Good & Bad

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR

William Shakespeare said, “There's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

The best thing to do is you should speak good, think good, and be good.

Good is what you believe in and do.

Nobody sees things exactly the same way. One may see the same thing a hundred different ways than you do. So, there is no one complete way to determine what is bad or good.

What is "good" to some people may be "bad" for other people, depending on the circumstances.

As time and situations change "good" may become "bad," and "bad" may become "good."

So, you may again ask: what is good? What is bad? Well, the thing is it is difficult to know what is good and bad, and finding out can be sometimes tricky.

The law changes all the time. Something that used to be legal may become unlawful; or, something against the law in one country may be officially permitted in another country! So, what is good and bad?

There is again no clear answer.

To find out what is good or bad, you should listen to your inner voice, or the life stories of great men and women — of philosophers and the learned. For example, Mahatma Gandhi.

You should learn from their stories and their life's lessons — and, try to be gentle with everyone you come in contact with in daily life.

This is the best way to cultivate goodness in you and also spread goodness around you!

Manage Your Time

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR

Time management is not just for grown-ups. It is also most useful for you, kids!

When you manage time well, you’ll have more time for yourself.

The best thing to do to manage your time is by putting some basic time management techniques into practice.

1. Use a student diary, or an old notebook. You may also convert an old exercise book into a diary, or buy one from a bookshop. Write important events such as after-school activities and daily homework status in your diary.

2. Try to break complex homework tasks into smaller projects and then plan out the work. If a project is due in two weeks, work-out what needs to be done and work backwards from the due date.

3. Measure the time you spend on homework and work efficiently and quickly. It is common for many children to think they have spent hours doing homework when they have really wasted much of their time away sharpening pencils, arranging books, or playing games on the computer. Establishing a set time for such activities is an effective way of working quickly.

4. Prioritise your work. Categorise your homework as either “Important,” “Urgent” or “Both.” “Important” means the task needs great attention to detail before it can be completed, while “Urgent” means it is due soon, usually the next day. This helps you take control of your work rather than leave it until the last possible moment.

A valuable time management technique for children is to establish a work routine that suits individual physical requirements as well as schedules. You may be a night owl who can work productively after dark, while your friend, John, may just go to sleep when the Sun goes down.

It is, therefore, best to have different homework routines that reflect your “best” time of the day — to study, play and/or use your time effectively.

Not Quite Like The Capital Yet

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR

By way of reference to a traditional context, or web of thought, book publishing in Mumbai purports to extended pragmatism -- a relationship that stands for publishers’ “financial” acumen, if not “jackpot” for writers/authors.

This despite the fact, that, a host of writers and authors have made the urbane Mumbai novel a speciality construct. As author Githa Hariharan epitomises, “… the fabulous, inescapable face of metropolitan India… of polyphonic chutney the modern Indian city is: commerce, myth, technology, revivalism -- [which] all add their unique, assertive flavours to its soul.”

But, the fact of the matter is: the publishing scene in Mumbai is quite unlike New Delhi, now the Mecca of Indian publishing. Mumbai, for instance, has not had as huge a hit, or stupendous “bookbuster,” like Arundhati Roy's Delhi-based IndiaInk-published, Booker Prize-winning magnum opus, The God Of Small Things, now unequivocally standardised as one among the top 20 great novels of the last century. This prompted Salman Rushdie to vindicate that prose writing of Indian writers in English “is proving to be a stronger and more important body of work than most -- the so-called vernacular languages…” You couldn’t think of a better, or worse, sweeping manifesto -- or, call it what you may.

Mumbai has had a long history of publishing books of all hues, colours, frames of reference, and context, thanks to the city’s cosmopolitan culture and flavour. While books on the city per se abound, right from the 19^th century, or even earlier, works as diverse as cuisine and technology, arts and the sciences, fiction and non-fiction, law and lifestyle, sport and medicine, Bollywood and music -- you name it, and you have it -- they have all seen the light of the day, and continue to do so… with definitive intent, if not effect.

