my parents always tell me that swear words are the last resort of someone who doesn’t have anything intelligent to say when confronted with challenging issues. Ok.
I happened to use a little bit of swear in few (most) of my posts. And google’s excellent archiving engine has stored them as well , leading to some traffic being directed to this blog for all the wrong reasons(read key words). check out the screenshot below :D {is this search engine optimization ?}
(read this in sixth standard I guess. it’s one of the greatest short stories I’ve ever come across. The Synopsis below is from Wikipedia. Download attached pdf at the end of post for complete story)
How Much Land Does a Man Need? is an 1886 short story by Leo Tolstoy about a man who, in his lust for land, forfeits everything, including his own life.
The protagonist of the story is a peasant named Pahom, who at the beginning can be heard complaining that he does not own enough land to satisfy him. A landlady in the village decides to sell her estate, and the peasants of the village buy as much of that land as they can. Pahom himself purchases some land, and by working off the extra land is able to repay his debts and live a more comfortable life.
However, Pahom then becomes very possessive of his land, and this gets him into discord with his neighbors. This is a first sign that greed is disrupting his moral values. Later, he moves to a larger area of land at another Commune. Here, he can grow even more crops and amass a small fortune, but he has to grow the crops on rented land, which irritates him.
Finally, he is introduced to the Bashkirs, and is told they are simple-minded people who own a huge amount of land. Thus, he goes to them to take as much of their land for as low a price as he can negotiate. Their offer is very unusual: for a sum of one thousand rubles, Pahom can walk around as large an area as he wants, starting at daybreak, marking his route with a spade along the way. If he reaches his starting point by sunset that day, the entire area of land his route encloses will be his. He is delighted as he believes that he can cover a great distance and has chanced upon the bargain of a lifetime.
His journey across the land illustrates his greediness. He tries to cover as much land as possible, not content with what he already has. As the sun nearly sets, he realizes his error and runs back as fast as he can to the waiting Bashkirs. He finally arrives at the starting point just as the sun sets. The Bashkirs cheer his good fortune, but exhausted from the run, he drops dead. They bury him in an ordinary grave only six feet long, thus ironically answering the question posed in the title of the story.
Hindus, Muslims and a Black Monkey
a very compelling review by Baradwaj Rangan is here.
MS Narayana’s antics reminds me of someone I know. ROTFLMAO.
Got a pressing issue on mind that’s crushing you or knocking the living daylights out of you consider a visit to imagination land. Imagination land : where everything is perfect and all is happy. No sorrow or dirty politics ; no tears or heart aches ; no reality only imagination. When we are young we have this habit of making up imaginary friends to play with to make up for real ones. Why not have one when we are grown up ? All you need is an active imagination to draw up characters and settings and presto you have your very own imaginationland. Enid Blyton did it; JK Rowling did it ; Tolkien did it , so can you. The methods to reach imaginationland are up to you. Some prefer weed ; some prefer alcohol and some like me prefer to sing the imaginationland song.
For reference watch
Imaginationland (Southpark season 11 episode 10)
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