Mahendra Nath's Site

 

                              CHAPTER I

THERE IS A GARDEN IN YOUR FACE,

                           PRIYA  

 

THERE is a garden in her face 
   Where roses and white lilies blow; 
A heavenly paradise is that place, 
   Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow: 
   There cherries grow which none may buy 
   Till 'Cherry-ripe' themselves do cry. 

Those cherries fairly do enclose 
   Of orient pearl a double row, 
Which when her lovely laughter shows, 
   They look like rose-buds fill'd with snow; 
   Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy 
   Till 'Cherry-ripe' themselves do cry. 

Her eyes like angels watch them still; 
   Her brows like bended bows do stand, 
Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill 
   All that attempt with eye or hand 
   Those sacred cherries to come nigh, 
   Till 'Cherry-ripe' themselves do cry.   

This poem of Thomas Campion penned some four hundred years ago aptly describes you. From the time I saw you first as a month-old baby in Tobago, I have found your face a veritable garden – indeed the delight with which I am filled on seeing you is the one which I had experienced first on coming across the Valley of Flowers In Himalayas in 1957! 

Since you remind me so much of your father, I quote some unconnected passages from my book Remembrance of My Indian Past to give you some samples of the great and precious time he, I and Amma had together from the time we discovered he was on his way to join us.        

In Calcutta (early 1961) the leaves on trees hung down thick and fleshy and had not begun to curl up yet. Presently Usham (Amma –my wife and your grandmother) suspected that she was pregnant and a visit to the doctor confirmed that to be a fact. I was, for a moment, bemused by the thought that I was going to be a father. I was surprised, and a little bit awed by the fact, like a person who learns unexpectedly that he has inherited a million dollars, all lying in the bank for him to draw on. I bought several books on how to handle, nay nurture a pregnancy and wished to make it a great project.”   

While Usham’s pregnancy was in an advanced stage a telegram came from Bhopal informing us of the sudden death of her uncle from a heart attack. Apparently he had overstrained himself while suing the Begum of Bhopal for the throne – he thought it was his right to inherit it after the death of the Nawab of Bhopal. At that time he was in England, as the Begum, an erstwhile ruler of an Indian state could not be sued in India. Usham was very upset but because of her condition we refrained from going to Bhopal. Nevertheless, I was glad that before he passed away I had been instrumental in making peace between Usham  and her uncle.

 

As the time for the birth of the baby approached, Usham’s mother and grandmother paid us a visit. Many an evening did we all spend pleasantly. And one evening I even got kicked by the yet unborn baby while sitting adjacent to Usham’s tummy while she lay on her bed!

It was raining intensely on the afternoon of 6 September 1961 when the baby was born. From the Calcutta Military Hospital I drove to the head post office to send telegrams to my parents and Zia’s aunt in Bhopal about the birth and then came home to look in the Ramayana for a suitable name. On the page that I opened, the first name that stood out, was Varun. And that was the name given to our bundle of joy which was duly registered at Calcutta Corporation and reported in the Army Returns.

We enjoyed bringing up Varun who rolled about on our sitting room’s rug or in his playpen when not in the maid’s, Usham’s or my lap. He had no cares, no responsibilities. Any object that he could get hold of, he tried to break by throwing it with his full power. He knew he was the centre of attraction when any visitors came; and we both loved showing off a happy and laughing son to them. In the mornings Usham would give him an oil massage and then leave him on a bed in the compound for sunbathing. During the day he amused himself with several toys, especially cars that he had acquired, and in the evenings I had to carry him all the time whether at home or visiting people. All the time he was serious about his food so much so that all my shirt and coat jackets bore the marks of his milky mouth. 

Baooa (my mother) gave us the pleasure of coming to us to take care of Usham and the baby for a few weeks. I really haven’t met anybody else in my life that is satisfied with so little, is completely non-demanding, is always ready to help others, and is thrilled by small pleasures. She loved living at our Fort George home, which was so near the officers mess, the club, the library and the medical inspection room. She freed Usham and me from all worries of running the home and taking care of Varun, and still displayed great enthusiasm for sightseeing and eating out at restaurants in Calcutta. 

Varun was dark like me, handsome like his mother, and tall for his age. Usham’s thoughts centred on him as long as she was awake. I started planning his welfare and for the first time started saving money for him. Varun was the pivot of the house; every desire ended somewhere in him. Usham and I had ceased to be self-justifying beings; we never thought of ourselves save as the parents of Varun. Perhaps he knew all about his importance. Even when he was punished – which was quite often – he was made to understand that it was because much was expected from him. 

Varun undertook his first train journey when he was just three months old. We went to Aligarh to attend my brother Pashe’s wedding. We brought along the maid to take care of him during the humdrum of the marriage. Again Varun enchanted all and sundry at Aligarh, especially my father, who doted on him as long as he lived. Baooa, as usual was thrilled with Varun’s antics. 

Calcutta was at its best in late December 1961. The weather was nippy enough to make us forget the normal sultry heat. There was an air of celebration, especially in army circles, because of our success in Goa, and the Christmas season blazed a sense of prosperity of its own. There was a continuous round of lunches, cocktail parties, dinners and dances. Above all Zia, Varun and I had settled down to a beautiful relationship. When Zia and Varun smiled – it was heaven. Their smiles of affection and happiness were such a lovely natural phenomenon that they made me want to shed tears. And this is no hyperbole.

In Apri 1962 we arrived at Shillong where I was now posted as the Garrison Engineer. On the very next evening, the Dosses (our neighbours) came over to visit us with their two little boys, one aged two and the other three. We let the boys go in and play with Varun who was still in the crawling stage. The four of us settled down to some serious drinking and socialising. I had left the curtain of Varun’s room half-drawn in such a manner that I could still watch the children, especially after Dusty had warned us that their sons were rather rough. I had hardly sat down after serving the drinks when I was astounded to see Varun trying to stand up while supporting himself by holding the legs of the two-year-old, who had picked one of Varun’s toys. No sooner was he able to stand erect that Varun freed his left hand and slapped the right cheek of the picker of his toy with all his strength. Then promptly and quickly he assumed his normal crawling position. The boy came screaming to his parents complaining that Varun had hit him. The parents would not believe that a baby only a few months old who could not even walk could do this, and chastised their son for what they thought was his fabrication. For the first time, but not the last, I had to intervene and admit that my son was not the greatest saint of the millennium.

In August 1964 I was posted to Rupa in NEFA where families could not go. If packing was complicated, the travelling and breaking journey at different venues was even more labyrinthine. We had to change trains at Lucknow to go to Aligarh (where Usham, Varun and Ira would stay); while taking stock of the luggage and engaging coolies all of a sudden it dawned on us that Varun was missing. Both Usham and I were immediately in panic mode and I could hardly bear to look at her when Usham dejectedly asked me, ‘Where is Varun?’ Our cook Jagdish, Usham, and I were running like headless chickens on various railway platforms looking for Varun. All of a sudden I was startled to see the two-and-a-half-year-old Varun merrily walking around inspecting a train which had just arrived on a platform. I promptly picked him up, hugged him and took him to an ecstatic Usham with Varun wondering what the fuss was all about!

y regiment was moved to Punjab in June 1965 and I was set to fight a war with Pakistan. And it was exhilarating to see in Usham’s eye pride for having such a husband. Even little Varun went bragging to everybody, ‘My daddy is going to fight the Pakistanis.’ At the end of July it was all quiet on the western front and I asked Mummy and the mites to come to Jalandhar for a few days which they were delighted to do. Dolly was a great hit and my 21C, Lieutenant Aul would carry her on his shoulders to show off to the troops of the company who would be enchanted by her. And Varun would come to my office tent to learn about the command of troops. But when he found that I spent most of my time in making plans on maps and giving orders to the officers whereas the company subedar really dealt with the men and exercised the real power, I discerned a shift in the object of his admiration. Soon he would declare that his ambition was to become a subedar when he grew up!

On annual leave in 1965 I packed my family in ny Standard Companion car and headed for Srinagar in Kashmir, And when one day Varun fell in the lake from the houseboat and I had to jump in the water to rescue him, I decided that it was time to go back much as I loved floating in the calm blue waters of the Dal Lake and viewing the surrounding hills in meditation.

My response to the regiment’s move to Jalandhar (after the September war) was to book a suite in the MES Inspection Bungalow and send for my beautiful wife and lovely children, Varun and Ira. And when they did come the whole family was in a state of frenzied worship and idolatry. They thought I was a war hero and to me they were the best family a guy could wish for. Ira, who was not yet two years old, went around the company lines in the lap of my subalterns and charmed all the battle-fatigued sappers while Varun played with the men on the playing fields. In the evenings the young officers – and not so young officers – turned up to call on Usham and I, and dispersed only when all of us (except Usham) were drunk  

But the New Year’s Day of 1966 temporarily closed my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men. It was my thirty-fourth official birthday and I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the New Year. There was so much to learn about the art of war for one thing, and so much enjoyment to be derived from Varun and Dolly.

Formy  attending Staff College we had to move to Wellington. If Varun didn’t display great genius in his studies, he was great company at all our outdoor activities – of which there were aplenty in Ootacamund (Ooty for short) and during social gatherings. One day when I playfully complained to a visiting couple that my son was four but he still did not know his ABCD (alphabet – Indian style), Varun was quick to contradict me. When asked to prove it by reciting the ABCD, he quickly said A B C D and felt content at having made his point.

After assuming command of 4 Engineer Regiment at Rangiya I had to come to Mhow to attend a Senior Officers’ Course. My worries abated a little when at last Usham accepted the offer of my company at Sagar to lend a driver to drive her and the children to Mhow in my car. But that was at a big price. The old lady persuaded Usham to let her take away Rashmi, whom we called Fairy, to Bangalore with her. Both Varun and Dolly were thrilled to join me. Six-year-old Varun would go around telling all the orderlies proudly that his father had been promoted to be a colonel while three-year-old Dolly would insist on sleeping in my bed – and in the process shortening my sleep time. The children and Usham also shortened my desire to find God in a hurry or to do well in the course and I spent the three months of the course more in enjoying their company rather than on studies.

Charming news came from home too (when I had gone back to the regiment from Mhow). Little Dolly was admitted to a school for the first time in her life – a Roman Catholic convent. A present of six beer bottles to the principal had made admission to the convent easy. Seven-year-old Varun wrote his first letter to me assuring me that he was doing fine in his studies and urging me to come back soon to him. And to keep myself informed on Rashmi, I entered into correspondence with Aapma (Usham’s mother) and even invited her to come to Sagar during June and July when I expected to be there during my annual leave – that being the only way I could see my fairy of a daughter.

After a year the Regiment moved to Chandigarh. Anxious, as ever, to be united with my family I rushed to Sagar at the earliest opportunity to reclaim my family. Expecting opposition from me for retaining Fairy with her, Apama bolted to Bangalore with Fairy before I could reach Sagar. I drove back my truncated family to Chandigarh, and we all had a great time on the way stopping at Jhansi, Agra (where I showed my favourite building in the world, Taj Mahal, to Varun, Dolly and Shams), and Delhi. 

To Bangalore now I was posted. Not to be denied to me were the pleasures of watching Varun, Dolly, and Fairy grow. Their birthdays would be celebrated with the cypress tree in the compound of our house adorned with festoons of coloured lights and the house being thrown open to an assortment of children, relatives, and friends. While the children would play games and wade into cakes and other food at the lawns, the older people would get soaked with drinks inside the house. Varun and Dolly would stick to me whether it was for dosa breakfast at the Rose Garden of the battalion or one of the innumerable functions at the centre. 

No success or failure meant anything to me when I looked at my three growing children. Varun was always playful; he looked neither to left nor to right, nor into the far distance – he revolved within his own little circle of thoughts. He was handsome, slim, well made; I drew my breath with delight watching him bowling fast left-handed while playing cricket with his friends in the backyard of our house.

At Simla I arrived in April 1972.  KK (Manager of Cecil Hotel) immediately offered me a suite at the  Hotel to which I welcomed Usham and Dolly. Varun joined us later on completion of his school term; but Fairy not at all. Shams said her mother would just not part with our daughter – this caused not only disappointment to me but some tension between Shams and me. Even so, I had a great time with Varun and Dolly in Shimla.

When I had to proceed on a week’s reconnaissance to Rohtang Pass and beyond, Varun said he wanted to come with me, and I got special permission to spend that adventure week with him. We drove off in a Jonga, one rainy morning from Shimla and had lunch at Bilaspur while having a great view of the impressive Govind Sagar Lake. Passing through some very enchanting scenery comprising numerous streams and densely green hills, Varun was introduced to obstacle training while crossing at a ford at Sundernagar and negotiating the road cut away by a few landslides. At Mandi, where we spent a night, I was delighted to show Varun how Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism flourished in harmony.

Another day’s adventurous drive brought us to the unbelievably lovely valley of Kulu. Varun and I walked through the streets of Kulu and had our dinner in the company of some local drunkards! At Manali we had our meals in slightly better surrounding – the officers mess of 38 Border Roads Task Force. The drunkards here were more respectful than at Kulu. Varun was fascinated by the view from Rohtang Pass, where I took a memorable picture of his. I even took him to a track to Trilokinath to have a look at the ancient temple and the panoramic view from there – and in the process escaped a landslide by minutes. I was proud to notice that nowhere did Varun show any signs of fear and took all adversities in his stride.

A mild heart attack visited me in November 1974. I was now on notice that anywhere, at any time, another heart attack could transform me in moments into an invalid, a person at the mercy of oxygen cylinders, glucose, tubes, and wires. Varun from Cuttack and Dolly – even at this hour Aapma refused to send Fairy to me – came for Christmas holidays and were sad to see me in bed. When I looked at the innocent love of Dolly and Varun, I knew I had to believe in the impossible for their sake. I decided not to settle for a sedentary life to protect my health. Rather I would become fit again, go to Trinidad, and claim a second life for myself, and a better future for the children. Happily, at the end of my six weeks’ confinement at the Military Hospital in Simla, I was given three weeks’ sick leave, and a train warrant to proceed to Bangalore for assessment of my military category, in health terms, at the Military Hospital there. Seizing it as a holiday opportunity, Shams, Varun, and Dolly decided to accompany me; in any event they would have not left a sick me to go alone.

On the evening of 21 May I saw Shams, Varun, and Dolly off to Bangalore at Delhi railway station and then headed to Palam Airport to catch my BOAC flight to London en route to Trinidad and Tobago. The speed of the taxiing aircraft increased and as it took off I had a peep at the receding lights of Delhi, bid farewell to my Indian past, and slipped into peaceful sleep.

Your father’s passage from childhood to youth can be best fathomed from the following passages that I wrote in Venice of the Caribbean.

‘My mother would not just part with Rashmi’ said my wife as an explanation for leaving behind our youngest daughter in India when I received her and the other two children at Piarco. I hid my disappointment or at least did not express it in the forceful terms that I felt in my heart. After all I was seeing my flower-like beauteous wife Zia, my thirteen-year-old son Varun who was as excellent in figure as in face, and my very lovely daughter Ira, after a lapse of more than two months. Quite surprisingly, the whole family took a remarkably short time to settle down in Tobago. Eugene Blackette the school supervisor readily accepted Varun in to Form III at Bishop’s High School.

Six weeks’ vacation in 1978 was spent in India and Europe with the family. On reaching London, in compliance with my father’s  advice, with Varun in tow I took a train to Bolton to discuss his admission for ‘A’ levels with the Principal of Bolton Institute of Technology, Professor Ramsay. As we chatted Ramsey revealed that his father had served in the Indian Army and he remembered that he was four years old when his father attended a Staff Course at Wellington. I told him that he and Varun had something in common – “both of you were four years old when your fathers attended the staff course at Wellington, albeit 30 years apart”. Thrilled at this bond between us, Ramsey assured me he would take care of Varun’s admission once his ‘O’ level results were not too bad. Mystical are the straws on which the human race clings to forge bonds of brotherhood. 

The six-week holiday, in great cities not seen earlier and in familiar Delhi and my hometown with my family during which I also tied up purchase of a house and Varun’s further education, had been enjoyable and educative and will always remain memorable. Even so, we were all quite happy returning to our small den in the obscure Tobago.  

With me caught in this labyrinth, came Varun’s outstanding (by the family standards) ‘O’ Level results. Professor Ramsay’s telegram from England accepting Varun in Bolton Institute of Technology followed. Bravely, the 16-year-old Varun volunteered to proceed to his new destination unescorted. And many anxious days Zia and I suffered before we got a cable form Prof Ramsay confirming that Varun was well settled at the Bolton Institute of Technology. 

Varun had gone back to his School in Bolton for his final year of ‘A’ levels and when Ira’s ‘O’ level results came out in September 1979, she remarked rather sarcastically that because she was a girl she would probably be required to pursue her A levels in Tobago itself. I saw no point in trying to convince her that she could study English Literature and History in Tobago but Varun had to go to Bolton for his Science subjects. 

Nonetheless, Ira was admitted at Oakdene School, Beaconsfield, and there I escorted her. Giving time to Ira to settle down in Boarding School, I entrained for Manchester enroute to Bolton to give Varun a surprise. It was late in the night when I reached Bolton; I checked into a Hotel and reached Bolton Institute of Technology early in the morning. And sitting down on the steps of his classroom building I filmed Varun’s surprise reaction on seeing me. Quite different was the environment of Varun’s School from that of Ira’s. Here the emphasis was on economy of expenses. Varun shared an apartment with two others and they all did their own cooking. Emphasis was on obtaining the education as cheaply and as early as possible. And on the Brotherhood of ?Man. I always had this premonition that I would play a big part in my children’s education. And I was not too unhappy at my role thus far. Above all I was happy that both Beaconsfield and Bolton were small towns and quite different from and cleaner than London. 

I asked Varun to come to Beaconsfield with me for the weekend and a Receptionist whose legs were exposed to the last quarter of the thigh checked us into a Hotel. And thanks to my training in the ancient mode of politeness, the receptionist agreed that even Ira could stay in our room. 

Ira was delighted to join us at the Hotel where we subsisted on exotic sandwiches and Fish and Chips. I took the opportunity to ring up Papa in India to apprise him of Varun and Ira’s progress in their education. Even so, as I embarked on my return journey I had a sort of satisfaction for also embarking upon the payment cycle of a debt to my children. Education at an environment away from a small island would at least help Varun and Ira realize their potentialities, and it would help them not only to make their living but also to live. 

On an autumn morning in 1980 the female members of my family and I took a flight to New York. The idea was to give Zia and Rashmi a week in Manhattan before escorting Ira to her school in England. Varun had declined this family venture, explaining, “I don’t like America”.

A telephone call to Varun in Tobago revealed that he was heeding an acceptance letter from Plymouth Polytechnic for a B.Sc.Civil Engineering course and that he did not have any aversion to England. That was very kind of him considering the tuition fees for overseas students in England had been recently raised sky high by Thatcherite policies. Demonstrations by wary parents in Port of Spain against this rise were as ineffective as the call by the British Labour leader, James Callaghan, to his party to unite against other manifestations of Thatcherism. Even so, I thanked Varun for his graciousness and assured him that I would take care of the little matter of the fees.

As is wont with me, my return flight to London (from India) got delayed by several hours and the plane landed at Heathrow at the unearthly hour of 2 A.M. On checking in at the apartment at Victoria a combination of the autumn chill and comfortably warm quilt kept me in bed till late in the afternoon. Next day I picked up Ira from her school for a train journey to Plymouth where Varun was now studying Civil Engineering. When we reached there a slight hitch presented itself. Neither of us knew where Varun was living. Ira got the brilliant idea of checking at the college Library. And to be sure, there he was, fully bearded and once again surprised at his father’s unexpected visit.

             To be in Plymouth with Varun and Ira was to be out of time and pace. Their fears and dreams drove everything else out of my head. When they feared they would not be able to complete their tough study assignments in England, I told them they could always come back to Tobago where Varun would become a truck driver and Ira a clerk in some Office. Varun retorted that as a failed engineer he would rather look for a Commission in the Indian Army and Ira’s witty response was that failure to get an appropriate degree might qualify her for a Project Coordinator’s job in Tobago! I need not have had any anxiety about these two. Next day it was bright and sunny; we walked over to Hue Point, took some movies with my Super8 camera, and I found myself to be content and past all serious desire for anything. Gautam Buddha was right: to want is to suffer. 

For my installation as President of the Rotary Club of Tobago my son, Varun, arrived in the evening after completing his First year studies at Plymouth University. I picked him up from Crown Point Airport on my way to Mount Irvine Hotel where the Rotary meeting was to take place. Here he shaved, washed, and changed into presentable clothes. I commenced the Meeting by saying, ‘Gentlemen, the Chief Guest today needs no introduction; we haven’t got one!’ Varun was not amused; he presumed he was the Chief Guest. 

