Men Are Just Happier People-- What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack.
You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100.
People never stare at your chest when you are talking to them. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks. A 5-day vacation requires only one
suitcase . You can open all of your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes. Everything on your face stays its original color. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe even decades. You only have to shave your
face and neck.
You can play with toys all your life. Your belly usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair of shoes = one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter what how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.
No wonder men are happier.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Why We LAUGH?
That is the reason why humorous movies are famous and why we like comedians more than our favourite personalities. In todays world every sigle cinema hero wanted to try humor in their films. Because they know humor is the only formula which works 100%.
But infact i was thinking whay we laugh?
Humour is a subject that has attracted the attention and interest of some of our greatest minds, from Aristotle and Kant to Freud. It has also fascinated and played an important part in the work of some of the greatest writers such as Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde.
However, curiously, after thousands of years spent trying to understand humour, there is still a great deal of controversy about what humour is or why something is funny. There are some interesting theories, though, on this matter.
For Aristotle, comedy is based on “an imitation of men worse than the average,” of people who are “ridiculous”. Hobbes carried the same idea a bit further. He said, “the passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.”
There is another theory that is probably the most important and most widely accepted of the explanations of humour. This theory argues that all humour involves some kind of a difference between what one expects and what one gets.
One of the more interesting and controversial theories of humour stems from the work of Freud. The psychoanalytic theory of humour argues that humour is essentially masked aggression which gives us gratifications we desperately crave. As Freud wrote in his classic book—Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious— “and here at last we can understand what it is that jokes achieve in the service of their purpose. They make possible the satisfaction of an instinct (whether lustful or hostile) in the face of an obstacle that stands in its way.”
Freud also recounts a number of wonderful Jewish jokes in his book and alludes to the remarkable amount of self-criticism found in jokes which all Jews tell about themselves. “Incidentally,’ he wrote, “I do not know whether there are many other instances of a people making fun of such a degree of its own character”. His use of the word “fun” is important. He did not regard Jewish jokes as masochistic (gratification gained from pain, deprivation). Just the opposite.
It might be argued that since humour is an effective way to keeping in touch with reality, Jewish humour has been intimately connected with Jewish survival. Also, humour is not some kind of an idle and trivial matter but generally enables people to gain valuable insights into social and political matters.
The fact of the matter is that this seemingly trivial, inconsequential, common thing we know as humour is very enigmatic and plays a vital role in our psychic lives and in society.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
INDIAN WRITINGS IN ENGLISH: AN OVERVIEW
Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the first Indian to effectively express himself in black and white through English, though he was initiated to the language when he was in his teens. Thereafter, Vivekananda showed his perfect masterly over the language through his evocative prose, which made the west sit up and take notice of the greatness of Hinduism. Tagore also had written some poems in English. Jawaharlal Nehru and M.K Gandhi were also great masters of the English language. Nehru’s Discovery of India, Glimpses of World History etc are glaring testimony to not only his profound scholarship but also his absolute mastery over writing lucid prose in the foreign language.
Though Mahatma Gandhi used his mother tongue, Gujarati, to write his famous autobiography, later translated into English by his secretary Mahadev Desai under the title The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1929), he used Hindi and English with masterly skill and use. As he lived through a eventful life among his people, who were attempting to liberate themselves from moral decadence; social lethargy, political degradation, economic exploitation, and cultural subordination, Gandhi wrote, day and night, in and out of prisons, for his two journals, Young India and Harijan.
Rabindranath Tagore was the first Asian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). Tagore represents a happy combination of the ancient Indian tradition and the new European consciousness. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his slim volume of poems entitled Gitanjali. His other known works are Gora, Ghare Baire and Galpa Guchchha.
In 1930s emerged the first major figures in the field of English literature in the shape of the “Big Three” of Indian fiction: Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan. Mulk Raj Anand is the most westernized of the trio; Rao, while writing in English and using the genre of the novels has his roots in Sanskrit culture. R.K. Narayan’s work occupies a middle ground between the approaches of his two illustrious contemporaries.
