Let America be America again - Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home--

For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?

Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes we've held

And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay--

Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--

The land that never has been yet--

And yet must be--the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--

Who made America?

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath--

America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain--

All, all the stretch of these great green states--

And make America again!

For my People - Margaret Walker

For My People

BY MARGARET WALKER

For my people everywhere singing their slave songs

     repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues

     and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an

     unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an

     unseen power;

For my people lending their strength to the years, to the

    gone years and the now years and the maybe years,

    washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending

    hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching

    dragging along never gaining never reaping never

    knowing and never understanding;

For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama

    backyards playing baptizing and preaching and doctor

    and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking

    and playhouse and concert and store and hair and

    Miss Choomby and company;

For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn

    to know the reasons why and the answers to and the

    people who and the places where and the days when, in

    memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we

    were black and poor and small and different and nobody

    cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood;

For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to

    be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and

    play and drink their wine and religion and success, to

    marry their playmates and bear children and then die

    of consumption and anemia and lynching;

For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox

    Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New

    Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy

    people filling the cabarets and taverns and other

    people’s pockets and needing bread and shoes and milk and

    land and money and something—something all our own;

For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time

     being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when

     burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied, and shackled

     and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures

     who tower over us omnisciently and laugh;

For my people blundering and groping and floundering in

     the dark of churches and schools and clubs

     and societies, associations and councils and committees and

     conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and

     devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches,

     preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by

     false prophet and holy believer;

For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way

    from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding,

    trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people,

    all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless generations;

Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a

    bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second

    generation full of courage issue forth; let a people

    loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of

    healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing

    in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs

    be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now

    rise and take control.

Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw and What I saw in it...

These days I practice what can be termed as parallel reading. I read three to four books at the same time. Since I am able to create a Now Reading section in iBooks, I am able to clearly divide my time for each book. I read according to the time, mood, and space. Right now I am occupied with the Swedish mystery writer Henning Mankell's thriller series featuring Kurt Wallander, the detective. Today I finished reading Gladwell's - What the Dog Saw and other adventures. I am waiting for the right chance and time to voraciously feed on the contents of his next book - Outliers. Malcolm Gladwell is known for his explorations into the human mind, for his 'thinking out of the box' ideas. I remember my 'neigbour' in MCC talking excitedly about Gladwell's book titled - 'Tipping Point' which if I remember correctly is all about the changing trends in our world and how quickly some trends 'tips' to become popular and some get washed away in the passage of time. You can read more about the book by following this link -  http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/. 

'What the Dog saw and other adventures' is a book about curiosity. It stresses the need to nurture inquisitiveness. The title reminded me of the essay by A.G.Gardiner  titled -  'All about a Dog'. The essay is about a woman who enters the bus with her dog and the commotion and the altercation that followed it. I have taught this essay and I particularly remember asking students to think the whole incident from the point of view  of the dog. That was a staple question which was based on the essay, I was soon tired of the question but since my students changed every semester, they always found it refreshing and challenging.

I started reading this book in the printed format. Later I continued with the ePub version in my iPad.  Towards the final chapter or adventure I combined the audiobook version and the ePub. It was nice to listen to the author reading the words he has composed. He has this soothing, meditative kind of voice which takes care of each and every word as it came out of his mouth. This is second book  that I finished in a span of 30 days, thanks to my acute 'bathroom reading habits'. The first one was the collection of best author interviews from NDTV's program - Just Books. (My next blog will be based on that. Blogging helps me to cement my reflections on the book and fast-read the book one more time) 

The book may not be about dogs. But, there are two essays on dogs. One is about Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer who had the god given gift to train or groom even the wildest dog. More info here - http://www.cesarsway.com/. The  

essay is an act of profiling where the author wants to know how Cesar Millan did his 'dog whispering' acts. More than this, he wanted to know what went inside dog's head when it was being trained. The second essay featuring dogs is the final one which is titled as 'Troublemakers' which is about how the behaviour of a dog is influenced by the 'wrong background, the wrong history in the hands of the wrong owner'. The essay is about the wrong canine-human interactions. 

