A Vacation in God's territory: part-4

-- by Vishvesh

It is strange but true that when you would imagine that your mind must be still when it is inwardly impressed by such things as Nature, Music, Poetry and arts, that are associated with a sense of calmness, it is only in fact more active than ever. It is not a mere wild excitement or a thrill but an heightened state of awareness when your mind is more readily receiving impressions and more readily responding to them as well. To put it simply, you feel the throb of life without any unnatural stimulant that is very much necessary today for the modern man to prevent him from boredom.

That was exactly what we felt during our stay and going around in Utah. We visited all the familiar places nearby in the next four days when we stayed with our friend at Orem. The mornings greeted us with the splendid sight of the snow filled Wasatch mountains seen from his balcony and it was like re-living the good old days, when we lived there.

We couldn’t make it to Moab, which has some of the best scenic places as the Utah Arches and the Canyonlands. Utah is a vast stretch of open land and you do not necessarily plan to go to a particular place for outing. Most of the times, the drive itself and your in-between adventures in the center of nowhere as taking a hike over a strange hill on your way could be even better than the experience you had at your destination.Having given up Moab because of the distance, we took a one day trip to Vernal, the dinosaur land, and Flaming Gorge reservoir which is near Vernal. At Vernal they have preserved a large collection of dinosaur fossils in the same condition as they were quarried. It must be a visual treat to the paleontologist but for us the landscape around was more fascinating: Cement colored hills all around and a muddy fast flowing Green River out of nowhere ! My daughter was exactly the same age as my son when I was there last time. The place evoked pleasant memories by its details most of which were so green in my mind yet. I was standing in a place in which time was beyond normal perception. For, it was measured there in terms of Jurassic, Triassic ages which had more than six zeroes in the number of years that separated one hill from another ! And I was thinking how different I looked, and how baby-like my daughter was from the pictures a friend of mine shot in my earlier visit! Fathomless time frozen in there and you felt how small you were in relative significance to time and cosmos!

The Green river is another major river in Utah and is a tributary of the Colorado River. No wonder it got its name based on a color, for it is a bright green colored river. They built a dam which created the Flaming Gorge reservoir, which is another breath-taking place in Utah. You wouldn’t suspect that a vast body of water existed when you drove for more than an hour among desert-like hills. And when it shows up it shows itself in its full size and splendor : a vast pool of water surrounded by hills. The dam is very picturesque as all the dams in Utah are. We wanted to spend some time as we did during our last visit in the outlet of the dam. There was lesser water flowing out than what we saw before and a few fully equipped anglers standing knee deep in the water. They must have been there since morning. More than the fish, standing there in such an environment must by itself be a great pleasure. I am sure most of them rarely caught a fish worth the time they spent to drive to a remote place as that, and the money they spent for the gear. I was reminded of the ‘expostulation’ in a poem of Wordsworth:


"Why William, on that old grey stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?”


We spent a long time hiking around and sitting in the pebbles in the shores that were dry. The river was brilliant green (pictures attached) and surprisingly there wasn’t even the gushing sound of flowing water. It was a great pleasure to simply sit there without doing anything and let your mind merge with the beauty of the river and the rocky cliffs it made its way through. Modern man wants to be good at action and accomplishment through an action; but seldom does he realize that inaction could be a much more difficult task and that through inaction he can more frequently be himself. I think Wordsworth was suggesting that through that ‘expostulation’ aimed at him. His reply was profound in its characteristic simplicity, which touches the heart of every lover of Nature:


"Think you, mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?"


Don’t we seek endlessly for things of all sorts while a moment of self-reflection such places can arise in one could give a greater content to one’s life? I don’t know if I appreciate a poet as Wordsworth because I had a mind that responded to Nature readily, or that I appreciate Nature because I had a mind that responded to the poetic spirit of a poet as Wordsworth. There is no line, I believe, that separates one from the other, for I believe such things are, as things of the mind, inter-related by a sense of aesthesis and an appreciation of one is bound to be related to another.

There is a Red canyon at Flaming Gorge as well. It offers a large view of the Green River from an altitude of 1700 feet. The river behind the dam flows between red colored mountains and that is how it must have got the name Red Canyon. You are struck by the beautiful contrast of the green river between red mountains; the view is stunning from that altitude (pictures attached). The river winds through the mountains at quite a few places and if you can walk a little you could view some of those beautiful bends. It has a large camping area nearby and it must wonderful to pitch your tents and stay there for a night or two overlooking the view. I was waiting for a boat to pass through the river and I was glad I found one after a long time. You could see it taking a bend that must easily be three of four miles away and cutting through the green water all the way. It must be a great pleasure to take a boat down the river to the dam, but I would rather prefer a rowing boat. In a motor boat you miss the sweet sound of the lapping of water as your rows push through the water; moreover the high pitched noise of the engine could be really annoying. It was so beautiful to see the boat coming to your view, taking the bends, disappearing and reappearing in a few minutes and then finally go beyond your view. As in Bryce, there was no one here as well. I am given to being lonely and I was thoroughly enjoying our isolation. Except for the chatter of my kids there was no sound. But then, is communication possible only between human beings and that too necessarily through mechanisms involving speech and sound? You could feel at one with the elements in such a place if you could give up yourself and look beyond the barriers that are acquired as we grow up in our environment that is conditioned by so many factors. I remembered Wordsworth again:


“One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man;
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.”


With pleasant thoughts, that are certainly not of the day-dreaming and idealizing kind, but something based on certain inner realities of life that has no absolutes, created by such ‘impulses’, we drove back through the winding roads of Wyoming which we had to cross on our way back and a day later to fly back home to Albany, NY.

- vishvesh


PS : A visit as the one I had at Utah was a life-rejuvenating experience. This is not confined with Utah alone. Several people have several kinds of experience at several places. What matters is that man needs to preserve the mind that can ‘respond’, for, I believe, it is one of the dearest human qualities than make life possible. Thank you for those who read through my ramblings and took the time to appreciate by responding. I am glad that it created such impressions in quite a few to identify themselves with similar experiences, for it is a great feeling to know that there are quite a few among my small set of friends themselves who are given to such interests in life.

Some pictures shot in the above places are available at http://community.webshots.com/album/339461148LpYQbs

A vacation in God's territory : Part 3

--by Visvesh.

The Colorado River is the most spectacular river I have seen in my life. I have always had a fascination for rivers. My admiration of rivers grew more after I moved to North America and saw many of the mighty rivers. While the rivers of India used to fascinate me by their typical tropical charm of greenery, irrigation and the piety attached to most of them, the rivers in North America stagger me by their might. Geographically the United States seems to me to be much blessed than any other country in the world in its water resources; the mighty rivers are the best proof of it. You feel as if you are in a water world when you read Mark Twain’s works based on the river Mississippi which was a permanent source of inspiration of his creative genius. I still remember how I was awe-struck when I had the chance to look at Mississippi though it was on a bleak winter day and most of the river was frozen. It was more than twice the size of Ganges which was the widest river I had seen before, and I have heard that it widens much larger than what I saw in many other places.

But the River Colorado is entirely of a different kind. It is a wild river and its course is perhaps the most spectacular among all the rivers. It flows through some of the most picturesque landscapes which it had carved itself. Unlike the greenery a river is always associated with, this river flows mostly through deserts. What seems to flow as a trickle in the vast depths of the Grand Canyon (in a few places it flows a mile below your feet) is a tumultuous river with rapids of all classes. The very sight of the river is awe-inspiring, by its unique dark blue green color. Not only this river but every river that I have seen in Utah is a fast flowing river. Rafting in them is a great experience with mountains around.

We were to spend a night the next day at Page, Arizona, where Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon dam is situated. The more you drove down south towards Arizona, the more desert-like it became. In the early morning hours the dry sand formations with their pale cement and orange colors looked pleasant. Nothing but miles and miles of road before you and all strange kinds of sand hills around sculptured by the winds! The land being barren except for shrubs and bushes, you could see the road stretching and winding beautifully before you for miles. Suddenly you see a lone hillock which makes you wonder if someone planted it there! A small stretch of hills with intricately carved patterns that resembled the crowded sculpture of our Temple Towers! An occasional battered road to some remote village with a few post boxes that look so strange in the middle of a desert, perhaps to save the post man from getting lost in finding the houses that were not to be seen anywhere around ! There is so much that strikes you even in that remote desert land, if you had the eyes for it. We stopped our car frequently. Since it was late April, the weather was so pleasant and it was an experience to get out of the car and walk down the desolate road with nothing but the vast desert land around you. There was an unmistakable charm and the call of Nature even in that land by its vastness. And when you were close to Page, Arizona, you start seeing flashes of the bluish green waters of Lake Powell.

Lake Powell, like Lake Mead is an artificially formed lake by the creation of a dam, and is in the Utah-Arizona border. The Glen Canyon dam and the Hoover Dam are two important dams built to tame down the river Colorado and use its water to feed the states of Utah, Wyoming, Arizona and Colorado. Both these dams have created lakes that stretch for hundreds of miles. I have been to Lake Mead but this was the first time I was visiting Lake Powell. What strikes you first is the bright greenish blue of the vast lake amidst the cement colored desert. The contrast takes your breath away by its very first sight. Add to it the sunny weather of Arizona. The water sparkles under a brilliant blue sky. All around the lake are various kinds of canyon formations. The Glen Canyon dam is a tall but a narrow dam exactly like the Hoover dam, and an engineering marvel as well. It was built in a native Indian settlement and even today most of the city (Page, Arizona) is inhabited by Navajo Indians. We felt a little strange to see a lot of Native Indians who are distinctly different to the Caucasian American race. It was like visiting a city in another country !

