Sri Aurobindo’s message for India’s Independence on 14th August 1947

Sri Aurobindo was requested by the All India Radio, Thiruchirapalli (former Trichinopoly ), to give a message for India’s independence. This is the message which was broadcast from the All India Radio on the 14th of August 1947. It is of special relevance and importance even now. 

August 15th, 1947 is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age. But we can also make it by our life and acts as a free nation an important date in a new age opening for the whole world, for the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity. 

August 15th is my own birthday and it is naturally gratifying to me that it should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition. Indeed, on this day I can watch almost all the world-movements which I hoped to see fulfilled in my lifetime, though then they looked like impracticable dreams, arriving at fruition or on their way to achievement. In all these movements free India may well play a large part and take a leading position. 

The first of these dreams was a revolutionary movement which would create a free and united India. India today is free but she has not achieved unity. At one moment it almost seemed as if in the very act of liberation she would fall back into the chaos of separate States which preceded the British conquest. But fortunately it now seems probable that this danger will be averted and a large and powerful, though not yet a complete union will be established. Also, the wisely drastic policy of the Constituent Assembly has made it probable that the problem of the depressed classes will be solved without schism or fissure. But the old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny impaired or even frustrated.

This must not be; the partition must go. Let us hope that that may come about naturally, by an increasing recognition of the necessity not only of peace and concord but of common action, by the practice of common action and the creation of means for that purpose. In this way unity may finally come about under whatever form – the exact form may have a pragmatic but not a fundamental importance. But by whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go; unity must and will be achieved, for it is necessary for the greatness of India’s future.

Another dream was for the resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia and her return to her great role in the progress of human civilisation. Asia has arisen; large parts are now quite free or are at this moment being liberated: its other still subject or partly subject parts are moving through whatever struggled towards freedom. Only a little has to be done and that will be done today or tomorrow. There India has her part to play and has begun to play it with an energy and ability which already indicate the measure of her possibilities and the place she can take in the council of the nations. 

The third dream was a world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind. That unification of the human world is under way; there is an imperfect initiation organised by struggling against tremendous difficulties. But the momentum is there and it must inevitably increase and conquer. Here too India has begun to play a prominent part and, if she can develop that larger statesmanship which is not limited by the present facts and immediate possibilities but looks into the future and brings it nearer, her presence may make all the difference between a slow and timid and a bold and swift development. A catastrophe may intervene and interrupt or destroy what is being done, but even then the final result is sure. For unification is a necessity of Nature, an inevitable movement. Its necessity for the nations is also clear, for without it the freedom of the small nations may be at any moment in peril and the life even of the large and powerful nations insecure. The unification is therefore to the interests of all, and only human imbecility and stupid selfishness can prevent it; but these cannot stand for ever against the necessity of Nature and the Divine Will. But an outward basis is not enough; there must grow up an international spirit and outlook, international forms and institutions must appear, perhaps such developments, as dual or multilateral citizenship, willed interchange or voluntary fusion of cultures. Nationalism will have fulfilled itself and lost it militancy and would no longer find these things incompatible with self-preservation and the integrality of its outlook. A new spirit of oneness will take hold of the human race. 

Another dream, the spiritual gift of India to the world has already begun. India’s spirituality is entering Europe and America in an ever increasing measure. That movement will grow; amid the disasters of the time more and more eyes are turning towards her with hope and there is even an increasing resort not only to her teachings, but to her psychic and spiritual practice. 

 

The final dream was a step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed and vexed him since he first began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society. This is still a personal hope and an idea, an ideal which has begun to take hold both in India and in the West on forward-looking minds, The difficulties in the way are more formidable than in any other field of endeavour, but difficulties were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must proceed through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and, although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers. 

Such is the content which I put into this date of India’s liberation; whether or how far this hope will be justified depends upon the new and free India. 

