The Scientific Point Of View. J B S Haldane Essay. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

061. The Scientific Point Of View. J B S Haldane Essay. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

 

By PSRemeshChandra, 14th Sep 2014. Short URL http://nut.bz/1ds8_4tt/ Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Essays

Adopting a scientific point of view is useful in many ways, whether for solving the Negro problem or for solving the problem of diseases. J.B.S.Haldane was a famous British scientist and author who later took Indian citizenship. His writings on biological subjects made scientific ideas clear and popular among people. The author argues that adopting a scientific point of view is essential and beneficial for man, rather than adopting an emotional point of view.

Scientific point of view is God’s eye-view. A good scientist, like God, will view and examine things impartially and truthfully, and will not have emotional considerations and pass judgments.

Science influences the average man in two ways- its practical applications are useful to man and it affects his opinions also. One of science’s main contributions to common man was its presenting man with a scientific point of view. Science continuously tells us we should give up smoking and consumption of liquor, and adopt walking and swimming daily activities to remain healthy. Once we viewed these warnings skeptically, but we now have begun to understand that there is sense and logic in these warnings. That is science’s contribution, creating this awareness and consciousness of health. The average man is attracted by the emotional and ethical aspects of a problem, not by the facts, whereas a scientist considers only the facts. A scientific point of view places everything and everyone on the same emotional level which is impartial and truthful. Because of this equalization in emotional levels, scientific point of view can be called the God’s eye-view. A good scientist will, like God, view and examine things impartially and truthfully, and will not have emotional considerations and pass judgments. Even though the enemies of science wish science to do both, and abuse scientists for being deaf to moral considerations, a scientist will remain such impartial that Mr. John, Mr. Chang, Mr. Smith, the Tape Worm and the Solar System will be equal to him. A scientific point of view enables people also to adopt the same view of an impartial scientist, in analyzing things of importance to him.

When Negros enjoyed friendship of whites during the American Civil War, the new Democratic Negro became a heavy drinker and died in thousands, more in numbers than were killed in the actual war.

Haldane is of the opinion that the Negro problem, i.e., the problem of Negros becoming a problem for the whites, and the problem of diseases can be solved by adopting scientific point of view. He uses these two examples to illustrate that adopting scientific point of view in solving social, human problems is feasible and useful. Though there have of course been strong oppositions to his this point of view, let us examine his observations on the living conditions of Negros in America, most of which are things of past in America now. Negros was considered inferior to white men. In the Southern states of America where slavery existed, the Negros were pulled out of cars and driven to cotton plantations to work hard in harsh sun light. Openness to nature favoured them and there they prospered and multiplied, creating thus the so-called Negro problem for whites. But had they been extended consideration and fellowship, they would have become softened and died of American diseases. This is the question J B S Haldane rises- whether emotional or scientific attitude is to be adopted in solving social, human problems, which is beneficial and useful? During the American Civil War, the Negros enjoyed friendship of the whites, as a result of which the new democratic Negro became a heavy drinker and died in thousands. The number of Negros killed that way was far greater than the number of Negros killed in the actual war. Once we shed the emotional point of view, adopt scientific point of view, we allow Negros to return to nature and live in their natural habitats, and there is and will be no problem from the Negros.

Scientific point of view is the moral equivalent of war; they are equally fast in teaching peoples lessons.

Adopting the scientific point of view helps solve the problem of diseases also. For ages, and even now, common people think that diseases are caused by the Sin of man. But now, thanks to science, more people know that diseases are caused by the attack of foreign organisms known as microbes. By studying microbes with a scientific point of view, preventive medicines can be developed against diseases. The moral use of war is its teaching people lessons fast. Scientific point of view also teaches people lessons equally fast. That is why J.B.S.Haldane theorizes that scientific point of view is the moral equivalent of war. It teaches people lessons as fast as war. Knowledge of biological facts helps people prevent diseases. Diseases are manifestations of nature’s laws. By knowing about these laws, people can cure or prevent these diseases. The only problem remains is, people not being punctual and regular in administration of their prescribed medicines. Attitudes like this are such common that discovery of insulin has not helped reduce the death rate of diabetic patients in England and elsewhere, for medicines and their usage do not still have a scientific basis among people. It is a paradox that ‘the study of medicine, apart from its scientific basis, has created more neurotics than scientists,’ Haldane observes.

In spite of scientists and science reigning in this world for so many long years and teaching, many people still think that diseases are products of our sin.

Scientists and science have reigned in this world for so many long years but in spite of their teaching that diseases are manifestation of natural laws caused by microbial attacks, a considerable number of people still think that they are products of our sin. When Jesus Christ was asked why a man became blind, he answered: ‘Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents; but the works of God should be made manifest in him.” He considered it an opportunity to prove God’s manifestations and cured the blind by his simple touch. The scientists cure people with diseases, instead of accusing not only them but their ancestors through generations also of sinning. In this respect, a scientist’s view of diseases is not unlike the view held by Jesus Christ. Many of his followers but still hold to views which Jesus Christ opposed. They are not scientific but emotional in viewing many social and human issues such as remarriage and abortion. When diseases affect, some of them do not treat it scientifically but pray. Many more people hold to the view that diseases can be cured by returning to nature which is just another fallacy- we will die before we begin to get rectifying restoratives from nature. To live according to nature to escape from diseases also is quite meaningless because civilization, savagery, health and sickness are all part of nature.

[Prepared In 1990]

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
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Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra
Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Kerala. Unmarried and single. Also edits Bloom Books Channel.

 

The Home Coming. Rabindranath Tagore Story. Reintroduced by P.S.Remesh Chandran.

060. The Home Coming. Rabindranath Tagore Story. Reintroduced by P S Remesh Chandran

By PSRemeshChandra, 14th Sep 2014. Short URL http://nut.bz/zds4wvd1/ Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Essays

Rabindranath Tagore was an educator, social reformer, poet, playwright, novelist and short story writer. His poetical collection Gitanjali was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Home Coming is the tale of a 14 year old boy who was a nuisance to his mother, was sent away for studying and died there unloved and longing for his home. There has not been a single person in India who did not weep after reading this Tagore story.

The boy grew up lazy, wild and violent and thought about doing new mischiefs every day.

Phatik Chakravarthi was a fourteen year old Bengali boy whose father died very early. He grew up lazy, wild and disobedient. His younger brother Makhan Chakravarthi was quiet, good and fond of reading. Phatik thought about doing new mischiefs every day. One day he and his retinue of boys pushed into the river a wooden log meant to be shaped as the mast of a boat. Makhan, objecting to this and sitting firmly on the log, was thrown to water along with the log. At home, when he was questioned about this, he beat not only his brother, but his mother also. It was then that his uncle from the far Calcutta City arrived. He agreed to take the boy along with him to Calcutta to be educated there. The boy was only glad to leave, but the mother was only half-relieved and half-sad.

He missed the meadow, mountain and river in his native village, became a failure at school and began to always ask, when holidays would come.

Phatik’s uncle had three sons of his own and his aunt did not like this new addition to their family. A fourteen year old boy will have his own problems too. He was fast growing up. He was neither a child nor a man, crossing the line in between. He missed the meadow, mountain and river of his native village. Therefore it was no wonder he became a failure at school. He answered no questions, was beaten badly daily at school and ridiculed by all including his cousins. He grew impatient about returning to home and began always asking, when the holidays would come.

In his delirium, he talked about things in his native village, asked his mother not to beat him anymore and called out fathom-marks which steamer-sailors in his native village river did.

One day Phatik lost his lesson book and was scolded and abused much by his aunt. It served as the last hurt to break him. On a rainy afternoon after school, feeling fever and headache, he sought shelter somewhere and did not return home. He did not want to trouble his aunt any more. Police help was sought the next day. They found him and brought him home, shivering and fallen into a delirious state. He talked about things in his native village, asked his mother not to beat him anymore and called out fathom-marks which steamer-sailors in his native village river did. He moved restlessly, his hands beating up and down. His condition seemed critical to the doctor, and his mother in the village was sent for. When his mother arrived moaning and crying, and calling his names, he was nearing his eternal home which is Heaven. His last words were: Mother, the holidays have come.

Tagore’s story Home Coming was one of the two first glances into the grief and sorrow of little minds, the other being Coventry Patmore’s poem, Toys.

The question is how we treat our children. Children are the flowers of humanity. Yet, we do not see the grief in those tiny hearts. Up to four years, a child is said to be in the hands of the God, but since then they are this World’s property. A bit of love, a soft touch of solace or a tiny word of consolation would be enough for them, but we do not spare them. Millions of children are worn out for want of care, nursing, assistance. Tagore was purposeful in writing such a story as this to open the world’s eyes towards the world of children’s deep sorrows, unheeded by the grown up world. No wonder he was dedicated to children and started that India’s World University, Saanthi Nikethan, where teachers and students sat beneath mango tree shades and learned. Tagore’s this story was one of the two first glances into the grief and sorrow of little minds, the other being Coventry Patmore’s poem, Toys.

[Prepared in 1996]

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

Also visit Sahyadri Books Online Trivandrum and Bloom Books Channel In You Tube

Tags

Appreciations, Articles, English Literature, Essays, Home Coming, Indian Writers, P S Remesh Chandran, Rabindranath Tagore, Reintroductions, Reviews, Sahyadri Books Bloom Books Trivandrum, Stories, Studies

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Kerala. Unmarried and single. Also edits and owns Bloom Books Channel.

 

Will Online Writing Bring Enough To Live? P.S.Remesh Chandran. Editor Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books Trivandrum.

055.

Will Online Writing Bring Enough To Live? P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 17th Jul 2013.  Short URL http://nut.bz/2b8ztc_w/
Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Essays

Well-written, informative and thoughtful articles are the ones that decide the future of a writer’s career. Writers, who are loved by readers for their style of writing and also for the interesting things they generally write about, are eagerly sought after by publishers and their commission agents. A publishing platform which pays and helps writers to distribute content directly to readers all over the world without advertisements is the dream of all writers.

An ideal publishing website will want to pay writers more and pay more writers.

Tears And Laughter. Prototype Cover.

1. WHERE MONEY FOR PAYING WRITERS COMES FROM.

What a writer expects from a web site is, offering him payment and paying him more. The ideal web site would want to do both and also want to not only pay writers more but also to pay more writers, the right indication of health for a publishing website. Exposure for writers is not substitute for payment and exposure will not feed the hungry family of writers. The time and effort a writer puts into his craft should be compensated and paid well for.

Famous magazines are vanishing for their refusing to pay writers.

In general, web sites which do not pay writers, especially freelancers who have not yet established themselves, are found to be dwindling in circulation. Their readers pay them one way or another, by way of money or by way of time. But the readers do not get back good content from these publishers because, in the long run, it would be underpaid writers or dissatisfied writers who would be writing for them. We have heard of the famous English magazine noted for its satirical cartoons which was one of the largely read publications in the world, keeping that envied position for decades. By adopting this non-paying policy, they made regular readers and writers dissatisfied and caused their own decline. So many famous and once-reputed magazines, news papers and weeklies which went online for existence are now struggling for last breathe due to insistence on this non-paying policy. We can name many such publications in one breathe but it is not right to mention their good names here, for they have served the world well in their time. Pay writers well, make them satisfied and happy, get rich content from them, publish it and make readers also satisfied and happy; that is the only known way to success for publishers.

