Here, you’ll find 12 tips he offered other writers in his lifetime that still hold true today.
"Substitute "damn" every time you’re inclined to write "very." Your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be." Here, Twainoffers some advice that can help writers young and old learn to express themselves more clearly. By eliminating unnecessary words, you’ll make your writing more precise and ultimately more effective, even if today we don’t find damn as objectionable as they did in Twain’s time.
"Write without pay until somebody offers to pay." If you’re going to be a writer, your reason for wanting to be a writer should always be because you love it. If you’re in it for the money you might wind up sorely disappointed.
"The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say." As a writer, you won’t have too many times in your life when the first draft of your story will be the one you ultimately end up going with. As Twain suggests here, the first draft is merely a chance to get your ideas on paper, after which you can really begin crafting a clear, well-organized and intelligent story.
"Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph."Why say something in a page that you can say in a sentence? Economy of words is still considered a value in writing today, and was a value that Twain often espoused. If you can’t yet limit yourself to a few words, work at it. The best writers can say a whole lot withvery little.
"It was by accident that I found out that a book is pretty sure to get tired along about the middle and refuse to go on with its work until its powers and its interest should have been refreshed by a rest and its depleted stock of raw materials reinforced by lapse of time." As in many creative fields, writers are subject to bouts ofwriter’s block and burnout. The cure? Twain offers it here: a break. Sometimes taking a break from a project, for a few hours or a few months, will let you return to it with more ideas and a fresh perspective. Twain often left books for years at a time only to return to them later, or sometimes, never again.
"Great books are weighed and measured by their style and matter, and not the trimmings and shadings of their grammar." While an understanding of grammar is surely an important asset to have as a writer, good grammar doesn’t make a good story. Focus more on your ideas, style and story, and hammer out the details of grammar later.
"As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out." Twain felt there was no virtue in overly flowery, descriptive prose. While everyone has a unique style, using more adjectivesthan necessary likely won’t improve the quality of the story. Quality over quantity should always be the rule when it comes to writing.
"I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English–it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in." While not everyone believes this is the best style, and many writers have had successful careers with fluff and flowers, in general, being clear, concise and to the point in your writing is the best route. If your writing becomes too superfluous or showy, you may bore readers and distract from the point of your story.
"Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream." Here, Twain is asking writers to do something fairly straightforward but sometimes difficult to accomplish. You don’t need to tell your story as though you were not there, it will distance your readers. Instead, describe a scene as if it were happening right in front of you. It will make your writing far more interesting.
"I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way." While Twain might have seemed the type to shy away from such indulgences as creative spellings, here he encourages writers to play with language. After all, many words in the English language came from writers like Shakespeare who simply made them up. Grammar and spelling are fine, but don’t be afraid to have a little fun with the language as well.
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." While this might be a bit of an extreme example, choosing the right words for what you mean in a piece of writing is essential. One word might be a synonym for another, but it doesn’t mean the two have exactly the same meaning or connotation. Spend some time working on your language to make sure each word is just right for where you’ve placed it.
"The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it." Here, again, Twain presses for writers to be more clear, concise and brief when writing. You could write pages and pages on something and have it be more obtuse than one, simple, clearly written paragraph. If you’re struggling, start with the long version and figure out just what you canomit or change without changing the point.
I heard something, some noise, something within me craves loudly to dismiss it to be a usual nocturnal charm.
Nights are usually silent and comforting. Another rattle and hum promises a sure goose-bump. No, No, it can't be," blame it on clumsy rodent that's what logic whispers". My rational self takes over, negating on so called paranormal experiences.
what if we hear it all - every inch of a sound that darkness hides within its infinite cloak, let's give it a try, somethings remain best unheard, concentrate...what is that? a tick of clock maybe... swirling of fan, cracking of wood, a footstep, no can't be...
Seems like someone's presence in my house, shadows on the walls can be deceiving they can create masterpieces..I mean nocturnal paintings, shadow of the objects shimmer around creating lasting impression.. what was that? a limb, no can't be...it was just a lamp.
Another sound... convincing enough for my ears my eyes attempt to scan its origin... something is swirling around me, I can sense its presence, a strange odor... No, screamed my instincts, what is it? a witch..maybe ghost of a young lad who died in this house before I moved in.