World’s Greatest One Liners

1. Ninety-nine percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
2. Borrow money from a pessimist — they don’t expect it back.
3. Time is what keeps things from happening all at once.
4. Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
5. I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.
6. Never answer an anonymous letter.
7. It’s lonely at the top; but you do eat better.
8. I don’t suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.
9. Always go to other people’s funerals, or they won’t go to yours.
10. Few women admit their age; few men act it.
11. If we aren’t supposed to eat animals, why are they made with meat?
12. No one is listening until you make a mistake.
13. Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
14. We have enough youth. How about a fountain of “Smart”?
15. He who laughs last thinks slowest.
16. Campers: Nature’s way of feeding mosquitoes.
17. Always remember that you are unique; just like everyone else.
18. Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.
19. There are three kinds of people: Those who can count and those who can’t.
20. Why is “abbreviation” such a long word?
21. Nuke the Whales.
22. Save a tree. Eat a beaver.
23. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
24. Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
25. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
26. As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools.
27. Laugh alone and the world thinks you’re an idiot.
28. Sometimes I wake up grumpy; other times I let her sleep.
29. The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the ability to reach it.
30. You can’t have everything; where would you put it?
31. I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
32. Okay, who stopped the payment on my reality check?

33. We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse.
34. Be nice to your kids. They’ll choose your nursing home.
35. DNA: National Dyslexic Association.
36. If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
37. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges.
38. Eat right. Stay fit. Die anyway.
39. DARE to keep cops off donuts.
40. Nothing is fool proof to a sufficiently talented fool.
41. On the other hand, you have different fingers.
42. Dyslexics of the world, untie!
43. God made mankind. Sin made him evil.
44. I don’t find it hard to meet expenses. They’re everywhere.
45. I just let my mind wander, and it didn’t come back.
46. Don’t steal. The government hates competition.
47. Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
48. National Atheist’s Day April 1st.
49. All generalizations are false.
50. The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.
51. Work is for people who don’t know how to fish.
52. If you don’t like the news, go out and make some.
53. For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism.
54. IRS: We’ve got what it takes to take what you have got.
55. I’m out of bed and dressed. What more do you want?
56. I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not too sure.
57. I can handle pain until it hurts.
58. No matter where you go, you’re there.
59. If everything is coming your way, then you’re in the wrong lane.
60. It’s been Monday all week.
61. Gravity always gets me down.
62. This statement is false.
63. Eschew obfuscation.
64. They told me I was gullible…and I believed them.
65. It’s bad luck to be superstitious.
66. According to my best recollection, I don’t remember.
67. The word “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary.
68. Honk if you like peace and quiet.
69. The Big Bang Theory: God Spoke and BANG! it happened.
70. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
71. Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how it remains so popular?
72. Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
73. A day without sunshine is like, night.
74. The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
75. Corduroy pillows: They’re making headlines!
76. Gravity- It’s not just a good idea, it’s the LAW!
77. Life is too complicated in the morning.
78. We are all part of the ultimate statistic—ten out of ten die.
79. Nobody’s perfect. I’m a Nobody.
80. Ask me about my vow of silence.
81. The hardness of butter is directly proportional to the softness of the bread.
82. The last thing on earth you want to do will be the last thing you do.
83. Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else get your way.
84. If ignorance is bliss, then tourists are in a constant state of euphoria.
85. If at first you don’t succeed, don’t try skydiving.
86. If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
87. Stop repeat offenders. Don’t re-elect them!
88. I intend to live forever. So far so good.
89. Who is “General Failure” and why is he reading my hard disk?
90. What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
91. I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.
92. Energizer Bunny arrested; charged with battery.
93. I didn’t use to finish sentences, but now I
94. I’ve had amnesia as long as I can remember.
95. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
96. Vacation begins when Dad says, “I know a short cut.”
97. Evolution : A true science fiction.
98. What’s another word for Thesaurus?
99. Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
100. A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.
101. I went to the fights, and a hockey game broke out.

The most thought-provoking one-liner is “ Eat right. Stay fit. Die anyway .” It’s sad but true—no matter what you do, you will die. This is because you have sinned against God. Let’s see if that’s true: Have you ever lied (even once)? Ever stolen (anything)? Jesus said, “Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery already with her in his heart.” Ever looked with lust? If you have said “Yes” to these three questions, by your own admission, you are a lying, thieving, adulterer at heart; and we’ve only looked at three of the Ten Commandments. How will you do on Judgment Day? Will you be innocent or guilty? You know that you will be guilty, and end up in Hell. That’s not God’s will. He provided a way for you to be forgiven. He sent His Son to take your punishment: “God commended His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus then rose from the dead and defeated death. “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”—everlasting life. Then read the Bible daily and obey what you read. God will never let you down.