Sure, the authors may not have made it big and/or laughed their way to the bank yet. Reason: it just cannot happen in the present dispensation, because writing newspaper/magazine articles is much more “lucrative” than getting a book published in Mumbai. Besides, the print-run, if it is anything “substantial,” is small -- not more than 1,000-2,000 copies… for a worthy title. On a royalty of ten per cent, on copies sold, and at a cover price, which isn’t too steep, the payment an author may get, in the best of times, is anybody’s guess.

One cannot, at the moment, also make a living by writing books -- unless, of course, you get your book published for an undisclosed, fancy advance abroad. This does not happen to everyone, unless, of course, you are a writer, who’s as fancied as they come, or are made out to be.

Says Rajan Das, an old hand in the book trade: “Most of the publishing action is in Delhi, although there are a few good publishers in Mumbai.” A veteran in the line, Das feels that this is due to “high-tech printing at low-cost Delhi offers to publishers.” He adds: “Many foreign publishers are coming to India to print their books at economical rates, without compromising on [international] quality.” Printing books, in Mumbai, notes Das, is expensive, even if there’s been an almost ten-fold increase in [book] publishing in the country, in recent years. He observes: “Unless and until printers in Mumbai bring down costs, the situation isn’t going to change.”

Now, the big question. How does a first-time/new/unpublished, author get his/her book published in Mumbai, or even elsewhere. Obviously, for a writer, who’s based in Mumbai, it’s much more practical to get a publisher, and printer, in town. S/he would feel comfortable, if not be in control of operations. Avers Bipin Shah, another long-time books aficionado: “That’s the difficult part. For a new author, the publisher has to put in a lot of money. Most publishers are not willing to do that, even if they want, or wish, to.” This, he says, has to change, because only when you invest, would you be able to attract attention for a book[s] and also readers.

Shah’s advice to would-be authors: “Your book, first and foremost, has to be good and, most importantly, marketable. Next, your publisher has to ‘pitch-in’ for quality paper and printing. The packaging and pricing have to be right. However, it is ultimately the content and quality that hold the key to a successful book. Add to it marketing, which is sound and aggressive, and you also have the services of a good distributor, you’ve everything going just right for you… albeit nobody can predict the outcome of any book.”

As far as books, in the English language is concerned, Jaico, emphasises Das, has been doing quite well in Mumbai -- so also Alchemy. Jaico has not only launched several new authors, but has been very supportive of their cause -- by way of sales just as well.

Das feels Jaico is, by and large, a safe bet for new and old authors, although he says, that, “they take too long a time to bring your book out!”

When Age Is No Age

By RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying," Woody Allen once wrote in his inimitable purple prose.

The fact is: modern biomedical researchers have made enormous progress in deciphering the mystery of aging. According to them, physical imperishability may not be immediate; however, the day is not far off when death is essentially deferred, if not fully elective.

The obstacles to youthful longevity are not just biological, but also political. What’s more, a majority of our celebrated thinkers are at odds to the idea of long, healthy lives. As Leon Kass, a leading bioethicist, puts it: “The finitude of human life is a blessing for every individual, whether s/he knows it or not.”

What’s more, as author Francis Fukuyama emphasises, young geezers will “refuse to get out of the way; not just of their children, but their grandchildren and great grandchildren.” Adds Daniel Callahan, another noted bioethics scholar: “There is no known social good coming from the conquest of death.” He concludes: “The worst possible way to resolve this issue is to leave it up to individual choice.”

However this maybe, there’s good reason to being optimistic from a scientific standpoint. “The prospects of dramatically increasing human longevity are excellent,” says Steven Austad, a top-notch biologist. In addition, many researchers themselves foresee the human race being placed at the intersection of the second longevity revolution. They aver that the first longevity revolution occurred in the early 20th century, as infant mortality declined, and infectious diseases were conquered. As a result, they add, more young people now enjoy the opportunity to become old. The next longevity revolution, by contrast, they visualise, will actually put off old age.