I now took six weeks leave and embarked on a journey to India together with Zia and Rashmi. In London we stopped for a few days to break our 22 hour long journey in two and also to meet Varun who came from Plymouth to be with us. We rented an apartment and a car and took in a few sights of London. We were accepted much as our traveler’s cheques were accepted, because there was a belief we were worth something. The movie ‘Gandhi’ had just been released and we went to see it in a packed – packed with a mainstream audience –house.

In June of that year our son, Varun, had come back after passing his B.Sc. Engineering examination at Plymouth and was planning a few months of leisure in Tobago. I had other ideas. I rang up my friend, Tiny Lewis, who lived in Tobago but worked for A De B Consultants in Trinidad. That was the time when engineers were still in shortage in the Country and Tiny fixed up a time to see Varun at our home the following Saturday morning for a preliminary interview. Tiny brought his pretty daughter with him and the interview was conducted over Gin and Tonic with Tiny’s daughter and Varun’s father in attendance - Zia had excused herself from this triviality. Since the two youngsters were more interested in watching cartoons on the television I took it upon myself to answer Tiny’s questions to Varun. At the end of the interview Tiny asked Varun to report to the Head Office where his final interview would be conducted. When Tiny left I expected a big thank you hug from my son. Instead he addressed me thus: ‘Daddy, it was good of you to have done my work at this interview; but do not expect an invitation to my wedding’. And when Varun did get married a couple of years later he stuck to his words, albeit for different fears

Zia and I were not excluded from attending his Convocation though which was held later in the year at Plymouth. Three of us – Zia, Varun and I - flew to London where we spent two days tugged in our quilts and scouring local newspapers and the latest books. 

The drive in a rented car from London to Plymouth offered its own spots where we wanted to stop. And none greater than the sight of a place, which was all doors, and pillars of stone, some connected above by continuous architraves. It beckoned me from a distance like the domes of temples did during my long drives in India.

‘A temple of the Wind God, Varun’, I said.

“It is Stonehenge”, said Varun. “

‘The heathen temple’, Zia contributed. At this I inserted a bookmark in my life to return to the spot sometime in the future.

A two-bedroom cottage that I had booked on a cliff near Plymouth proved to be charming and spacious for 9 pounds a night. After checking-in, we drove to Varun’s old residence where he introduced his girl friend at Plymouth, Nishi, to us. Nishi was a plain Sikh girl who was obviously delighted at seeing Varun again. Without fanfare Varun asked her to shift to our cottage for the weekend. Nishi pondered for a while as a bather might before taking a dip in the cold waters of a river, and decided to take the dip. Thereafter without hypocrisy or reluctance she shared Varun’s room. Varun, on his part, told us he intended marrying Nishi. Four of us then spent the weekend in sightseeing, cooking, dining out, and leisurely walks. 

The following Monday was Varun’s convocation and both Zia and I felt proud to see our son receiving his degree in his academic gown after the customary speeches from the Vice Chancellor and the Chief Guest. A reception and dinner for the graduates and their guests followed at which we had the pleasure of meeting some other long suffering parents and their much relieved children. All parties seemed to be happy at the prospect of the children becoming self-supporting. 

Not so happy at the prospect of marriage between Varun and Nishi was Varun’s old landlady at Plymouth. She was conservatively English and disapproved of Nishi’s non-puritan ways, feared theirs might not be a happy union, and told us so. And when I related the fears of his landlady to Varun, he simply told me, ‘Daddy trust me I will be happy in any case. We intend having a happy marriage, if we don’t, we will divorce and be happy with somebody else’. I could not argue with his logic even as I disagreed with it philosophically. 

My son of twenty-two years, Varun, was now Resident Engineer of a project for PTSC to build a workshop in Tobago that drew a visit from Prime Minister George Chambers during one of his sojourns to Tobago. 

Lately Varun had been talking about getting married. I thought it was too early for him to get into that great institution; he should rather go to Reading University for a M.Sc. in Construction Management and that is where I sent his application for admission. Whatever reluctance he had for the course was removed when his employers agreed to supplement his own resources without any strings attached – they were downsizing at that period.  Being in London in late September of 1985 looked like arriving at one’s second home when at Heathrow we rented a car that took the whole family to our pre-arranged flat at Chartleigh Apartments in Victoria. Entrusting Varun with the responsibility of escorting Rashmi to Bradford, Zia and I stayed behind to make sure that Ira was taken care of while her leg was still in plaster. 

Expecting to find Rashmi in an exuberant mood for being where she wanted to be, we were a bit surprised to find her somewhat morose. Apparently for the three days Varun had been there he had terrorized all her male classmates who had dared to make acquaintance with his sister. 

More delicious than the best cake in the world was the baby on whom I set my eyes on returning home one afternoon from my foray to Trinidad. Leila, whom I had known as Varun’s girl friend brought beautiful baby Priya and introduced her as our grandchild. Apparently while I was stabilizing the road to Castara almost a year earlier my son was stabilizing his relationship with Leila by tying the wedding knot. And true to his word, he had chosen not to inform us. Perhaps the credit should go to the parents of Leila who divined that I was not a suitable person to be invited to the wedding of their daughter. I don’t understand to this day why Varun wanted to be so different as to deny himself – and us – a well-attended wedding ceremony. For the first two years Priya spurned all my initiatives to be friends with her. But our meeting in Reading in 1987 transformed our relationship to a great loving and lasting friendship that has certainly made me richer for the experience.

                                   

  CHAPTER II - A SYNOPSIS OF WORLD HISTORY

 

Overview: Waves of World History

World history is the story of human experience. It is a story of how people, ideas, and goods spread across the earth creating our past and our present. To help us better understand this experience, we will divide history into four main eras: prehistory, ancient times, middle ages, and modern times. Our story begins during prehistory in east Africa where human life began. From Africa humans spread to Eurasia (Europe and Asia), to Australia, and finally to the Americas. Human migration was one of the great waves of history.

Prehistory

During most of history, most humans made their living by hunting and gathering. Then about 12,000 years ago, people in the Middle East learned how to raise a wild wheat plant, and agriculture was born -- another great wave of history. No longer were humans constantly on the move searching for food. People could settle in one place, build cities, and make inventions like the plow, wheel, and writing. The complex societies that resulted are what we call civilization, another wave of history and the start of ancient times. In terms of a human lifetime, waves of change moved slowly, and much stayed the same amid the changes.

Waves of history were channeled over the earth by geography. The first civilizations arose in river valleys where rivers provided fresh water for raising crops and transportation for moving crops to market. By the word civilization we mean a place where people live in villages and towns, work in many trades, obey a government, worship a god or gods, and read and write.

Beginning in Mesopotamia, civilization spread west to Egypt and east to India. These three civilizations formed an early international trading network that eventually extended across the connected lands of Eurasia and North Africa, a vast region that lies in a temperate climate zone where most of the world's people have lived since prehistoric times. More people meant more ideas, more inventions, and more diseases than in other parts of the world. Waves of change took longer to reach sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas because they were separated from Eurasia by physical barriers of desert and ocean.

As agriculture replaced hunting and gathering, human population increased. People in civilized societies divided themselves into unequal social classes with priests and kings at the top. Wealthy landowners collected rent payments from poor farmers, men came to dominate women, and slavery became common. In the grasslands of central Eurasia, nomadic people chose not to settle down and raise crops. They lived by herding animals from pasture to pasture with the seasons. They learned to ride horses, developed cavalry skills, and attacked settled communities. Sometimes these nomadic raiders conquered great civilizations.

Ancient Times – 3000 BC to 500 AD

During ancient times people in Eurasia invented many things that still define civilization today such as money, armies, iron, math, literature, democracy, and major world religions -- to name a few. What follows are the description of the rise of first civilizations of the ancient world.

Mesopotamia

The world’s first known cities developed between 4000 and 3000 BC in the southern part of floodplain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This region known as Mesopotamia is today in Iraq Its southernmost part was the ancient land of Sumer, where several city-states had emerged by 3000BC. Following conquest of these cities by Saragon of Akkad, they became part of the short-lived Akkadian Empire, which was itself succeeded by a Sumerian renaissance under a dynasty at Ur. The sack of Ur by the Elamites in 2006 marked the end of Sumerian rule in Mesopotamia. Over the centuries there was a constant influx of new peoples, but the ancient traditions of Mesopotamia remained intact and absorbed those of new arrivals.

Egypt’s ancient civilization, isolated by deserts and sea, developed a unique and self-contained culture that lasted three thousand years. Its dry climate has contributed to the preservation of a wealth of monuments; ancient cities, pyramids, temples and sumptuous artifacts that are a source of wonder today, as they were in antiquity.

India

The history of civilization in the Indian subcontinent begins in the northwest, in the Indus Valley (now Pakistan). There are indications that Indus Valley culture has roots far back into neolithic times (7000 BCE), but current evidence places the active phase of this culture between 3300–1700 BCE, with its high points between 2600–1900 BCE. The Indus Valley people left behind an extensive set of cities and towns, the most notable of which are Harappa, Mohenjo Daro and Lothal, and through these sites it is clear that they were well organized with planned streets, elaborate bathes, covered sewage systems, water and drainage to individual homes, and even large port facilities. As in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, grain appears to be the basis of the economy. This is evidenced by the extensive storage structures found in most cities and towns and in particular at the port city of Lothal. In fact, the Indus Valley Civilization is the largest of the four ancient world civilizations that includes Egypt, Mesopotamia and China. Unfortunately, it is the least known because its script has yet to be deciphered. Indeed, there are over 400 distinct symbols found on thousands of pieces of pottery, seals, amulets and other artifacts, but no "Rosetta Stone," or means of deciphering the script has yet been found, and without this it is likely that the origins of this civilization will remain obscure.

Some Indus valley seals show swastikas, which are found in other religions (worldwide), especially in Indo-European religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism. The earliest evidence for elements of Hinduism are alleged to have been present before and during the early Harappan period. Phallic symbols interpreted as the much later Hindu Shiva lingam have been found in the Harappan remains. Many Indus valley seals show animals. One motive shows a horned figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the Lotus position and surrounded by animals was named by early excavators Pashupati (lord of cattle), an epithet of the later Hindu gods Shiva and Rudra.

Indian civilization and culture is not only ancient but it is also extensive and varied. Many races and peoples have contributed and enriched it. Vedic civilization is the earliest civilization in Indian history. It is named after the Vedas, the early literature of the Hindu people. This civilization is the foundation of Hinduism and the associated Indian culture that is known today.

The kingdom of the Kurus marks flowering of the Vedic civilization, corresponding to the Black and Red Ware and the beginning of the Iron Age in Northwestern India begins, around 1000 BC, likely also contemporary with the composition of the Atharvaveda.

Mahajanapadas literally means "Great kingdoms". The word has taken from Sanskrit Maha = great, Janapada = foothold of tribe = country. By 500 BC, sixteen monarchies and 'republics' known as the Mahajanapadas stretched across the Indo-Gangetic plains from modern-day Afghanistan to Bangladesh.

The Buddhist and other texts only incidentally refer to sixteen great nations (Solasa Mahajanapadas) which were in existence before the time of Buddha. They do not give any connected history except in the case of Magadha. The Buddhist Anguttara Nikaya, at several places, gives a list of sixteen nations:  Kasi, Kosala, Anga, Magadha, Vajji (or Vriji), Malla, Chedi, Vatsa (or Vamsa), Kuru, Panchala, Machcha (or Matsya), Surasena, Assaka, Avanti, Gandhara and Kamboja.

The end of the Vedic Age (1500 BC-600 BC) was followed by the rise of small kingdoms and republics in the northern parts of India and especially in the Gangetic plains of Bihar.

The Mauryan Empire was the first major empire in the history of India and ruled the land from 322 BC to 185 BC. Important rulers of this dynasty were Chandragupta Maurya, Bindusara, and King Ashoka. Bindusara was succeeded by his son Ashoka, the most famous of the Mauryan Kings who reign from- 273 - 232 B.C. He extended the boundaries of his empire considerably - stretching from Kashmir and Peshawar in the North and Northwest to Mysore in the South and Orissa in the East - but his fame rests not so much on military conquests as on his celebrated renunciation of war. After witnessing the carnage at the battle field of Kalinga (269 B.C.) in Orissa, Ashoka resolved to dedicate himself to Dhamma - or righteousness. The war of Kalinga was the turning point in the life of Ashoka to the extent that he shunned all forms of violence and became a strict vegetarian.

As Ashoka became a devout Buddhist, he began to spread the teachings of Buddha by issuing edicts. These edicts were sent to different parts of the empire, where they were engraved on rocks or pillars, for the common people to see and read them. These edicts were written in different scripts. Most of them were in Brahmi, which was common in most parts of the empire. The language was generally Prakrit (ancient language), as it was spoken by the common people, whereas Sanskrit was spoken by educated upper caste people.

The great Mauryan Empire did not last long after the death of Ashoka and ended in 185 BC. Weak kings on one hand and the unmanageability of a vast empire on the other caused the rapid decline of the Mauryas.

Ashoka died around 232 B.C. and the empire began to disintegrate under weak successors. Pushyamitra Shunga, a Brahmin general usurped the throne after slaying the last Maurya king and presided over a loosely federal polity. In subsequent centuries India suffered a series of invasions, and in the absence of a strong central authority, often fell under the spell of foreign rulers - Indo Bactrians, the Sakas and others.

The fall of the Mauryan empire and the confusion caused due to it gave birth to a new dynasty called Satavahanas, also called as Andhra dynasty. Satavahanas is one of the most celebrated dynasties of ancient India. Satavahanas ruled over large area of modern western and southern India. King Simuka, belonging to the Satavahana family in present day Andhra Pradesh founded the Satavahana dynasty after defeating the Mauryan rule in the Deccan. Satavahana kings ruled much of Deccan plateau from 50 B.C to 250 A.D. But it was his son or nephew Satakarni I who made Satavahanas as most formidable power of western and southern India. 

There were twenty-nine rulers of this dynasty according to Matsya Purana. The kings of this dynasty were great patrons of art and architecture. Buddhism flourished throughout the period and the rulers were also devoted to Vedic ritualism. They constructed several Buddhist Stupas, Viharas and Chaityas. 

The decline and fall of the Satavahana Empire left the Andhra country in a political chaos. Local rulers as well as invaders tried to carve out small kingdoms for themselves and to establish many dynasties. During the period from AD 180 to AD 624 Ikshvakus, Vishnukundins, Vakatakas, Pallavas, Anandagotras, Kalingas and others ruled over the Andhra area with their small kingdoms.

The post-Mauryan period from 185 BC to AD 300 saw the emergence of a number of kingdoms all over the Indian subcontinent. Some of these states were small, while others like that of the Kushans were large. This period witnessed a spurt in migrations into India, rise in foreign trade, and development of art. In short, the time scale between 1st century BC and 3rd century AD was a period of flux. 

The Kushans originated from the Turkistan region of China. They moved towards Afghanistan in the 1st century AD and after displacing the Indo-Greeks, the Parthians and the Sakas, they established themselves in Taxila and Peshawar. The name Kushan derives from the Chinese term Guishang, used in historical writings to describe one branch of the Yuezhi - a loose confederation of Indo-European people who had been living in northwestern China until they were driven west by another group.                                                    

A number of foreigners came to India in successive waves of migrations between 200 BC and AD 100. These people settled down in different parts of India. They brought with them their own distinct cultural flavor, which, after mixing with the local cultures, enriched the cultural ethos of India. The foreigners who came into India were the Bactrian Greeks (also called the 'Indo-Greeks'), the Parthians, the Sakas, and the Kushans. With the exception of the Greeks, all others came from Central Asia. Under the rule of the Kushans, northwest India and adjoining regions participated both in seagoing trade and in commerce along the Silk Road to China.                                                                                        

The rule of Kanishka, the third Kushan emperor who flourished from the late first to the early/mid-second century A.D., was administered from two capitals: Purushapura (now Peshawar) near the Khyber Pass, and Mathura in northern India. Under Kanishka's rule, at the height of the dynasty, Kushan controlled a large territory ranging from the Aral Sea through areas that include present-day Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan into northern India as far east as Benares and as far south as Sanchi.

Gupta dynasty ruled from around 320 to 600 AD and covered most of Northern India. It was one of the largest political and military empires in the world. The time of the Gupta Dynasty is referred to as Golden Age of India. It signaled the emergence of a leader, a Magadha ruler, Chandragupta I. Chandragupta successfully combated the foreign invasion and laid foundation of the great Gupta dynasty, the emperors of which ruled for the next 300 years, bringing the most prosperous era in Indian history. Srigupta I (270-290 AD) who was perhaps a petty ruler of Magadha (modern Bihar) established Gupta dynasty with Patliputra or Patna as its capital.

Samudragupta was perhaps the greatest king of Gupta dynasty. He ruled from around 335 to 380 AD. But the most detailed and authentic record of his reign is preserved in the rock pillar of the Allahabad, composed by Harisena.

Samudragupta's son, Chandragupta II tried to be better than his father, and most historians agree he was certainly successful. Vikramaditya is THE LEGENDARY emperor of India. During his reign India was at the prosperity and luxuriousness, so he also took a title of 'Vikramaditya'. Vikramaditya's reign was perhaps the most prosperous and progressive reign in the entire Indian history.

Vikramaditya was succeeded by his able son Kumargupta I. He maintained his hold over the vast empire of his forebears, which covered most of India except southern four states of India. He ruled from 415-455 AD. He performed the Ashwamegha Yagna and proclaimed himself to be Chakrawarti, king of all kings. During his reign the Gupta Empire was at its zenith.

After Kumargupta I, Skandagupta succeeded the Gupta Dynasty. When Skandagupta took over the Gupta Empire, he had faced formidable enemies, the Huns. He successfully repelled their early invasions and proved to be able king and administrator in time of crisis. In spite of heroic efforts of Skandagupta, Gupta Empire did not survive long the shock it received from invasion of the Huns and internal uprising of Pushyamitras.

 

Greece

Long before the classical era two great civilizations flourished in the area of the Aegean Sea. The Minoans were named after the legendry King Minos, and the Mycenaeans take their name from the city of Mycenae, home of Agamemnon, the mythological king who led the Greeks against Troy. In the Archaic period (800-500 BC) and still more in the following Classical period (500-338 BC) the Greeks encouraged the exploration of new ideas in art literature and philosophy which had a lasting impact on Western civilization.

By the end of Archaic period, two city-states, Sparta and Athens, had become important. During 6^th century BC Sparta, through military and diplomatic means, created the ‘Peloponnesian League’, a network of alliances throughout the Peloponnese, and became the most powerful state in Greece.

The first steps towards democracy in Athens were made by Solon, who was appointed in 594 to create new laws after a period of serious unrest between rich and poor, especially over the use of land. Athens became a more effective military power, and fought off attempts by Sparta to destroy the new style of government.

For some two hundred years (500-300 BC), the empire of Persian Achaemenids was the largest that the Near East had seen. From their Iranian homeland, Cyrus the Great and his successors conquered the whole of the Near East including whole of Anatolia, Egypt and part of northwest India.

The growing power of the Persian Empire had led by 500 BC to its dominance over the Greek cities of western Anatolia (modern Turkey). Athenian support for an unsuccessful revolt against Persian rule by these cities led in 490 BC to the first invasion by the Persians of the Greek mainland. This was repulsed by the Athenians in the land battle at Marathon.

A much more serious invasion followed in 480 BC, under the new Persian king, Xerxes. After the initial heroic defeat at Thermopylae, the combined Greek forces defeated the Persians at sea at Salamis and on land at Plataea. These victories greatly heightened the Greeks’ sense of their superiority – military, political, and cultural – over all foreigners, whom they called Barbarians.

Now Athens completed the development of its democracy, under the leadership of Ephialtes and Pericles. From 462 BC until his death Pericles took an increasingly influential role in Athenian politics. At this time Athens was at its most prosperous, successful and powerful. But relations between Athens and Sparta became openly hostile in 461 BC and there was an uneasy peace.

Lasting from 431 to 401 BC the Peloponnesian War, as its great historian Thucydides observed was one of the most destructive in Greek history, and had a profound effect on Greek society.  The fundamental reason may have been Spartan fear of losing control over its own allies. The Great War ended in complete victory for Sparta. In Athens defeat was followed by savage rule of an oligarchy. Conviction and execution of the philosopher Socrates on charges of corrupting the young and of impiety did lasting damage to Athens’ reputation.

Athens was still rich in philosophers. Most famous of its thinkers were Plato and Aristotle. In his most famous book, The Republic, Plato explains how one produces good men and a good state. The important thing is to select a few talented people and educate them well. The basic test that Plato wanted rulers to apply to any public act was this: will it make us better humans than we were before? Aristotle thought that human beings are at their best in city- states. “Man is an animal,” he wrote, “whose nature is to live in a city-state.”

Various outside powers began to take advantage of the weakness of Greek states and of the Persian Empire. The most important of these powers was Macedon, a previously backward kingdom in northeastern Greece. In 359 BC Philip II became king and by a cunning blend of diplomacy and force achieved a position of dominance in mainland Greece. He was assassinated in 336, leaving his son, Alexander the Great, to carry out his plan to invade Persia.