We had one of the most memorable experiences when we visited the ‘horse shoe bend’ of the Colorado River. The river makes an almost U turn at that point (hence the name), probably a thousand feet under your feet from the hill you view from. To reach the view area you have to walk a mile or so in the desert. Spring season in its peak, there were quite a few desert flowers and fresh green bushes everywhere. It was strange to hike on the gravel like sand. By the time we hiked uphill to the view point we were very tired. A strong desert wind began to blow even before we reached. Believe me, not only it was difficult to walk against it, but even to stand firm when it was blowing. Added to that it was like thousands of pins pricking all over the exposed skin of your body because the desert sand that was blown was bigger in its size than the regular sand. Luckily we had carried a blanket with which we wrapped our kids. And the closer we got to the view point, the more surprised we were. For, the sight we saw was one of the best views of the Colorado River that was hard to resist but at the same time very scary too. There was no fence and the wind was so strong that it could push you down into the abyss. There were a group of Chinese tourists, most of whom were elderly. They were really brave to venture to the tip of the hill for the view and to take pictures. Deep down below the Colorado River looked like a vast splash of bright green color. It was like a painting, as if a glorious moment of Nature were frozen in time. Blessed are those who have the time to take a rafting tour in that bend. As I made a note earlier, these are places which need a lot of time to spend. I remembered a quote of Francis Bacon: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention”. These places are the kind to be ‘chewed and digested’ as some books need to be. They are not of the kind where you run around, pose yourself for a few pictures and that kind of regular tourist routine. They offer a rejuvenation of life itself in their details and I felt very bad I didn’t have enough time to spend there. Meanwhile the wind was killing too and my son was scared, and we had to retreat.

Page, Arizona boasts of one of the most spectacular canyons in the world : The Antelope Canyon slots. There are two of them and we could visit the upper. It is a narrow crevice the river had carved through in a huge granite hill. It is rock dry most of the year. We bumped and bounced in our way to see it on a huge monster truck, for regular cars cannot drive through the terrain there. Only tour operators are allowed to take you in for a $30 for each person ticket! Because of the narrow size, the water that forces in through this crevice rises to the height of 80 feet and the velocity of water also has sculptured all its way through. When light passes in through the slits in the top it creates myriad colors and patterns that mesmerize you. It is red and bright orange when the sun is bright outside, and as if like magic it takes in all the possible colors of the spectrum between golden yellow and bright red as the sun passes in and out of the clouds. It is not the color alone that strikes. The changing color brings to life the various details the passing water has carved through the slot canyon. An amazing wonder (picture attached).

On our second day at Page, Arizona, it became suddenly cold and we had to drop our plan to take a boat into the lake. Perhaps, June would be a better time to visit this place, because I was told that the weather would be warmer and less windy. It must be an experience to take a house boat for three days or so and cruise the lake, visit every canyon in the lake, anchor the boat anywhere as you wished and take a slide in the water. Maybe another time I thought, as we left Page, Arizona, for Bryce Canyons on our way back to Orem, Utah.

Bryce Canyons was our first exposure to the unique beauty of Utah. I still remember the early morning we drove there with our friends jam packed in a van (8 members). I had lived at Toronto earlier for a year then and also at Michigan for a couple of months. Both were flat regions and except for lakes I haven’t found anything striking there. The Niagara Falls too was a disappointment for me. The melting of snow and the subsequent warm weather of the Spring were to expose us the heaven that lay out-doors in Utah.

Bryce Canyons are typical sandstone canyon formations that you see scattered all over Utah, but in a larger size. The very entrance to it which is called as Red Canyons fascinates you by its crumbling bright red structures that look like giant ant hills. You go further over the mountain road to a series of spots from which you could hike for miles and miles among the thousands of strange structures carved by wind and water, some of which are breath-taking by their appearance of springing out of nowhere. You have to see them in their three dimensional space and color to appreciate them fully. The beauty of this place is that the canyon structures contain more details and intricate patterns than elsewhere. If you came down the hill starting to view them from the peak, you reach the grand finale at the Bryce Point and the Sunset Point at the foot hills where you can see thousands of intricate structures all at once, glowing red in the setting sun, if you happened to be there that time. It is like hearing a Western classical musical piece which slowly builds up the mood and tempo to a grand finish. My son was often mistaking such structures, not only at the Bryce, but elsewhere as well, as Temples! It is not just child’s imagination; those places really look like our sculptured Towers of Temples. The Bryce point canyon structures have a striking resemblance to the Temple architecture of the Hoysala kingdom (compare the pictures attached with the Temples at Belur and Halebid, Karnataka. You can see the striking resemblance in the intricate sculptural carvings by man in the Temples and by Nature in Bryce).

It had snowed the previous day at Bryce and the evening was stiff and cold. I spent some time alone in the deserted view area of Sunset point when the Sun was setting, since it was too cold for my family and since they were too tired as well. We had already driven around 1000 miles in the three days, and we still had a long drive to Orem. Strangely, I didn’t feel any sense of loneliness I always feel when I am alone at home, though there was not a single soul nearby. The wind was biting cold though it was not strong. The light was fading as well from golden orange to a pale yellow. I was left wondering if we are terribly mistaken in what we term as animate and inanimate! The tall sandstone canyon structures and the tall trees around seemed to me to breath life as much as I did. Only they belonged to another world I was struggling to be conscious of. Robert Frost was probably enamored by a similar situation in life, when he was ‘walking by the woods’. I remembered his poem:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

He probably assimilated it into whatever creative experience his poetry exhibits. Promises to keep or not, the kind of response such places arise in one could make itself felt forever as a waking presence. Night was starting to fall upon me and I reluctantly had to find my way to the car for our drive to Orem.

PS : Some pictures shot in the above places are available at http://community.webshots.com/slideshow?ID=336882396&key=bIe gqf

A vacation in God's territory : Part 2 (Zions...)

Apart from the beautiful Nature there was another thing that made our life in Utah so memorable: a group of wonderful friends, most of whom were young bachelors who got attached to us very much as members of a family. All of them favored to be outdoors just like us and so we were off every fortnight in a van and a car to every remote nook and corner of Utah. Except for one friend, all had left now, but we wanted to re-live some of the sensations we felt as we drove through some of the most cherished spots in Utah.

We started to Zions National Park the very next morning. Zions is a stretch of tall cliffs and awesome mountains in the middle of a desert. It is rock dry everywhere. It is not entirely devoid of vegetation though. Most parts of Utah are deserts but they are not entirely brown as you see in Texas and even some parts of California. The green shrubs everywhere in Zions provide a striking contrast to the red granite. The cliffs are dashing red in color like the canyon structures in Bryce Canyon (and in most areas of the Grand Canyon), but are solid granite, unlike the sand formations in Bryce. The sheer loft of some of the cliffs takes your breath away. Down South I-15 towards Zions you first reach Kolob canyon a few miles before you enter Zions National Park. The road that loops through it is red too ! I haven’t seen red colored roads anywhere else and it is so beautiful to see it winding through the canyons with the towering red colored cliffs on both sides. Rocks everywhere of various kinds and shapes but how unique each of it was! The Kolob Arch, which is a spectacular arch by its size, is the prime spot but then you got to hike a full day to view it. Utah has similar arches scattered all over. Arches form by erosion and certain unique weather conditions. Their beauty arises due to the fact that they are carved by Nature itself and so they are so unique in all their minute details. They hold different levels of interest to a geologist, an aesthete, a regular tourist and even a child but there is one thing in common : they are simply fascinating. To enjoy a place like Utah, one needs plenty of time to hike to such places for viewing them. We have taken similar hikes to a few other arches in Utah, when we lived there. But this time, we just drove through taking frequent breaks in quite a few scenic spots.

The drive through Kolob Canyons is not very long but there are scenic places once in every mile. We took hundreds of pictures through our visit but I know well that even the best picture cannot portray a fraction of the beauty, for the canyon makes it appeal only through its three dimensional perception. Its sheer size, color and the dark shades of deep space in between the cliffs can never be captured by the best photographer, or by the best description of them, for that matter. I think this is the precisely the reason every lover of nature wants to find himself in a place he has cherished, no matter how many times he has seen them in pictures and television or whatever he has read of them. The first hand experience is simply life-rejuvenating.

To control traffic, Zion’s National Park now offers shuttle services. I remember how difficult it was to get a parking, the last time we visited. The shuttle buses drop you and pick you up from various locations. I would love to spend three days in Zions and take as much hiking trails as possible. But since we had only six hours (and more importantly, two children) we decided to take only two trails. The first one was a short trail to the ‘Weeping Rocks’, where a thin water falls is seen in a picturesque place and the cliffs around it oozing with water that drips out of them (hence the name !). There was a strong wind blowing and the thin line of water from the water falls was spraying into a fine mist of water all around. It was around 70 deg F but we were sweating after the climb and the spray of water was so welcome. The huge rock close to the waterfalls caves into a concave structure and it is an awesome sight to see the water from the falls spraying down into the small pool surrounded by mountains (picture attached).