Linus Torvalds’ most memorable quotes

I really like this list of the top-ten Linus Torvalds’ quotes, as compiled by Computer Business Review. Linux is Linux in large part because Linus is Linus: A strong personality but disarming and approachable.

That latter attribute plays out in my top-two favorite quotes:

Some people have told me they don’t think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100 mph.

And…

When you say, “I wrote a program that crashed Windows,” people just stare at you blankly and say, “Hey, I got those with the system, for free.”

Classic.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

This is the funniest book in the whole galaxy.

It is the first in the classic “5-part” trilogy involving Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect. Arthur Dent is grabbed from Earth by his friend Ford Prefect, whom he just found out is an alien, moments before a cosmic construction team demolishes the planet to build a freeway. They are aided by the Hitchhiker’s Guide which offers such insights as “a towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have” and as well as galaxy of fellow travelers such as Zaphod Beeblebox, Vogons, and old and tired Slartibartgast.

This series, obviously attracts Sci-Fi readers, but will also be enjoyed by Anglophiles, Monty Python fans, world travelers, and well, anyone who is looking for answers to the questions that really matter. This book deserves a perfect score of 10 stars and should be reread at least once a year.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy starts out by telling you about Earth. More so the guide itself. The Guide is a galactic bestseller everywhere but on the planet Earth. Ford Prefect is a field correspondent for the Guide stationed on Earth and fully aware that the Guide has forgotten about him. His best friend is the Earthling Arthur Dent. Arthur’s boring life in the West Country is changed one morning when contractors pull up to his house in order to demolish it to make way for a bypass. After making a quick diversion and going to a local bar, Ford alerts him that he is actually from a planet somewhere near Betelgeuse and that they have to get off the planet before it’s demolished. An alien race of bureaucrats called Vogons intend to destroy Earth to make way for a “hyperspace bypass“.

After escaping onto one of the Vogons’ ships with seconds to spare via hitchhiking, and then being read Vogon poetry (the third worst in the known Universe) as a form of torture for sneaking onto the Vogon ship, Arthur and Ford are thrown into open space. They are inadvertently picked up one second before asphyxiation by the Heart of Gold, a ship which was stolen (as opposed to launched) by President of the Galaxy (in a government unheard of on Earth) Zaphod Beeblebrox, who happens to be Ford’s semi-cousin. The ship is piloted by Zaphod and Trillian, whom Arthur once met at a party, and attended to by clinically depressed android Marvin. Ford and Arthur learn of Zaphod’s immediate intentions for the ship: finding the legendary lost planet of Magrathea, which supposedly built luxury planets. When they do, Arthur meets an old resident, Slartibartfast, who tells him some rich clients (known to humans as mice, which are three-dimensional representations of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings that only had representatives on Earth to monitor its progress; the mice in question were in fact thought by Trillian to be her pets, though if anything the case was the opposite) have reawoken the Magratheans from cryosis for one more job. The planet to build is Earth Mark II, to replace the now demolished Earth Mark I, which the Magratheans built not as a planet but an organic supercomputer to calculate the Question, not the Answer, to Life, the Universe and Everything. The Answer is already known to the mice. As Deep Thought told them, the Answer is 42, but this only makes sense if the Question is known. Earth was, in fact, demolished five minutes before the Question was calculated.

The mice explain it will take too long to wait another ten million years for the Earth Mark II to produce the Question when, as a last-generation organic byproduct of the computer’s matrix, they could simply find the Question imprinted in Arthur’s brainwaves. Of course, they have to kill him and remove his brain, prepare it and dice it. Fortunately, a distraction is caused by way of the Galactic police, who come to arrest Zaphod for theft. Before the four of them are killed by the police in the chase, the officers’ life support is cut off and they die. Back at the Heart of Gold, they find Marvin, their savior—he had plugged his external feed into the policecraft’s input port and uploaded his horribly depressing views on life. The craft responded by committing suicide, in an act that took the on-board life support system with it.

