An Interesting Person

An Interesting Person

I met Mr. Vijay when we moved into our new house. He was our next door neighbor. Mr. Vijay was an elderly man who lived alone. He had a part-time domestic servant who came daily to cook and wash for him.Mr. Vijay was a very sociable and amiable man. He was in his mid-seventies when I first came to know him. He was of slight built and was slightly hunchbacked. His eyesight was bad and he was almost blind without the aid of his thick glasses.I became fast friends with this old man. For one thing, Mr. Vijay was a bookworm. He loved reading and spent most of his time poring over books, magazines and newspapers. He was a truly erudite person. He was inquisitive by nature and he would read on just about any topic. This made him a great conversationalist as he could speak on just about any subject under the sun.Mr. Vijay had bought the house next to ours when he retired a few years previously. It was rumored that Mr. Vijay was very wealthy but he was never spending money unnecessarily and his wants were frugal. Indeed, it seemed that Mr. Vijay spent most of his money o books and other printed matters.I enjoyed chatting with Mr. Vijay and we would often discuss on various interesting topics. I was a bookworm as well ( and I still am ) and we had similar inclinations towards the subjects we read. We would spend hours talking about history, science, politics and other subjects of mutual interest.Three years ago, Mr. Vijay died at the age of seventy-nine. He bequeathed all the books which he had in his personal library to me. Believe it or not, Mr. Vijay had more than six thousand books in his library ! My father converted one of our rooms into a library to house all the books Mr. Vijay left me.I feel sad that Mr. Vijay is no longer around. I have yet to find someone with whom I can converse as I had with that learned old man.

Colors in nature

Colors in nature

The world of nature is colorful and bright and human ingenuity cannot hope to match it. Right from the sky above to the sea below, nature abounds in the richness of color. The human eye and the human mind respond to this world of color and identify themselves with it. When a person is cheerful and bright we refer to him as a 'colorful personality', similarly the different colors are used to indicate human moods and attitudes: blue is associated with depression, white is likened with serenity, green with jealousy and red with rage. Color is also used to relieve tension. Psychologists have investigated the effect of colour on the working ability of workers and have come to the conclusion that certain colors are more conducive to Positive thinking than others.

Nature fulfils man's longing for color: there is variety in everything. The sky can be clear and blue, it can be dark with clouds, it reflects the glory of the rising sun and the variegated hues of the setting sun. The sea which is normally associated with blue is not really so all the time. The sea water can he blue, green, grey and many more subtle shades and even the rivers and streams reflect the surrounding area and acquire that colour. Coleridge's poem 'The Ancient Mariner' is rich in its description of the world of nature. People who do not observe are not able to notice the finer shades and are consequently not able to enjoy this valuable side of life.

In the west, seasonal changes bring in changes in the landscape. While spring is rich with colour, autumn provides a restful view to the eye with its soft browns and ripe greens and winter brings in the whiteness of snow along with its stillness conveying the effect of sleepiness and hibernation. And if on the one hand there is joy and vivacity in spring, there is coolness in the abundance of the green forests, and a challenge in the dark rocks of the mountains and an immensity in the vast, barren stretches of sand.

On the question of birds, I have discovered that in their world there are endless color combinations. If green and grey birds mate, the new born chick has a lovely soft green color; if yellow and blue mate the chicks may be either a heightened blue or a softened yellow. No painter's effort can successfully capture the elusive world of nature.

Nature's world of color, especially among the animals, has a deeper purpose than there variety. The colour of animals helps them to successfully camouflage themselves. If the toad is brown and mingles with the color of the earth, the frog merges with the green colour of the scum. The polar bear is white but not so the tropical bear. Fishes also have the ability to change colour in order to mingle with their surroundings as do some birds like the willow ptarmigan. Lizards also have different colors according to their surroundings - a desert lizard will be sand-colored while a lizard in a heavy monsoon area will be of greenish hue. Butterflies and insects also share this characteristic. This is not to say that animals and birds do not have bright colors which contrast with their surroundings. This also has a purpose. The bright colors of the peacock are not only a pleasure to the human eye but they also push the peahen into obscurity and offer her greater protection. A male bird may display some brilliant coloration to scare a rival. The Chinese ring-necked pheasant does exactly this, he puffs out his red pouches on the side of his neck when confronted by another male.