After a series of conquest, Alexander the Great expanded Greece's borders from Egypt and Greece to India.

The Hellenistic time 200 - 27 BC followed the conquerors of Alexander the Great. Many foreign peoples, as far away as from India, now were part of the Greek culture, and the ancient world took an international form. The individualism was now stronger than ever, creating the idea of nothing being impossible.

Rome

Rome knew four classes of people. This division was very important to the Romans.
The lowest class were the slaves. They were owned by other people. They had no rights at all.
The next class were the plebeians. They were free people. But they had little say at all.
The second highest class were the equestrians (sometimes they are called the 'knights'). Their name means the 'riders', as they were given a horse to ride if they were called to fight for Rome. To be an equestrian you had to be rich.
The highest class were the nobles of Rome. They were called 'patricians'. All the real power in Rome lay with them.

The Roman Republic was a very successful government. It lasted from 510 BC until 23 BC - almost 500 years.

The greatest challenge the Roman Republic faced was that of the Carthaginians. Carthage was a very powerful city in North Africa which, much like Rome, controlled its own empire. The fight between the two sides was a long one and took place on land and on sea. The most famous incident came when the great Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the mountain chain of the Alps to the north of Italy with all his troops, including his war-elephants!, and invaded Italy. 
Though Rome in the end won and Carthage was completely destroyed in the year 146 BC.

Rome's most famous citizen was no doubt Julius Caesar. He was a Roman politician and general who, without having any orders to do so, conquered the vast territory of the Gauls to the north of his province in France.
In the year 49 BC Caesar crossed the small river between his province and Italy, called the river Rubicon, and conquered Rome itself which he then ruled as a dictator. 
His military campaigns also took him to Egypt where he met the famous Cleopatra. His life though was ended as he was infamously murdered in the senate in Rome.
So famous and respected was Caesar that a month of the year is still named after him and his heirs today, July (after Julius Caesar).

After Caesar followed the many emperors of Rome - and there were truly very many of them. So, here are some of the most famous ones.

 

The Roman Empire in the end was overrun by millions of barbarians from the north and east of Europe. It is believed to have happened two or three times in history that huge migrations took place across Europe, where peoples moved to settle in new territories. The great migration proved too much for the Romans to stem. Their armies were designed to defeat other armies, not entire folks and peoples flooding toward them. The collapse was completed when Rome itself was conquered by the Visigoth Odoacer and his men in the year AD 476.

China

 The first civilizations in the Chinese history arose in the Yangtze River and Yellow river valleys at the same time when Mesopotamia, Egypt and India developed their first civilizations. For many centuries of China's history, Chinese culture stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences. Paper, gunpowder, compass and printing including both block and movable type are among the four most famous inventions in ancient China history. Ancient China's contributions to the human society in many other fields such as astronomy, medicine, mathematics and physics were also extensive and impressive. A heliocentric model of the solar system was discovered in an ancient Chinese tomb, some 1,700 years before Copernicus. In mathematics, "Pythagoras' theorem" and "Pascal's triangle" were already known in ancient China centuries before their Western discoverers even lived.

Ancient China was also the first civilization in the history to implement meritocracy of any form, meaning that unlike in other ancient cultures, official posts were not hereditary but instead had to be earned through a series of examinations. Such as a system was first setup during the Han Dynasty, and further refined into the Imperial Examination System and opened to all regardless of family background during the Tang Dynasty. China's vast historical influence is also evident on traditional culture of some of its neighbors, most notably, Vietnam, Korea and Japan. These nations even adopted the Chinese writing system at some point, some of which are still in use even today.

 

The Americas

The first inhabitants of the American continents were nomadic hunters and gathers. These nomads probably arrived in North America around 40,000 years ago, following a land bridge that formed between North America and Asia. It is believed that another group of humans migrated from Asia into North America around 12,000 years ago. Some scientists also think that some people might have used boats to follow ocean currents to the tip of South America, while others arrived following ice from Western Europe.

 

As these various groups traveled into the new world following wild game, they spread out across the land, forming new cultures, and in some cases, complex civilizations.

For thousands of years, these early inhabitants of the Americas made a life by hunting game and gathering food from seeds, berries, and wild plants. Then around 5000 B.C. an agricultural revolution took place near present day Mexico.

They realized that they could plant crops such as corn, pumpkins, potatoes, and squash, and by doing so, could better provide for the needs of their people.

This new technology spread from Mexico outward to other parts of the Southwest, so that by 3000 B.C. many groups of people in the region were actively practicing farming.

The practice of farming the land led to the development of villages. The people no longer had to travel in search of wild game and plant life. Instead, they could settle down in one place, and begin to build more permanent structures. 

These permanent villages allowed for more complex societies and cultures to evolve in the region. New religions and governments began to form, and individuals began to become more specialized in their jobs. 

This specialization of work tasks allowed technology to really take off, so that great advancements were made. By 800 BC the Olmec on the Gulf of Mexico, the Zapotec at Monte Alban, and the people of Chavin in Peru became more skilled in tool making, creating special implements for farming, fishing, building and so forth.

In Ohio and Illinois, between 500 BC and AD 550, Hopewell chiefs built elaborate burial mounds and maintain trade contacts from Florida to the Rockies. At the same time, the powerful lowland kingdoms of the Maya flourished. Their capitals were pyramid-studded ceremonial-centres with extensive suburbs. They had sophisticated concern with astronomy and astrology. However, whether on account of chronic wars, or of popular discontent, or of environmental degradation – or of all three factors – most of the towns were abandoned by the beginning of Middle Ages.

Africa and Australasia

The inhabitants of North Africa began the transition from hunting and gathering to the farming around 8000 BC, the desiccation of the Sahara after about 4000 BC cut off Africa south of the Equator for centuries. In the east settlers spread down the Rift Valley from Ethiopia during the first millennium BC, while trans- Saharan trade increased in importance after the introduction of the camel from Asia, around 100 BC. Iron ore came into use in parts of sub-Saharan Africa after 750 BC. Aided by the new technology, Bantu-speaking farmers and cattle-herders began to colonize southern Africa in the early centuries AD.

The earliest human remains found in Australia to date are that of Mungo Man which have been dated at about 40,000 years old. It is generally believed that Aboriginal people are the descendants of a single migration into the continent, most likely island hopping by boat during periods of low sea levels. Aboriginal people seem to have lived a long time in the same environment as the now extinct Australian megafauna. Aboriginal people mainly lived as hunter-gatherers. They hunted and foraged for food from the land. Aboriginal society was relatively mobile, or semi-nomadic, moving due to the changing food availability found across different areas as seasons changed. The mode of life and material cultures varied greatly from region to region. The greatest population density was to be found in the southern and eastern regions of the continent, the River Murray valley in particular.

Middle Ages – 500 to 1500 AD

Ancient times lasted for roughly 4,000 years, ending about 500 AD after nomadic raiders brought down great classical civilizations in India, China, and the Mediterranean. The middle ages followed and lasted a thousand years. Ancient civilizations fared thus during the middle ages:

Middle East: 600 to 1200 AD

The rise of Islam begins around the time Muhammad and his followers took flight, the Hijra, to the city of Medina. Muhammad spent his last ten years in a series of battles to conquer the Arabian region. From 622 to 632, Muhammad as the leader of a Muslim community in Medina was engaged in a state of war with the Meccans. In the proceeding decades, the area of Basra was conquered by the Muslims. During the reign of Umar, the Muslim army found it a suitable place to construct a base. Later the area was settled and a mosque was erected. Upon the conquest of Madyan, it was settled by Muslims. However, soon the environment was considered harsh and resettlement of settlers went to Kufa. During Umar's rule, he defeated the rebellion of several Arab tribes in a successful campaign, unifying the entire Arabian Peninsula and giving it stability. Under Uthman's leadership, the empire expanded into Fars in 650, some areas of Khorasan in 651 and the conquest of Armenia was begun in the 640s. In this time, the Islamic empire extended over the whole Sassanid Persian Empire and more than two thirds of the Eastern Roman Empire. The First Fitna, or the First Islamic Civil War, lasted for the entirety of Ali ibn Abi Talib's reign. After the recorded peace treaty between with Hassan ibn Ali and the suppression of early Kharijites' disturbances, Muawiyah I accedes to the position of Caliph.

The Muslim conquests of the Eastern Roman Empire and Arab wars occurred between 634 and 750. Starting in 633, Muslims conquered Iraq. The Muslim conquest of Syria would begin in 634 and would be complete by 638. The Muslim conquest of Egypt started in 639. Before the Muslim invasion of Egypt began, the Eastern Roman Empire had already lost the Levant and its Arab ally, the Ghassanid Kingdom, to the Muslims. The Muslims would bring Alexandria under control and fall of Egypt would be complete by 642. Between 647 and 709, Muslims swept across North Africa and establish their authority over that region.

The Transoxiana region was conquered by Qutayba ibn Muslim between 706 and 715 and loosely held by the Umayyads from 715 to 738. This conquest was consolidated by Nasr ibn Sayyar between 738 and 740. It was under the Umayyads from 740-748; and under the Abbasids after 748. Sindh, attacked in 664, would be subjugated by 712. Sindh became the easternmost province of the Umayyad. The Umayyad conquest of Hispania (Visigothic Spain) would begin in 711 and end by 718. The Moors, under Al-Samh ibn Malik, sweeping up the Iberian Peninsula, by 719 overran Septimania and the area would fall under their full control in 720. With the Islamic conquest of Persia, the Muslim subjugation of the Caucasus would take place between 711 and 750. The end of the sudden Islamic Caliphate expansion ended around this time. The final Islamic dominion eroded the areas of the Iron Age Roman Empire in the Middle East and controlled strategic areas of the Mediterranean.

At the end of the 8th century, the former Western Roman Empire was decentralized and overwhelmingly rural. The Islamic conquest and rule of Sicily and Malta was a process which started in the 9th century. Islamic rule over Sicily was effective from 902, and the complete rule of the island lasted from 965 until 1061. The Islamic presence on the Italian Peninsula was ephemeral and limited mostly to semi-permanent soldier camps.

The Abbasid Caliphate, ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, was the third of the Islamic caliphates. Under the Abbasids, the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations. Scientific and intellectual achievements blossomed in the period.

The Abbasids built their capital in Baghdad after replacing the Umayyad caliphs from all but the Iberian Peninsula. The influence held by Muslim merchants over African-Arabian and Arabian-Asian trade routes was tremendous. As a result, Islamic civilization grew and expanded on the basis of its merchant economy, in contrast to their Christian, Indian and Chinese peers who built societies from agricultural landholding nobility.

The Abbasids flourished for two centuries, but slowly went into decline with the rise to power of the Turkish army it had created, the Mamluks. Within 150 years of gaining control of Persia, the caliphs were forced to cede power to local dynastic emirs who only nominally acknowledged their authority. After the Abbasids lost their military dominance, the Samanids (or Samanid Empire) rose up in Central Asia. The Sunni Islam Empire was a Tajik state and had Zoroastrian theocratic nobility. It was the next native Persian dynasty after the collapse of the Sassanid Persian Empire caused by the Arab conquest.

India : 501- 1700

After the collapse of the Gupta Empire, the gangetic plains fractured into numerous small nations. Harsha of Kannauj was able to briefly bind them together under his rulership. Only a defeat at the hands of the Chalukyas prevented him from expanding his reign south of the Narmada River. This unity did not last long beyond his reign and his empire fractured soon after his death in 647 AD.

The Hephthalites were a nomadic people who lived in tents and were often in search of pasture, moving to coolness in summer and to warmth in the winter. In the late 400s they defeated the Persians, and they moved eastward into Transoxiana. Dissension within the Gupta royal family weakened the Gupta Empire. Samudragupta had repelled an invasion by the Hephthalites, but in the early 500s the Hephthalites returned, perhaps aware that India was an easier take. The Hephthalites moved across the Hindu Kush and into the Punjab and Kashmir, and they advanced into the Ganges Valley in search of plunder. There they ruined cities, towns, trading centers and Buddhist monasteries. The great city Pataliputra was reduced to a mere village of people.

The Hephthalites withdrew from the Ganges Valley, but they continued to hold territory in the Punjab and Kashmir, with Piandjshent, sixty-five kilometers south of Samarkand, as the center of their rule. And, with the Gupta Empire gone, the Hephthalites became the superpower in Middle Asia.

It did not last long. Soon they were attacked by an alliance of Persians and Turks. In the late 550s this coalition defeated them militarily, the Persians pursuing the Hephthalites in revenge for the defeat the Hephthalites had given their forefathers a century before. The Hephthalites vanished from history, and it is believed that they reappeared later in Central Asia as those called Avars.

India, meanwhile, was divided into numerous small kingdoms, which meant military weakness. And economic decline had come to some of India's cities. Profitable trade with the Roman Empire had ended, and by the mid-500s India's trade with Persia had also declined.

Pirate raids by Indians against Muslim shipping on the Indian Ocean were followed by a reprisal invasion of the Sind -- near the Indus River delta. No Indian force drove the Muslims out of the Sind. The first Muslim state in India was founded there in 711. The conquered area was not rich enough in agricultural potential to induce the Arabs to establish themselves there permanently, and the Muslims left on their own accord.  

In the 800s, Hindu intellectuals were aware of Muslim criticism of their faith. Led by a philosopher named Shankara (788-850), a few Hindu thinkers set out to defend Hinduism, especially against the Muslim charge that Hinduism was idolatrous. Shankara systematized the intellectual tradition of the Upanishads. Defenders of Hinduism claimed that, properly understood, Hindu rites helped simple folk along the path to a pure and transcendent belief in one God and to an absolute truth beyond sensory experience. Shankara gave a new impetus to orthodox Brahmanism. He traveled about India, founding many religious schools, and he became a most revered Hindu leader. He imagined a unified reality and described Hinduism as about the realization of a single god in all things. He claimed that salvation came through philosophical speculation and meditation leading to the realization that God and one's self were the same.

However much Shankara brought unity to Hindu ideology, politically India remained disunited and therefore militarily weak. India was without an army capable of defending against Muslims invading from Afghanistan. In the late 900s, from an independent kingdom centered at Ghazni, through the Khyber Pass, Muslim Turks on horseback began raiding temple towns in northwest India. These Muslims terrorized Hindus and carried back as much booty as they could, much of it from temples. The raiding stopped around 1010 after the Hindus agreed to pay tribute to the ruler of Ghazni --- Mahmud. Here was the traditional act of submission, the Indians sending to Ghazni annual trains of elephants laden with gifts.

The agreement between the Muslims and the Indians broke down and raiding resumed, the Muslims believing they were wielding the sword of Muhammad. They smashed more Hindu temples. They slaughtered or enslaved thousands, leaving survivors shocked and disappointed that they were not being protected from harm by their god Shiva.

Mahmud broke the power of the local rulers in the areas that he raided. He shattered the economy of northeastern India. The precious metals taken from India's temples went into circulation. And much as Alexander's conquests had freed the gold of Darius III and had stimulated the economy in Alexander's time, the riches taken from India's temples gave rise to economic activity in Mahmud's empire. Mahmud erected buildings and magnificent mosques in Ghazni. He turned Ghazni into a world center of Islamic culture, and he financed more military campaigns in Central Asia.

Mahmud was the greatest of rulers of the Ghaznavid Dynasty, ruling from 999 AD to the year 1030. Eventually his empire collapsed. Civil war left Ghazni in ruins by 1151. In Afghanistan a new Turkish dynasty arose: the Ghurids. With the Hindu reputation for weakness, a Ghurid army invaded India and fought its way to Delhi, reaching that city in 1193, overwhelming fierce Hindu opposition along the way. And by 1202 the Ghurids had conquered the larger kingdoms along the Ganges River.

The Ghurid invaders were Muslims and unimpressed by Indic civilization. They did not adopt culturally as had invaders prior to Islam. Coming across Buddhism, they saw it as debased idol worship and tried to destroy it. They sacked Buddhism's major centers, slaughtering many, destroying Buddhism in northern India and sending Buddhists fleeing to Nepal and Tibet, where Buddhism was to flourish.  

The Ghurids despised Hinduism, but their slaughter and enslavement of Hindus and the ruination of Hindu holy places was ineffective in diminishing that faith.  The Hindus were too numerous for them. Only on the fringe of Hindu society were people attracted to Islam. But the despise and slaughter continues till today.

Muslim rulers in northern India refused to allow Hindu temples to be rebuilt, and, without temples, Hindu ceremonies became more public and plebeian. Ceremonies were often performed in a town's public square, with amassed worshipers passing along the town's streets. Without temple ritual, communion with God through ecstasy increased, and Sanskrit remained a language of a learned few -- the language of the Brahmins.

In Hindu society, since the early 900s, feuds over possession of land were common -- between families and between principalities. Vendettas developed between families. Wars arose. Potentates had risen to power through violence, and many of them wished to perpetuate an image of military prowess and to acquire more land -- land being the major source of status. A disparaging remark by a rival was justification for starting a war, and wars were made into grand pageants.

Wars were also glorified in literature -- as they had been in the story of Krishna in a chariot with Arjuna. Death on the battlefield was seen as the highest possible honor. And the dead warrior's wife was obliged to join her husband in death -- a ritual sacrifice called sati. In sati, the spirit of the woman put to flames snatches her husband from the hands of Yamdoot (the messenger of death) and takes him to Swarglok (paradise).

Landowners with great power were accumulating more land at the expense of their more humble neighbors. Less land was available to free peasants, and more people became hired workers on the land of the wealthy. Estate owners lived in splendor while others did the work. A few princes had thousands of servants and hangers-on. A few had harems. Their families wore extravagant clothes and jewels. Owners gave land to others to manage, while those who worked their lands were denied freedom and relegated to the Shudra caste -- the caste of menials.

Agriculture on the big estates remained inefficient, and a large part of the rest of agriculture in Hindu society was subsistence farming -- farming without trade. There was no beef industry that was supplementing the diet of people as in Europe. In India the veneration of cattle was inimical to this kind of meat industry.

Enough surpluses were produced by the great estates that some trade with foreigners flourished. Indians continued to export rice, other cereals, coconuts, spices, sugar, woods, dyes and precious stones, while importing perfumes, finished cloth including silk, wax, precious stones, gold, medicinal herbs, ceramics and metal wares. But much of this trade was handled by foreign merchants -- mainly Muslims. Brahmins were much like the Confucians in their opposition to trade, making involvement in foreign trade, as well as farming and overseas travel, forbidden to their class. Generally, religious contemplation was esteemed while people with power had little interest in improving conditions for the merchant or in improving technology.

There was, however, an improvement in the making of cotton. Muslims introduced India to a new method of working cotton -- the Carter's bow -- an improvement over beating the cotton with switches. The spinning wheel also appeared and increased cotton production.

By the 13th century, many trade guilds were disappearing, and many trade connections were coming to a close. Trade within India had diminished as wealth was hoarded rather than invested -- hoarded either by wealthy individuals or by religious establishments. And, with diminished trade, roads deteriorated. In towns were merchants with a spirit of enterprise. There was bustle and hard work, but in India a centralized government was not benefiting the middle class. Big landowners, princes and potentates, would remain most influential -- a conservative influence as in Spain, Russia and Eastern Europe in general. The landed wealthy in India would wield a conservative authoritarianism. India would remain as conservatively religious as Spain and Eastern Europe, with taboos inhibiting modernization. Brahmin priests encouraged obscurantism among India's elite. Rodents and insects could not be killed and vast amount of foodstuffs were lost. Rules about handling refuse and excreta contributed to disease. The caste system choked initiative. And rather than send investments and soldiers abroad, India would be receiving them.

Delhi, founded in the 8^th century by a Rajput chief, remained the focus of north Indian politics and also the centre of Muslim culture from the 15^th to the 19^th century. It served as the capital of six Muslim dynasties, all of Turkish and Afghan extraction, and after the defeat of the last of Sultans of Delhi at Panipat (1526) by Babur – a descendent of Timur – it became the headquarters of his descendents, the Mughals.