Wait, i can hear the footsteps circling around me, narrowing in slowly and slowly... what does "it" want? another sound... someone crying... it sounds painful...wait a minute someone is whispering to me..what is that? come again? what? there are few more here...can't be.. NO... i can feel people closing in, lot of them... what is that a CLOAK.....
Making a film is promising yet it takes its toll - writing something always does!
Today is a hot day, the Sun burns in its full glory,I can see heat shimmering on the road, sound of the keyboard resonates as I struggle with the script at the moment, pondering and writing a horror movie is always challenging, I must admit - I never fancied any of the horror/paranormal stuff till recently. I guess the narrative of good horror movie is difficult to create.
Started the day with hot tea coupled with American Author Howard Phillips "H. P." Lovecraft's classic "Pickman Model". a confident piece of literature, just a shy away from being a classic yet Inspiring and ageless.
Horror films work on definite linear graph, the plot fuels on clever foreplay of anticipation and effect. A sure difficulty it promises is of putting the right elements of thrills and chills at right time line.
Fear is the basic driving force of evolution, if understood and represented properly we can promise a sure piece of art!
Another cigarette bud hits the ashtray, a nugget of nicotine creeps in the blood, hopefully it would stimulate my neurotransmitters efficiently .
There’s ancient diplomacy brewing between the two great nations, not to mention the difference both these remarkable civilization enjoyed.
The difference between China and India is like difference between Jiva and Aatma – Time and timeless, the human and the abhuman. To the heaven, the earth is also heaven, but for the Earth, there is earth and there is heaven, the two never meeting, excepting the Emperor or in Mao Tse Tung. Nehru never believed that the world was real, despite his 5 year plans, but Mao believed he could transform China into heaven. For the China is essentially Confucian, as we all know – of China, education makes a man: and of India, wisdom is the man. The one invented books – the other rasas, that is the means of dissolution.
Mao would be laid in mausoleum, and Nehru’s body be burned in Yamuna. India is no country, it’s a metaphor. China is the country, the house with a wall, and well planned. So much so indeed, in China you burry the dead under your floor, such that you could speak to your ancestors , when the time came, of your marriages and births (or even the gain or loss of a lawsuit). In India birth and death are equally unimportant, the birthless and the deathless, true meaning. France is between both of them.
There are no Indians, India is no country…India is a metaphor. Wheresoever one dissolves is India – every thought when purely understood is India. When Camus knows he is Camus, that is, there is no Camus, Camus becomes and Indian, So everyone is Indian, that Chinese is an Indian.
Take a look at Robert the Haunted Doll. He sits under lock and key in a glass case located in the basement of a museum in Key West, Florida. At first glance Robert may seem like a harmless children’s doll. But looks can be deceiving, because Robert is the most haunted doll in the world.
In 1897, a family named Otto lived in a nearby house in Key West. They owned a plantation and had a lot of servants working for them who they treated very badly. One servant girl gave their son, Gene, a present of a doll. What the Ottos didn’t realise was that this servant girl knew voodoo
Gene’s full name was Robert Eugene Otto. His parents had always called him “Gene”, so he decided to give the doll his real name, “Robert”.
Many Strange things began to occur in the Otto household. Many neighbors claimed to see Robert move about from window to window, when the family were out. Gene began to blame Robert for mishaps that would occur. The Otto’s claimed to hear the doll giggle, and swear they caught glimpses of the doll running about the house.
Gene began to have nightmares and scream out in the night, when his parents would enter the room, they would find furniture over turned, their child in a fright, and Robert at the foot of the bed, with his glaring gaze! “Robert Did It”…. The doll was eventually put up into the attic. Where he resided for many years.
But Robert had other plans. Visitors that entered the house could hear something walking back and forth in the attic, and strange giggling sounds. Guests no longer wanted to visit the Otto home.
Gene Otto died in 1972.The home was sold to a new family, and the tale of Robert had died down…
But Robert waited patiently up in the attic to be discovered, once again. The 10 year old daughter of the new owners. Was quick to find Robert in the attic. It was not long before Robert unleashed his displeasure on the child… The little girl claiming that the doll tortured her, and made her life a hell.. Even after more than thirty years later, she steadfastly claims that ” the doll was alive and wanted to kill her.”