If there are no web pages, where will they show these advertisements?

Tears And Laughter. Cover Design for I Proclaim..

It is generally writers who do not care for money who usually write for websites which pay them a part of the advertisement revenue they generate. Even if a writer publishes for years and years in them, he will not get enough to live upon and enough to support his family. For amateurs and for those who aim only at wide circulation of their articles, it is a good idea to follow. Because advertisers are actively involved in this enterprise and they are committed to spend their budgetary provision in full for fear of reprimands from their board of directors for non-achievement of targets, these sites are rich and sure to get wide circulation for writers’ articles and for their advertisements, provided they have good pages also. If there are no web pages, where will they show these advertisements? Can they create these advertisements and the web pages too for displaying them? If they do, it would be like entering the publishing field as well, something outside their portfolio and purview of activities. Therefore, in paying- websites which depend solely on advertisement revenue for existence, the writer is the king. He will be provided with every resource the web site can imagine and is able to provide to create rich good web pages. Even then online writing cannot entirely be depended upon to support a family. If one is in need of making money by publishing articles to support his family and has the necessity to do it so by remaining online, he certainly has to refine his writing skills, make a very good reputation as a content writer, take up assignments from content-ordering sites and execute them neatly and punctually and deliver in time.

Publishing field can be conquered single-handedly, knowing editing and formatting.

A writer cannot create a market and then write for it, catering to it. He can only write well and the writing shall have to do the marketing and advertising for him. A producer of high quality content will seldom have to face competition in the field. The higher the quality of his content, the lesser the competition he would have to face in the field be, for there would be fewer writers of that caliber to compete with him who can write well and deliver in time too. The more the quality of articles falls, the fiercer would be the competition in the field of content marketing, because the general trend is to get articles for cheaper prices. Those clients who go for top quality will go out, find writers of that caliber and pay whatever they ask. It is not inconceivable if, at one stage, you will be getting 50 pounds for 500 words. But to reach that level of a selling rate, before reaching the level of creating fast-selling articles, a writer has to learn a lot in editing and formatting content. Or else, he simply will have to have the assistance of an experienced team of staff and a secretary. To remain single-handed and conquer the publishing field, one has to have a tremendous knowledge of editing and formatting, which qualities, coupled with writing talents, is a rare specialty, much in demand in the writing and publishing field. The demand and supply for such intelligentsia is not balanced in Internet, resulting in high price for those who are there. Training one’s self in that line is not at all impossible, but tricky. In the voluptuous maneuver of becoming such a writer, there is every possibility of overcrowding one’s brain with too much information and loosing brain’s ability to assimilate that information at the same time, resulting in tilting the chemical equilibrium of brain and the author finally becoming a total vegetable. It is doubly so, since writers are imaginative. Sought-afterness is a very rare faculty to tread and step upon, demanding extreme caution. Learning how to become a much sought-after writer is not at all difficult, it is easy. A few websites pay nothing but are noted for teaching writers how to work well with editors, the knowledge and experience of which later becomes the intellectual asset to launch themselves from, when they turn to serious writing. Some web sites which pay less will however provide extensive feed back on the writer’s published works which serves as encouragement for writing well and writing more.

Internet is like providing a limitless sky for writing advertisements.

Tears And Laughter. Cover Design. Unused.

2. DEPTH AND BREADTH OF ONLINE ADVERTISING.

Industries and businesses need advertisements to make people know about their products and services. Name boards, display boards, bills and notices, wall posters, film theatre slides and pamphlets were the old methods for advertising. When radio and television came into existence, their wide possibilities and scope for advertising came to be exploited. Advent of Internet was like providing a limitless sky for displaying advertisements. Cinemas provided intervals of time when advertisement slides could be shown. What would have happened had cinemas been produced only with advertisements? No one would have gone to cinema theatres to see them. That is the case with Internet advertising also. If a website has only advertisements to show, who will visit it? The advertisers want web pages for them to show and good web pages too. They themselves cannot create web pages by hiring writers to create them for it would involve larger spending to create content, and be moving out of corporate portfolios. For this, they either create websites for authors to write pages for them or they contract with websites who have attractive pages to show their advertisements.

Web sites reveal their advertisement income to no one but auditors.

Advertising is a huge industry, second only to weapons manufacturing. How much amount each industry and business set aside for advertising in their budgets is an interesting thing to know, if they make it known. A large percentage of this budget now goes to Internet, to be shared by websites and their writers. Writers of articles are paid a portion of the advertisement revenue their pages generate. In most cases they are paid only that and nothing more. Most websites do not reveal how much advertisement revenue they make and how much of it is paid to writers. How much page impressions they deliver to advertisers and how many unique browsers they have each day accessing these advertisements would never be revealed to anyone, except to their auditors.

How much amount does a company set aside for advertisement?

Tears And Laughter. Cover Design for Create Space.

The amount companies set aside for advertisements is, generally, in the range of 7 to 15% of their gross sales, we believe. But wiser companies base their budgetary provisions for advertisements on a percentage of cost, -gross profit above cost called markup-, not on a percentage of profit,-gross profit above selling price called margin. An item selling at 9 dollars costing 3 dollars will have a markup of 200 percent and a margin of 66.6 percent. That company can set aside safely even 50 percent of this markup for advertising. Companies marketing expensive items will have low markups averaging around 15%, but setting aside 15% of this 15% for advertising will mean huge advertisement budgets due to their mammoth sales.

Positioning of advertisements determines its price.

When some one wants information, he searches internet and links to where that information is available will appear on the screen, along with advertisements. Some advertisements come positioned above search results. Positioning of advertisements is predetermined according to how much one is prepared to spend. Display networks will decide in advance where ads are to be positioned and what rates to be levied for each positioning. Getting your ads above search results will involve spending more money but it will also guarantee more traffic to target site. Placing ads on Microsoft, Google and Yahoo searches involves more money than placing them on websites and blogs. Showing them on mobile phones and tablet devises also is costlier still and search providers will revise rates frequently too. Showing ads along side email is another choice.

Advertisers can target or exclude sensitive languages, locations and religions.

Advertisers can set target options in display networks. They can target a particular geographic location or language or exclude ads from a sensitive location or language. They can pinpoint ads to a selected village. Display networks have options for matching ads to types of audience, types of religious and ethnic tradition, types of country or a specific geographic location. Ads may or may not correspond to the context of the page. No geographic location, type of devise, type of visited site or time range is devoid of advertisements, if there is scope. Even if it is an obituary page, a coffin maker and mortuary dresser are sure to advertise there.

What goes on behind screen even before you finish typing.

When someone types a word or phrase and searches internet, advertisements with matching keywords appear along with results. Before they appear, many things go on behind stage before they appear on the screen. First, an electronic auction goes on to determine who can show which ad where and selection made according to bid amount, key words and quality of website, or in simpler words, according to ad rank. Bidding may vary from Cost Per Thousand Impressions or CPM if you aim for maximum views and creating awareness, Cost Per Thousand Clicks or CPC for actual clicks to attract traffic to the website instead of just viewing, to Cost Per Acquisition or CPA for more customer actions like signing up or purchasing. Advertisers decide the maximum amount they are willing to pay for the bid they select out of these three bidding options, which determines their Ad Rank. Based on this rank, their ads will appear in the order of their ranks, even before that someone sitting in front of the screen has finished typing. Frequency of ads also has its price. Also, Ad Ranks of each bidder rise up and fall according to competition. This is the usual method adopted by all major service providers.

Other assessment methods also are there for evaluating writers’ performance.

Doctors Politicians. Cover Design. Front.

Regardless of how many clicks a web page of a writer registers, there are other methods also for assessing an online writer’s performance and paying him. Yahoo uses a 10 point scale called Clout Score to assess the performance of a writer and pay him, in Yahoo Voices and Yahoo Shine Blogs of their Yahoo Contributor Network, the revamped old Associated Content. Their scale combines the number of articles a writer publishes with the volume of page views his articles receive. A Clout 1 to Clout 6 writer will get a payment of $1.50 for every One thousand page views and from Clout 7 to 10, it will incrementally rise to $2.00. There will be a 1% bonus for each article besides. A writer with 7 articles and a total 3000 page views will have a clout score of 3000 + 7% = 3210. After 200 articles, bonus remains constant at 200% which is the maximum allowed. PPM is a standard phrase used in performance assessment which means Payment Per Thousand Page Views, M representing Latin Mille, the Roman numerical for 1000, standing for ‘Thousand Page Views’.

How much can a site owner charge for his Advertising Space?

When a writer decides to make a few dollars out of his blog or site by opening up for advertisements, he will not know how much he can charge. Nor is there any place for him to get good advice from or check whether his rates are standard, high or low for the market. If it is too high, he will not get advertisers and if it is too low, he will become too cheap a target for dignified advertisers to contact him. This happens because there is no one there to tell him the price at which he can sell his site space. Digital ads can be positioned on the header, footer or sidebar of a page or blended with content. They can be of any format from 125 x 125 and 120 x 600 to 468 x 60. Prices will vary for each, corresponding to the CPM of the site which in its turn is based on the number of page views, visitors, unique visitors and a host of other things of metrics, traffic being the prominent. In physical marketing, cunning companies price their wares just below the market leaders’ or considerably lower than their’s. In digital marketing also the method is the same, adopted by most site owners. Or one can do research. Taking a particular format and position and doing some research will bring one to the standard CPM of 1.5 dollars for 125 x 125 buttons on top of sidebar for one month. For starters, it is wise to sell space at flat rates if they are lucky to get advertisers, without resorting to counting page impressions, till they master strategies of marketing.

The blog is there, and you have nothing to loose by advertizing.

Experimentally signing up with ad sense and placing a banner spot on CPC terms will reveal the site’s CPM easily without much trouble, though the only trouble would be backing away from the contract. To eliminate commissions and deal directly with advertisers would be bringing in more money at the risk of jumping into an un-trusted pool, for a beginner. Going to sites who advertise about selling space would also help in forming a general picture of how digital space is sold. Cost of ad divided by page views gives Cost Per Mille impressions; page views multiplied by CPM should give the cost which one shall notify in the site. Unluckily, whatever multiplications we do will not bring page views unless content is good. Simply ask for half a dollar on the safe side for a month in the beginning, which will bring revenue of 5 dollars when page view becomes ten thousand per month. One 125 x 125 button on top of side bar will thus bring this much for the beginning, if you are persuasive enough to tempt your neighbourhood merchant to go online. The blog is there, and you have nothing to loose. Ads on header or blended with content should bring more revenue, those on the sidebar less and those on footer the least, generally.

Writers are like composers; good listeners become them.

Doctors Politicians. Cover Design. Back.

