Those Wide Open Eyes

WHEN people set fire to public property which has become the pop-in-pill of the day they release a lot of toxic gas into the very air they breathe. The air which has already been polluted through mistakes of the past. What goes missing here, hind thought or the forethought? The greatest mistake, however, is that we forget the pairs of wide open eyes of little ones who study the mad acts of the adult world.

A father was holding a remote control in his hand while carrying on a heated argument with his son about plans for the son's higher studies, where both father and son differed dramatically at many points. Suddenly, the father slammed the poor electronic device down smashing it into a hundred pieces.

When people throw things down to break them into a thousand pieces in a fit of rage do they or do they not think of the trouble one has to face while cleaning up the mess? A serious question indeed. When such unwelcome actions are copied on screen in many movies how do we appreciate it? — as the director's authentic representation of life? Ok, so what credit does a child give the director? Over the course of many such scenes, the child subsequently learns another funny side of the adult world that may beckon him later!

The man who broke the remote control was a potato couch for whom going up to the television set to change channels was as tedious and irritating as climbing up a dozen flights of stairs. Yet, he did resort to it the following days until a new one arrived with an unnecessary bill! Then why on earth do people not manage their outbursts at least for their own sake? In their fit of anger they do not give a thought to those poor souls who have to clean up somebody's anger that scatters clumsily around. That is because when anger rears its head etiquette and decorum pick up their skirts and make for a run!

School results have come out in the sub-continent. I am saddened, not by the incredible number of flying colours, but by the number of suicides that followed as well. What is it that frightens these little angels who have so many other innocent qualities that adults have to learn from? A boy who secured a 90 per cent plus also chose the extreme tragic end.

What were his or his parents' expectations? A one hundred per cent? Was he too fast or were others' expectations fast. Some say he didn't have the financial facilities to steer him ahead. Maybe God had better plans for him! Needless to say that if we are not successful in saving our young ones from foolishly giving in to their emotions we haven't gained anything in terms of being role models.

Sometimes we don't understand why people stop loving themselves and rely greater on others' opinions on their self. Why do they give their precious selves up to others? The very next day I heard the news of a poor physically challenged person who was bitten in the face by a mad dog as people stood helplessly watching, fearing to go near the ferocious dog. He couldn't fend for himself as his entire structure was out of sync. Aren't we like the mad dog when we give in to the raging bull within us? We forget that we are blessed with every conceivable faculty to fend for ourselves against unconstructive emotions.

Tolerance is not a strained effort as many see it. If we strain to tolerate anger the persona of anger still remains with only a change of place. When tolerance is taken up with a pinch of strain, instead of heading for the other person it comes head on to yourself or simply burns the act itself giving no room for the light of peace that follows real tolerance. The "tolerator" ends up hating himself.

An easy way is, the moment we prepare ourselves to cool the fuming dragon, we have to believe that we are the owner of a particularly enlightened nature. We have to credit our merits and love ourselves. As we count our blessings we could also count some of the lovely forgiving angles in our nature that we are capable of. With that, we slowly fall in love with ourselves and that is the beginning of true life!

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Intriguing tale of the Pied Piper

A GRIPPING tale of a broken promise and an unusual act of retribution are all embedded in the legendary tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The tale has been immortalised in literature. Among others, the fairy-tale fame Grimm brothers shaped it into a coherent tale in German from several sources. The popularity of the legend in the English speaking world is primarily due to the absorbing children’s, poem by the famous British poet, Robert Browning (pictured).

The story has gained such popularity that the Rat Catcher’s Day is observed in some parts of the western world on July 22, believed to be the day in 1284, that witnessed the tragic event of the children of Hamelin being charmed away into oblivion. The course of events can be briefly stated thus. The town of Hamelin is suffering from a terrible plague of rats. The town council tries in vain to get rid of them. At last, in desperation, the Mayor promises 1,000 florins to anyone who can find a way out.

A stranger dressed in bright clothes turns up and claims he can carry out the task of clearing up the town of all rats. He does it in an ingenious way, playing his irresistible pipe and luring all the rats out of the town into the nearby Weser River, where they get drowned. It seems a simple and effortless solution. The Mayor now goes back on his words and refuses to pay the piper. The man left the town angrily, but is away not for long.