Robert, still dressed in his white sailor’s suit and clutching his stuffed lion, lives quite comfortably, though well guarded, at the Key West Martello Museum. Employs at the museum continue to give accounts of Robert being up to his old tricks still today…
Summerwind is a haunted house in Wisconsin that has a terrifying history. It is often called the most haunted mansion in the world. Read on to discover the details of the haunting of Summerwind.
Back in the 1900s, Summerwind was called Lamont Mansion and a man called Robert Lamont lived there with his wife. When Mr Lamont moved into the house, the maids he employed told him that it was haunted. But he was a stubborn man and refused to believe in ghosts and the supernatural. However, something was about to convince him.
One evening, as he and his wife were eating dessert in the kitchen, the door to the basement began to rattle and nearly shook off its hinges. Suddenly, the door burst open and the ghostly form of a man was standing there.
Mr Lamont took one look at the ghost, and pulled out a pistol. The ghost swung the door shut and Lamont fired two shots in its direction, before fleeing the residence with his wife. The Lamonts abandoned the property that night and never returned.
After remaining vacant for some time, the haunted house became the residence of Arnold and Ginger Hinshaw and their six children, who moved into Summerwind during the early 1970s.
rom the moment they set foot in Summerwind, the Hinshaws and their children started to see vague shapes and shadows flickering down the hallways. They also claimed to hear the haunting sounds of muffled voices in the darkened, empty rooms. When they would walk inside, the noise would suddenly stop.
Summerwind’s windows and doors would often open and close on their own. Eventually, Arnold had to resort to nailing all the windows shut. On one occasion, Arnold was just about to get into his car to drive to work when the vehicle suddenly burst into flames.
Most alarming of all was the ghostly shape of a black-haired woman that was often seen floating back and forth behind the French doors that led off from the dining room.
During renovations on the house, Arnold Hinshaw removed a drawer from a fitted closet and discovered a hidden recess behind it. Shining a flashlight into the recess, he could see what appeared to be the skeletal remains of an animal.
The hole was too small for him to fit through, so when his children came home from school, he convinced his daughter Mary to crawl into the recess to see what was lurking inside. Poor Mary squeezed through the narrow opening and then, all of a sudden, started to scream in horror. She discovered that the remains were not those of an animal. It was actually a human skull with strands of dirty black hair still attached to it. The grisly remains also contained an arm and a portion of a leg.
Shortly after the horrifying discovery in the hidden compartment, things started to take a turn for the worse at Summerwind. Arnold slowly began to lose his mind, staying up all night long, playing haunting organ music. His wife, Ginger, pleaded with him to stop but Arnold claimed the demons in his head demanded that he play. He often crashed the keys on the organ until dawn, frightening his wife and children so badly that they often huddled together in one bedroom, crying and cowering in fear.
Within six months of moving into Summerwind, Arnold suffered a complete breakdown and Ginger attempted suicide. Arnold was sent to a mental hospital and his wife took the children and went to live with her parents in Wisconsin. The mansion, once again, was left unoccupied.
But not for long. Ginger’s parents, Henry and Marie Bober, decided to buy Summerwind house and planned to turn it into a restaurant. Ginger begged them not to buy the disturbing old place, but they refused to listen.
When Henry Bober attempted to renovate the house, he suffered countless problems. Every time they tried to measure the rooms, the dimensions changed drastically. It seemed as if Summerwind was gradually changing shape. After hearing strange voices and seeing ghostly apparitions, builders refused to work on the property.
One day Mr Bober was in the house on his own when he heard gunshots coming from the kitchen. He rushed downstairs and threw open the kitchen door but it was empty. He smelled gunpowder in the air but the only bullet holes he could find were the ones in the basement door, lodged there years before.
Mr Bober was forced to abandon his plans to convert Summerwind into a restaurant and instead sold the building. In 1988 Summerwind was struck by lightning several times, resulting in a fire that destroyed much of the old mansion. Today, only the house’s chimney stacks, foundations, and stone steps remain. The evil lurking in Summerwind Mansion had finally succeeded in destroying itself.
Haunted Hotel Room 310
This is the true story of a haunted hotel room in Oregon. The hotel owners have tried to hush up the story for fear that noone will visit their establishment, but the name of it is The Oregon Caves Chateau.
A woman was driving back to her home in California from Washington to California. It was late evening and snowhad begun to fall before she finally reached the little Oregon town where she planed tospend the night. Tired and ready for a hot meal and a goodnight’s sleep, she stopped at the first place she came upon. It was an old hotel on the main street. The lobby had a musty odor. The seedy clerk behind the desk signed herin. Her room was on the third floor -Room 310.