Zaphod decides to take the Heart of Gold to the restaurant Milliways, and their story continues in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

You would also like to see following pages:

http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/hhgg.html

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/a/douglas-adams/

Download this book and others in the series for free from:

http://www.esnips.com/web/adams-douglas/

The Ultimate Gift by Jim Stovall

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are here to read the last will and testament of Howard ‘Red’ Stevens.”

Red Stevens was a self-made man who gave his family everything — and ruined them in the process. Now, as his estate of oil companies and cattle ranches is divided among greedy and self-serving relatives, one member is singled out for something special: Red’s great-nephew, Jason.

In a darkened room, isolated from the rest of his family, Jason is confronted by the image of his deceased great uncle on a video monitor… and so begins a 12 month quest for purpose and meaning in an empty life, as Jason attempts to complete the tasks required to receive Red Stevens’ greatest bequest….The Ultimate Gift.

What would you do to inherit a billion dollars? Would you be willing to change your life? Jason Stevens is about to find out in Jim Stovall’s The Ultimate Gift.Red Stevens has died, and the members of his family receive with greedy anticipation their millions. But a different fate awaits young Jason, who, according to his great uncle Red, …may be the last vestige of hope in our family. Although to date your life seems to be a sorry excuse for anything I would call promising, there does seem to be a spark of something in you that I hope we can fan into a flame. For that reason, I am not making you an instant millionaire.

The book is written in parable form, so it is easy to read. As the story opens a man has just died, (Red Stevens) and has left his dearest friend, the lawyer, to be the executor of his estate. To most in the family he leaves wealth with some conditions imposed. But to one young man,(Jason) Red recognizes a spark, something special, and he wishes to convey to that young man the lessons that a life of privilege have kept him from being able to learn.

According to the conditions of the will, every month for 1 year Jason must complete a task toward the ultimate gift. He is directed toward these tasks by a video his Uncle Red has left for him. Each task teaches one principal that he missed out on learning, largely due to his uncle’s money.

The principles taught are as follows:

• Gift of Work
• Gift of Money
• Gift of Friends
• Gift of Learning
• Gift of Problems
• Gift of Family
• Gift of Laughter
• Gift of Dreams
• Gift of Giving
• Gift of Gratitude
• Gift of a day
• Gift of Love
• The ultimate gift.

Each month Jason has to learn about these principles. I won’t spoil the story by giving you the whole plot but will tell you that the discovery of these gifts take Jason on a wild and crazy journey that help him learn and internalize these principles into his own character. At the end of the year, Jason truly becomes the man that he was meant to be, and he does receive the Ultimate Gift.

One example of how the lessons are learned by Jason, is when Jason must take 1500 dollars he earned when working during the first month, and the second month has to give it away to people who it will really make a difference in their lives. Jason is a playboy and has easily dropped 1500 dollars before partying with his friends, so he has no real concept of how money can make a difference in someone’s life.

He finds an old woman whose husband can’t afford his cardiac medication, and by giving her 200 dollars he is able to buy 3 months worth and really make a critical difference in their lives. He also helps a young mother who is about to have her car reposessed by paying the last 400 dollars on her loan. Through this lesson, as he spends the 1500 dollars he comes to the realization that money, when used properly, can have a huge impact for good in someone’s life.

I hope that you will read this book and pass it on to the young people in your life. These life principles apply to people of any age, and the younger they are learned the more they impact our lives.

Talks over Maharajah’s millions

India says it will begin negotiations to unfreeze millions of pounds locked up in a London bank vault for over 60 years by a wealthy Maharajah.

In 1948, the last ruler of the princely state of Hyderabad, Osman Ali Khan, deposited £1 million in the UK bank. The money is now expected to have grown to £30 million.

India has to agree a settlement with Pakistan – as well as 470 bickering descendents of the Nizam of Hyderabad – before the money is released.“We are re-starting the negotiation process,” Kapil Sibal, Indian minister for science and technology, was quoting by news agency Reuters as saying.

“How much should the private beneficiary get and then what should be the distribution between the government of India and Pakistan will be negotiated,” Mr Sibal said.

Many claims

The negotiations are to be conducted over 18 months and to involve the Nizam’s grandson, now living in a small apartment in Istanbul after losing much of the family fortune.The Nizam had 86 mistresses and fathered more than 100 illegitimate children, and all their claims will also have to be taken into account.The last Nizam of Hyderabad was known as the world’s richest man, and ruled India’s largest princely state.

