An Unofficial Rose...

Photo by - Endevourme
The paragraph is from Iris Murdoch's "The Unofficial Rose". Randall, a character in this novel, cultivates roses in the countryside. He is leaving his farm for good and is standing on his farm,among the roses, for the last time before departing.

"...The old roses were at the height of their season, and Randall stood still among them, completely absorbed into a heaven of vision. There were moments when he knew that he loved nothing in the world so much as he loved these roses; and that he loved them with a love of such transcendent purity that they made him,for a moment, like to themselves. He could have knelt before these flowers, wept before them, knowing them to be not only the most beautiful things in existance but the most beautiful things concievable. God in his dreams did not see anything lovelier. Indeed the roses were God and Randall worshipped.
Moving slightly in the breeze the intense little heads surrounded him and drowned him in their odour. Lifting a few towards them he looked with his ever new amazement at the close packed patterns of petals, these formulae that Nature never forgot, those forms that were the most desirable of all things and so exquisite that it was impossible to carry them in belief and memory through the winter; so that every year one saw them as if for the first time and as they must have looked like in the Garden of Eden when in a felicitous moment God said: let there be roses..."

Gin-Soaked...

Photo by - Endevourme
I am the darkness in the light
I am the leftness in the right
I am the rightness in the wrong
I am the shortness in the long
I am the goodness in the bad
I am the saneness in the mad
I am the sadness in the joy
I am the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I am the ghost in the machine
I am the genius in the gene
I am the beauty in the beast
I am the sunset in the east
I am the ruby in the dust
I am the trust in the mistrust
I am the trojan horse in troy
I am the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I am the tigers empty cage
I am the mysterys final page
I am the strangers lonely glance
I am the heros only chance
I am the undiscovered land
I am the single grain of sand
I am the christmas morning toy
I am the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I am the world youll never see
I am the slave youll never free
I am the truth youll never know
I am the place youll never go
I am the sound youll never hear
I am the course youll never steer
I am the will youll not destroy
I am the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I am the half-truth in the lie
I am the why not in the why
I am the last roll of the die
I am the old school in the tie
I am the spirit in the sky
I am the catcher in the rye
I am the twinkle in her eye
I am the jeff goldblum in the fly

Who am i?
- "Gin-Soaked Boy" by Divine Comedy

Beyond Faith...

Photo by - Endevourme
Writtn by Leutenant Bruce E Davis (Battle of Arnhem, World War 2 - 1944)

"...I am not trying to sound courageous, for courage was commonplace and heroism was the rule. God knows i was badly scared a good deal of the time...
...I learned this from the Arnhem operation, that men, born and bred as freemen, have a great strength and will power which they distrust until they need it. I saw men who were hungry, exausted, hopelessly outnumbered, men who by all the rules of warfare should have gladly surrendered to have it all over with, who were shelled until they were helpless psychopathics; and through it all they laughed, sang and died, and kept fighting.... "

Our own Independence day is near. There are very few people living today who have seen the pre-independence India and to tell us that freedom comes at a cost. Time makes things look faded, and we tend to feel that the spirit of independence day has become diluted. But i do believe what the Leutenant said above, that, "...men, born and bred as freemen, have a great strength and will power which they distrust until they need it" and that, if crisis comes, WE as India will stand united.
Also, many people today dont know that during World War-II, there were indian soldiers too, who faught against Axis Powers in Burma, north-africa and southern Europe under British command. During World War II the Indian Army became the largest all-volunteer force in history, rising to over 2.5 million men in size. There were total of 2,582,000 indian soldiers on various fronts, indians had 86,838 casualties, 64,354 wounded and 79,481 taken prisoners of war. There were 30 Victoria Crosses, the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces.
Last but not the least,
Jai Hind!!!

Milipede...

Photo by - Endevourme
Location : Public transport bus in pune. It is fully packed as usual and i have managed to grab a seat. After 2 stops an old woman gets in and is standing nearby. Following is what goes on in my mind.

You must get up and give her your seat.
No! i have to travel quite far, i have done a big fight to get this place so i must remain seated, i must!
You are young and healthy, look at her, she is so old. Standing for half an hour is nothing for you.
But its so much burden for her. Cant you see?
Would she even feel grateful? i have given seat in the past and people dont just bother to even thank you. They think it was anyway my duty to give them my seat.
How does it matter whether they feel gratitude? you must help if you can.
These are all social doctrines, as i have found out, most of them are wrong or relative. This preaching is just to maintain a manageable social atmosphere, nothing else.
It is your moral responsibility to help her.
Moral responsibility? huh! why dont you go and help people on weekends instead of enjoying your days out? there are loads of them needing help!
See you always have to choose between you and others, isnt it?
Yes thats right, but this is nothing, you dont have to do much, its just about standing up for a while! you must give her your seat!
See, these buses are always full, always, and there are old people coming in, does that mean you shouldnt sit at all? and by the way, there are so many young people sitting around and not a single person cares about the old lady, why do you have to?
What others do or dont has nothing to do with your helping people, isnt it?
It has! see now, if i do give her seat, i will grab atleast some attention from onlookers, and what they are going to think?'look he is trying to be a showoff!, is he trying to impress the girl standing there?' and besides, it will do good for her to stand, if she is poor and cant afford going by auto she must get habit of standing, so standing will be good for her!
What a horrible thinking! she is a poor old woman, cant you see?
Its getting ugly and its a sin.
It isnt horrible, i am just trying to say that you must desensitise yourself in order to survive. There are much more horrors in this world. You must learn to live with all this disorder. And you can do lot of things for 'poor old people' on weekends huh?, why dont you do it? Isnt it a sin when you enjoy life when there are loads of people needing help?
hmmm...
And there is nothing like sin, these are age old absolete concepts, just to make people feel guilty so that they get sense of so called 'social responsibility'. And you have been good to people in the past, what happened? Did anyone help you when you were in need? And these are collective responsibilites, arent they? Why should you, only you, when there are others who just dont bother? You must learn to ignore all this, you cant fight everything, things dont work like that.
The old woman gets an empty seat after a few minutes, and the chapter is closed for me.