An elderly bellhop helped herwith her luggage. As soon as the door was opened, a blast of hot air struck the woman full in the face. With the hot air came something else, something she could not define but that filled her with dread. It was heavy and depressing, she explained, “with the strong scent of theevil.“ She felt as if she was about to faint. All she said was, “It’s awfully hot.”
This is a genuine photo of the haunted hotel room in question. Room 310.
The bellhop tinkered with the radiator knobs. Then he opened the window and left. The room began to cool off, but the feeling of despair and dread grew stronger. It centered on the open square of black window space. The terror seemed to speak in her mind. She thought she could sense a voice whispering to her. Compelling her to do something terrible. “Go to the window,” it said. “Throw yourself out!”
She couldn’t seem to resist the urge to jump out the window to what she knew would be certain death. She clawed at the bedsheets, trying to restrain herself from walking towards the open window. Terrified, the woman eventually summoned the strength and crawled out of the room. She rushed down to the lobby and shouted to the staff that she couldn’t stay another minute.
She explained, “I was sure that if I stayed the night, I’d be dead by morning.” She was prepared to sacrifice the money she’d already paid just to leave, but when she went, the clerk never asked what was wrong or if she wished to try another room. He returned the full cash amount to her.
She checked into another hotel and had planned to be on her way early the next morning. Instead she decided to stay over a day and look into the history of the old hotel to see if she could discover the reason for her terrifying experience there. She visited the local library to makea few inquiries. An elderly librarian satbehind the desk. “I’m just wondering,” the woman said tentatively. “Did anything shocking ever happen in the old hotel?” The librarian looked at her strangely. “How did you come upon that bit of history?”she asked. “It took the hotel a long time to squash the story.” The librarian went on to tell what had happened.
Minots Ledge
One evening back in 1948 a couple checked into the hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Smith. The next morning hotel employees found the youngwoman’s body lying on the sidewalk outside the hotel beneath Room 310. The man who had registered as her husband had disappeared. “At first it was ruled suicide,” the librarian concluded. “But thenthey pried open her Minot’s Ledge lighthouse was a dangerous place. Many people warned that the spider-legged structure was unstable. The platform it was built on was mostly submerged and several workers were swept away by the waves during its construction. Despite the warnings of impending doom, no-one listened.
One night in 1851, the head lighthouse keeper went ashore, leaving two assistant keepers to man the light. While ashore, a blew up and battered the lighthouse.
The next morning, all that was left of the lighthouse was a few bent iron rods. The rest of the building was missing, swept away by the waves. The two assistant keepers who were tending the lighthouse at the time were both washed out to sea. Their dead bodies washed up on nearby islands a few days later.
A new, stronger lighthouse was built on that very spot in 1860. Since then, fishermen report hearing ghostly cries from the house at night, and one swears he saw a man hanging from a ladder on the side of the tower, screaming, “Stay away! Stay away!”
Shadowy figures have been seen in the lantern room, taps on the shoulders and whispers at night have all been heard or felt by subsequent keepers. A cat brought to the tower for companionship, went berserk when near the lantern room, running around in circles and screeching.
Some lighthouse keepers couldn’t take living in the haunted building. One committed suicide and another went insane and was taken away in a strait jacket.
t and found itclutched a handful of dark curly hair, not her own. So they made a search for the murderer. But he was never found . . . “By the way,” the librarian suddenly added,”isn’t that a coincidence! It all happened on November 5th, forty years ago yesterday. “
Emily Rose True Story
The true story behind “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” involves a young German girl named Anneliese Michel.
The first person to recognize that Anneliese Michel was possessed by demons was an older woman accompanying the girl on a pilgrimage. She noticed that Anneliese would not walk past a certain image of Jesus, refused to drink water from a holy spring and smelled bad — hellishly bad. An exorcist in a nearby town examined Michel and returned a diagnosis of demonic possession. The bishop issued permission to perform the rite of exorcism according to the Roman ritual of 1614.
Half a year and 67 rites of exorcism later, Anneliese Michel was dead at 23.
Anneliese Michel did not die in the Middle Ages, but in 1976, in the small town of Klingenberg, in the heart of one of the most civilized and advanced countries in Europe: Germany.
