And he thinks of Prudence,
how it fooled him,

how he always believed
— what madness

that cheat who said:
"Tomorrow. You have plenty of time."

He remembers impulses bridled,
the joy he sacrificed.

Every chance he lost
now mocks his senseless caution.

-- Constantine Cavafy

Why God Loves Atheists

copyright Neil Swaab

The word "Own" in Hindi (or lack of it)

This post here got me to think for a possible Hindi translation of the word "own" as in "I own it". But even after giving it few minutes, I could not come up with anything. And then I started thinking why?

I mean there are expressions which conveys the same, like "ये मेरे बाप का माल है" ("ye mere baap ka maal hai" - This is my father's property) or "ये मेरी जागीर है" ("ye meri zageer hai" - I own it).

But these are considered vulgar expressions not to be used in civil conversation.

And then it struck me.

To some extent, our views of the world find its reflection in the language of the day.

The thinkers, who had sowed the early seeds of languages in India believed in

अयं निजः परोवेति, गणना लघुचेतसाम् ।
उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् ॥
[Ignorant sees the world as "mine" and "yours"]
[For the Learned, the whole world is family]

It was believed that you can get associated with someone (or something) but can never own it. For them, such inconceivable a thought of owning something was, that they might have deliberately omitted any such word from propagating.

The Lightning Bolt

If you have followed men's 100 meters sprint for past some time, you might have noticed the grind it puts the participants through, winner or losers alike.

Every oz of their energy seem to drip out of their anatomy and by the time they cross the finish line, you can see on each face what Indian Classical Music term as "mudra dosh", disfigurement of facial expression while performing a tough "raga". And all in a span of just 100 meters :O

And if you were lucky enough to witness what can be easily termed as the prologue of an epic in Bird's Nest on the night of 16th August, you'd not be able to help but wonder how ridiculously easy this new emperor of speed made it look like to win the most prolific of track'n'field events, and boy, did he do that in style.

Surely, 9.50 is not too far.

New blog...

Why have a second blog when you are not even regular on your first one?

Well, I'd say that's the exact reason :)

Many a times, I'd just fell short of Thinking Aloud because it did not fit with what I wanted to post on the original blog. So here I'm with another one where (hopefully) I'd have more frequent synchronization between the gray and the black.