Babur’s grandson, Akbar (1556-1605), extended the frontiers of the empire to Bengal in the East, to Gujarat and the river Godavari in the south, and to Kashmir in the north. New territories were added under Akbar’s grand-son, Shahjehan (1627-56) and his son Aurangzeb (1656-1707), who annexed Bijapur and Golconda in the south, and Orissa in the east. However, these achievements depended absolutely upon the acquiescence of the 150 million or so farmers and petty landlords who paid the taxes that supported the Mughals’ 4 million warriors, and the court grandees who commanded them. Around 1700 the Hindu Marathas began to ravage southern regions, while some Rajput states and the Sikhs rebelled. All this reduced tax yields, and after the death of Aurangzeb several frontier provinces split off from the empire. In 1739 Nadir Shah, who had usurped the Persian throne three years previously, invaded India and sacked Delhi, leaving the Mughal Empire fatally weakened. East India Company stood poised to take advantage

The Byzantine world:  610-1453

 The Roman Empire became an eastern, Greek speaking state – normally known, from the reign of Heraclius (610-641), as Byzantium. Heraclius ended the long contest with Persia victoriously, capturing Nineveh in 628, but almost all at once Byzantium two even more redoubtable foes: Islam and the Slavs. However, after the failure of two long Arab sieges of Byzantium (674-8 and 717-18), the empire launched a succession of vigorous counter-offensives. The constant campaigns imposed heavy financial strains, as well as profound and debilitating social change, and in spite of further phases of recovery, the frontiers steadily shrank. The crucial development was the emergence, in the 11^th century, of the Seljuk Turks, whose crushing victory over Byzantine forces at Manzikert in 1071 induced Emperor Alexius (1081- 1118) to call on the west to help, thus initiating the sequence of events that led to the first crusade (1096-9). After a century of mounting tensions, the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 conquered and pillaged Constantinople, partitioned the Byzantine Empire, and established Latin states all over the Balkans.

The Ottomoman Turks established themselves first in Asia Minor and then advanced into Byzantium’s European territories. The capital of the east Roman Empire fell in 1453. Nevertheless, the history of Byzantium includes both greatness and lasting achievements. For centuries it transmitted Roman culture back to areas from which earlier invasions had largely effaced it.   

China: 581-1644

Sui dynasty (581-617) reunified China and consolidated their empire through standard institutions, a state-supported broad-based Buddhism, and the construction of a canal system linking the Yangtze with the Yellow River and the Lo-yang region. The Tang dynasty (618-907) continued the process, creating a uniform administrative organization of prefectures. China split into ten separate regional states in 907 but the Sung dynasty reunified the country between 960 and 979.

In 1126-7 the Chin, a powerful nomadic state north-east of the Great Wall, invaded and conquered all of northern China, with terrible devastation. However, the Sung state remained immensely prosperous, since its southern territories proved far more productive than the northern heartland. But their days were numbered.

A charismatic leader, Temujin (1167-1227) gained recognition as a supreme leader of Mongols of Central Asia and in 1206 took the title of Genghis Khan, ‘prince of all that lies between the oceans’. Under his leadership the Mongols first invaded the Chin Empire and then turned against the Islamic states in west. Between 1211 and 1234 the Mongols overran the Chin Empire, causing widespread devastation, and in the 1270s the forces of Kublai Khan annexed the entire Sung Empire. For the first time, all of China lay under foreign rule. It may be mentioned here that one Mongol army reached the gates of Vienna and another defeated a German-Polish army at Liegnitz in 1241.

Mongol rule proved harsh. Popular resentment erupted in a wave of popular uprisings after 1335, exacerbated by disastrous floods in coastal regions in 1350s. One of the rebel leaders, Chu Yuan-chang, gradually overcame his rivals and in 1368 established a new dynasty, the Ming.

The Ming rebuilt irrigation and drainage works in great numbers, reforested on a grand scale, and moved vast numbers of people to repopulate the devastated north.. The great cities of the Yangtze delta became major industrial centres while the southern ports fitted out the enormous fleets sent by Chu’s son, the Yung-lo emperor (1402-24), to the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The Ming restored Korea to vassal status in 1392, occupied Annam (Vietnam) from 1407 t0 1427, and invaded Mongolia. A northern campaign in 1449 resulted in the capture of the emperor and the Ming reverted to a defensive strategy, strengthening the Great Wall until it ran for almost 2500 miles. When the overseas trade was banned, by 1550 heavily armed bands of smugglers and pirates infested the seas around China. In the north-east, the Manchu gradually expanded their power into the areas immediately to the north of the Great Wall and (in 1637) into Korea. Ming authority now collapsed. After 1627 a wave of rebellions broke out in the wake of repeated crop failures in the north-west, and much of central and northern China soon came under rebel sway. In 1644, one of the rebel leaders captured Peking and the last Ming emperor committed suicide. Almost immediately the Manchus intervened, seized Peking, and began the conquest of China.

Precolumbus America – 250 to 1533 AD

Two major civilizations confronted the Spaniards when they arrived on the American mainland in the early 16^th century: the Aztec Empire in Mexico and the Inca Empire in Peru. The rest of the country remained sparsely inhabited. Striking proof of how the cities of these empires thrived are the remnants of Teotihuacan which stood near where Mexico City is today. They built two temple pyramids so huge that later migrants to this place supposed that gods or giants had made them.

Of all the ancient peoples, the most accomplished were the Mayans. The Mayans flourished from about 250 AD till the near end of Europe’s Dark Ages. A thousand years ago the Mayan towns and cities fell apart. Long periods of drought may have ruined them. When Europeans reached the New World after 1492, the Mayan cities and some other ancient cultures had expired. But perhaps a total number of 40 to 100 million Indians were in the two Americas – Europe’s population then was roughly 80 million. Among the newly civilized Indians were the able, brutal Aztecs. According to one story, the ruler of the Culhua people made the big mistake of granting the Aztecs his daughter as a wife for their chief. When the ruler came to the wedding he discovered that the Aztecs had honored him by sacrificing his daughter to their gods. An Aztec priest was wearing her skin. Understandably, the Culhua drove away the Aztecs. These former nomads turned into a civilized people and learnt the arts and skills the Maya once had known.

Although both the Aztec and Inca polities expanded faster than any 15^th century state in Latin Christendom, neither empire proved as stable as it seemed. Mexico fell to a force spearheaded by fewer than 2,000 Europeans in 1519, Peru to a band of less than 200 in 1531-3.

Africa and Australasia –   750 - 1400 AD

From Australia settlers reached Fiji and then made their way into Polynesia via Tonga and Samoa, reaching the Marquesas Islands and then spread north to Hawaii and south-west via the Cook Islands to New Zealand between 750 and 1300 AD. When the Europeans arrived in the 18^th century, at least 750,000 aborigines inhabited Australia and upto 150,000 Maoris lived in New Zealand.

By the 13^th century powerful Bantu chiefdoms (they had arrived in early centuries of AD) had emerged in southern Africa. They centered on Greater Zimbabwe, and on cattle-raising communities. These engaged in long-distance trade, long before the Portuguese arrived off both the south-east and south-west coasts of the continent at the close of the 15^th century.

The Modern Era – Sixteenth Century Onwards

The modern era began approximately in the 16th century. Many major events caused Europe to change around the turn of the 16th century, starting with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the fall of Muslim Spain and the discovery of the Americas in 1492, and Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation in 1517. In England the modern period is often dated to the start of the Tudor period with the victory of Henry VII over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Early modern history is usually seen to span from the turn of the 15th century, through the Age of Reason and Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.

 

Democracy

In 1700s the long reign of kings and gentry neared the end. The world began an age of democratic revolutions, which aimed at putting power in the hands of nearly everybody, rich and poor, male and female, black and white. The first of these revolts took pace in North America. In the 16^th century Spain and Portugal capitalized on the discoveries of Christopher Columbus by establishing colonies in Central and South America. These yielded vast quantities of precious metals, prompting attacks on Iberian treasure fleets by English and French privateers such as Drake, Raleigh and Hawkins. Seeing rival monarchs profit from their American possessions, the English crown became convinced that it too could benefit from the vast material resources of the New World. Many settlements and conflicts later Great Britain claimed to own a lot of it.

Unlike most humans elsewhere, these transplanted Europeans lived with one another on equal footing, in a rude democracy. But whites had mixed opinions of the Indians. But the imported blacks – slaves from America – ranked far below the Indians.

British parliament assumed full powers to make laws for the colonies, and imposed a tax on tea. In 1773 it allowed the struggling East India Company to dump its tea on the American market. When the first consignment reached Boston a group of patriots disguised themselves as Indians. They proceeded to throw the tea chests into the harbour, in what became known as the ‘Boston Tea Party’. America was now ripe for revolution. Large numbers of British troops and German mercenaries were dispatched across the Atlantic to suppress the ‘traitors’. Delegates from the thirteen American colonies gathered in the spring of 1776 at Philadelphia, determined not to yield to Britain.

A Virginia planter, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), drafted a formal Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”

After their eight-years long struggle for independence the Americans, with France’s support and under the leadership of General George Washington (1732-99), the United States entered the community of nations. The first three Articles of the American Constitution establish the three branches of the national government: a legislature, the bicameral Congress; an executive branch led by the President; and a judicial branch headed by the Supreme Court. They also specify the powers and duties of each branch. All unenumerated powers are reserved to the respective states and the people, thereby establishing the federal system of government. The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787,

              

             Priya and Kiran at Champs-Elysees, Paris – July 2001

On the eve of France’s revolution, in 1789, the king of France was Louis XVI. In July several hundred hungry Paris workmen and shopkeepers stormed a fortress-prison Bastille – you may recall you, Kiran, Amma and I stayed in an apartment in that area in July 2001. The fall of Bastille excited millions of the French: to them it proved the power of a determined people.

Once they had agreed on the necessity of drafting a declaration of rights, the deputies of the National Assembly  faced the daunting task of composing one that a majority could accept. After several days of debate and voting, the deputies agreed on seventeen articles. These laid out a new vision of government, in which protection of natural rights replaced the will of the King as the justification for authority. Many of the reforms favored by Enlightenment writers appeared in the declaration: freedom of religion, freedom of the press, no taxation without representation, elimination of excessive punishments, and various safeguards against arbitrary administration.

In autumn the bread was still expensive and the newspapers spread the story  that the queen (Marie Antoinette), when someone told her that the people had no bread, had joked, “Let them eat cake!” The story wasn’t true, but it angered many. Year and a half later revolutionaries tried the king for treason, convicted him, and chopped his head off. Eight months later they also killed the queen. They killed both with a guillotine, a new device that was said to slice off heads humanely.

The European wars that followed ended France’s revolution, and at the same time, spread all over Europe. In 1799 a brilliant young general, Napoleon Bonaparte, made himself the military dictator of France. He enacted codes of laws that partly carried through the Revolution. Then he conquered most of Europe. But in 1815 Prussia (Germany) and Britain crushed him at Waterloo in Belgium, and penned him on to St Helena in South Atlantic. He and it were both extinct volcanoes.

Since the 1700s, the democratic rule has slowly spread across the world. How this happened is a story full of bloodshed, sacrifices, fuller stomachs, demagoguery, parliamentary maneuvers, assassinations, spreading literacy, deals, elections, coups, revolts, hard-won victories, and many setbacks.

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in human history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. Most notably, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. In the two centuries following 1800, the world's average per capita income increased over 10-fold, while the world's population increased over 6-fold. In the words of Nobel Prize winner Robert E. Lucas, Jr., "For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth. ... Nothing remotely like this economic behavior has happened before."

Starting in the later part of the 18th century, there began a transition in parts of Great Britain's previously manual labour and draft-animal–based economy towards machine-based manufacturing. It started with the mechanization of the textile industries, the development of making techniques and the increased use of refined coal. Trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of canals, improved   roads and railways.

The introduction of steam power fuelled primarily by coal, wider utilization of water wheels and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpinned the dramatic increases in production capacity. The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the 19th century facilitated the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries. The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North              America during the 19th century, eventually affecting most of the world, a process that continues as industrialization. The impact of this change on society was enormous.  Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals and plants. We live longer and are healthier and probably happier than those who went before us.

New Imperialism

Imperialism is the extension of sovereignty or control by one group of people over another. Many Western European countries had adopted this idea, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries. This age of discovery and exploration led to the expansion of European powers in the Americas and in parts of Asia. After a gradual decline in Imperialistic views and ideals following the American and French revolutions, a sudden increase for colonial power ensued in Western Europe. This “new imperialism” grew as a result of economical, political, and social issues and is exemplified by the Western penetration of Egypt. Though criticized by many for its racial and non-libertarian motives, the new imperialism gave many, such as Englishman Cecil Rhodes, a new passion for empirical expansion and conquest.

India, under Britain, was the classic case; the prime example of the way wealthy northern countries seized and bossed the southern ones. East India Company was formed by British traders to trade with India. They set up godowns to store the goods they traded in. The protection of these godowns served as a good excuse to build forts and maintain armies at such centers. During this time disorganized kingdoms were fighting amongst themselves. The British took the golden opportunity to benefit from these internal quarrels and helped one king against another. In this bargain the British gained more power and wealth. The British trained Indian soldiers and employed them in their army. This army was far better trained and disciplined than the armies with small Indian kings who were just struggling to survive. Gradually the British succeeded in capturing very large parts of India. They made treaties with kings who accepted the authority of the British. They were kings only in name. The British very cleverly managed to collect huge wealth from the people and the kings. 

Likewise, even the weavers of fine cottons and silks were compelled to see their cloth only to British traders at prices decided by them. Anybody found selling his cloth to a trader other than the British was severely punished. Also, no duty was charged on British goods coming to India. On the other hand, Indian exports to Britain were subjected to high imported duty. The India cottage industry also suffered at the hands of the British traders. India had a large handloom industry. But the British by now had started a very big cotton textile mills in England. They needed a lot of cotton for these mills, so cotton was purchased here at a very low price and sent to England and in return huge quantities of cloth was sold in India. The result was that the big weaver class in India became unemployed. People had to buy costlier British cloth. Such were the ways of the British to amass wealth in India to be sent back to England. Thus the Indian farmers, weavers, traders, kings, Nawabs, craftsmen were all unhappy and this discontent led to the mightiest revolts in 1857 which was also joined by Sanyasis, Fakirs, disbanded soldiers and British soldiers too. 

The British conquered India with the help of Indian soldiers, but did not treat them properly. They were denied higher positions in spite of their abilities. The Indians were also traded as slaves to other British colonies. The company was indifferent to education and so the old system of education suffered under the British rule. After this revolt the Company’s place was taken by the British government directly which too was very harsh with Indians. In 1857, power was transferred from the East India Company to the British Crown and India became a British colony.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, England, France and Holland established their own overseas empires, in direct competition with each other.  The Kingdom of Great Britain (after the union of England and Wales, and Scotland), France and Holland turned their attention to the Old World, particularly South Africa, India and South East Asia, where coastal enclaves had already been established. The industrialization of the nineteenth century led to the era of New Imperialism, when the pace of colonization rapidly accelerated, the height of which was the Scramble for Africa, in which Belgium was a major and Germany a lesser participant. During the twentieth century, the overseas colonies of the losers of World War I were distributed amongst the victors as mandates.

World War I 

This major war centred in Europe and began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (centred around the Triple Entente -  United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire)  and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance -  Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy). More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of great technological advances in firepower without corresponding advances in mobility. It was the sixth deadliest conflict in Western history.

The assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was the proximate trigger of the war. Long-term causes, such as imperialistic foreign policies of the great powers of Europe, such as the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, France, and Italy, played a major role. Ferdinand's assassination by a Yugoslav nationalist resulted in a Habsburg ultimatum against the Kingdom of Serbia. Several alliances formed over the past decades were invoked, so within weeks the major powers were at war; via their colonies, the conflict soon spread around the world.

On 28 July, the conflict opened with the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia, followed by the German invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg and France; and a Russian attack against Germany. After the German march on Paris was brought to a halt, the Western Front settled into a static battle of attrition with a trench line that changed little until 1917. In the East, the Russian army successfully fought against the Austro-Hungarian forces but was forced back by the German army. Additional fronts opened after the Ottoman Empire joined the war in 1914, Italy and Bulgaria in 1915 and Romania in 1916. The Russian Empire collapsed in 1917, and Russia left the war after the October Revolution later that year. After a 1918 German offensive along the western front, United States forces entered the trenches and the Allies drove back the German armies in a series of successful offensives. Germany agreed to a cease-fire on 11 November 1918, later known as Armistice Day.

By the war's end, four major imperial powers—the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires—had been militarily and politically defeated and had ceased to exist. The former two states lost a great amount of territory, while the latter two were dismantled entirely. The map of central Europe was redrawn into several smaller states. The League of Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. At the Palace of Versailles (which you, Kiran, Amma and I visited in 2001) victors took away Germany’s colonies in Africa, fined Germans heavily for the damage they had caused, limited its army to 100,000 men, and demanded it surrendered its fleet (instead the Germans sank their ships off Scotland). The victors also included in the treaty a “war guilt” clause.

The Rise of Socialism, Communism and Fascism

The beginning of the Twentieth Century saw the rise of an entirely new political environment in Western nations. The previous century had seen the Industrial Revolution replace agriculture as the primary economic model in Western nations, a change accompanied by huge social, political and demographic shifts. Populations which had once been largely rural and engaged in farming or small handicraft work shifted to urban districts filled with factory workers. The new industrial economies created great wealth, but also much alienation, sharpening divisions between economic classes. Workers' movements agitating for better living and working conditions emerged in many nations, and came under the influence of intellectual leaders, largely drawn from the middle and upper ranks of Western society. Some of these leaders pursued radical and Utopian visions of what society should become.

Socialist societies had existed before the term Socialism was used and there exist many flavours of Socialism, one of which is Communism. The main ideas of Socialism are, "focusing on general welfare rather than individualism, on co-operation rather than competition, and on laborers rather than on industrial or political leaders and structures"

Communism was given a common structure through Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' book, The Communist Manifesto. According to Marx, society is meant to go through phases of evolution, beginning with a hunter-gatherer society, followed by Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism, and finally Communism. Marx believed that the final stage could only be achieved through revolution. Although The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848, Marx was not far off with his presumption. After decades as a radical movement on the edges of the political scene, Communism burst onto the world stage in 1917, when the October Revolution in Russia brought the Bolshevik wing of the Russian socialist movement, led by Vladimir Il'ych Lenin, to power. Czarist Russia's military failures, first in the Russo-Japanese War, and then the great hardships pf World War I, discredited the Russian monarchy and opened the door first to a moderate liberal government replacing the Czar. Lenin's movement quickly displaced it in turn. As one of the radical visionaries mentioned previously, Lenin and his cohorts envisioned a complete reordering of Russian and potentially all European society under strict Marxist lines.

Communism is concerned with a complete overhaul of the Capitalist system. One of Communism's goals is to create a classless society in which all members are equal both politically and economically. This is exemplified by the phrase commonly associated with Communism, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." In other words, members of society will be expected to provide all that they can by their ability both intellectually and physically, and in return people will receive the benefits according to their need. For example, if 'x' was a doctor, x would be expected to put in all of his skills and effort into being a doctor and in return he would get comparatively little due to his lack of real need. Assuming x is an able fit doctor, x does not need as much as 'y'; a disabled child. Y puts into society as much as he can, being very little, but gets out comparatively a lot. Economically, all factors of production are controlled by the commune so that they will ensure the fair distribution of resources, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

Fascism was founded in Italy by Benito Mussolini, who began his political career in Socialist circles but came to embrace the idea of an authoritarian, nationalist "corporate state" to achieve his ideals. Unlike Lenin, Mussolini's ideology definitely did not include international revolution, stressing instead the unity and glory of the Italian nation and the dangers posed to the nation and its culture by Communist-inspired workers' revolt. Fascism, though a radical movement, emphasized discipline and devotion to a birth nation rather than fighting for class interests. This made Fascism far more palatable to traditional elements of society such as business interests and the church, which saw in it a means to organize the working and middle classes to defend their interests against Communism. Mussolini chose the title Duce(leader) and modelled his image on the emperors of ancient Rome, developing a "cult of personality" around himself.

His beliefs influenced many during the mid-Twentieth Century, namely Adolf Hitler, Britain's Oswald Moseley and Spain's General Franco. Even Britain's Winston Churchill was an early admirer of Mussolini's rule in Italy. Most people associate Fascism with Hitler; however, Hitler's National Socialism differed in important respects. Similarly to Communism, Fascism took control of the economy with the inauguration of many organizations to control output and prices amongst other things. This was in line with Mussolini's belief and aim of creating economic self-sufficiency.

For his part, Hitler succeeded in this endeavour because he was able to rearm Germany and once World War II began, was able to keep the country functioning. Hitler's political movement, National Socialism, incorporated elements of all three of these movements, but was unique for its anti-Semitic focus and its devotion to the ideal of the Aryan (northern European) race as a superior race, an idea absent from other forms of Fascism. Hitler and Mussolini both looked at the example of Russia to formulate their rule, however. Concentration camps first appeared during the Boer war, but their escalated use by the Soviets may have impressed the Nazis who took their use to fiendish heights. Fascism also engaged in imperialism and the expansion of territory; Mussolini invaded Ethiopia while Hitler invaded the rest of Europe and North Africa.

The importance of these three political theories can be seen simply by looking at the history of the Twentieth Century. The First World War was the end of the "Old World". A "New World" had dawned. From 1917, Russia became "Communist", although a more accurate word would be Stalinist. This caused political polarization as soon as the First World War was over. Trade was halted with the Soviet Union and it was only until 1924 when the British Labour government recognized it, that the Soviet Union began trading with world powers. Only the rise of Fascism in Italy, Spain, Germany, Romania and other countries did we see the focus weaken on the Soviet Union. Many nations realized the threat Fascism posed to the world and it was only until the outbreak of the Second World War that the world actually took action against it. As soon as the West's fight against Fascism ended in 1945, the fight against Communism commenced with the beginning of the Cold War.