Two years after Michel’s death, a German court found her parents and the two priests involved guilty of negligent manslaughter and sentenced them to six months in prison, suspended with three years’ probation.
What shocked Germany most was the fact that it could happen in a country that prides itself on being highly rational — and highly secularized.
“The surprising thing was that the people connected to Michel were all completely convinced that she had really been possessed,” says Franz Barthel, amazement still in his voice three decades after he covered the story for the regional daily paper Main-Post.
“Many years later, I visited the woman who first diagnosed the Devil,” Barthel says. “She blessed my microphone with holy water because I was working for the radio then, and it was likely that the Devil was in control of the microphone.”
Michel was raised in a strict Catholic family in Bavaria, which rejected the reforms of Vatican II and flirted with religious fringe groups. While other kids her age were rebelling against authority and experimenting with sex, she tried to atone for the sins of wayward priests and drug addicts by sleeping on a bare floor in the middle of winter.
According to court findings, she experienced her first epileptic attack in 1969, and by 1973 was suffering from depression and considering suicide. Soon she was seeing the faces of demons on the people and things around her, and voices told her she was damned.
Under the influence of her demons, Michel ripped the clothes off her body, compulsively performed up to 400 squats a day, crawled under a table and barked like a dog for two days, ate spiders and coal, bit the head off a dead bird and licked her own urine from the floor.
By 1975 Michel was asking for an exorcism. The Revs. Ernst Alt and Arnold Renz performed the rite 67 times over the first half of 1976. Some of the sessions took up to four hours. Forty-two sessions were recorded on tape.
Michel’s recorded voice can still send shivers up your spine. It is the voice of a demon, growling, barking, inhuman — and surprisingly like the voice of Linda Blair in “The Exorcist,” which had been released in Germany two years earlier.
Sometimes the demons identified themselves — as Cain, Nero, Judas, Lucifer, Hitler and others — and even answered the exorcists’ questions, explaining what was wrong with the church or why they were in Hell. “People are stupid as pigs,” spat Hitler. “They think it’s all over after death. It goes on.” Judas said Hitler was nothing but a “big mouth” and had “no real say” in Hell.
Anyway, it wasn’t the exorcism that killed Anneliese Michel.
At some point she began talking increasingly about dying to atone for the wayward youth of the day and the apostate priests of the modern church, and refused to eat. Though she had received treatment for epilepsy, by this time, at her own request, doctors were no longer being consulted.
She, her parents and the exorcists decided to rely completely on exorcism. By the time Michel died of starvation, she weighed only 68 pounds.
After her death, the Anneliese Michel trial also set reason against faith.
“I personally believe that this case was handled in such a way as to play down the reality of the Devil,” says Norbert Baumert, Jesuit priest and chairman of the theological commission of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Germany, which cannot perform exorcism but practices “prayers for deliverance” from “demonic nuisance.”
The trial went to the heart of faith: If the Bible is true, then the miracles must have really happened, and Satan must be real.
But it’s not easy preaching the existence of the Devil to one of the most secularized countries in Europe. A study by research institute Infratest and published in the German newsweekly Der Spiegel last month showed that even among churchgoers, approximately a third of baptized Catholics and half of baptized Protestants do not believe in life after death.
“I understand the complaint that German theologians are too rational,” says Klemens Richter, professor for liturgical science in Muenster. “But exorcism is all about helping the sick. In Anneliese Michel’s case, the sickness was supported. When I go to a patient and support her in her delusion, she gets the impression that she really is possessed.”
Exorcism is far more widespread today than most people imagine. According to Richter, there are about 70 practicing exorcists in France and just as many employed in Italy. In July this year, a congress in Poland was reportedly attended by about 350 practicing exorcists.
Germany is the major European exception. Here, there are only two or three practicing exorcists, and though they have the approval of their bishops, they operate in secret.
Secularization has the church in its grip,” says Ulrich Niemann, a Jesuit priest, medical doctor and psychiatrist who often has been called into exorcism cases by clergymen. “We do a lot for the Third World, but little for faith in a transcendent God. . . . The German church is far too cerebral.”
Niemann doesn’t consider himself an exorcist and doesn’t perform the Roman ritual of 1614. “As a doctor, I say there is no such thing as possession,” he says. “In my view, these patients are mentally ill. I pray with them, but that alone doesn’t help. You have to deal with them as a psychiatrist. But at the same time, when the patient comes from Eastern Europe and believes that he’s been impaired by evil, it would be a mistake to ignore his belief system.”