Thus color does not only give pleasure, it also has a purpose. Imagine life without the color of nature! It would indeed be dull and monotonous: the sparkle of life will not he there. Color also has brought up problems. The whole problem of racial discrimination is connected with the color of the human skin. Men are hidebound in their narrow beliefs and have not yet learnt to value the variety of color and have not understood nature's purpose behind this.

A great inventor

A great inventor

It is surprising what a man can achieve with imagination and hard work put together. Yet how few of us achieve it. It is futile to say that some are too poor and others too rich to put in the required amount of effort and the necessary amount of concentration. There is an inexplicable something in the makings of a genius. That is why he is a genius! Thomas Alwa Edison, the great American inventor with more than one thousand patents to his credit, was one such man. Not at all bright in the ordinary sense of the word, hard of hearing and frequently absent from school, he was earning eight to ten dollars per day at the age of twelve and was the owner of several newspapers and vegetable shops. This was the result of initiative and hard work and not of necessity for his parents were fairly well-to-do and could give him a reasonable amount of pocket money. Born on 11 February 1847 in Ohio, he moved with his parents to Port Huron in 1854 where his father became a dealer in grain and cattle feed. His father Samuel Edison came from a line of long living, hard-working people of Dutch origin and his mother was of an American Quaker family. He perhaps inherited his shrewdness, and his ability to assess people from his mother and the capacity of hard work from his father. Thomas Edison started earning money right from the age of nine and from then onwards he never looked back.

Edison's first invention came at the age of sixteen, when he invented a gadget for the automatic transmission of an hourly signal; this he followed up with an automatic vote recorder for recording of votes in the congress. When the politicians laughed at the idea, he realized that an invention should not only be useful but should also he in demand. Later he was to learn that the price of an invention should be measured not according to the effort and labor put in but according to its value to the purchaser. This he learnt when he went to finalize the deal with Marshall Lefferts, the President of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company for a stock-ticker which he had invented. He went determined to ask for $3,000 but felt too timid to do so. Timidity paid him dividends for Marshall Lefferts offered him $40,000 with which Edison was able to start a factory.

Edison was not content with merely making money. It was only of secondary importance for it helped him continue his research and experiments. He was responsible for at least fifty different inventions connected with telegraphy. He also invented the quadruplex communication system by which four messages could he sent simultaneously. He also invented what is now known as a stencil, and paraffined paper for wrapping toffees. Edison used his imaginative faculties to the full. Amongst his major inventions is the phonograph or what is commonly known as the gramophone. He first used it to record telegraphic messages but as the paper made a musical noise while rotting. the idea occurred to him that it could also be used for recording music and the human voice. Having very little taste for music he was quite surprised when demands poured in from the Germans for records of classical music. He himself visualized it mainly as a business and educational aid.

Amongst other notable inventions were his inventions related to the world of electricity. He invented the carbon filament electric lamp and erected the first central electric power station in New York. Though he made no direct contribution to communication, he patented a system of wireless communication by electrostatic induction. Edison also devised the first cinema camera and made the first commercial motion pictures.

As a person, he was naive and simple but once exposed to the tricks of the commercial world he was quick to develop a business acumen and play his part in the world of business. He was a shrewd judge of character and was also very lucky in having talented young men to work for him who later became inventors in their own right. Henry Ford was among the talented amen who worked for him. Edison's first marriage took place in 1871, which was perhaps a romantic marriage. But his wife died in 1889 and Edison remarried, this time a good eighteen years his junior. His life acquired a different tone after that but he lacked the finer delicacies of parental life. absorbed as he was in his work. He died in 1931 at the age of 84. His life is an example of what can be achieved by people who may not be brilliant in the conventional sense of the word.

