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Discussion in 'Book Lovers' started by Nonya, Feb 6, 2017.

  1. Nonya

    Nonya Platinum IL'ite

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    In this thread, please share, i.e., copy paste, that short snippet, from something you had read, and enjoyed very much.

    Here is the description of Emperor Akbar's morning ablutions:
    There were things, however, that nobody thought to teach him, and that he would never learn. “We are the Emperor of India, Bhakti Ram Jain, but we can’t write our own damn name!” he shouted at his body servant at dawn, as the old man helped him with his ablutions.

    “Yes, O most blessed entity, father of many sons, husband of many wives, monarch of the world, encompasser of the earth,” said Bhakti Ram Jain, handing him a towel. This time, the hour of the King’s levee, was also the hour of imperial flattery. Bhakti Ram Jain proudly held the rank of Imperial Flatterer First Class, and was a master of the ornate, old-school style known as cumulative fawning. Only a man with an excellent memory for the baroque formulations of excessive encomiums could fawn cumulatively, on account of the repetitions required and the necessary precision of the sequencing. Bhakti Ram Jain’s memory was unerring. He could fawn for hours.

    The Emperor saw his own face scowling back at him from his basin of warm water like an augury of doom. “We are the king of kings, Bhakti Ram Jain, but we can’t read our own laws. What do you say to that?”

    “Yes, O most just of judges, father of many sons, husband of many wives, monarch of the world, encompasser of the earth, ruler of all that is, bringer together of all being,” said Bhakti Ram Jain, warming to his task.

    “We are the Sublime Radiance, the Star of India, and the Sun of Glory,” said the Emperor, who knew a thing or two about flattery himself. “Yet we were raised in that shithole dump of a town where men **** women to make babies but **** boys to make them men—raised watching out for the attacker who worked from behind as well as the warrior straight ahead.”

    “Yes, O dazzling light, father of many sons, husband of many wives, monarch of the world, encompasser of the earth, ruler of all that is, bringer together of all being, Sublime Radiance, Star of India, and Sun of Glory,” said Bhakti Ram Jain, who might have been deaf but who knew how to take a hint.

    “Is that how a king should be raised, Bhakti Ram Jain?” the Emperor roared, tipping over the basin in his wrath. “Illiterate, ass-guarding, savage—is that what a prince should be?”

    “Yes, O wiser than the Wise, father of many sons, husband of many wives, monarch of the world, encompasser of the earth, ruler of all that is, bringer together of all being, Sublime Radiance, Star of India, Sun of Glory, master of human souls, forger of thy people’s destiny,” said Bhakti Ram Jain.

    “You are pretending you can’t read the words on our lips!” the Emperor shouted.

    “Yes, O more insightful than the Seers, father of many—”

    “You are a goat who should have his throat slit so that we can eat his meat for lunch.”
    “Yes, O more merciful than the gods, father—”

    “Your mother fucked a pig to make you.”

    “Yes, O most articulate of all who articulate, f—”

    “Never mind,” said the Emperor. “We feel better now. Go away. You can live.”

    ---by Salman Rushdie, NewYorker, 2008-Feb-25.
     
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  2. Nonya

    Nonya Platinum IL'ite

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    Charlotte Lucas, the close friend of Elizabeth Bennet ("Pride and Prejudice", by Jane Austen) says this about arranged marriages, where a girl would hardly know much about the man she is to marry:

    ".....if she were married to him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a chance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a twelve-month. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar before-hand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always contrive to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life."

    The IL forum has such a lot of threads about marital relationship, and what constitutes a happy marriage. And here is an idea that says that it is all a simple crap shoot.
     
  3. satchitananda

    satchitananda IL Hall of Fame

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    Love this thread Nonya. Enjoyed both the extracts. And no, I am not indulging in flattery. :p The second one hits the nail on the head and I guess it should be pinned as the go to post in the relationships forum. Read the extract first. If you have any problems go to extract again. If still in doubt or unconvinced, read it again. Not a truer word said.
     
  4. kkrish

    kkrish IL Hall of Fame

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    Good thread @Nonya
    These words by Carl Sagan always keeps me in check in more ways than one. I read them over and over and over again...
    Book "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space"

    “Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

    The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

    Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

    The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

    It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
    Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
     
  5. Nonya

    Nonya Platinum IL'ite

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    @kkrish Thanks for the Sagan quote. My first exposure to Carl Sagan was a Johnny Carson skit parodying Carl Sagan. Even without the backstory about Carl Sagan, the parody was easy to follow. The PBS series of shows hosted by Carl Sagan benefited a lot in increasing viewership because of the Johnny Carson parody. In a country where people are not too keen on science, that was a good thing.
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2017
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  6. kkrish

    kkrish IL Hall of Fame

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    That's some interesting news. Thanks.
    I am an ardent Carl Sagan fan. I watch "The Cosmos" every now and then to keep me straight. Somehow his views fit in with my approach to life.
     
  7. justanothergirl

    justanothergirl IL Hall of Fame

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    I am sold @kkrish ...my next book.
     
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  8. kkrish

    kkrish IL Hall of Fame

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    Please do @justanothergirl
    You can listen to the narration on You Tube too - by Carl Sagan himself. I hope You Tube still has it.
     
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  9. Nonya

    Nonya Platinum IL'ite

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    "Compensated date" was a thing a decade ago*, in Bangkok, KualaLumpur, Ho Chi Minh and a few other cities. College women would go out to dinner and a long conversation with a fellow for a fee. Perhaps the fellow was from out-of-town, in the city for a few days to attend a convention or whatever. What the girls do is sort of like being a lay-Geisha. The guy probably has a fine wife at home, who waits for him to come back from his work or travels, so that she can feed him well, rub down his back in the bath, and take him to bed for a good workout.

    Woody Allen wrote a short story about how this practice of compensated-date would turn out if it came to New York City. Here is the short story: The Whore of Mensa

    *Not anymore.... because, it is now fashionable to not seem to be part of the "elite".
     
  10. Nonya

    Nonya Platinum IL'ite

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    Penrod had come into his twelfth year wearing an
    expression carefully trained to be inscrutable. Since
    the world was sure to misunderstand everything,
    mere defensive instinct prompted him to give it as
    little as possible to lay hold upon.
    That is an excerpt from a book published a little over a hundred years ago, in 1914. Booth Tarkington wrote something of a trilogy with Penrod, a 12 year old boy growing up in pre-WW-I, rural Indiana.

    I am particularly happy with the way technology has changed the world, so that we have internet forums. And we may give the world whatever we want, be least inscrutable, because we don't have to bother with how the world would go on and misunderstand everything.

    It has taken a hundred years to get here.

    Free ebook is available from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/402
     

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