After the Michel trial, German bishops and theologians formed a commission to review the exorcism rite, and in 1984 they petitioned Rome to change it.
The heart of the problem, they found, was the practice of speaking directly or “imperatively” to the Devil, that is, “I command thee, unclean spirit . . . ” That part of the rite seemed to do the most damage, since it confirmed to the patient that he or she truly was possessed.
The Germans didn’t get what they wanted.
“We were astonished when Rome issued a changed exorcism formula in 1999 which left open the possibility of speaking to the Devil directly,” says Richter. “But you can’t know for certain that a patient is truly possessed of the Devil.”
Today, 30 years after Michel’s death, with both exorcists and her father also dead (her mother couldn’t be reached for this article), Michel is still revered by small groups of Catholics who believe she atoned for wayward priests and sinful youth, and honor her as an unofficial saint.
“Buses, often from Holland, I think, still come to Anneliese’s grave,” Barthel says. “The grave is a gathering point for religious outsiders. They write notes with requests and thanks for her help, and leave them on the grave. They pray, sing and travel on.”
BHANGARH
Bhangarh, Rajasthan: In the first half of the 17th century, Madho Singh of Amber built his capital here with the sanction of an ascetic Baba Balanath, who meditated there, but not without his dire prediction: "Look my dear chap! The moment the shadow of your palace touches me, you are undone. The city shall be no more!" In ignorance, Ajab Singh, one of the dynasty's later descendants, raised the palace to such a height that the shadow reached the forbidden place. Hence the devastation. A second myth describes a tantric battle waged between the lovely queen Ratnavali and the wicked sorcerer Singha Sevra, who was attracted by the queen's beauty. Singha Sevra chhatri can be seen on the top of the hill. Desperately, he tried to trap her in his magical web, and failed every time, as the queen herself was a past-mistress in the tantric art. The last battle took place on the day when the queen eventually lost her temper, transformed a glass bottle containing the massaging oil into a big rock and flung it towards the hill-top, where sat the devil. In vain he tried to stall this glass missile. It was too late. Sensing his imminent death, concentrating all his powers, he spat his dying curse: "I die! But thou too, thou Ratnavali shall not live here anymore. Neither thou, nor thine kin, nor these walls of the city. None shall see the morning sun!". The night was spent transferring the palace treasures to the new site of Ajabgarh. In the morning came the tempest leveling everything to the ground. TheArchaeological Survey of India (ASI) has put up a signboard at Bhangarh stating (among others): "Entering the borders of Bhangarh before sunrise and after sunset is strictly prohibited." Tourists who visit this place say that there is a strange feeling in the atmosphere of Bhangarh, which causes symptoms of anxiety and restlessness.
This is a dream or rather you can say nothing short of a reality!
I had a consistent vision, which somehow became a belief and today it has shaped into stern faith. I feel there's a old woman, spiritual perhaps enlightened or to be modest almost devine!
As dawn breaks, she steps out of her home and strolls on the dusty path towards the mosque, ray of light pouring down on her hijab creating a magnificent aura, she walks towards the mosque everyday, she's walking there from ages, praying to Allah for her son's health and fortune, she never stops, never weakens, her faith beside her she walks everyday towards the mosque.....
I pray for her too... in glory of Allah.
Zero has always fascinated me, enigmatic, easy, valuable yet unfathomable, closest glimpse of infinity yet strikingly finite.
It reminds me of Katha Upanishad, " what is soundless, touchless, firmless, unperishable, likewise tasteless, constant, odourless, without beginning, without end, higher then the great, stable by discerning that, one is liberated from the mouth of death.
What makes zero so fascinating, the power that spins this cosmos, a hidden force acting like a umbilical chord feeding numbers into our semiconscious selves.
Zero is Contradicting yet non-abstract, at time it eases you and gives you inner peace. That's what the zero is, Mathematics and Sanskrit are self equating, Zero says that there's nothing to say, the two would be one and one when it's one, dissolves back into cypher that should be pure mathematics.
