Emperor Meiji: Tell me how he died.
Algren: I will tell you how he lived.

These lines from ‘The Last Samurai’ are something that made a very distinct impression on me the first time I watched the movie. Yet with each subsequent viewing they still manage to stir the strings of my heart. On first glance they just appear to be a simple 2 line conversation between 2 people. They are talking about a great samurai warrior who dies in battle fighting for everything he believes in. “The Way of the Samurai”. The emperor is saddened by the loss of  this warrior & poses this question to Algren who was with him at the moment of death. Algren is an American who was initially hired to help quash the rebels. However when he is captured by them & subsequently spends time with them he comes to love & embrace their culture wholeheartedly. What Algren replies to the emperor perhaps serves as a stark reminder of how we as people today must remember the passing away of any individual.Death can come to anyone at any time. How it happens is immaterial. How the person lived we must remember eternally. Which reminds me also of a wonderful quote from the Bhagavad Gita that was printed on the back cover of Salim Ali’s ‘The Book of Indian Birds’

For that which is born death is certain and for the dead birth is certain. Therefore grieve not over  that which is unavoidable

Image via Wikipedia

Me and some friends had gone for dinner one day at some fancy place called the East End Cafe. Great ambience and  a great variety in the dishes. While scanning the menu I spotted the dish Ratatouille. It instantly got me thinking about the movie Ratatouille. It had actually been a while since we had seen the movie Ratatouille & probably the first time I had spotted the dish in any restaurant. As awesome as the movie was, about the dish itself ,somehow it never occurred to me that I might actually be able to try the dish in any of the restaurant’s here. I somehow always assumed it was a traditional French dish I would never find here. So I thought lets give this thing a try, if they could create an entire movie who’s pivotal moment depended on someone tasting the dish. When it did arrive on my table I looked at it with a little reservation. It appeared rather uninteresting in the dim lights of the restaurant and in an alarmingly small plate considering the price I paid for it. However it smelled delicious & a mouthful later I can say it was certainly one of the most delectable dishes I have had in my entire life. The interesting thing I learnt later was Ratatouille is not the most well defined dish. It is open to interpretation & its exact ingredients can vary from place to place. Though I don’t remember what ingredients comprised the dish here it’s taste and aroma were unforgettable  and so far removed from anything I had eaten before.

It was a strange world she was in. A world imbued with the strangest hues and flora of the strangest design. Yet there was a strange sense of familiarity about it. The tree under which she sat and pondered about this world’s intricacies was short and stout. It had the most slender of branches, branches that could almost be passed off as leaves. Set upon these branches were scores of thick pointed leaves the weight of which caused the branches to bend towards the ground and even touch the ground at places. Like the braided hair of a woman she thought they were. The entire sky was suffused with a dull yellow color that gave the illusion of warmth but in this world the color of the sky did not affect things the way they did in her world. A perpetual fog permeated the world around her. None of the objects in this world cast any shadows. Besides the sound of her measured breathing not a single sound could she hear from anywhere in this world. There was no wind. Nothing moved unless she touched it. The framed door through which she had entered this world stood before her. She only had to proceed through it to escape this dream world and grasp reality. But it was also the door through which she had chosen to escape reality and enter a world that challenged every notion of reality she had built up over the years.

It was cold, she was alone yet she felt calm and unafraid. It was a fantastical realm yet everything had parallels with reality. She walked on through the haze the sound of her footsteps and the sound of the grass crushing under her feet magnified by the silence of everything else. The braided branch trees she saw every where. No bird nested among its branches no fruits hung of them. Where had all the birds flown away to she wondered. The sun gave life to every living thing she had been told. Yet there was no light that gave life here only the light that kept away the darkness. She walked on for a while. The grass beneath her feet grew sparser and the trees she could see became fewer. It began to brighten and the ground began to grow translucent.  A few more steps and there was nothing more on the ground. It was like standing on glass floor. She was enveloped by a brilliant yellow light. That was when she realized that the light had always been coming from below the ground. That was why nothing cast shadows like she expected. After her eyes had adjusted to the brightness she began to perceive shapes and movement beneath the surface. She lay face down on the ground pressing her face as close as possible to the ground. She saw what appeared to be the same trees she had seen before moving gently this way and that their slender branches waving like tentacles of a jellyfish. One of the creatures was moving upwards heading to where she was lying down. It’s movements were so graceful she wished she could reach through the ground and touch it. The creature was now so close that only the ground separated her from it. The tree like structure formed only the upper part of its body. Below that it had a heart shaped head with hundred’s of blinking eyes set upon it. They all blinked at the same time when it looked her. The creature began to come even closer. It began to pass through the ground and came so close that the top of it brushed against her face. She tried to push her hand through the ground to touch it but the ground remained solid. The creature shrank away at this gesture and floated downwards gracefully until she could see it no more.

There was nothing more she could discover here. The door to reality called to her. She headed back through the door. She looked back one last time at this world and thought of the world that lied beneath it. A world she could only see but not touch.

This image is copyright of the artist who created it. I could not find the source so could not attribute the right person. The image just served as inspiration to create a story

Umbrellas for the Civil but Discontent Man | 2008 | manufactured by Kikkerland

Selective culling of a few members of the political fraternity

An interesting little passage I stumbled across while surfing. I couldn’t really figure out whether its a piece of modern fiction or something from an older text. If anyone reading this knows the source of this text please leave me a comment.

Nasrudin was caught in the act and sentenced to die. Hauled up before the king, he was asked by the Royal Presence: "Is there any reason at all why I shouldn’t have your head off right now?" To which he replied: "Oh, King, live forever! Know that I, the mullah Nasrudin, am the greatest teacher in your kingdom, and it would surely be a waste to kill such a great teacher. So skilled am I that I could even teach your favorite horse to sing, given a year to work on it." The king was amused, and said: "Very well then, you move into the stable immediately, and if the horse isn’t singing a year from now, we’ll think of something interesting to do with you."

As he was returning to his cell to pick up his spare rags, his cellmate remonstrated with him: "Now that was really stupid. You know you can’t teach that horse to sing, no matter how long you try." Nasrudin’s response: "Not at all. I have a year now that I didn’t have before. And a lot of things can happen in a year. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die.

"And, who knows? Maybe the horse will sing."

Well ain’t they the cutest elves you have ever seen. Thank God for cosplay