The world needs many more Gandhijis

Whatever is happening in Lebanon is enough to make a cheerful person cynical, and if you were cynical to start with...

I wish each side (especially one side in the present situation) would remember how they have suffered in the past and think before inflicting pain on the other.

Makes me think of the genius, and courage, of Gandhiji's non-violent satyagraha.

Cynicism can probably be only beaten by kindness. Aggression can only make things worse.

Select jokes from a forward I got sometime ago.

Ha ha!

Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused his dentist's anaesthesia during root canal work? He wanted to transcend dental medication!

A ship carrying blue paint collided with a ship carrying red paint. The crew are believed to be marooned.

There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work? A stick.

A cement mixer collided with a prison van on the highway. Motorists are asked to be on the lookout for sixteen hardened criminals.

A skeleton walked into a bar and asked for a beer and a mop.

Adam met Eve and turned over a new leaf (Hee hee hee. I really like this one).

All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand.

Elvis is dead, Mozart is dead, Einstein is dead, and I'm not feeling so great myself.

How painful it is to tear my thoughts away from Shakuntala
My body moves forward
My restless heart rushes back
Like the silken pennon on the chariot's standard
Borne against the wind.

-From a translation of Kalidas' Abhijnanashakuntalam


Do poets actually feel the emotions about which they write? Or just make them up, simulate them, think of themselves in situations and create (with the aid of a natural artistic temperament) the most aesthetic reaction to the situation? I rather think the latter. The poet is more concerned with his poem, rather than the person, situation or feelings he is describing.

In the old Hindi song, "Maine Shaayad tumhe pehale bhi kahin Dekha hai", the poet praises his sweetheart saying, "Mere sheron se bhi tum mujhko haseen lagati ho." A compliment reeking of self-importance at first glance, but quite an honest, flattering compliment if one thinks again.