A Few Light Moments From `Heavy Weather' By PG Wodehouse

Can dim wittedness of an individual be better described than this?

                Minds like Monty Bodkin’s may not always work at express speed, but they are subject to the same subconscious process as those of more brain-burdened man.

The bizarre tastes of an individual perfectly explained.

From time to time he sniffed sensuously. Elsewhere throughout this fair domain the air was fragrant with the myriad scents of high summer, but not where Lord Emsworth was doing his sniffling. Within a liberal radius of the Empress’s headquarters other scents could not compete. This splendid animal diffused an aroma which was both distinctive and arresting. Attractive, too, if you liked that sort of thing, as Lord Emsworth did

Bad vibes cannot be told more humorously

He trembled. It would have pained the immaculate Monty, could he have known that his prospective employer was picturing him at this moment as a furtive, shifty-eyed, rat-like person of the gangster type, liable at the first opportunity to sneak into the sixes of innocent pigs and plant pineapple bombs in their bran-mash

You should know what to say when

Yes, that’s how I remember him. One of those fellows you can count on to say the wrong thing. Reminds me rather of a man I used to know in the old days called Bagshott. Boko Bagshott, we called him. Took a girl to supper once at the Garden. Supper scarcely concluded when angry old gentleman plunges into the room and starts shaking his fist in Boko’s face. Boko rises with chivalrous gesture `Have no fear, sir. I am a man of honour. I will marry your daughter’ `Daughter’ says old gentleman, foaming at little at the mouth `Damn it, that’s my wife’ Took all Boko’s tact to pass it off, I believe.

A Trip To Danaulti via Kimari

Dhanaulti is a hill station 24 km (15 mi) from the popular hill station of Mussoorie, and 31 km (19 mi) from Chamba, as it is situated between the two.

It is situated at an altitude of 2286m, and is known for its quiet environs amidst the alpine forests of Deodar, Rhododendron and Oak.

The usual route to reach Mussorie and from there Danaulti is via the Rajpur Road. However, the Old Mussorie Road which passes via Kimari and George Everest is spectacular and breathtaking. The road is broken in places and at most places does not have the ridges on the edge. You require an experienced driver to go via this road and preferably. Though it is fraught with dangers, the view is spectacular and . Here  are a few pictures I took

Appreciate Inflation

Don't criticise price rise

Price has got value because it always does rise

Priceless has got a value because that thing is beyond even price.

Your eyes always look for the price

Rice is consumed limited because it carries a price

If there was no price rise lazy bums like me won't rise

Price , it maybe irritating like lice but makes popular the crook at the cost of fooled wise

Why Well Informed People Go Silent At Times? The Ill Informed Need to Evalute Their Choices

Often well informed become silent in the wake of mass hysteria, or abuse for dissenting opinion or when binary arguments become order of the day. They know they can never make the arguments acerbically nor they can invoke passions to convince others of their arguments.

Mark Twain has beautifully summarized this predicament in his novel `A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’

        Quote

        Everybody around her believed in enchantments, nobody had any doubts; to doubt that a castle could be turned into a sty, and its occupants hogs, would have been the same as my doubting among Connecticut people the actuality of the telephone and its wonders and in both cases would be absolute proof of a diseased mind, an unsettled reason. Yes, Sandy was sane; that must be admitted. If I also would be sane-to Sandy-I must keep my superstitions about  unenchanted and unmiraculous locomotives, balloons, and telephones, to myself. Also, I believed that the world was not flat, and hadn’t pillars under it to support nor a canopy over it to turn off a universe of water that occupied all space above; but as I was the only person in the kingdom afflicted with such impious and criminal opinions. I recognised that it would be good wisdom to keep quiet about this matter, too, if I did not wish to be suddenly shunned and forsaken by everybody as a madman

Unquote

        It is not just the duty of the well informed to speak up, it is a bigger duty on part of the ill informed to re-evaluate the choices they have made, the people they have believed, the promises that were made, how much of that has been fulfilled, and what is the reality. IF WE KEEP FALLING IN THE SAME TRAPS OR FOR the SAME LIES, WE ARE GOING TO BE HEADED NOWHERE. CRITICAL THINKING IS ENOUGH, NO NEED FOR AN INTELLECT.

Airtel Customer Service Sarcasmed By A Customer

Mark Twain Throws Hints On How You Can Use Crowds To Control Opinion?

                Have you noticed the fake ring seller or the spurious herb seller? Have you not read about the ponzi scheme owner vanishing into thin air with crores of money of people? Are we not witness people believing fiction when it is told forcefully and with all oratory in command? Are we not aware of people being promised the moon, getting themselves into a crater, and accepting that as moon, because they believe the person who’s telling it?

                Why do they do it? Only because they don’t know how to critically analyse what is being told to them. Also some of the pathological liars are able to create such a hype and backed by vociferous supporters that what is being told is true, and those who don’t believe it are anti-society. Such people may seem mad but they are not.

                Read this passage from `A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’ by Mark Twain, you will appreciate how critical is critical thinking in a society or else the society’s mental heal will become critical.

