Identity

Everyone us searching for their identity. I am not talking identity as in associating oneself with your profession or family. I am talking about the identity that one distinguishes for ones selves. This one makes us different from each other. This identity is under constant evolution and this evolution is most active when people are in their teens. This is because they are trying to find out who they are, what they are meant to be, what they are made of. There are many such question which they seek the answer to.

To know our identity there is truly only one way that is to done a variety of coats and see the one that best suit us. We have to experience what is there to in life at the same time we must know our limits for only once limits are understood can we find a way around it.

Everyone is struggling for the answer. They grope in the darkness in their souls for the true meaning of their purpose in life.

Purple Seven

It was in the night and I was walking briskly. I checked the time on my watch, it was almost seven. Damn, I am late. I had to reach the Charles Sports Club. This is the last and most important job. The tennis racket was slung over my back. The fences started to appear, the gate would not be far. Loud bearing rock music was playing in the night, which I suppose was coming from one of the residential buildings. I reached the gate only to be shocked. There was a huge crowd outside it and the rock music was coming from inside. There was a rock show going on inside. Still, it would be no problem, the tennis court would be in use. I pulled out my id card. I had to do what I came to do. I flashed my membership id at the entrance and walked in towards the court. It was empty. I may be able to catch him at the shower area. I moved at once. The showers were running and men were having their bath, but he was not there. Maybe I could catch him at the locker room. The locker room was very crowded, I pushed my way amoung the jostling men in towels careful not to get into a fight. I got a view of his locker for a whole minute. There was no sign of him. I watched him for days; I know his every schedule moves. My final chance would be catch him leaving in his car.

I ran out, to the parking exit and hoped I did not miss him. I was searching for a purple Honda. Nervously my eyes kept roaming everywhere. It was not long before I my eyes caught him, but he was not in his car at all. He was exiting from the main entrance. Where had he gone? It did not matter I had to get to him. He was wearing his purple suit. Where was he going? He hailed a cab and was off. I hailed a cab and jumped in, “Follow that cab ahead”. What was this guy up to? If I finished this job, I could finally go home.

The cab stopped and I paid my fare. He came to the subway station. I quickly followed him down. I had to get to him before he jumped in to the train. He moved to the restroom. I breathed a sigh of relief. I kissed the purple seven that hung around my neck. It could be done. I walked into the restroom. The dim light was hanging from the ceiling. The target could not be seen.

Suddenly I felt something hit me from behind, on my shoulder. I went crashing down. A hand swung around my throat and a blade from pressed against my neck. “Who are you? What do you want?” I heard two rapid questions fired off. I knew something was wrong about this fellow. Doesn’t matter, I just got to deliver the package. “I am nobody, but the racket on my shoulder” I said slowly, “it’s yours.” The hand slowly slid away from my neck, while the knife stayed. The racket was lifted from my shoulder. He lifted it up. I could see him smiling in the shadow, “Yes, it is mine. Thank you”. And the knife slashed against my neck. My temporary human vessel was failing me. My purple blood was flowing out. My hands grabbed my throat, but it was of no use. So this was how humans die. I was going to die, but it did not matter the job is done.

The man in the purple suit walked out cleaning his knife on his handkerchief. With the racket swung over his back he got into the train. However this man did not get out the train at all. He was searched for, but not found. In another mysterious incident in the same train a purple seven about six feet high was found.

Drugs, Cigarettes & Alcohol

I was always fascinated with cigarettes from when I was a kid. I think it started from all those movies I seen and now if anyone says that it was the negative influence of the media, well then I would tell him get a life, it was either the media or from the outside. In other words it would have been unavoidable. I remember those games I used to play with my brother where we used to be in an imaginary Jurassic Park scene or in an imaginary back robbery and a pencil used to be in our mouth as an imaginary cigarette.

“Dad”, I used to ask my father, “have you ever smoked.”

“I used too,” he told me “the last time I smoked was before you were born but after I was married I stopped. The last time was when your Uncle’s father had come and he still used to smoke so to keep him company I smoked with him.”

