The Book Challenge Series : Othello

 After a long time. Well, this had been part of the meagre new posts that I write for this blog.

Thought of starting a series, for next ten days and then again I will be back to sleep. It's related to this facebook Book challenge, where the subject needs to share a book cover that s/he liked; but why... no explanation. That is the bummer because it is important I would like to know why the other person liked it and also try to place my perspective. But no! No way.. so I thought of brushing off some of the cobwebs here... I will not explain all, but some that I feel made an impact to my grey matter up at the top.

Othello. 

This is the second in the series book that I shared. A strong drama set in the Victorian era, created by William Shakespeare; shook me. And that's why it called a great story. History teaches us about perspectives and literature talks a lot about the era and what can be learnt from them. But Othello is universal and evergreen. We all know that Desdemona exists and so does Othello, Cassio. There errors out of jealousy still happen and will keep happening. Othello took me to realize that words and action need to be very coordinated and distilled till the final drop comes out, to justify the purity of your actions. This had helped me in several places, making me inherently calm, which I do realize that sometimes it gets on my nerves as well as others. With a fortune amidst the unfortunate situation, my minds keep processing, because on paper Othello made the ultimate mistake; I cannot. Note: Personification is preferred for the last statement.

Although Shakespeare wrote it in English, this was an adaptation of a story called Un Capitano Moro, by Giovanni B. Giraldi; an Italian writer that voices out the same storyline. Just for the credit.

Source: https://www.writing-endeavour.com/blog/the-tragedy-of-othello-by-william-shakespeare-p118.html

House Arrest : A Nightmare in Making

It has already crossed a gargantuan number. Covid19 or as people call the Corona Virus infection. The governments are trying hard by suggesting people distance themselves, practise self-quarantine or in literal terms House Arrest themselves. The medical teams have put in their best foot forward trying to contain the spread and treating the effected; but the death counts are rising and the pandemic it has caused, dissolved all the borders.

Today, a movie came across my mind. "What Happened to Monday", 2017. I vividly recollect the scenarios of the society that had been portrayed in there. Due to overpopulation, the governments have imposed bans on the free daily movement of the mass and they are only entitled to go out on designated times. You are not supposed to have more than two kids and then a father tried to protect seven siblings, who were look-alikes or styled so,  were designated to go out one day of the week, each. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday as well as named so. And then something happened to Monday. A missing link that literally devastated their existence and the secret was to come out.

Poster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:What_Happened_to_Monday.png

Today's situation is quite like that. Now people staying back, self quarantined for an indefinite period of time. But when the situation turns good, can they come out like free bodies? "Minimize Social Contacts" is a norm now. If that is being imposed, with more than 7 billion individuals, expected to touch 8 billion in 2023, keeping a safe distance of even 1 foot will be difficult. Then, what are the options?

Back in the early twentieth, the world faced Spanish Flu, in instalments various parts of the world faced the cholera epidemic in the last 200 years, a few years ago we had the SARS (South East Asia), Ebola (Western Africa) and Zika (being vector-borne), affecting travel, economy and life. But this is humongous! Covid19 surpassed all, affecting each and every country of this world. In fact, in my lifetime, I think it is the hardest hit pandemic scenario that the world has faced. It shows how vulnerable we still are and if Mother Nature can create us, she has the brutality to contain us. There are no more religious fights, no more terrorist activities, as the world comes together in hope that the Scientists can save them! COVID19 pandemic will be remembered as a great leveller. Bring the developed and the undeveloped nations try to find a cure, together! They will, but it will take time. I would like to quote Ivan Klima here:" To destroy is easier than to create " The scientific fraternity is trying hard and will soon come up with a cure. Till then, as the general mass, you have to help yourself and all others! #StayHome as much as possible; if you don't want to be in the situation like those seven sisters!

Two Decades, Many Transformations and One Soul

I don't think you will be interested if I pen down a summary of the whole twenty years that added on in my life; given that I have ultimately cleared the smog and dust laying with this URL for more than a year and a half. My last post was incidentally in June 2018.

Two decades or twenty years. Well, that's not my present age; wish though. Its a fifth of the 2000s and the fun way we teens of the nineties used to look at, the new New Millenia and Y2K!! Well, I am not very much informed about how the Y2K virus infected our digital world, but its cousins did infect our digital life with a term called social media viral. As nineties teens, we were more inclined to yahoo chats and later on a bit of Orkut. With facebook boom, apps and the advent of smartphones, life went on to a different level. Following the tune that binds the world, I too was maintaining one thing in my life constant: Change. Rather say, transformations; many in fact...