The book opens with a quote, 

"To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish"

This is followed by the preface which discusses the philosophy behind the composition of the book. As mentioned earlier the driving force behind these essays is curiosity, 'the trick of finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has story to tell'. People who are occupying the seats of power can never acquire knowledge, because they are always self-conscious about what they say and they have to protect their position and privilege. The author says, 'self conscious is the enemy of interestingness'. The book is based on real life incidents and reports that were published in The New Yorker. When the author wrote about the art of failure ( panicking and choking) and the accident that happened to John F Kennedy Jr., he wanted to experience the act of falling from sky and he flew with this friend to immerse himself authentic experience. He talks about another instance where the original and real experience guided his writing - the connection between satellite images and mammography images in the essay titled - The Picture Problem. Talking about this pursuit for originality he says " I spent an afternoon with a radiologist looking at mammograms and halfway through - completely unprompted - he mentioned that he imagined that the problems people like him had in reading breast X-rays were not like the problems people in the CIA had in reading satellite photos.  

There are five things that I found appealing and interesting in this book: 

1) Malcolm Gladwell is somebody who enjoys writing and he talks about this hobby/job in the preface: Writing was the thing I ended up doing by default, for the simple reason that it took me forever to realize that it took me forever to realize that writing could be job. Jobs were things that were serious and daunting. Writing was fun. He also talks about Late bloomers, 'people who don't realize they're good at something until they're fifty'. He uses the life of Ben Fountain as the example for this late blooming creativity. He was a lawyer and he took a decision to quit his job and dedicate his life to writing. He was apprehensive and he describes the feeling 'I felt like I'd stepped off a cliff and I didn't know if the parachute was going to happen'. I personally felt inspired by his PLAN -  'He sat down at his kitchen table at 7:30 a.m. He made a plan. Everyday, he would write until lunchtime. Then he would write until lunchtime. Then he would lie down on the floor for twenty minutes to rest his mind. Then he would return to work for a few more hours'. This essay also discusses the importance of authentic feelings that should brought in to one's writing. The research element also is of pivotal importance. 

2) The essay titled - The Talent Myth - Are smart people overrated? examines the myth of talent and checks it against the organisational settings in a company.  He quotes the case study of McKinsey &amp Company,and  their War for Talent. The two catch words used here are - differentiation and affirmation. There is the need for the employers to sit down, once or twice a year and hold a "candid, probing, no-holds barred debate about each individual sorting employees into A, B, C groups. The A's should be awarded, the B's need to be encouraged and affirmed. The C's need to shape up or be shipped out. The Internal Performance Review Committee should be set up to monitor these acts.  The biggest drawback of schooling is that it cultivates 'the habit of doing things all by ourselves'. Once you get out in the real world, everything you do involves working with other people. What is required is the tacit knowledge which involves things like knowing how to manage yourself and others and how to navigate complicated social situations. 


The essay also talks about three types of flawed managers - One is the High Likability Floater, the next one is the Homme de Ressentiment, and the third is the Narcissist. The first type does not take any difficult decisions or make enemies. The second type seethes below the surface and plots against his enemies. The third type tends to self nominate, they are self-confident and they have the strong need for recognition. The talent myth assumes that people make organisations smart. More often than not, its the other way around. The essay also takes a dig at the concept of thinking out of the  box - 'They were there looking for people who had the talent to think outside the box. It never occurred to them that, if everyone had to think outside  the box, maybe it was  the box that needed fixing'. 


The book in many ways need a second reading, maybe not all the chapters but at least a few chapters which are indeed the purple patches of the book. 

Addicted to Apple

 This is insane!!! 

You are trying to be a technocrat

You are addicted to Apple

These are some of the reactions that I received for buying/owning the almost all the products from Apple Inc.

