
By a button.
They come in the night.
The bestiaries of the ancients
Which include the unicorn
Have kept them out.

Pearly, like the east
An hour before sunrise,
Two ovens of the only
Philosopher's stone
Worth bothering about.

They bring on their nipples
Beads of inaudible sighs,
Vowels of delicious clarity
For the little red schoolhouse of our mouths.

Elsewhere, solitude
Makes another gloomy entry
In its ledger, misery
Borrows another cup of rice.

They draw nearer: Animal
Presence. In the barn
The milk shivers in the pail.
I like to come up to them
From underneath, like a kid
Who climbs on a chair
To reach the forbidden jam.

Gently, with my lips,
Loosen the button.
Have them slip into my hands
Like two freshly poured beer-mugs.

I spit on fools who fail to include
Breasts in their metaphysics
Star-gazers who have not enumerated them
Among the moons of the earth ...

They give each finger
Its true shape, its joy:
Virgin soap, foam
On which our hands are cleansed.

And how the tongue honors
These two sour buns,
For the tongue is a feather
Dipped in egg-yolk.

I insist that a girl
Stripped to the waist
Is the first and last miracle,
That the old janitor on his deathbed
Who demands to see the breasts of his wife
For the one last time
Is the greatest poet who ever lived.

O my sweet, my wistful bagpipes.
Look, everyone is asleep on the earth.
Now, in the absolute immobility
Of time, drawing the waist
Of the one I love to mine,

I will tip each breast
Like a dark heavy grape
Into the hive
Of my drowsy mouth.

~Charles Simic

Study shows India is fastest-growing banana republic

2006-12-01T16:54:00.000+05:30

A recent study done by consulting firms McKinky Associates and Earnest & Dung shows that India is the fastest-growing banana republic in the world.

“It’s not just the economy and the stock markets but also murders, rape, corruption, AIDS and farmer suicides that are on the rise. India is a true democracy, where we treat both good and evil equally”, says a beaming Mr Lindseylohan Singh, sporting his trademark blue turban.

Follywood actor, Sanjay Nut, added, “Bole toh, I don’t need a study to tell me all this. If I was in the US, they would straight away locked me up in prison cell at Guantanamo Bay, but luckily I live in a banana republic, where I can be convicted of carrying an illegal assault rifle and tried under a terrorist act and still go on signing films. We don’t waste our time smoking out terrorists from caves just for bombing our cities. Tension nahin leneka, live and let live is our policy. I am proud to be Indian, mamu.”

Manu Karma was delighted that India is racing ahead of Colombia, Afghanistan Uzbekistan and other places where one can blow the heads of women just for the heck of it. “My father, a mere MP, can get me off the hook for shooting a bartender girl in public while the mighty US President George Bush’s daughters got arrested and had to do community service for underage drinking. I ask you, is there any injustice left in America? There was a ray of hope for the US with O J Simpson getting off the hook, but with Michael Jackson being forced to leave the country following paedophilia charges, sadly the US law and order system has taken a turn for the better. Such a tragedy!” added Mr Karma

Manu Karma plans on celebrating the good news about India by getting piss drunk with his good buddy, Dam Fakemalani and then driving over some pedestrians. He said he wanted to try mowing down pedestrians on Germany’s famous autobahns at 150 mph but the palms of the police there could not be greased.

Germany, US, UK, Japan, France and other countries are still developing as banana republics.

Big bull Ketan Jawache noted that the Dow Jones and FTSE stocks offered low EPS (Earnings Per Scam) as compared to the ones in India. “The regulatory authorities here are not vicious and vindictive. We are a nation known to turn the other cheek. If Enron’s Kenneth Lay was in our country, he would still be alive signing autographs at weddings and dandiyas, ” said Mr Jawache.

Lolyou Prasad Ghadav, Professor Emeritus at the Indian Institute of Mismangement, was a bit miffed on reading the report. “Why are not there more women doing murders and scams? How can we be a banana republic when there is no gender equality? The feared dacoit Foolin’ Devi had showed the way but the new generation is too caught up small-time stuff like porn MMS clips,” thundered Professor Ghadav.

Phonya Dandi was mum on the issue.

~Sunil Shibad . All Lefts Reserved.

Benjamin Franklin: Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress

2006-11-29T14:03:00.000+05:30

Franklin had a friend who did not want to get married, but was battling with urges and lustful inclinations for the opposite sex.

In the letter which follows, Franklin first advises the friend that the best solution for his urges is marriage. However, since he knows the friend will not take that advice, Franklin goes on to suggest that his friend have sexual affairs with old women.

We know from the context that he is suggesting women over 45 years of age (see #3). His words about putting a basket over her head or turning out the light (see #5) illustrate an aspect of Franklin's character which is seldom exposed.

June 25, 1745

My dear Friend,

I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent natural Inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper Remedy. It is the most natural State of Man, and therefore the State in which you are most likely to find solid Happiness. Your Reasons against entering into it at present, appear to me not well-founded. The circumstantial

Advantages you have in View by postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the Thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the Man and Woman united that make the compleat human Being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason; he, her Softness, Sensibility and acute Discernment.