From nature’s perspective, evolution in human beings has “picked” a set of genes that keep our bodies in good shape long enough to mature sexually, yield progeny, and raise them to maturity. All of this in about forty years of one’s lifespan. The supposition: if our body bestows a lot of energy in repairing itself, it will reduce the amount it can dedicate to reproduction. While this maybe good for individual bodies, your germ cells have no interest in keeping you young forever.

A case in point. Michael Rose, a biologist, has firmly established the evolutionary connection between sex and death by breeding fruit flies. Only those flies that reproduced late in life and bred them with one another were selected in the study. Result: the longer it took the insects to reproduce, the longer they lived. Rose’s lab show-cased flies that lived 130, instead of the customary 40 days.

Paradoxically, researchers have found that the genes that are helpful in promising healthy youth are damaging down the line. The tumour-suppressing p53 gene, for instance, keeps us away from developing cancer in early life. However, it does this at the price of stimulating our immune systems to raze the reserve of rapidly dividing stem cells that inflate our tissues over time. Simple premise: as our stem cells are “annihilated,” our tissues deteriorate. Result: aging, or what’s called “antagonistic pleiotropy.”

There are also a host of factors that kill people — from diseases to accidents. Hence, the big question: is there an upper limit on human lifespan? Reports the respected magazine, Science: life expectancy has been increasing at about two-and-a-half years per decade, for the last 150 years. To cull an example. The maximum human lifespan, perhaps, was 122 years achieved by one nicotine-smoking French citizen, of all people, who died over ten years ago!

There’s more than a ray of hope, yes — for healthy longevity. As The Washington Post predicts that it will be possible for us to “re-seed the body with our own cells that are made more potent and younger, so we can repopulate the body.”

But, one stumbling block remains in this blog-post I've compiled: stem cell transplants are at least a decade, or two, away — maybe, even more distant!

There hangs a tale — quite sublime.

Remembering Gandhi

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR

Today is Mahatma Gandhi's 60th death anniversary.

Gandhi, the apostle of peace, recognised the chaos that follows when we deny our responsibility and proceed in pursuit of self-interest.

He summarised our responsibility for each other in his Seven Social Sins, a keynote on how social evil can run asunder. Politics without principle; wealth without work; commerce without morality; pleasure without conscience; education without character; science without humanity; and, worship without sacrifice

This was Gandhi’s genius, his vision -- a powerful reminder of the times we now live in today, and for tomorrow. Responsibility, for Gandhi, also meant disciplining oneself -- to live responsibly according to a very ‘accountable’ code, and setting a good example for others in doing so.

The inference is obvious. Responsibility helps us to move towards industrious independence and towards each other, too. It leads us to a perception that we are all together in an interdependent world, and worthy no matter what we own, or who we are by way of colour, creed, race, career, status etc.,

It isn’t an easy equation, all right, for all of us to feel at ease. But, for a responsible person, as Gandhi espoused, the whole thing is celestial drama, or a Will of the Supreme Element.

Call it God, or what you may. You and I will go easy on ‘oneself,’ adopting an altruistic and patient disposition. We become aware that acting unselfishly and kindly towards others begins by taking responsibility for [y]our impressions on them. It broadens the spaces we share, and makes you more comfortable to be with yourself, too.

The onus, therefore, is on us, and us alone, as Gandhi taught us, no matter our divergent perceptions.

We have to, in the troubled times we now live in, as Gandhi told us, foster the notion of thought at the heart of our responsibility to each other. It is something that begins early in life, and becomes eroded, at times, when we grow up.

It’s also taking responsibility for our own costs, keeping in touch with the four -- fire, air, earth, and water -- elements of life.