His fabled wealth included the world-famous Jacob’s Diamond – which was the size of an egg – and many pieces of exquisite jewels.

In 1947, when India and Pakistan were created, the Nizam – a Muslim – couldn’t decide which country to join.India annexed his state in 1948 and the Nizam’s power waned.

Jacob’s Diamond is the size of an egg
Just before the annexation, the Muslim ruler deposited £1m in an account controlled by Pakistan’s High Commissioner to London in the National Westminster Bank.For 60 years, the money has remained untouched.India, Pakistan and Nizam’s hundreds of heirs have all claimed it as their own.

In 1957, after several rounds of litigation between the Nizam and the Pakistani government, the case reached Britain’s House of Lords, which ruled that the account could only be unfrozen with the agreement of all the parties.

Now, that agreement may at last be in prospect.

Bill Bryson’s top 10 Science Quotes

1. It isn’t easy to become a fossil

“It isn’t easy to become a fossil… Only about one bone in a billion, it is thought, becomes fossilized. If that is so, it means that the complete fossil legacy of all the Americans alive today – that’s 270 million people with 206 bones each – will only be about 50 bones, one-quarter of a complete skeleton. That’s not to say, of course, that any of these bones will ever actually be found. Bearing in mind that they can be buried anywhere within an area of slighly over 9.3 million square kilometres, little of which will ever be turned over, much less examined, it would be something of a miracle if they ever were”

2. There is more life under the Earth than on top of it

“We now know that there are a lot of microbes living deep within the Earth… Some scientist now think that there could be as 100 trillion tons of bacteria living beneath our feet in what are known as subsurface lithoautotrophic microbial ecosystems… Thomas Gold of Cornell has estimated that if you took all the bacteria out of the Earth’s interior and dumped it on the surface, it would cover the planet to a depth of five feet. If the estimates are correct, there could be more life under the Earth than on top of it.”

3. The most striking thing about our atmosphere
“The most striking thing about our atmosphere is that there isn’t very much of it. It extends upward for about 120 miles, which might seem reasonably bounteous when viewed from ground level, but if you shrank the Earth to the size of a standard desktop globe it would only be about the thickness of a couple of coats of varnish”

4. Men will never reach the edge of the solar system
“Pluto may be the last object marked on schoolroom charts but the solar system doesn’t end there. In fact, it isn’t even close to ending there. We won’t get to the solar system’s edge until we have passed through the Oort cloud, a vast celestial realm of drifting comets… Far from marking the outer edge of the solar system, as those schoolroom maps so cavalierly imply, Pluto is barely one 50,000th of the way. Of course we have no prospect of such a journey. Based on what we know now and can reasonably imagine, there is absolutely no prospect that any human being will ever visit the edge of our own solar system — ever. It is just too far”.

5. There is no point trying to hide from your bacteria
“There is no point trying to hide from your bacteria, for they are on you and around you always, in numbers you can’t conceive of. If you are in good health and averagely diligent about your hygiene, you will have a herd of about one trillion bacteria grazing on your fleshy plains – about one hundred thousand of them on every square centimetre of skin. And those are just the bacteria that inhabit your skin… Every human body consists of about ten quadrillion cells, but it is host to about a hundred quadrillion bacterial cells. They are, in short, a big part of us. From the bacteria’s point of view, of course, we are a rather small part of them… This is their planet, and we are only on it because they allow us to be”.

6. There is nothing we can do about asteroids

“Oh, probably none,” said Anderson breezily. “It wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye until it warmed up, and that wouldn’t happen until it hit the atmosphere, which would be about one second before it hit the Earth. You’re talking about something moving many tens of times faster than the fastest bullet. Unless it had been seen by someone with a telescope, and that’s by no means a certainty, it would take us completely by surprise.”

7. We are energy
“You may not feel outstandingly robust, but if you are an average-sized adult you will contain within your modest frame no less than 7 x 10^18 joules of potential energy — enough to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point. We’re just not very good at taking it out. Even a uranium bomb –the most energetic thing we have produced yet- releases less than 1 percent of the energy it could release if only we were more cunning”.