Entering the new millennia was by itself a landmark. With the world intermediately poised with terror, radicalism and development; the age of the empire got real evermore. No place was paradise and anything can happen anywhere. Be it an attack or taking selfies. You can fall if not careful. The transition from school to undergraduate college and then to higher education needed a lot of adaptations. Changing faces, lifestyle, taste and ideologies are the four most significant things that I think marks these 20 years of the new millennia. But, to slurp up all these was stepping from being a student to an earning man. Personally, though, I think everyone is a student for life and knowledge and the opportunity to learn never erases from your life.  Unfortunately, the bitter ones come more to mind than the happy moments and that is because bitter times leaves more deep impact than the happy moments. Psychology states that it is important to remember the good times more often for your mental health; but the fear of encountering the bad times makes you persistently move towards betterment. That's my perspective though! (Do pen your comments on that though).

In life, you get many choices. I got some. But coming decade I look forward to a better world and better news items to read. In the nineties you could read about sports more, being the highlight of the newspaper. Nowadays, the more you read the paper, the more protests, uprising comes to the limelight. Good things are happening though; you have electric cars, manned missions to Mars and the two Voyagers have entered the interstellar space! We still have shrinking Antarctica, Artic and missing aircrafts! Come on! We are better than that. Ultimately, we are on a piece of dust in this universe. As Dr. Carl Sagan wrote in his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space: "Look again at that dot"... Voyager 1 sent a goodbye picture to earth from approximately 6 billion kilometres away; a pale blue dot basked in the ray of sunlight. That's our home, our earth, all our relatives, emotions, properties and millions of years of evolution from a single cell. Interesting that day was 14th February 1990. We can make things better for our love we call Mother Earth, a lot better. That's what my soul says...

Source: "Pale Blue Dot". NASA. JPL-Caltech . Published Feb 2019. Look into middle of the rightmost (brightest) ray. You will see the pale blue dot.

Your One day is Strength for some for many days.

Hi,

I have been here after a long time. And this time, it's for a good cause. The best to my judgment in all the years of blogging I have been involved with. Since 2006, I guess.

I have been in the field of scientific research for almost a decade now. Learned, published and took up new ideas for the future. For long, I had the inculcated a wish to start up a Non-profit and Non-Government Organization for certain social cause. Well that dream is still a long way off, given my present status as a researcher (post doc to be precise); I was studying some aspects and NGOs that have popped up in my homeland, India. One of them being the #Feeding_India organization (https://www.feedingindia.org). This organization have been doing substantial good work in bringing healthy food to underprivileged children, who above caste and religion have a common thing to worship. Food to survive.

This post is to urge you my readers and friends, some of whom I may not even known in person; to contribute to this cause. As of today, the minimum price of donation is below Rs. 500. A price that can feed some of the deprived souls with nutritious food. You dont have to contribute regularly; just a small token on a very special day of your life would be good enough. Say for example your birthday or anniversary or something that comes around atleast once in a year.

I have more than 1000 people in my friend list on facebook. My readers will have similar. India is more than a billion strong and I believe that at least a million can fish off Rs 500 once in a year for such a cause. That would cumulate to a huge fund. I am not saying only for this organization; but there may be several. I found out with my limited means that this organization is Pan India, so named them. (disclaimer: I am not asked to publicise them. Its solely my discretion to mention them in this post. Any cause of this stature is to be considered via this article).

Now people can come up with several questions:
Q. Why should we pay them?
A: Its a cause. Try to stay half fed or starved for a week. You will know the pain. Further, if you are an IT payer, you can save some amount by this donation.

Q. We would prefer to be pompous and donate in a religious establishment. To God!
A: God resides in humans. (not preaching). If you donate some amount in these organizations, you will be making God happy and so will be the God in you. Donate a part of major donation you were to donate in these religious places and the rest here. I dont think the God will be unhappy.

Q. I donot have money.
A: Then ask people who can help. That also is a noble cause in itself.

Your one day of the calender will make several days of their calender. Believe me, it is helpful.

Stagnant thoughts

Stagnant thoughts. It brings out the best in you. Always, you can come up with ideas that never will be boring because you already are bored. It can either take you a far in the yesteryears when you were vibrant and then make you pass through the eye of the present into the windings of your brain that house your future. Well, unknowingly, it was these stagnant thoughts in the yesteryears that made you what you are today. And its the same exercise that will drive you through the temporary tunnel of darkness to your future.

It is always not true that an ideal mind is a devil's workshop. Its a workshop, no doubt; but to term it as a devil's household is not true at all. I think it frees you from your daily chores, which basically makes you mechanical. Home Office Home and then the same task. Sometimes, these time makes you think something different. Ink them down on that scrap piece of paper. Or maybe write a journal note. That always helps. You can then turn the pages back and draw inspiration or lick the juice of achievement as to how you overcame situations. Remember, you were less experienced back then, compared to what you are now. That will inspire you for your upcoming task, tomorrow, which is always a new day. A new 24 hours to begin.

So, it might seem odd. But stagnant is not always bad.