One Sunday morning when all the grown-ups are at church, the piper returns. Once again he plays his enchanting tune on the pipe. This time, all the children — one account specifies the number as one hundred and thirty boys and girls follow him out of the town gates. He leads them to the mountains and all of them disappear into a cave. The children are never again seen in Hamelin.

According to some versions, just two of the children stayed behind (one was lame and could not follow quickly enough, the other one was deaf). They anyway survived to tell the tale. There are variations on the ending of the tale too. According to one, the Piper lured the children into the river and let them drown sharing the fate of the rats. Yet another provides a happy ending where the children are returned safely after the repentant mayor and the people settled the payment to the satisfaction of the rat catcher.

The tale has captured the imagination of succeeding generations and has been kept alive in numerous ways. A stained glass window in the Church of Hamelin c. 1300 is one of the earliest works created in memory of the tragic event. There is a long-established law forbidding singing and music in one particular street of Hamelin, out of respect for the young victims: the Bungelosenstrasse. Bungelose Gasse means “Drumless Lane’. During public parades, including wedding processions, the band stops playing upon reaching this street and resumes only upon reaching the other side.

In 1803, the great German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote a poem based on the story. The tale was further popularised when Jakob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, the siblings known as the Brothers Grimm, famous for their fairy tales, presented their version of the tale drawing from eleven different sources and published it in 1816.

As for the English speaking world it was Robert Browning who wrote a poem for children The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and published it in 1842. Browning’s verse retelling is notable for its humour, fast pace, wordplay and jingling rhymes. An examination a few lines of the poem reveals this clearly.

‘Rats! They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women’s chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.’

There have been numerous other literary pieces inspired by the Pied Piper theme. A Czech novel by Victor Dyk (1915), a novel by Nevil Shute: Pied Piper (1942) and a play by Carl Zuckmayer (1975) are good instances. The fascination of the tale continues and finds expression in TV shows operas and radio plays.

The story has been depicted in more than ten films from 1903 to 1985. The 1933 version was an animated Walt Disney production in which the rats are lured by a mirage of cheese created by the Piper’s music and made to disappear into thin air. Folk singer Donovan starred in the 1972 film The Pied Piper, as the title character.

John Corigliano composed The Pied Piper Fantasy (1979-82), a concerto for flute and orchestra. In art, a curious form can be found at the entrance of Michael Jackson’s ranch, Neverland , where a lithograph shows Jackson as the Pied Piper. Whatever, the facts surrounding the original Hamelin episode, the tale has assumed such magical quality that it continues to emerge in various forms and genres and keeps succeeding generations enthralled.

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Mobile Phone Addiction

IN my house, a place where I risk being kicked out at anytime by my erratic landlord, there are four mobile phones in use. One for the mother of junior, one for the domestic assistant, one for junior and the other for me — the father of junior.

At one point in time they all rang at the same time and produced an organised noise that sounded like a Soweto choir. All the four phones have different ringing tones so that no one ever makes a mistake of picking somebody's. Each one of us in the house is attached to this small wireless devise that is used globally for mobile communication. At my work place the story is more or less the same.

One of my colleagues changes them at a frequency of one every three months. The other one tried to emulate the same thing but we later found out that he only changes the cover. Junior's sister who is still in her early years of lower primary school has already declared her intention of wanting to have one GSM (as she puts it).

I thought she didn't know what GSM stands for but she again amazed me by saying in her little and yet clear voice — 'Global System for Mobile communication'. This is a good example of how technology has advanced in my house. Besides the four mobile phones, there is a computer, a TV, laptop and a playStation among other things. Technology so scattered everywhere in the house that sometime I find it difficult when moving around the house and I have to dodge around things like the way the footballers do.

I don't know the reason why the sister of junior is interested in having a mobile phone, especially at her age. It might be the enjoyment that she gets by seeing her housemates using a GSM. I also don't know how junior managed to get a mobile phone and I hope it is not the result of him visiting my wallet without my consent. As for the sister of junior I am caught up in a dilemma of being the 'best father' or deny her the right of owning a GSM.

