SAMAR IS CELEBRATING WORLD HUMAN RIGHTS DAY!

Letter from the Editor



We all love books. We want to read, we want to travel through these black words. In this wonderland, we find innumerous fantasies. Some of them we can imagine and some of them we cannot. Some of them are expecte and some of them are unprecedented.

But remember my dear friends; only reading books can’t help you. Try to wear it, try to eat it, try to drink it, and try to sense it. Because the biggest and the most beautiful book is the Nature. This book is open and non-taxable. It is freely accessible to any boy. When you cannot relate your readings with things around you, you may be at wrong foot. Look what Wordsworth says –

Up! Up! My friend and quit your books;
Or surely you will grow double;
…………
Come forth in the light of things,
Let nature be your Teacher

The men of words, who have written something in the heavy books, have surely got their food for thought from the Nature as a baby gets its meal through umbilical cord. So no other source can be more nourishing as nature would be. So whenever you read books, stories, poems, science, philosophy; look carefully where it makes you stand. We are child of this social system. What we think reflects in our actions.

Our magazine tries its best to create a harmony between nature and literature. It will be our honour that readers find it comfortably compatible with what Wordsworth writes in above poetic piece. So must read god things and be positive in helping us to more beautiful extracts from nature and present them in our magazine.




Thank you


Yours truly,
Editor

Truth or Scare: Psychic Science
1

The word psychic is synonymous with mental and is used for a person apparently sensitive to non-physical forces. It is no secret that modern society thinks of psychic as slightly crazy or less than normal. On the contrary, the word psychic never means demented or mentally disturbed. It is a sensation to influences that produces experiences, which are not scientifically explained; having such a mental power that is not scientifically explainable.

In 1979, a 26-year-old student at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom consulted a doctor with complaints of a cold. The doctor on staff noticed that the student held a first class degree in Mathematics was a normal man except he has a slightly larger than average head. Curious doctor sent him to James Lobber who was then member of doctor’s club, which was leading in the spinal surgery in the world.

It was unbelievable for Dr. Lobber who reported that the student possessed IQ of 126 and had no signs of any mental deficiency, yet when the head of the student was X rayed, Dr. Lobber discovered that he had almost no brain tissue and the head was filled with fluid (cerebrospinal fluid). Dr. Lobber also calculated that the student possessed 100gms of brain compare to the adult brain weighing 1500gms. 100gms is little more than the average brain of dog.

Let us pause and think that how many dogs we knew that have honours degree in Mathematics. Cannott think of any. How was student functioning on the level he was? The student possessed such a mental power that is of scientifically explainable and he can be called a ‘psychic’. Psychic science is broad subject that includes occultism, mysticism, metaphysics etc. It is not considered a ‘head science’ and sometimes not even “science” because almost nothing is verifiable observable reproducible in these subjects of study. In other words, these disciplines do not follow the scientific basis of cause and effect.
2
Strong mental powers and the sixth sense are two difficult activities.Strong mental power makes a person confident, brave, wise, intelligent, smart etc. But the sixth sense is quite a different from this. It helps a perceive the ongoing things around him analyse it broadly and present the esoteric knowledge of unknown things. Telepathy is another phenomenon, the non-physical communication of one’s ideas and feelings, in other words it is termed as communication from one mind to another at a distance.

Clairvoyance is an English word derived from French meaning ‘clear seeing’ and is used as a synonym for Psychic. However, it is considered being able to tell what is happening in a remote place rather at the present tie than being able to see into the future.

We are talking about strong mental powers; we discussed clairvoyance, and now let us make more deep incision in this operation. We find that one of the medium of telling about what is going to happen next is Dream. Dream has been believed to foretell portentous events ever since the dawn of man. Many people believe that someone else can look into their future and give them a worthwhile advice.

Because dreams are always obscure in meaning, psychologists try to interpret their meaning. Sometimes it happens that one finds certain events in dreams which comes true in future. This happens because of one’s active ESP (Extra sensory Perception). There are two types of ESP (1) a plain future is seen (2) a person sees future an event of which he does not have any idea. It is always a fearful dream.

It starts with frightening dream, which seems very similar to the truth as realistic one. Such dreams are always revealed to human being in parts. These dreams come true in future and the person who dreamt can tell what is next. These dreams must not be considered as a magic. This type of dream is also called as prophetic dream that usually predict the future. Our conscious mind usually knows what the future holds and these dreams, in a way, try to warn us.

I as protagonist of this article have two queries for to readers and urge them to reply sincerely.
Is it possible to see future in dreams?
Can a person read one’s heart and mind?