“Ha!” my mother used to come in “your father barely used to smoke. He just smoked on that day to show everyone he could smoke.” That issue is still an unresolved matter. Going back to the point I am making...It is not just about cigarettes, but everything that the world offers which people say are addictive. Cigarettes, drugs, alcohol. Should we or should we not try them. The risks of having these are of addiction, of becoming slaves to these materials or even such as you’re too young to have them. Now when you talk about young, things are changing very fast, the youth of every generation seems to be maturing faster than the last one. For example when I was in fifth standard I did not know anything of reproductive system or neither did I use abusive words in my speaking vocabulary, however now you go to a fifth standard child and you know things are different. In the West, maturity development has moved up to youth aged as young as 13 years old, (the main reason why maturity has developed is simply because of exposure that gives information).

So why do the youth do what they do. Why do they have drugs, alcohol and cigarettes? Simple, they are curious and to satisfy that they try out stuff. Sure, you will hear older people saying they should do this when they are older when they are working and earning their own money. But that’s where my theory of maturity comes.

Then some people or even you may say then if their maturing faster, then they should be able to work earlier. They should be able become professionals as soon as they mature. However if you have lived life long enough then you will know that life is not that simple. Of all the many points that are available I will point out that the education systems around the world is still trying to adjust to mind of the children and this is because the mind has been on a changing part. Sure sex education has been pushed to an earlier class and the system of exams is becoming absolute, but about completing ones education in five or six years. This may sound utopian, but it is possible, the human mind has rarely been pushed beyond limits. Why can’t education of a child start from the time he or she can walk. It has been done by everyone’s ancestors at some point or the other.

As Jason sat in the train he was slightly nervous. Very soon he was going to go for his first day of college. As he worried himself over various things like friends, girlfriends and a lot of other things. One thing that struck his mind is that finally he was going to get a peak at life. He was going to be exposed to life for what it is. For quite a bit of his life he was told that he would experience life when he went out of school and into college. Little did he know that he would hear the same thing, but in a different context- going out of college and going to work. Hearing something like that would be a pain. And… Back to Jason. Sure, he reached college fine and living up to his habits from his boarding school he came reached his class ten minutes early. The class was empty. He felt awkward, hell anyone would if on their first day of anything they would come early and find the room empty. He chose a nice corner seat and sat there. From his back he extracted an Alistair Maclean book and started reading. People came, but ignored them. He did not need company, that was provided by the imaginary world created by his book. He glanced at his watch. Two minutes left. He raised his eyes slowly above the book and its looks like he was not the only person who liked to sit alone. There were about six to seven people in class who were also sitting alone.

The bell rang and people started pouring in. And he made new friends. This story maybe very boring for you to read, damn it boring for me to write so let’s do a fast forward. So this Jason found his place in college with a six people. Most of them smoked cigarettes, but he vowed not to smoke. He did not know why, but most of his other rules laid down this one too had no logical basis, it just came from the gut. When you’re with friends you grow curious of such things. You wonder what keeps them hooked on it. They themselves don’t have an appropriate answer. And then one day he tried, he pulled the smoke into his lungs and he felt his head become lighter. However Jason did not really become a regular smoker. On an average he managed to keep it to only once a month. This once a month was only on the days he felt very tired or he felt like crap. However he felt that he could very easily become a full- fledge and regular smoker, but he was afraid he would get hooked. He was wrong. That once a month cigarette he was not able to escape from and he had to have it every month and no matter how much he tried he could not.

Jason began to consider himself weak. Imagine if every day was difficult and tough to live, then everyday he would smoke. To motivate himself to quite he used to tell himself that he stronger and better than this. He did not need cigarettes to handle the pressures of life.

I like to end by the simple line, what is the use of living if you don’t try everything.

