Skip to main content

Looking Through the Glass

As I mulled over this title, during an in-flight meandering amongst the multifariously shaped clouds, I grinned - when it gleamed upon me that this title was too similar with ‘Through the Looking Glass.’

‘Through the Looking Glass’ is a masterpiece I have never read – even though I have referred to its character [Alice] in few dozen business presentations over the past half a dozen years. This book written by a mathematician!! [can you believe it – for trivia sake Lewis Carroll is the nom-de-plume of Charles Lutwidge Dogdson!!! Who wrote more mathematics books than literary ones I guess] has caught the imagination of the hundreds of millions of people – most of them would not have read the book, like yours truly – over the past 200 years [late 19th century novel].

No wonder the author thought of this name, to title a free wheeling dreamy story. The other day traveling from Kolkotta to BBSR, when I inadvertently let myself be allotted to a window seat [as opposed to the aisle seats – which I normally prefer to have an easy stroll and maybe have a dose of PC with the cabin crew :)]. As I inevitably glued my face to the glass – I found my gleefully floating amidst the mountainous clouds. Of a variety of genre. Colossal ones which dwarfed the mountains behind, the ones below – which left a shadowy patches in the ground, animalesque ones – those depicting elegant or grotesque figures and sizes of known, heard or unheard fauna, or the plainly snow-white ones which caught the attention by the sheer dazzle of the whiteness – whiter than Rin.

During this dream ride, I could me getting younger with every moment and mile – in the same proportion as my curiousity and courage got better of me and I started exploring all the clouds and large number of micro stories that emerged with each the cloud that I conquered. The little stories are more than a week back, so have somewhere receded into the recesses of the dormant mind. But I for sure will get myself a window seat deliberately next time and enjoy the joys of the flight of fantasy. And let the wonderful feeling of getting imperious and younger embrace me and ready me for a million more such conquests.

Also, after this blog, I will probably include Alice In Wonderland [the popularly known novel, which was published as ‘Through the Looking Glass’] in the list of books to be read at the earliest [there are nine others in the list], going by my reading average I don’t know how many years I ll take to complete the list!!!!

Bhubaneshwar
July 16, 2010

Comments

  1. boundless-imaginationsJuly 16, 2010 at 9:02 AM

    a different one!!!!!..Your thoughts getting younger day by day!:P..Cheers!.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dura Pahada Sundara [Far-away Mountains are Beautiful]

I realize how seriously we take a place we visit specifically to see it – an event in itself, and how much taken for granted are those places that we can hop in an out with regularity and ease. Interestingly I had never wrote or thought of writing about Puri or Konark or Cuttack. Places for which reams have been and can be written. The history, the culture, the cuisine and the local chutzpah [espl. Puri / Cuttack]. Even more interestingly, I have never pondered enough on these places and their unique niceties to have them simmering in my cerebral consciousness. They are somewhere deep there sedimented at best; and at [likely] worst, I do not have the desired ammunition to do justice to write anything substantial. Probably, I will have to resort to the frivolous flourish of the might of the language as a cover. A point to note - I have never seen the Bali Yatra [Cuttackis don’t faint please]. The Puri beach and temple I have always felt is my backyard [so had the taken for granted attit
4 comments
Read more

Foreign Universities in India: Boon or Bane?

    Dr. Partha S Mohapatra (Originally written in March, 2010)   The cabinet yesterday gave its nod to the “Foreign Universities Bill”. I first read the report on Wall Street Journal about the Indian Governments’ intention to open up the higher education sector to foreign universities [Delhi Seeks to Admit Foreign Universities,  Wall Street Journal June 11, 2009 ].  Subsequently, I read similar reports in other newspapers.  Most of the se reports make a compelling story to allow foreign universities to operate in India. The main argument that is made is on following premises: i)      It will save India about $4 billion in foreign exchange [“Leading foreign institutes may soon be here” Economic Times , 11 Sep 2006”]. ii)    India loses because of brain drain when brilliant people go abroad and study and stay there. iii)   We need foreign investments because the government does not have money needed to invest in higher education and private sector is unwilling
41 comments
Read more

Energising The Employability Magic Of Professional Education

The private engineering colleges and b-schools are going through another bad phase. The overcapacity, because of which many colleges are reeling under significant financial stress, is intriguing when seen against the backdrop of a modest Gross Enrollment Ratio. The reasons are quite straight forward, students enroll into professional education for jobs.  Starting from the mid-1990s, riding on an economy growing at a fast clip with the promise of dollar jobs students thronged the higher education professional courses. When the global economies plateaued and the Indian growth rate isn’t much better, job creation is poor and so also is the demand to join professional courses. The professional education institutes, must know that the role they need to play is to create industry worthy professionals. That needs to be the focus.  For the past 20 years, institutes have focussed on two areas – infrastructure and admission network. This strategy worked, when large organized businesses h
8 comments
Read more