The title of being the 'best father' I surely want but I don't want my daughter to be addicted to mobile phones like many of her age I have seen. Junior does not concentrate well when his phone is not with him. Sometime ago he went to the extent of deceiving his grandma to try to get money to pay the bill. Junior spends a good number of hours per day talking, texting or playing games on his GSM.

The other day I went to wake my nephew who had overslept in his bedroom. After several attempts of shouting and shaking with my hands, I tried calling him on his mobile which was placed close to him. It worked like magic. My neighbour's kids have a problem of loosing sleep because of mobile phones. I am told that they take their mobiles to bed with them and hide it under the blankets texting their friends until the small hours of the morning.

I don't want the sister of junior to reach such a level of dependency because it is not easy to stop. I want to avoid this danger of a silent disease. Children who become dependant on mobile phones are at risk of starting to hunt around for money by stealing or lying to pay for their addiction. I am trying to amend things with junior and his sister's request has to be turned down unless she threatens to replace me with another father.

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Now Weekend Confusions!

I WAS a bit confused when the call came in. If you like, you can still see me at 2 pm today. I replied — but today is Thursday. Are you open till that time, or do I have to use the back entrance like in the past? Mr M, we are working full day today. You forgot the Banks are off nowadays on Fridays and Saturdays instead? Oh Sorry — is all I could say.

A relative was inviting the whole family for lunch on Saturday afternoon. Please try to be home early, at least by 2 pm The other relative cut in; did you say lunch or dinner? You know we work till 6 pm — Oh sorry, I forgot you are the old guards still on Thursdays and Fridays! Lucky you all — and stop teasing us and making fun of us all — we still are on a 6 day working week — my niece said, rather angrily and annoyed.

Do you see what I am getting at? The confusion has already begun, families split with exception of only that one day of Friday, for all to be together. I was talking to my sceptical angry friend about all the confusions coming out now! I told him — I told the pretty girl at the Bank (with her Trainee at her side) — you must be happy now you get two days off. Sure — she said — we all Staff working in the Banks are all happier and more motivated now than ever before.

At last we have been acknowledged and recognised — she told me — smiling broadly. You deserve it — I cut in — and Congratulations! She was doing a very good service for me. Makes a change from always complaining and grumbling customers, to this kinder gentler person — she admits to me. She smiles again, as she gives me my finalised documents.

My sceptical angry friend retorted to me — M, sometimes you really amaze and disappoint me. I expected better things from you! Now what have I done, I asked him. Do you see what this is leading to? What is leading what to? These new weekend things, he retorted. They are now splitting families in two, it is all purposefully designed. You know what — I replied.

At least now Oman is connected to the rest of the world 4 days a week, instead of 3 from before. I did not expect you to be hoodwinked that easily — he retorts. If the issue is the rest of the world, why don’t we also work on Fridays — and take Saturdays and Sundays off instead? It will surely make all the expatriates here all the happier, to be like at home.

Now do you see where this is leading too? No, I don’t — I replied ruefully. Now I know why I try hard to avoid this friend, if you can call him that. He is the same guy who cautioned a person I respected a lot — Hey be careful talking to M, he will write about you in his next week’s column, avoid him. The East African have this expression — if somebody has aimed to insult you, he does not have to choose his words carefully — whatever comes to mind is just okay and dandy. Actually the lesser you think about it, all the better!

Let me try again my sceptical angry (and now annoying) friend says to me — let us call him in short Mr Angry. Mr Angry continues — I guess you know who goes on holidays on Saturdays? I know I say, but what is the relevance. Everything — he retorts. If we want to work like the rest of the world, what about different time Zones, GMT, EST, etc? How will we cope with that? Take GMT for example. They start work at 9 am — that is 1 pm for us. Should we start work at 1 pm and finish at 9 pm (5 pm GMT)? That would be better. No? I give up — I say — I just give up.

