Peace to all!

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.

Pablo Picasso 

Evening Calm - Gerald Coulson

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

Buddha

The Ninth Wave - Ivan Aivazovsky

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

Albert Einstein

Golding Constable's Flower Garden - John Constable

Beauty

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness.
John Keats

William Michael Harnett - Still life Violin and Music

Music...gives wings to the mind, a soul to the universe, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, a life to everything.
Plato

Basket Of Fruit - Carvaggio

Corner of the Garden at Montgeron - Claude Monet

If you possess a library and a garden, you have everything you need. (translation from the French) 
Si vous possedez une bibliotheque et un jardin, vous avez tout ce qu'il vous faut.
- Cicero

Spanish Reading

Last month, Spanish day was celebrated at the Instituto Hispania. For this, we (the basic level class) were asked to give a reading of  fragmento, few beautiful lines from the books of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Here are the lines from our reading. They are so exquisitely written that it would be a crime to translate, he he.. But of course, we cannot understand without it.

Cien años de soledad - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Escritor, Colombiano
One Hundred Years of Solitude

"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevo a conocer el hielo. Macondo era entonces una aldea de veinte casa de barro y cañabrava construida a la orilla de un río de aguas díafanas que se precipitan por un lecho de piedras pulidas, blancas y enormes como huevos prehístoricos. El mundo era tan reciente, que muchas cosas carecían de nombre, y para mencionarlas había que señolarlas con el dedo".

Translation Google :))
"Many years later, facing the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses built on the edge of a river of clear water that rush through a bed of polished stones, white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. the world was so recent that many things lacked names, and had to be pointed out with finger. "

"En aquel Macondo olvidado hasta por los pájaros, dónde el polvo y el calor se habían hecho tan tenaces que costaba trabaja respirar, recluidos por la soledad y el amor y por la soledad del amor en una casa dónde era casi imposible dormir por el estruendo de las hormigas coloradas, Aureliano y Amaranta Ursula eran los únicos seres felices, y los más felices sobre la tierra."

Translation Google :))
"In that Macondo forgotten even by the birds, where the dust and the heat had become so tough that breathing was laborious, secluded by solitude and love and by the solitude of love in a house where it was almost impossible to sleep by the roar of ants, Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula were the only creatures happy, and the happiest on earth. "


El Olor de la Guyaba - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Escritor, Colombiano
The Fragrance of Guava

"-cuando la noche - noche de los trópicos, sofocante y densa y olores de nardos y jazmines y rumores de grillos  - caía brusca sobre la casa, la abuela inmovilizaba en una silla a Gabriel, entonces un niño de cinco años de edad, asustándolo con los muertos que andaban por allí: con la tía Petra, con el tío Lázaro o con aquella tía Maragarita (....) "Si te mueves - le decía la abuela al niño - va a venir la tía Petra que está en su cuarto."

"-when the night - night of the tropics, dense and suffocating odor of tuberose and jasmine and rumors of crickets - fell sharply over the house, Grandma immobilized in a chair Gabriel, then a five year old, startling with the dead who were there: with Aunt Petra with uncle Lazaro or that aunt Maragarita (....) "If you move - told the boy's grandmother - will come aunt Petra is in your room. "

Banking and Cyber crime

Financial Cyber crime is one of those things that we never pay much attention to until one day, it happens to us or our friends. 

One of my friends has an account with ICICI bank, a private bank in India. At 5 AM in the morning, he got a  text message that Rs. 3000 has been transferred from his account to Weightwatchers in UK. He called the customer care of ICICI and was promptly put on hold. 
So, he entered the password to his online transaction incorrectly so as to lock his account, thereby disabling any online transaction. 

By the time he was finally put through to the customer care at 6 AM after 30 minutes waiting, he had to speak to several fucking supervisors/ managers and verify his details at every stage. Meanwhile, he also received a SMS that his transaction for Rs. 17000 had failed, this transaction was not initiated by him, but the hacker. 