8. Atom’s nucleus
“Neutrons and protons occupy the atom’s nucleus. The nucleus of an atom is tiny — only one-millionth of a billionth of the full volume of the atom — but fantastically dense, since it contains virtually all the atom’s mass. As Cropper has put it, if an atom were expanded to the size of a cathedral, the nucleus would be only about the size of a fly — but a fly many times heavier than the cathedral”.

9. The center of the Earth

“The distance from the surface of Earth to the center is 3,959 miles, which isn’t so very far. It has been calculated that if you sunk a well to the center and dropped a brick into it, it would take only forty-five minutes for it to hit the bottom… Our own attempts to penetrate toward the middle have been modest indeed. One or two South African gold mines reach to a depth of two miles, but most mines on Earth go no more than about a quarter of a mile beneath the surface. If the planet were an apple, we wouldn’t yet have broken through the skin”.

10. Is there life out there?

“Still, statistically the probability that there are other thinking beings out there is good… Under Drake’s equation you divide the number of stars in a selected portion of the universe by the number of stars that are likely to have planetary systems; divide that by the number of planetary systems that could theoretically support life; divide that by the number on which life, having arisen, advances to a state of intelligence; and so on. At each such division, the number shrinks colossally—yet even with the most conservative inputs the number of advanced civilizations just in the Milky Way always works out to be somewhere in the millions”.

A Beautiful Mind

This book draws very sharp divisions between movies that are about a life, based on a life, or in this case, inspired by a life. Whether you have scene the movie or even the trailer, once you read this book it become immediately apparent Dr. Nash’s life would not fit into any single film. To a degree this is simply an instance of practicality, for the work this man and his peers did, is intelligible to a small handful of people. Even while reading the book, unless your math skills are somewhat extraordinary, the lexicon of pure math will be completely new, and the concepts these men and women developed are fascinating, however they are almost unimaginably complex.
To those who have read material that may have touched on Game Theory, The Prisoner’s Dilemma, and The Mobius Band, the book will allow for moments when the inquisitive can participate. In most cases the concepts are mind bending, and in some cases they could not even be verbalized by some of the brilliant minds that Dr. Nash worked amongst. Ms. Sylvia Nasar does an excellent job of explaining why Dr. Nash was so different from his peers, and how he approached complex issues in fundamentally different manners than others.
The remarkable story is of this brilliant man who was considered one of the greatest thinkers of his time who fell gradually, though fairly quickly, into a mental state that caused his family to commit him more than once. The decades he spent living under the most bizarre and destructive delusions, his moments of clarity, and then his highly unusual recovery makes for an incredible tale. This is one of those stories that had it been written as fiction, it would not have been taken seriously.
The other parts of the book were very revealing as they pertained to Dr. Nash and his peers at Princeton, MIT, and elsewhere. The fields they work in are intensely competitive, however when he began his decline, and then continued to have false starts at normality, for the most part he was not abandoned. The author touches on why his peers may have felt the need to help a man who routinely demonstrated the most hurtful personal behavior to anyone he came in contact with. There were exceptions, but they are very few in number, and not for the people you might suppose. All of these great minds share at least one commonality, and that is their ability to think at extremely high levels that few can even imagine. Many of these people seem to constantly fear the loss of whatever unique gifts they have. They also tend to be people that have been marginalized until they find their place in the academic world, for what they think of, and the eccentricities they often have, single them out for ridicule not praise.
A very readable biography, a profession that is understood by few.
“A Beautiful Mind ” is one my favorite book and movie.. Its very inspiring and real pleasure to mind. (Sir)Dr. John Nash (the protagonist ) is a Nobel Prize Winner for Economics in 1995 and a great mathematician .The book is an account of his life,his struggle with Schizophrenia for 37 years and recovery. The author Sylvia Nasar has writing style tht u will feel like experiencing the book rather than just reading.One thing more ,I have a thing for Nobel Prize winners, I have read Gitanjali , Surely you are Joking Mr. Feynman by Richard P. Feynman , Argumentatice Indian by Amartya Sen, The Double By Jose Saramago so no surprise i like this book so much.

Four Weddings and A Funeral !

Just few hours ago i saw this movie and liked these lines … The context is that : A very good friend of Matthew has died and he is speaking on his funeral.