3. HOW WRITERS PROMOTE THEIR WORKS.

It is a good listener to music who finally becomes a great composer; and it’s a good reader who eventually becomes an accomplished writer. Before writing a book, one will have read thousands of books. Before writing a good web article, you ought to have seen and read hundreds of captivating web articles. A blog of one’s own is the best laboratory to experiment with writing. It is a show case for the skill of the writer, doing publicity for him, creating ever-increasing audience, attracting literary agents and publishers. And blog articles can even be assembled together and turned into books. Already there are publishers who do this. Providing just the link to the blog would serve the purpose of submitting a manuscript to the book publisher, in future. It is like one writing each chapter of a book and publishing it piecemeal.

Leave your footprints in good places, to show you walked there.

Good articles in a blog attract not only readers and advertisers but those who hunt for good content writers also. For writers who provide quality content, they pay at the rate of dollars or pounds per 100 words or 500 words. 1 pound per 100 words is not too high a rate nowadays for a good writer. Top-rated writers can expect not less than 7 pounds per 500 words. For such writers, their blogs are not places for them to make money but places for exhibiting samples of their writing. Participating in online discussions is also a good way to advertise skills. Discussion Forums annexed to major publishing web sites are regularly scanned by people who wish to recruit promising and proven writers. Some writers write not for their own blogs but for other’s blogs, for a payment.

Writing good pages everyday will make you one day the authority in the field.

Creating an excellent and regularly updated web site which is linked to advertisers, is a good way to prove to advertisers and hirers that you are a good and rare writer and to publicize and earn. If you persevere continuously and add informative and attractive web pages each week, some day you are going to become the authority in your field, considering the fact that the experts in that field will not have the time for writing and publishing and writers who do have time for writing and publishing and are good too will not have necessary expertise to write as authoritatively as you do. Webmasters are in constant search of good writers on chosen subjects who deliver in time. Someday they will be coming after you.

Do not go after all social sites to advertise skills. Select yours.

The Swan. Cover Design. Unpublished.

Creating profile pages in social sites which have heavy traffic is good for writers. Face Book, My Space, Linked In and Twitter are there to allow this service free. A profile page acts as a mini web site where writers can post links to their books, articles and web sites, good platforms for writers to launch themselves from. Before joining, it is better to learn about what types and social levels of people usually join these sites. Face Book is the most prominent among them, nearly sixty percent of members being above the ripe age of forty, of which forty percent are with rich average annual income. This also means, these members can afford to engage good writers to write for them. Do not get bewildered at the richness of content these members have in their pages and do not gauge them as geniuses, because these contents are not written by them or they may not even have thought about any such things in their lives. My Space is currently vogue and is primarily meant for youngsters below thirty years. If you are above age, do not go crowding there, unless you write books which thrill that age group. Twitter which tests the skill of conveying what one thinks in just 140 characters was once the tide has now ebbed, due to this very challenge of keeping brevity in conveying thoughts in a world over-thronged by people of lesser intelligence. Linked In is the ideal stage for professionals to present themselves in, for befriending and connecting with other professionals in the world. There are dozens of others, some confined within geographic regions and some limited to certain professions.

Fall not thoughtlessly into bogs and marshes, after reading large print. Read the small print.

Writing articles to be published as print books is an option for writers which, if printed, published and sold, would surely bring good revenue. But this field is also not devoid of pits and bogs and treachery. Modern day publishers ask for an investment on the book from the writer. Do-it-yourself publishers would not release all facilities except to premium customers. E-Book publishers will have difficult formats for writers to follow. Publishing books as tablets and apps is costly. Writing articles for print magazines is also an option for writers but the waiting is interminable there. Editors won’t reply to you for months and most magazines have autumn, fall and summer issues only. Their busily engaged editors dissuade writers from post-submission queries. If these magazines are on-line publications, logging-in, submission, logging-out and then cancellation of account after a week or so is a standard procedure they see each day.

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Pictures Courtesy: Sahyadri Books Archives.
Prototypes or used book covers. Books made
from online articles.
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Also please read:
How Advertisements Help Pay Online Writers? P.S.Remesh Chandran.
Think Twice Before Publishing With Free Article Directories. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

To read about the life and people of Kerala, the author’s native land, visit KERALA COMMENTARY here.

For more articles of this kind, visit SAHYADRI BOOKS here or BLOOM BOOKS, TRIVANDRUM

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Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra
Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Kerala…

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Md Rezaul Karim
17th Jul 2013 (#)

Very motivating but no easy answer of what the issue is about!

PSRemeshChandra
20th Jul 2013 (#)

It is not a light issue that writers face in securing enough to live by publishing online. There is also not an easy answer to their questions. This here is a simple attempt to focus more light on their problems with various kinds of publishers, digital and print. The real issues are more complicated than what appears here to explain them more experience and practical knowledge than what I possess are needed. Thank you dear Md. Rezaul Karim for noting.

Madan G Singh
18th Jul 2013 (#)

This is an excellent post. Very topical and deserving a star

PSRemeshChandra
20th Jul 2013 (#)

There have been so many articles and many voluminous books also written on this subject. But a writer who simply has to know about a few basic things of importance cannot read them all and be a master on this subject of publishing online and earning a living. This is a brief attempt to bring all relevant things at one place, for a writer like me to learn that what problems I face are common which in itself shall be an encouragement. Better and more comprehensive single piece articles are needed in this subject and they will surely come, if writers like you, Mr. Madan G Singh, Md Rezaul Karim, Sivaramakrishnan A, Rathnashikamani Bijja and other put their minds to and find time.

Mike Robbers
20th Jul 2013 (#)

Great article, indeed! Thanks for sharing!

PSRemeshChandra
20th Jul 2013 (#)

I am satisfied that this article is being appreciated. I certainly know that many facts which ought to have been included have been omitted, ignored or forgotten, which I expect to appear here as comments by learned and experienced readers. Thank you Mr. Mike Robbers for the words of encouragement.

Phyl Campbell
22nd Jul 2013 (#)

Lots of info. Good job.

PSRemeshChandra
22nd Jul 2013 (#)

Information is weapon. Making more information available to a writer regarding his profession or vocation is arming him to the teeth. Writers shall have to live as well as publishers. But one shall not exploit the other too much. Great publishers have organizations and tacit agreements among them but online writers do not have neither such organizations nor such agreements among them except a few weaklings here and there. If publishing is going to remain a profitable business and writers are going to write for their living, strong organizations are sure going to be established in the online writing field. Whether we know it or not, dissatisfaction of writers over publishers are more and more appearing as articles in the internet, a pre-condition for organizations. Thank you Mr. Phyl Campbell.

Think Twice Before Publishing With Free Article Directories. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

047.

Think Twice Before Publishing With Free Article Directories. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 2nd May 2012.  Short URL http://nut.bz/33p2m1bq/
Posted in Wikinut> Columns & Opinions

Online publishing platforms are a great solace not only to those who seek up-to-date and current knowledge, but for those who wish to publish articles without complications also. Websites like Wikinut serve this purpose fine. One can also publish articles in free article directories like Go Articles and E Zine which would surely bring traffic to one’s website. But once a sensible writer steps into this alien field, he would soon realize that he has actually stepped into a treacherous bog.

A flood of inferior links comes as a deluge to search results, obscuring all your good links.

It is the wish of every writer who owns a blog or site to drive more traffic to his or her blog and site. Publishing articles in the articles data bases Go Articles and E Zine is the most advised way for attracting traffic into a site. The idea is, since these are reputed sites and by publishing in them your name becomes noted, clicks leading to your site will correspondingly increase and this increase of activity in your site will eventually lead to your site’s ranking going higher up with search engines. These data bases offer back links to at least four or five of your sites. You certainly will get more traffic to your site. But, no sooner you begin publishing your articles with these data bases than your digital world will become cramped and confused with hundreds of links leading to inferior sites, obscuring all good links which you have cherished for long. Therefore think twice, before publishing with them.

If you are not interested in making money from your website, never publish in these free article data bases.

These sites are free article data bases, accessible to anyone. By publishing in them, you practically make your articles go public domain, which means anyone can use it anyway. Thousands of disciplined and legitimate readers use these data bases daily for gathering information on a wide variety of subjects. Students, teachers, writers, researchers, publishers, advertisers, all go there to find suitable articles, and they do find these data bases immensely helpful. It is true, this kind of exposure puts you on the main stream of publishing as regard to readership. And if you are interested in making money from your site, it is good again. But once you search, at times, where your articles are going, you will be horrified at the wantonness with which your articles are reused. There indeed are a few decent and imaginative websites which republish your articles as pages in the midst of which their advertisements are posted, doing it in a way that you will be thrilled at the beauty with which your articles are republished. But the most dreaded among them are indecent websites who download your articles from these data bases and use them for illegitimate purposes, in a way it would look that you have endorsed their activities. The end product will look horrible and make people think, who this wreck of an author is to have written such an insensible piece of writing.

The word ‘soil’ in your article will lead to some real estate firm and the word ‘money’ will lead to all kinds of hoary money making (loosing) techniques.

Suppose there is a website titled ‘Hundred Ways To Make Money’. They take your article on ‘A Walk In The Moonlight’. When they publish it, your article will not have the usual titles, sub titles, punctuation, lay out or justification. Almost all words in the article would have been made into links which would lead to their heinous advertisements. If you have the word ‘soil’ in the article, it would be made a link, which if clicked, would lead to some real estate firm. If you have put the word ‘car’ somewhere in the article, it will surely lead to some car financing company. The word ‘money’ will lead to all kinds of hoary money making (loosing) methods and financing. Links to your sites and blogs, when clicked, will lead to theirs. In search results, your name will be there, along with that ‘Hundred Ways To Make Money’ link, as if it is you who is running that site. Everything can be read, except your article which would be totally missing. A long list of such cheating sites can be added here for the care of writers: trivandrum locanto, bloglinez, shopturbo, infibeambooks, allvoices, lovepets, livinskiy, pageinsider, fashionbeautyonlinestore, rainoutfit, ebay, namepedia, bestpriceprobe, housesplans, 911pipl, milkandcream. This is just to show who can be there, using writers’ articles indecently. Do not please click their names and send more traffic to them from authors. But since the names of a few indecent sites are noted here, it would be inappropriate and inopportune not to mention the good and decent websites which reuse writers’ articles to the total satisfaction of those writers. They include heartattackforwomen, iraisedit, loudfeeds, blurbwire, pigroot, geliyoo and fearnowine, to mention a few.

Soon your good links will disappear in an ocean of links leading to inferior websites.

Suppose you write for Wikinut and when someone searches on the internet for your name, Wikinut links will appear first. Once you publish in these data bases, it will change. These rogue websites which copy your articles will occupy the first, second, third and fourth pages, and if possible all the rest pages, of the search results. It is like they enjoying a free ride standing on your shoulders. They want pages for their web sites to run, which they cannot create themselves. They download and publish your pages their way, without observing publishers’ norms. A few writers will regularly type their names and see what results appear on internet searches. They will soon find that links to their good sites have vanished in a flood of links from rogue sites with their names, minus their articles. Many of them will make complaints to these data bases about how their articles were misused by many websites. They will get the following standard reply which is useless and impracticable to the writer anyway:

“We do require publishers to follow our republishing guidelines: As most publishers simply need to be reminded that they must follow our guidelines for publishers, we first suggest contacting the owner of the site in question. If no response is received, you may then get into contact with the site’s web host (contact information can be found by going here: http://www.who.is and entering their website), requesting they enforce their Acceptable Use Policy. Please note, as you maintain the copyright to your articles, you are responsible for protecting that copyright.”