All along the cliffs we saw rock climbers in unimaginable elevation and positions. I couldn’t believe how they made up there. They were precariously hanging on to the cliffs but going on above and above. What a sport and how adventurous they must be !

In our last visit we took a long hike into the Zion Narrows. You hike all over the Virgin River that flows between the narrow crevices of the mountains of Zion. It narrows and widens as you go deeper and deeper. My daughter was only 4.5 years old when we hiked it with my friends and I remember how she enjoyed walking on the water flowing downstream between the mountain walls of the Zion some of which had beautiful canyon formation. It is a dangerous place too, since even a moderate rain can cause a flood because of the narrow size of the river. Once you have hiked in there once, your urge only become more and more to go for as many hikes as possible. This time we wanted to go in for a mile or two, but there was a flood caused by the melting of the snow which made it impossible. But this also made possible a spectacular waterfalls falling from more than two hundred feet high at the entrance of Zion Narrows, which wasn’t there in my earlier visit. It was breath taking to see the tall line of foaming water in the background of the bright red cliff (picture attached).

We had booked a room at Mt.Carmel which is on the way to Lake Powell, Arizona (where we were to go the next morning) from Zions. The road to Mt.Carmel from Zions is one of the best scenic places in the US, in my experience. It is a mountain road. The tunnel that stretches more than two miles is a spectacular spot for the kids. And the beauties of wind ravaged mountains start right outside the Tunnel. I wish I walked instead of driving inside a closed car. Every formation on the hills was a treat to look at. I couldn’t resist hopping out of the car frequently and taking little hikes in the hills. Fortunately there was good sunlight even at 8 pm. The wind had made very beautiful patterns on the rocks. And the sandy hills around were multi-colored as well. The intense orange and yellow combination was breath-taking by its contrast in the fading sun-light. The mountain breeze was so pleasant. The tourist season hadn’t yet started and there was very less traffic in the road. Except for a very rare passing car, there was no sound except for the wind. In such moments you feel the throbbing consciousness of another level of perception, a kind of awakening of a third eye looking into things inward. Denver tried to express the same in ‘Rocky Mountain High’. He was enamored by the Colorado region, which is similar to Utah in its landscape, greener though, and it was tragic that he had his end there in a plane accident and scattered himself in the forests that he loved. I felt strongly that I had my guitar to strum along singing his lyrics :


‘…he walks in quiet solitude the forest and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake…’



Yes, the power of Nature in such places could make your sight turn inward for a brief moment of time at least and make you wonder how much life has to offer here, while we run around madly for material pursuits all the time !

We reached our lodging as the soft night of the mountains engulfed us.

PS : Some pictures shot in the Zion region are available at
http://community.webshots.com/album/333429750HuYIkT?993

A vacation in God's territory : Part one

--By Visvesh.

I still remember (though it is seven years before) the rather discouraging look in my cousin’s face when I told her that we were moving to Utah. A few of my friends didn’t even know if such a state existed in the US! With mixed feelings we took a plane from Detroit to Salt Lake City on the third week of January. We were to live in Orem, Utah. We drove to the city on a Sunny winter day (which is not unusual in Utah). While the cold weather at Michigan was so dreary and dull, the same seemed to us even cheerful as we drove down the road to Orem. Orem lies in the foothills of the Wasatch mountains and the road to Orem from Salt Lake City made us wonder if it led straight into the majestic Wasatch Mountains; the closer we were to the city, the more we were awe-struck. The Wasatch Mountain was a huge blaze of dazzling snow and it was like entering into a dream world. Not before long we understood how ignorant my friends, relatives and most of the people in the US were about the charm and beauty of Utah, let alone the friendly people that inhabited it.

I have missed Utah from the day one since we moved out because of the nomadic life of computer consultants. But I thank God for giving me an opportunity to stay for a year in what I would imagine as one of his favorite habitats. Fond memories of Utah being so strong in my mind, I took a trip with my family to Utah, despite the discomfort of long and inconvenient flight schedules.

Orem lays South of Utah and when you lived anywhere in the South, you are surrounded by mountains, lakes, canyons, rapids, deserts and all other kinds of splendid shows Nature clothes itself in. You drive five miles in any direction and you would end up in a place that struck you by its unique beauty.

We arrived Utah late in the evening. There was bright sunshine outside and the snow capped stretches of mountains that start from Colorado were a treat to watch from the plane. The plane flew at a low altitude and we could even see quite a few lakes that were still frozen. Snow is seen in these mountain peaks even after the onset of summer. Many a times I have wondered what is so special about a place like Switzerland after one lived in this area. Though it is kind of moorlands you see in the plains of Utah and Colorado, the mountains are filled with beautiful pine trees that you typically see in the pictures of Switzerland. The mountains at Utah are equally vast and dotted with picturesque lakes as well. As luck would grant us, the flight had to hover around Orem before it landed because of traffic issues. We could see quite a few familiar places we loved to hike in the mountains.

At the counter for rental cars, the staff enquired if I came there for skiing. I said I had better things to do by driving around. I guess he understood me not as the regular east coast traveler who flies to Utah just to ski in some of the internationally famous ski resorts entirely oblivious of the greater charms of Utah. He gave me a premier car instead of a regular full sized car and wished me happy driving around Utah. A kindred soul, I thought.

It was getting dark as we drove to Orem. Memories of the pleasant time I had filled my mind as I drove through the still familiar route. Certain places and moments make permanent impressions by some special significance. Utah was one such in our life. I remember how I used to enjoy the beautiful sight of the stunning Wasatch Mountain through the front window of my apartment and the crystal blue Provo Lake from my back window. The very next morning we started driving around. Provo Canyons was one the places that was a ten minutes drive from our apartment at Orem (our friend with whom we stayed was living in another apartment complex close to it). It is a tall ragged mountain through which a scenic route leads to the famous Park City. It is a pleasure driving through such scenic routes that lay scattered all over Utah. There was a thin line of water falling at the Bridal Veil Falls. It used to be refreshing to take a small hike to the top. We didn’t have time for it. Along the scenic route to Park City there are a couple of scenic reservoirs. We went to the Deer Creek reservoir. The very sight of it was stunning. It was crystal blue all over surrounded by hills and snow capped mountains. There was a kind of silence, which was paradoxically music to me. ‘Heard Melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter…’ : Keats should have expressed a similar experience in that line when he was engrossed by the Grecian Urn. I could feel a stillness of mind that gives arise to a strange experience of ecstasy, words can hardly express; A kind of conscious feeling of an entire loss of your personal self that had merged with the greater soul of Mother Nature; you bow down in reverence to the greater being with a sensation that is not much different traveling through psychic realms of religious or spiritual experience. Shelley’s ‘Alastor’ came to my mind:


“I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain
May modulate with murmurs of the air,
And motions of the forests and the sea,
And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.”


There was still so much of snow left at Sundance, which was only a 15 minutes drive from my apartment, and at Park City. Snow wasn’t a great attraction for me since I have been used to it. But what makes it attractive in Utah are the mountains that it covers which are entirely different from what one sees in the Catskill region near Albany and the hills of Vermont. The cliffs and canyon like structures everywhere make them unique and remarkable. And they are tall mountains unlike the hills of the East Coast.

There was an ISKCON Temple in a log house in a secluded place at Spanish Fork, Utah which we frequently used to visit on Sundays. The place was so enchanted surrounded by mountains and we loved those Sunday Bhajans in the typical ISKCON style of passionate singing and dancing. They have built now a very beautiful Temple near the log house. I have been receiving newsletters from the day I left and I have longed to visit the newly constructed Temple after seeing the pictures from their website. (http://www.utahkrishnas.com/). We went to the Temple in the evening since it was a Sunday and we were very happy to see RamaNavami celebrated with the soulful rendering of the bhajan and dance. The Temple is unique of its kind in its architecture. I was glad that the founder of the Temple could vaguely remember us. He was so happy when he knew that we came all the way from New York and made it a point to visit the Temple and participate in the Bhajan. The Temple is more picturesque now in its sylvan settings, its lama farm, peathingys running around and a beautiful water fountain. I have always felt very peaceful in its premises. There was a very pleasant evening breeze from the mountains around. It was an experience standing in the open second floor of the Temple when the evening Sun was becoming orange in the horizon of the vast open fields that merged into the mountains around. What more than such splendid Nature around and a moving religious experience of Krishna Consciousness can one need in life to be content about it? Strangely, one becomes very conscious of life in such self-forgetful moments that lead to philosophic queries about life. A stanza of Chapman came to my mind :


“Guise, O my lord, how shall I cast from me
The bands and coverts hindering me from thee?
The garment or the cover of the mind
The humane soul is; of the soul, the spirit
The proper robe is; of the spirit, the blood;
And of the blood, the body is the shroud:"


How I wish ‘I cast from me, the bands and coverts hindering me from’ Him, not just in such ecstatic moments alone but in my entire life ! My bliss was not a personal experience as I could see. I saw my wife perfectly at ease as I was. My children were so happy too running around, but without getting wildly excited, as children are wont to. We stayed there till twilight wrapped us up and the stars started showing up over the mountains. I wish I stayed there forever, but I knew I cannot. But then, I was sure, that such moments in life, though rare, do make a person for what he is, with permanent impressions; even if not cause an entire internal transformation, they still offer glimpses of a vital life.

