Of course I know that the sort of intellectual arguments that I have been talking to you about are not what necessarily moves people. What really moves people to believe in God is not any intellectual argument at all. Most people believe in God because they have been taught in early infancy to do it, and that is the main reason.
BERTRAND RUSSELL, Why I’m not a Christian and other Essays
In the calm of the night, under the stars of the sky,
I feel your breath and its warmth,
Hear your heart pulsating with life
Across the miles that lie between us
Do you hear me, my fair darling,
Do you hear my song,
As I whisper into the night
Little things I would you hear
Remember the days of long ago
When we lay together, flying in your dreams,
Little children in the cradle of time
When love bonded us together forever?
Remember that long ago
When we met Life as it crossed our path
And made a mutual promise
Of love and truth
I see the questions in your eyes
And the doubts in your heart
I feel the fears that storm your mind
And take them all up, pour l’amour de l’amour
Tell me, my white daisy, tell me yes
Do you feel me in you, do you hear me speak
The truth with all fervour:
I am yours forever
KISHORE KUMAR
I was born with all the instincts and the senses of primitive man, tempered by the arguments and restraints of a civilised being.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
* Mary had a little lamb. The doctor fainted.
* Asthma is a disease that has practically the same symptoms as passion, except that with asthma, it lasts longer.
Frahnestock’s Rule for Failure:
If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
Gualtiere’s Law of Inertia:
Where there’s a will, there’s a won’t
Lackland’s Law:
Never be first. Never be last. Never volunteer for anything.
Tussman’s Law:
Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.
McDonald’s Corollary to Murphy’s Law:
In any given set of circumstances, the proper course of actions is determined by the subsequent events.
I found this in an old magazine of my college. These are some sentences from actual medical records from different hospitals, written by doctors.
* The baby was delivered, the cord clamped and cut and handed to the paediatrician, who breathed and cried immediately.
* Rectal examination revealed a normal sized thyroid.
* The patient lives at home with her mother, father and pet turtle, who is presently enrolled in day-care three times a week.
* Bleeding started in the rectal area and continued all the way to Los Angeles.
* The patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.
* Examination of genitalia was completely negative, except for the right foot.
* While in the emergency room, she was examined, X-rated and sent home.
* The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.
* The patient was alert and unresponsive.
* When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room.
* The patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.
* On the second day the knee was better; on the third it disappeared.
* The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
* The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1983.
* Discharge status: alive, but without my permission.
* The patient refused autopsy.
Another sad love poem. I’d give this more points than to my previous ones. There are ten syllables to a line, rhyme scheme is a b a b.
* * *
Watching the dancing flame consume away
A browning piece of paper once cherished,
I could see my beauteous castles of clay
That Fate hurriedly trampled underfoot.
I let the pain sink into my sinew,
Let the pictures play upon my heart free
And let tears out that were unshed and due,
For a love that was, but never could be.
Of unkept promises and dreams unmet,
I lament, of paths I must tread alone;
But from within my heart I hear it said,
“Don’t try to share the pain that is your own.”
That sweetest of loves is love unfulfilled
I know; hence this pain is for me to take.
I let them vanish, the mansions I built,
And I’m ready for another heartbreak.
KISHORE KUMAR
This is a speech I made as part of a debate some time ago. The topic was Peace Across Borders: The Middle-east Crisis.
The style is of a speech, and not an Essay. I am no authority on Middle-east History. I present it here as just one of my works. As some other writings of mine, it portrays my own Pacifistic views.
* * *
August 1947.
History’s greatest migration across a newly drawn McMahon Line was accompanied by ruthless manslaughter of thousands. Hostilities continued for another fifty years. We shall live with the implications forever.
December 11, 2006.
Three-year old Salaam, six-year old Ahmed, and nine-year old Osama were on their way to school when they were blown to smithereens along with their car. The reason? They were the children of a Palestinian security officer.
Our history as a species is replete with blood-drenched tales of strife such as these. Human life has been sacrificed at the altar of territorial disputes since the days of unrecorded prehistory. But how often do we look back to see the damage we’ve done? How often do our military leaders look upon life as something more than just troops and casualties?
War is an illegal appropriation of a people’s right to exist. It is never justified, never legitimate. In my opinion, there isn’t a single dispute that cannot be solved over a conference table.
Attribute it to fate or man’s arrogance, but we have always bled in war. Border conflicts, war, insurgency attacks, terrorism – I’m just skimming the surface. Peace across certain borders of the world remains a pipedream today. The Indian subcontinent, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia today alternate between disturbances and spells of uneasy peace.
However, it is the region of the Middle-east which has consistently borne the brunt of human tragedy. It was the cradle of human civilization. Also, our first battlefield. For five thousand years, this region witnessed the most gruesome of wars. The Persian and Macedonian conquests to begin with, following the Jewish Exodus; followed by those of the Romans. Islamic invasions and the fall of Rome in the most decisive battle of all time. Then, the advent of Byzantium ; the coming of the Seljuk and the Ottoman Turks, and the unstable Mongols.
We took an irreversible turn with the “holy” call by Pope Urban II to a series of unholy Crusades – history’s most lamented chapter. What followed was a blur of conquerors redrawing borders every few decades.
The turn of the 20th century saw a chaotic and weak Middle-east, ready in every way for a European domination. Hitler’s systematic genocide of six million Jews validated the Zionist movement. Failure of the 1947 UN Plan for the Partition of Palestine and the Declaration of the State of Israel by the Zionist leadership the next year, were the beginning of literal pandemonium in the Middle-east.
The land of the Patriarchs is now rent by anger, fear, and hatred. The core issue of conflict in the Middle-east is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and what is left in Lebanese Occupied Territories. Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq still suffer from open wounds. More than a hundred civilians die every day in the Middle-east. And in the recent past, 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes: large chunks from Iraq and Palestine. The Middle-east is burning.
It is high time the peace process made a headway. And a final solution to this problem can only come from a profound understanding of the region’s ailments and an integral view of the peoples. The creation of a viable Palestinian State, and a settlement of all disputes to end all hostilities, over conference tables, is of utmost importance. As long as a commitment to peace is absent, there will always be grenades flying into our homes and revenge building in our hearts.
My fellow makers of tomorrow’s world, History’s mistakes stare at us from the eyes of homeless refugees, estranged families and orphaned children. We can never correct these mistakes, but we can pledge, this moment, that we will never repeat them. Because there is no such thing as a good war.
KISHORE KUMAR
The old dreams were good dreams. They didn’t work out, but I’m glad I had them
ROBERT JAMES WALLER, The Bridges of Madison County
kilroykishore 