It would not be as easy for the writer to disengage himself as it is to put his neck in the midst of this kind of a grinding wheel.

His articles going to the most wrong places is the dread of all fine writers. If you write an article ‘Advice against artificial baby feed’, it would promptly find its way into a site selling artificial baby feeds. If you write an article against keeping dogs in homes, it would be skillfully manipulated to promote a kennel. If your article is about one of your personal experiences, it will land in a book publishing website which was never connected with you, without any trace of your article there, your name still leading to them. It is unbelievable that many famous book publishing sites make use of this cheap trick ignominiously. Soon you would find that your articles are used for what you always have stood against and what you always have opposed. That would be a very disgusting experience for a writer. It would not be as easy for the writer to disengage himself as it is to put his neck into this kind of a grinding wheel because these links have come to stay, perhaps for ever, or till they get hold of another unawaring prey. A writer will normally wish to someday catch this website owner and present a thundering blow to his cheek or even break his neck.

Be patient, wait and make your articles good. Fame will come your way.

It is advisable for the writer to wait, till traffic naturally finds its way to his website. If one’s articles are extremely good and he is good at devising apt tag words for his articles, readers will ultimately come to him, wherever his articles are posted. If there is a really good article on a particular subject in the internet, readers will eventually arrive at it some day, even if it gets buried in the last page of search results. If good articles cannot be searched and brought to readers, search engines also cannot thrive and exist in the long run. Therefore it is the duty of the writer to write, not spread. When it is his time or when it is the time of that particular article, it would sometimes be the only available article to be displayed on that specific subject, and how can it be excluded from being displayed?

The virtue of Wikinut is that there is no distinction between rich and poor writers. Really how much free are the free article data bases?

These directories are said to be free article submission directories. But there are two types of services they offer to writers: ordinary and premium. If you are rich and can afford paying money for sponsoring your articles, you can order premium services. Or, your articles won’t have headlines or bold sub headings. This arrangement is really something shocking, mean and ostentatious which does not fit the modern world and which no reliable publishing platform shall maintain. What change will money bring to the quality of an article, except in its look? Why should one submit articles to a directory which denies bold sub headings to a writer because he has no money? It suits only the barbarian times. It is something undignified for a writer to have denied such basic editorial services due to his having no money to pay. When viewed from these angles, Wikinut is the most generous articles data base and publishing platform in the world. There, there are no distinctions between rich and poor writers, and whatever online editing facilities and innovations are available there are allowed to all and shared by all. So, be patient with Wikinut and continue writing very good articles which nowhere else would be available. Someday it will be your day which is not far away.

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

To read about the life and people of Kerala, the author’s native land, visit KERALA COMMENTARY here.

For more articles of this kind, visit SAHYADRI BOOKS here or BLOOM BOOKS, TRIVANDRUM

Tags

Article Submissions, Articles, Columns, Driving Traffic To Websites, E Zine Articles, Essays, Free Article Data Bases,Free Article Directories, Go Articles, Manipulation Of Articles,Misusing Internet Articles, P S Remesh Chandran, Protection Of Writers Rights, Public Domain Pages, Rogue Websites,Sahyadri Books And Bloom Books Trivandrum, Treacheries In The Publishing Field, Violation Of Article Usage Norms, Virtues Of Wikinut

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra
Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley.

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Comments

Madan
5th May 2012 (#)

There are many good sites like Knoji, hubpages, suite 101 , Xomba that one can write on.

PSRemeshChandra
6th May 2012 (#)

Yes, dear Madan. There are many. But I was targeting on Go Articles and E Zine, according to my nature. The original title I intended for this article was ‘Think Twice Before Publishing With Go Articles and E Zine. But I changed it to suit Wikinut’s modesty. With these two sites, most observations noted above are true, I think. Those legitimate and decent customers of these sites who read and make use of articles posted in them certainly are outside the purview of this article.They are never responsible for this cluttering of search results. In fact, they do not even appear there. I did not know about Knoji. If it is Knol which is mentioned, it is sad Google retired the good Knol. Thank you Madan for the added information.

Buzz
7th May 2012 (#)

Engaging and insightful article, PSRemesh with great advice. Very pleased to meet you, by the way. Thanks for sharing.

PSRemeshChandra
7th May 2012 (#)

I was only sharing my observations and personal experiences, so that my fellow writers, if they already do not, shall know in advance a few things. Thank you Buzz.

Rebecca E
10th Aug 2012 (#)

a very interesting article, and some great points

PSRemeshChandra
10th Aug 2012 (#)

It is articles written by several good writers like you, Rebecca that caused me to think and write about the disappointments many writers feel about the publishing practices of a few famous article publishing sites and the after ill effects of publishing with them. Your article ‘The Things You Will Learn Publishing A Book’ which you published in April 2012 was informative and a good read. Why no similar articles since then?

Chocolate Bus. Robert Lynd Essay. Reintroduced By P.S.Remesh Chandran. Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

041.

Chocolate Bus. Robert Lynd Essay. Reintroduced By P. S. Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 5th Dec 2011  Short URL http://nut.bz/dbid7g_4/
Posted in Wikinut>Essays

 

Omnibus was the old name for a bus. When city buses were newly introduced in theLondonstreets, they were uniformly coloured chocolate. Robert Lynd disliked them for their colour which was dull and non-interesting to the eyes and also because they deprived him of the delights of walking. Like A.G.Gardiner’s Bus Conductor, Lynd’s Chocolate Bus reminds us of the many virtues which are leaving us one by one. And buses too may say farewell to us just as row boats did when bridges came into being.

The delight of walking is meeting persons on the way, spending a few minutes with them in small talk and having enough psychological delights for the day.

 Old Timer On London Road. Martin Addison. 

Suppose we are used to walk long distances and we are used also to like walking those distances. We shall meet so many persons of our acquaintance and not, shall spend a few minutes with them indulging in small talk and serious talk, and before we reach our destination, have enough psychological delights for the day. But when buses begin to ply the route we begin to become lonely on the road. Moreover it would be embarrassing for us to see a person whom we passed on the way walking in front of us at another place after alighting from a bus. In no time we will begin to hate buses. That was exactly what happened to Robert Lynd. He began to hate buses. Lynd’s essays are deep in thought but lucid in style. His essays enriched English language and literature much like his counter part Gardiner. Chocolate Bus is included in his collection of essays ‘Solomon In All His Glory.’

Birds of the least brilliant colour may sing the most brilliant songs.

 Bus in old clean London street. Dr.Neil Clifton. 

Do not anyone think that Lynd is blind in his observations, due to his prejudice against the dull coloured Chocolate Buses. He makes several strange observations in spite of these buses denying him vibrant colour patterns pleasing to his eyes and deprives him of the delights of walking. Chocolate which is dull and boring to the eyes of course is charming to the palate. Their delicious taste is savoured by all. Birds of the least brilliant colour would most probably sing the most brilliant songs. Sweets of the poorest favour may sometimes have the richest flavour. In this way perhaps the dull coloured Chocolate Buses also could be of the most beneficial use to mankind.

To see sights for ten miles from a running bus, the focusing muscles of the eyes do the equal labour the biceps muscles of the legs do to run the same distance.

One of the early sensations. Simon Osborne. 

When we travel in a bus most often we will prepare ourselves to see all the sights along the way. So we sit ourselves on a convenient side seat and begin seeing things. If we do it, before we are not over many miles, we will see that our eyes are closed and we are asleep. When we see sights from a running bus, the actual labour the focusing muscles in our eyes do to focus images before our retina to provide a stable picture is equal to what the biceps muscles of our legs do to run the same distance. No wonder the focusing muscles become soon tired and we fall asleep before long.

Thoughts originating while travelling in a bus will have high voltage and decisions taken then would be coming from a very kinetic mind.

First London Routemaster Bus. Luiz Marini.Berlin. 

But travelling in a running vehicle stimulates our thoughts too. The speed of the vehicle adds speed to our thoughts also. We know that weight into velocity is momentum. Momentum of the bus can be spent on the road but we, sitting with our fixed weight without the liberty of movement in the confines of a bus, will feel the momentum enter our mind and take off with it. Thoughts originating from us while travelling in a bus will be high voltage thoughts. Decisions taken then would be coming from a very kinetic mind.

Dante ought to have included bus travels as one of the Torments of the Inferno.

Glasgow Tram Cars Priestley Wrote. Dr Neil Clifton 

Bus travellers will often have bitter experiences. The buses would be overcrowded and there would not be empty seats. Sometimes there would not even be a foot of floor space empty to stand on. The passengers would feel they are imprisoned in a black hole that is a bus that is rocking also on the pot holes. Mechanical vibration of the bus would enter our heel, head and bones. One will wonder whether this is the fulfillment of the travel dreams of the Greeks, Romans and the other civilized races. Lynd says that the South Sea Islander lolling lazily in his lagoon is unfortunate to miss this unique experience of bus travel since there are no buses in that remote part of the globe.

If buses were made prisons the prisoners would object and crimes would cease to happen.

A London Tram Car. Photo John Bennet. 

A bus is a mechanical rhinoceros to travel inside which one has to pay also. Bus travellers get no wind except one composed of half dust and another half other people’s breathe. If buses were made prisons the prisoners would object and crimes would cease to happen. Criminals in the ancient world were put in barrels with spikes and rolled down the hills as punishment which was far lighter than to have been condemned to have a bus travel as the punishment. Lynd wonders why Dante did not include bus travel as one of the punishments among the multitude of torments in hell he described in his classic, The Divine Comedy.

The sheep in the field, the fly on the window, the sparrow on the road, all constantly keep moving. Movement is the manifestation of life.

Two Old Trams In Transport Museum. Dr.Neil Clifton 

When compared to a travel in the bus, walking has a number of advantages. Walking is a rhythmic and pleasant form of movement. There is a natural rhythm in walking. We are free to walk as lazily as an old dog or as fast as a cock picking food. Walking gives us enough time for sight seeing and thinking. One can stop at shop windows and look into things displayed there, or can peer inside. A walking man gets news also. The greatest pleasure of all in walking is the realization that there is no hurry. It is the law of nature that living things must keep moving. Movement is the manifestation of life. The sheep in the field, the fly on the window, the sparrow on the road, all constantly keep moving. This movement of limbs and wings is the very basis of life. It is pleasanter to move constantly like the planets than to sit still like a heap of stones. ‘Man is the only animal that escaped from perpetual motion and stiffened into stillness while he is yet neither a cripple nor dead.’ Sitting inert has now become a habit to man.

The desire of man to travel with the least body movement caused the invention of vehicles. His inertness is now complete.

A 1984 Electric Train. Photo. David Ingham. 

It is the desire of man to travel with the least body movement that caused the invention of vehicles. A survey of the vehicles he developed in their chronological order would reveal his inclinations. First he rode horses which provided an overall rhythmic movement to his muscles. Then came the row boat in which the hands alone had to move and the legs rested. With the invention of the wheel and the sail he became able to move without moving him at all. Cycles and automobiles followed and then came motor cycle, car, bus, ship and aero plane. And now there is the rocket too. His inertness is now complete.