I couldn't really blame them because I have realized that everybody has their perspectives in this world. For some it may be constructing a house of their own, some may find happiness in travelling, and some may attain nirvana in doing nothing. The act of buying the complete range of Apple products was a dream come true situation for me. I now realize that some dreams are powered by money. I still mournfully think about the missed opportunity to do higher studies abroad due to the financial constraints. This time Gods were not crazy, they just acted  as the epitomes of benevolence and love. Today I own my dreams and those dreams are living with me. I am able to expand my personal horizon to a better level. I feel confident and sometimes I become a slave to the negative feeling of pride that comes when you own something precious and priceless. At times I also visualize about the future when there will be no Apple by my side. Those days I will take solace in the fact that once I owned the complete range of Apple products.  

Let me take a stroll down the lanes of the bygone days. During my days at Loyola, I did some part time work as a proof reader. The plan was to edit some books for two months. I don't exactly remember the name of the firm but what I remember is the fact the i saw for the first time in my life a Macintosh. It was like a blue pearl and the graphic designers were working on the final output. I even got a chance to proof read the contents of the text on the blue pearl. That was my first encounter with Steve Jobs and his creations. Then I remember that one day my Pianist friend brought his Ipod and it was there with me for a few hours. I stealthy tried copying some songs into  my PC. I managed to copy some since the Ipod files were all in a encrypted format ( which now I recognize as AAC - Advanced audio coding) . Then Libya happened, there was a financial surge and I decided that I should buy a Mp3 player to quench my thirst for music. My option was not an Ipod, it was a Zen Player from Creative. I took it home and found that the Player was useless. I took it back and the Libyan shop owner who was not that technically sound offered me the Ipod in exchange of the Zen player. That's how I owned my first Apple product. It became my music mate and I had the pleasure of listening to songs as my eyes scanned the Libyan landscape while travelling, visiting the Roman ruins, and while walking on the beach.

The return to the homeland and joining SSIMS was a turning point in my affairs with Apple. I found myself in the world of wireless internet and my attention was on the world of podcasts. The use of podcasts for language learning was a new found thing and I was engaged in the act of downloading hundreds of audio and video podcasts. In addition to this podcasting experience I got a chance to fiddle with FCP ( Final Cut Pro) in Mac which was installed in the Multimedia lab. I still remember how SSIMS director used to brag about the cost of the each Mac and there were no other media center in Bangalore with the same facilities. He was right that time but now things have changed with more and more media institutes cropping up around the cityscape equipped with Mac and Ipads. As the language lab in charge I remember how I used to show my students the Apple WWDC - Worldwide Developers Conference 2005 video in which Steve Jobs unveiled the thinnest laptop in the world known as Mac book Air. I can still hear the gasps of my students when they saw the Mac book fitting into an office envelope. 

The journey continued with BCT recruiting me to teach English to the Omani horde. I soon found myself in a different dimension both in teaching and in personal life. I got married and I soon discovered that a human playmate is much more animate than a mechanical one. On the other side I felt that am wasting my time with these students ( which was not true, a language teacher should always see the big picture and the range of students from beginner level to advanced level. I have learned a lot after interacting with the boys/girls here). I was conscious of the time and the teaching black hole that I was in. I felt the need to compensate with something and that is when I realized that I should spend more time in writing and journaling. I was particularly attracted to one app in the I tunes store. It was called Momento.  I used to check out the features and dreamt about writing about daily events using Momento. Meanwhile I was caught in a bad choice-making act and purchased Sony Ericsson Xperia in 2009 and it proved to be a disaster. The yearning continued for the Apple phone. In the month of June, 2010, Steve Jobs released the fourth generation of Iphone named as Iphone 4. In the month of September 2010, I purchased my Iphone 4. There was no dilly dallying this time and everything was perfect and the first app which I downloaded from  the app store was Momento. Iphone became a kind of status symbol. People started recognizing me for the phone and kids and adults were eager to see the phone and use the pinch and zoom option. 


A few months later, Apple released its first tablet and I didn't think twice about buying the same. This time I was enchanted by the iBooks. I also enjoyed the painting and drawing apps like - Brushes, Art Rage and Drawing. I  found that the Ipad is the perfect tool for writing and also for reading. I purchased Ipod touch as a gift for my partner and soon she started using it  as a gaming and reference tool. There were times when both of us were engaged in games and we were lost in the virtual world for a long time. The last and final purchase I made from Apple is the Mac book Pro which serves as the mothership for the all the apple products. The Mac is a technological marvel after I upgraded it to Mac OS Lion. The multi-gesture track pad is doing wonders. The only product that I would like to own from Apple is the adapter for the projector. 