Find the right number set and you have a"Paradise"
On general observation Americans love computers, the Russians excel in mathematics but applied to industry, and yet both got hit by economic meltdown. where as we speculate on numbers, we love numbers so much that we have forgotten what they represent. Universe is based on numbers and numbers are based on "one" and one cannot exist without not one, so that as Rigveda says, from non-existence came existence or rather from the un-existent came the existent.
numbers delivers us away from instincts and zero tries to hold us back, today's man is living with dilapidated instincts, we lost the essence of it i guess, Animals still identify with zeroes i guess, Animals move with instinct and man with mind and that's why we fall. Animals kill to eat and humans kill to rule.
This blog may be labeled as obnoxious and obscene,There are several lifetimes' worth of promising literary leads here, I know we are trying to gauge unfathomable from the sea of world literature, but I'd still love to take a shot....
Every upright man must at one time walk the path of fire. That is agneepath. The path of fire. Agneepath. AGNEEPATH! AFI described gangster films as "a genre that centers on organized crime or maverick criminals in a twentieth century setting. Profit-minded and highly entrepreneurial, the American gangster is the dark side of the American dream. The gangsters' lifestyles are portraits in extremes, with audiences cheering their excesses and reveling in their demise."
Writing about Gangster Genre is always stimulating; Narrative holding back on the undertone of fascinating dark plot personifying angry protagonist, who fights against the vicious circle of crime and morality.
Gangster Genre is foddered upon sinister actions of criminals or gangsters, particularly organized crime figures, bank robbers or hoodlums who operate outside the law.
Narrative structure of stories highlights the life and times of crime figure or a crime’s victim, sometimes glorifying the rise and fall of particular criminal, gang or lawbreaker. The plots often engage viewers through depiction of power struggles or conflict with law or its representatives.
Does Agneepath equate Scarface?
Do both movies travel on same linear ground?
Strikingly similar plot lines do give us reflection of one inspiring the other; both movies have coherent narrative structures and their very own social influences. Agneepath’s script writer Santosh R Saroj does justice with Vijay Chovan and manages to stir emotional turmoil in viewer’s heart, similarly Oliver Stone the script writer of Scarface successfully creates one of the greatest characters in movie business – Tonny Montanna.
“Agneepath” and “Scarface” both enjoy substantial cult following, not to mention later being a cultural icon in the U.S. On the other hand Agneepath still burnishes upon memorable performance of Amitabh Bacchna as Vijay Chouhan. Now, tracking back to the question I posed earlier, why Agneepath failed at the Box office?
Like hordes of Bollywood characters Vijay Chouhan too personifies Robinhood of East, surprisingly in the Land of Buddha and Gandhi characters like Vijay Chouhan are required as essential stimulants for ever evolving social consciousness.
Reflecting upon the opening scene of the movie where Vijay sits in front of Commissioner Gaitonde, arguing about his ideals and struggle with the social system. Vijay has risen from utter poverty, fought through a hard and bitter world, and become a wealthy don; the system (including several corrupt cops) has failed him entirely; and why must Gaitonde, (Police Commissioner) who is unable to eliminate corruption in his own house, speak to Vijay of law, order and a just society?
Vijay points out that for all of Gaitonde's efforts, the cops have no real evidence (yet another failing of the system) to prosecute him. Gaitonde resignedly warns Vijay of danger and death at every turn. Vijay retorts that he knows who his enemies are, whereas Gaitonde must forever be subject to an irrecoverably failed system. This interchange forms an important theme in the film where a society will produce many more Vijays. Vijay arrives next at a gathering of the dons Terelin, Usman bhai and Shetty and tells them that he knows of their plan to assassinate him.
He tells them that he won't run away and will take their bullets head on. If he dies they get everything but if he survives it's him all the way. As he expected, they attempt to assassinate him; they are stunned when he bares himself and invites them to shoot him at point blank range; they shoot him nonetheless and leave him to die.
Yes, this is where Script Writer went wrong I guess, the scene was hard to digest, and I don’t want to see my hero throwing himself chest on against the burst of bullets, eating the dust and negotiating against his blind faith and destiny.
This scene doesn’t come handy for the audience. In Scarface, Tony does the same, in the climax - As Tony sits in his office, snorting a huge pile of cocaine, Sosa's men surround the mansion, armed to the teeth.
Tony loses control. In a cocaine-fueled rage, Tony makes his last stand, using an MI6 that is equipped with a Grenade launcher opening fire before being gunned down himself. His body falls off the staircase and into the fountain, floating by the statue bearing the slogan "The World is Yours".
