Concerning Animals and Allegories...

THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

These are the Seven Commandments of Animal Farm; the laws that govern its functioning. It is a farm entirely controlled and looked after by the animals themselves in absence of ‘Human Tyranny’. The animals work in the fields all day long, working for themselves, taking pleasures in their toil and its yield and no one to rule over them. Sounds like a utopia, eh? It is how it all began, but that was the highest point of its utopia…

Animal Farm is a book by George Orwell, which tells the story of this ‘Animal Paradise’.
The idea of a farm For-and-By the animals is conceived by Old Major, a pig and the wisest animal on the farm. After his death, the animals, filled with revolutionary sentiments, rebel against the human controlling the, then, Manor Farm and secure their motive, of liberty and happiness. Manor Farm becomes Animal Farm. The pigs, being the most intelligent animals in the place, learn to read and write, and educate the other animals – though except for the dogs and the donkeys, no one else goes beyond learning the alphabet. Their sole objective is to achieve prosperity, enjoying this newly-found independence.

This, however, is just the beginning. Ideologically, Animal Farm’s development may be represented as being a place where ‘All animals are equal’ to a place where ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’. From its liberal and humble beginnings, Animal Farm turns into a total dystopia, full of scared, mentally tortured and manipulated animals, with the pigs slowly and gradually assuming absolute control over the place. What is initiated to curb tyranny becomes tyrannical itself. However, while all this gamboling between slavery and liberty goes on, the development and progress of the Farm is never compromised with. ‘FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD', a chant that summed up the values that were the supposed to be the foundation of the Farm, gets modified into ‘FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BETTER'…..

*****

Animal Farm is not just another work of fiction. It is, in its essence, an allegory full of satirical intent, with its primary target being Joseph Stalin, under whose leadership Communist Russia gained much of its prosperity (They have a law in France that you can’t name a pig as Napoleon. I suspect, it is because of this book).

The whole account is presented in an unbiased fashion. Orwell never firmly states anywhere in the whole of the book that the pigs are cruel; or that the animals are leading miserable lives of slaves under a tyrannical and manipulative leader. Instead he leaves it to the readers, inducing them to think and to decide what’s really going on around the place.

On the whole, I think Animal Farm is really about political ideas – their efficacy and inefficiency. I feel it allegorizes the fact that no political idea can be defect-free, no matter how irresistible or irreproachable it may seem in the beginning. Nothing’s perfect, as it is.

P.S: Oh, and the communists hate the book!

On the grave problem of Hospitalization...

I have a friend – not that its news or something, but had to start somewhere. So, yeah….. I have a friend…. – you know this makes me feel as though I were giving Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech:
‘I have a friend who will one day rise up and live out the true meaning of his creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”
I have a friend who will one day live in a nation where he will not be judged by the colour of his skin but the content of his character.
I have a friend today!’ *chuckles*

Hmm… getting back once again, I have a friend and he incidentally has fallen in love – with his mobile!! No news in this either, just another teenage phenomenon. Still, he loves playing with the cell phone – he may even be cuddling and kissing it right now for all you know, but I don’t have any concrete proof for this hypothesis – and has a habit of sending out sms’s all the time: I get up in the morning to see a msg flashing on my mobile, eat and see it flashing, drink while it still flashes and sleep only to wake up some moments later to discover that it never gets tired of its routine flashing. And what’s more to it is that the sms’s always make me laugh – not because there’s anything funny in them, but because the grammar is simply preposterous! And, Boy, do I die laughing: it nearly kills me every time!!

Now, have I ever thought of telling him about it? Never! Being influence by purism does tend to make you like a sort of propriety while using English, but still, propriety doesn’t matter as long as you can convey your meaning, because that is what language is for: syntax and grammar only help to express yourself – certain experiences have taught me this.

It may, thus, imply that one is free to express oneself, however he or she chooses, but this does not leave out the scope for social blunders while you are at it. *smiles in an Oldest Member-esque fashion (for information of non-Wodehouse fans, this means:‘Beware! He has just remembered a story!!’)* And this just reminds me of a particular incident that very much amused me:


It was one of those beautiful days when all of Nature is involved in a pleasant conspiracy ‘to load and bless’: when the weather is fine, the skies untainted by spots of clouds and the sun in his best mood: moodily settling himself in the skies and radiating his bright sunshine upon the college campus. But, alas! There was no corresponding sunshine in the heart of the Principal who, though cosily seated in his chair, did not appear so by the troubled countenance which he bore. The college was to have a workshop in the coming days and – as is customary of colleges – certain guests were invited. The management of the gathering was so much bothering him that to any passer-by he would have seemed a man intimidated by some strong bully about to turn up to wreck his internal organs with his own bare hands.