Apple products helps me to increase my productivity. I always carry my precious documents (Dropbox) with me. I am able to take care of my writing to an extent. I am using Momento to capture the best and worst moments in my life. The mind mapping apps helps me to plan out my lessons and project works. The things-to-do apps gives me the necessary focus when it comes to 

accomplishing my daily tasks and plans. Some of the tools inspire me write better whereas some help me in teaching. I am clarify my language uncertainties using the dictionary and language apps installed. Waiting for someone or something is a act of joy, waiting is now a time to delve into the numerous word games and puzzles that is installed in the devices. The best part of owning devices from the same manufacturer is syncing becomes an easy task. There is magic in the act of syncing when you see documents and images are there in the place where you want them to be. 

Book Review - Under the Dome by Stephen King

The best time to write a book review blog is hours after finishing reading the book. I started reading Under the Dome by Stephen King a few weeks back and the Eid holidays gave the perfect time to finish it off in style. The book reaffirms my adulation of an author whose books are generally classified as ‘unputdownable’. I remember the days spend at Kozhikode reading his books which I had borrowed from the Central Library. I was the 64th member in the library and I finished all the books in the Stephen King collection that was kept in the library. This summer vacation saw me and my partner glued to the story of The Green Mile another classic film made from the story of Stephen King. The story is set in the penitentiary like the other classic The Shawshank’s Redemption. The Green Mile re-established the fact that it was a better story told From the point of view of a wrongly implicated man. In the Under the Dome Stephen King tells the story of a dome that is over a small town and how the people live and die inside the dome. The dome is symbolic and the story is similar to William Golding's - The Lord of the flies and King's own novel turned movie- The Mist. In William Golding's world the children are left to the care of mother nature, here the adults are on their own. The dome creates 'sides' in the otherwise peaceful town. Skeletons and dead bodies start falling from the cupboards and attics. There is total chaos and the reason behind this is a self proclaimed God man. Here the overlapping with The Mist is quite evident. The novel is really lengthy and it contains the whole town as a character. Too many names, too many activities. Some of the scenes are really gory and Stephen King is at his best. Somehow I was not quite sure about the verbal description in certain scenes.

Steve Job's Stanford speech, a rough summary

The speech is divided into three parts. The first part is titled as connecting the dots. This is all about listening to your heart and following your heart. Even though Steve never graduated from college he learned certain things like calligraphy because he was interested in that subject. It was many years later that this particular field of study became useful. I.e when they were developing the font for apple computers. The second part is named as love and loss. He is defining the basic philosophy of his life. To do something that you love. Even though he was thrown outside apple due to some disagreements he was at heart a silicon valley fellow. He continued doing what he liked the most and that is why he was able to build Next computers and Pixar animation studios. The third and final part of his speech is about death. He is making fun of people who wants to go to heaven but who doesn't like to die. He is worried about time. He says that when he was diagnosed with cancer he knew that his time was running short and that made him more productive. He ends the last part of his speech by talking about a college magazine and its final issue. The parting words from editors of the magazine was - Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Writing – Jeremy Harmer

This blog is based on my review of a chapter 18 in The Practice 0f English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer, 3rd Edition. The chapter discusses the language skill of writing in detail. 

The chapter begins with a discussion on handwriting and the importance of the same in the case of students whose ‘native-language orthography’ is different from English. He also remarks that the handwriting is a personal issue and striving for an uniform style is not desirable. The final outcome should be legible and readable. The advent of technology has greatly reduced the importance of the written texts, but still it is useful in academic and personal fields. 

Spelling is another area where special care should  be given to our students. They should be taught the differences in spelling as they occur in American and British English. Bad spellings always is ‘perceived as a lack of education or care’. Internet users are infamously famous for their habit of breaking the spelling rules.

The next section discusses the idea of reviewing. I am pretty excited about this section since there are two important sub sections which clearly gives the big picture about reviewing writing. The first one talks about the steps involved in reviewing.