It also simply means that we need to find the Gandhi in us -- within ourselves -- and, lead a conscientious life.

Your "Perfect-10" For A Great New Year!

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR

If 2007 brought you much joy, or disquiet
Just go ahead
And, ring in the New Year
With great things in your mind’s eye and ear!

Let every pleasant memory
That brought sunshine and cheer only grow
Let anguish turn into new hope
With the lingering freshness of early morning dew!

Let's forget past distress
And, make new optimism glitter
Come rain or shine
Let 2008 brighten the sparkle in you!

It’s like every New Year, again, where most of us would, doubtless, "elect" to make great lifestyle, and other, changes.

But, how well do we all know that they may all "tumble down" by the time we are through with the celebrations!

Okay, okay, don’t you cringe! Here are 10 pointers you’d use to keep your promises through the New Year, and beyond.

Why ten, you may well ask. Simple. It makes for that "perfect-10" vision, even if you’d not like one bit of it!

1. The best thing to do is to think of the New Year — differently. Think of a simile: “The grass is greener on the other side of the landfill, not hill.” Or, “I’m going to be a slot higher in my wife’s esteem than the year that’s gone by,” or vice versa.
2. Look beyond the box. Better still — have no box at all, than being outside it. This would very much help you to improve your belief, ingenuity, and routine, or whatever you are trying to "hone." Great idea, isn’t it? Because, the world is shaped on our personal experience and outlook?
3. Transform the "shade" of your office, or the paint of your car, bifocals/progressive glasses/contact lens, or whatever — and, see the world in a different new glow [maybe, with a fresh "tint" lamp, in place].
4. Don’t you feel overawed — try something new, even if you fail. It will bring purpose to your life — to try the idea again.
5. Use your cell phone sparingly, because it is cheap; and, also because "delivery" exceeds "requirement."
6. Walk on the right and the wrong alley, simultaneously, because if you are on the correct path, you’ll breathe more and more pollutants in the air.
7. Be positive. Stick to it, even if you can’t. You know that you have the best possible mindset.
8. You cannot avoid stress, acidity, and levy; however, taxes don’t get healthier every year.
9. Make sure that everyone you know considers your idea. Tell them that the "canon" isn’t entirely yours; you culled it from the Upanishads.
10. Battle for your honour and values. Because, you cannot live with[out] them.

Next — just think of life being neither a feast, nor a spectacle. It begins to divulge… as you "mellow."

You will be glad for it; so would others around you too!

Happy New Year!!!!

Comedy’s First Knight

Charlie Chaplin died on Christmas Day, exactly 30 years ago. His magic will live so long as the art of making movies lives. Forever.

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR

Charlie Chaplin was to comedy what Sir Don Bradman was to the game of cricket. Inimitable. Timeless.

Chaplin was born in London to Charles Sr., and Hannah Harriette Hill — both small-time entertainers. When Charlie’s parents separated soon after his birth, the little kid was left to the care of his mother who, through years of mental upheaval, suffered a mental breakdown. She went to an asylum, and died in 1928. Charlie and his older half-brother Sydney were brought up at an orphanage. His was, doubtless, a traumatic childhood — and, it provided the ground swell for his creative flair and genius to sprout, with more than a sense of Freudian "chutzpah."

Chaplin [1889-1977] sure inherited from his parents “stage” genetics, or gift of the gab on the sets, of entertaining people. He could mime superbly and also dance with consummate skill — both mandatory qualities in the silent era. Besides, he also drew on his own poverty and fight for survival to fashion his legendary character — the tramp.

Chaplin got his first major break in 1913, when he signed up with Fred Karno Company — a British vaudeville unit that was touring the US. He made immediate impression and was signed on by Mark Sennet of Keystone — renowned makers of slapstick one-reelers. It was actually Sennet that inspired Chaplin to make his first film, Kid Auto Races At Venice, a movie which also marked the debut of Chaplin’s famous alter ego, the tramp.