I was about to take a dive and run out, when he gave me another bolt! You know what the good books have said? I will tell you. A time will come that we will just copy and emulate blindly, and we would be following that lizard (if it is the lizard that we are following), to follow that lizard into the crevice, and we would try to copy and emulate that lizard. My mind wonders off to following lizards and how a big sized man could ever cope and manage. Then reality strikes — whilst lost in thoughts, Mr Angry has walked away. It is no use, I hear him saying from far, they got you too — the last person I thought that they would succeed to catch!

The Gathering Storm Clouds!
Despite this disagreement with Mr Angry, there is something he said to me before the ‘differences’ on the weekend thing, which made a lot of sense to me, despite appearances and wanting not to hear. My Economics Professor had told me this long time ago — there is a difference between hearing and listening, I do not know which is which and what is the difference!

Mr Angry told me — do not be duped. We do not need another conflict in The Gulf (my two weeks back article). Mr Angry said to me — For the First time we Arabs of The Gulf have to wake up from the slumber, and think for ourselves and for ourselves. We should thoroughly self-analyse thing, go into deep soul searching, make a point and stand up. We must speak out, and make our voices very clearly and audibly heard. On our stand and position.

We should determine ourselves who are our real friends, and who are not — and not to just accept those who say they are, and we just go ahead and believe. We must determine our future and fate ourselves, decide things for ourselves — and be strong and firm about it!

The fact cannot be denied. We have a lot of peoples out there who are really envious and jealous of our progress and developments — and where we are now. They are not happy. They want to spoil and destroy things for us. They will be very happy to see we have lost on our progress and achievements. We will hurt more than them. We have to be very careful, very alert, watch out — and make our position very clear. We Do Not Need Another Conflict! God Help us all — Amin.

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You can’t solve all your problems

PROBLEM solving can be a skill that some are born with. Unfortunately, many people have trouble handling problems that come up whether serious issues or daily conflicts. Here are a few tricks to thinking your way through everyday problems and issues. Make sure you understand the problem completely. Get as much information as you can in order to make an informed decision about the problem. If the problem doesn't require a decision it's important you still learn as much as you can.

Talk to people in your support group such as friends, family, co-workers, other parents etc. Try to keep emotions out of it and talk facts. Try to remain as practical and fair as possible. Ask questions and get as many details as possible. Find if there is more than one person involved.

Chances are there are always hidden facts and sometimes knowing all the facts will help the problem solve itself. Don't be rushed into sorting through a problem. Think it through and don't be hasty. People will appreciate your careful thought more than a knee jerk reaction. Take time. You may be rushed to make an immediate decision but it's alright to tell them to give you time to make a decision. Tell them you need to think it through.

Make a list of pros and cons. Be honest and ask for feedback on your list from loved ones and co-workers if needed. Evaluate the list. Take quiet time to ponder the facts. A crazy environment is not the most conducive place to sort through a problem. Take a break, find a quiet place free of distractions and think it through. Consider rules, business practice if it's at work, your long term objectives and really if this is a major problem or a minor hassle. Ask yourself what aspects of the problem you really have control over and can influence.

Understand what is and what isn't within your control. Try to take personal feelings out of the equation and look at the facts at hand. Prioritise your list of pros and cons. Realise when you deal with certain problems not everyone will agree. Make a decision and stick to it. Whether this is how to move forward after a difficult time, a solution to your problem, the road to take to solve a problem, or just your state of mind to deal with an issue.

Do what you think is best at the time and you shouldn't regret your position. Take care of yourself. The most important person in difficult situations is you. Make yourself a list of things that need to change. You can't make all your problems go away, but you can learn from them so that the same things don't continue to happen. Realise that there are a lot of people with far worse problems in life. Put your problems in context and you'll make it through your obstacles and know how lucky you are. Not all problems are for you to sort through.

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Placemarks and 3D views in Google Earth

Let us continue our virtual journey with Google Earth this week also. Let us get to know how to use tilting views, Goggle Earth guides and the oldest online driving application from Xerox PARC. Hope by now you have downloaded Google Earth free version from http://earth.google.com/index.html and enjoying viewing high-resolution aerial and satellite images. Just as mentioned before the Internet connection bandwidth will decide how fast your images will download and how quick your transitions will be in zooming in or zooming out.

