The old dark dank coffee house of the dschool is gone. Instead there is a half impressive half hateful, tiled floor high ceilinged canteen that looks like a cleaned and swept railway canteen. Dada within maintains his position.
Puran mongia writes in the book mentioned somewhere below, about the never used front gate of the school:
“This gate, I discovered soon, had a fancy name. Knowledge. Two smaller entrances flanking it had fancier names: Truth and Patience. The gate had an interesting history. It had always remained closed. Someone had tried to open it years ago. But alas! Knowledge was found jammed. The smaller gate, Truth, when forced, had started tilting menacingly. It was discovered later that, thanks to an enterprising contractor, Knowledge had no base and Truth was found without foundation. Nobody mentions Patience.”
Someone told me (or did I imagine it) that the gate was to be closed till the day some student from the school won the Nobel. And like many other audience to that tale I imagined myself someday as the honoured cause for the opening of the gates :)
Thursday, January 31, 2008
jog: posting from my office desk
The cold wind easily outperforms the thick cotton sweatshirt. My hands in my pockets and my chest feeling the chill I walk fast to warm myself. Cross the road avoiding the blue lines. Come to the lane where I begin jogging. Slow soft like he taught me. Hardly hearing my feet on the road. Feel the laziness and food of the last month on my butt shake at the first 5 steps. Later all muscular feelings become one. People look wonder realize it’s a girl wonder yet more. The lane is dark already. I dodge cyclists and household help on their way home. Come to this big street lamp lighting this sudden bit of the lane. Im already panting a little. Plus the wind on my head and face literally biting. Heres the gate I stop walk in turn my usual left bend my face look at the 2-3 steps of walk before my feet automatically start their jog. Past old men women couples, in the half evening half lamp light. First one sleeve is off tehn another then it comes over my head, all this while my jog continues. The convenient thing is tied around my waist now and against the biting cold wind the sweat on my arms dries instantly. The throbbing within defeats the wind outside that is aided by my motion. And I continue heavy yet controlled breathing. The head aches a little though but I don’t mind it as yet. A couple of runners overtake me im in no hurry they will stop sooner than I. one full circle. The second is tougher. My legs move with inertia but fighting the wind against which im moving takes my energy. Now its only the lamps that guide me and now even they are put to sleep. Cant stay in such darkness too long. Some bits of the path have been dug up. Take a small diversion im not used to. Grassy with stones. Finish the second lap right at the gate. Avoid the dark lane and walk towards the residential long cut. Wide roads with cars blaring light on my face every 5 minutes. But I love this route. Very few people out on the streets. Houses trees parked cars and yet so much space on the dark grey road. A couple of gentle speed breakers I go up and come down on. My legs move with a life of their own refusing to halt. This funny calm within comes only with blood throbbing in your veins this way. Only my head hurts with the cold. Will get a cap tomorrow. Bare arms inviting wonder from passers by I love the attention. Reach the highway. Stop cross enter my block. Rub my head once home to get rid of the ache.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
just realised
the cause of frustration at work is the difference between what you want to do/how you want to do anything and what you are told to do/how you are told to do things. the only way out is to be your own master
Friday, January 25, 2008
dschool
I have been reading this book “D. School: Reflections on the Delhi School of Economics- Edited by Dharma Kumar and Dilip Mookherjee”. The book reminds me of what the school means to me. So here is a promo of the 2-yr (and counting...) encounter with the ugly building and the people within that changed my life.
I was one of those MBA rejects who came to dschool thinking that eco was not a bad fall back option esp if it gave you a job at the end of it. Something in me though, told me that i would make it through the entrance examination even before the paper was in front of me. Its funny but dschool, now when i look back, was the only place i could have been in and belonged to.
My first day as i still remember it, the day of the orientation, i had eyes only for one person. I had apparently fallen in love with the first glimpse of a long haired guy. It only helped that he was so well known that my accompanying younger cousin seemed to know of his famous oratory. My eyes followed him the whole morning whenever i could sight him. Besides that, i was so in awe of the place, that an inner voice still wasn’t convinced that i was here and was here to stay. I bunked the first lecture day of dschool in order to look for accommodation because the hostel lists would be very delayed. Being the finicky person that i am, i rejected all that i was offered: PGs, guest stature in a hostel and even the university guest house. I had seen the beautiful dschool girls’ hostel building and i was already dreaming... the first week i commuted to and from vasant kunj, paying 100 odd bucks to autowalahs in the evenings. Later i moved to meghdoot for a week and shat with big ants for company.