World War II

It was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers: eventually forming two opposing military alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilized. In a state of "total war," the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it was the deadliest conflict in human history, resulting in 50 million to over 70 million fatalities.

Of all the awful portents of the great disaster that was soon to come, Hitler was the worst. In 1935 he startled everyone by announcing that despite the Versailles Treaty, Germany would rearm. After taking Rhineland and Austria, he threatened to take over not only Sudetenland but whole of Czechoslovakia. With tension at its peak, Hitler, Mussolini of Italy, and the French and British leaders met in Munich. Showing what a decent chap he was, Hitler said alright, he we’d take only Sudetenland, and not all Czechoslovakia. Happy to avoid a war, the French and British leaders signed the peace accord. The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, told an English crowd that he had brought “peace with honour - peace for our time.” In early 1939 German troops marched in and seized Czechoslovakia.

The war is generally accepted to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany, and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Germany set out to establish a large empire in Europe. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or subdued much of continental Europe; amid Nazi-Soviet agreements, the nominally neutral Soviet Union fully or partially occupied and annexed territories of its six European neighbours. Mussolini proceeded with his war in North Africa, using bombs and gas against a people mainly armed with spears, and when he won he trumpeted the founding of another Roman Empire. Britain and the Commonwealth remained the only major force continuing the fight against the Axis in North Africa and in extensive naval warfare. In August 1940 German planes began air assault on Britain. The “Battle of Britain” lasted till October and German bombs gave British towns, especially London, a pounding worse than anything the world had ever seen. In the end Hitler reckoned he couldn’t win the battle over Britain, and he canceled invasion of Britain.

In June 1941, Hitler launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which, from this moment on, was tying down the major part of the Axis military power. Napoleon had done the same, 130 years before, and lost half-a-million men to hunger, cold and wounds. In December 1941, Japan, which had been at war with China since 1937, and aimed to dominate Asia, attacked the United States and European possessions in the Pacific Ocean, quickly conquering much of the region.

The Axis advance was stopped in 1942 after the defeat of Japan in a series of naval battles and after defeats of European Axis troops in North Africa and, decisively, at Stalingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in Eastern Europe, the Allied invasion of Fascist Italy, and American victories in the Pacific, the Axis lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France, while the Soviet Union regained all territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies.

The war in Europe ended with the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. When the war was over, Russian officers were shocked to learn that other countries’ armies cleared a path across a minefield by blasting it with shells. Such a waste of shells! The Russians said their method was to form a column and order “Forward march!” The Japanese Navy was defeated by the United States, and invasion of the Japanese Archipelago ("Home Islands") became imminent.

In mid-July of 1945, Americans detonated an experimental bomb. Dazzling light inflamed the sky, and a shock wave roared and echoed off the hills. A ball of flame arose, and then a giant surging, bluish cloud. From twenty miles away the research leader, Robert Oppenheimer, watched it all though welder’s glasses. The sight reminded him of words from Hindu scriptures: “Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.” President Truman decided to use to force Japanese surrender to save American lives. In early August one atomic bomb was dropped at Hiroshima, a sea port and Army Headquarters. It flattened four miles of the city’s centre, and left 80,000 people dead or dying. When Japan did not respond, the United States dropped another bomb, this time on the port of Nagaski. Japan gave up at once. Now the war was over, everywhere.

The war in Asia ended on 15 August 1945 when Japan agreed to surrender. Only as the fighting ended the whole world learnt about the Nazis’ foulest deed, apart from the war itself. It was what Hitler called the “final solution to the Jewish question.” All Jews in Europe were to be murdered. If we let a few survive, they said, one day they will seek revenge. They collected Jews, hauled them to death camps, where they were shot or gassed.

The war ended with the total victory of the Allies over Germany and Japan in 1945. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival super powers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers started to decline, while the decolonization of Asia and Africa began. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to stabilize postwar relations.

 

 

The Cold War 

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World – primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies – and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States and its allies. Although the chief military forces never engaged in a major battle with each other, they expressed the conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, extensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, conventional and nuclear arms races, appeals to neutral nations, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

After the success of their temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany, the USSR and the US saw each other as profound enemies of their basic ways of life. The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc with the eastern European countries it occupied, annexing some and maintaining others as satellite states, some of which were later consolidated as the Warsaw Pact (1955–1991). The US financed the recovery of Western Europe and forged NATO, a military alliance using containment of communism as a main strategy (Truman Doctrine).

The US funded the Marshall Plan to effectuate a more rapid post-War recovery of Europe, while the Soviet Union would not let most Eastern Bloc members participate. Elsewhere, in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the USSR assisted and helped foster communist revolutions, opposed by several Western countries and their regional allies; some they attempted to roll back, with mixed results. Among the countries that the USSR supported in pro-communist revolt was Cuba, led by Fidel Castro. The proximity of communist Cuba to the United States proved to be a centerpoint of the Cold War; the USSR placed multiple nuclear missiles in Cuba, sparking heated tension with the Americans and leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where full-scale nuclear war threatened. Some countries aligned with NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and others formed the Non-Aligned Movement.

The Cold War featured periods of relative calm and of international high tension – the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Cuban  Missile Crisis (1962), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), and the Able Archer 83 NATO exercises in November 1983. Both sides sought détente to relieve political tensions and deter direct military attack, which would probably guarantee their mutual assured destruction with nuclear weapons.

In the 1980s, under the Reagan Doctrine, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the nation was already suffering economic stagnation. In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of perestroika ("reconstruction", "reorganization", 1987) and glasnost ("openness", ca. 1985). The Cold War ended after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States as the dominant military power.

Resurgence of India and China

If the rise of India and China after the Cold War seems dramatic, it is because not so long ago India appeared in the western imagination as a poor, backward and often violent nation. With its needy millions and Luddite communist regime, China seemed sunk even deeper into darkness.

At the end of World War II India wanted independence from Britain. Mohandas Gandhi caught the world’s attention by leading villagers on a march to the sea to protest a British monopoly on making salt. When he went to tea with King George V at the Buckingham Palace he wore a loin cloth. Gandhi’s leading follower was Jawaharlal Nehru. At independence in August 1947 ancient India was  partitioned to make way for Islamic Republic of Pakistan (including East Pakistan which, after a civil war, became Bangladesh) and the rest would be Republic of India. Nehru, a socialist at heart, became India’s Prime Minister, considered capitalism an evil tried to improve India by Five Year Plans as, Russia had done. He called India’s mega-projects as “new temples”.

Indira Gandhi, daughter of Nehru, was the prime minister of India from 1966-77 and 1980-84 and one of the most famous women in 20th century politics. She advanced an ambitious program of modernization. In 1975 she was convicted of violations stemming from the 1971 election and the High Court ordered her to resign. Instead she declared a state of emergency and clamped down on her opposition (the conviction was later overturned). She lost the election of 1977 and was out of office until a comeback in 1980, when she was again elected to be prime minister. In 1984 she used the military to suppress Sikh rebels and ordered an attack on a Sikh shrine in Amritsar; a few months later, Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh conspirators. Her son, Rajiv was now elected prime minister. He ruled five years, until his Congress Party lost in national elections. Two years later, on the verge of returning to power he was killed with a bomb by a woman for sending Indian Army to assist Sri Lanka to fight Tamils there.    

In the early 1990s, India as had China started on the path of economic change. Now, abruptly, India and China are economic giants, driving world growth by converging on the European model of modernity. Francis Fukuyama first outlined this post-cold-war ideology of globalization by claiming in his 1992 book, The End of History that western liberal democracy, based on private property, free markets and regular elections was the terminus of historical development. Consecrated annually in Davos, and circulated in business-class lounges around the world, this quasi-teleological view increasingly shapes the beliefs and policies of western political, business and media elites.

Failed experiments with unfettered capitalism have helped install authoritarian rightwing and populist leftwing regimes in Russia and Latin America respectively. The recent irruptions of radical Islam, and the war in Iraq, have muddied further the image of a world rushing to embrace victorious western values.

Nevertheless, the abrupt rise of the two biggest countries of the orient reaffirms the faith expressed eloquently by the American columnist Thomas Friedman: that globalizing free-market capitalism and democracy will enable much of the world's population to reach the summit of material plenitude, political stability and social security, where western societies apparently reside.

Today China offers western corporations a tempting market of more than a billion customers and a seemingly endless source of cheap labour, as does India.

India registered its most impressive gains from 1951 to 1980, after emerging from more than two centuries of systematic colonial exploitation, during which it was, in effect, reindustrialized. Until 1980 India achieved an average annual economic growth of 3.5% - as much as most countries achieved. In this period India's much derided socialistic economy also helped create the country's industrial capacity.

Much popular literature about China, such as Jung Chang's recent biography of Mao, makes it seem as though China did little after the communist revolution in 1949 but lurch from one disaster to another. In fact, China's national income under a planned economy grew fivefold between 1952 and 1978. Though wages were low, the welfare system - the famous "iron rice bowl" - guaranteed lifetime employment, pensions, healthcare and other benefits that created a high degree of personal security.

Economic reforms in the 80s focused on boosting export-oriented industries on the coast. They made China a huge sweatshop for the west's cheap goods and gave it an average annual growth of 10%. It may be tempting to credit the invisible hand of the free market for this, but, as in the so-called "Asian tiger" economies, the Chinese state has carefully regulated domestic industry and foreign trade and investment, besides maintaining control of public services.

However, economic reforms, geared to creating wealth in urban areas, have smashed the iron rice bowl and caused severe inflation. The devolution of power to provincial governments, as demanded by free-marketeers, has led to unchecked corruption. The protests in Tiananmen Square, seen by many outside China as demands for western-style freedom and democracy, were fuelled by mass rage at the dismantling of the old welfare state: inflation, for instance, reached 25% in early 1989 after remaining well below 2% for much of the Maoist era. China is now one of the most unequal countries in the world, even more so than the US.

In India, too, the pursuit of economic growth at all costs has created a gaudy elite but also widened already alarming social and economic disparities. Facilities for healthcare and primary education have deteriorated. Economic growth, confined to urban centres, is largely jobless. Up to a third of Indians live with extreme poverty and deprivation. And militant communist movements have erupted in the poorest, most populous states.

The disasters occasionally seen in the western media - the violence in Kashmir that has claimed more than 80,000 lives in the last decade and a half; the destruction of the environment and the uprooting of nearly 200 million people from their rural habitats in China - can be explained away by reference to the logic of development as manifested in Europe's history.

But the West itself has begun to feel the pain of this transition, as China's hunger for energy raises the price of oil; its cheap exports undermine the once-strong economies of Italy and Germany; and it puts white-collar workers out of jobs in America. It is also true that Europe's own transition to its present state of stability and affluence was more than just painful. It involved imperial conquests, ethnic cleansing and many minor and two major wars - involving the murder and displacement of countless millions.

As India and China rise with their consumerist middle classes in a world of finite energy resources, it is easy to imagine that this century will be ravaged by the kind of economic rivalries and military conflicts that made the last century so violent. In any case, the hope that fuels the pursuit of endless economic growth - that billions of customers in India and China will one day enjoy the lifestyles of Europeans and Americans - is an absurd and dangerous fantasy. It condemns the global environment to early destruction, and looks set to create reservoirs of nihilistic rage and disappointment among hundreds of millions of have-nots.

Many intellectuals and activists in India and China grapple with this challenge of modernity every day, knowing well the disasters that lie in wait if they fail. Peace in this century depends on India and China finding a less calamitous way of becoming modern.

Islamic terrorism  

Islamic terrorism (acts of terrorism committed by Muslims for the purpose of achieving varying political and/or religious ends) has been identified as taking place in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the United States since the 1970s. One of the most well-known militant organizations is al-Qaeda, which was founded by Osama bin Laden for the stated goals of ending American military presence in the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula, overthrowing Arab regimes he considers corrupt and insufficiently religious, ending American support for Israel, and returning East Timor and Kashmir to Muslim rule. Islamic terrorist organizations have been known to engage in tactics including suicide attacks, hijackings, kidnapping and recruiting new members through the Internet.

In 2001 nearly 3,000 people were killed in the massive September 11 attacks organized by al-Qaeda and perpetrated by Saudi nationals, sparking the War on Terror. As of July 2011, there have been 51 homegrown jihadist plots or attacks in the United States since the September 11 attacks. Attacks in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq continue unabated even as American forces try to eliminate Taliban terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Computers and Space exploration

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem.

Conventionally a computer consists of some form of memory for data storage, at least one element that carries out arithmetic and logic operations, and a sequencing and control element that can change the order of operations based on the information that is stored. Peripheral devices allow information to be entered from an external source, and allow the results of operations to be sent out.

A computer's processing unit executes series of instructions that make it read, manipulate and then store data. Conditional instructions change the sequence of instructions as a function of the current state of the machine or its environment.

The first electronic computers were developed in the mid-20th century (1940–1945). Originally, they were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers (PCs).

Modern computers based on integrated circuits are millions to billions of times more capable than the early machines, and occupy a fraction of the space.[2] Simple computers are small enough to fit into mobile devices, and mobile computers can be powered by small batteries. Personal computers in their various forms are icons of the Information Age and are what most people think of as "computers". However, the embedded computers found in many devices from mp3 players to fighter aircraft and from toys to industrial robots are the most numerous.

Computers are an important asset when it comes to space exploration technology because with their help researchers understood how many of the secrets of the creation of the Universe have happened. The reason why computers are so good at what they do is because they have an amazing processing power and are able do render data a lot faster than the average person. guidance for their ships and are totally.

The best part about computers is that by being used on such a frequent basis, the need for then to bee more efficient and powerful increases and thus, they get to be upgraded and fitted to suit our demands. Every couple of months, computers get upgraded and there is no way you can keep up with the technology. 

Conclusion

Change spread to new places mostly through trading contacts. Some people welcomed change, while others avoided change and tried to maintain traditional ways.. Change is moving faster now.

The stream of time flows on. As always, we humans face challenges to our survival, but in our time the challenges are global. Modern technology is consuming the world's resources, threatening the earth's environment, and it has produced weapons that could end human life. The world is tied together through communications and trade, but the world remains divided between the "haves" and the "have nots."

History created our past and our present, but the future is up to us. There is no instruction manual for the future, but we do have a guide that shows how the world works and how humans behave. That guide is history.

                                                                CHAPTER III

                                                  OUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE

We live on the third planet from the sun at a distance of 8.3 light minutes (150 million kilometers or 93 million miles). The Earth's sun is only one in trillions upon trillions of stars. Its exact location in an ever-expanding universe is not known, since astronomers are incapable of seeing everything in the universe. Our solar system is comprised of one star (the sun) and nine planets circling around it.  Planets, like stars, are basically chunks of matter.  But relative to the size of a star, a planet is quite a small chunk. 

We live in the Milky Way Galaxy. There are about 250 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light years side to side. The diameter of the bulge in the center is 30,000 light years. The thickness of the disk at the earth is 700 light years. The solar system orbits the center every 250 million years: a galactic year. The galaxy is 13-15 billion years old. The solar system is 4.6 billion years old.

A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars billions upon billions of stars. Every star may be a sun to someone. Within a galaxy are stars and worlds and, it may be, a
proliferation of living things and intelligent beings and spacefaring civilizations.

Alpha Proxima is our nearest neighboring star: 4.3 light years away. It's actually one of a three-star system that includes Alpha Centaur. Two stars tumble about each other and the third star orbits those two. How far is 4.3 light years? If you could travel really fast, say 100,000 kilometers per hour, it would take you 20,000 years to reach the closest star!

The Milky Way is part of a cluster of about 30 other galaxies loosely held together by their mutual gravitational attraction. This is a small cluster, since some clusters contain thousands of galaxies.

Gravity binds stars together into galaxies, binds galaxies into local groups of galaxies, groups of galaxies into clusters, and clusters into super clusters. The number of stars in the universe boggles the mind. And this is just the visible Universe, the actual Universe is much larger than this, and may possibly even be infinitely large, astronomers simply don't know for sure.

Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe. An extract from the ninth century Mahapurana of India is instructive:

 

Some foolish men declare that a creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill advised, and should be rejected.

If God created the world, where was He before creation?

How could God have made the world without any raw material? If you say He made this world, and then the other worlds, you re faced with an endless regression.

Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end.

And is based on the principles…

 

As time passed, the fabric of space continued to expand, the radiation cooled and, in ordinary visible light, for the first time space became dark, as it is today.

 

The planet Earth is the only world on which we know with certainty that the matter of Cosmos has come alive and aware. There must be many such worlds scattered though space. Human beings, born ultimately of the stars and now for a while inhabiting a world called Earth, are searching for knowledge of other worlds.

 

Four billion years ago, the Earth was a molecular Garden of Eden. A billion years later, a number of one-celled plants had joined together. The first molecular organisms had evolved. Every cell of a human body is a kind of commune, with once free-living parts all banded together for the common good. With the invention of sex two billion years ago, two organisms could produce new varieties. Organisms are selected to engage in sex – the ones that find it uninteresting quickly become extinct. By one billon years ago, plants, working cooperatively, had made a stunning change in the environment of earth

 

Some six hundred million years ago, an enormous proliferation of new life forms emerged, an event called the Cambrian explosion. In rapid succession the first fish and the first vertebrates appeared; plants, previously restricted to the oceans, began the colonization of the land; the first insect evolved, and its descendents became the pioneers of the colonization of land by animals; winged insects arose together with the amphibians, creatures something like the lungfish, able to survive both on land and in the water; the first trees and the first reptiles appeared; the dinosaurs evolved; the mammals emerged, and then the first birds; the first flowers appeared;  the dinosaurs became extinct; the earliest cetaceans, ancestors to the dolphins and whales, arose and in the same period the primates – the ancestors of the monkeys, the apes and the humans. Less than ten million years ago, the first creatures that closely resembled human beings evolved, accompanied by a spectacular increase in brain size. And then, only a few million years ago, the first true humans emerged. Human beings grew up in forests; we have a natural affinity for them.

 

For thousands of years humans were oppressed – as some of us still are – by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable. Suddenly there were people who believed that everything was made of atoms; that human beings and other animals had sprung from simpler forms; that diseases were not caused by demons or the gods; that the earth was only a planet going around the Sun. And the stars were very far away.

 

We find that we live, as the astronomer Carl Sagan wrote,  on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost between two spiral arms in the outskirts of a galaxy which is a member of a sparse cluster of galaxies, tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

 

The Moon and the Sun are far away. But their gravitational influence is very real and noticeable back here on earth. The beach reminds us of space. Fine sand grains, all more or less uniform in size; have been produced from larger rocks through ages of jostling and rubbing, abrasion and erosion, again driven through waves and weather by the distant Moon and Sun. The beach also reminds us of time. The world is much older than the human species.

 

A handful of sand contains about 10,000 grains, more than the number of stars we can see with the naked eye on a clear night. But the number of stars we can see is only the tiniest fraction of the number of stars that are. What we see at night is the merest smattering of the nearest stars. Meanwhile the Cosmos is rich beyond measure: the total number of stars in the universe is greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet earth. The average distance between the stars is a few light-years, a light-year being about ten trillion kilometers.

 

Charles Darwin had something to say something about evolution of human species in his book, The Descent of Man, He boldly stated that the long-ago ancestor of human was “an aquatic animal, . .. with the two sexes united in the same individual.” Our most recent ancestor was a “hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits.” This sounded very much like an ape.

 

This is what Darwin thought about human story: “man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having risen, instead of being placed there aborginally, may give him hope for a still higher destiny in the distant future.”

 

Perhaps some spiritual teachings might make us to be “Supermen”. 

                                                              

CHAPTER IV

RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD

    

INDIA was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit

the mother of Europe's languages: she was the

mother of our philosophy; mother, through the

Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through

the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity;

mother, through the village community, of selfgovernment

and democracy. Mother India is in many

ways the mother of us all.

It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India

has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic,

philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and

above all numerals and the decimal system.

Nowhere on earth have people sought to fathom who

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we are and and what will come of us so long and so

deeply as they have in India. Indus Valley

Civilization – now in Pakistan – has left soapstone

seals, figures carved on which look very much like

Shiva.

In subsequent centuries the learned Indians

discussed the fundamental questions about our

existence in Upanishads.

The philosophy of the Upanishads appears,

developed and enriched, in the Bhagwat-Gita and

was finally systemized, in the ninth century of our

era, by Shankara.

A passage from his work:

The nature of the one Reality must be known by one’s

own clear perception . . . But the desire for personal

separateness is deep-rooted and powerful, for it exists

from beginningless time. It creates the notion, “I am the

actor, I am he who experiences.” This notion is the cause

of bondage to conditional existence, birth and death. It

can be removed only by the earnest effort to live

constantly in union with Brahman. By the sages, the

eradication of this notion and the craving for personal

separateness is called Liberation.

