From dreamworld to reality

I've got "Choker Bali",Rabindranath Tagore. Story revolves around complex relationship between three individuals under a single roof.
There's Mahendra, his wife and a widow. Mahendra, brought up attached to his mother, marrys a girl, who apparently proposed to his friend. But later the things change and his desires intensifys towards 'Binodini', who's a window came to stay with them. The emotional struggle he undergoes is expressed quite immensely. From there onwards the story is the saga of 'Binodini'. During the time the story was written pre-era of revolutionised Indian culture. In early periods widows were deprived from re-marrying and the story's anti-climax occurs based on this theme, where Binodini rejects offer for marriage, based on the fear of rejection from the society.

Translation is quite elegant; "From time immemorial, the river Jamuna had been fed by the glacial snows of the Himalayas, and equally timeless have been the hymns sung, down the ages, by poets in praise of the Jamuna."

Tagore always speakout the human weaknesses and such was elegantly expressed by the translated author, Sukhendu Ray.

The story is being filmed as well in 2003 as a bengali film, with Aishwarya Rai as the main actress, playing the role of 'Binodini'. I think she is quite a match for a tempting character like 'Binodini', a woman with wit, beauty, and desire.

Interesting reading revealing reality from a dream world in people.

Colpetty People

This is a book that i wanted to read sometime back. Finally got hold of it. But i found it quite disappointing and doesn't seem to fit into my taste. Nevertheless some stories are quite interesting, like 'The perfect house', 'Jiggy'. The stories are simple and Ashok hasn't used any literary metaphors, or any other cosmetics to make the stories quite advanced. However it reveals few extravagant life styles in Colombo for us. I wouldn't read it twice, but i definitely want to read it to the end.

The world that never appreciates another fellow-being

People are selfish. No second thoughts necessary. This quear charactieristic of human beings drives them to weired behaviours at times. People want others to have a doomed life while they can have all the luxuries in the world and better things happening for them. This makes people never appreciating happiness, achievements of another and showing only the aggression, anger, jealousy. This nature of us makes the life distasteful and ugly. I at times wonder whether i being too pessimistic seeing things undesired.But i could not see otherwise,since this is what i encounter in and out of the life.

Interesting blog

I have a read a really interesting blog, http://darrenlilleker.blogspot.com/2008/04/marketing-analogies-and-political.html, with varys of aspects of our what's around us.

In the blog entry Marketing Analogies and the Political Consumer the author compares presidency in a country to a market, where the president is the plc and people are the shares in it. The plc starts with a market value of zero and the buyers and sellers in the market are the voters, and elections are the trading stock. Then only the market value for the plc builds in. Then he goes into asking whether this is a right way of viewing democracy or is it a disservice to civil duty from politics.

His posts are quite advanced but i find them interesting.

Prognosis

The Prognosis

At two in the afternoon,
in a white-washed clinic,
the oncologist asked for a private word with the wife.

“The prognosis is not good,” he said kindly.
He had the right tone of voice that came from
the repetition of a single phrase over the lifetime of a profession.
The wife went outside and discussed
the train schedule with her dead husband.

On the way home,
the council flats sped past them and
the bridge came and went.

Autumn leaves flew off the tracks and settled down again.
She told him they had dinner waiting. There were fish fingers in the oven.
The husband, knowing, smiled. And said, next summer, they would go to Greece.
-Ramya Chamali Jirasinghe

A poem which goes into the crux of the feelings....

This poem was shortlisted for Gratiaen Prize this year.

Social Equality

I've been reading the "Inheritance of Loss" and "I've been intrigued to share this insight with everyone.

"It was important to draw the lines properly between classes or it harmed everyone on both side of the great divide.Servants got all sorts of ideas, and then when they realised the world wasn't going to give them and their children what it gave to others, they get angry nad resentful.

Lola and Noni constantly had to discourage their maid, Kesang from divulging persobal information, but it was hard, Noni acknowledged to keep it that way. Before one knew it one could slide into areas of the heart that should be referred to only between social equals. She thought of an episode not so long ago when the sisters had been too fascinated to stop their maid telling them of her romance with the milkman"

I think this is something we wish when we are associating varys of people day in and day out. But I feel it isn't right. Every individual in this world has right to have a better life and has the right to fight for it. Being in the elite class we may feel proud by discriminating the person, but there will always be someone who would give ear to that person. That is how people and countries have ever developed in this world.