How did the character evolve? In Chaplin’s own words:

“I had no idea of the character. But, the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on to the stage he was fully born. When I confronted Sennet I assumed the character and strutted about, swinging my cane and parading before him. Gags and comedy ideas went racing through my mind.”

Chaplin explained to Sennet: “You know, this fellow is many-sided, a tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure. He could make you believe he’s a scientist, a musician, a duke, a polo player. However, he’s not above picking up cigarette butts or robbing a boy of its candy. And, of course, if the occasion warrants it, he will kick a lady in the rear — but, only in extreme anger.”

Within a short time, Chaplin went to Essanay Films on a contract of $1,250 a week — a huge sum those days. And, in 1916, Mutual signed Chaplin for a whopping $10,000 a week.

The impoverished lad from London had come a long way. However, the inner urge of every artist began to propel him in a new direction — Chaplin was anxious to make his own films. As he was indulging in slapstick and sentiment in his earlier films, he was also experimenting. He was always trying to create a poetic celluloid movement through settings and props, through mime, and through his elegant though seemingly "clumsy" excursions. Soon, he was in a unique position of being able to script, produce, direct, and star in his own films.

Chaplin sure expressed his cinematic genius with universal empathy, because his highly imaginative mind allowed him to mix sentiment, pathos, humour, and lyricism like no one else. Result? Classics followed in quick succession: The Kid, City Lights, The Gold Rush, Modern Times, The Great Dictator — a dig at Adolf Hitler’s megalomania – and, so on. Although some of his last feature films — Monsier Verdoux, Limelight, and A Countess From Hong Kong — did not become great hits, Chaplin’s cinematic genius and humanism continue to enthral newer generations of audiences all over the world — in a language everyone understands. Chaplin’s own.

Chaplin, of course, made his own kind of movies and on his own schedules. He made them in the old-fashioned way, insisting on seeing to every detail himself. He did not like sound — not music though — and, resisted changes in Hollywood and its film-making process. This did not affect him and his talent for making wonderfully hilarious films. This explains why Chaplin came to be — and, still is — idolised with unreserved directness. His scenery is a collage — not a metaphor. It’s a cocoon of Chaplin’s expressions which one has always tried to break through to the reality outside. As a critic commented, "Chaplin’s work resembles a hall of mirrors reflecting only one image, Chaplin himself."

The rest is pure magic. Chaplin gave the tramp and his psyche a new identity. The way he wielded his walking stick; the pattern of his splay-footed, shuffling walk; or, the waltz which would get transformed into a hurried sprint when pursued; his shy and almost restrained smile; the mercurial swiftness with which he would dodge someone, not to speak of his ability to skate at the edge of the precipice — all these images urge us to rewind and witness every bit of it over and over again.

Chaplin’s magic is eternal too — it has audiences laughing at his antics even before one gets to know that the little fellow, with the bowler hat, baggy trousers, toothbrush moustache, and delightfully expressive cane, was a transplanted cockney entertainer.

However, for a great man, Chaplin’s life was mixed — of triumph and trauma. Chaplin attracted as much attention for his films as for his affairs and marriages — three of which were disasters. The only happy marriage that lasted was his fourth with playwright Eugene O’Neill’s 18-year-old daughter, Oona, when Chaplin was aged 54. Besides this, Chaplin was in the public eye for his not-so-consistent sympathy for communist ideals. He once made a stormy exit from the US on “political grounds,” and returned to the land that had made him a celebrity like no other only to receive his Oscar.

All the same, whether he was at home or on the sets, Chaplin ran the show. Acting, for him, was all artistry, and reels of celluloid captured its essence and more. What was also amazing about Chaplin’s consummate excellence was his own sense of beliefs and the amazing measure he was able to achieve with subtle realism.

Chaplin remains a class act. More importantly, his everlasting mosaic celebrates his imperishable status as Comedy’s First Knight — no more, no less.