Together they are more likely to succeed in the World. A single Man has not nearly the Value he would have in that State of Union. He is an incomplete Animal. He resembles the odd Half of a Pair of Scissars. If you get a prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient.

But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:

i. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor'd with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.

2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.

3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc'd may be attended with much Inconvenience.

4. Because thro' more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin'd to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.

5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.

6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.

7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.
8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!

Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly;
being sincerely Your affectionate Friend.

~ Benjamin Franklin

Podcast: Osho on the word F*ck

2006-11-27T01:20:00.001+05:30

Gautama Christ

2006-10-31T16:17:00.000+05:30

The names of God and especially those of His representative
Who is called Jesus or Christ according to holy books and
someone's mouth
These names have been used, worn out and left
On the shores of rivers of of human lives
Like the empty shells of a mollusk.
However when we touch these sacred but exhausted
Names, these wounded scattered petals
Which have come out of the oceans of love and fear
Something still remains, a sip of water,
A rainbow footprint that still shimmers in the light.
While the names of God were used
By the best and the worst, by the clean and the dirty
By the white and the black, by bloody murderers
And by victims flaming gold with napalm
While Nixon with his hands
Of Cain blessed those whom he condemned to death,
While fewer and fewer divine footprints were found
on the beach
People began to study colors,
The future of honey, the sign of uranium
They looked with anxiety and hope for the possibilities
Of killing themselves or not killing themselves, of organizing
themselves into a fabric
Of going further on, of breaking through limits without stopping

What we came across in these blood thirsty times
With their smoke of burning trash, their dead ashes
As we weren't able to stop looking
We often stopped to look at the names of God
We lifted them with tenderness because they reminded us
Of our ancestors, of the first people, those who said the prayers
Those who discovered the hymn that united them in misfortune
And now seeing the empty fragments which sheltered those
ancient people
We feel those smooth substances,
Worn out and used up by good and by evil.

~Pablo Neruda.

*Gautama is Buddha's family name

Down by the Salley Gardens

2006-10-31T16:08:00.000+05:30

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;

She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.

She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;

But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,

And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;

But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

~William Butler Yeats

Sometimes

2006-10-10T02:32:00.000+05:30

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

- Sheenagh Pugh

Matt Groening: Sex

2006-09-24T21:49:00.001+05:30

Where do babies come from? Don't bother asking adults. They lie like pigs.

However, diligent independent research and hours of playground consultation have yielded fruitful, if tentative, results. There are several theories.

Near as we can figure out, it has something to do with acting ridiculous in the dark. We believe it is similar to dogs when they act peculiar and ride each other. This is called "making love".

Careful study of popular song lyrics, advertising catch-lines, TV sitcoms, movies, and T-Shirt inscriptions offers us significant clues as to its nature. Apparently it makes grown-ups insipid and insane.

Some graffiti was once observed that said "sex is good". All available evidence, however, points to the contrary.

~Bongo, From "Childhood Is Hell" By Matt Groening

Alfred Hitchcock: Television

2006-09-24T21:49:00.000+05:30

Television has done much for psychiatry
by spreading information about it,
as well as contributing to the need for it.

~Alfred Hitchcock

I Loved You

2006-09-23T19:49:00.000+05:30

I loved you; even now I may confess,
Some embers of my love their fire retain;
But do not let it cause you more distress,
I do not want to sadden you again.
Hopeless and tongue-tied, yet I loved you dearly
With pangs the jealous and the timid know;
So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely,
I pray God grant another love you so.

by Aleksandr Pushkin

And I promise to touch you ever so gently

2006-09-19T21:36:00.000+05:30

That you'll mistake my caress for a swift breeze born for the simple sake of
blowing your troubles away.
You are safe child.
But if pain ever dare threaten the safety of our love,
Then I would grant you wings to lift your spirit above the sky and allow your tears
to free fall onto the face of the earth, so that its children begin to believe that the
rain comes from an angel crying.
So let it rain, let it rain, let it rain and I will stand a hundred miles beneath you with
my hands lifted towards the heavens collecting your teardrops in crystal glasses of wine.
Because I believe that this love potion number nine holds the remedy for time and
just one taste would allow me to love you forever.

~Alan Maramag

Winston Churchill: Advertising

2006-09-19T21:34:00.000+05:30

"Advertising nourishes the consuming power of men.
It sets up before a man the goal of a better home,
better clothing, better food for himself and his family.
It spurs individual exertion and greater production."

~Winston Churchill.

One Art: The art of losing

2006-09-16T11:31:00.000+05:30

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.
Accept the fluster of lost door keys,
the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther,
losing faster: places, and names,
and where it was you meant to travel.
None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch.
And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones.
And, vaster, some realms
I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

— Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

by Elizabeth Bishop

Tryon Edwards: Best apologies

2006-09-07T19:40:00.002+05:30

Right actions for the future are
the best apologies for
wrong ones in the past.
-Tryon Edwards

Happy 100th, Vande Mataram

2006-09-07T19:40:00.001+05:30

Vande Mataram, India’s National Song, officially celebrates its 100th birthday on the 7th of September, 2006.