Mulk Raj Anand’s reputation was first established by his first two novels, Untouchable (1935), which gives an account of “a day in life” of a sweeper, and Coolie (1936), which follows the fortunes of a peasant boy uprooted from the land. His trilogy, The Village (1939), Across The Black Water (1940) and The Sword and the Sickle (1942)is an epic account of the gradual growth of the protagonist’s revolutionary consciousness, which may be seen as a microcosm of India’s movement towards an awareness of the need for independence.
Raja Rao’s first novel Kantapura (1938) is his most straight forward. It gives an account of how a village’s revolt against a domineering plantation owner comes to be informed by the Gandhian ideal of non violence. Rao’s major work The Serpent and the Rope (1960) is regarded by some Indian critics as the most important Indian novel in English to have appeared to date. It has also published the short novels The Cat and Shakespeare (1965) and Comrade Kirillov (1976).
Nirad C. Chaudhari is being regarded as the most controversial of Indian writers in English. He emerged on the scene with his book The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951). When he visited England, he recorded his experiences in A Passage to England (1959). In The Continent of circle (1965) he puts forward the thesis the Aryan settlers of India became enfeebled by the climate of North India. He has also published To Live or not to Live (1970) and a second volume of autobiography, Thy Hand, Great Anarch (1987).
R.K. Narayan’s early novels include the triology Swami and Friends (1935), Bachelor of Arts (1937) and The English Teacher (1945). The novels of his middle period represent his best works; these include Mr. Sampath (1949), The Financial Expert (1952), The Guide (1958), The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961) and The Sweet Vendor (1967). They explore conflicts between traditional Hindu values and western incursions into the society. Narayan’s more recent novels include The Painter of Signs (1976), A Tiger for Malgudi (1983) and Talkative Man (1986). He has also published several volumes of short stories, including An Astrologer’s Day (1947) and Lawley Road (1956).
Vikram Seth’s first novel, A Suitable Boy has made him the most hyped-up first time novelist in the history of Indian literature. The Golden Gate, a novel in verse had hit the bestsellers’ lists in 1986-87. This was followed by three collections of verses: The Humble Administrator’s Garden, All You Who Sleep Tonight and Beastly Tales From Here and There
Salman Rushdie won the 1981 Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children (1981). The Shame (1983) approaches political events in Pakistan. He has also published Grimus (1975.) a science fiction novel and The Jaguar Smile (1987), a journal about war-torn Nicaragua and of course, the banned book – The Satanic Verses.
Anita Desai has written Fire in the Mountains (1977), Clear Light of Day (1980) and The Village by the Sea (1982), Cry the Peacock (1963), Bye-Bye Black Bird (1971) and In custody (1984). Her subtle unostentatious prose and her sensitive evocation of the inner lives of her characters make her one of the finest talents at work in the Indian Novel.
Other Novelists: The period around Independence provided Khushwant Singh and Manohar Malgonkar with the subject matter of their novels: Singh’s A Train to Pakistan (1956) and Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges (1964) deal with partition. Singh’s I Shall Not Hear The Nightingale (1959) is about the movements of a Sikh family in the Punjab in the uncertain period before partition and Malgonkar’s The Princes (1963) a sympathetic account of the tragedy of a family who represents the local elite that ruled many ‘native’ states during the Raj. Kamala Markandya’s novels, which include Nectar in a Sieve (1954), A Handful of Rice (1966) and The Coffer Dams (1969), are mainly about rural and urban poverty and dispossession.
Nayantara Sahgal, a niece of Nehru, writes about the Indian elite of today and yesterday. Her novels include This Time of Morning (1965), The Day in Shadow (1971), A Situation in New Delhi (1977), Rich Like Us (1985) and Plans For Departure (1986), she was winner of the Eurasian section of the 1987 Commonwealth Writer Prize.