Liberation can be attained by Right Action, Meditation

and Wisdom.

Hinduism is generally regarded as the world's oldest

organized religion. It consists of "thousands of

different religious groups that have evolved in India

since 1500 BCE." Because of the wide variety of

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Hindu traditions, freedom of belief and practice are

notable features of Hinduism.

Most forms of Hinduism are henotheistic religions.

They recognize a single deity, and view other Gods

and Goddesses as manifestations or aspects of that

supreme God. Henotheistic and polytheistic religions

have traditionally been among the world's most

religiously tolerant faiths. As a result, India has

traditionally been one of the most religiously

tolerant in the world.

PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS (c. 570-c. 495 BC)

was an Ionian Greek philosopher and founder of the

religious movement called Pythagoreanism.

Pythagoras’ religious and scientific views were, in

his opinion, inseparably interconnected. Religiously,

Pythagoras was a believer of metempsychosis. He

believed in transmigration, or the reincarnation of

the soul again and again into the bodies of humans,

animals, or vegetables until it became moral. His

ideas of reincarnation were influenced by ancient

Greek religion. He himself claimed to have lived

four lives that he could remember in detail, and

heard the cry of his dead friend in the bark of a dog.

The beliefs that Pythagoras held were:-

(1) that at its deepest level, reality is mathematical in

nature,

(2) that philosophy can be used for spiritual

purification,

(3) that the soul can rise to union with the divine,

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(4) that certain symbols have a mystical significance,

and

(5) that all brothers of the order should observe

strict loyalty and secrecy.

MANY HUNDREDS OF YEARS before the birth

of Christ, a great prophet appeared in Airyana-vaejo,

the ancient “home of Aryans” in Persia. His people

called him Zarathustra. He conceived his god as

supreme over all things. “Good Mind” meant not

any human mind, but a divine wisdom used by

Ahura-Mazda – the supreme god – as an

intermediate agency of creation. And this “Good

Mind” can be granted to any human being who

strives for it as illustrated by the following sayings

of Zarathustra.

May the Wise, Ruling-at-will God grant radiant

happiness to the person who radiates happiness to any

other person at large. I pray for steadfast strength and

courage in order to uphold righteousness. Grant me

through serenity the blessings of a rich life of good mind.

Moreover, may the best of blessings come to the person

who gives blessings to others. Wise One, may his

knowledge grow throughout the days of his long life of

joy, through Your most progressive mentality, the

wondrous wisdom of good mind which You created by

means of righteousness.

Wise One, I realize You to be powerful and progressive

because You help with Your own hand. You give rewards

to both the wrongful and the righteous by means of the

warmth of Your fire which is mighty through

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righteousness, and through which strength of good mind

comes to me.

I realized You, God Wise, to be progressive when I was

encircled by it (enlightenment) through good mind,

I realized You, God Wise, to be progressive when I was

encircled by it through good mind. To its question: “For

what purpose do you want to acquire knowledge;” I said:

“With the gift of homage to Your fire, I shall meditate, as

long as I can, in quest of righteousness.”

So, show me righteousness which I continue to invoke. I

am well accompanied by serenity. Ask us what we want to

ask you. An inquiry by you amounts to an inquiry by the

strong, because the Ruler makes one strong and powerful

through you (the enlightenment).

I realized You, God Wise, to be progressive when I was

encircled by it through good mind, and it showed that

silent meditation is the best. One should never try to

please wrongful people because they hold the righteous

as being totally bad.

Therefore, Wise God, I, Zarathustra choose for myself the

very mentality of Yours, which is the most progressive.

May righteousness breathe a strong life in body. I

realized You, God Wise, to be progressive when I was

encircled by it through good mind, and it showed that

silent meditation is the best. One should never try to

please wrongful people because they hold the righteous

as being totally bad.

May serenity prevail in the sun-bathed dominion. May

the reward for actions be given through good mind.

Followers of Zarathustra hold Earth, water and air as

sacred, and expose their dead in “Towers of Silence”

to birds of prey lest burning or burial should defile

the holy elements. They are people of excellent

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morals and character, a living tribute to the civilizing

effect of Zarathustra’s doctrine upon mankind.

HINDUISM WAS ALREADY ANCIENT when the

man we call the Buddha taught in villages of

northeast India. Siddharata Gautam was his name

and he was a price, married to a lovely girl, from

whom every glimpse of misery was carefully

screened out. On his secret expeditions to discover

for himself what life was really like he came upon

Four Signs that would forever shape his view of life.

The first three were a feeble old man, a man who

was hopelessly sick, and a corpse surrounded by

weeping mourners. If this was life why be born?

One day, however, on another secret foray, he came

upon the Fourth Sign, a holy man. When Siddhartha

saw calm and peace in this man’s face he hoped that

he had glimpsed a way to look for answers to his

questions. He left his home, after which he lived for

decades as an ascetic and then a wandering teacher.

He died in the 470s B.C. at the age of eighty.

When the Buddha gave his first sermon in the Deer

Park near Benaras, he began the 'Turning of the

Dharma Wheel'. He chose the beautiful symbol of

the wheel with its eight spokes to represent the

Noble Eightfold Path. The Buddha's teaching goes

round and round like a great wheel that never stops,

leading to the central point of the wheel, the only

point which is fixed, Nirvana. The eight spokes on

the wheel represent the eight parts of the Noble

Eightfold Path. Just as every spoke is needed for the

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wheel to keep turning, we need to follow each step

of the path.

1. Right View. The right way to think about life is to

see the world through the eyes of the Buddha--with

wisdom and compassion.

2. Right Thought. We are what we think. Clear and

kind thoughts build good, strong characters.

3. Right Speech. By speaking kind and helpful

words, we are respected and trusted by everyone.

4. Right Conduct. No matter what we say, others

know us from the way we behave. Before we

criticize others, we should first see what we do

ourselves.

5. Right Livelihood. This means choosing a job that

does not hurt others. The Buddha said, "Do not earn

your living by harming others. Do not seek

happiness by making others unhappy."

6. Right Effort. A worthwhile life means doing our

best at all times and having goodwill toward others.

This also means not wasting effort on things that

harm us and others.

7. Right Mindfulness. This means being aware of

our thoughts, words, and deeds.

8. Right Concentration. Focus on one thought or

object at a time. By doing this, we can be quiet and

attain true peace of mind.

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Following the Noble Eightfold Path can be

compared to cultivating a garden, but in Buddhism

one cultivates one's wisdom. The mind is the ground

and thoughts are seeds. Deeds are ways one cares for

the garden. Our faults are weeds. Pulling them out is

like weeding a garden. The harvest is real and lasting

happiness.

RELIGIONS IN CHINA are not mutually exclusive;

normally they tolerate one another not only in the

state but in the same breast; and the average Chinese

is at once an animist, a Taoist, a Buddhist and a

Confucianist. “No image-maker worships the gods,”

says a Chinese proverb; “he knows what stuff they

are made off.” Yung-chia Ta-shih wrote:

One Nature, perfect and pervading, circulates in all

natures, One Reality, all-comprehensive,

contains within itself all realities,

The one moon reflects itself wherever there is a sheet of

water,

And all the moons in water are embraced within the one

Moon,

The Dharma-body (the Absolute) of all the Buddhas

enters into my own being.

And my own being is found in union with theirs. . . .

The Inner Light is beyond praise and blame;

Like space it knows no boundaries,

Yet it is even here, within us, ever retaining its serenity

and fullness.

It is only when you hunt for it that you lose it;

You cannot take hold of it, but equally you cannot get rid

of it,

And while you can do neither, it goes on its way.

You remain silent and it speaks, and it is dumb;

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The great gate of charity is wide open, with no obstacles

before it

A HISTORY OF THE PAPACY. A scholar or

devout Roman Catholic would probably not have

had so much fun with the tale of Pope Joan, the midninth-

century Englishwoman who, according to lore,

disguised herself as a man, became pope and was

caught out only when she gave birth. Although John

Julius Norwich regards this as “one of the hoariest

canards in papal history,” he cannot resist giving her

a chapter of her own. It is a guilty pleasure,

especially his deadpan pursuit of the story that the

church, determined not to be fooled again, required

subsequent papal candidates to sit on a chaise percée

(pierced chair) and be groped from below by a junior

cleric, who would shout to the multitude, “He has

testicles!” Norwich tracks down just such a piece of

furniture in the Vatican Museum, dutifully reports

that it may have been an obstetric chair intended to

symbolize Mother Church, but adds, “It cannot be

gainsaid, on the other hand, that it is admirably

designed for a diaconal grope; and it is only with

considerable reluctance that one turns the idea

aside.”

If you were raised Catholic, you may find it

disconcerting to see an institution you were taught to

think of as the repository of the faith so thoroughly

deconsecrated. Norwich says little about theology

and treats doctrinal disputes as matters of diplomacy.

As he points out, this is in keeping with many of the

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popes themselves, “a surprising number of whom

seem to have been far more interested in their own

temporal power than in their spiritual well-being.”

For most of their two millenniums, the popes were

rulers of a large sectarian state, managers of a civil

service, military strategists, occasionally battlefield

generals, sometimes patrons of the arts and

humanities, and, importantly, diplomats. They were

indeed monarchs. (But not, it should be said,

“absolute monarchs.” Whichever editor persuaded

Norwich to change his British title, “The Popes: A

History,” may have done the book a marketing favor

but at the cost of accuracy: the popes’ power was

invariably shared with or subordinated to emperors

and kings of various stripes. In more recent times,

the popes have had no civil power outside the 110

acres of Vatican City, no military at all, and even

their moral authority has been flouted by legions of

the faithful.)

Norwich, whose works of popular history include

books on Venice and Byzantium, admires the popes

who were effective statesmen and stewards,

including Leo I, who protected Rome from the

Huns; Benedict XIV, who kept the peace and

instituted financial and liturgical reforms, allowing

Rome to become the religious and cultural capital of

Catholic Europe; and Leo XIII, who steered the

Church into the industrial age. The popes who

achieved greatness, however, were outnumbered by

the corrupt, the inept, the venal, the lecherous, the

ruthless, the mediocre and those who didn’t last long

enough to make a mark.

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Sinners, as any dramatist or newsman can tell you,

are more entertaining than saints, and Norwich has

much to work with. If you paid attention in high

school, you know something of the Borgia popes,

who are covered in a chapter succinctly called “The

Monsters.” But they were not the first, the last or

even the most colorful of the sacred scoundrels. The

bishops who recently blamed the scourge of pedophile

priests on the libertine culture of the 1960s

should consult Norwich for evidence that clerical

abuses are not a historical aberration.

Of the minor 15th-century Pope Paul II, to pick one

from the ranks of the debauched, Norwich writes:

“The pope’s sexual proclivities aroused a good deal

of speculation. He seems to have had two

weaknesses — for good-looking young men and for

melons — though the contemporary rumor that he

enjoyed watching the former being tortured while he

gorged himself on the latter is surely unlikely.”

Sexual misconduct figures prominently in the history

of the papacy (another chapter is entitled “Nicholas I

and the Pornocracy”) but is hardly the only blot on

the institution. Clement VII, the disastrous second

Medici pope, oversaw “the worst sack of Rome since

the barbarian invasions, the establishment in

Germany of Protestantism as a separate religion and

the definitive breakaway of the English church over

Henry VIII’s divorce.” Paul IV “opened the most

savage campaign in papal history against the Jews,”

forcing them into ghettos and destroying

synagogues. Gregory XIII spent the papacy into

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penury. Urban VIII imprisoned Galileo and banned

all his works.

Most of the popes, being human, were complicated;

the rogues had redeeming features, the capable

leaders had defects. Innocent III was the greatest of

the medieval popes, a man of galvanizing self--

confidence who consolidated the Papal States. But

he also initiated the Fourth Crusade, which led to the

wild sacking of Constantinople, “the most

unspeakable of the many outrages in the whole

hideous history of the Crusades.” Sixtus IV sold

indulgences and church offices “on a scale

previously unparalleled,” made an 8-year-old boy

the archbishop of Lisbon and began the horrors of

the Spanish Inquisition. But he also commissioned

the Sistine Chapel.

Even the Borgia pope Alexander VI, who by the

time he bribed his way into office had fathered eight

children by at least three women, is credited with

keeping the imperiled papacy alive by capable

administration and astute diplomacy, “however

questionable his means of doing so.”

By the time we reach the 20th century, about 420

pages in, our expectations are not high. We get a

disheartening chapter on Pius XI and Pius XII,

whose fear of Communism (along with the church’s

long streak of anti-Semitism) made them compliant

enablers of Mussolini, Hitler and Franco. Pius XI, in

Norwich’s view, redeemed himself by his belated

but unflinching hostility to the Fascists and Nazis.

But his indictment of Pius XII — who resisted every

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entreaty to speak out against mass murder, even as

the trucks were transporting the Jews of Rome to

Auschwitz — is compact, evenhanded and

devastating. “It is painful to have to record,”

Norwich concludes, “that, on the orders of his

successor, the process of his canonization has

already begun. Suffice it to say here that the current

fashion for canonizing all popes on principle will, if

continued, make a mockery of sainthood.”

Norwich devotes exactly one chapter to the popes of

my lifetime — from the avuncular modernizer John

XXIII, whom he plainly loves, to the austere

Benedict, off to a “shaky start.” He credits the

popular Polish pope, John Paul II — another

candidate for sainthood — for his global diplomacy

but faults his retrograde views on matters of sex and

gender. Norwich’s conclusion may remind readers

that he introduced himself as a Protestant agnostic,

because whatever his views on God, his views on the

papacy are clearly pro-reformation. “It is now well

over half a century since progressive Catholics have

longed to see their church bring itself into the

modern age,” he writes. “With the accession of

every succeeding pontiff they have raised their hopes

that some progress might be made on the leading

issues of the day — on homosexuality, on

contraception, on the ordination of women priests.

And each time they have been disappointed.”

Yet the fact remains that Christianity is the most

popular religion in the world with over 2 billion

adherents. It is based on the teachings of Christ who

lived in the Holy land 2000years ago. The three

largest groups in the world of Christianity are

the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox

churches, and the various denominations

of Protestantism. The Roman Catholic and Eastern

Orthodox patriarchates split from one another in

the East–West Schism of 1054 AD, and

Protestantism came into existence during

the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century,

splitting from the Roman Catholic Church.

.

Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah

promised in the Old Testament.

Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of

God.

Christians believe that Jesus suffered, died, was

buried, and was resurrected from the dead to

open heaven to those who believe in him and trust

him for the remission of their sins (salvation)

One of the most important concepts in Christianity is

that of Jesus giving his life on the Cross

(the Crucifixion) and rising from the dead on the third

day (the Resurrection).

Christians believe that there is only one God, but that

there are three elements to this one God:

 God the Father

 God the Son

 The Holy Spirit

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Christians worship in churches.

Their spiritual leaders are called priests or ministers.

The Christian holy book is the Bible, and consists of

the Old and New Testaments.

Christian holy days such as Easter and Christmas are

important milestones in the Western secular calendar

THE EXPLOSION OF THE ARABIAN

PENINSULA into the conquest and conversion of

half the Mediterranean world is the most

extraordinary phenomenon in medieval history.

One night in the year 610, as he was alone in the

cave, the pivotal experience of all Mohammedan

history came to him. According to a tradition

reported by his chief biographer, Muhammad ibn

Ishaq, Mohammed related the event as follows:

'Whilst I was asleep, with a coverlet of silk brocade

whereon was some writing, the angel Gabriel appeared

to me and said, “Read!” I said, “I do not read.” He

pressed me with the coverlets so tightly that I thought

'twas death. Then he let me go, and said, “Read!”... So I

read aloud, and he departed from me at last. And I awoke

from my sleep, and it was as though these words were

written on my heart. I went forth until, when I was

midway on the mountain, I heard a voice from heaven

saying, “0 Mohammed! Thou art the messenger of Allah,

and I am Gabriel.” I raised my head toward heaven to

see, and lo, Gabriel in the form of a man, with feet set

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evenly on the rim of the sky, saying, “0 Mohammed! Thou

art the messenger of Allah, and I am Gabriel.”

Asked how he could remember these divine

discourses, he explained that the archangel made

him repeat every word. Others who were near the

Prophet at the time neither saw nor heard the angel.

Strengthened by victory, Mohammed used the

customary morality of war. Asma, a Medinese

poetess, having attacked him in her rhymes, Omeir, a

blind Moslem, made his way into her room, and

plunged his sword so fervently into the sleeping

woman's breast that it affixed her to the couch. In the

mosque the next morning Mohammed asked Omeir,

“Hast thou slain Asma?” “Yes,” answered Omeir, “is

there cause for apprehension?” “None,” said the

Prophet, “a couple of goats will hardly knock their

heads together for it.”

Afak, a centenarian convert to Judaism, composed a

satire on the Prophet, and was slain as he slept in his

courtyard. A third Medinese poet, Kab ibn al-Ashraf,

son of a Jewess, abandoned Islam when Mohammed

turned against the Jews; he wrote verses prodding

the Quraish to avenge their defeat, and enraged the

Moslems by addressing love sonnets to their wives

in premature troubadour style. “Who will ease me of

this man?” asked Mohammed. That evening the

poet's severed head was laid at the Prophet's feet. In

the Moslem view these executions were a legitimate

defense against treason; Mohammed was the head of

a state, and had full authority to condemn.

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Originally he had made Jerusalem the qibla—the

point toward which Moslems should turn in prayer;

in 624 he changed this to Mecca and the Kaaba. The

Jews accused him of returning to idolatry. About this

time a Moslem girl visited the market of the Banu-

Kainuka Jews in Medina; as she sat in a goldsmiths

shop a mischievous Jew pinned her skirt behind her

to her upper dress. When she arose she cried out in

shame at her exposure. A Moslem slew the

offending Jew, whose brothers then slew the

Moslem. Mohammed marshaled his followers,

blockaded the Banu-Kainuka Jews in their quarter

for fifteen days, accepted their surrender, and bade

them, 700 in number, depart from Medina, and leave

all their possessions behind.

Mohammed led 3000 men against the Banu-Kuraiza

Jews. On surrendering, they were given a choice of

Islam or death. They chose death. Their 6oo fighting

men were slain and buried in the market place of

Medina; their women and children were sold into

slavery.

His ten wives and two concubines have been a

source of marvel, merriment, and envy to the

Western world. He was not above using the method

of revelation for very human and personal ends, as

when a special message from Allah 'sanctioned his

desire to marry the pretty wife of Zaid, his adopted

son. Aisha quoted him as saying that the three most

precious things in this world are women, fragrant

odors, and prayers. His crowded harem troubled him

with quarrels, jealousies, and demands for pin

money. He refused to indulge the extravagance of

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his wives, but he promised them paradise; and for a

time he dutifully spent a night with each of them in

rotation; the master of Arabia had no apartment of

his own. The alluring and vivacious Aisha, however,

won so many attentions out of her turn that the other

wives rebelled, until the matter was settled by a

special revelation:

Thou canst defer whom thou wilt of them, and

receive of them whom thou wilt; and whomsoever

thou desirest of those whom thou hast set aside, it is

no sin for thee; that is better, that they may be

comforted and not grieve, and may all be pleased

with what thou givest them.

In his sixty-third year fevers became exhausting.

One night Aisha complained of a headache. He

complained of one also, and asked playfully would

she not prefer to die first, and have the advantage of

being buried by the Prophet of Allah, to which she

replied, with her customary tartness, that he would

doubtless, on returning from her grave, install a fresh

bride in her place For fourteen days thereafter the

fever came and went. On June 7, 632, after a long

agony, he passed away, his head on Aisha’s breast.

ALL THE SURAS OF THE KORAN, except the

first take the form of discourses by Allah or Gabriel

to Mohammed, his followers, or his enemies; this

was the plan adopted by the Hebrew prophets, and in

many passages of the Pentateuch. Mohammed felt

that no moral code would win obedience adequate to

the order and vigor of a society unless men believed

the code to have come from God. The Koran, like

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the Fundamentalist forms of Christianity, seems

more concerned with right belief than with good

conduct.

Mohammed’s picture of heaven is vivid. “After your

death you will be resurrected again as a healthy

young man of 25 years. There in the heaven you

will be given beautiful Houris/Gillman, wine, and

plenty of foods to eat. You will stay young for ever

and death, disease will never come near you

again.” Who could reject such a revelation?

As the style of the Koran is modeled on that of the

Hebrew prophets, so its contents are largely an

adaptation of Judaic doctrines, tales, and themes.

The Koran, which excoriates the Jews, is the

sincerest flattery they have ever received.

Gabriel made Mohammed say: “Islam is to believe

in Allah and His Prophet, to recite the prescribed

prayers, to give alms, to observe the fast of

Ramadan, and to make pilgrimage to Mecca.” These

are five pillars of Islam.