Matthew: Gareth used to prefer funerals to weddings. He said it was easier to get enthusiastic about a ceremony one had an outside chance of eventually being involved in. In order to prepare this speech, I rang a few people, to get a general picture of how Gareth was regarded by those who met him. Fat seems to be a word people most connected with him. Terribly rude also rang a lot of bells. So very fat and very rude seems to have been a stranger’s viewpoint. On the other hand, some of you have been kind enough to ring me to tell me that you loved him, which I know he’d be thrilled to hear. You remember his fabulous hospitality… his strange experimental cooking. The recipe for “Duck à la Banana” fortunately goes with him to his grave. Most of all, you tell me of his enormous capacity for joy. When joyful, when joyful for highly vocal drunkenness. But joyful is how I hope you’ll remember him. Not stuck in a box in a church. Pick your favorite of his waistcoats and remember him that way. The most splendid, replete, big-hearted, weak-hearted as it turned out, and jolly bugger most of us ever met. As for me, you may ask how I’ll remember him, what I thought of him. Unfortunately there I run out of words. Perhaps you will forgive me if I turn from my own feelings to the words of another splendid bugger:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let the aero-planes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message: He Is Dead.

crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West.

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: Put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

This has become one of the most touching poem i ever read!!

The Last Moghul

In an interview Dalrymple says this : The narrative revolves particularly around the last Moghul emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar who creates this wonderful renaissance at the very end of Moghul rule, and who lived to his old age to see that destroyed when the Indians rose up in mutiny against the British and were crushed horribly, in what remains one of the great unwritten genocides of the British Empire. People are aware now of the destruction of the Aborigine peoples of Australia and Tasmania, the Irish potato famine is well documented; this is an imperial horror story of a similar scale, when the British surround and destroy Delhi. It’s never been written up completely for example how the British track down, hunt and kill every last Moghul prince they can find.

Dalrymple’s research for this book was as thorough and meticulous as we would expect of him. What was amazing was to learn that he and his colleagues found the Persian and Urdu documents relating to Delhi in 1857, known as The Mutiny Papers and housed in the National Archive of India in New Delhi, virtually unused. He describes his discovery of this treasure as one of the highlights of the whole project. What he describs as ‘the street-level’ nature of some of the material enables him to layer his narrative, giving it a totally convincing graphic quality that conventional histories miss. We get ‘the larger picture’, the political, religious and military forces at work, as well as detailed accounts of the way in which these were experienced by innumerable individuals, members of Zafar’s family and court as well as the commmon citizens of Delhi.

Irfan Husain, a Pakistani commentator, in an article in Khaleej Times Online says:
As so brilliantly chronicled by William Dalrymple in ‘The Last Moghul’, the British exiled the King and killed his heirs, thus ending the dynasty started by Babur over three centuries ago. To be accurate, the line had been in a state of decline for years, and the Uprising was the last nail in its coffin.

Husain goes on to explain that it was Dalrymples’ book which encouraged him to search Karachi’s Sindh archives and find there yet more records of the fall-out from the Mutiny – that, for example, some of the exiled prisoners from Delhi were transported from Karachi to the Andaman Islands. The whole article is here: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/ColumnistHomeNew.asp?xfile=data/irfanhusain/2007/January/columnistirfanhusain_January1.xml&section=irfanhusain&col=yes

Dalrymple ends the book by tracing the ‘fall-out’ from the destruction of the Mughals’ ‘peaceful and tolerant attitude to life’, regretting what he sees as ‘the bleak dualism’ of today’s confrontations beween nations, ideologies and religions. There is, he says, ‘..much to regret in the way that the British swept away and rooted out the late Mughals’ pluralistic and philosophically composite civilisation.’

Unfortunately,very litle of Zafar’s poetry is quoted, except in one instance (see below) to illustrate his sense of imprisonment under British rule before 1857, when his powers had been stripped from him and he was living within the Red Fort ‘as if he were an Indian pope within his own Vatican City’.

I want to shatter the bars of my cage
With the flutterings of my wings

But like a caged bird in a painting
There is no possibility of being free.

Morning breeze, tell the garden
That Spring and Autumn for me are alike.

How should I know,
When one comes and the other goes?