PS : Some pictures shot in and around Orem are available at

http://community.webshots.com/album/331929801LUSbwe?604

Reminiscences of India : 3. Madurai

Madurai is the city I was born and brought up at. I spent the best part of my life in that city. Not because of them alone I have a special attachment to this city, but because Madurai has a special place in Tamilnadu by its vibrant life and by its being a kind of cultural centre of South Tamilnadu. Even after I became an adult I have always felt a distinct pleasure whenever I was returning to Madurai from nearby cities (in fact, the older I grew the more conscious I became of such a pleasure). It was much more than the pleasure of returning home. The familiar scenes of Madurai, most of which that are typical to the city, had a kind of magic in them that always fascinated me.

Except for a few years that I worked at Dindigul, I have spent almost all my life at Madurai till I moved to North America. Possibly it is the formative influences of that city that remain deep-seated in my psyche to make me passionately attached to this city. But then I ask myself if others who came from this city, or from any other cities felt the same way as I did, and I am only discouraged to find that the answer to it not as I expect it to be.

It is a curious experience to visit a city that you had so much of passion towards and that exerted a major influence on your psyche, after a period of long absence. It was my second visit to Madurai in seven years. On both occasions, I had to fly to Madurai from Chennai, for lack of time. An overnight train-ride from Chennai to Madurai (which I have frequently traveled) used to be one of the pleasures in my life, for you passed through the greenery of the vast fields of paddy, grapes, sugar-cane and coconut groves, particularly in the early morning hours after the train crossed Dindigul. I still remember how I would, in my childhood days, refuse to sleep and prefer to pore over the soft night till sleep overcame me, by the rhythmic sway of the train. The pump sets for irrigation of the passing fields used to be typically similar. There would a small building with a tiled roof for housing the pump close to the well and it would typically have the long stemmed question mark shaped lamp post over the building with a light bulb that would be invariably dull in its light, probably since covered by the dirt over it for ages. But such a thing in the slightly visible fields in the soft night as the train whistled past them had a romantic charm for me, and I used to keep a count of them! And when you woke up in the early morning regretting that you had overslept, you find the train already at Dindigul. The station is alive by the arrival of your train and you found it pleasant even to hear the cacophony of the Vendors’ loud voices to sell their merchandise. As the train moves on, you find the enchanting green fields on one side and the stretch of Kodaikanal hills on the other. And when you reached Madurai, you had gone through that wonderful experience yet again in your life!

On both occasions I flew over to Madurai, I was remembering the pleasant memories of my life at Madurai and how much a return to the city affected me. The plane to Madurai flies not at a very high altitude and you could distinctly see the various cities as you pass by. Right from the time the flight made a take-off, all I could see was a brown piece of land occasionally green by the coconut groves that refused to give up to the drought and square patches of cities dotted all along. The flight is only for an hour and even before you finished the breakfast they serve, you are landing at Madurai! The Kodai hills are the only consolation of greenery that you see the whole hour. Your heart goes numb by seeing the long beds of dry rivers and lakes and vast stretches of land that are dry fields. Sore in your heart that you are, the first sight of the Gopurams of the Meenakshi Amman Temple still makes you feel cheerful. The plane hovers over Madurai before it lands in the small airport. You see Thiruparankunram and Sourashtra College on the hill with the two lakes on the sides of it as you land. They are entirely dry. It is unusual at this time to be dry. Till the middle of 90s they used to have water for four months a year. It would be a great sight to see when you walked up that desolate hill behind the College and enjoy the green fields and the sight of water in both the lakes. I have spent long hours in solitude in that hill and have also had a good time swimming in the lakes. It had been alarming to see what I was seeing in my life time itself as to our water resources. Later at Madurai when I was talking to my friends about the various irrigation wells around Madurai where we used to visit frequently for swimming, I was concerned to hear that none of those wells had any water in them anymore and a few of them were even land filled.

The Sun was already up at 8.30 AM when the plane landed, and it was terribly hot. Late August was not supposed to be so, for it should be raining and hence tolerable except during mid-day. I was told that there was record heat in the past few years in Tamilnadu, because of the failure of monsoon. I have always held that such a failure is mostly out of man-made conditions. As I drove past the city, I was pained to see how the city had been mushrooming at an alarming pace. There were houses and people everywhere right from the airport, which was a remote location even at the time I left India. Billboards of motor-cycles and cars were in every walls and empty spaces on the buildings. As if the cricketers of the Indian team were not sufficient, a couple of Australian cricketers’ too were wooing the Indian consumers! As I passed over the Vaigai river, I could not but feel awful and think “God, what have we done to ourselves”. What a distortion of life it was to see it in its present shape! It numbs one’s very sensibility to see the squalor of a scene like that. Can one become indifferent to it even when one is used to such squalor? Of course, it wasn’t much different to what it was now when I lived at Madurai, except that there were a couple of ugly bridges built recently and more filth in the river. But what worried me was the rate at which things were worsening up in a city like Madurai in the past few years. For instance, Madurai district is known to be a drought-prone area. I have seen water scarcity even in my childhood days. But then it was not a long-lasting phenomenon and there was a respite by a rainfall sooner or later. I have seen the river Vaigai flowing in full every year at least for few weeks. I have seen greenery as I made a note of earlier in most of the places surrounding Madurai. I must say that in the last twenty years things have started moving towards the worst by the developments in a city like Madurai, which is applicable to any other city in India. It was not just the wells all around Madurai had disappeared, but in the last ten years or so, the water table itself seems to have disappeared. The rains do not seem to be occasional failures anymore, but a permanent feature. And added to the woes, the resources for finding water, plans for saving it and using it wisely doesn’t seem to exist too. I was shocked to see my brother buying water for domestic use, let alone for drinking, though he lived in a place where it was not densely populated and had only a few houses. I could only see greed and corruption having robbed the very possibilities, let alone any charm, of living in a place like Madurai. My brother said that he saw three gas stations spring up in a matter of one year’s period in a new development area. It is cars and motorbikes you see everywhere. It seemed to me that that was no control over development and any planning anywhere. Everyone seemed to me to live for himself! Not even thinking that his children would have to bear the brunt of his own actions! It is not the common man who could be held entirely responsible for such a scenario, for there are so many factors as the conditions of our time that governed life in a city like Madurai, of which, the common man tragically seemed to me to have lost any control over, even when he had a conscience and a wish to change things. The kids had no space to play nor had the time for it. I at least had the streets to play, if not for a few parks and play grounds that existed then! If it is the Television and the living conditions that rob the responsibilities associated with parenthood of the elders, it is the extra-ordinary amount of school-work the kids have to go through for a career that robs their innocence and childhood. Needless to say that the IT revolution has created havoc in the psyche of many I met. Fresh graduates getting paid what their better qualified elders could never dream of, high salary rates of those privileged few in the IT and related industries etc., have affected human relations a lot, as I could see. Education had become associated with cost, and a high cost at that, and I could see the strain in every parent who had children going to College.

Maybe I am pessimistic, and I only wish I am, for I wish things to change for better in my beloved country. The optimistic guys say that it is a transition that the country has to go through. I don’t believe in it, for I only saw an alarming deterioration of life that showed on every face, and affected the very human relations, which didn’t balance with any of the advancements I saw. I was afraid if the charm of a city like Madurai had lost its appeal to me. I had to resort to my sense of Spirituality and the Indian past in the great Temples in and around the city to hold my senses turning negative. The Lord seemed to me the only hope!

Reminiscences of India : 2. Courtallam, Srivilliputhur, Papanasam…

The Sourashtrians of Madurai are fun-loving people and they have had the habit of picnicking in water spots at regular intervals. As a Sourashtrian who joined the main-stream Sourashtrians of Madurai, a little later in my life though, I used to regularly visit quite a few water spots in and around Madurai district.

Visiting Courtallam thus became a habit to me. I would visit it every year, sometimes even twice a year, sometimes even during non-season months. The Western Ghats have always fascinated me and they put on one of their finest displays at Courtallam. During the months between June and August, when monsoon is set at Kerala, the water falls in Courtallam start flowing in full. The mountains are all the time covered with fluffy clouds and there is a pleasant drizzle all the time. The mountain breeze is so specific to Courtallam alone. It carries with it not only very fine droplets of water, but also the scent of the flora and fauna of the kolli hills of Courtallam that makes you feel alive when you took a deep breath when it was blowing.

This is the second time in a seven year period I was visiting India. During my last visit, I couldn’t make it, and this time I made it a point to visit Courtallam though my visit was only to last for two weeks. I was told that there had been no season there in the past four or five years and that only this year it had shown up. What a loss to the fun loving people who flock those water falls every year! After coming to North America I have felt how much we Indians lack the pleasure of out-door activities. I felt sad that even a restricted activity as going to a water spot is getting lesser and lesser today not only by the conditions of our time, but also because of Nature’s failings, of which we are partly responsible ourselves.