I remember being quite a loner in the beginning because everyone else was from delhi or Calcutta univ and knew everyone else. But i preferred it this way. I had decided that if not academic satisfaction, which i wasn’t sure i would stay to gain, i would at least make no mistakes in getting acquaintances. Funny thought again, but xavier’s Mumbai had put this notion into me that i would make the best friends of my life in a student’s life in delhi. Two instances i remember clearly in my early days in dschool:
1. The scholarship interview wherely strangely being the 33rd rank in the entrance, and the 32nd person having quit already, i was the last rank to be interviewed. By the time this occurred i was half not so impressed with the school and half was missing my Bombay colleagues who never felt the need to study. The result being that on the day of this interview when us waiting students started discussing topics that had been covered in class and others, in anticipation to questions from those profs sitting on the board whose names were muttered around with fear already, i realised i knew nothing and was deliberating whether to make a fool of myself or of them by revealing that i had cleared the entrance! After hours of waiting and biting my nails (almost) i quit the scene just when the person before me entered into the board room. Ha ha ha. Even now i think that was a last minute brilliant move.
2. This was the first lab class which was late in the afternoon and due to lack of entertainment in between lectures and this, i had retired to meghdoot for a short nap. It was july or august, sweaty tiring heat. Anyway i reached dschool and was wondering if anyone else was around. I met another waiting fellow, and i remembered him as the person next to me in my first class and one who had been noticed by me. It so happened that after entering together and exploring our allotted places we found ourselves sharing a computer because there weren’t as many machines as students. We had a dazed yet good class where both of us ended up getting something of shazam in. This guy also an MBA aspirant had views about dschool very like mine. We discussed how the place wasn’t as sacred as we had heard it was and that neither the course nor the profs had impressed either of us so much. This guy and some others i would have liked to know better but there are many people in this world who get stuck midway becoming friends for no reason at all.
Anyway my first semester was more or less a daze, me trying to balance on the tight rope without wanting to invest half as much time as any of the rest. What came was totally predicted. I flunked miserably. Though i had feared it, the fact that it had happened and so pathetically, hit me like the greatest shock in my life. I think for about a week my face was downcast and i wouldn’t talk to anyone beyond some words. Meanwhile going slightly into history, i had by now got a beautiful room in the hostel and had taken CAT again soon after my first sem exams. My CAT score was stuck like before on the same percentile, but my room was probably one of the best. It was the room from where the moon could be viewed the best and was on the top floor away from regulatory and spying (bangali) eyes. Even the terrace was accessible at times when the grill though locked was left slightly ajar. Peacocks early morning on the terrace and starry nights were more than i could have asked for. Not to mention the parapet above the spiral staircase leading to it, which i called the ‘stairway to heaven’ because you could lie on it with nothing between you and the sky and watch the night sky endlessly. The best, a dark cloudy stormy sky which felt like it would either suck me in or fall on me, burst into first one then two drops of rain and then a rainstorm that all of us danced in.
Coming back to my academic issues, my failure gave me one solid resolve. I was mad at the place for treating me like that, and i decided that if this place didn’t give me what i liked then it just wasn’t worth this torture no matter how reputed an institute it may be. Despite contrary advice from all over, i chose game theory as my first optional paper in this second sem and did i love it. If dschool couldn’t let me enjoy what i liked there was no sense in staying here. My decision was so solid that i cared a damn for all the rumor of taking safe papers and being careful. I worked hard, probably the hardest in my life and more than that i enjoyed most of what i studied that sem, even beyond game. Some of the teachers are good beyond words. That was when i started adoring the school. I would unhesitatingly bunk boring parts of subjects and would live for every single game class and attend even when the next day was some other exam and the strength of the class could be counted on fingers. Oh yeah i also developed an admiration for the game teacher, not to mention that the love of my life then was always a couple of chairs away from me in game class.