The flowing streams, the playing children and the singing birds no more touch the bus traveller.

Channel Tunnel Train Emerging. Xtrememachineuk. 

It was this inertness and laziness of man that gave a chance to men with mechanical minds to make inventions. Thanks to these vehicles man is now able to transport people in bulk numbers from place to place. In all these vehicles man needn’t move his body. He only has to buy a ticket. But he no more enjoys the various amusements on the way. The flowing streams, the playing children and the singing birds no more touch him. He is now shut inside a box on wheels and carried away at top speed. One has no more life than a posted letter so far as he is sitting in a travelling vehicle. It was great movements of mind and body matter that created renaissance inItalyfour hundred years earlier. Henceforth there would be no renaissance. Riding in buses has killed the kinetic minds in our society. Thus this essay is really Robert Lynd’s ‘Ode to Walking.’

Many fear the channel tunnel will gradually destroy the euphoric and pleasant isolation England enjoyed for many ages.

 

Channel Tunnel Car Shuttle Interior. Tony Hisgett.

However, he is not a cynical critic. He concludes his essay wishing every success to the chocolate brown buses newly introduced in London streets. After these omnibuses the tram cars and the road trains came. Then there was the tube and now there is the channel tunnel which all fear would gradually destroy the euphoric and pleasant isolation the great island nation of England enjoyed for so many ages.

[First written in November 1994]

_______________________________
Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
_______________________________

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

Translations of this article in French, German, Spanish and Italian published in Knol.com can be read by clicking BLOOM BOOKS TRANSLATIONS here.

To read about the life and people and their follies of the author’s native land Kerala, read Kerala Commentary

To read more our articles already published in Wikinut visit Sahyadri Books or Bloom Books Trivandrum

Tags

Appreciations, Articles, British Authors, British Essayists, British Writers, Channel Tunnel, Chocolate Bus, English Essayists, English Literature, Essays, Old London Transport, Omni Buses, P S Remesh Chandran, Reintroduced Literature, Reintroductions, Reviews, Robert Lynd, Sahyadri Books Bloom Books Trivandrum, Solomon In All His Glory, Trams

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra
Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of ‘Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book’.

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Student Mobs. J.B.Priestley Essay. Reintroduced By P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

040.

Student Mobs. J.B.Priestley Essay Reintroduced By P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 1st Dec 2011  Short URL http://nut.bz/3dpl.fk1/

Posted in Wikinut Essays

Disciplined students under strict masters have created empires and dynasties in this world. The lone Chandragupta captivated by the severe Chaanakya Gupta founded the famous Maurya Empire inNorth Indiaand the twaine created classical political theories the world still reveres. Alexander found his master in Aristotle and the pair was responsible for the greatest changes in the political and cultural structure of the world. This article is homage to those good old days of studentship.

Simplicity, humbleness and discipline were the characteristic distinguishing marks of a student in the ancient times.

T.V, show me something creative. Emmy The Great.

We have the ancient belief that ‘a school is an assembly of teachers and a class is an assembly of students.’ In many countries this conviction is changing fast. Before Plato came, instituted his Academy and founded the academic system of education where teachers and students would come to and be assembled at the same place and lessons were taught according to a pre-determined syllabus, students had to search far and wide for a teacher’s house, perhaps miles and miles away or sometimes in other states where he had to go and reside, do all kinds of manual labour in the master’s house, please him somewhat and secure a bit of knowledge if the master so consented to. But this system no doubt produced great teachers, scholars, poets and playwrights. Simplicity, humbleness and discipline were characteristics and distinguishing marks of a student in those times. Not one unruly student could complete his education with a master.

When Britain speaks, all England listens.

 An orderly students meeting. Michael Linder.

One of the books written by the famous writer John Boynton Priestley was aptly titled ‘Britain Speaks’ and another ‘All England Listens’. It was true; when this great British orator spoke the whole world listened. Here he is analyzing the reasons for the unrest and violence among students. His finding is that students delight in destruction for destruction’s sake. He expects students to behave as true guardians of society and provide support to the families they come from. Any dutiful student will have to agree with his arguments against unruly behaviour.

They should be learning books, not burning them.

Preparation against student march. Bobby D’Marca.

Priestley joined college after a few years of soldiery in the First World War. Therefore it was no wonder he was irritated by the irresponsibility he found common among the student community in general. Irresponsible students, in their craze for establishing an identity, form mobs, take to destruction and behave like vandalists. ‘They should be learning books, not burning them.’ Peasants in the villages are losing much, particularly their favourite meals and good clothes, to send their sons to colleges. So these sons should have a manly responsibility towards them and shall not join howling destructive mobs. Priestley is of the opinion that stupid, ignorant and irresponsible students should summarily be sent out and shall not be given higher education at the expense of the community. They are wasting everyone’s time, money and energy. This right attitude towards students, which could be adopted by all members of the community, shall not be interpreted as prejudice against students.

When we see a student mob demonstration we will wonder whether those brute faces are our own sons’.

 Ideal place to watch student strike. Zaniol Simone

Most often, angry student mobs demonstrate through streets with banners, slogans and mindless grinning faces, breaking windows and smashing cars, burning books and furniture, terrifying children and women on their way, reducing laws and customs to chaos. Such demonstrations shall not be shown on the T.V. If it continues to be shown, the whole fabric of civilization, which is the work of centuries, shall be torn apart by students.

They will pass with honours B.A. in Window Smashing, Furniture Firing and Car Overturning.

 Disciplined strike, books, cut hair. Partridge Ron

Sometimes these demonstrations would be against governments but at times the governments themselves would be organizing them secretly on a rent-a-mob basis. Many governments play a leading role in the antics of student mobs. When two official policies clash, embassies are instantly surrounded by students and attacked as if in a political circus. Priestley here gives society a severe warning: ‘The time may come when ambassadors will have to move around in tanks. In the universities, students on admission will be given machine guns and flame throwers. They will pass with honours the B.A. in Window Smashing, Furniture Firing and Car Overturning. They may be weak in the sciences and the arts, the medicine and the law but they would have first-rate skills in Hooliganism.’ He wonders what type of doctors, lawyers, engineers, chemists and teachers of language they will make.

Kids are now not kids but creatures come from other planets, putting things on the railway lines for derailing expresses.

Playing Post Office. We make them mobs. S.Francis.

That students delight in destruction is a universal truth. ‘Soon there may appear in college campuses those huge iron balls of the demolition squads with whichNew Yorksky scrapers are crumbled down.’ Such massive, mobile and deep-seated would become the desire for destruction in students. ‘Whether they grow under capitalism or socialism, our children will certainly care about vandalism.’ They will take special trains to foot ball matches and burn them on their way back. Full-fed and well-paid youths are the most destructive. An old school teacher once remarked that ‘kids are now not kids but creatures come from other planets, putting things on the railway lines for derailing expresses.’

Some among us don’t seem to belong to human race.

Will our colleges rest. Trinity. Kenneth Yarham.

Priestley feels the contrast between the rough life led by him as a boy in his native village and the excessive student violence in the present times. In Priestley’s boyhood also there were fights in schools. Players and spectators of football both behaved roughly. But there were no heartlessness or hatred of life. There indeed were fights between equals but helpless people were never harmed. Now the young arrives eager to destroy, not to create. Some among us don’t seem to belong to human race. They set fire on society and purposefully discredit the techniques and apparatus of a world civilization. ‘Threats of violence rise like puffs of steam in New York city streets at night’ (in his times), he observes.

Newsreel films please show me students making something, not breaking something.

Going for making something. Mike Fernwood.

There are many reasons for this turbulence among students in their tender ages-hydrogen bomb, bad homes, no religion, irresponsible parents, boring environment and the like, all contribute. Also there are those other modern day factors as the thirst of political parties and misled organizations for young martyrs and maimed victims to pivot them to political and administrative power. And there is some unknown factor, a vast ‘X’ in the dark. Priestley prays, news reels in films in theatres show him students making something, instead of breaking something; like some scene of students marching to build a house, not to knock one down.

Dedicated to those girl scholars who rise up early, go to fields and forests to cut grass for cattle, and walk kilometers away to colleges.

Education, their gateway to future. Irving Rusinow

Many girl students in some districts in Kerala, especially in the Quilon district, studying for post graduate courses, will rise up early in the morning and go to fields and forests to cut grass for their cattle. Carrying this heavy load of fodder on their heads they rush back to their houses, wash and breakfast and walk kilometers away to their colleges. In the evenings they walk back, go to the forests with their books, collect firewood for their kitchen and a few green twigs for their goats and carrying this burden return home in the dusk and complete the household chores. They pass their examinations with first class and gold medals and become college lecturers and school teachers. That is what education and studentship is. Dutiful work cleanses the soul and prepares one as a diligent learner. My nation’s future is safe in their hands. This article is dedicated to those hard working diligent girl scholars, a few of whom I was fortunate enough to teach.

(Originally written in April 1995)

_______________________________________________________
Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons.
There are many pictures of students rioting and breaking things
in almost all nations. But we respect the vision and wishes of Priestley and so chose pictures accordingly.
_______________________________________________________

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In Praise Of Mistakes. Robert Lynd. Essay Reintroduced by P.S.Remesh Chandran.

39.

In Praise Of Mistakes. Robert Lynd. Essay Reintroduced by P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 25th Nov 2011 Short URL http://nut.bz/25tqv807/
Posted in Wikinut Essays

 

Robert Lynd is famous for his essays of wit, wisdom and humour. Here he is writing ‘in praise of mistakes’, how they are useful and how they are enjoyable to the world. It is his opinion that it is difficult to write something without slipping somewhere. Mistakes do not interfere with our enjoyment of a writer and the only unpardonable sin in an author is writing uninterestingly. This Irish genius who made us laugh shared the world with us during 1879-1949.

What I wonder is why I did not snatch away as much wealth as I could from the Indian Coffers.

People often write to newspapers about the frequent mistakes writers make in their articles and books. Geographical, historical or religious errors may occur in their works but those mistakes seldom make their works unreadable or unenjoyable. Instead, most often, they make the world merry for they give enough material for the world to laugh. One will wonder why writers do not make as many mistakes as they can so that the world can at least laugh heartily. In this aspect, the case framed by fault-finders against writers is a weak one. If it is presented in any court the writer, Lord Clive, may tell the jury that he wondered why he did not make as many mistakes as he could. Lord Clive was tried in the British Parliament for corruption during his India Service when he told senators, what he wondered was why he did not dare to snatch away more wealth from the vast treasure houses of the Indian Kings!

It is difficult to write about something without slipping somewhere.

Personally Lynd is a lover of accuracy but he finds it difficult to write about something without slipping somewhere. He consults an encyclopedia to avoid errors in writing. He has on many occasions risen and sweated in the very early mornings in fear of mistakes he may have made in articles which have already gone to press. A modern day writer who is born in the time of spell checker, auto correct and Internet would be totally unfamiliar with such dreadful experiences.

Mistakes do not interfere with our enjoyment of an author’s work.