It was at this juncture, when it appeared that the thought of bullies was taking too great a toll off his mind, that there was a knock on the door. Coming out of his reverie, the Principal replied to the knock, “Enter!”

And in came two people who looked very much unlike some strong bullies, but rather gave the impression that they were the college staff – and just so they were; they were in-charges of arranging the workshop.

The Principal seemed relieved after seeing them, as though help had just come to Rohan when they fought a losing battle against Sauron.

The Principal re-adjusted himself to his best professional style and asked his compatriots to settle themselves – now was the time for some serious discussion. Over the next half-hour, all the issues on the arrangement-of-the-program-front were resolved and all that remained was the question of accommodating the guests – naturally as the workshop was a multi-day affair the guests had to be accommodated somewhere!!

It was after sometime that the Man-in-the-white-shirt came up with an idea he thought was brilliant: he explained it to the Principal. His colleague was rather pleased with his plan, but the Man in the Chair seemed fairly revolted by his ideas. He even went so far as to point out that the guest were visiting the college for the first time and would be quite displeased with such hospitality.

This disconcerted the man a bit – for he couldn’t perceive what his Boss was babbling, and accounted this to the Old man’s generally eccentric and potty nature – but he was Man of vigour, determination and adamancy, who didn’t easily back down. So, he put through his proposal once again with the same exuberance and sense of pride as before, “I know sir. And that is just why we must hospitalize the guests”



P.S: When my father told me about this incident, I just couldn’t stop laughing and pitying the man for his lack of knowledge. Incase you didn’t find anything funny in it, I’m sorry but I can’t help that. Maybe you could stick around and wait for some post that does seem funny to your enfeebled sense of humour.

In which a case is fully discussed....

Hullo hullo-ullo-ullo Hullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo!!!
Greeting, Everyone!!
I’m the new boy on the block – or blog is it…………………*is a trifle disconcerted by his lack of knowledge*……….... Anyway from now on I shall be running this place posting my thoughts and views about ‘what goes on’. So if you ever drop by again and find some new post, do take time to comment on it – even if all you can conjure up is “mphm….”
But first…………… allow me to introduce myself. Now, I wouldn’t bother to tell you my name ‘coz that you have obviously read – and, if you haven’t, you’re an ignorant old fool, I’m sorry to say. So…… yeah, I’m a boy in his teens who shares all those stupid and dumb interests of just another hundred thousand teenagers around the globe (that explains quite a lot about me, doesn’t it?); likes trying new thing; just LOVES reading; likes hanging out with friend and playing the jester of the court (void of a king, that is); is very smart – a very clichéd word of praise that, though I’d rather not believe it; and is, arguably, the most impertinent old blister you’ve ever come across – even this many tell me and some *think of those some, in particular* too often, though I’d prefer to call it bluntness, really (with just a tinge of sarcasm). But then to look at it from another point of view: (oh, how I love quoting!!) “The great secret, Eliza,” says Prof. Henry Higgins, “is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in heaven, where there are no third class carriages, and one soul is as good as another. The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you ever heard me treat anyone else better” that’s what I think of it: better be bluntly rude than a hypocrite and wear rotten masks all the time.
Hmm…. I think I have said enough about myself to last you an eternity.
Now, secondly, a word on my blog’s name: I don’t know for how long I’d let it remain that – I’m pretty capricious, you know – but as long as it is around, I think it best to have cleared the mist around it. You see, the first thing that comes in the mind of a genuine Wodehouse fan on reading the words ‘fried fish’ is Jeeves, the elegant, intelligent and efficient gentleman’s gentleman, ever-willing to let his grey cell be of service to his employer who strives hard day-in and day-out to make a colossal ass of himself in all sorts of unimaginable mis-adventures; and even Jeeves can’t do without a sumptuous helping of fish to keep himself mentally fit for all that hectic brain work. So, if you are not a Wodehouse fan, now you know ‘what’s in the name’………
Just another passing word before I take leave: I am fully aware that I’m not a very good with my pen, even then if you think what I write is complete crap and the only place for it is the bin than the blog, all I can tell you is: HIT THE ROAD!!!
Tra-la!
Au revoir!!