Dreams Do Come True By JIM BISHOP

Dreams Do Come True

By JIM BISHOP

It's an old story. Very old...
My mother and I were dreamers. When the days were soft and tender we sat on the beach, digging our toes into the hot sand. The big breakers came in slow, their shoulders growing tall and green. They crashed in thunderous white and we would sit in silence, the breeze scrubbing the hot sun from our faces.
She was 34, I was 10. She was short, plump, a woman of fair skin and brownish hair with bronze glints. She was feminine and prim. We watched young John and Adele race up and down the sand, screaming. I preferred to be close to her.
I asked what she dreamed. Jenny Tier Bishop laughed and ruffled my wet hair. She showed an edge of a gold tooth. "You," she said, "are an inquisitive little boy." "Yes, ma'am," I said. She clapped her sandy palms to make the younger ones stop running.
When she was ready, she told me her dream. There were many, she said, but the one of diamond earrings kept coming back. Someday, when my father had a lot of money, he would buy diamond earrings for her. Not big ones, of course. "See," she said, pulling her ear, "these were pierced when I was 15. Wouldn't I look pretty with little diamonds?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "You sure would." She asked me my dream, but she appeared to be indulgent, almost disappointed, when I told her. I said that when I grew up I would own a house right here in Sea Bright. I would be able to look at the ocean every day, in all of its moods, even when the wind howled in winter and smashed the sea into boiling white.

Huge White Yacht

I would see all the big ocean liners leaving New York, steaming tiny over the edge of the world. My house would have servants who would have nothing to do but carry silver trays loaded with jelly beans and chocolate bars. In the back of the house I would have a huge yacht.
She looked down at me, the bun of hair loose on her neck, my mother laughed at my dream. "Little boy," she said, and I knew that I had lost her admiration. My feet came up out of the sand and I ran at top speed to meet the big curling wave. Salt stings the eyes.
Her dream came true. My father gave her the diamond earrings. They were tiny icebergs in big gold prongs. She sat before the vanity mirror, turning her head from side to side. My father paid a little a month for those earrings for a long time.
I was glad her dream came true. When they dressed to go out, I sat over my homework at the dining room table. I didn't want to forget to tell her how beautiful she looked. She wasn't really beautiful but she lifted her head like a queen when those earrings were on.
Times became what my father called "hard." The earrings were gone a long time before I noticed. When I asked about them, she smiled and cried at the same time. It was funny to see the big smile and the small diamonds shimmering on the lower lids. "Your father had to pawn them," she said. "He'll get them back."

Sewed Rosettes on Garters

Policemen were poorly paid. The city cut their salaries. My mother made our clothes on a sewing machine. At night, she sewed rosettes on silk garters for a penny a piece. Every year she paid the interest on the pawn ticket. Sometimes she worried that she would forget when it was due.
One summer she surrendered. The payment was due, but she ignored it. "Earrings," she said, "are a form of vanity we can't afford." She never saw them again. In Woolworth's she found round white clip-on earrings and she wore them. "Nice?" she said. "Nice," I said.
A lot of ragged years passed. The children left. They had lives to live. My mother became old. She looked smaller. But when she smiled, a little edge of good tooth showed and, in my mind, we were back on that tawny beach.
Great good luck sometimes touches a person once. It touched me. A book I wrote became a bestseller in 16 countries. Vice presidents of banks shook my hand personally when I made deposits. My world was suddenly suffused a pale pink and blue. I bought a house on the beach. My dream had finally come true.

House on the Beach

When the house was right, I invited my mother and father to it. There were no servants carrying trays of candy. But the house was on the same beach. My hair was gray but surf still thundered with youth.
I handed the plush box to my mother. "Your time to dream." I said. Her hands began to shake. "John," she said to my father, "help me with this. I'm so clumsy."
Dad opened the box and murmured: "Jenny, they're beautiful" She mussed my hair. The earrings were screwed in. "How do I look?" We said, "Beautiful." She couldn't tell. She had been blind for years...