Mistakes do not interfere with our enjoying an author’s work. It is not the word and its meaning that count; it is the sound of the word that is important and is appealing to human senses. It is the sound of the words that makes a poem pleasing to our senses and ears and imparts beauty to the poem. Poets, Lynd permits them, may use the names of any precious stones or anything else for that matter in their poems even without knowing their meaning, if those sounds are pleasing to ears. A jeweller’s assistant needn’t immediately go to him and correct him. According to Lynd the unpardonable sin in a writer is to write uninterestingly. If a work is interesting, it would be read and enjoyed by all. Mistakes do not matter there. Shakespeare made his multitude of mistakes in chronology and Walter Scott made the Sun rise on the wrong side of the world in the wrong time. Even then Shakespeare’s dramas and Walter Scott’s novels and poems are read by millions of people with interest.

A writer’s mistakes deserve praise, and fantastic errors are great stimulants.

Mistakes made in literature are useful to man in many ways. For example, they make the reader temporarily feel that he is an inch taller than the writer. Mistakes made by the writer are a source of delight to many readers. There is more joy over a single error discovered in a good writer than over a hundred pages of perfect writing. Error-hunters search for errors as meticulously and systematically as gold-hunters search for gold. His Eurekas are uttered not over immortal phrases but over some tiny mistake in geography, history or grammar. The famous English weekly ‘Punch’ once used to print the names of authors along with the mistakes they made. The writers protested. Lynd is of the opinion that writers needn’t protest over such dissections by print media and they needn’t consider it as an attempt to rob them of the credit for making the world happy and laughing. Since they are such useful to mankind, the writers’ mistakes deserve praise; even their fantastic mistakes, which are in many, are also thus pardonable. Lynd’s closing observation is that ‘we shall never have a novelist or writer of the magnitude of Shakespeare till one can make as many mistakes as Shakespeare made’.

Dear Reader,
You are invited to kindly visit the author’s website Time Upon My Window Sill.

Translations of this article in French, German, Spanish and Italian published in Knol.com can be read by clicking BLOOM BOOKS TRANSLATIONS here.

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Rathnashikamani
30th Nov 2011 (#)

“A writer’s mistakes deserve praise, and fantastic errors are great stimulants”
I appreciate that.
You’ve given a differently positive perspective to the art of reading a writers mind.

PSRemeshChandra
30th Nov 2011 (#)

Writers’ mistakes have always given the world interesting material to laugh about. They do not disparage the writer but do prove to the world that they indeed are human beings, after us going through the unearthly materials they have written. Writers’ mistakes are indeed a solace to readers who are taken off with the momentum of the flow of ideas and emotions in the writing and cannot land. Seeing the mistake and reading the mistake lands them safely on the terra firma.

The Angel In The House. Virginia Woolf. Reintroduced by P.S.Remesh Chandran.

38.

The Angel In The House. Virginia Woolf. Reintroduced by P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

By PSRemeshChandra, 18th Nov 2011  Short URL http://nut.bz/1ns3iwjj/
Posted in Wikinut Essays

 

Virginia Woolf was a British essayist, novelist and critic. The Voyage Out, Night And Day and Jacob’s Room are her famous books. Professions For Women was a lecture she gave before a women’s meeting. A woman can be a doctor, a lawyer, a civil servant or a journalist. But in all these professions, the woman has to beat two opponents- the hold of her own womanishness over her and the fear of her opinion of what men would say.

Pianos and visits to Paris, Berlin and Vienna are not at all needed to become a writer.

Virginia Woolf, the writer and feminist.

Virginia Woolf says, becoming a writer was very easy for her. Her road to literature had been laid out clear before her by many woman writers prior to her times such as Jane Austen and George Elliot. Writing had already been made a reputed and harmless occupation for women. Writing no more affected a woman’s family life. Pianos and models, or visits to Paris, Vienna and Berlin were not at all needed to provide varying experiences for writers. Paper alone was needed which was available cheap then. She says availability of cheap writing paper was reason for the success of woman writers in those times. She simply wrote a review for a book, mailed it and received the next month a cheque for more than One Pound from the editor.

She wanted a Persian cat so she wrote a review. Then she wanted a Motor Car and so wrote a novel.

                                  Virginia Woolf with father, Sir. Leslie Stephen.

With this money gained from writing a review she bought a beautiful Persian cat for a pet. She got encouraged and grew ambitious. She got thrilled at the prospect of writing things and gaining things she wished for easily. A Persian cat is all very well but a Persian cat is not enough. She decided to have a motor car. So she wrote a novel and became a novelist. It was that simple. Nothing in this world is as delightful as telling stories. In her very early days of career she learned that writing is a very lucrative career. We readers will wonder how it can be so, with the experiences of such famous writers as Dostoevsky and many others before us. But her’s was a time when woman writers were very scarce and including a woman’s writing in a publication was a desirable change and an attraction. In modern times many a talented writer has complained that he could not get published because he could not go to an editor in skirts and rubber projections.

Removing all womanishness from her work is the real challenge for a woman writer.

                                Little Virginia with mother Julia Stephen.

For decades it was thought that writing detective novels and stories are set apart for men because no woman detective story writer could excel and surpass in devising stories as those written by G.K.Chesterton and Arthur Conan Doyle. Many critics including this writer still believe that there is something significant missing in the writings of women authors. The only exception to this was that respected lady Ethel Lilian Voynich whose immortal novel ‘The Gad Fly’ terrorized the literary world as well as the revolutionary world and still serves as the classic motivation for world revolutionaries and guerilla warfare. Even in this novel the delicate feminine caricature of Arthur, the boyhood image of Rivarus, the relentless revolutionary of later years cries aloud that the novel was written by a lady. Conceiving intricate, finished plots somehow eludes the intellectual and imaginative genius of a woman’s mind. Not that there is universal consensus that Agatha Christies’ novels satisfy us as Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels do, but through her a woman for the first time successfully established herself as a detective novel writer, at least. A professional woman has to remove all womanishness from her work. A good work of literature shall not proclaim that it was written by a woman. All women writers are hindered by the goodness of the womanishness in them. Virginia Woolf calls this phantom idea ‘The Angel in the House’, borrowing from the title of a poem by Coventry Patmore. In those last days of QueenVictoria’s Era, every house inEnglandhad its angel in it so far as the prosperity brought to that island nation from her far out colonies remained undisturbed. In the midst of this immense confiscated prosperity the women did not have to work and could afford servants. Their hands remained uncalloused. This expression, The Angel In The House, denotes the sympathetic, charming, unselfish goodness of womanhood present in all women of those times and in all times. But for a woman writer, it is an obstacle to as freely and openly dealing with a subject as men do in their writings. She cannot write something original if this phantom presence of ‘the Angel in the House’ is not killed. Though it is only an imagination of the mind, it was a great problem to the Victorian era women writers.

It is harder to kill a phantom presence in one’s mind than killing a reality.

                      Virginia Woolf’s father Sir Leslie Stephen in 1860

Killing the ‘Angel in the House’ was part of the occupation of a woman writer in the old English times. It still is. It is far harder to kill a phantom image that is existing in one’s own mind than killing something which is real and substantial. It has to be done mentally. Virginia Woolf strove hard and got rid of this imaginary presence on her mind finally. Woolf says: ‘It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and who so tormented me that at last I was forced to kill her. Had I not killed her, she would have killed me and destroyed my career as a writer.’ Without getting rid of this imaginary presence, she would never have become a good writer.

Most women writers fear that men would be shocked to see what they have written.

                         With Noel Oliver, Maitland Radford, Rupert Brooke.

Men and women have similar structure in their minds. A novelist has a peculiar state of mind. He wants to be as unconscious as possible in his inner self and in his inter relations. He is always in a trance. Any change in his immediate environment is unbearable to him. Things should be quiet and regular for him. He is really always in an illusion. Most woman writers find it hard to write freely of their feelings. They fear men would be shocked at what they have written. However, women have entered almost all professions human skill can enter. Woolf tells women: ‘You have won rooms of your own in the house hitherto exclusively owned by men. Now they have to be furnished, decorated and shared.” It is said that men in the house will have their favourite seats, and the women in the house have their favourite rooms. It is interesting to note that Woolf’s advice to women also illustrates how womanish an advice can be.

________________________________
Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
________________________________

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
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Translations of this article in French, German, Spanish and Italian published in Knol.com can be read by clicking BLOOM BOOKS TRANSLATIONS.

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Visit our sister site  Bloom Books, Trivandrum here.

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Thoughts At The Ferry. E V Lucas Essay. Reintroduced by P S Remesh Chandran.

36. Thoughts At The Ferry. E V Lucas Essay. Reintroduced by P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

 

By PSRemeshChandra, 23rd Sep 2011.  Short URL http://nut.bz/3orvhmnz/
Posted in Wikinut  Essays

 

Ferrymen and their boats are a departing lot. The world depended on them much for thousands and thousands of years to reach destinations and return to home. But when bridges came to be built across rivers, they became of no use. But in remote hamlets and in unreachable parts of the world they still can be seen, transporting people across rivers, ensuring the onward progress and flow of human life. E.V.Lucas makes a quick glance into the mind of a ferryman.

Thoughts passing through the mind of a traveller as he is waiting for the ferryboat.

E.V.Lucas, along with A.G.Gardiner, led the renaissance in English essays. This gifted Londoner had a gifted tongue which he used for creating good English prose. A rich variety of subjects were brought to human attention by these writers in their plain, lucid language. Here we see Lucas waiting for the next ferry boat. Several thoughts pass through his mind which he pens down to make us aware of the ferry man’s strange situation. The ferryman and his boat are at the beck and call of all and he makes no complaints even when called at night.

Picture of the ferryman fading away from towns and villages as bridges are built across rivers.

Canoes, departing from the world. 1886

Ferrymen were an inevitable part and constituent of life in the old world. Villages and towns depended upon them to begin and to end days. Now bridges have come across almost all rivers and the ferrymen and the ferry are a departing picture. Today it is just a nostalgic remembrance for a few and majority of the population nowadays has not even seen a ferryman. What once was a common picture of human life lives now only in articles and essays of this kind.

The world literature is full of ferrymen and their boats.

Always at the beck and call of all. Scotland 1858

But the world literature and history is full of stories of their invaluable services. Had there been no ferryman as Guhan who was willing to transport Rama and Sita in his boat, the epic of Ramayana would have progressed in another way. Human souls would not have reached their assigned place had there been no reckless ferryman there to ferry them across Hades in the Stygian Land.

It is a universal legend that ferrymen sing. Who can sing in the presence of such silence and gloom?

Campsite of a ferryman. Always lives nearby.

Ferrymen everywhere are mostly gloomy. There is a wealth of reasons for their lack of mirth. One is the course of the boat. Had it travelled along the river it would have been a pleasure but it travels across the river always. It constantly crosses the river from side to side, and that too from the same spots on either side, which makes the journey monotonous and gloomy. Then, it is a legend that ferrymen sing. Lucas had as a boy a pretty song in his memory about the Twickenham Ferry. But in actuality the ferrymen never sing. Who could carol in the presence of such silence and gloom?