Although Arundhuti Roy she has written only one novel, she managed to gain international recognition as the popularity of her maiden novel; ‘The God of Small things’ transcended geographical boundaries and thereby made her presence feel among the contemporary literacy greats of the west. She also won tremendous critical acclaim for her immative use of the language and her lyrical and yet honest presentation of life and times of a Kerala village which culminated with her winning the prestigious Booker Prize ($20,000), for her debut literacy venture.
Indian Poetry in English
While Indian poetry in English dates back to the early nineteenth century, it is really only in the period since independence that it has come of age. Pride of place among poets writing in English must go to Nissim Ezekiel whose verse frequently explores relationships between the external world and the interior life. His volumes of verse include Time to Change (1951), The Unfinished Man (1960) and Hymns in Darkness (1976). Kamala Das writes about women’s emotions with a candour unprecedented in Indian verse and Arun Kolatkar, winner of the 1977 Commonwealth Poetry Prize for his collection Jejuri, provides a reference point for meditations on Indian life, ancient and modern. Other notable poets after Independence in English include Adil Jussawalla, P. Lal, Jayanta Mahapatra, Dom Moraes, Rajagopal Parthasarathy, G. Patel and A.K. Ramanujan. Vikram Seth has produced a virtuoso novel in verse, The Golden Gate (1986)
Though Mahatma Gandhi used his mother tongue, Gujarati, to write his famous autobiography, later translated into English by his secretary Mahadev Desai under the title The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1929), he used Hindi and English with masterly skill and use. As he lived through a eventful life among his people, who were attempting to liberate themselves from moral decadence; social lethargy, political degradation, economic exploitation, and cultural subordination, Gandhi wrote, day and night, in and out of prisons, for his two journals, Young India and Harijan.
Rabindranath Tagore was the first Asian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). Tagore represents a happy combination of the ancient Indian tradition and the new European consciousness. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his slim volume of poems entitled Gitanjali. His other known works are Gora, Ghare Baire and Galpa Guchchha.
In 1930s emerged the first major figures in the field of English literature in the shape of the “Big Three” of Indian fiction: Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan. Mulk Raj Anand is the most westernized of the trio; Rao, while writing in English and using the genre of the novels has his roots in Sanskrit culture. R.K. Narayan’s work occupies a middle ground between the approaches of his two illustrious contemporaries.
Mulk Raj Anand’s reputation was first established by his first two novels, Untouchable (1935), which gives an account of “a day in life” of a sweeper, and Coolie (1936), which follows the fortunes of a peasant boy uprooted from the land. His trilogy, The Village (1939), Across The Black Water (1940) and The Sword and the Sickle (1942)is an epic account of the gradual growth of the protagonist’s revolutionary consciousness, which may be seen as a microcosm of India’s movement towards an awareness of the need for independence.
Raja Rao’s first novel Kantapura (1938) is his most straight forward. It gives an account of how a village’s revolt against a domineering plantation owner comes to be informed by the Gandhian ideal of non violence. Rao’s major work The Serpent and the Rope (1960) is regarded by some Indian critics as the most important Indian novel in English to have appeared to date. It has also published the short novels The Cat and Shakespeare (1965) and Comrade Kirillov (1976).
Nirad C. Chaudhari is being regarded as the most controversial of Indian writers in English. He emerged on the scene with his book The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951). When he visited England, he recorded his experiences in A Passage to England (1959). In The Continent of circle (1965) he puts forward the thesis the Aryan settlers of India became enfeebled by the climate of North India. He has also published To Live or not to Live (1970) and a second volume of autobiography, Thy Hand, Great Anarch (1987).