All work and no play makes a dull life

All work and no play makes a dull life

Imagine a world without leisure and enjoyment! We would all be drudges and consequently would be no better than animals. I can only imagine people with bowed shoulders and lowered eyes, people who have no light in their eyes and no hope in their world. As it is. things are pretty had. People are always busy - busy with work and busy with idleness. No - No. I'm not trying to be witty but people are busy with nothing to do because they do not know how to make use of their leisure. But of that later, for the time being let me stick to the point - all work and no play would he a monotonous existence.

Man has always been busy with the effort of fulfilling his needs. In the early stages man spent his time hunting and then ploughing. but these activities did not fill up his whole day. Today man is busy keeping up with the Joneses. he is the company of his kind in the rat race that he runs. It is no longer a question of survival but a question of acquisition - acquiring more worldly goods, having more money to hoard and to spend.

Most of us do not feel happy when there is nothing to do. Those who are able to enjoy what they do and those who are able to do what they enjoy are indeed very lucky. But even these people need a change. A person who is doing an office job or busy with books welcomes a walk in the evening, half an hour in the garden, a drink with a friend. And a person who has been working in a factory or in a field would definitely enjoy a visit to a restaurant, an hour to go through the newspaper. watch television. It is not only the nature of one's work which conditions one's choice of recreative activity; intellectual and cultural development is also an important factor.

Those people who do not know how to enjoy their leisure and do not allow themselves to recoup lose their efficiency. No one can continue at the same rate of efficiency over an indefinite period. Just as the body needs sleep, the mind needs rest and change. That is why the hobbies which one cultivates and the activities which keep one busy are referred to as recreative; they help to recreate something which has been spent and utilized. People who only know about their work and are perpetually engrossed in it do not recreate that part of themselves which is spent. Thus they either break down under the strain or merely tag along automatically. They make very poor conversationalists and do not have well-integrated personalities. Over the years they lose their mental alertness and become confined to the narrow limits of their jobs. This is not to decry hard work. Work is necessary and only those who work hard are able to achieve something. But at the same time one must know how to relax no matter for how short a period. Relaxation does not mean only sleeping or idling; it also means finding something satisfying and meaningful to do. Otherwise life becomes monotonous and dull.

Ambition

Ambition

Ambition provides the spur to action. A target in life is a psychological necessity. A man without an ambition may he likened to a ship without a rudder. "Vaulting ambition" as Shakespeare says may "overleap itself". What is needed is a realizable aim. Overweening ambition can lead to disastrous consequences.

Ambition, of course, is not confined to physical or worldly matters. In the spiritual realm, too, one's ambition can be realized. One of the best dressed men in the most fashionable city of Paris walked the dusty streets of Goa and Malacca with a begging bowl in his hand. Francis Xavier, the pleasure-seeking youth, was seized by the yearning not "to suffer the loss of his soul". His motivation called "faith" gave him wings and he soared to great heights.

The path to our goal is not always strewn with roses. Discovery of truths which we take for granted today brought hardships and loneliness for those who worked untiringly against a mocking world. Louis Pasteur who said that germs cause diseases was scoffed at an ridiculed by "learned" doctors. This indefatigable Frenchman had to spend as much time fighting superstition and skepticism as he had to spend fighting pathogenic bacteria. Again unswerving drive helped Florence Nightigale and Elizabeth Barrett to steer clear of the pride and prejudice of the male-dominated world and realize their ambitions.

Realization of ambition comes sometimes at unexpected moments. William Henry David. for example. failed to sell his collection of poems. He published his poems again. One morning, looking down from his cubicle, he found many cars waiting in the muddy lane. He was surprised to learn that the rich people of high social standing had arrived to invite him to dinner for G.B. Shaw had recommended his book. But it should not be surmised that achievement of our aim depends on blind chance. Take the case of the unexpected discovery of penicillin, the wonder drug that has saved millions of lives. True. Alexander Fleming left the bacteria culture carelessly open and this resulted in the discovery. We are, in fact, oblivious of his drive, enthusiasm and initiative which contributed to his success and so to his greatness.