All the world may go wayfaring during Ramazan, Christmas and Passover but not he!

There are ferrywomen too in Kerala backwaters.

The ferryman shall not leave his post. It is expected that he would be present on his post day and night. This is another reason fro their gloominess. All the world may go wayfaring but not he! Many live in hovels close by. When Christmas, Ramazan and Passover comes, he should be there to transport those who go to partake in these festivities but he and his family cannot partake in them. He is always in the open with blowing breeze and racing clouds around him. Exciting sound of running water constantly falls in his ear. Such a thrilling and intoxicating atmosphere would have made anyone an explorer but the ferry man cannot leave his place. ‘Travel appears for us the exploration into the unknown but for him it is the narrow confines of the known.’

The ferryman is always there at the beck and call of all.

Monotonous journey, mute companions.

There is yet another reason for his hatred of mankind. Whenever we call he should be there. He may be annoyed, and it may add fuel to his misanthropic fire, but whenever we call he does come with the boat. Though he thus strives prompt and hard to serve the world, the world seems not to consider him enough. ‘Even great charitable persons like Carnegie have not left some legacy to any ferryman.’

Why do they write songs like ‘The Ferryman And The Goose?’ Why cannot they write ‘The Ferryman And The Swan?’

Hailing the ferryman. Daniel Knight 1910.

Companionship of the ferryman’s passengers is brief which also adds to his gloom. People of various cultures daily enter his boat providing him with good scope for conversation. But no sooner they reach the other bank of the river than they step out and are gone. Therefore ferrymen often keep dumb animals as their companions. Some carry dogs, some carry parrots and some others geese. These companions will have great fidelity to them. However, poetry titles like ‘The Ferryman and the Goose’ stain and degrade them. Why can’t they write something like ‘The Ferryman and the Swan?’ The ferrymen deserve the companionship of the better and the most beautiful. Thus, if we examine the more and the more closely, the ferrymen appear the more and the more dismal.

A fine song reflecting the righteousness and reserve of the old England times.

Prompt to come at any time. Edmund Blair Leighton.

Do not think there have not been good ferryman songs. Christina Rossetti’s ‘The Ferryman’ is a fine ferryman song in English literature. We can see in it the righteousness and English reserve of a ferryman of that time. The damsel in the song tempts the ferryman by mentioning that she has blue eyes which may mean she is blue-blooded, available or both but he does not fall into the seduction. This song, with a 21-year old ferryman and 18-year-old English girl is a fine piece for orchestration and filming. And the music Christina incorporated into this song is immortal. In fact, there have been multiple tunes to this song, one as slow rhythmic as a gently flowing stream and another as quick as a rapid. But no orchestration or filming has ever been made of this song. It is lying open, waiting for its time.

The Ferryman: Christina Rossetti’s famous song portraying the charm of bygone rural life.

A passenger is waiting on the other bank. Leighton

THE FERRYMAN

Christina Rossetti

Ferry me across the water
Do, do boatman do;
If you have a penny in your
Purse, I will do.

I have a penny in my purse
And my eyes are blue,
So ferry me across the water
Do, boatman do.

Step into my ferry boat
Be they black or blue,
And for the penny in your purse
I will ferry you.

 

 

_________________________________
Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons.
_________________________________

 

Dear Reader,

You are invited to kindly visit the Author’s Web Site of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum at:

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Translations of this article in French, German, Spanish and Italian published in Knol.com can be read by clicking here.

http://knol.google.com/k/psremesh-chandran/-/2vin4sjqlcnot/0#collections

 

 

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After Gays And Lesbians, Dog Lovers Are The Next To Claim Recognition As A Community. P S Remesh Chandran.

34. After Gays And Lesbians, Dog Lovers Are The Next To Claim Recognition As A Community. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

 

By PSRemeshChandra, 22nd Sep 2011.  Short URL http://nut.bz/1l_gj_nm/
Posted in Wikinut Essays

 

Every house where dogs bark continuously will have at least one person who is intolerantly jealous of the tranquillity nature provides its creations, irrespective of whether he is the nation head, judge, law-maker, politician or parliamentarian. The world has seen enough of them and their follies and crimes not to be startled by. Some sleep with the other sex, some with the same sex and some with dogs. The world pays the price through horrible diseases such as dengue, rabies and chikungunya.

Social, medical and economic aspects of too many dogs being there.

An 1898 painting by Francis Barroud.

The first part of this article, ‘Where Husbands Are Dogs And Dogs Are Husbands’, discussed the social implications of the abundance of dogs and their incessant barking. This second part focuses on the medical problems originating from humans bedding with dogs and their role as animal reservoir hosts to many Arboviral infections such as Dengue fever, Nipah virus, Lyme disease, Chagas disease, Q fever, Chikungunya and the like sweeping the globe and killing millions. The third part of this article ‘Who Said It Is God’s Own Country, Kerala Is Now Dog’s Own Country’ will analyze the economic disasters caused from ‘number of dogs versus number of people’ in a nation and how a beautiful land in a corner of the world was broken down and destroyed piece by piece by dogs.

Houses from where dogs bark continuously are not worth more than the price of that dog.

Friend of man, betrayer of animals.Photo DMacauley

There are decent houses in our society and houses from where dogs bark continuously. Houses from where dogs bark continuously are not worth more than the price of that dog, which is negligible. They enjoy all the security and safety offered by human society to them, and then they place their dogs above human beings. People who do not throw a coin to a beggar can be seen going home with five kilos of chicken for their dog. It is their kind of charity, which is snobbery and ostentation in our terms. In most houses, if dogs are present, then books are absent. The delights of reading and the carnal pleasures from dogs do not go together. When the first dog Lyka reached space sitting in a Russian satellite, there was an uproar of protest in England on dogs’ lives being disrupted by men. Now when human life everywhere in the world is disrupted by the abundance of dogs, England is silent, no wonder. It is the modern European and English trend to lay the child where the dog should be and lay the dog where the child belongs to, hastily imitated by the East, resulting in the world-wide picture of unruly youth abandoning their parents in their old age and also resulting in one-fortnight marriages. The world is paying the price for their insatiable lust for dogs.

A dog’s mind is an extension of its master’s. Some come from our back and bite, some bark at our face, and some bark long after we are gone.

Burned bridges to the animal community.

In the houses of poor people, if their dog continuously barks causing disturbance to neighbours, they will come out, beat the dog and silence it. It is not to be called cruelty to animals but apt training. A dog and a child, if not beaten as part of its training, will someday receive all the beating, kicking and stoning from everyone in the society. After a few beatings, the dog learns that it is only a dog, that it is a part of human society, and should behave itself. After a few minutes’ wailing and moaning, it goes to its corner and lies there silent for the coming days. Poor people are more conscious of decent social behaviour and aware of the disturbance their acts may cause to other members of the society than rich people and people with authority. If it is a dog that is barking continuously for days from a rich man’s house, no one will come out, beat the dog or silence it. After an hour or two, a feeble female voice can be heard sometimes asking, ‘What is the problem Tony, Bobby, Jimmy, are you feeling cold? Wait, I will warm you.’ In such houses the dog continues to bark till the visitor goes out. Even if it is an unbearable disturbance for the visitor to continue talking in the midst of this bedlam, the man, the madame or the kids won’t interfere. The visitor will go, the dog will stay. The dog does not like anybody coming to that house. When visitors are seen coming to those houses, the blood pressure of neighbours would rise, for they know that during the next hour or a few or for that whole day, there would be no end to dog barking. We will wonder why these fools still drag themselves to those houses where dogs are far more important than human beings. A dog’s behaviour is an extension of its master’s. Some unexpectedly come from the back and bite; some continuously bark till we leave that house, some continue barking even after we are miles and miles away from that inhospitable house.

“What I wonder is how this many dog scratch marks appear on their lower abdomen.”

Then it was rats, now it is dogs. From Weymouth.

In so many houses, it is interesting to note, the dog starts barking when the master of the house returns home after work in the evening. It will stop barking when he goes again to work in the morning the next day. That wretched human being, we know, pines and grieve in his heart but can do nothing for fear of divorce. Do not think that this is just author’s imagination. It actually happened in a Trivandrum house, witnessed and settled in the Family Court. It was from Ulloor or somewhere that this case was reported. Here it was the man who could not live without his female dog companion. Even if his wife of long years left him let her go; he won’t let his dog go. The tired wife finally sought divorce and secured it. Why live in a house-bed thickly saturated with dog hair and excretions? In many houses the dog wants nobody else in the house except his missus. Whether anyone believes it or not, there was a very famous doctor in Trivandrum, a social activist, who yelled at newspaper reporters: “I am the most prominent gynaecologist in Trivandrum and have brought to daylight more children than all other doctors in this district combined have. The Madames of Trivandrum need me to deliver their babies safe, but when I repeatedly say that stray dogs in the streets should essentially be killed, there is no one to listen to me. What I wonder is how this many dog scratch marks appear on their lower abdomens.” It was a horror to read about this news in newspapers in those orthodox times, but he was telling the truth, uttered alone by a philosopher social activist and doctor, committed to human welfare and sanity.

Spending millions on sterilizing dogs to please a few fat memsahibs, snobs and novoeu rich while millions beg on the streets and live in poverty!

What this doctor predicted as would happen actually happened. Trivandrum in later years fell into the grip of a series of  Zoonosis diseases like dengue and chikungunya and thousands were dead and many thousands more incapacitated for life. Every poor man’s home in the state lost at least one member to these diseases for no fault of theirs. The sexual lust of a few rich women and men invariably led to the death and incapacitation of thousands. These sexual perverts did not even stop there. They took care to exclude any mention of dogs in the medical reports. And they also pulled strings to restrain authorities from reconsidering or withdrawing dog-legislations already passed. All blamed and hunted mosquitoes; no one admitted that mosquitoes are just carriers of Dengue-like fevers and dogs are the host reservoirs for these viruses from whom the mosquitoes get them. Had there been not this many dogs in the streets and in the houses, there would not have been any such diseases. The greatest caprice was from the part of the health authorities. They entirely pretended that they never even have heard about Zoonosis diseases, Arboviral infections or animal reservoir hosts in their lives and spent still more millions on pretended research. The number of appearances of these waves of killer diseases in Kerala, India, Asia and the World is directly proportional to the rise in the number of dogs in the streets and in the houses, following the enactment of modern-world, anti-human, dog-protection laws and also due to the scam that is Animal Birth Control. ABC Programme in Asia is sterilization of male dogs. Dogs removed from the streets will be taken to veterinary hospitals or anywhere, vasectomized or not and returned to the same spot they were captured from, the authorities thus escaping skillfully from the responsibility of removing dogs permanently from the streets. It is the most lucrative business for government officials now in the Asian countries, crumbs thrown down to lower officials by corrupt national administrations that go after greater chunks. Who is going to verify whether street dogs are actually vasectomized or not? Spending millions more on sterilizing dogs to please a few fat memsahibs, snobs and novoeu rich, while millions in these democracies beg on the streets and live in poverty!

Fleas are one of the chief carriers of many diseases and they are in very friendly terms with dogs.

Left to dogs by parents while in infancy.