1. Check Language Use ( Grammar, Vocabulary, Linkers).
2. Check Punctuation and Layout.
3. Check Your Spelling.
4. Check your writing for unnecessary repetition of words and/ or information.
5. Decide on the information for each paragraph, and the order the paragraphs should go in.
6. Note down various ideas.
7. Select the best ideas for inclusion.
8. Write a clean copy of the corrected version.
9. Write out a rough version. 

The correct order for these steps will be 6, 7, 5, 9, 1 , 2 , 3, 4, and finally 8

Jeremy Harmer also discusses the Arndt’s model based on the Rom White and Valarie Arndt idea of revision. According to them ‘writing is rewriting; that re-writing – seeing with new eyes – has a central role to play in the act of creating a text.  The same idea is shown in the picture below:

In the next section Jeremy Harmer discusses the different types of writing such as

1. Product writing: The written work is seen as the ultimate aim. Little attention is given to the steps involved in writing. This is recommended in situations where the instructor is hard-pressed for time.
2. Process writing: The above model can be taken as the best example of process writing. There is lots of brainstorming and idea collection that happens in this type of writing.
3. Genre writing: Kind of similar to process writing. The students are given pre-training in the genre that they are attempting to write. If the task is to write an obituary there are asked to read different types of obituaries that appeared in the media. They are asked to create a list of words that commonly appear in the genre.
4. Creative writing: This type of writing concentrates on the creative tasks such as poetry, novels and short stories.
5. Co-operative writing: This gives a chance for greater discussion and peer correction. ‘The generation of ideas is frequently more lively with two or more involved than it is when writers work on their own’. Writing in this case becomes a group activity.
6. Computer based writing: This type of writing is based on the word-processor software. The students feels relaxed and motivated because handwriting and spelling can never be bad when using a word processor. The students also gets a chance to send emails to each other in the class or to somebody who is away. This will happen under the strict supervision of the teacher. This email communication may also lead to the formation of mouse pals instead of pen pals.

Role of a teacher in a writing class

1. Motivator: Motivate the slow learners. To give the students some cues and hints to kick start their writing process.
2. Resource: The teacher should be quite resourceful by ‘supplying info0rmation and language’
3. Feedback provider: Teachers should respond in a positive and encouraging way to the content what the students have written.

Creative Writing - A Beginners Note

Any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic and technical forms of writings. Novels, epics, short stories, poems, Screen writing and play writing also falls into the category of Creative Writing. Creative writing is also treated as a study program which trains individuals to perfect their skills in writing. Creative writing is a more contemporary and process oriented name for what has been known as literature. Creative writing is believed to focus on student’s self-expression. Creative writing has evolved into a discrete discipline now offered through BFA’s (Bachelor of Fine Arts) and MFA’s (Master of Fine Arts). The courses are kind of bridge between the artistic pursuits and academic study. Creative writing students are encouraged to get involved in extra-curricular writing based activities such as publishing clubs, school based literary magazines or newspapers, writing contests, writing colonies or conventions and extended educational classes.  Creative writing is taught in a workshop format rather than seminar style. Some notable terms that crop up in these sessions are – peer critique, format, re-writing, editing, structural techniques, genres, idea generating, unblocking the writer’s block. There are two main arguments supporting creative writing as an academic program

1)      It helps to improve the writing skills of learners.

2)    It also enables an in-depth study of literary terms and mechanisms that can be applied.  (Instead of learning about the literary terms it is be better to use the same in creative adventures of our own.)

Some academicians feel that creative reading should go hand in hand with creative writing. The former gives the necessary boost to the writer. Creative writing makes us wake up.  Creative Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood from your forehead. Creative writing is a kind of writing that uses language in imaginative and bold ways. Creative writing falls into two main categories fiction and non – fiction. Fiction is writing that tells about made-up events and characters. Novels and short stories are examples of fiction. Fiction that contains imaginary situations and characters that are very similar to real life is called realistic fiction. Nonfiction is a type of writing about real people and events. Essays, biographies, autobiographies and articles are all examples of nonfiction. 