I started on an early morning with a couple of friends to Courtallam, fully excited. It takes around four hours from Madurai and you pass through the beautiful Andal temple, Srivilliputhur. The Temple Tower is majestic and familiar by being the Tamilnadu state Govt. emblem. We had a hot tea in that early morning right outside the tower with the huge Temple car before us. Even in those shrill speakers the tea shop was blaring with, the Vinayaka songs of Sirkazhi sounded so nice; probably the early morning breeze, with the temple tower and car before us, and the streets being so deserted added to the charm. The Temple car was exquisitely carved and it must be a great sight to see it fully decorated. I remembered the story of Andal, the early mornings of Markazhi when the Temple next street to where I lived at Madurai played the Paasurams of Thirupaavai. Having seen drought everywhere in Tamilnadu even in my second visit to India, I was reminded of the line:

“thIngirRi nAdellAm thingaL mummAri peythu”

from the Paasuram “Ongi ulagaLantha…”. An internet friend of mine and who is a gifted musician, created an unforgettable composition of this Pasuram (can be downloaded at http://www.srikanthd.com/dl2.asp?ongip3.mp3). I have always marveled at the beauty of Thirupaavai not just for its lyrical beauty and technical accomplishments, but also for the kind of natural speech it displays : the speech that is unadulterated by any sentiment though the poet is praising the Lord. Such natural speech makes the highest kind of poetry. I planned to visit the Temple on our way back.

We parked our Car in a dry pond outside the city and I could see the Main Falls of Courtallam from that place. My friends were happy that there was water in the falls. The Sun was up and was burning already, which was a little disappointing to me. As we entered the city, we found it almost deserted, for the season was supposed to be over by August first week. We found lodging from where we could see the Main falls. There were signs of possible rains up in the mountains, but in the plains it was already hot and I wanted to hit the falls at the earliest.

The first touch of water was really electrifying to me. For, as Wordsworth puts it beautifully: (the only difference being the five instead of eight, in my case)

“Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.--Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion…”

Wordsworth’s experience was only visual, as I understand. He ‘saw’ some water falls, that had inspired him once, after a long absence. Here I was actually experiencing it all over my physical body. The water was cold; the sound of it splashing all over my body was music to me. Does it really matter that you have to bounce over so many bodies, some of which drip in oil that they are covered by, when you go through such a heavenly experience? I visited all the water falls. Each of it had its unique sensory experience, by the intensity of water that was flowing and by its specific setting.

The next day I wanted to go to Papanasam. I wanted to make the best of my short visit and again we started very early in the morning. Papanasam is around an hour drive from Courtallam and is another beautiful place. I wanted to go to Agathiyar falls and the Tamaraparani dam, and the Baana Theertham in the hills behind the dam, which I have never visited. Since we were very early there was no one in the dam. The dam was very picturesque but they don’t allow you to take pictures, because of security reasons. Outside the dam, we had delicious hot idlis and masaal vadai on the roadside. They even sell fried fish later in the day. We had to cross the waters of the dam to the other side to reach the Baana Theertham (some of us may be interested to know that Manirathnam shot his famous ‘chinna chinna Asai’ song in this falls). The boats that carry the people to the other side are dingy, but it is an experience you go through riding on them in that picturesque place surrounded with high mountains. It was calm in the morning, but my friend was scared to sit on that shaking boat, for he believed that there were crocodiles in the water there! It takes half hour to reach the other end of the dam and a few minutes before you reach the shore, on a turn in the mountains, the falls of Baana Theertham become visible all of a sudden. It is a stunning sight, to see the milk white falls surrounded by green mountains emptying into the vast stretch of water. What a delicacy of feeling and reverence to Nature our forefathers had to call such life sources as ‘Theerthams’, a gift of God ! Weren’t the Rivers of India glorified by the poets and common people as well with the affection and love that one showed only towards one’s mother? There was a group of men on a regular yearly mission of carrying the water of Baana Theertham to a nearby temple on that specific day. They came with us both ways in the boat; they became very friendly and they asked me if I had any special request (‘vEnduthal’), which they would pray for on behalf of me. I replied that I wanted to pray that there should be copious rains all over my blessed country and that all such dams would be brimming with water. They were very happy to hear a request like that coming from someone visiting from abroad a remote place as that. It was a sore sight all over Tamilnadu to see it becoming a desert more and more and that was the only thing I could think of at that moment though I was in the back waters of a dam.

The way back from Baana Theertham was an experience I can never forget. There was a strong wind blowing and it had a special effect in the water surrounded by tall mountains. The lake was now filled with waves and since the boat was driven in a direction that was opposite and sideways to the waves each wave lifted the boat upwards and sideways splashing in loads of water. Each time the boat lifted I thought it was going to roll over, for the boat was very short in height. The driver asked us not to move, for it would topple the balance and capsize the boat. I got used to the waves in a short time and it was like rafting in Grand Canyons on a level four rapids. We had our second shower of the day with the waters of the dam this time. My friend who was already scared of crocodiles in the lake even started chanting the name of God ! The boat must have been tossed in the lake at least thirty times before we reached the shore. The driver said such a thing only happened rarely!


The Agathiyar falls on our way back from the dam was another great water falls. The river Tamaraparani on its way down branches into various water falls. There wasn’t much crowd there as well and the water was flowing at a great force. You buy a pack of oil, open it and invert it over your head; your entire body is soaked with oil in a minute as it flows down. It must take a full soap to wash it off. But there you go, you stand in that falls for a couple of minutes, you come out dry and fresh! Your skin radiates with freshness and life!

On our way back, I had to buy bottled water to drink before I reached Madurai. It was like waking from a pleasant dream when I drank it after soaking myself with the waters of life of the Western Ghats. The label from the bottle said it was from some spring. God, how it sucked!

- vishvesh

PS : Some pictures at

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ovishvesh/album?.dir=6992&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Run a slide show at:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ovishvesh/slideshow?.dir=/6992&.src=ph

Reminiscences of India : 1. Temples around Madurai…

During my visit to Meenakshi Amman temple at Madurai, when I was taking
my own time in feasting my eyes and mind with the marvels that can only
belong to a civilization with ‘culture’ behind it, my friend who was
accompanying me, asked me with a puzzled look in his eyes if I used to visit the
Meenakshi Amman temple frequently when I lived at Madurai. I was a
little surprised as to why he asked me such a question suddenly. I couldn’t
get it off my mind and I could only infer later that he could have asked it to
know if I used to be attracted by the same things that held me inspired now.
Whether he meant it or not, I thought that was a sensible question to
ask myself, for it had answers that one must seek for oneself to know how
religion as related to the temples one is used to could matter in one’s
life.

I understand that Religion, for most part in one’s life is an
unconscious affair. You are not consciously alive to it when you live in an
environment that nurtures it. You feel its absence only when your mind is
sensitized to it unconsciously, and when you lived in an alien environment. The
Temples that I visited during my trip to India were not new to me: I must have
been there hundreds of times in my life earlier when I lived there. It was
either the long years of absence or my unconscious craving for
something internal that made them so fascinating. A ‘thing of the mind’ as
Religion is not something sensational but the memories of which, when one has
lived through it not as a dogma but as a faith, have the power to sustain
life when it could be brought to one’s conscious mind. As Wordsworth puts
beautifully of a similar experience,

“But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart…”

I have owed to my sense of Religion my sense of humanity and my passion
towards what made human life possible. I was glad to find that my fascination
to the Temples, as if I were an outsider, had nothing in it to be disturbed by,
and that it could only be natural to a person like me, who had to seek
for values consciously in a world that seemed to me to be ignoring and
forgetting them. With this thought in my mind I made it a point to visit as
many Temples that I used to go periodically when I lived at India.