Asim Abdullah

Poets of the world

William Wordsworth



William Wordsworth is one of the greatest poets of English language. He set the tone of delicacy in English language, which he got from the beehive of this beautiful world. He was nourished by the nature’s beauty as flowers nourish a bee. He loved nature and in return gifted his love with majestic verses.

Wordsworth was borne in Lake District of England in 1770. He lost his mother when he was seven and lost his father when he was thirteen. He was sent to a grammar school at Hawkshead.
William Wordsworth was in school when he found that he had developed a love for scenic beauty. He would prefer to remain in seclusion. The natural beauty of English lakes would terrify as well as nurture him, as Wordsworth would later to testify in the line;
“I grew up fostered alike by beauty and by fear.”

Another example can be given that, he writes in one of his initial poem – Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey…. “that nature never betray the heart that loved her.” This love for nature and its antics accompanied him wherever he went. Each and every part of his life was decorated with these blossoms.

In his college days in Cambridge, he was not faring well. He knew that but he could not help himself. The finest thing he did in this era which helped him a lot to develop beautiful reminiscences for rest of his life, was to travel to France. This was the time when France was experiencing a revolution. In his youth, Wordsworth was also influenced by political philosophy of Rousseau but later, he became more conservative. There he met a woman called Annett Vallon. He married her and had a girl child in 1792. At the same time, he was fascinated by fall of Bastille because this was a sign of freedom of human kind. This time was like a gem for Wordsworth but three or four years followed after his return to England in 1792 were the darkest period in his life. He was penniless, rootless, wandering in London for nothing. This was the time when he got himself among strong emotion for the people like, abandoned mothers, beggars, children, vagrants. This dark period ended in 1795, when he met his sister Dorothy and after that, they never lived apart.


In 1797, he met S.T. Coleridge, one of the finest poets of the era. Both of them travelled through literary vistas and created wonderful poetry. English owed too much to this celebrated friendship of 18th century. Before meeting, Coleridge Wordsworth was writing long poems on social issues. These poems were showing his protest against society. After that (meeting with Coleridge), he wrote short poems on nature’s poetry. Some of them were affectionate tributes to Dorothy; some were tribute to Daffodils, birds and other elements of “Nature’s holy plan.” Another important event happened in Wordsworth’s life after Coleridge’s friendship was that, he started writing an autobiographical poem. He thought that the name of the poem would be ‘The Recluse’ in 1798. He completed this poem after 40 years of hard labour. It was published in 1850; the name of the book was ‘The Prelude’ or ‘Growth of a Poet’s Mind’. In this poem, he has graphed his mental development since childhood. It is a long descriptive poem, which tells many important aspects of Wordsworth’s life. The poem exultantly describes the ways in which the imagination emerges as the dominant faculty, exerting its control over the reason and the world of the sense alike.

His most famous work is Lyrical Ballads (1798). This book was written along with S.T. Coleridge, who influenced him a lot. This book marked the beginning of Romantic Movement in English. In this book, he used new poetic principles, a new device, Wordsworth writes in the preface of the book-“poetry should express feelings…..recollected in tranquillity”

In company of Dorothy, Wordsworth spent the winter of 1798-99 in Germany, where, in the remote town of Goslar in Saxony he experienced the most intense isolation he had ever known. There he wrote some elegies and some part of ‘The Prelude.’ In 1802, he went to France for third time and met his daughter and companion Annette. He made peace with them, came back to England, and married Marry Hutchinson. But peace was not very easy for him although he resided in beautiful and secluded places. He was living in Dove cottage, Grasmere (where he wrote many beautiful poems) he heard the news that his brother, John, drowned in the sea. This happened in 1805. He wrote several elegies in this period. He laments in his “Elegiac Stanzas”-

“A deep distress hath humanised my soul”

Many of his youthful fancies about that he wrote earlier were being seen as illusion. The sad music was flowing around him instead of beautiful orchestra. In the middle years, when his daughter Catherine died in 1812 he wrote a sonnet in her memory-

Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn


In same period, Wordsworth wrote some other sonnets and elegies. He wrote a series of six poems called Lucy poems. These poems were tributes to Lucy. Nobody knows who Lucy was. These poems are very delicate. These poems suggest he had deep feelings for Lucy. These feelings are so delicate that one would be afraid to touch it. One of them is-

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years

No motion has she now, no force
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll’d round in earth’s diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees.