Deviating a little, because the hostel grew to be as important as the school to me and maybe more to a few of the very good friends i found there. My senior neighbour and my moody classmate to my left are very dear friends even now though we may not talk so often. The hostel reminds me of maggi parties, smuggling booze in, shouting like maniacs, winter sun, flowers, borrowed cycle rides, lying and singing on the ‘stairway to heaven’, talking insane on sleepless nights, girl madness, waking awake alone on the terrace to watch the sun come up in the morning, blaring music, sharing and fighting for good and bad food, home made cakes, teasing, sharing books and notes that i always cursed later and got back to my own or to the books. The hostel was also where my first and last (till now) love flourished, my first unexpected and shocking kiss, ... Phew theres so much that i might as well stop here.
All that reminds me of the canteen in some way. The dschool coffee house as they call it. The samosas and sandwiches there that comprised my lunch. Sometimes the mutton cutlets. And my almost usual black tea and later the maaza. Once in a while the greasy chowmein to change the taste in my mouth and the loitering in front of the canteen (i never liked sitting inside, stopped me from viewing people and looking out for the teacher and the student i was infatuated with) endlessly. I would sit there even alone for hours sipping my tea or with a reading in my hands and a pencil in my mouth. In summers the sole tree in front of it and its shifting shadow determined my place.
The library was like a temple where i went in only for short visits to get what i wanted. Once or twice i leafed through books in an unused room leisurely. Sitting and reading there often ended in me sleeping on my books on the table, it was such a soothing place.
Academically though those years weren’t very successful in the technical sense of the word, though i did manage a first class in the second sem after i subconsciously challenged the place. But if i look back i consider myself one of those few who got so much out of what they studied there, and yes i don’t mean marks. I enjoyed the readings in those chosen optionals that i attended religiously and lectures and discussions would inspire me so much that at times i would call this person up 10 times a day from dschool just to share the beauty of either a statement or a theory in class. This person by the way was my senior who had by now passed out and was specialising in cribbing in an MNC, and is also now the best friend that dschool or any other place ever gave me.
What happened to my first day love? It grew, to such proportion that the person knew without knowing it (i’m sure) and our eyes would meet in moments that gave me away... i was so sure that this was it and yet i don’t know when, the person in the last para shadowed this one and took over. Things didn’t happen the way i wished they would but they couldn’t be better now.
Placement season was the worst torture in dschool and it took half my energy and patience with it only giving me a ‘job’ at the end of it.
What did i learn out of dschool? I don’t know much macro economics but i learnt a love for micro economic theory that is close to reverence. That ugly pink building and its campus of trees, JP, canteen and Xerox shop are together one of the loves of my life. I was once caught with the said guy, after dark in that campus by some chowkidar and chased away and i have roamed around alone so often in there from one confused architectural structure to another that every little bit of that place gives me some memory and a smile. Like someone said ‘the place has a character’. Thats true about Stephen’s (which iv haunted enough without ever belonging there and once even ran to its chapel with a friend without knowing where i was being taken to, when the corporates wouldn’t buy us) and some more bits of north campus actually.
On the last day of dschool some of us took a video around the campus, recording places and people that made up our years there. This is a precious memory that i own. I still frequent dschool and feel as much at home there as before. Sometime back i looked for dschool on google earth. It is built in the shape of a large ‘E’ with the canteen the middle arm of the letter.
I was one of those MBA rejects who came to dschool thinking that eco was not a bad fall back option esp if it gave you a job at the end of it. Something in me though, told me that i would make it through the entrance examination even before the paper was in front of me. Its funny but dschool, now when i look back, was the only place i could have been in and belonged to.
My first day as i still remember it, the day of the orientation, i had eyes only for one person. I had apparently fallen in love with the first glimpse of a long haired guy. It only helped that he was so well known that my accompanying younger cousin seemed to know of his famous oratory. My eyes followed him the whole morning whenever i could sight him. Besides that, i was so in awe of the place, that an inner voice still wasn’t convinced that i was here and was here to stay. I bunked the first lecture day of dschool in order to look for accommodation because the hostel lists would be very delayed. Being the finicky person that i am, i rejected all that i was offered: PGs, guest stature in a hostel and even the university guest house. I had seen the beautiful dschool girls’ hostel building and i was already dreaming... the first week i commuted to and from vasant kunj, paying 100 odd bucks to autowalahs in the evenings. Later i moved to meghdoot for a week and shat with big ants for company.