The Shiva Temple at ThiruVaadavur is one of the most beautiful temples
I have even been. I have noticed a striking feature in many Shiva Temples in Tamilnadu: unlike the Vaishnava Temples, which are crowded even in regular days, the Shiva temples are comparatively less crowded. I wouldn’t say that it makes them more attractive for everyone. In fact, it could be inspiring to see thousands of people in a Temple like Thirupathi chanting the name of God together instinctively at the sight of the Lord. But then, somehow I have been given to solitude and so the Temple of ThiruVaadavur has always held my interest. It is around 20 KMs from Madurai and is in a sleepy village. It is also the birth place of St.MaanickaVaasagar and associated with the famous ‘Nariyai Pariyaakiya Padalam’ of the ThiruVilaiyaadal. The Temple is very well maintained, but I have seldom seen more than 20 people in the Temple at any time ! It is a fairly large sized Temple as well. The Temple tank, to my surprise had water in it! It is right outside the Temple with broken steps, but the short Temple tower makes an inspiring sight from the tank. There was a gentle breeze in the early morning which was very soothing. All around the temple it was a rocky moor land with red soil and the drive itself to the Temple could be fascinating. You go through the typical Shiva Temple architecture as you enter: the long structure housing the sanctum of the Lord, with
the typical Prakaaram around with high stone walls and coconut trees. It is typical of many rural Shiva Temples I have visited. I always get pleasantly reminded of many other Shiva Temples when I visit one, by the familiarity of the architecture (I was reminded of the temple at Avinashi and later had the same feeling when I visited the Shiva Temple at Thenkasi). Walking on the long Prakarams outdoors is a great experience with the Gopuram of the Sanctum right before you. You unconsciously salute the Lord as the gentle breeze carries with it the sweet melodies of ThiruVaasagam sung by an Odhuvar in a dark corner of the temple. You are left to wonder if it is the metallic voice of the Odhuvar in such a setting or if it is the intricate beauty of the Tamil language expressed by the divine poet that strikes you, but then you brush it aside thinking if it really mattered as long as you experienced the bliss of a religious phenomenon. I have read with a pain in my heart the various interpretations of the moving passage: “thennAttudaiya sivanE pORRi”. Was there a different South and North India with different traditions of salvation as of the different monotheistic religions? The Veda Neri or the Agama Neri, does that matter to the common man like me as long as I relish the religious experience of going to a Siva Temple or a Vaishnava Temple irrespective of whether I hear Tamil or Sanskrit? I am from a Vaishnava tradition, but my name is a name of Shiva! I do feel a subtle difference when I visit a Perumal Temple and a Shiva Temple, but which is very much different from that when I visit a Church. Isn’t it that the synthesis of some of the greatest achievements of mankind that made the Hindu Religion, despite its thousand seeming contradictions? The Shiva Temples of South India strike me for reasons that are purely personal and aesthetic. I feel the same bliss when I stand before the awe-inspiring Perumal of the various Perumal Temples as I lose myself in the Prakarams and the sanctum of the Shiva Temples; A Thirumurai, a Paasuram, or a Vedic or Upanishadic Chant, sound the same to me, except for a few degrees of familiarity I can relate with the Tamil language. The Perumal Sayanam view at the Chakrathalwar Temple, Thirumogur and the Perumal Temple, Madurai could be inexpressibly soothing as that of the serene Shiva Lingam in various shapes in the Shiva Temples; You could easily experience the vigor of a poetic passage from the Bhagavat Gita as:

“Thou who hast come to this unhappy and transient world, Love and turn to me…”

(“Anithyam asUkam lOkam imAm, prapya bhajasva mAm” : Sri Aurobindo quotes this line as an example of poetry of the illumined mind) by ‘turning’ on to the serene face of the Perumal in his Ananda Sayanam.

It was a relishing experience to visit the various Temples. India would be a Cultural force and a hope for Mankind as long as its Spirituality existed. The Temples in India are the remnants of such a hope and I wish they are not just reminders of the glory of the great Spiritual civilization they stand for, but also provide nourishment to our troubled souls in our troubled times.

- vishvesh

PS: Some pictures of the Temples I shot with my camera are available at:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ovishvesh/album?.dir=/7dfe

Suzuki : The dog

Many of you know about 'Suzuki' - the dog which once lingered around my home. Now it is not there, because we decided to drive it away (due to its nasty pranks and troubles ) and by the good efforts of our house-owner it was given away to a person who promised to take it away to a village. Once i thought of calling the dog-catcher..but dropped the plan by learning that they'll kill the street dogs they catch.

It was not always like this..with suzuki - the little dog. When the 1st day it landed into our house or rather in the veranda..it was very small and consequently afraid of every little person and the movement. But the eyes of the dog appear to be more like human and could feel what the dog is thinking (!) about the world..it carried a wonder and awe in the eyes.. though there was always this fear in the background towards human beings. But in general it was this 'wonder' and 'awe' which suzuki expressed frequently..It appear to me that this little street dog is more interested to be around with humans and human surroundings than with other dogs and in the street.

There was couple of striking instances which made to think so..Once it started acquainting itself with its human friends like me, karthik (my cousin), ranjini it deeply responded by certain intonations of sounds whenever it got chance to be close around us. It appeared to me that suzuki is trying to speak through those sounds because human speech was not still in its grasp.. And there was one more incident which often repeated itself. I used to play 'Best of Bach' in the evenings..Always it came around at that time and start listening to particular piece of music by lifting its ears in a quick manner. Sometimes i became quite curious about this movement and started re-playing the same music and suzuki showed expressions of listening and enjoying the music. After this it will lay down in the veranda..with the head on the entrance with a feeling of ease and comfort. Yes. I should say that it has grown to her youth..by this time.

This particular pose with the kind of yearning and earnestness to know about the human life gave me a insight into the rudimentary presence of mind and psyche in the dog..Never i've felt this so keenly with a animal. This was my first experience but still the presence was quite strong and developed in suzuki. Sometimes i felt baffled how to answer the earnestness in its eyes..it is so true and earnest and simple in its expectant feeling that it revived the psyche in me to answer it..Ofcourse it was the silent language of psyche but i could not heighten it in me because of the human limitations in which we're encrusted.

Days passed..and we begin to see a visible change coming over suzuki. It began to consider some his human friends as his masters..and i would say ..one should have looked at the swinging tail of suzuki with a rythmic walk in front us whenever we return from office during the evenings. One cannot help feel a gentle love flowing out from us to it..as a response to this gesture.

Incourse of days, karthik and ranjini start repeating my word that 'suzuki is behaving like a human being' with ofcourse certain peculiar behaviour which is quite possilble to the animal alone...

Later things changed and when we failed inwardly to keep the upkeeping of its psyche , suzuki started coming to the outward nature of the animal..it was impossible for us to stop its pranks. But human beings has his own way to control or even get rid of what he cannot truly master.. and i too took the same path.

Sometimes a great remorse and sad feeling comes over me realizing that i've failed to respond to true movements of love and life in a dog.

Fishing in the river Hudson...

By  Vishvesh

With May comes in a flurry of activity in the Hudson River along Albany and Troy.  The river starts thawing on early March and the awesome sight of huge slabs of ice floating all along the river is replaced by boats of all sizes, which are mostly fishing boats.  You see birds all over the hitherto empty river which gets lively with all kinds of marine insects as well.  The river is never an inanimate object and for a person with an attraction for nature, every single movement of it could be an object of fascination.  I can’t ever forget Mark Twain’s immortal portrayal of the Mississippi and the life on it, in most of his works, particularly, “Huckleberry Finn”. When my work gets on to my nerves, I have made it a habit of taking refuge in watching the river, which flows right outside my window.   It is a treat to watch it rise and ebb everyday, to watch it sparkle on a bright sunny day or flow in a sad silence, as it seems, on many a gloomy day or when my thoughts were occupied by anything sad.  The more I watch the river, the more I admire the ‘lazy’ guy in the boat who does nothing but carry a fishing rod and almost dozing over his book on a sunny afternoon.  He seems to me to be perfectly at harmony with the river lapping his boat, while he waits for his lucky day when he finally caught a fish that was of any substantial size. 

Fishing seems to be the one of the most favorite pastimes of most of the Americans.  I have seen some of them so much obsessed to the extent that they construct small artificial ponds (I have seen some in Utah) where they breed fish just for fishing alone ! They let in fish only to ‘fish’ them out! And ice fishing is another thing that has baffled me all the time.  Last winter at Lake George, I ‘drove’ around the ‘dry’ lake and had an opportunity to spend some time with a guy who was ice fishing.  He was fishing from the morning and hadn’t caught anything till noon.  The wind was razor sharp and it was howling as well; he had to wrap up to his eyes, but that never seemed to deter him at all.  It is beyond my understanding to reason what makes him pursue such an extreme pastime or as in the earlier incident, something that appears absurd to me!   But with the guy fishing in the river on a lazy afternoon, I feel perfectly at ease, for he appears closer to me in my spirit.  I would assume that he would seldom be interested in the fish than in the conditions that could let his mind be at harmony with some of the most beautiful moments in his life. 

‘Fishing’ seems to me to have associated with many activities of everyday life of Americans.  The other day a colleague of mine made a remark that one of my other colleagues who was supposed to attend an early morning meeting was not present since he could been “eating chad for breakfast”.    I was struck by that phrase and asked her after the meeting as to what she meant.  Chad is the name of a fish which has so much of bones that it could be a difficult task to cook and eat it.  But it is relished since it seems to be a delicious one, and worth the necessary efforts.  Since it takes a long time to prepare it, it has come to be associated with anything that tends to become late !  And she also told me that there was a legend that Chads were inverted porcupines and created by the wish of the Lord after the porcupine complained to him that he was hated because of so many quills on its outside !

There is a step-down dam to control the flow of water that I can see from my window.  It always reminds me of such step-down dams of the river Periyar in the Cumbum valley, Tamilnadu.  The foam and the sound of gushing of the water makes a memorable sight.  I miss the vast green rice fields in the backdrop of Western Ghats of the Cumbum valley in the Cohoes dam that I can see, and I also certainly miss swimming in the swirling waters near such dams all over the Periyar river in that area.  In the united states, it seems that one needs to condition oneself to a different kind of sensory perceptions though what one sees in nature is of the same kind !  Just as the flowers here strike us by their size and beauty but disappoint us by their lack of perfume! 

Sea

Here is a passage on 'Sea' which i recently enjoyed reading in 'My Travel Campanion' by Maxim Gorky.You can read the full story here

...I sat beside him, gazing dreamily over the sea.

It was living its vast life, full of mighty movement.