Writing - A Scientific approach

Writing is a method of communication. Writing is speaking to others on a paper or on a computer screen. Writing is a kind of output which results from voracious reading, long experience or maturity. Writing provides self-satisfaction and boosts ones confidence. The one motto that matters when it comes to writing is – Practice maketh perfect. Writing becomes a necessary communicative tool which students use to organize thoughts to effectively convey to a specific audience.

The steps that we should follow in writing are

1. Pre- writing - Ss generate their own thoughts.
2. Composing – The art of writing the first draft.
3. Editing – Reviewing and polishing the first draft.

Good writers always think about the following:

1. What does the writing look like?  ( Form)
2. Who will read my writing? ( Audience)
3. What is the writing about? ( Topic)
4. Why am I Writing ( Purpose)

Types of writing based on the content and style: 

Narrative writing – Basically a story, it introduces the Wh’s of setting like – Who, Why, Where, When) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative

Descriptive writing – Basically essay writing, it introduces the sensory perception into the act of the writing. The style is often prosaic. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essay

Informative Writing -  Deals with only one subject. Can  be more technical in nature and it has some elements of an essay. http://www.hi.com.au/engproj/pdf/HEPEveryday.pdf

Technical Writing - This type deals exclusively with facts and technology. It is writing stripped of its sensory and narrative beauty. This is for the serious minded. The technical writers are known as API writers also. API stands for (Application programming interface)

Writing - A Brief Review

Writing in the new Era

Inspired by the book that I am reading now - The Big Book Shelf by Sunil Sethi 

This blog attempts to capture the word writing in its various forms. Whether it is the cave paintings of Altamira or the writings of a literary mind, the act of writing is essentially an act of self-expression. The poets in the Royal court houses often wrote to appease their Lordships and Highnesses. Shakespeare often wrote his plays for the English Royal class. They were the ones who funded his projects and sponsored his so called ‘idea-hunting jaunts’. Same was the case with Marlowe and other poets and dramatists. Writers often became the chroniclers or keepers of time. They could mummify the ‘zeitgeist’ in their writings. Thus most of Shakespearean works are textbooks of history and anthropology.  Maybe for Shakespeare, his works were just acts of literary celebration. He never would have intended his writings to be treated as historical log books.  Just as the proud and excited cave painter of Altamira who drew his hunting exploits on the cave wall, Shakespeare enjoyed his acts of creation.  

Writing was an essential part of the schools of thoughts in Ancient Greece and Rome. The grammar schools were training grounds for compositions and translations. The training was grueling and the scribes were given an official status upon the successful completion of learning. Some of them even travelled with the Kings and Emperors to record events of war and achievements. They were the real journalists who got embedded in the annals of history. Plato and Aristotle recorded most of their teachings as writings. The teachings were given in the oral form and their disciples would painstakingly copy them into the written form. With the spread of Christianity, Religious writings became a popular form of writing. Mostly limited to Bible translations and recording the exploits of Saints, these writings gave us the picture about the life inside a monastery or a nunnery. Christian faith leaders traveled widely and they used to record their daily events in a log book. These log books can be considered as the precursor to the branch of travel writing. Some of them even travelled to the Holy Land with the crusaders to capture the religious action. Textbooks and Dictionaries ruled the roost during the classical age. Dr. Johnson compiled the dictionary thus giving a new meaning to the word - Lexicography. The rebellious romantic age that followed was lost in the writings worshipping Nature and inanimate things. The genres of writing namely - Fiction, nonfiction, short-story, drama, poetry, essay ( Prose) became widely popular and there was a wide spread interest in arts and humanities. 

In todays world writing is a carefully studied art. There are literary clubs and book clubs to promote the latest trends in literature. Most of the writing done today is for the media. The Radio, Television, Cinema and the Internet dominate the scene. The birth of Journalism ( The fourth estate) led to the new type of writings like features, columns, opinion, snippets, etc. 