I remember being quite a loner in the beginning because everyone else was from delhi or Calcutta univ and knew everyone else. But i preferred it this way. I had decided that if not academic satisfaction, which i wasn’t sure i would stay to gain, i would at least make no mistakes in getting acquaintances. Funny thought again, but xavier’s Mumbai had put this notion into me that i would make the best friends of my life in a student’s life in delhi. Two instances i remember clearly in my early days in dschool:
1. The scholarship interview wherely strangely being the 33rd rank in the entrance, and the 32nd person having quit already, i was the last rank to be interviewed. By the time this occurred i was half not so impressed with the school and half was missing my Bombay colleagues who never felt the need to study. The result being that on the day of this interview when us waiting students started discussing topics that had been covered in class and others, in anticipation to questions from those profs sitting on the board whose names were muttered around with fear already, i realised i knew nothing and was deliberating whether to make a fool of myself or of them by revealing that i had cleared the entrance! After hours of waiting and biting my nails (almost) i quit the scene just when the person before me entered into the board room. Ha ha ha. Even now i think that was a last minute brilliant move.
2. This was the first lab class which was late in the afternoon and due to lack of entertainment in between lectures and this, i had retired to meghdoot for a short nap. It was july or august, sweaty tiring heat. Anyway i reached dschool and was wondering if anyone else was around. I met another waiting fellow, and i remembered him as the person next to me in my first class and one who had been noticed by me. It so happened that after entering together and exploring our allotted places we found ourselves sharing a computer because there weren’t as many machines as students. We had a dazed yet good class where both of us ended up getting something of shazam in. This guy also an MBA aspirant had views about dschool very like mine. We discussed how the place wasn’t as sacred as we had heard it was and that neither the course nor the profs had impressed either of us so much. This guy and some others i would have liked to know better but there are many people in this world who get stuck midway becoming friends for no reason at all.
Anyway my first semester was more or less a daze, me trying to balance on the tight rope without wanting to invest half as much time as any of the rest. What came was totally predicted. I flunked miserably. Though i had feared it, the fact that it had happened and so pathetically, hit me like the greatest shock in my life. I think for about a week my face was downcast and i wouldn’t talk to anyone beyond some words. Meanwhile going slightly into history, i had by now got a beautiful room in the hostel and had taken CAT again soon after my first sem exams. My CAT score was stuck like before on the same percentile, but my room was probably one of the best. It was the room from where the moon could be viewed the best and was on the top floor away from regulatory and spying (bangali) eyes. Even the terrace was accessible at times when the grill though locked was left slightly ajar. Peacocks early morning on the terrace and starry nights were more than i could have asked for. Not to mention the parapet above the spiral staircase leading to it, which i called the ‘stairway to heaven’ because you could lie on it with nothing between you and the sky and watch the night sky endlessly. The best, a dark cloudy stormy sky which felt like it would either suck me in or fall on me, burst into first one then two drops of rain and then a rainstorm that all of us danced in.
Coming back to my academic issues, my failure gave me one solid resolve. I was mad at the place for treating me like that, and i decided that if this place didn’t give me what i liked then it just wasn’t worth this torture no matter how reputed an institute it may be. Despite contrary advice from all over, i chose game theory as my first optional paper in this second sem and did i love it. If dschool couldn’t let me enjoy what i liked there was no sense in staying here. My decision was so solid that i cared a damn for all the rumor of taking safe papers and being careful. I worked hard, probably the hardest in my life and more than that i enjoyed most of what i studied that sem, even beyond game. Some of the teachers are good beyond words. That was when i started adoring the school. I would unhesitatingly bunk boring parts of subjects and would live for every single game class and attend even when the next day was some other exam and the strength of the class could be counted on fingers. Oh yeah i also developed an admiration for the game teacher, not to mention that the love of my life then was always a couple of chairs away from me in game class.
