Prashant's BlogSpot :P

If -- Rudyard Kipling

If---

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

The Oak and the Reed

The Oak and the Reed

The oak said to the reed:
"Nature did you wrong.
To you a tiny wren is a burden.
A mild puff of wind forces your head low.
I, a huge Caucasian peak, defy the sun's rays and the raging storms.
A gale for you is a breeze for me.
If you let me shelter you, you would suffer less.
I would defend you.
But you were born on the edges of the kingdom of storms.
Nature was unfair to you."

"Your pity," answered the reed, "is kind, but unnecessary.
I fear not the wind.
I bend without breaking.
You have borne its gusts without flexing your spine.
But wait and see."

And as he spoke, from the distant horizon
came the worst storm the North has ever known.

The oak remained rigid, the reed bent.

Harder, the wind uprooted him whose head touched the sky
and whose feet, the empire of the dead.

- Jean de La Fontaine,

The Noble Nature

"It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be,
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sere:
A lily of a day,
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures, life may perfect be."

- Ben Johnson

Vintage Car spotted in Bombay

Spotted this beauty on a trip to South Bombay...It was standing right opposite the Asiatic Library/Central Library. Only had my Nokia 3250 to click pictures with...I think the last one in the series came out pretty well even for a novice like me.

The mountain & the squirrel

A Fable

The mountain and the squirrel
Had quarrel;
And the former called the latter "Little Prig."

Bun replied,
"You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Labels: Poems, Poems from school, school

Delight in disorder

Courtesy: Luminarium

Delight in Disorder.
by Robert Herrick

A SWEET disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness :
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction :
An erring lace which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher :
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly :
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat :
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility :
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Labels: Poems, Poems from school, school

Confessions of a born spectator

Confessions of a born spectator
One infant grows up and becomes a jockey,
Another plays basketball or hockey,
This one the prize ring hates to enter
That one becomes a tackle or center,

I am just glad as glad can be
That I am not them, that they are not me.
With all my heart I do admire
Athletes who sweat for fun or hire,
Who take the field in gaudy pomp,

And maim each other as they romp.
My limp and bashful spirit feeds
On other people's heroic deeds.
Now A runs ninety yards to score,
B knocks the champion to the floor,

Crisking vertebrae and spins,
Lashes his steed across the line,
You'd think my ego it would please
To swap positions with one of these
Well, ego it might be pleased enough,

But zealous athletes play so rough,
They do not ever in their dealings
Consider one another's feelings,
I'm glad that when my struggle begins
"Twixt prudence and ego, prudence wins.

When swollen eye meets gnarled first
When snaps the knee, and cracks the wrist
When officialdom demands,
Is there a doctor in the stands?
My soul in true thanksgiving speaks

For this modest of physiques:
"Athletes, I'll drink to you
Or eat with you,
Or anything except compete with you,
Buy tickets worth their radium,

To watch you gamble in the stadium,
And reassure myself anew,
That you are not me and I'm not you".
----Ogden Nash

Labels: Poems, Poems from school, school

Pictures of Giant Robot...

Do you recognise these pix????
These are from the series "Giant Robot that we used to watch as kids...way back when Doordarshan was the only channel available!!!