He settled in a house in 1818 and accepted a job of stamp distributor in local post office. So the rest of his life he remained by and large happily in that new residence. Though all these years, he was continuously attacked by critics. In 1820 when his book, The River Duddon was published, the critics and readers turned their way towards Wordsworth. By mid 1830s he had been established with both critics and the reading public.


Wordsworth succeeded his friend Robert Southey as British Laureate in 1843 and held that post until his own death in 1850. He died on April 23, 1850 in Rydal Mount, Westmorland, England. After his death, his influence was felt throughout the rest of 19t century. The world will remember him as delicate and nature loving poet


Milind

Pablo Picasso




Pablo Picasso, one of the most dynamic and influential artist of our century, achieved success in drawing, printmaking, sculpture and as well in painting. He experimented with a number of different artistic styles during his long career.
Picasso was born in Malaga on the southern coast of Spain in 1881. He was exposed to art from a very young age. His a father, who was a painter and art instructor was his immediate mentor, he got very early in his life. After studying at various art schools between 1892 and 1896, including academics in Barcelona and Madrid, he went to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid during the winter of 1896-97. Picasso soon got bored with academics and set himself up as an independent artist.

In Barcelona in 1889 Picasso’s circle of friends included young artists and writers who travelled between Madrid, Barcelona and Paris. Picasso also visited these cities and absorbed the local culture. His early works were influenced by old masters such as El Greco and Velázquez and by modern artists including Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Picasso moved to Paris in 1904 and settled in Montmarte, a working class quarter. This area was home to many young artist writers. Although Picasso was greatly benefited from the artistic atmosphere in Paris and his circle of friends, he was often lonely, unhappy and terribly poor. During this period his sympathy for social outcast was reflected in his art and both his subject matter- including blind beggars and destitute families and in his melancholy blue colour schemes.

We can divide Picasso’s artistic life in different periods according to emotional and philosophical phases of his life. These phases usually were temporary but sometimes it seems that it has elongated for a large span of time.

Early period

Picasso was recognised as artistic prodigy at an early age. His works in this period illustrate his technical capability at that stage of his career. However, he was not satisfied with the limited possibilities in such a traditional mode of representation. His constant striving for new means of expression is the primary lesson of Picasso’s art.

The Blue period

Shortly after moving to Paris from Barcelona, he began to produce works that were suffused in blue. This particular pigment is effective in conveying a sombre tone. The psychological trigger for those depressing paintings was the suicide of Picasso’s friend Casagemas. The Blue period is quite sentimental, but we must keep in mind that Picasso was still in his late teens, away from home for the first time and living in a very poor conditions.

The Rose period

In 1905-06, Picasso’s palette began to lighten considerably, bringing in distinctive beige or “rose” tone. The subject matter is also less depressing. Paintings from the “Rose period” often show fairground performers in contemplative mood. Here are the first appearances of the circus performers and clowns that would populate Picasso’s painting at various stages throughout his long career.

The Beginnings of Cubism

In late 1906, Picasso started to paint in a truly revolutionary manner. Inspired by Cezanne’s flattened depiction of space and, working alongside his friend Georges Braque, he began to express space in strongly geometrical terms. These initial efforts at developing this almost sculptured sense of space in painting are the beginning of Cubism. The exhibition “The Early Years” traced his development from 1892-1906 just prior to the advent of Cubism.

Analytical Cubism

By 1910, Picasso and Braque had developed Cubism into an entirely new means of pictorial expression. In the initial stage known as Analytical Cubism, objects were deconstructed into their components. In some cases, this was a means to depict different viewpoints simultaneously; in other works it was used more as a method of visually laying out the Facts of the object, rather than providing a limited mimetic representation. The aim of Analytical cubism was to produce a conceptual image of an object, as opposed to a perceptual one.



Synthetic Cubism

In 1912, Picasso took the conceptual representation of Cubism to its logical conclusion by pasting an actual piece of oil cloth onto the canvas. This was a key watershed in Modern Art. By incorporating the real world into the canvas, Picasso and Braque opened up a century worth of exploration in the meaning of Art.

Between the wars

The collaboration between Picasso and Braque was ended by the First World War. After the war, Picasso, reflecting society’s disillusionment and shock with the technological horrors of the war, reverted to Classic mode of representation. At the same time, however he was continuing to push Cubism into new paths. During the 30s Picasso got connected with the Surrealist movement. Although Andre Breton tried to recruit Picasso, he remained ultimately aloof from any school of art throughout his career.




Picasso the legend

By the late ’30s, Picasso was the most famous artist in the world. He was called upon to depict the brutality of fascist aggression in Spanish Civil War with the monumental “Guernica”. Other paintings from this period reflect the horror of war, but there is a consistent depiction of personal interest. The women in Picasso’s had a major impact on his artistic production, and some of the best examples are from this period.