Deviating a little, because the hostel grew to be as important as the school to me and maybe more to a few of the very good friends i found there. My senior neighbour and my moody classmate to my left are very dear friends even now though we may not talk so often. The hostel reminds me of maggi parties, smuggling booze in, shouting like maniacs, winter sun, flowers, borrowed cycle rides, lying and singing on the ‘stairway to heaven’, talking insane on sleepless nights, girl madness, waking awake alone on the terrace to watch the sun come up in the morning, blaring music, sharing and fighting for good and bad food, home made cakes, teasing, sharing books and notes that i always cursed later and got back to my own or to the books. The hostel was also where my first and last (till now) love flourished, my first unexpected and shocking kiss, ... Phew theres so much that i might as well stop here.
All that reminds me of the canteen in some way. The dschool coffee house as they call it. The samosas and sandwiches there that comprised my lunch. Sometimes the mutton cutlets. And my almost usual black tea and later the maaza. Once in a while the greasy chowmein to change the taste in my mouth and the loitering in front of the canteen (i never liked sitting inside, stopped me from viewing people and looking out for the teacher and the student i was infatuated with) endlessly. I would sit there even alone for hours sipping my tea or with a reading in my hands and a pencil in my mouth. In summers the sole tree in front of it and its shifting shadow determined my place.
The library was like a temple where i went in only for short visits to get what i wanted. Once or twice i leafed through books in an unused room leisurely. Sitting and reading there often ended in me sleeping on my books on the table, it was such a soothing place.
Academically though those years weren’t very successful in the technical sense of the word, though i did manage a first class in the second sem after i subconsciously challenged the place. But if i look back i consider myself one of those few who got so much out of what they studied there, and yes i don’t mean marks. I enjoyed the readings in those chosen optionals that i attended religiously and lectures and discussions would inspire me so much that at times i would call this person up 10 times a day from dschool just to share the beauty of either a statement or a theory in class. This person by the way was my senior who had by now passed out and was specialising in cribbing in an MNC, and is also now the best friend that dschool or any other place ever gave me.
What happened to my first day love? It grew, to such proportion that the person knew without knowing it (i’m sure) and our eyes would meet in moments that gave me away... i was so sure that this was it and yet i don’t know when, the person in the last para shadowed this one and took over. Things didn’t happen the way i wished they would but they couldn’t be better now.
Placement season was the worst torture in dschool and it took half my energy and patience with it only giving me a ‘job’ at the end of it.
What did i learn out of dschool? I don’t know much macro economics but i learnt a love for micro economic theory that is close to reverence. That ugly pink building and its campus of trees, JP, canteen and Xerox shop are together one of the loves of my life. I was once caught with the said guy, after dark in that campus by some chowkidar and chased away and i have roamed around alone so often in there from one confused architectural structure to another that every little bit of that place gives me some memory and a smile. Like someone said ‘the place has a character’. Thats true about Stephen’s (which iv haunted enough without ever belonging there and once even ran to its chapel with a friend without knowing where i was being taken to, when the corporates wouldn’t buy us) and some more bits of north campus actually.
On the last day of dschool some of us took a video around the campus, recording places and people that made up our years there. This is a precious memory that i own. I still frequent dschool and feel as much at home there as before. Sometime back i looked for dschool on google earth. It is built in the shape of a large ‘E’ with the canteen the middle arm of the letter.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
i recognised love when it proved my definition
it beat me ruthlessly, threw me recklessly
it hurt it pained it killed me not to have
it tore my defences it bled me to desire
i was made an observer to the storm within, stunned because i didnt recognise myself
i laughed at me
i suspected being tricked
still did not believe
i knew, i was waiting, i wanted to lose control
it answered all my questions and swept me in its grasp
one day i gave in
it beat me ruthlessly, threw me recklessly
it hurt it pained it killed me not to have
it tore my defences it bled me to desire
i was made an observer to the storm within, stunned because i didnt recognise myself
i laughed at me
i suspected being tricked
still did not believe
i knew, i was waiting, i wanted to lose control
it answered all my questions and swept me in its grasp
one day i gave in
always on my defence, i dig deep into words, imagining slights, puns, disagreement.