Grouping placemarks
Just as we learnt last week, placemarks are holders for locations and they also include relevant notes and images. You can move the cursor over any location in the viewer and see the co-ordinates for the location in the status bar at the bottom. Now you can create a placemark for a location by clicking on the Add item on the tool bar and selecting placemark (Ctrl+Shift+P).

The Geographic Web layer takes rich data from the Wikipedia (open source encyclopaedia with an informative article related to the spot), Panoramio (a community to post pictures taken on the spot), and the Google Earth Community and you can browse this as a layer in Google Earth. Now you can fly anywhere in the world and see what people have written about it, photographed, or posted by simply enabling this layer in the Layers Window. Refer the image of the leaning Tower of Pisa as shown below.

Note that with all those photographs and notes the image looks cluttered if the Geographic Web layer is turned ON. But clicking on those icons leads to very good images and notes from the Google Earth Community members.

Similarly, the layers can be used to create your own group of placemarks. So this layer can be turned ON or OFF as required. Once you mark your place make certain the pushpin is in the right place at the closest zoom view possible. After this to share your placemark with the Google Earth Community through the bulletin board system (http://bbs.keyhole.com), right click on the Pushpin and click Share/Post. For this you must sign up and join as a member of the Google community.

Every couple of months, the Google Earth Community layer is updated with the new posts from the online community. So it may be a few months before your posts start showing up in the Geographic Web layer. There are existing layers for showing Roads with names, Weather tags, Borders, Places of Interest like restaurants, hospitals, tourism spots, etc.

Viewing in 3D
In certain cities of the world, it is possible to view the buildings in three dimensions. For this the 3D layer must be enabled and the buildings show up as grey shaded boxes. Use the tilt navigation control to view the buildings in 3D. Here we have tried to view the Dam Square in Amsterdam in 3D. Getting used to the rotate, zoom and tilt control will need some time to get used to and the resulting image is worth the view.

Let us continue next week on how to use Google Earth to find travel directions for our holiday trips and also take a free virtual tool customised to show the potentials of the Google Earth software. Until then enjoy going places virtually. My recommendation is the list of new seven world wonders:

l Chichen Itza Mayan ruins, Yucatan, Mexico
l Statue of Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
l Colosseum, Rome, Italy
l The Great Wall, China
l Ruins of Machu Picchu, Cuzco, Peru
l Petra, Jordan
l Taj Mahal, Agra, India
l Giza Pyramids, Cairo, Egypt

The author is a technology evangelist working as Consultant at the Information Technology Authority of Oman and can be contacted at sendsangita@gmail.com.

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The Unstoppable Mr ‘Laugh-Riot’ Beesch

MEET Mr “Laugh Riot” Greg Beesch (www.thepoisonpen.net), author of The Poison Pen, self-described man of “twisted steel and sex appeal”, dismisser of all things ‘traditional publishing model’, and creator of a most ‘impeccable’ role model for boys (and girls) ages 15 to 115.

For all of us whose memories are soaked in Enid Blyton’s escapades about Mallory Towers, here’s some Americana Boarding School lore to dig into! Buy it at Amazon.com, Booksurge.com, and Alibris.com. And if you have questions for the author, I’d be happy to pass the message on. Write to bigmomentum@hotmail.com

Could you give us something in the way of a bio?
Born a Taurus. I’m 42, 5'10'', 175 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal, my eyes are blue and of such a vivid intensity that women swoon. I have curly brown hair which is a little long right now, not of Kramer-esque or manfro levels but getting into the Mike Brady of Brady Bunch fame season three level. I live in Arizona, I’m married to a spectacular woman and I have two daughters.

Is this your first book?
First book, yes. First piece of fiction I’ve written since I had to write an essay for a college admission application back in high school.
How would you describe it?
The single greatest book about teens ever written, absolutely a classic among any genre that includes the descriptor ‘boarding school’, most definitely highly entertaining, of a certainty a total laugh riot, highly probably a vacation or beach reading essential, really just an infinitely enjoyable escapist fairy tale.