THE TALMUD is a vast collection of Jewish laws

and traditions. Despite the dry subject matter the

Talmud makes interesting reading because it is

infused with vigorous intellectual debate, humor and

deep wisdom. As the saying goes, 'you don't have to

be Jewish' to appreciate this text. If you put in the

hard work required to read the Talmud, your mind

will get a world-class workout. The process of

studying the Talmud has been compared with the

practice of Zen Buddhist Koan meditation, and for

good reason.

In the most delightful part of the Talmud are maxims

of great rabbi. Many of these praise wisdom, and

some define it.

Ben Zoma said: Who is wise? He who learns from every

man who is mighty? He who subdues his evil inclination.

. . He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a

city. Who is rich? He who rejoices in his lot. . . When

thou eatest from the labour of thy hands, happy thou shalt

be. . .Who is honoured? He who honours his fellow men. .

. . Despise not any man, nor anything; for there is no man

that has not his hour, and there is nothing that has not its

place. . . .All my days I grew up among the sages, and I

have found nothing better for a person than silence.

THE BAHAI FAITH promotes gender and race

equality, freedom of expression and assembly, world

peace and world government. They believe that a

single world government led by Bahá'ís will be

established at some point in the future. The faith

does not attempt to preserve the past but does

embrace the findings of science. Bahá'ís believe that

every person has an immortal soul which can not die

but is freed to travel through the spirit world after

death. The differences in teachings of each prophet

are due to the needs of the society they came to help

and what mankind was ready to have revealed to it.

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PAGANISM describes a group of contemporary

religions based on a reverence for nature. These

faiths draw on the traditional religions of indigenous

peoples throughout the world.

Paganism encompasses a diverse community.

Wiccans, Druids, Shamans, Sacred

Ecologists, Odinists and Heathens all make up parts

of the Pagan community.

Some groups concentrate on specific traditions

or practices such as ecology, witchcraft, Celtic

traditions or certain gods.

Most Pagans share an ecological vision that comes

from the Pagan belief in the organic vitality and

spirituality of the natural world.

Due to persecution and misrepresentation it is

necessary to define what Pagans are not as well as

what they are. Pagans are not sexual deviants, do not

worship the devil, are not evil, do not practice 'black

magic' and their practices do not involve harming

people or animals.

The Pagan Federation of Great Britain have no

precise figures but estimate that the number of

Pagans in the British Isles is between 50,000 and

200,000 (2002).

 

Chapter V - THREE WOMEN

ISABELLA I – QUEEN OF SPAIN

Queen Isabella I ruled Castile and Aragon jointly

with her  husband, Ferdinand (Ferdinand II of

Aragon, Ferdinand V of Castile).

Isabella's half-brother, Henry IV, became king of

Castile when their father, John II, died in 1454.

Isabella was only three years old, and her younger

brother Alfonso was the expected heir. Isabella was

raised by her mother, Isabella of Portugal, until

1457, when the two children were brought to court

by Henry IV to keep them from being used by

opposition nobles.

Henry's first marriage ended without children and in

a divorce. When his second wife bore a daughter,

Juana, in 1462, soon the opposition nobles claimed

that Juana was actually the daughter of Beltran de la

Cueva, duke of Albuquerque

The opposition's attempt to replace Henry with

Alfonso met with defeat, the final defeat coming in

July, 1468 when Alfonso died of poison. Isabella

was offered the crown by the nobles, but she refused,

and Henry was willing to compromise with the

nobles and accept Isabella as his heiress in

September.

When Isabella married Ferdinand of Aragon (a

second cousin) in October 1469 without Henry's

approval, Henry withdrew his recognition and again

named Juana as his heir. At Henry's death in 1474, a

war of succession ensued, with Alfonso V of

Portugal, prospective husband of Isabella's rival

Juana, supporting Juana's claims. The war was

settled in 1479, with Isabella recognized as Queen of

Castile. Juana retired to a convent rather than marry

the son of Ferdinand and Isabella, Juan. Juana died

in 1530.

Ferdinand had by this time become King of Aragon,

and the two ruled with equal authority in both

realms, thus unifying Spain. Among their first acts

were various reforms to reduce the power of the

nobility and increase the power of the crown.

In 1480, Isabella and Ferdinand instituted the

Inquisition in Spain, one of many changes to the role

of the church instituted by the monarchs. The

Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims

who had overtly converted to Christianity but were

thought to be practicing their faiths secretly --

known respectively as morranos and moriscos -- as

well as at heretics who rejected Roman Catholic

orthodoxy, including alumbras who practiced a kind

of mysticism or spiritualism.

Ferdinand and Isabella were given the title "the

Catholic monarchs" (los Reyes Católicos) by the

Pope, in recognition of their role in "purifying" the

faith. Among Isabella's other religious interests, she

also took a special interest in the order of nuns, the

Poor Clares.

Isabella and Ferdinand proceeded with their plans to

unify all of Spain by continuing a long-standing but

stalled effort to expel the Moors (Muslims) who held

parts of Spain. In 1492, the Muslim Kingdom of

Granada fell to Isabella and Ferdinand, thus

completing the Reconquista. That same year, all

Jews in Spain who refused to convert to Christianity

were expelled by royal edict.

Also in 1492, Isabella was convinced by Christopher

Columbus to sponsor his voyage of discovery. The

lasting effects of this were many: by the traditions of

the time, when Columbus discovered lands in the

New World, they were given to Castile. Isabella took

a special interest in the Native Americans of the new

lands; when some were brought back to Spain as

slaves she insisted they be returned and freed, and

her will expressed her wish that the "Indians" be

treated with justice and fairness.

Isabella was also a patron of scholars and artists,

establishing educational institutions and building a

large collection of art works. She learned Latin as an

adult, was widely read, and educated not only her

sons but her daughters. One of these daughters,

Catherine of Aragon, is known in history as the first

wife of Henry VIII of England and mother of Mary I

of England.

At her death, she left as her only heir "Mad Joan,"

Juana, her sons and grandson and her daughter,

Isabella, queen of Portugal, predeceasing her. Her

will, the only writing which she left, is a fascinating

document, summarizing what she thought were her

reign's achievements as well as wishes for the future.

RANI LAXMABAI OF JHANSI

She was born to a Maharashtrian family at Kashi

(now Varanasi) in the year 18 November 1835.

During her childhood, she was called by the name

Manikarnika. Affectionately, her family members

called her Manu. At a tender age of four, she lost her

mother. As a result, the responsibility of raising her

fell upon her father. While pursuing studies, she also

took formal training in martial arts, which included

horse riding, shooting and fencing. In the year 1842,

she got married to the Maharaja of Jhansi, Raja

Gangadhar Rao Newalkar. On getting married, she

was given the name Lakshmi Bai. Her wedding

ceremony was held at the Ganesh temple, located in

the old city of Jhansi. In the year 1851, she gave

birth to a son. Unfortunately, the child did not

survive more than four months.

In the year 1853, Gangadhar Rao fell sick and

became very weak. So, the couple decided to adopt a

child. To ensure that the British do not raise an issue

over the adoption, Lakshmibai got this adoption

witnessed by the local British representatives. On

21st November 1853, Maharaja Gangadhar Rao died.

On 7th March 1854, the British issued a gazette

dissolving the State of Jhansi. Rani Lakshmibai was

enraged due to the injustice when an English officer,

Major Ellis came to meet Lakshmibai. He read out

the official declaration dissolving the State. The

furious Rani Lakshmibai told Ellis ‘‘Meri Jhansi

Nahin Doongi (I shall not part with my Jhansi)’

when he sought her permission to leave. Ellis heard

her and left. The battle for freedom that started from

January 1857 engulfed even Meerut on 10th May.

Along with Meerut, Delhi and Bareilly, Jhansi also

was freed from the British rule. Three years after

Jhansi was freed, Rani Lakshmibai took over the

control of Jhansi and she made preparations to

defend Jhansi from the likely attack by the British.

Sir Hugh Rose was appointed by the British to

capture Rani Lakshmibai, alive. On 20th March

1858, Sir Huge encamped with his army 3 miles

away from Jhansi and sent a message to her that she

should surrender; but rather than surrendering, she

stood on the rampart of her fort motivating her army

to fight with the British. The battle started. Jhansi

canons started routing the British. Even after 3 days

of continuous firing, the fort of Jhansi could not be

attacked; therefore, Sir Hugh decided to adopt the

path of treachery. Finally, on 3rd April, the army of

Sir Hugh Rose entered Jhansi.

The soldiers started looting people. Rani Lakshmibai

decided to join Peshava by breaking the bloc of the

enemy. In the night, with her troupe of trusted 200

cavalry, she tied her 12 year old son Damodar to her

back and raising the slogan of ‘Jai Shankar’ left her

fort. She penetrated the British bloc and rode

towards Kalpi. Her father Moropant was with her.

While breaking the faction of the British army, her

father got injured, was captured by the British and

was hanged.

After riding continuously for 24 hours covering a

distance of 102 miles, the Rani reached Kalpi.

Peshava judged the situation and decided to help her.

He provided his squads of army to her as per her

requested requirement. On 22nd May, Sir Hugh Rose

attacked Kalpi. Rani Lakshmibai rushed to the front

 

like lightening whilst holding her sword. Her

forceful attack resulted in a setback for the British

army. Sir Hugh Rose disturbed with this setback

brought his reserved camel troops onto the

battlefield. The fresh reinforcement of the army

affected the ardour of the revolutionaries and Kalpi

was taken over by the British on 24th May. Defeated

Raosaheb Peshave, Nawab of Banda, Tatya Tope,

Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi and all the chieftains

gathered at Gopalpur. Laksmibai suggested taking

over Gwalior. Shinde, the Ruler of Gwalior, was

pro-British. Rani Lakshmibai won over Gwalior and

handed it over to Peshava.

Sir Hugh Rose had heard about the defeat of Gwalior

by Rani Lakshmibai. He realized that the situation

could go out of control if time was wasted; therefore,

he marched towards Gwalior. Lakshmibai and

Peshva decided to fight the British as Sir Hugh Rose

touched Gwalior. Lakshmibai took it upon herself to

safeguard the East side of Gwalior. The

unprecedented valour of Laksmibai inspired her

army; even her maids attired in men’s uniform took

to the battlefield. The bravery of Lakshmibai,

resulted in the retreat of the British army.

On 18th June, the British attacked Gwalior from all

sides. She decided to break the enemy front and go

out rather than surrendering. While breaking the

military front, she came across a garden. She was not

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riding her ‘Rajratan’ horse. The new horse started

going round and round near a canal instead of

jumping and crossing it. Rani Lakshmibai realized

the consequences and turned back to attack the

British army. She got injured, started bleeding and

fell from her horse. Being in a man’s costume, the

soldiers did not recognize her and left her there. The

faithful servants of Rani took her to a nearby

Gangadas Mutt and gave her Gangajal. She

expressed her last wish that her body should not be

touched by any British men and embraced a brave

death. The revolutionaries all over the world, the

organization of Sardar Bhagat Singh and in the end

even the army of Netaji Subhashchandra Bose were

inspired by the valour shown by Rani Lakshmibai.

The Queen of Jhansi breathed her last at the young

age of 23 years.

She inspired many generations of Hindustani’s, thus

becoming immortal in the freedom fight. We bow

before such a brave warrior, the Queen of Jhansi

Lakshmibai. The life history of the Rani of Jhansi

Lakshmibai, who preferred to sacrifice her life at the

young age of 23 years in battle, is very inspiring.

She surprised the British by showing extraordinary

fighting spirit and valour in battles fought at Jhansi,

then Kalpi and lastly at Gwalior. The British Major

Sir Hugh Rose had to come down to treachery so as

to be able to win over the fort of Jhansi. Such an

extraordinary lady, who tied her son on her back

while fighting the battle, will not be found in the

history of the world. The valour and brave death she

chose, which gave inspiration to the patriots

belonging to the ‘Gadar’ party in the First World

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War, the organization of Shahid Bhagat Singh and to

all revolutionaries from Swatatntryaveer Savarkar to

Subhashchandra, is magnificent.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

Florence Nightingale was born on 12 May 1820 at

the Villa La Columbaia in Florence; she was named

after the city of her birth. Her father, William

Edward Nightingale (1794-1874), was son of

William Shore, a Sheffield banker. When

Nightingale came of age on 21 February 1815 he

inherited the Derbyshire estates at Lea Hurst and

Woodend in Derbyshire from, and assumed the

surname of Peter Nightingale, his mother's uncle. On

1 June 1818 he married Frances Smith, a strong

supporter of the abolition of slavery. They had two

daughters, Parthenope and Florence. "Parthe" was

given the classical name of Naples where she was

born.

Florence Nightingale was brought up at Lea Hall; in

1825 the family moved to Lea Hurst which

Nightingale had just built. In 1826 he also bought

Embley Park, in Hampshire and in1828 he became

High Sheriff of the county. The family invariably

spent the summer at Lea Hurst and the winter at

Embley Park, occasionally visiting London.

Florence Nightingale had a broad education and

came to dislike the lack of opportunity for females in

her social circle. She began to visit the poor but

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became very interested in looking after those who

were ill. She visited hospitals in London and around

the country to investigate possible occupations for

women there. However, nursing was seen as

employment that needed neither study nor

intelligence; nurses were considered to be little less

than prostitutes at that time.

Nightingale's hospital visits began in 1844 and

continued for eleven years. She spent the winter and

spring of 1849-50 in Egypt with family friends; on

the journey from Paris she met two St. Vincent de

Paul sisters who gave her an introduction to their

convent at Alexandria. Nightingale saw that the

disciplined and well-organized Sisters made better

nurses than women in England. Between 31 July to

13 August 1850, Nightingale made her first visit to

the Institute of Protestant Deaconesses at

Kaiserswerth. The institute had been founded for the

care of the destitute in 1833 and had grown into a

training school for women teachers and nurses. Her

visit convinced Nightingale of the possibilities of

making nursing a vocation for ladies. In 1851 she

spent four months at Kaiserswerth, training as a sick

nurse. When she returned home, she undertook more

visits to London hospitals; in the autumn of 1852 she

inspected hospitals in Edinburgh and Dublin. In

1853 she accepted her first administrative post when

she became superintendent of the Hospital for

Invalid Gentlewomen.

In March 1854 the Crimean War broke out and the

reports of the sufferings of the sick and wounded in

the English camps created anger in Britain. William

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Russell, The Times' correspondent, described the

terrible neglect of the wounded, and pointed to the

differences between the facilities provided for

British and French soldiers. He asked: ‘Are there no

devoted women among us, able and willing to go

forth to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers of

the East in the hospitals of Scutari? Are none of the

daughters of England, at this extreme hour of need,

ready for such a work of mercy? Must we fall so far

below the French in self-sacrifice and devotedness?’

(The Times, 15 and 22 September 1854).

Nightingale offered her services to the War Office

on 14 October but her friend Sidney Herbert — the

Secretary for War — already had written to her,

suggesting that she should go out to the Crimea.

Herbert said that she would 'have plenary authority

over all the nurses and ... the fullest assistance and

co-operation from the medical staff'. He also

promised 'unlimited power of drawing on the

government for whatever you think requisite for the

success of your mission'.

Nightingale embarked for the Crimea on 21 October

with thirty-eight nurses: ten Roman Catholic Sisters,

eight Anglican Sisters of Mercy, six nurses from St.

John's Institute, and fourteen from various hospitals;

Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge, also went with her.

Nightingale refused the offer of service by Mary

Seacole. They reached Scutari on 4 November — the

eve of the battle of Inkerman. Nightingale's official

title was ‘Superintendent of the Female Nurses in the

Hospitals in the East’; but she came to be known

generally as ‘The Lady-in-Chief.’

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Her headquarters were in the barrack hospital at

Scutari, a huge, filthy place where infection was rife.

Stores had not got beyond Varna or had been lost at

sea. Descriptions from Nightingale and her nurses

give some idea of the conditions there:

There were no vessels for water or utensils of any

kind; no soap, towels, or clothes, no hospital clothes;

the men lying in their uniforms, stiff with gore and

covered with filth to a degree and of a kind no one

could write about; their persons covered with vermin

. . .

We have not seen a drop of milk, and the bread is

extremely sour. The butter is most filthy; it is Irish

butter in a state of decomposition; and the meat is

more like moist leather than food. Potatoes we are

waiting for, until they arrive from France . . .

The military and medical authorities at Scutari

viewed Nightingale's intervention as a reflection on

themselves. Many of her own volunteers were

inexperienced, and the behaviour of the orderlies

was offensive to the women. However, before the

end of 1854, Nightingale and her nurses had brought

the Scutari hospital into better order. The relief

fund organized by The Times sent out stores; other

voluntary associations at home were helpful. In

December forty-six more nurses went to the Crimea.

Nightingale quickly established a vast kitchen and a

laundry; she looked after the soldiers' wives and

children, and provided daily necessities for them.

She was on her feet for twenty hours a day and her

nurses were also overworked; however, she was the

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only woman whom she allowed to be in the wards

after eight at night, when the other nurses' places

were taken by orderlies. The wounded men called

her ‘The Lady of the Lamp.’ Longfellow tried to

express the feelings for Nightingale in his

poem, Santa Filomena.

Early in 1855, because of the defects in the

sanitation system, there was a great increase in the

number of cases of cholera and of typhus fever

among Nightingale's patients. Seven of the army

doctors and three of the nurses died. Frost-bite and

dysentery from exposure in the trenches before

Sevastopol made the wards fuller than before. There

were over 2000 sick and wounded in the hospital

and in February 1855 the death-rate rose to 42%.

The War Office ordered the sanitary commissioners

at Scutari to carry out sanitary reforms immediately,

after which the death-rate declined rapidly until in

June it had fallen to 2%.

In May 1855 Nightingale visited the hospitals at and

near Balaclava along with Mr. Bracebridge

and Alexis Soyer. Nightingale fell ill from Crimean

fever and she was dangerously ill for twelve days.

Early in June she returned to Scutari and resumed

her work there. In addition to her nursing work she

tried to provide reading and recreation rooms for the

men and their families. In March 1856 she returned

to Balaclava and remained there until July when the

hospitals were closed. She returned to England

privately in August 1856, in a French ship. She

entered England unnoticed and went home to Lea

Hurst.

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In September 1856 Nightingale visited Queen

Victoria at Balmoral and told the Queen and Prince

Albert about everything that 'affects our present

military hospital system and the reforms that are

needed'. In November 1855 a Nightingale fund had

been set up to found a training school for nurses.

This was the only recognition of her services of

which Nightingale would approve. By 1860,

£50,000 had been collected and the Nightingale

School and Home for Nurses was established at St.

Thomas's Hospital. Nightingale's health and other

occupations prevented her from accepting the post of

superintendent but she watched the progress of the

new institution with practical interest. She was able

to use her experiences in the Crimea for the benefit

of the nursing profession.

She settled in London and lived the retired life of an

invalid, although she spent a great deal of time

offering advice and encouragement through her

writing and also verbally. In 1857 she issued an

exhaustive and confidential report on the workings

of the army medical departments in the Crimea and

in 1858 she published Notes on Matters affecting the

Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of

the British Army. In 1858 a Commission was

appointed to inquire into the sanitary condition of

the army: it set a high value on her evidence. In 1859

an army medical college was opened at Chatham and

the first military hospital was established in

Woolwich in 1861. During the American Civil War

and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 her advice

was sought by the respective governments.

Nightingale was involved in establishing the East

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London Nursing Society (1868),

the Workhouse Nursing Association and National

Society for providing Trained Nurses for the Poor

(1874) and the Queen's Jubilee Nursing Institute

(1890).

When the Indian Mutiny broke out in 1857

Nightingale offered to leave for India immediately if

there was anything she could do. Her services were

not required but she became interested in the

sanitary condition of the army and people there.

From her work, a Sanitary Department was

established in the Indian government. She became

familiar with many facets of Indian life and

demanded that there should be improvements in

health and sanitation there. She did not visit India.

She wrote papers on the causes of famine, the need

of irrigation and the poverty of the people of India.

In 1890 she contributed a paper on village sanitation

in India. Her book Notes on Nursing first appeared

in 1860 and was reprinted many times during in her

lifetime.

She received was the Order of Merit in 1907 and in

1908 she was awarded the Freedom of the City of

London. She had already received the German order

of the Cross of Merit and the French gold medal of

Secours aux Blessés Militaires. On 10 May 1910 she

was presented with the badge of honour of the

Norwegian Red Cross Society. Nightingale died in

South Street, Park Lane, London, on 13 August 1910

at the age of ninety and was buried on 20 August in

the family plot at East Wellow, Hampshire. An offer

of burial in Westminster Abbey was refused by he

relatives. Memorial services took place in St. Paul's

Cathedral and Liverpool Cathedral, among many

other places.