Material shortcomings need not stop us from reaching our goal. Abraham Lincoln could not afford books, so he increased his vocabulary by learning the meanings of words from the old newspaper wrappings from the grocer's. Even the past poor examination results need not hamper you. Winston Churchill, a great prime minister, one of the architects of Second World War victory, writer, historian, orator and painter failed in his examinations many times and had the unsavory experience of being detained in the same class two or three years But his ambition made him persevere and finally succeed.

Ambition-sprung actions seem to be very light. Since the work is done in the pleasurable associations of our own desires. nervous energy expended is cut to the minimum. Paradoxically, hard work ceases to be hard when "ambition- joined". Consider the willingness with which the Japanese sportsmen undergo the rigorous physical training. 

Examinations

Examinations

Older people who reflect on the happiness of youth often forget all about examinations, just as we tend to push all unpleasant things out of mind. All young people who aspire to reach any worth while position in life are committed to the examination system from the age of 9 or 10, until the early 20s, if the university training or technical college is included. Examinations are a series of hurdles to be jumped until the weary student finally reaches the winning post -- job.  At any rate, most people see them this way. Nobody likes them, but nobody can suggest a reasonable substitute for them.

There are two kinds of examinations; the private ones held in school or college and the public once such as school entrance, School Certificate, Higher School Certificate and the University examinations such as B.A. (Bachelor of Arts) B.S.c. (Bachelor of Science), B. Lit (Bachelor of Literature, L.L.B ( Bachelor of laws ) etc. their objectives may vary. The private ones are intended to show whether or not a student has worked well during a term and the result may involve little more than pleasure (or displeasure!) on the part of parent or teacher. The public ones are designed as steppingstones to more advanced fields of education, until the degree level is reached, and these are very important in determining the kind of job a student can get in the competitive world or in indicating what kind of further education suits his or her particular talents. Banks, business houses, commerce and local government demand a reasonable number of good 'O' levels and prefer some 'A's, while the professions, the law, medicine, teaching etc require considerably higher qualifications even than these. To the student, it seems an endless vista of study -- an intellectual 'rat-race' in these competitive modern times. Yet, there must be some way of indicating that one student has reached a required level when another has failed -- even the student will admit this (especially after he ahs passed). And the authorities have never been in any doubt -- any where. The fact that public examinations, both oral and written, were held as long ago as in Greek and Roman times shows this -- as does the fact that examinations today are held in every civilized country in the world. If we accept the need for a way of differentiating students, the question which follows is, "are examinations the best way ?" Here, there are two schools of thought. In Britain, the most debated examination is the "11 +". If a child fails at this age, he or she is debarred from the grammar school or 'stream', and in effect, from the academic life.

If a few cases, bright failures are given a second chance at 13 and a few move into higher schools -- but not many. Some local authorities have now dropped the examination altogether at this stage and award places on termly work and primary teachers' recommendations. But here again some have to fail, and however impartial the decision may be, there is always some suspicion of favoritism or unfairness.

The question arising, then, 'is an examination a fair test of ability ?' The answer, generally is, 'yes, it is.' There are, of course, children and young people whose minds 'go blank' in the examination room and those who suffer from nerves or whose technique is bad and then they fail to do themselves justice. But too often this talk of 'exam. nerves' s a cloak for laziness or ignorance ! By the middle teens, a child ought to make a fair showing, at more tender ages the candidate is given every chance including an intelligence test beforehand sufficiently elaborate to enable the school to predict results with some confidence.

The last question -- 'Are examinations fair in themselves ?' - may most certainly be answered 'yes'. The examiner is never out to catch the student; indeed enormous efforts are made to offer a wide selection of fair questions covering the whole range of work the student may be expected to have done. Again, the student who says 'I had a bad paper' really means 'I only covered part of the work and was unlucky!'

Given hard and intelligent work, any normal student may expect to pass his examination. There are, of course, helpful points such as neatness good spelling, paragraphing, planning the paper at the beginning and so on. These will all gain marks. But in general, providing the work is there, so will be the results.

Examinations need never be feared. They can even be enjoyed; if only in retrospect !