R.K. Narayan’s early novels include the triology Swami and Friends (1935), Bachelor of Arts (1937) and The English Teacher (1945). The novels of his middle period represent his best works; these include Mr. Sampath (1949), The Financial Expert (1952), The Guide (1958), The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961) and The Sweet Vendor (1967). They explore conflicts between traditional Hindu values and western incursions into the society. Narayan’s more recent novels include The Painter of Signs (1976), A Tiger for Malgudi (1983) and Talkative Man (1986). He has also published several volumes of short stories, including An Astrologer’s Day (1947) and Lawley Road (1956).
Vikram Seth’s first novel, A Suitable Boy has made him the most hyped-up first time novelist in the history of Indian literature. The Golden Gate, a novel in verse had hit the bestsellers’ lists in 1986-87. This was followed by three collections of verses: The Humble Administrator’s Garden, All You Who Sleep Tonight and Beastly Tales From Here and There
Salman Rushdie won the 1981 Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children (1981). The Shame (1983) approaches political events in Pakistan. He has also published Grimus (1975.) a science fiction novel and The Jaguar Smile (1987), a journal about war-torn Nicaragua and of course, the banned book – The Satanic Verses.
Anita Desai has written Fire in the Mountains (1977), Clear Light of Day (1980) and The Village by the Sea (1982), Cry the Peacock (1963), Bye-Bye Black Bird (1971) and In custody (1984). Her subtle unostentatious prose and her sensitive evocation of the inner lives of her characters make her one of the finest talents at work in the Indian Novel.
Other Novelists: The period around Independence provided Khushwant Singh and Manohar Malgonkar with the subject matter of their novels: Singh’s A Train to Pakistan (1956) and Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges (1964) deal with partition. Singh’s I Shall Not Hear The Nightingale (1959) is about the movements of a Sikh family in the Punjab in the uncertain period before partition and Malgonkar’s The Princes (1963) a sympathetic account of the tragedy of a family who represents the local elite that ruled many ‘native’ states during the Raj. Kamala Markandya’s novels, which include Nectar in a Sieve (1954), A Handful of Rice (1966) and The Coffer Dams (1969), are mainly about rural and urban poverty and dispossession.
Nayantara Sahgal, a niece of Nehru, writes about the Indian elite of today and yesterday. Her novels include This Time of Morning (1965), The Day in Shadow (1971), A Situation in New Delhi (1977), Rich Like Us (1985) and Plans For Departure (1986), she was winner of the Eurasian section of the 1987 Commonwealth Writer Prize.
Although Arundhuti Roy she has written only one novel, she managed to gain international recognition as the popularity of her maiden novel; ‘The God of Small things’ transcended geographical boundaries and thereby made her presence feel among the contemporary literacy greats of the west. She also won tremendous critical acclaim for her immative use of the language and her lyrical and yet honest presentation of life and times of a Kerala village which culminated with her winning the prestigious Booker Prize ($20,000), for her debut literacy venture.
Indian Poetry in English
While Indian poetry in English dates back to the early nineteenth century, it is really only in the period since independence that it has come of age. Pride of place among poets writing in English must go to Nissim Ezekiel whose verse frequently explores relationships between the external world and the interior life. His volumes of verse include Time to Change (1951), The Unfinished Man (1960) and Hymns in Darkness (1976). Kamala Das writes about women’s emotions with a candour unprecedented in Indian verse and Arun Kolatkar, winner of the 1977 Commonwealth Poetry Prize for his collection Jejuri, provides a reference point for meditations on Indian life, ancient and modern. Other notable poets after Independence in English include Adil Jussawalla, P. Lal, Jayanta Mahapatra, Dom Moraes, Rajagopal Parthasarathy, G. Patel and A.K. Ramanujan. Vikram Seth has produced a virtuoso novel in verse, The Golden Gate (1986)
Heart of Gratitude!!!
A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat.
A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.
Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"
The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way."
I wrote: "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it."
Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?
Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have.. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.
When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.
The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling…
And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!
Enjoy your day with a heart of gratitude
A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.
Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"
The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way."
I wrote: "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it."
Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?
Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have.. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.
When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.
The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling…
And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!
Enjoy your day with a heart of gratitude
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