The flocks of waves broke noisily on the shore and rippled over the sand, that faintly hissed as it soaked up the water. The foremost waves, crested with white foam, flung themselves with a loud boom on the shore, and retreated, driven back to meet the waves that were pushing forward to support them. Intermingling in the foam and spray, they rolled once more toward the shore, and beat upon it, struggling to enlarge the bounds of their realm. From the horizon to the shore, across the whole expanse of waters, these supple, mighty waves rose up, moving, ever moving, in a compact mass, bound together by the oneness of their aim.

The sun shone more and more brightly on the crests of the breakers, which, in the distance on the horizon, looked blood-red. Not a drop went astray in the titanic heavings of the watery mass, impelled, it seemed, by some conscious aim, which it would soon attain by its vast rhythmic blows. Enchanting was the bold beauty of the foremost waves, as they dashed stubbornly upon the silent shore, and fine it was to see the whole sea, calm and united, the mighty sea, pressing on and ever on. The sea glittered now with all the colors of the rainbow, and seemed to take a proud, conscious delight in its own power and beauty.

A large steamer glided quietly round a point of land, cleaving the waters. Swaying majestically over the troubled sea, it dashed aside the threatening crests of the waves. At any other time this splendid, strong, flashing steamer would have set me thinking of the creative genius of man, who could thus enslave the elements. But now, beside me lay an untamed element in the shape of a man.

Notes on Anna Karenina

--By Visvesh

Tolstoy was a great moralist (he even preferred the works of Charles Dickens to those of Shakespheare !) but he was primarily an artist of the first kind, which is written all over there in this work. An artist's duty is to observe life in all its intricate nuances and present it without bias in the related art form. A painter sees it with the eye that is related to his medium of _expression. He observes the essential relation between his mind and the object in its ‘non-mental’ reality; such a relation that underlies the pure exchange of consciousness is vital to sustain human life. Needless to say that a photograph could get a far better picture of all the painting of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, he was obsessed with. These essential relations which are beyond intellectual explanations are those that preserve life which we see abounding in all our older civilizations, in its inter-relatedness between man and man, man and the cosmos and so forth.

In all the great novels we find this attempt of presenting life in its essential reality and not the outward reality alone that we are obsessed with. Anna Karenina is a passionate married woman who falls in love and enters into a life of adultery. Now, while the subject matter becomes a controversial one which our modern minds would love to argue for or against, Tolstoy by the weight of his artistic genius, which could look only at the intrinsic essential realities, never takes a stand and start talking about the moralistic issues (remember he was a great moralist), but beautifully presents the tragedy of our human life through such a condition. One must note that he miserably fails as an artist when he takes such a stand in his later work "Resurrection". It is this spirit of looking at life that makes him a great artist. And the other character Levin (who is even more fascinating than Anna) is forever evolving and doesn't get stuck up with a nauseating solution of religion, which appears so false when Karenin decides to take the role of a saint and even excuse Anna. The last paragraph of the novel is a beautiful passage of his wonderful understanding of the ever-evolving nature of 'dynamic' life and his perception that he has to remain forever in his quest to understand life if he wants to ‘live’.

His other work “Resurrection”, though it reveals the gradual unfolding of virtue in a man, it still appears to be an artistic failure. Art can point to morality and in fact, does point to it always in its best form, but it tends to become less genuine when it is ‘consciously’ expressed as when one tries to focus one's point of view.
The multi colored and ever-changing inner realities of life and its fine perception are those that make art. Tolstoy in his work "Resurrection" tries to force a moralistic point of view. It is not that there is nothing to learn from it. But when one reads great works of art one understands that when you give a static solution to a problem the issue loses its greater dynamic significance. Creativity exists only in the possibility of ever renewing sensations of one's perception that is expressed through his medium. You could see it so much in "Anna Karenina" and how it makes one get to a finer perception of the tragedy of human life.

Lenin, who is always so brilliant in his critical remarks, who had the finest sense of Marxian analysis, admires Tolstoy as an artist of the first kind, for his portrayal of Russian life and of humanity in large. F.R.Leavis, who made a brilliant study of what makes the great literary tradition in the genre of Novels in English Literature, is all praise for Tolstoy. Please don't misunderstand me when I say that Tolstoy fails as an artist in his work "Resurrection". I was only trying to compare it with his magnum opus "Anna Karenina". You would observe the movement of life in its essential elements as you read the great work. The element of tragedy that Anna has to go through is an essential element of Life itself and the masterly _expression of it in the novel only alters the sensibility in a reader as to his perception of life. You don't grasp an ‘idea’. Consider for instance, Ibsen's "Enemy of the People". When you read it, while you marvel at the level of his brilliance of looking into a social problem, while your world of ideas undergo a major transformation, there is still no major impact on your "sensibility". You don't feel you are a different human being after reading the work.

A work of art proves its worth only by its level of altering your sensibility. The problems that Anna has to live with and the psychic agony that Levin has to go through, and in a minor level the spontaneity of the flow of life of Peter (Anna's brother : this name is different in different translations) are the observations of life that come out of Tolstoy's pen from the pressure of his artistic sense, which alone can observe life in its essential elements, which alone is unadulterated by one's personal response to life in its outward elements. What matters to affecting one's sensibility is what makes a work an artistic piece, which is not there in "Resurrection". It is common that artists of the first kind get often to lower levels of _expression. Gorky, who is another great artist (not of the caliber of Tolstoy, though) who could produce such fine pieces as his moving autobiographical trilogy that express so marvelously an artist's finer sensibility in looking at the outer world, Gorky, who could write memorable observations of the bourgeoisie world in his works like "Artomonovs", could still write a propaganda kind of piece of work like "The Mother". Not to mention that these are inferior works, but just to highlight that they have something else of greater significance. To identify such greatness is more than just a matter of taste.

PS: Compiled from various replies on the same subject by Vishvesh.

The Potrait of a Lady - Henry James

James prefaces are always important both as statements on the aesthetics of fiction and as inside glimpses of how he created his novels. The preface to “The Portrait of a Lady” gives a revealing account of how the idea for the novel came to him. It began with a prevision of the character of Isabel Archer. James describes the genesis of a figure, who is, by common consent, among the great heroines of fiction.

James speaks of Isabel as being particularly engaging and the phrase (like most of his phrases) is carefully chosen. For it is central to the author’s purpose that the heroine should charm the reader from the beginning much as she charms the trio on the lawn at Garden court when she first meets them. James admits as much in a revealing aside near the opening of the book “She would be an easy victim of scientific criticism if she were intended to awaken on the reader’s part an impulse more tender and more purely expectant”.

The pejorative estimate of Isabel’s career is obvious; her initial confidence can seem brash and naïve, her decision to marry Gilbert Osmond hopelessly deluded and her failure to leave or defy him merely cowardly. But this, of course, is not the way that James makes it seem in the telling. With her warmth, her intelligent and her noble aspiration’s Isabel appears a special person. In her hopes of life, she is at once universal and exceptional; her delight in human contact, travel and intellectual discovery is quintessentially youthful. Her later loss of illusions- the bitter discoveries of her marriage to Gilbert Osmond seems the pattern of human development.

This account of Isabel’s development does not, of course, take place in void. James may have begun the novel simply with Isabel in mind, but he took care to locate her life in concrete settings and to introduce some of his own familiar interests into the telling. Chief of these is that ‘international’ theme which appears in so much of his work- his preoccupation with the relations of America and Europe, particularly with the rediscovery of Europe by an American protagonist. Isabel herself, with her freedom of manners and endless curiosity, is ideally suited to this role and she is placed in a context designed to demonstrate the possible responses to Europe that Americans may take.

Henriette Stackpole, exuberantly American, and Madam Marle, so Europeanised that it is difficult to remember that she is American, represent the opposite ends of a spectrum; the various members of the Touchett family illustrate the possible intermediate shadings. Indeed the only European in the book is Lord Warburton. As James continually stress, the English peer is open and unaffected in his manners where as the Europeanise Americans, like Osmond and Madame Marle tend toward a sinister subtlety. With their assimilation into European culture and their progressive sophistication, a definite understandedness creeps into their dealings- a striking contrast to the exuberant openness that characterizes a recent arrival from America like Isabel Archer herself.

In addition to associating his beloved international theme with Isabel, James casts her career in a familiar romantic mould. The book is the history of her contact with Europe and of her love life. As James himself admits with characteristic self-irony! The plot of the novel consists of ‘a succession of fine gentleman going down on their knees to her’. Casper Goodwood, Lord Warburton and Gilbert Osmond all make direct proposals of marriage while Mr. Touchett, Ralph and Edward Rosier are all to some degree taken with her charms. It is her attitude to marriage that Isabel’s determination to preserve her freedom is most evident; and its one of the book’s main ironies that she should accept Osmond of all her suitors the one most likely to destroy not only her freedom but her identity.

It is not, of course, that Osmond is simply a fortune hunter, though Isabel’s money certainly attracts him. It is that he is purely a collector of aesthete; he has, as the others remark exquisite taste, but he has only this. This taste is stranger by no moral basis and enlivened by no human interest in his fellows. He is charmed by Isabel and adds her to his collection of beautiful objects much as he might acquire a new piece of porcelain. Though Isabel comes to know this, she finally accepts with resignation, her place where her actions have lead her because of her deep sense of commitment she made to Pansy. Perhaps his home full of dusty objects is where finally her portrait should hang.