CHAPTER VI

78 GREAT QUOTATIONS

         

1. "Never does the human soul appear so strong as

when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an

injury." -- Edwin Hubbel Chapin

2. Cancel as soon as possible all your mind

appointments with ignorance, anxiety, insecurity and

jealousy. Each morning is God’s blessingful

beginning to transform humanity’s face into

divinity’s heart. This morning a visit from my longforgotten

friend, Faith, has given me a new wave of

inspiration and a new sea of aspiration. When we

don’t aspire, time creates us. But when we aspire, we

create time. How do I do hundreds of thousands of

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things? Because I create time. When you follow the

spiritual life and go deep within, you can create time.

Sri Chinmoy

3. "Do not let yourselves be discouraged or

embittered by the smallness of the success you are

likely to achieve in trying to make life better. You

certainly would not be able, in a single generation, to

create an earthly paradise. Who could expect that?

But, if you make life ever so little better, you will

have done splendidly, and your lives will have been

worthwhile." -- Arnold Toynbee

4. "Do not be too timid and squeamish about your

actions. All life is an experiment. The more

experiments you make the better. What if they are a

little off course, and you may get your coat soiled or

torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the

dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so

afraid of a tumble." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. "To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of

love. In return, you will receive untold peace and

happiness." -- Robert Muller

6. "No man ever believes that the Bible means what

it says; he is always convinced that it says what he

means." - George Bernard Shaw

7. The most important thing in life is peace of mind.

Life is a battle ground. One's who's mind is peaceful,

joyful, happy, content, without hatred or jealousy,

one who is constantly sharing and giving without

expectation can experience peace, joy, happiness,

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courage, will power, serenity, love, compassion, and

inner strength. These are the qualities of a peaceful

and joyful mind who becomes an instrument of the

Divine hand. And his life becomes a beautiful

garden. Infinite wisdom is within us. Suffering

means weak mind, sick mind, fluctuated mind. My

dear children remember, infinite ocean of joy is

within you. –Swami Brahmavidyananda

8, “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in

politics is that you end up being governed by your

inferiors.” Plato

9. "I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and

try to keep looking upward." -- Charlotte Bronte

10. Hauptmann told Dawn.com that a total of 37,051

carvings on 5,928 boulders or rock faces will be

inundated after the construction of the Diamer-Basha

Dam.

The site represents hundreds of inscriptions in

Brahmi, Sogdian, middle Persian, Chinese, Tibetan

and even ancient Hebrew languages. Some 80 per

cent of the writings are in Brahmi language.

149

Always) remember that (one day) you must die.” –.

Photo courtesy of Harald Hauptmann

11. Dalit scholar Chandan Kamble in the 1970s. “In

communism man exploits man. In capitalism it’s the

other way around,”

12. Cleopatra: “Be it known, that we, the greatest are

misthought/ For things that others do; and, when we

fall,/ We answer others’ merits in our name,/ Are

therefore to be pitied.” Shakespeare

13. "Apply yourself both now and in the next life.

Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though

the land be good, you cannot have an abundant crop

without cultivation." – Plato

14. "Knowing others is intelligence; knowing

yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is

strength, mastering yourself is true power." -- Lao-

Tzu

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15. "There is no kind of ultimate goal to do

something twice as good as anyone else can. It's just

to do the job as best you can. If it turns out good,

fine. If it doesn't, that's the wayit goes." -- Chuck

Yeager

16. “Know your ideal and live for that. For each soul

must give an account for its own self.” – Paramhansa

Yogananda

17. As you move through your day, remember to

stay present in each moment. In doing so, you will

live your life without having to wait for the future or

yearn for the past. Life happens to us when we

happen to life in the Now.

18. When I see rain softly falling on my window and

hear thunder in the distance, I feel a connection with

something greater than myself. The air is being

cleansed and the ground saturated with a renewing

shower. The birds and other animals quench their

thirst and plants are nourished. I am content

knowing that each drop of water has a purpose. I

take a breath and become aware of the activity of

Spirit in each element of nature. As I sense its beauty

and symmetry, a feeling of inner peace fills me. I go

within to reconnect with Divine Presence; I

experience a feeling of spiritual balance, a calm

peace in my soul.

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19. "A clever man reaps some benefit from the worst

catastrophe, and a fool can turn even good luck to

his disadvantage." -- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

20. "The only good luck many great men ever had

was being born with the ability and determination to

overcome bad luck." -- Channing Pollock

21. Man has falsely identified with the pseudo-soul

or ego. When he transfers his sense of identity to his

true being, the immortal Soul, he discovers that all

pain is unreal. He no longer can even imagine the

state of suffering. Play your part in life, but never

forget that it is only a role. Each man is stamped

with the vibratory signature of his own state of

consciousness, and emanates a characteristic

influence on persons and things. Change yourself

and you have done your part in changing the world.

Every individual must change his own life if he

wants to live in a peaceful world. - Paramahansa

Yogananda

22. No matter how spiritual we are, our lives will

have challenges. We will always run into people that

are different than we are, but the true challenge may

be in finding ways to be at peace with this process.

Rather than give in to the fight or flight response that

comes from our animal nature, we can find new

ways to evolve together into higher more beautiful

expressions of ourselves, realizing, embracing and

celebrating the beauty of diversity and the strength it

offers for the future.

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23. The 10 Yamas - Restraints or Proper Conduct

1. Ahimsa or Non-injury

2. Satya or Truthfulness

3. Asteya or Nonstealing

4. Brahmacharya or Sexual Purity

5. Kshama or Patience

6. Dhriti or Steadfastness

7. Daya or Compassion

8. Arjava or Honesty

9. Mitahara or Moderate Diet

10. Saucha or Purity

The 10 Niyamas - Observances or Practices

1. Hri or Modesty

2. Santosha or Contentment

3. Dana or Charity

4. Astikya or Faith

5. Ishvarapujana or Worship of the Lord

6. Siddhanta Sravana or Scriptural Listening

7. Mati or Cognition

8. Vrata or Sacred Vows

9. Japa or Incantation

10. Tapas or Austerity

24. When you find yourself in a situation where you

are about to lash out at the person in front of you, try

to center yourself by breathing slowly and deeply. A

few slow inhales and exhales can help dissipate the

intensity of your feelings before they escape you.

25. If you have examined the tracks of your life and

are feeling unsatisfied, you may want to explore

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changes you could make to find a more fulfilling

path to follow. Perhaps you’d like to slow down a

little bit more and take a windier path rather than just

traveling down the straight and narrow. Or maybe,

you’d like to experience your life more as an

adventure rather than just a ride that gets you where

you need to go. Changing your route can sometimes

give you a chance to “get on the right track.” You

may even discover that the something new you’ve

been waiting for is just around the bend.

26. Neti-neti means "not this, not this." Whenever a

thought or feeling which is not the goal of the

meditation — that is, which is not the soul, the inner

self — occurs to the mind, the meditator simply

says, "Not this, not this," and dismisses the thought,

image, concept, sound, or sense distraction. Any

thought, any feeling, is discarded — patiently

discarded — again and again if necessary, until the

mind is clear and the soul is revealed. Remember

never to meditate in a passive way. This state of

consciousness is one of alertness, an amazing

application of awareness. When you get into the

habit of "neti-neti," you can also discard worry,

doubt, or fear, and become established in the light of

your inner self. You can then look back at worries

and fears with deep insight and handle them well.

27. The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is

not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

-George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate

(1856-1950)

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28. The selflessness that leads us to serve as a force

for good in the lives of others eventually loops back

around so that we come by all the support and aid we

need during periods of upheaval. In order to make

certain that this reciprocity can find purchase in our

existence, we must embark upon our initial journeys

of charity with nothing but altruistic intentions in our

hearts.

29. "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just

how we play the hand." Randy Pausch

30. There is much that is hidden from us by our own

inexperience, and the only way we can unearth these

secrets is to ask those who hold the knowledge to

share it with us. This simple task can be daunting,

however, as we may feel others will mock us for our

lack of understanding or we may simply feel

uncomfortable showing others that we have

questions. The individuals who possess insight –

particularly information that could be considered

provocative or controversial – are usually more than

happy to pass it on to those who express their

curiosity openly. At worst, the person you ask for

clarification will refuse to give it, while the best case

scenario involves your gaining a renewed and deeper

understanding of the world around you. You can

feed your need for knowledge today by putting your

questions into words unabashedly.

31. "The winner's edge is not in a gifted birth, a high

IQ, or in talent. The winner's edge is all in the

attitude, not aptitude. Attitude is the criterion for

success." -- Denis Waitley

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32. If you must realize unity with God, realize first

your unity with the Whole Nation. Let this intense

feeling of identity with every creature within this

land be throbbing in every fiber of your frame.

When you wake up to your oneness with Life, Light

and Love and immediately the Central Bliss will

commence springing forth from you in the shape of

happy heroic work and of both wisdom and virtue.

This is inspired life, this is your birthright.

You have simply to shine as the Soul of All. Then

energy, life activity will naturally begin to radiate

from you. The flower blooms and fragrance begins

to emanate of itself.

The way to gain anything is to lose it. Swami Rama

Tirtha

33. Even in darkness, light dawns for the upright, for

the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.

Good will come to him who is generous and lends

freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. He will

have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast,

trusting in the Lord. His heart is secure; he will have

no fear; in the end he will see his desire on his

adversaries. He has scattered abroad his gifts to the

poor, his righteousness endures forever; his horn

[dignity] will be lifted high in honor. - Psalm

112: 4-5, 7-9

34. "The more you recognize and express gratitude

for the things you have, the more things you will

have to express gratitude for." -- Zig Ziglar

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35. "If you want to be successful, find someone who

has achieved the results you want and copy what

they do and you'll achieve the same results." -- Tony

Robbins

36. We should never forget the importance of

lightheartedness while searching for life's meaning.

Spontaneous fun is as much a part of the universal

significance as are the profundities we discover

through careful study. Laughter and laughter

meditation can help us reach parts of ourselves long

hidden beneath matters we deemed to be of greater

importance. Similarly, we achieve a truer measure of

personal authenticity than at almost any other time

when we have lost ourselves in the pleasures of play.

Humans are beings of light as well as beings of

earth, and often it is our ability to appreciate the

brighter side of life that allows us to best express this

part of ourselves.

37. When ideas fail, words come in very handy. --

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

38. The scientific name for an animal that doesn't

either run from or fight its enemies is lunch. --

Michael Friedman

39. "The longer I live the more beautiful life

becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will

soon find yourself without it. Your life will be

impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will

remain with you all the days of your life." -- Frank

Lloyd Wright

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40. Learning to step into the flow can help you feel a

connection to a force that is greater than you and is

always there to support you. The decision to go with

the flow can take courage because you are

surrendering the notion that you need to do

everything by yourself. Riding the flow of the

universe can be effortless, exhilarating, and not like

anything that you ever expected. When you are open

to being in this flow, you open yourself to

possibilities that exist beyond the grasp of your

control. As a child, you were naturally swept by the

flow. Tears of sadness falling down your face could

just as quickly turn to tears of laughter. Just the

tiniest wave carrying you forward off the shores of

the ocean could carry you into peals of delight. Our

souls feel good when we go with the flow of the

universe. All we have to do is make the choice to

ride its currents.

41. We can only experience wonder when we allow

ourselves the freedom to lose ourselves in the

grandeur and beauty of the world around us. This

takes a heightened degree of open-mindedness on

our part, particularly if we feel pressured by society

to maintain a serous façade. As our spirits are

aroused by the loveliness and intensity we

encounter, we are reminded that there is more to life

than the mundane matters we must attend to each

day. With practice, we grow used to the notion that

our earthly experiences have the power to guide us

toward new areas of insight. Additionally, the awe

we feel provides us with a degree of inspiration that

helps us become more attuned to our spiritual sides.

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42. It may be comforting to know that everyone gets

scared, and it is perfectly OK. Sometimes just

acknowledging our fears is enough to make us feel

better. And while it sometimes takes a lot more to

ease our mind, we can console ourselves with the

knowledge that life can be scary at times. Giving

ourselves permission to be scared lets us move

through our fears so we can let it go. It also makes it

alright to share our fears with others. Sharing our

apprehensions with other people can make our fears

less overwhelming because we are not letting them

grow inside of us as pent up emotions. Sharing our

fears also can lighten our burden because we are not

carrying our worries all by ourselves. Remember

that you are not alone.

43. "Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them;

but do not let them master you. Let them teach you

patience, sweetness, insight. When we do the best

we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in

our life, or in the life of another." -- Helen Keller

44. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light

can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love

can do that." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

45. "Make a game of finding something positive in

every situation. Ninety-five percent of your emotions

are determined by how you interpret events to

yourself." -- Brian Tracy

46. Spending time connecting with nature nourishes

the soul, reminds you that you are never truly alone,

and renews you by attuning you to the earth’s natural

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rhythms. Taking a walk under the stars or feeling the

wind on your face may be all it takes for you to

reconnect with nature. Remember, you are as much a

part of nature as are the leaves on a tree or water

bubbling in a brook.

47. "Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for

the future, and live in the only moment of time over

which you have any control: NOW." -- Denis

Waitley

48. "Winning is great, sure, but if you are really

going to do something in life, the secret is learning

how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If

you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to

win again, you are going to be a champion

someday." -- Wilma Rudolph

49. "If something comes to life in others because of

you, then you have made an approach to

immortality." -- Norman Cousins

50. "Shared laughter creates a bond of friendships.

When people laugh together, they cease to be young

and old, teacher and pupils, worker and boss. They

become a single group of human beings." -- W. Lee

Grant

51. "There is no such thing as a weird human being.

It's just that some people require more understanding

than others." -- Tom Robbins

52. Be loving and respectful to all people, and you

will attract individuals that will love and respect you

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back. Nurture compassion and empathy and let the

goodness you see in others be your mirror.

53. Giving a smile to everyone around us allows us

to extend our feelings of love to others. Sometimes

when we feel amiable, it is easy to only be kind to

the people we know and care about and avoid people

that we have neutral or unpleasant feelings toward.

But learning the art of the unconditional smile lets us

train ourselves to see everyone in the same light. We

begin to understand the meaning of true love by not

excluding others, which helps us see that within this

layer of love we can trust everyone.

54. "The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your

best today." -- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

55. The vast and ceaselessly churning ocean is an

ideal place for meditating on the sounds of nature.

Sit quietly and surrender to the sounds of the

thundering, crashing waves. Let go of your

ambitions and listen. Rivers and lakes also sing their

own songs. Even if you live in the middle of a city,

the wind howls and whistles and the rain taps out a

variety of sounds depending on where it falls—on

the sidewalk, a tin roof, a car window, or a muddy

slope. Tune into these sounds next time you hear

them instead of letting them fade into the

background. Stop and listen as if you are hearing a

sublime piece of music. Let the music of this world

take you on a journey of natural sounds.

55. One reason we worry is that something that we

know is pending but are avoiding is nagging us—an

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unpaid parking ticket, an upcoming test, an issue

with a friend. In these cases, acknowledging that we

are worried and taking action is the best solution. If

you can confront the situation and own your power

to change it, you’ll have no reason to worry.

56. Looking at our futures with hopeful and

confident attitudes allows us to rise above our

limitations. Our thought patterns have a powerful

hold over the ways in which we go about our lives –

negative thoughts and fears hold us back, while

positive thoughts energize and encourage us.

57. Once you do what is right, in the final analysis,

JUSTICE & LOVE will be on your side, no matter

the opposition. Trust me, life has taught me this.

You see, being values-driven means two things:

Doing what's right - following our conscience;

refusing to compromise our principles, despite

pressures and temptations to the contrary, and

Taking a stand against what's wrong - speaking out,

whenever we see others do things that are incorrect

or inappropriate.

Unquestionably, both of those require guts and

fortitude...they require courage.

Courage is

Following your conscience instead of "following the

crowd".

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Refusing to take part in hurtful or disrespectful

behaviors.

Sacrificing personal gain for the benefit of others.

Speaking your mind even though others don't agree.

Taking complete responsibility for your actions...and

your mistakes.

Following the rules - and insisting that others do the

same.

Challenging the status quo in search of better ways.

Doing what you know is right- regardless of the

risks and potential consequences.

58. "The road to happiness lies in two simple

principles: find what interests you and that you can

do well, and put your whole soul into it -- every bit

of energy and ambition andnatural ability you

have."-- John D. Rockefeller III

59. "When a resolute young fellow steps up to the

great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the

beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his

hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the

timid adventurers." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

60. To discover more about your past lives, consider

keeping a notebook where you can record anything

that could be a memory from a different lifetime.

You may also feel drawn to a particular period in

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history, a seemingly unfamiliar locale, or a new

person you’ve met who seems oddly familiar. Pick a

time and choose a place where you can relax.

Envision your body being filled with healing white

light. Remember that nothing you see or hear will

harm you. Ask yourself what you hope to achieve

through regression and connect with your inner

vision. Observe what you see without judgment.

When you are done, think about how what you

experienced relates to your present life. There may

be beliefs from a past life that you are still operating

under but are now ready to let go of. The

significance of your past life memory may not be

immediately obvious until much later. You can make

the most of your past lives by learning from them.

While past life regression can be an exciting journey,

it! is not a substitute for living in the present where

we are most needed right here and now.

61. "When we strive to become better than we are,

everything around us becomes better too." -- Paulo

Coelho

62. "If you love life, don't waste time, for time is

what life is made up of." -- Bruce Lee

63. Savoring our good spirits allows us to spread our

joy to other people. We often notice that our moods

can affect others, particularly when we feel down.

But the times when we feel elated with our lives are

the most important occasions on which we should

share our feelings. By seeing that we all have a

bright light inside of us that we can extend to others,

we spread our sense of joy. We begin to realize that

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we are all interconnected and that our emotions and

reactions affect each other on a subtle level. Sharing

our joy spreads happiness to the people in our lives.

By delighting in your feelings today, you will create

pleasure in the lives of others.

64. "If you take a deep breath and look around,

'Look what's happening to me!' can become 'Look

what's happening!' And what's happening? The

incredible drama of life is happening. And we're in

it!" -- Sylvia Boorstein

65. "In matters of style, swim with the current; in

matters of principle, stand like a rock." -- Thomas

Jefferson

66. "Each of us has been put on earth with the ability

to do something well. We cheat ourselves and the

world if we don't use that ability as best we can." --

Gracie Allen

67. "To know what you want, to understand why

you're doing it, to dedicate every breath in your body

to achieve... If you feel you have something to give,

if you feel that your particular talent is worth

developing, is worth caring for then there's nothing

you can`t achieve." -- Kevin Spacey

68. "You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a

daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live

the life that you've been granted." -- Kevin Costner

69. It is within your power to become as happy,

content, or successful as you make up your mind to

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be. Staying positive may not have an immediate

effect on your situation, but it will likely have a

profound and instantaneous effect on your mood and

the quality of your experiences. In order for positive

thinking to change your life, it must become your

predominant mind-set. Once you are committed to

embracing positive thinking, you’ll start believing

that everything that you want is within your grasp.

70. Resentment is when you let your hurt become

hate. Resentment is when you allow what is eating

you to eat you up. Resentment is when you poke,

stoke, feed, and fan the fire, stirring the flames and

reliving the pain . . . ALWAYS BEAR IN

MIND: Revenge is the raging fire . . . Bitterness is

the trap that snares . . . And mercy is the choice that

can set them all free.

72. "No one is in control of your happiness but you;

therefore, you have the power to change anything

about yourself or your life that you want to change."

-- Barbara de Angelis

73. Sugar and sand are mixed together, but the ant

rejects the sand and carries away the grains of sugar.

So the holy Saints and pious men successfully sift

the good from the bad.

There are pearls in the deep sea, but you must

overcome all dangers to get them. If you fail to get at

them by a single dive, do not conclude that the sea is

without them. Dive again and again, and you are

sure to be rewarded in the end. So also in the quest

for the Lord, if your first attempt to see Him proves

fruitless, do not lose heart.

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If there is a small hole at the bottom of a jar of

water, the whole water will lead out. Similarly if

there is the smallest tinge of worldliness in the

aspirant all his spiritual exertions will come to

naught. – Paramhans Ramkrishna

74. Live simply and live deliberately. By choosing

not to get caught up in the details of this fast-paced

world, you are doing your part to slow down. You

will discover that you have more time to enjoy being

alive.

75. Support or teach others as often as you can. This

can help you form connections with people while

also giving you an opportunity to make the world a

better place.

76. Acknowledge the beauty that resides around you.

Whether you live in a sprawling metropolis or a

stereotypical suburb, there are natural and man-made

wonders just waiting to be discovered by you.

77. Make time for stillness, silence, and solitude.

The world can be noisy, and we are subject to all

kinds of noises nearly every waking hour. We are

also often “on the go” and unable to relax. Being

alone in a peaceful place and making time for quiet

can help you stay in touch with yourself.

78. "A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing

with the cards you were given that aren't so nice.

Does it make you into a monster, or can you temp

it in some way, or accept it and go in some other

direction?" -- Wes Craven