Justice- Then screw Kasab GET THE BIG FISH

People are crying for justice and death of Kasab, the lone terrorists left from the 26/11 attack on Mumbai. So the HC has declared Kasab guilty and awarded him the death penalty. However this is such a waste. This will hardly deter terrorist from commenting more horrible acts. And why should Kasab be blamed. If I was on poverty and someone offered to take care of my family in return for my life I would do it. Love makes people do crazy things and the fact he can love does not make him a monster, but one of us a person who is just trying to support his family.

   People are pointing fingers at the wrong person. Fine, understood as humans we need to take out our emotion on someone, but they should not stop there. They should look and point fingers at the conspirators of  26/11, the people who actually sit and plan these attacks. These people should pressurize the Indian and Pakistan Government to take action.  Just pushing for the death of Kasab to fulfill one’s own emotions is not enough. They need to come above their emotions. They need to get the conspirators who sit in the drawing room, they need to get them and punish them.

 

PRICE AS A MARKETING TOOL

PRICE AS A MARKETING TOOL

Price has two fuctions in marketing

n To recover investment and cover opportunities costs.

n It can also determine the market strategy where focus must be on volumes or margins, but the most significant principle is price performance points (PPP)

Conjoint Analysis: It is an important part of marketing strategy involiving price distribution. Porter suggests that margin route has low volume with high prices and is able to cover the cost, low volumes sale is able to give significant profit. The decision to go with volumes is driven by the fact of large volume push down. A company like Wall-Mart eliminates all unnecessary input cost to sell products 20%- 30% below market price. Wall-Mart makes sacrifices- sale support, overhead cost and design, warehousing costs by creating space within. Coz it has a high footfall ( nos of persons buying) it can bargain for heavy discount from supplies. This principle applies to low cost airlines also.

Price used as a marketing strategy must be used carefully. In globalization every culture looks at products differently. Pricing is a mkting tool, subject to different rules and categories of products for different age and different cultures by certain amt of standerization due to modernization.

A pair of Levis in the US is about 40-50$ and the same pair would be about 60-80$ in Europe. This is because in Europe Levis is perceived as a premium brand. Pricing in India uses psychology pricing (Rs.99). Pricing is abt optimum utilization of mkt sentiments and expectations.

Apple uses skimming method. When it comes out with a product it has a high price and as other companies come out with their own counter products Apple lowers the price of their products.

When Diet Coke came out Coke-cola droped it’s price to 30% coz it belived that lower prices would get people hooked.

Polaroid and Gillette use the capitalist strategy that is its main product may be very cheap but the accessories are expensive.

Value pricing have 2 different kinds of meaning

n Higher price suggest higher quality or an aspirational orientation

Also mean money pricing

translation notes by Dhanika

THE QUILT

Right from the title to the last paragraph of the story, the translation is very well done. It is smartly done and, to a large extent, perfectly done. The original story carries in it a flavor of humor. The story is different and interesting but what makes it all the more interesting is the usage of pure Hindi and Urdu terms as well as proverbs. Not only this, the narration and the language hold the attention of the reader through the end. In the story, it is in fact, the language that makes all the wonders. Imagine the story, and that too on a subject like this (a lesbian relationship), being written and narrated in simple Hindi. It will surely sound a little crude and vulgar. In order to keep the humor in the language alive, the story ‘Lihaaf’ needs a very clever translation and ‘The Quilt’ is exactly what you can call one. Not only has the translation been done word-to-word (which is a very risky thing to do) but also it has been done with great care and commitment. The words and phrases used in the English piece are successful in conveying the mood and the essence of the story. Also, in the original, the narrator, that is, the small girl, in spite of her naïve abusive comments, comes across as very amiable. The English translation has been able to maintain the amiability, such that it appeals the English reader who hasn’t read the original piece.

Many sentences have been exactly translated, for example –

‘Angaaron pe letne lagi’ – ‘raked over the coals’.

Some phrases like ‘Nihayat Nek’ have been beautifully translated in ‘noblesse oblige’.

But there are some places where the actual text seems far better in its usage of language than the translation. For example –

1. ‘Vahan toh bas vah thi aur unki khujli!’ – ‘All her time was taken up with the treatment of her unfortunate itch.’

