Writings of Andre Dubus II:

All these truths and quasi-truths…about publishing are finally ephemeral…What is demanding and fulfilling is writing a single word, trying to write le mote juste, as Flaubert said; writing several of them, which become a sentence.

When a writer does that, day after day, working alone with litter encouragement, often with discouragement flowing in the writer’s own blood, and with an occasional rush of excitement... the treasure is on the desk. 

If the manuscript itself, mailed out to the world, where other truths prevail, is never published, the writer will suffer bitterness, sorrow, anger, and more dangerously, despair… 

But the writer who endures and keeps working will finally know that writing the book was something hard and glorious, for at the desk a writer must try to be free of prejudice, and hatred,; strive to be a better human being than the writer normally is, and to do this through concentration on a single word, and then another, and another.

This is splendid work, as worthy and demanding as any, and the will and resilience to do it are good for the writer’s soul.

Possibly "thank you" in Portuguese !

Possibly "thank you" in Portuguese !

Recently, I traveled on my first scientific conference to Porto, Portugal. Porto is second largest city in the country after capital-Lisbon. The experience of the journey was horrific. Can you imagine falling in love with a city and the people, although it was only for just four days?

I met many pretty ladies in the conference in Porto and also many lonesome men like me-maybe to go wild in the romantic rainy climate of the Porto.

One of the pretty ladies said, “Do you know my husband ….” After that I didn’t wanted to store any piece information from a beautiful lady.

I wonder why these good looking Portuguese girls are “missing” their husband or boy friend and I have to handle the situation or listen to their sad stories. Poor Me! However, maybe I am born to solve the problem on love, truth and relationships.

I could not stand giving my piece of so called “wise advice” on that very lady and ended up saying, “You know, those who are close to heart are never missed.” Finally, she laughed and said, “Obrigado”, Thanks God, what does that word means?

After listening too many of the boring lectures and presentations by so called, “scientists”, I got frustrated and decided to visit some of the places such as harbor, port wine sellers and smell the cool breeze coming from Antarctic Ocean near the fort beach.

The smell was so beautiful and romantic. I talked with Portuguese couples. They hardly were very good at speaking English and I myself do not claim to be very good as well. Nevertheless with my curiosity, I asked with them, “How long you guys have been together?” the girl replied, “it has been seven years” Smilingly, I cherished their togetherness and felt “proud” of such Portuguese couple.

Many of the couples in recent days have trouble being together. I decided to taste some of the famous port wine and think on the reasons behind “not being together”. Under the smell of cool breeze near the harbor, with my eyes closed and beautiful romantic singers singing “tunes of Porto”, I invented something great that Einstein would have been proud of – The trouble is not with the couples but with the ever changing situation of globalized world and the economy.

Recession has hit in each and every corners of the globe. With less money, how can someone will have so called, “honey?”

My conversation with the Portuguese couple didn’t last long. I shared the same idea, wished them “good luck” for their future in their relationship and shared smiled in Portuguese way. They looked very happy with my piece of wisdom that I shared with them, In return they said, “Obrigado” to me.

Again, I have to come back to the conference arena. I started to wonder why these boring conferences are held. Then I realized maybe it is to “network and mingle” with like minded peoples. However, there were hardly anyone who was talking “romance and love” in the scientific conference and my journey was completely different that ordinary scientists or maybe I should have gone to 'romantic scientific conferences' rather than that I went.

Apparently, I saw another single mom, who was from Porto and she started to share her feelings of relationships with me. She said, “Do you know that love does not last forever, I was married with a professor for twenty five years but our relationship didn’t work out.” I wonder why?

I was so intelligent with my words that I disguised my appearance –as if I was feeling sad and said to her, “I am so sorry for your unsuccessful romantic life, maybe whatever we do is a based on our karma” The Hindu philosophical wisdom didn’t impressed her so I decided to give the Christian faith unto her. “Do not worry, you will find someone better, someday” Now, she seemed more satisfied with the response. More than ninety percent of population is Roman Catholic, I guess!

