To Infinity & Beyond

Excerpt from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979, a movie version was released in 2005)

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape- descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet has or rather had a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. 

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans. And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever. 

This is not her story. 

But it is the story of that terrible stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences. It is also the story of a book, a book called The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy not an Earth book, never published on Earth, and until the terrible catastrophe occurred, never seen or heard of by any Earthman. Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable book.... 

...But the story of this terrible, stupid Thursday, the story of its extraordinary consequences, and the story of how these consequences are inextricably intertwined with this remarkable book begins very simply. It begins with a house...  

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To live or to Die - Hamlet's Debate

One of the most quoted lines from literature is 'To be or not to be' from Shakespeare's Hamlet. 

Yet few of us actually realize what Shakespeare was talking about when we quote this line. In this soliloquy from Scene 1, Act II of the play, Hamlet is debating the question of whether to live and bear with patience all the injustices of this world, or to die and go to another world whose conditions you know nothing about, whether they'd be better or a thousand times worse.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

I came across a wonderful line-by-line explanation of this soliloquy from Stevepavlina.com:

To live or not to live, that is the question.
Is it better to stay, and suffer all of the ridiculous highs and lows of life?
Or to leave, and avoid the trials and tribulations altogether?
We cannot answer this.
Even after you die you still might dream. And who knows what you'll dream?

Click here to read the complete explanation!

On His Blindness

by

John Milton 

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

John Milton (1608 - 1674) was one of the finest poets of English,  considered second only to William Shakespeare (and even surpassing him for some). Milton is most famous for his religious and political works, especially his magnum opus Paradise Lost, an epic work consisting of over ten thousand lines of verse, describing the story of the fall of man from the Garden of Eden. 

Despite becoming blind at the age of 44, Milton continued writing and wrote many of his most famous poems after the disability. In the sonnet On His Blindness, Milton laments that due to his lost sight he could not do much work in the world to please God and wonders whether God requires his labour in the first place; he then contradicts himself by saying that God does not need anyone's labour as He is master of all, and will judge everyone on the basis of the abilities that He has given them, whether they be numerous or none at all. Like the last line says 'They also serve who only stand and wait'.

For a better explanation of the poem, click here.

Mere Geet

by
Sahir Ludhianvi

History of IBA Literary Society (2007-2008)

The Road Not Taken

by
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Robert Frost (1874 - 1963) was an American poet mostly known for his simple-worded short poems full of imagery.

 

A complete collection of his poems can be found here.

Comedy in War

Excerpt from Spike Milligan's Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall

September 3rd, 1939. The last minutes of peace ticking away. Father and I were watching Mother digging our air-raid shelter. “She’s a great little woman,” said Father. “And getting smaller all the time,” I added. Two minutes later, a man called Chamberlain who did Prime Minister impressions spoke on the wireless; he said, “As from eleven o’clock we are at war with Germany.” (I loved the WE.) “War?” said Mother. “It must have been something we said,” said Father. The people next door panicked, burnt their post office books and took in the washing: 

Almost immediately came the mournful wail of the first Air Raid Warning. “Is that you dear?” said Mother. “It’s a Jewish Funeral,” said Father, “Quick! Put out the begging bowls.” It was in fact the Bata Shoe Factory lunch hooter. It caused chaos until it was changed. Uncle Willie, a pre-death mortician, who hadn’t worked for years, started making small wooden mushrooms. He sent them to Air-Marshal Harris requesting they were dropped on Germany to prove that despite five days of war, British craftsmanship still flourished. They were returned with a note saying, “Dropping wooden mushrooms during raids might cause unnecessary injury.” My brother Desmond too, seized with pre-pubic patriotism, drew pictures of fantastic war machines. He showed Father: “Son,” he said, “these inventions will be the salvation of England.” They wasted no time: carrying the portfolio of drawings in a string bag, they hurried to Whitehall by 74 tram. After several arguments and a scuffle, they were shown into the presence of a curious nose manipulating Colonel. He watched puzzled as Father laid out drawings of Troop-Carrying Submarines, Tank-Carrying Zeppelins and some of Troops on Rocket-Propelled Skates, all drawn on the backs of old dinner menus. “Right,” said the Colonel, “I’ll have the brown windsor, roast beef and two veg.” Father and son were then shown the door, the windows, and finally the street. My father objected. “You fool! By rejecting these inventions you’ve put two years on the war.” 

“Good,” said the Colonel, “I wasn’t doing anything!” Father left. With head held high and feet held higher, he was thrown out. 

He took the war very seriously; as time went on so did Neville Chamberlain, he took it so seriously he resigned. “Good! He’s stepping down for a better man,” concluded Father, and wrote off for the job. One Saturday morning, while Mother was at church doing a bulk confession for the family, Father donned an old army uniform and proceeded to transform the parlour into H.Q. Combined Ops. Walls were covered in tatty maps. On the table was a 1927 map of Thomas Tilling’s bus route. Using wooden mushrooms as anti-tank guns, Uncle Willie placed them at various points on the map for the defence of Brockley. My father told the early morning milkman, “That,” he said tapping the map, “that is where they’ll start their attack on England.” 

“That’s Africa,” said the puzzled Milkman.

            

“Ah yes!” said Father, quick to recover, “But that’s where they’ll start from—Africa—understand?”

            

“No I don’t,” said the Milkman. Whereupon he was immediately nipped in the scrotum, thrown out, and his horse whipped into a gallop. “Only two pints tomorrow,” Father shouted after the disappearing cart.

           

Next morning a Constable arrived at the door.

            

“AH, good morning Constable,” said Father raising his steel helmet. “You’re just in time.”

           

“In time for what sir?”

            

“In time for me to open the door for you,” said Father, reeling helplessly with laughter.

           

“Very funny sir,” said the Constable.

            

“Knew you’d like it,” said Father, wiping tears from his eyes. “Now what can we do for you, a robbery’? a murder? I mean times must be bad for the force, why not slap a writ on Hitler?”

             

“It’s about these barricades you put across the road.”

            

“Oh? What’s wrong with them? We’re at war you know.”

           

“It’s not me sir, it’s the tram drivers. They’re shagged out having to lift them to get through, they’ve got to come down.”

            

“You’re all fools!” said Father, “I’ll write to Churchill.” He did. Churchill told him to take them down as well.

            

“He’s a bloody fool too,” said Father. “If he’s not careful I’ll change sides.”

A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty

by
Ogden Nash

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?

Ogden Nash (1902 - 1971) was an American poet known for his humorous poems. Though the one reproduced here is deeper than his usual work, Nash is known best for rib-tickling light comedy on topics ranging from sport to society. If you want to try Nash's sense of humour, try reading his other poems, here.

 

Ghazal (Taaza Ho Dimaagh Apna...)

by

Haider Ali Aatash

Father Forgets

by
W. Livingston Larned 

(as reproduced in Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People)

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

These are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive—and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding—this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bed-side in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy - a little boy!”

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.”