                I had to put myself in Sandy’s place to realize that she was not a lunatic. Yes, and put her in mine to demonstrate how easy it is to seem a lunatic to a person who has not been taught as you have been taught. If I had told Sandy, I had seen a wagon, uninfluenced by enchantment, spin along fifty miles an hour, had seen a man, unequipped with magic powers, get into a basket and soar out of sight among the clouds, and had listened, without any necromancer’s help to the conversation of a person who was several hundred miles away. Sandy would not merely have supposed me to be crazy; she would have thought she knew it. Everybody around her believed in enchantments, nobody had any doubts, to doubt that a castle could be turn into a sty, and its occupants into hogs.

                The last sentence is very crucial. Crowd controls the opinion of most people, and if you can control the crowd through typical methods, you can continue to fool people for all times.

Did George Orwell Set The Tone For Patriotic Citizens Of The Future?

This portion from George Orwell's Classic `1984' takes the cake for psychism in Fiction

`Smith!’ screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen ` 6079 Smith W! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You’re not trying. Lower, please! That’s better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me’

                A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston’s body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and – one could say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency – bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.

`There comrades! That’s how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again. I’m thirty-nine and I’ve had four children. Now look’ she bent over again ` You see my knees aren’t bent. You can all do it if you want to’ she added as she straightened herself up `Anyone under forty-five is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don’t all have the privilege of fighting in the front line, but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our boys on the Malabar front! And the sailors in the Floating Fortress! Just think what they have to put up with. Now try again. That’s better, comrade, that’s much better.’ She added encouragingly as Winston, with a violent lunge, succeeded in touching his toes with knees unbent, for the first time in several years 

1984 by George Orwell - Extracts From A Classic - Part I

         
      1984 by George Orwell reflects what happens when a society is over charmed by the guiles of a single individual, and false nationalist thoughts. The novel is a must read of all those who believe in democracy yet driven by idol worship and ultra nationalism. It requires one intelligent crook to take over such a democracy and dismantle the democratic institutions. Let us be aware of the fact that democracy is vital to survival of the human race not the infrastructure, the grow rates, the jobs, or any other parameter. 1984 by George Orwell is a wonderful read for anyone whose thoughts begin to veer away from democracy. Presented in the subsequent paragraphs are some thoughts which hit me like a hurricane.

                This is what most bigots tell you

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

This does ring a bell…..

The Ministry of truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace,  which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak; Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.

Some democracies are headed here….

This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws) but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced labour camp.

                Either the future would resemble the present, if which case it would not listen to him, or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.

There is no shortage of such individuals in certain democracies

                It was curious that he seemed not merely to have lost the power of expressing himself but even to have forgotten what it was that he had originally intended to say.

It helps to create a popular enemy for dictators like Big Brother….

                Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the two minutes hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the party’s purity.

The obligatory display of patriotism, maybe even for half of the duration…

                The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in.

Generating the mass hysteria

                At this moment, the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant of `B..B!, `B..B! with a long pause between the first `B’and the second. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion.

Have we not heard it before

                Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for every. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.

All in the name of progress

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

How important is privacy?

                Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still privacy.

Ha, Ha! One day be in bed with the enemy and the next day breathe fire

                The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible

If the rulers don’t have an illustrious  past, either defame those who have had a glorious past or insert a favourable past for yourself or apportion someone illustrious from the past to the rulers

                `Who controls the past’, ran the Party Slogan `Controls the future, who controls the present controls the past’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. `Reality Control’ they called it; in Newspeak, `doublethink’

Looking For Venture Capitalists To Invest In My Matriomonial Website Ideas

The inventor of internet would have never imagined one day it will become omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. Today life without it cannot be conceived. Governments swear by it, and those who swear against the government also use it to swear against the government.

                When matrimony became available on the net, I first thought it was a fad that will die away without a trace; however, I was proved wrong. The growth of matrimony on Internet in India is only rivaled by memes. What is pitiable is the plethora of community based matrimonial websites that are available. C’mon give me a break, people use a technological invention made by a person who doesn’t belong to their community, to keep alive their community.

                I hate community based marriages next only to fairness creams. Marriage is just a meeting of bodies to continue the human race, emotions apart. If I was a billionaire, I would create a plethora of matrimonial websites which would go like this:-

i.                     Free wifi hunters please marry.com

ii.                   Vegans who hate vegetarians matrimony.com

iii.                  Part time vegetarians get married.com

iv.                 Grammar nazi met your match.com

v.                   Party Gate Crashers get wedded.com

vi.                 Duck Faced Selfie Fans Get Hitched.com

vii.                Snap chat users marriage.com

viii.              Get Drunk and remain wedded. Com

ix.                 Indian Best Selling Authors Fans Make Your big Mistake.com

x.                   Momos Lovers Shaadhi Kar le .com

xi.                 DSLR Dummy Photographers Get Clicked.com

xii.                Startup Owners Start Living together. Com

xiii.              Cab Sharers Share Your Life.com

xiv.              Online Discount Seekers Get Discounted.com

xv.               Pathetic Marathon Runners Start A Life Marathon .com

xvi.              Sanskar Abusers Get A Life.com

These matrimonial websites seem a better idea of matching couples than based on caste, community, language, region and religion. Any VCs looking to invest in any one of these websites can leave behind an abuse in the comments column, I shall get in touch with you.

A Few Sights And Scenes Of Nainital, Uttrakhand