After couple of hours of wise talk, she finally got satisfied with the wisdom we shared.
The final day was approaching and the conference was coming to an end. There were more problems that could have been seen, heard or shared but ‘time is money’. Insofar, I wanted to hear more and help these people more but every journey has an end.

Every time I talked with these couples and shared my piece of wisdom with them, they said, “obrigado”. My lack of Portuguese was very unsatisfactory, I could not understand the meaning behind the word and I assumed that it won’t mean anything bad about me or about my color of skin or about my piece of wisdom.

I didn’t even had computer to “Google translate” the word. Therefore, my journey came to an end when I safely landed to Helsinki but the cold breeze smelled so frustrating and melancholy that I started to feel the same.

In conclusion, the journey of love of any place, or any experience with new people, country or conference is always like “the beginning of an end or maybe end of the beginning” By the way, what do you think, “Obrigado” would have meant? Possibly, “thank you” in Portuguese!

Free Content

Free Content is the biggest question now a days. As I have read the previous comments in your blog it appears to my knowledge that, there are multiple views on free contents.

Some of the authors have pointed out that, free content is good and some says, it is bad. Some has a great idea on how technology has transferred over the period of time.

The matter of choice should be given to humans and only humans alone. The choice of either using the computer and reading the content for free or visiting the book store and buying a book is different all together.

As a author, only thing that comes in your mind is you have a very good idea and this has to come out in public. People should be aware of what is going around and what is happening around the world also how your idea is really related and how you can benefit from your “best ideas”. At the point of writing you are not thinking about marketing or collecting big revenues or even dreaming to win a Nobel Prize for your work.

The path that I am traveling has been traveled by somebody else. There are millions and billions of humans in the world. Those who are currently alive and those who are no longer. Whatever I am doing has been done already. I am constantly thinking that I am doing something new but I also have to realize that what “I” as the person am doing has already been done or is being done somewhere in some part of the world.

Well, Although technology in every day life cannot be ignored and one has to benefit from the usage of the technology. It is always a good idea to use the technology and benefit from the advantage of it. After all this is for us.

The generation that are is evolving is most of the times posting the content on the internet- let us say for example “technorati” where there are millions of contents posted every day.These blog posts and articles have thousand of great ideas but how are they really making any point? Will they really reach to the right people at right time?

To have a greater impact and greater socialization of “your ideas” it has to be used efficiently, in a proper manner.

We do not know how to make benefit or money from our work but, “Giving is the best thing we know as the writer.”

It is good idea to deliver the content for free but at the same time it is bad idea to really give everything for free.

Well, I do not agree that “beauty is free”. Beauty cannot be free simply because it is in the nature. Simplicity of the beauty is free but beauty does not lies in being free. Let me give you one example.

Let us say, you see the flower. You see this flower which is red and your personal favorite color is also red but some how you have a color blindness and you cannot see the color red. One of your very best friends come near to you and she says, Wow what a beautiful color and flower. You cannot see the particular flower but you still admire with the beauty.

Imagine now you do not have color blindness and you can see the flower. In this situation, you will see the red flower, you appreciate the beauty of that flower but you cannot have it. It is not free. It has its own life. It is an object which lives on its own. The life cycle of this beautiful red flower is with the Nature.

Similar analogy holds true with the “free content”. The content and ideas are just floating around us all the time. The matter of choice for picking up “whose” idea could be trusted depends upon the humans all around the world.

Selection should be given to people either to use free or not. However, free does not makes the content valuable and not free does not make ideas famous.

Ladder

A surprise in the early morning with the music of bhajans and "hare rama hare krishna" just after coming from the work. It was then pleasant to listen to the song from the movie called "ugly and pagli". You can download the song and listen to it. http://www.songs.pk/indian/ugly_aur_pagli.html

The song is "Yaad Teri Aaye Jaaye", the lyrics of song is absolutely nice and brilliant. A good song or good movie can make your mood brilliant or can change it very quickly. There are times when we do not feel good and feel very bad but all those moments are just reminding that we are becoming stronger.

Life is a process of living in very fine and brilliant way with smile on face despite you may feel bad inside you. It is like a ladder. The every step you take, you have to put an effort to climb the ladder. The next step is much more difficult than the earlier one. Every step will take you to one step closer to the destination. It is in search of the final step you have to climb all our steps. Last step is the final step that will take us home. The very first step starts from our childhood when we are born and then we slowly start climbing the ladder of life.