The Late Work

In the last two decades of his long career, Picasso produced more work than at any other time of his life. During this period, some works are not only dated by month and day, but by a numeral (I, II, III) indicating multiple work created that single day.

This late period tends to be overlooked, but contains some of the finest of Picasso’s paintings. Some critics maintain Picasso was creatively lazy at this point, but a close look at the work is very rewarding. He had achieved a level of effortless artistic expression that has still not been fully appreciated.

Regardless of our position on Picasso’s personal and artistic life each one of us can in view of own mortality be awed by his final self portrait

At the time of his death he had been possessing 50,000 works made by him in various media like paintings, ceramics, sculptures and papers. He was astonishing in inventing new ideas. The 80 year- time span of his life was devoted to art. Perhaps nobody else in history has got such a productive artistic life. Picasso died on April 8, 1973 in France. His works are now property of government of France. A museum on his name has been made in France where all of his works have been preserved.






Nayab

The Hungry Planet


The Hungry Planet


“O God! I thank you for the food provided to me, make me worthy of the food, that I am going to take."

I am accustomed to chant these sacred lines, which I along with my chums was taught to utter before taking the meal. However, do we ever think about the finest creations of the same god for whom even stale bread seems to be rare commodity to achieve? Do I make any hyperbole when I concede a bitter fact that --'balanced diet' and 'a la carte' -- these sorts of words are unfamiliar to them? Their marathon to manage a square meal really tolls the bells of mind and shakes the foundation of term "standard of living".

My whole agony derives its inspiration, rather elements from the report "The state of food insecurity in the world "published recently by FAO .According to which when human beings are planning to spend their vacation on moon ,near about 850 millions of us are engaged in a savage battle against 'hunger' and 'malnutrition'. Out of which 820 million people live in developing countries .Every year ,near about 50 lakh children (below five year of age) belonging to third- world countries screams and lastly sleeps in the lap of their mother, that too forever...{sadly India contributes 24.2 lakhs to it}.

So, will not the bills on the issues like education, economic- growth, IT sound hollow and somehow penny-pinching to them? When the world is busy in setting new milestones in the fields like nuclear science, space research, defence technology ,on the other side ,who will care for the grim fate of people who look towards World Bank and FAO for few bags of grains. Is not this very fact authenticates the very quote of Rudyard Kipling "White man's burden" even at the time when we are going to celebrate our 56th republic day.

Still I am optimistic as we have the potential to emerge as a superpower and I have some suggestions for solving this food crisis----

1. NEED TO HAVE A MANAGEMANT BODY AT CENTRAL LEVEL

This body will implement the existing govt. policies regarding ration-distribution strictly, thus checking black marketing and price hike of staple food. It will abolish corruption and provide innovative guidelines in making new laws, which will be executed, on economic basis and not on caste or regional basis.


2. BETTER UTILIZATION OF FUNDS

The financial aids given by world bodies, instead of falling prey to the bureaucratic hawks, should reach to the needy people directly. The govt. should also encourage bonafide NGO is working on grass root level.

3. SHUN THE CONVENTIONAL FARMING TECHNIQUES

Due to influence of urbanisation until 2020 AD, only 55% of the total Indian population will have farming as their occupation. Therefore, it is high time to focus on the urgent need of scientific temperament and better irrigation facility. This will help us in rising as a self-independent nation as far as the productivity is concerned.

4. BETTER CO-ORDINATION BETWEEN STATES

A better understanding among states will play a vital role in channelising the resources like buffer-stocks and controlling the prices. The proper food management, thus, save the live of the people living in drought or flood prone area.

5. ERADICATION OF PROVERTY

The time demands our attention towards the Gandhian thought of setting small-scale industries and new co-operatives. The need is also to make the provisions of giving loans and other helps to the poor more transparent. Generation of employment should be given the top priority. We will have to concentrate on the downtrodden class and the policies made must consider their problems as Amratya Sen also emphasised upon that.

Then only every citizen of the world will thank the god in true sense and this world will become a better place to live in for all of us.


Alok Kumar
JNU

VOTE OF THANKS


We are proud to present the eleventh edition of ‘SAMAR’. We hope you must have enjoyed the magazine. You can also read the magazine online at www.mysamar.blogspot.com. You can also give your feedback through e-mail or post.

Last but not the least; again, we would like to thank the readers, writers and sponsor of ‘SAMAR’.

EDITOR

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