funny but others' happiness sometimes saddens you for no reason
and no matter how much you want not to be controlled you are pinned down when most unaware
all of a sudden someone so close feels like a stranger
and the distance between seems impossible
why the hell did the mind have to be so hyperactive
to continue to think when u dint want it to
physical exercise alone hushes it
sleep is so tender like in gasps
old friends dont remain i dont want them anymore
change is the only pleasant thing but it shud click in the first moment
so many people stuck between friendship and the unexplained
so much trash from the mind comes out only on paper
a yearning and yet a resolution, split minds wonder far apart
does a part of me exist only to impress those i am impressed by and to defeat those who jeer
i thought i would know what i was upto by now
funny but others' happiness sometimes saddens you for no reason
and no matter how much you want not to be controlled you are pinned down when most unaware
all of a sudden someone so close feels like a stranger
and the distance between seems impossible
why the hell did the mind have to be so hyperactive
to continue to think when u dint want it to
physical exercise alone hushes it
sleep is so tender like in gasps
old friends dont remain i dont want them anymore
change is the only pleasant thing but it shud click in the first moment
so many people stuck between friendship and the unexplained
so much trash from the mind comes out only on paper
a yearning and yet a resolution, split minds wonder far apart
does a part of me exist only to impress those i am impressed by and to defeat those who jeer
i thought i would know what i was upto by now
Saturday, January 12, 2008
there's nothing like this piece of poetry by Blake
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipped and armed for fight
Does the rising sun affright.
Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.
The wild deer wandering here and there
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misused breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.
The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.
He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be beloved by men.
He who the ox to wrath has moved
Shall never be by woman loved.
The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.
The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.
He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them, and thou wilt grow fat.
The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from Slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of Envy's foot.
The poison of the honey-bee
Is the artist's jealousy.
The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so:
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
The babe is more than swaddling bands,
Throughout all these human lands;
Tools were made and born were hands,
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;
This is caught by females bright
And returned to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.
The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes Revenge! in realms of death.
The beggar's rags fluttering in air
Does to rags the heavens tear.
The soldier armed with sword and gun
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.
One mite wrung from the labourer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands,
Or if protected from on high
Does that whole nation sell and buy.
He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mocked in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.
He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.
The questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.
The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.
When gold and gems adorn the plough
To peaceful arts shall Envy bow.
A riddle or the cricket's cry
Is to doubt a fit reply.
The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.
The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding sheet.
The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see not through the eye
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears, and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night,
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipped and armed for fight
Does the rising sun affright.
Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.
The wild deer wandering here and there
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misused breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.
The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.
He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be beloved by men.
He who the ox to wrath has moved
Shall never be by woman loved.
The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.
The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.
He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them, and thou wilt grow fat.
The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from Slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of Envy's foot.
The poison of the honey-bee
Is the artist's jealousy.
The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so:
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
The babe is more than swaddling bands,
Throughout all these human lands;
Tools were made and born were hands,
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;
This is caught by females bright
And returned to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.
The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes Revenge! in realms of death.
The beggar's rags fluttering in air
Does to rags the heavens tear.
The soldier armed with sword and gun
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.
One mite wrung from the labourer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands,
Or if protected from on high
Does that whole nation sell and buy.
He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mocked in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.
He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.
The questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.
The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.
When gold and gems adorn the plough
To peaceful arts shall Envy bow.
A riddle or the cricket's cry
Is to doubt a fit reply.
The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.
The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding sheet.
The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see not through the eye
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears, and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night,
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
dream on...
I used to wilfully dream. Every night starting with some little fantasy someway into future weaving a scene first and then slowly a tale. And i would actually believe in it as it spun. The doubt in me would warn me that my dreaming would negate the possibility of the dream ever coming true. Because my reason told me that dreams were way different from reality no matter how real my dream. The die hard believer in me devised a solution to this dilemma without quitting the dreaming (which i couldn’t bear to and which was the way i dropped off to sleep every night, sometimes continuing the dream after wakefulness): i would deliberately put in some one small element of impossibility into every dream. Some real small inconsequent little element of disbelief, of fantasy (a blue moon for eg.) which would differentiate the dream from the reality of the same. Which would protect the possibility of the basic wish in the dream by keeping it untainted with occurrence in my mind (thanks to the element of disbelief) and therefore opening its option of occurring in reality. Brilliant yet naive. I don’t know when i stopped this habit of mine and grew up. Some days back i found myself thinking of what i was looking forward to and imagining how i would be then, and found myself creating the dream before dozing off. Without any caution this time. Am i learning to dream finally or have i lost the will to wish my dreams into reality?
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