Writing is also accorded an academic status with Academic writing being taught in many colleges and universities. Universities and Colleges offer courses in creative writing and an MFA degree is seen as a systematic way of mastering the art of writing. There are online versions of writing courses which has led to the mass production of words in the written form. The two types of writing namely - Process and Product writing has gained much popularity among scholars and teachers alike. The Internet offers new avenues for writing such as blogging, micro blogging and even content writing for websites. On a serious note writing is also being used in health industry and tourism industry. In the former writing as seen as a form of therapy for curing the metal burden of trauma patients and in the latter it is seen as a tool to create a verbal description of exotic places and events. 

The Mute Boy and the Tattooed Girl - Character Study

                                    

One character lives in one book whereas the other lives in a trilogy. The two characters  that feature in these two books - Edgar Sawtelle in ‘The Story of Edgar Sawtelle’ by David Wroblewski and Lisabeth Salander in the Steig Larsson’s - Millennium trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who played with Fire and The Girl who kicked the Hornet’s Nest). 

These four books introduced me to the new habit of reading books using my Ipad. This blog is an attempt to define the character of these two literary beings. I have divided this character study into three segments,  

1. A brief character profile.
2. Titular hero status.
3. Overlapping traits.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: 

Edgar Sawtelle is a story set amidst the world of dog breeding. The story is replete with terminologies related to dog breeding. Sawtelle is the name of the fictional breed of dogs that figure prominently in the book. Edgar is a mute boy and he is happy to live with his father and mother until the death of his father under suspicious circumstances. The death happens soon after the arrival of his paternal uncle who was leading an estranged life. Edgar has his own suspicions about his father’s death and is uneasy about the presence of his uncle at home and near his mother. Edgar decides to leave home and Almondine, his pet dog and embarks on a journey to the neighboring woods with three puppies. His life in the wild is portrayed in all its grandeur. His wanderings and the events are described in great detail. After a few weeks of wandering Edgar decides to return home and face his father’s killer and the woman who was once his mother. He faces his destiny in the fire engulfed Sawtelle kennel. 

The Tale of Lisabeth Salander 

Lisabeth is a young woman who possess a great knowledge about computers and the Internet. She uses modern gadgets like a iBook and the hacking software Asphyxia ( maybe fictional). She is an employee of Milton Security Agency. She appears in the first book - ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ and works as an assistant to Blomkvist , a journalist who is assigned with a private investigation by the head of a rich family in Sweden.  She helps him by digging information about his clients and at one point even saving him from the clutches of a sadistic sex pervert. In the second book she is after her father Zalenokov who had tortured her mother and had made her childhood a mess by putting her in the mental asylum. In this book titled - ‘The Girl Who Played with the Fire’ she is not with Blomkvist and she has amassed a fortune. The story ends with the death of her father and her subsequent hospitalization. The third book opens with the preparation for Lisabeth Salander’s trial. The concluding part of the trilogy titled ‘The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’ reveals to the reader Salander’s true identity and how she comes out of the courthouse a winner after burying her horrid past. 

Titular Hero Status: 

It is the boy versus the girl. The mute boy is Edgar Sawtelle and the tattooed girl is Lisabeth. Both of them are the titular heroes in their respective literary worlds. The stories revolves around them and they are the ones who take the fictional action forward. The authors have invested their time and energy to delineate them. Edgar has got a problem and he is bent on finding a solution to the same. His trip to the wilderness gives him a chance to explore his mind and take a decision. Lisabeth is quite capable of doing things in her own way and nothing can stop her from that. 

Character Overlapping:  

When I compared these two characters I found the following common traits in them:

1. Loneliness ( Solitude): Both the characters can be found searching for a lonely space in this world. They are not that social and are mostly inwardly in their pursuits. For Edgar, maybe his muteness is a reason and for Lisabeth Salander it is her troubled childhood. They spend time in solitude but emerge from this brief isolation, stronger and more determined about their causes. Edgar’s wild trip and Salander’s foreign trip are illustrations for this. 
2. Silence: They don’t speak much. For Edgar, this gives him more opportunity to see and hear more. Lisabeth is an introvert. The only person to whom she has opened her heart is her lesbian friend Minnie and to some extent she has reveled her inner thoughts to Blomkvist.   
3. Exploring / Adventurous: Both the characters are keen on adventure and they are risk takers. Edgar takes a great risk when he ventures out into the wilderness with no food and proper clothes accompanied by three yearling dogs. Salander takes on the mighty Swedish government using hacking tools and her network of hackers. 
4. Independent: Salander and Edgar are strong willed independent characters. They make their own decisions and carry on with the act of chasing their own destinies. 