Sedition and subversive behaviour are main themes in your book, why?
They go part and parcel of the teen experience, especially for a boy, especially coming of age in America. Sedition and subversive behaviour are key human traits when confronted by tyranny of any kind, that is, not just governmentally sponsored tyranny. The US has a fine tradition, both before and especially after its creation, of its citizenry writing for the purpose of good old fashion mayhem.

Is your book appropriate for, let’s say, a 15- or 16-year-old?
I would say yes. It does have some profanity, but let’s face it, nothing that a 13- or 14-year-old hasn’t heard at school. There is no sex, though there is a lot of teen romance, and almost no violence although the main character breaks just about every school and social rule there is, but, of course, in a very funny way.

Alright, since it was your first novel, was it a difficult process writing it?
No, not at all, like falling off a bike when you’re bombed out of your gourd on home vinted strawberry wine. One of the funniest and easiest endeavours I’ve ever attempted and it made me a much much better typist, which is always a bonus.

Let’s continue on. What qualifications do you have as a writer?
Qualifications? I have a BA in Political Science and an MBA from Arizona State University and 20 years of work experience writing some of the most sublime memos, proposals, business plans, e-mails, and miscellaneous missives since the invention of the written word, kid you NOT.

Yes, well, most people who are writers have a degree in literature, maybe and MFA, a list of previous writing.
Oh, so by qualifications you mean an arbitrary set of criteria determined by a small group of lower order life forms?
No, I mean...
I’ll put my MBA against anyone’s MFA anytime.
Most people would not put an MBA as a criteria for qualification for writing a novel.

Of course, because analytical rigour is as foreign to the publishing industry as....well, an analogy of appropriate magnitude eludes me at the moment. The publishing industry mystifies the process, you know, ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain’, to the detriment of book sales and reading in general in the United States.

What writers have been influential?
P G Wodehouse, first and foremost. I think that despite the sheer volume of his works he is almost completely unknown in the mainstream US, which is kind of funny since he invented the character of Jeeves, the butler, and that reference is known but not Wodehouse himself.

Others?
Old school influences would be Evelyn Waugh, Ambrose Bierce, and Mark Twain. More modern would be Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe and Philip Caputo off the top of my pointy head.

No Bukowski?
A: Oh sure.
Let’s talk about the nascent prep/boarding school genre, as you refer to it, you have mentioned Tobias Wolff’s Old School and Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. When did you read those and were they an inspiration or an influence when writing The Poison Pen of Aberdeen Prep.?
I read Old School about the time I was finishing up The Poison Pen and really loved it, but Old School is literary, The Poison Pen is fun, the tone in The Poison Pen is definitely more Wodehouse than Wolff.

When you first describe The Poison Pen to me you said, ‘If Wodehouse rewrote Prep and made sedition the theme that would be The Poison Pen. So Prep was an influence also?
Oh yeah, I read Prep about nine months after reading Old School. I was in the Newark airport and saw it at a book kiosk, I bought it and spent the entire plane ride (four hours) reading it. When I landed back in Phoenix I wanted to sit in the car in the parking garage and finish it.

What about it?
I related to the setting, that is, boarding school. I related to the emotional travails of the main character, Lee Fiora, that is, the self consciousness, the doubt, you know, all the teen turmoil, but as much as I loved the character I hated the plot, well, really the last 30 pages. I mean, I was depressed when I finished it, I wanted more for her, I wanted some triumph

You decided to self-publish, why?
Going about the process of getting the book published, that is, researching agents and publishing houses, reviewing submission procedures and forms, writing and submitting query letters, I came to realise that from a business process perspective the publishing industry was broken.

To put it quite simply, there was an enormous entrenched bureaucracy in between me, as the author of a book, and the buying consumer. I saw no reason why I should buy into what I recognised as a broken business model (see my website www.thepoisonpen.net). So I tossed out any idea of going through an agent or publishing house and once freed of that artificial constraint and then examining the numerous technological options I decided I would self-publish.

Where is the book available?
Through Amazon.com, Booksurge.com, and Alibris.com
And what is your website again?
Absolutely, http://www.thepoisonpen.net/, the greatest book website in existence. Questions for the author? E-mail: Info@writersstudioworkshops.com

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