Podcast of Vande Mataram.

(Please be patient as it loads. Thank you.)

The song first appeared in the author Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s book, Anandamatha, published in 1882 amid fears of a ban by British Raj, though the song itself was actually written six years prior in 1876. "Vande Mataram" was the national cry for freedom from British oppression during the freedom movement. Large rallies, fermenting initially in West Bengal in the major metropolis of Calcutta (Kolkata), would work themselves up into a patriotic fever by shouting the slogan "Vande Mataram," or "Hail to the Mother(land)!".

The British, fearful of the potential danger of an incited Indian populace, at one point banned the utterance of the motto in public forums and jailed many freedom fighters for disobeying the proscription. To this day, "Vande Mataram" is seen as a national mantra describing the love of patriots for the country of India. Rabindranath Tagore sang 'Vande Mataram' in 1896 at the Calcutta (Kolkata) Congress Session. Poet Sarala Devi Chaudurani sang 'Vande Mataram' in the Benares Congress Session in 1905. Lala Lajpat Rai started a journal called Vande Mataram from Lahore.

Vande Mataram was translated into English by Sri Aurobindo.

While Vande Mataram was treated as the national anthem of India for long, ultimately Jana Gana Mana, was chosen as the national anthem of independent India. The song was rejected on the grounds that Muslims felt offended by its depiction of the nation as "Ma Durga"—a Hindu goddess— thus equating the nation with the Hindu conception of shakti, divine feminine dynamic force; and by its origin as part of Anandamatha, a novel they felt had an anti-Muslim message.

In 1937 the Indian National Congress discussed at length the status of the song. It was pointed out then that though the first two stanzas began with an unexceptionable evocation of the beauty of the motherland, in later stanzas there are references where the motherland is likened to goddess Durga. Therefore, the Indian National Congress decided to adopt only the first two stanzas as the National Song.

Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Green fields waving ,
Mother of might,
Mother free.

Glory of moonlight dreams,
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease,
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.

By Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Translated by Sri Aurobindo.

Audio: The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W B Yeats

2006-08-28T19:45:00.003+05:30

Listen to The Lake Isle of Innisfree read by W B Yeats himself.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree.

By W B Yeats.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Terri Guillemets: Yoga

2006-08-28T19:45:00.001+05:30

"A photographer gets people to pose for him.
A yoga instructor gets people to pose for themselves. "

~Terri Guillemets

Albert Einstein: Kiss

2006-08-28T19:45:00.000+05:30

"Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl
is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves."

~Albert Einstein

Between Going And Coming

2006-08-23T00:36:00.000+05:30

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.

by Octavio Paz.

Why I Write by George Orwell

2006-08-20T18:58:00.000+05:30

Why I Write by George Orwell offers the reader a look into a great writer's motivations for writing, as Orwell lays out the only real reasons anyone writes:

(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.

(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

(iv) Political purpose. Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude

Podcast: The very best euphemism for stupid

2006-08-18T22:07:00.000+05:30

In this podcast from Slate (which you can also play right from your computer by clicking here), our contest curator, Barbara Wallraff, recounts many of her favorite entries. They include international euphemisms—listen for the brilliant one from Canada—and one you'll need to write down to understand. Then Barbara crowns what she considers the very best euphemism for stupid.

Elementary rules of usage

2006-08-17T20:16:00.000+05:30

Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's.

In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last.

Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas.

Place a comma before 'and' or 'but' introducing an independent clause.
Do not join independent clauses by a comma.

Do not break sentences in two.

A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject.

Divide words at line-ends, in accordance with their formation and pronunciation.

From Elements of Style by Strunk & White.

Happy 59th Independence Day, India

2006-08-15T20:02:00.001+05:30

Happy 59th Independence Day, India.

Where The Mind is Without Fear

2006-08-15T20:02:00.000+05:30

WHERE the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-Rabindranath Tagore

Happy 59th Independence Day, India.

Eric Anderson: Mediocrity

2006-08-12T20:07:00.000+05:30

“The most insidious influence on the young is not violence, drugs, tobacco, drink or sexual perversion, but our pursuit of the trivial and our tolerance of the third rate.”

-Eric Anderson

Song of Khan Zada

2006-08-08T12:44:00.000+05:30

As one may sip a Stranger's Bowl
You gave yourself but not your soul.
I wonder, now that time has passed,
Where you will come to rest at last.

You gave your beauty for an hour,
I held it gently as a flower.
You wished to leave, told me so,
I kissed your feet and let you go.

Song of Khan Zada from India’s Love Lyrics. Translated by Laurence Hope.

Garrison Keillor: God

2006-08-07T06:44:00.000+05:30

God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is,
he's stuck with so many bad actors
who don't know how to play funny.

-Garrison Keillor