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Quotes From Here And There

Albert Einstein
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.
Dylan Thomas
I fell in love – that is the only expression I can think of – at once, and am still at the mercy of words, though sometimes now, knowing a little of their behavior very well, I think I can influence them slightly and have even learned to beat them now and then, which they appear to enjoy.
Eddie Cantor
It takes twenty years to become an overnight success.
Edward Abbey
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
e e cummings
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
Eyler Coates
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually produce a masterpiece. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Gustave Flaubert
The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy.
Going to the Opera is like making love; we get bored but we come back.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If I love you, what business is it of yours?
John Steinbeck
Only through imitation do we develop toward originality.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.
Leonard Cohen
Ring the bells that still can ring;
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything;
That's how the light gets in.
Montaigne
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
Paul Sweeney
You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.
Peter Altenberg
I never dreamed of being Shakespeare or Goethe, and I never expected to hold the great mirror of truth up before the world; I dreamed only of being a little pocket mirror, the sort that a woman can carry in her purse; one that reflects small blemishes, and some great beauties, when held close enough to the heart.
Robert Frost
In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money.
Satchel Paige
Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.
Thomas Mann
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
V S Naipaul
The writer has only to listen very carefully and with a clear heart to what people say to him, and ask the next question, and the next.

My Personal Library


Raigarh For The Nightbirds

It was on a whim that I agreed to my first trek.The place was Raigarh, the capital fort of Shivaji’s historic Deccan empire – one of the high forts he built to fend off Mughal invasions. It was here that he was crowned king in 1648 and breathed his last in 1680.

Raigarh is splendor cast
in stone – a fascinating, self-sufficient township in its own right. According to Louise Nicholson’s ‘India Companion,’ Raigarh boasts of more than 300 stone structures in royal and public buildings alone. These include amongst others the royal court, a full-fledged marketplace, temples, dungeons, and cells.

Raigarh may appear deceptively stark and spartan, but that is because it does not reveal all its charms at once – they are scattered all over the pristine hills for you to discover.


We were five friends intent upon having a blast. It was decided, in order to add to the thrill, that we must start our trek in the dead of the night like nocturnal jaybirds.



After a particularly jerky ride on the most tortuous uphill path during which I held the handlebars of the jumbo rickshaw fast for the fear of being thrown out, we reached the foot of the fort, freezing in the cold that even the radiant moonlight could not dispel.

We began climbing the mammoth steps, about a hundred of which would lead us to the ramparts. Each of us had worn 2-3 sweaters and a monkeycap to keep warm in the numbing star-spangled night. We must have looked like apparitions rising up the hills in the intensely quiet summer night.


Trudging the tiring steps, we made time to banter and pull each other’s l
egs. We pointed out in the clear sky the glimmering constellations we could identify, and had a good laugh at lights twinkling faraway that looked like a still from a game of cricket.

To say that I was relieved when we were done with the uphill climb would be an euphemism. We hooted inside the dark imposing portal and heard our call carry throu
gh the thin country air.

Sitting on the width of the ramparts, we cracked jokes and indulged in nostalgia until the mist rose from the plains and engulfed us. The first to disappear were the cr
icket lights and the hills, then the bushy path which we had followed to reach the fort, and finally even my companions. The air was so full of stupor that I do not even remember when I fell asleep…



When I woke up, the mist had cleared and the scarlet sun was rising between two verdant hills. The adrenalin rush of the previous night had given way to a pounding headache. I tried to clear my head and stood up, looking forward to a full day of touring the nooks and crannies of the elusive Raigarh…

3 Comments:

    On December 30, 2007 at 6:00 PM Anonymous said...

    Absolutely interesting read. Continued visits to your blog is my way of paying tribute to your talent.But can you check something for me?"To say i was relieved would be an euphemism".Consider that again.Does that sound right?"To say i was knackered/ tired would be an euphemism".And consider this statement too.Euphemism, i thought, in simple terms is "underplaying a bad situation". The word "relieved" denotes a positive meaning and probably the word euphemism should be substituted by the word "understatement" or similar. As i say, i am not sure. Just felt obliged to direct the question. Would love to know if euphemism could be used in the way you did!

    Though euphemism is used to underplay a bad situation, it etymologically means a good word about something. But I think here understatement would be much better. Thanks for taking time to read my blog in such detail and pointing out the error. :-)
    P. S. I'm still wondering who you are. ;-)

    On February 11, 2009 at 12:26 PM Anonymous said...

    Hey Abhinav, Shivaji was crowned king in 1674(not in 1648) and coronation was held at Raigad.
    Thanx.

 

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