Dogs are proven hosts to hundreds of parasites and viruses and play a prominent role in originating and spreading diseases. Dogs act as parasite reservoir for many human infections. Many parasites reside in the stomach walls of dogs. Infection through dogs is observed to be a common and world wide problem. Children in close and continuous contact with dogs are the most infected. Most human infections through dogs occur in Asian countries. If a child, mother, grown up man or an old man gets one of these diseases, before going to a doctor for immediate medical assistance, make sure that there were no dogs in that particular house, in the houses nearby or roaming the nearby roads. Majority of the dogs are flea-infested. Fleas are one of the chief carriers of many diseases and they are in very friendly terms with dogs. Diseases got from dogs thus are primarily responsible for many problems with the lymph system. Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which has a very high mortality rate of 20 to 25 percent, is one of the most severe of human infections transmitted by ticks living on dogs.

When waves of Zoonosis diseases strike the world, dog-lovers and dog law makers escape into their private sanctuaries. When waves recede they come out and bark.

Diseases from dogs begin here.

There are hundreds of other diseases spread by pet animals including dogs. Nipah Virus, Lyme disease, Chagas disease, Q fever, Brucellosis, Diphyllobothriasis, Ehrlichiosis, Pasteurellosis, Rickettsiae, Rhinosporidiosis, Ringworm Salmonellosis, Strongyloidiasis, Yersiniosis, Leptospirosis, Leishmaniasis, Lymphocytic choriomeningitis, Echinococcosis, Coenuruses cerebralis. Coccidioidomycosis and Giardiasis-theirs is a long list. The spreading of these diseases among humans could have been totally avoided, had human society broken ties with dogs. Presence of dog breeders, dog lovers and dog law makers in this world is the reason for the spreading of these diseases. It is they who are solely responsible for the death of millions of human beings from waves of Zoonosis diseases sweeping this globe each year. When these diseases occur, the world spends millions and millions of dollars, rupees and pounds in treating them and for preventing them. When these deadly and ugly diseases occur among human beings, dog lovers in the world escape into their private sanctuaries and remain silent for a few days, fearing accusation. When the waves of diseases withdraw for a time, they come out of their hiding places and bark.

Rabies resulting in death from a nervous breakdown: The most fearsome gift to man from dogs.

Rabies is the most fearsome disease caused in man and other animals by dogs. This disease in humans is almost always due to a bite from an infected dog. Other infected mammals also can cause this disease in humans but statistics shows that the number of such cases is negligible. The rabies virus causes acute infection of the Central Nervous System in man, resulting in breakage of the normalcy of the system and the man finally dying of a nervous breakdown. Rabies occurs nearly in all countries where dogs are an inseparable part of the community. Investigations have shown that letting dogs into beds can make people ill with other deadly diseases. Sometimes people will lick dogs, or the dog will lick them. Bedding with dogs is a common practice in many families. The deadly and unpleasant infection of MRSA is got from dog cuddling when people snuggle up to their dogs. Every home in which dogs co-exist and co-habitat with humans has problems of pulmonary diseases and infections in children, caused by remaining close to the exhaling respiratory stream of dogs. More and more people are now napping with their pet dogs inside closed and shut rooms.

All Arboviral infections like Dengue fever have to have an animal reservoir host like dog.

Dogs gradually become inseperable companions.

Dengue Fever is a Zoonosis, a disease occurring primarily in mammalian animals that can be transmitted to humans. The viruses responsible for this disease survive in nature as infections in animals; human infection is not necessary for their survival. Dengue Fever is an Arboviral infection, the viruses being transmitted by arthropod vectors such as ticks. House dogs and street dogs are the common Animal Reservoir Hosts to these viruses, as almost all of these animals are tick-affected. The recent outbreaks of Dengue Fever in Kerala were exclusively caused by the millions of dogs roaming the streets and in the houses. Otherwise the healthy and clean people of Kerala would not have succumbed this much easily to this disease and this much frequently too. Actually, reports from Kerala indicate that the State has been in the grip of dog-transmitted diseases for long. Hundreds of people there are daily admitted to hospitals following severe group attacks by dogs in the streets. The recent outbreaks of Dengue Fever rendered health services helpless, claimed hundreds of human lives and incapacitated tens of thousands more. Everyone talked about mosquitoes, stagnant pools, dirty canals and the like, but no one admitted the possibility these diseases being spread from dogs, lest it would be commented as trivial. With this many dogs on the loose in streets and houses, there may occur yet another outbreak of Dengue and Congo Fevers in Kerala which would be fatal. The health authorities and dog lovers know this but they fear revealing this for fear of retaliation from people.

Even W.H.O. articles on Chikungunya carefully remain vague about the role of the abundance of dogs.

Chikungunya is a viral disease closely similar to Dengue fever that recently swept through Africa, Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Europe andAmerica. As the African name denotes, it causes a contorted and stooped appearance and may take years and decades for the patient to get a slight relief. Full recovery is never. There is no treatment or vaccine available for this disease. Victims are incapacitated and cannot work or earn a living for many years. The destructing power of this virus is such that it is considered as an ideal agent for future biological weapons and warfare. Chikungunya is an Arboviral infection which need an animal reservoir host for the virus to survive and thrive in nature. It will need an animal reservoir host or a primate other than men to reside in and multiply for a time. Usually they are monkeys and dogs. Outbreaks of this disease happened very recently and very frequently too. Nothing especially happened in the environmental conditions of the world which was why world health authorities could not predict the coming of this disease. What they could not see clearly and take into account was the number of dogs increasing inconceivably everywhere. Or even if they knew, they were forced to remain silent about it, knowing well the iron hand of dog-lovers, many of whom the dignitaries who design and govern the modern world. Assuming all things in the environment remained the same, and also given that the number of some available animal host increased in the world considerably lately so as to cause repeated massive outbreaks of this disease, we are forced to believe that it was only the number of dogs in the world that increased lately, due to nations one after another blindly passing laws banning the killing of dogs. Even W.H.O. articles on Chikungunya carefully remain vague about the role of the abundance of dogs in bringing about this disease which is sweeping through almost all continents. Some get a few minutes’ pleasure from dogs and the world pays too high a price for the pleasure to be justified.

The orthodox Hindu Brahmins of India never allow dogs anywhere near their homes, temples and compound for fear of breach of sanctity and cleanliness.

Man spends millions from national revenue to keep children away from horrible communicable diseases which go useless due to his habit of keeping dogs inside his house. Perhaps it will amount to enough money to feed all hungry human beings in the world the year round. Grown up people with stronger bodies and more resistant defense systems can perhaps withstand the threat from diseases from house-dogs but young children and old people with weaker defense systems are sure to get these diseases. When they invariably get infected, the parents take them to hospitals resulting in a waste of the limited resources of the society, causing overcrowding in hospitals and making even more people vulnerable to diseases. The orthodox Hindu Brahmins of India never allow dogs anywhere near their home, temple or compound. They consider dogs entering those places a profane act and breach of sanctity and cleanliness. Where does all the drop-out hair of a house-dog go except to the digestive and respiratory systems of the occupants of the house?

Dog lovers eat cow, goat, oxen, pigs and chicken to their stomachs’ fill, ascend to their roofs and bark loudly that dogs shall not be killed.

Promoted to the post of partner.

Not all dog lovers are animal lovers. They eat cow, goat, oxen, pigs and chicken to their stomachs’ fill, ascend to their roofs and proclaim loudly that dogs shall not be killed. They parade through city streets demanding legislation on the killing of stray dogs roaming the streets. They move governments to ban killing of dogs. They sit in assemblies and sanction laws for dogs. When cows, buffaloes and sheep are slaughtered in millions, they speak nothing but eat them. We know that in whichever countries killing of dogs is prohibited, killing of cows, buffaloes, sheep, camels, horses and other useful animals are not prohibited. We all know that what behind this philosophy of theirs is their sexual desire for dogs. The other animals cannot be safely used for sexual purposes; dogs can be and are. It is not a new thing or news to the world, at least since the time of the notoriety of the Egyptian and Roman queens. That is why dogs barking incessantly from houses, causing noise and disturbance to neighbours, are not beaten and silenced. A dog which is once beaten can never again be used safely for sexual activities. So, even if the whole society turns against them, they will not beat and silence their dog. Dog lovers in this world are a very powerful lobby. Many laws which were long demanded by people are seldom introduced in parliaments of the world’s nations. But if somebody decides to introduce yet another law for dogs, it is introduced then and there and unanimously passed within days. The richer, more influential and more highly positioned a person is the more neglected him usually is by his children and society and left with only dogs for companionship in his loneliness. Many politicians, bureaucrats and law-makers, after night-long decision-making and partying, reach their homes just as vegetables. Many reach only up to their car sheds, not up to bed rooms. Dogs certainly are needed in those houses. If they ever return home after making anti-dog legislation or after taking any kind of action against dogs for sound pollution or public nuisance from constant barking they are out! After gays and lesbians, dog-lovers are the next to claim recognition as a community.

When and if the world desires so, dogs and their lovers will have to go outside the world.

The dog-lovers and dog activists in the world comprise only a fraction of not more than one percent of the human population. But their lust for dog has resulted in society loosing millions of precious human lives through diseases. It is people who have nothing to do with dogs who are dying of diseases originating from dogs. And the dogs’ incessant barking has become the new universal inescapable background noise of the world. If some one wishes to keep dogs, let them go first buy and install infra red dog-barking arresters. The world has the right to remain free from ugly diseases and unwanted sounds.

If this article is taken to a minister of state for governmental action against the dog problem he will not take action. If it is taken to some editor of a newspaper or a television channel, he will not publish it. If it is taken to a parliamentarian or a politician, he will not legislate. No one likes to antagonize his wives.

 

 

Dear Reader, You may have dissenting opinions on the views expressed here by the author but you are requested to kindly read the first and third articles of this trio here:

‘Houses Where Husbands Are Dogs And Dogs Are Husbands’.
‘Who said It is God’s Own Country? Kerala Is Now Dogs’ Own Country’.

 

To read about more similar present day follies of Kerala people,

click Kerala Commentary.

 

 

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Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons.
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Dear Reader,

You are invited to kindly visit the Author’s Web Site of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum at:

https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

Translations of this article in French, German, Spanish and Italian published in Knol.com can be read by clicking here.

http://knol.google.com/k/psremesh-chandran/-/2vin4sjqlcnot/0#collections

 

 

Tags

Articles, Chikungunya, Crimes Against Mankind, Dangers From Bedding With Dogs, Dengue Fever, Diseases Spread From Dogs, Dog Lovers Claiming Community Status, Dogs A Threat To Society, Dogs As Culprits In Zoonosis Diseases, English Literature, Essays, Houses Where Dogs Are Husbands, Houses Where Husbands Are Dogs, Meat Eaters Against Slaying Dogs, Medical Aspects Of Dog Problem, P S Remesh Chandran, Philosophy, Public Nuisance Of Dog Barking, Q Fever, Rabies, Reason Behind Dog Law Making, Sahyadri Books Bloom Books Trivandrum, Sexual Abuse Of Dogs, Social Criticism, The Snobbery That Is Dog Love

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra
Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan : The Intelligent Picture Book.

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