Utopia vs Dystopia

The world we live in is the world we acquire through our five sensibilities. This shapes our world view. While keeping one foot firmly in 'our' world, we tend to stretch and see the worlds beyond. The worlds that exist in the media, Internet or even a tourist brochure. The other world is always tempting and alluring. It is clean and beautiful and it is replete with limitless possibilities. 

The advertisement /marketing industry has constantly exploited this yearning in human beings. A close examination of the images projected through the media bears an example to this. This kind of representation is stronger when it comes to the portrayal of real estate deals e.g A new township or a new apartment. It also resonates in ads related to detergents and dental products. 

There are pockets in our world where everything resembles an utopia. They are rare and mostly inaccessible to the ordinary. In the world of words ( Literature) the perfect world is named as Utopia after the title of the novel by the same name by Thomas More in 1516. The world utopia itself has undergone many transitions during the course of human evolution. From a literary concept it became a social phenomenon. 

For many centuries this 'fragment of imagination' drove the world in search of a panacea to the universal maladies. The direct off shoot of this is the branch of philosophy is titled Utopian socialism. The communist manifesto is an another attempt to define a perfect world. There were attempts to create a perfect world of fun and frolic in the form of theme parks and amusement centers. The french cultural studies critic Jean Baudrillard names this as simulacra or hyper real. He was also aware of the influence of the influence of the visual media on human minds. The Disney theme park serves a world of escapism. In a larger understanding of the word, it resembles the definition of art where the artist draws the audience into a world where they live for a momentary span of time. 

Off lately I watched a classic by Clint Eastwood titled - A perfect world. The movie is about the relationship between an outlaw and his 10 year old hostage. This where the heart of the movie lies. It is also a perfect example of the dystopia (outlaw) co existing with the so called utopia ( kid). Roger Ebert examines the movie and finds the perfect one-liner to describe this relationship - The child is the father of the man.  The two worlds spills over to the other and sometimes we feel that in the climax the roles are reversed. 

Just like the beauty and the beast syndrome sometimes it is essential to have the co existence of the dystopian and utopian world views in our lives.

The New World Order - The Rise of the Unrisen

This blog is based on the recent events that happened on our planet. The events put together can be said as the foundation for a new world order which is augmented by technology and youth power. As I prepare this blog London is burning. The killing of a teenager has triggered wide spread violence and looting in many parts of the UK. The BBC and CNN were busy blabbering about the Arab Spring and the tremors felt in the middle east are now preoccupied by the stories of decadence and ruin in their own land. The point that they missed is the changing mindset of the youth irrespective of their country of origin. The elderly generation knew the value of patience but the youth of today are more pressing when it comes to needs. They need instant gratification and quick answers. The Met police in UK is dealing with a mob who wants an on the spot verdict on the teenager's death. So on one side we have the socially sensitized young citizens who can see through the flimsy tricks of the politicians and emperors. They are net savvy and use technology as a medium to socially sensitize and mobilize others in their own country and even abroad. On the other side we see the rise of the voiceless. This group were living on the seams of a metropolis and now they are striking back. They are socially ostracized and they live in the lower rungs of the social ladder. They don’t want to live as ordinary anymore they aspire for an extraordinary life. 

The economy plays a large role in this new world order. The recession ghost is back and many are rendered jobless leading to more social instability. There is also the threat of money accumulating in certain individuals. The governments are rendered helpless. The myth that America will triumph forever has disintegrated. 

There are also threats posed by the indigenous people of Europe and in other parts of the world. What happened Oslo is based on this feeling. The same can be said about the middle east where the Arabs are demanding more representation - words like Omanization, Kuwaitisation, Saudisization are quite common in todays world. 

So I see lots of new conflicts rising everyday. It is between the young generation and elderly generation, between the rich and the poor, and between the indigenous and the settlers.