Daffodils

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

  - William Wordsworth
On 15th April 1802, William and Dorothy(his sister) Wordsworth passed the strip of land at Glencoyne Bay, Ullswater, on their way back to Grasmere after staying the previous night at Eusmere in Pooley Bridge.

Dorothy wrote in her journal :

'When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park, we saw a few daffodils close to the water side. We fancied that the lake had floated the seed ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road.
I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever dancing ever changing.

This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The Bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the sea'.

Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal - Thursday 15 April 1802.

Although it is not recorded, it is almost certain that this gave William the inspiration to write his most famous poem, 'Daffodils'

THE SOLITARY REAPER

BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
    - William wordsworth.

Poem's source: Wordsworth says, "This Poem was suggested by a beautiful sentence in a MS Tour in Scotland written by a Friend, the last line being taken from it verbatim." Thomas Wilkinson's manuscript, Tours to the British Mountains (London, 1824), states: "Passed a Female who was reaping alone: she sung in Erse as she bended over her sickle; the sweetest human voice I ever heard: her strains were tenderly melancholy, and felt delicious, long after they were heard no more".

Wordsworth’s personality and poetry were deeply influenced by his love of nature, especially by the sights and scenes of the Lake Country, in which he spent most of his mature life. A profoundly earnest and sincere thinker, he displayed a high seriousness tempered with tenderness and a love of simplicity.

Wordsworth, described poetry as '...the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, recollected in tranquility'. Feelings, he said, that are actually experienced. He rejected the neo-classical idea of restrained poetry, for his view - the imaginative expression of emotion and wrote using an every day language, as opposed to poets like Dryden and Pope.

He wrote: '...I shook the habit off entirely and for ever and again in Nature's presence stood, as now I stand, a sensitive being, a creative soul.'

Within his poetry he liked to explore man's mind and his humanity, as well as that of nature's beauty.

Erin Brockovich

The film 'Erin Brockovich' is the true story of one woman's successful initiative to investigate the polluting of the water and land by an energy company in California. At the end of the story she has won a $333 million settlement for the sick victims, as well as for her law firm, including herself. It is also a story that we, as aspiring and growing individuals, can learn a great deal from, especially for those of us who sincerely wish to take our lives to the next higher level of success and happiness. The film not only shows the personal obstacles we must go through to that end, but also the social obstacles that are there to be reckoned with.

Although Erin has a few distinct deficiencies, such as her provocative dress and sometimes vulgar speech, one thing is undeniable about her; she has an unbelievable tenacity of purpose. She knows what she wants to achieve; in this case, to uncover and right the wrong that has been done to the community by the polluting energy utility. In our examination at Growth Online of the process by which an individual grows and accomplishes at a higher level than one's current functioning, we see that one's direction is the starting point for such an endeavor. Erin had that direction; she had the necessary vision of what she wanted to accomplish, and perceived the goals and objectives to achieve that vision. In addition, she had engaged her will and vital energies to see it through. The values she believed in, the vision she had to overcome the problem, and the will to see it through together enabled her great achievement.

Think about any initiative you hope to undertake to improve your life, or something you believe in that you would like to be part of or have occur, and consider if you have a clear vision of that which you wish to achieve. That vision should include the specific goals or objectives that you wish to accomplish to see your vision through. (By the way, the goals should include the deepest personal values that you believe in that relate to the undertaking.) Then consider if your vision and its goals are matched by an intense will to achieve them. If you then organize the endeavor to its fullest, apply your highest skills and highest personal attitudes, and make the determined, unflagging effort, you will certainly achieve beyond your wildest expectations.

Erin's tenacity of purpose that wins the day is reflective of her many positive personal attributes. Among them -- she is tenacious, courageous, positive, and persevering. In other words, she has great psychological strength of being, so crucial to one's success in life. Now, through this wholesome project, she has found a vehicle to apply these capacities. Finally, when she overcomes her negative tendencies, and applies her positive attributes to their fullest, life responds overwhelmingly. (Such a "life response" is a profound, hidden working and functioning of life, reflecting the fact that life on the outside responds to our level of consciousness within. When we raise that level, life can instantly respond from anywhere on earth with great abundance, defying our ordinary notions of cause and effect, and space and time.)

We can also consider the social dimension of the story. Erin, like all of us, is obliged to function within the social milieu to achieve the desired results. We see how she brings to bear her values, her tenacity, and her strength to the social environment -- to apply those capacities for a social good. One peculiarity we notice is that though she is working for the great benefit of the lawyer, for the law office, for the clients, even society itself, at many points she is directly opposed by the very people she is trying to help! When a pioneer individual takes on a work that is not part of the normal routines and workings of society, it often opposes that individual; even if it is opposing that from which it will derive great benefit! We see this phenomenon at work in various instances in the story -- such as when the lawyers show their misgivings about her initiative; when the people in the office are put off by her behavior and her pushiness, missing the greater benefit she is creating; when her boyfriend for a time deserts her; and, most dramatically, when the eventual great beneficiaries of her initiative, the people in the village, gather and decide for a while to oppose her efforts! This shows how the groundbreaking work of a pioneer will often be opposed by the social milieu, including those who most stand to gain from the change. It is more than an irony; it reflects a fundamental Ignorance and unconsciousness of the society in the face of a great boon.

Fortunately, for all involved, her tenacity and strength overcomes this unconscious opposition. She is courageous, and never despairs when the social atmosphere opposes. She is consistently positive in her attitude, believing in the rightness of her cause, and its eventual success. She also has great social skills, demonstrated by her great empathy and communication skills when interviewing the sick victims and their kin. She is not bothered by the social obstacles because in one sense she cares little about conforming to them. She is her own person, albeit sometimes of a somewhat crude sort. Fortunately, that crudeness in minor compared to the social strength she brings to bear, and the non-comforting nature that is a key to great success in life.

So we can ask ourselves: What social skills do we lack? Do we have the best interpersonal skills? Psychological skills? The best communication skills? Are we directed by our own selves or by the social givens and norms? Are we inner-directed, or conforming and outer-directed? Can we persevere beyond the limited views, beyond the anachronisms around us when we seek to achieve?

Another thing we notice is that Erin is driven to success by her lack of status in life. She has the very minimum of comforts, can barely provide for her children; in other words, her financial and living situation is intolerable. This status expresses as her own lack of self esteem; which ironically drives her on. This is perhaps the one aspect of her character that gives her that extra urge and determination to succeed! The yearning to improve her condition for herself and her family is what focuses and intensifies her abundant energy into an unstoppable power for improvement and change. It drives her beyond her current living condition, beyond her current level of accomplishment, to the very peaks of success, for herself and the wider community.

We can view this process in terms of energy. When a person moves to the next level of achievement in life, there is often this great compulsion, this driving urge, a flowing of excess energy being harnessed at the next highest level of accomplishment. Erin's lack of status and self-respect provide her with the necessary urge and will to move forward. She uses the vehicle of the project to further those interests. Thus, in order for any individual to move to the next level of success and growth, one needs to have the requisite urge, compulsion, and that extra not-yet-spent overflowing energy at the current level that can be utilized for development at the next level. Erin has these in spades.

In the end we see that it is through Erin -- the pioneering individual -- that society itself grows and evolves. Without her, without the pioneer, the emerging subconscious urges of society for progress remain in stasis. Interestingly, we also see that society rebukes her pioneering effort at various stages along the way. Still, in the end, life did cooperate with her effort, providing at various points the necessary information and outcomes that would in the end win her the case. Life responded positively and greatly to her clever and resourceful efforts at various stages of the project.

Perhaps we can go a step further and say that life or "Nature" has a will of its own. That Nature always seeks to establish a higher harmony or truth. The development It seeks is for the good of society, whether that society perceives it or not. In that way, we see that the emerging good is often subconscious to the society. However, through the efforts of the pioneer individual the urge of Nature takes shape. The emerging progress which is subconscious to the society becomes conscious and real.

By the way, we should also point out that the falsehood of the society is born out even at the end when Erin wins the case. She receives but $2 million out of the $333 million settlement, when she has, for all intensive purposes, single-handedly enabled this great outcome! The law firm, being a social institution, accepts the social custom of only giving Erin money equal to her social status and position, instead of what she really deserved. In addition, the law firm itself collects 40% of the reward. It is another indicator of the negative and false quality of institutions in society that reward the socially-accepted custom instead of that which is right and just.

Finally, we should reiterate that it is her distain for social convention, her disregard for the norms of her society that enables her to achieve so greatly in the first place. Had she been a middle class woman, it is unlikely that her energies would have gone into helping the poor victims in the community as she did. She would not have had that urge, which came from her lack of social status and her low self-esteem.

Ultimately, the difficult conditions of her life urged her on. We can perhaps say that Life/Nature urged her on. Fortunately, she took up that challenge with great verve, intensity, focus, determination; all with great skill and positive attitude. She became the pioneering representative for social change in the community by following the process of growth and accomplishment to great fruition. In this way, it is a great story of the secret methods of social growth and development in the world.

source: Gurusoftware/Inspirational Essays