Interpreting A Wordswoth Poem...

I Travelled Among Unknown Men

I TRAVELLED among unknown men,

In lands beyond the sea;

Nor, England! did I know till then

What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!

Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem

To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine too is the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

William Wordsworth

Much is said and debated with regards to the Lucy poems. Whether she was a real person; whether she was combination of many personalities that Wordsworth knew; or just a fictitious character he used as a literary device.

Personally, I'd rather not get into this debate, I prefer to consider her as a simple English girl whose is very much real.

This is one of my favourite poems. The imagery and picturesque descriptions are just too good. And the rhyme and the jingle only add an icing to it.

The poem quite effectively portrays Wordsworth's abilities. It shows that he was an efficient swindler and a marvellous cheater and that he could make a mickey of anybody.

How so? Allow me to elaborate.

The first half of the sonnet talks about his love for his motherland. And when he says,

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!

Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem

To love thee more and more.

We feel the spirit of pure patriotism in it. The love he bears for his country and his promise to never leave its shores ever again. However, we are only being led astray for he suddenly springs it upon us that:

Among thy mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.

We thus come to realise that the love for his motherland is not as pure as he makes us believe in the first two stanzas. Rather, it is driven by other motives: The simple English girl who is the object of his affection. It was here in England that he felt joy and happiness in his desire for his beloved and it was here in England where She lived and turned her wheel, he says. His patriotism is, thus, infiltrated by his worldly desires, something that true patriot shall never approve of.

The last part is almost like an "I-made-a-mickey-of-you" thing.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine too is the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

Here he makes it absolutely clear that it not England after all that matters, but Lucy. It's been about her all the time. England, he says, I love you because you keep alive in me the memories of my Lucy and it is for the sake of this memory that I shall never leave you. Being here I can visit and witness all the place which she would visit, and feel her in the wind.

P.S. In this manner one easily sees the fraudulence of Wordsworth.

Concerning animals and allegories - II

The state assembly elections are approching, and every party has a promise to make, every statesman (ahh, what am i saying! politician is more precise) has a speech to deliver; criticism to make - to criticise the government about the lack of development (like development is a two-day ride), & other parties for making exaggerating promises - & also, to deliver a few promises himself!
Anyway, the hyprocrisy of such 'statemen' is not my topic of discussion today (though i think now that i might like to criticise every one of them, elaborately - maybe later perhaps). What i want to talk about is the more intense and all-pervading battle between the ways of governance..


It was a usual weekday night: the usual cresent moon in sky, the ususal food on the dinner table, and the usual people eating it - me & my parents. The voting for the general election had taken place earlier that day. so i asked dad whether he had voted.
"No, didn't get the time.. was too busy at work", dad replied.
I looked at mum who, too, was busy - with her food though, & said playfully,"no sense in asking her, it wud be a stupid question with a stupider answer."
And with that she got into the argumentative mode & started talking about the useless of voting, that no matter whoever you elect it's still going to be a corrupt bastard (she didn't exactly use the last word, i'm just conveying the gist), that it would have been better with monarchy, and that 'is desh ks kuch nahi ho sakta..', and she went on and on with it...
Then after the storm had subsided, i getting into my philosophical mode, and almost like socrates - after his wife had poured a bucket full of water onto him - said, "No sytem is perfect; it's all about using the flaws to our own conveniences", and smoked from an imginary pipe.

On why I'm not a Greek god...

It’s Global Warming. Now, I won’t go into what Global warming is all about, because I think Education has already grilled – and, thus, ruined - the intelligent-born Man with its intricate details. So, preferring to have my head propped on my neck, I’ll skip exploring that thread of ideas. But yet, the fact stands, and stands tall, that the Climate is changing; there are hardly any noticeable showers – this much to the dismay of Delirious who keep shouting at the heavens at the top of their voices to Rain Down!; and, especially this summer, as the days pass by, its getting hotter and hotter in geometric proportions. It is as though the Sun is being cold and stern towards an erring son, who even after constant reproval keeps erring in the same smooth fashion, unabashedly. Now, most of us will be judgmental about such child rearing practice, stating that the Sun, in being cold and stern - even towards such an unheeding son - has gone a bit too far this time. This would, however, be a view over-flowing with prejudice: for even the earth, or more specifically we, are not so clean in this matter as one would expect to be. We are responsible for this increasing heat – using all those equipments emitting Greenhouse gases to name but one fault. So, when the poet said that ‘summer joys are spoilt by use’, he sure knew what he was talking about.

These days, in order to compete with the heat and the humidity that accompanies it only to make matters worse, I spend most of my time locating electric fans and sitting right below them. And when I get tired of searching fans and sitting below them, I take a nap.

Taking a nap, especially in the afternoon, presents itself with an excellent opportunity to refresh your memories about the yonder days when you were a child of the tender young age of two, since the heat makes you perspire so, that you make wet anything that comes in contact with you – mainly, your bed sheets. Keeping yourself cool has, thus, become more of a quest for survival.

When Wodehouse tried to seek solace in the Solitary Triumph of men over women in the field of notorious businesses, they forgot to slip it to him that surviving in extreme heat was another sphere where men have an edge over the fairer sex. When he was trying earnestly to gain proficiency at solace-seeking, clinging on to his glass of port for support and encouragement, he could see no success. Had someone, at this juncture, treading softly, appeared by his side, and, observing the dull despair that spread over his features, whispered into his ears this most credible success of men, he would have leaped into the air with excitement, fully restored to his former self again. However, it was not to be, and we can only muse in dismay at what might have been.

Just to make all handicaps clear, men have an edge in this matter as a direct outcome of the Dawn of Civilisation. The Homo habilis would have contested with complete fairness in this showdown of the sexes, but the same cannot be asserted about Homo sapiens. Unlike women, men can run about the place, shunning any garment that may pose a threat of covering their bare bodies, with few going to the extent of stopping in front of the mirror from time-to-time to observe their features, looking like some Greek god who had forgotten to take his pants off. For the ancient Greeks, when they bare it, like to bare it all. My Mum often raises this point in the height of the summer months, and deems men as being lucky as they can bare it, if need arises, while women have to bear the heat without choice. But hey, blame Civilisation for that!


When we wrote the final exams in our college this year, it was an unwritten maxim obeyed by all that it is a sin leading eternal torment to forget your handkerchief at home. So, out of the fear of Damnation - and also the act of having to squeeze your answer sheet dry, the scrupulous student always had one on his person. Also, if you, by any chance, carried a water-bottle extracted straight from the Frigidaire, after an hour or so, you were almost certain to find it warm enough to go along with honey (if you were careful enough to carry some) as a treatment for your throat infection (if you were lucky enough to contract one).


*****


Life, these days, is really becoming miserable, what with hot air blowing straight in your face and the humidity to give it company. These two assure that you, dripping in sweat all the time, give the impression of having just emerged after tripping over a slippery surface into the water pond. Well, to avoid such fate, you may suggest installing an air conditioner and basking in the cool environment of that isolated room, but that will only add to the outer unbearable heat, taking it a step further in the measure of unbearableness – as even a dim-wit grilled well by our Education system could figure out by himself.

Actually speaking, Life will become more like hell as the years go by. The two aforementioned phenomena will give you the sensation of squatting on burning, red hot coals, as you crave for a drink from trained-hands. Gunga Din, where are you?
(As it is, it’s getting hotter every summer and I don’t doubt that there will come a day one summer, when the whole world with all its populace will get baked into biscuits!)

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!!