He had explained the failed attempt at hacking to the sodding customer care managers but they very least concerned about the crime and the gravity of the situation. They had refused to look into the matter or provide details about the receiver or contact them to stop the transaction and report the user who had initiated the purchase.

After much argument, they had informed that the recipient was Weightwatchers, UK and informed that nothing would be done from their end to cancel the transaction with the merchant. Further, they had also informed him that without an FIR (First Information Report) lodged with the local police station, they would not take up his complaint for investigation. They had also told him that he needs to pay for a new debit card as he has now disabled the current debit card used for online transaction.

Online banking  and private banking exist only in the cities of India, mainly the metropolis. In the main cities, ATMs, online banking, online shopping are extensively used. They are still a novelty for majority of Indians in many of the states and rural areas. 

Nationalized banks hold the major banking market of India. Unfortunately, they have not evolved much into Online banking and transactions and are still in the preliminary stage of the Internet era of banking. 

I can only say that as customers, everyone should close their accounts, take their money elsewhere and let such irresponsible banks sink to hell.

Nature

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Pistyll Rhaeadr, Wales

The poetry of the earth is never dead. 

John Keats

Snowdon

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. 

Lao Tzu

If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere. 

Vincent Van Gogh

Wales

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more.

George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

Scotland...

The other day, reading GB's excellent post link here of Scotland triggered memories of my trip to Scotland. Here are some of the pictures of the beautiful, lovely country when I visited.
(All pictures enlarge on clicking)

Rumbling Bridge, Perth

I do not know exactly where these places are but somewhere near Glencoe. We just stopped on our way when we found beautiful spots to take pictures.

A person lucky enough to reside in such beauty, told us that during some invasion, (I don't remember the name) people hid in the valley between the hills of the above picture. I believe he called it Hell's valley.

In spring, these rugged mountains become more beautiful with the green vegetation and wildlife and the over flowing rivers. I never went here in spring.

The river was frozen. We went in January.

Of Literature and Translations

It is impossible to enjoy a book if one does not have sufficient proficiency in the language that it is written.
And by reading, I only refer to reading for pleasure, not the one specifically designed to analyse, explore themes and hidden meanings and guess at what made the writer create such a work of art.
I believe that while it enables one to broaden his thinking and ideas, to me, it kills the pleasure of reading for fun. ;))

We rely on translations to read books in languages foreign to us. Literature and books are one of the best ways to get to know a culture, the history of a region and community.

Translations are extremely difficult. The translator, apart from conveying the right meaning which the author was striving to get at, must be very careful to get the image which a reader can readily create on reading the book in the language in which it was meant to be read.

Even a simple idea or a day to day activity can be expressed beautifully by a writer with imagination and skill of the language.
The translator should be able to get the turn of phrase which in the original would sound like a melody.

All said, I would have to say, even the best translations fall short of capturing everything that the original literature conveys.

Freedom

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

- Voltaire

Roelant Savery Painting -Landscape with Birds

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are two freedoms — the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought. 
- Charles Kingsley

"Freedom without the strength to support it and, if need be, defend it, would be a cruel delusion. And the strength to defend freedom can itself only come from widespread industrialisation and the infusion of modern science and technology into the country's economic life."

 - J.N.Tata

Looking back...

I was reading some of my old posts last night and the comments really perked me up. Thanks to all my friends who cheered and encouraged me with all the lovely and kind comments.

It feels so great to see the comments from my dear friends just as if I have never been away!

Here are two beautiful ancient Indian paintings for you to enjoy!

Shakuntala Raja Ravi Varma

Gita Govinda - Kangara Painting

Paintings from India

 I hope all my friends in blogland are great. :))
Here are some paintings from India. Hope you enjoy them :))

They are ancient Indian paintings.

Ascetic seated on a Leopard's skin

Raja Ravi Verma - Princess Damayandhi

Lord Krishna

Girl playing Veena to a Parrot

Rajput Painting