It is just a simple step that we take makes our life easier to climb the next one and so on. We are always worried about our next step but when we are worried about next step it will gives us clear picture and our mind will then get prepared for it. It is like taking a practice session before going to real match. It is good to worry and make yourself stress full with all the tension of next very step. But too much is not good and one should not over do it.

I went yesterday, to the police station it was funny story again. I saw people as we see every where around but one thing one very important that I noticed. There was one man who had two kids and they were wearing the same dress besides that also one wanted to sit in one side of his father and the next kid also wanted to sit in the same corner where the father was sitting. Both the kids wanted the same place to occupy but later father decided that one should sit just left of him and next kid on right of him. The kid has to agree on it and later they agreed. I thought there is no difference between the kids from any where in the world. They are the same. They want the same thing. The love of father and in equal proportion. They both wanted fight for the same place but one has to compromise to agree on the being comfortable to themselves.

As the government work is slow, it was slow here too. I had to wait for couple of hours before I get my number. I used to think that the government organization of developing nations are slow but now I have to change the idea and think that it is same every where. They get lower wages and they act slowly in response to lower wages. It is the simple fact. The progress of any country is determined by their governmental organizations and it shows why we are still lacking behind.

The services we are using and the facilities that we getting can be improved so much so quickly that one day we could put some device and fly from one place to next just like that but it is not possible due to slow working of government all around the world. Human mind works faster than any machine humans have made ever. If it can work faster then let us feel the experience of doing it faster all most everything.

Rest is rest,,, and it always feels good when some body appreciates your work or give comment on the mistakes you commit during your day. Good is good and bad is never worse becasuse bad will teach you how to make it good.

Keep smiling. "Nothing in life is easy, you have to make it easy in your own ways... write your own script so that one day when you get old you can tell stories to your grandchildren "

What is the name of this country ?

Why I am feeling like this ? What is wrong with me ? I am in the developed country in the world came to study here. The facilities are good, infrastructure is mind blowing-never seen such kind of infrastructure ever before. The university itself is the highest recruiter in whole city itself, got it name from the name of the city. What is my task at the university ? Well, this is not a good question because every body knows what is my task at the university. I am the student and I have to come very morning 8 am in the university and do my duties and go back at the time which is appropriate to me. How many courses can I take ? I can take the courses as per my wish and How do I manage my time table-No answer. How do I do all my project ? No answer. How do I learn the skills required to complete the project-See the slides, Google it or ask the help from the friend. How do I travel to the university ? Bus, Car, and if you are facing the condition that I am facing "Walk". How much is the tuition fee taken ? The university do not take any tution fee. Why ? It is the benefit every student in this country is eligible for either native people or international people. Wow, So interesting ! Where is this place ? You have to guess yourself. What is this place famous for ? No answer.

Well my dear readers, probably you know till now that which place i am talking about. If you still do not know then you do not belong to this place and please do not think of this place either, until and unless you are a tough guy like me or like some of my friends. So, want to have fun and want to enjoy the weekend and also want your dream to come true- the dream to study free, the dream to learn the skills and knowledge that you want to upgrade skills through reading the slides and doing project all the time. Come ! You all are welcome.!


This was not what I wanted to write but what to do, I like doing one thing and that is writing-thoughts comes in my mind and automatically my hands starts pressing the keyword like the machine which already knows what this mind(bheja) is talking about. I am not saying that I am good or bad, I am just what I am... So, Why am I feeling depressed and what will make me happy. The best thing that will make me happy is of course my wife. How come I do not have my wife with me ? Well, You better take a guess again. A guy who came far far away from home country to learn, to study and to earn some thing so that he will have a good life is having one of the depressing life like never before. It is not just me, its the same with my friends. Life is very good and interesting when we face problems because then we think that are actually living (said by my friend-Teemu). Yes it is true and there is no doubt about it. When we do not have any problems then we should realize that we are soon approaching the death or there is no meaning to live a life. Welcome and Happy day !