2. ‘Soti-jaagti gudiya’ – ‘Sleeping-walking doll’.

In some places, the translator has retained some words from the original – ‘Babua’ , ‘jaali karga’.

In some places, to add more effect to the translated piece, the translator has added some words, phrases and sentences of her own –

1. ‘but ungrateful wretch that he was’

2. ‘What I saw when the quilt was lifted, I wil never tell anyone, not even if they give me a lakh of rupees.’

All in all, the translation is creditable and successful in carrying the actual effect that the original carries.

Lit notes

Pls note that this is all crap

LANGSTON HUGHES

Q1. Write a brief essay on the contribution of Langston Hughes to Afro-American Poetry

A 1) Langston Hughes was born in 1902 in Missouri and was raised by his grandmother. He came to New York and attend the Colombia at 20 and after that he was always on the move. He contributed greatly to the Harlem Resistance.

Langston Hughes poetry was all about the plight of the Afro-American and the oppression they were under. His early poems contained elements of Jazz and blues. Later on hs poems also incorporated bebop rhythms. His poetry has a lot of irony in it (The Ballad of Landlord) and some have anger (Will V-Day be Me-Day too).

Q 1) Evaluate the poetry of Langston Hughes (and about the Harlem Renaissance)

A 1) In the poem I, Too Sing America by Langston Hughes. The poem was written in a time when African-American were oppressed by the majority Whites. This poem is a proclamation of Langston Hughes against this oppression.

The poem is of the plight of a Afro-American servants who are made to eat in the kitchens and not the dining hall. As the poem proceeds we see Hughes refusing to this, refusing to in kitchen to eat.

He shows a challenge to his oppressors by laughing at them.

In the second verse he dreams of a better tomorrow where he will have his rights and no one will dare to tell him to eat in the kitchen for he to is American.

The poem makes am indirect reference to the Constitution of America that says that all men and women are equal, but yet just before they are darker they are discriminated against.

Hughes wants to point out that they are all equal. That all American belong to the same family and humanity.

This poem reflects the collective states of minds.

The Harlem Renaissance: This was culture movement of Afro-Americans that 1918 and blossomed in the 1920s. It took place at Harlem in New York. The literature developed was informal and incorrect. Afro-American writers twisted the English language to be appropriate for their culture. There was an acceptance that America was now their homeland and Africa became the idea of a lost paradise. Now they had to look to the future and forge for its identity in America.

CANNERY ROW

Q 2) With reference to Mack and the boys, how does Steinbeck subvert the idea of the American dream.

A 2) To answer this question we must understand the concept of the American Dream. The American Dream is a traditional idea in the USA. The people of America were tired of war (1914-1918) and were looking for many people just wanted to have a settled, have a family and a successful job. There was also a high rate of migration of people into American. Everyone wanted this piece of prosperity. Everyone wanted this piece of American Dream. Simply American Dream is an idea in the United States that everyone has a chance to achieve prosperity and success.

Mack and is boys are exactly the opposite. They don’t want to prosperity and success. Mack could be the President but he does not want to. They just want to live day to day. They don’t need success to have be happy. They are happy just by having each other. They don’t think of tomorrow but only today. They don’t want to settle down and have a family.

Probably the point Steinbeck is making that there are some people who don’t want the American Dream or maybe the American Dream was stereotypical. That there is a lower underlining group of people who do not want this dream.

Q 3) Would you characterize Steinbeck as a realist? Discuss.

A 3) Steinbeck’s novel Cannery row is about a bunch of lower income group people and their life in a community. So is this account, is this story realistic. I think it is not that simple. It is a hybrid of utopian and a realist. Firstly to point out there is a Chinese shop owner who gives a credit without any limit. The fact that he gives the Mack and the boys free without any rent is questionable. To cap it of Chinese businessmen have a very good economic sense and are hardly the people who give a lot of credit. Also how does most people have not paid back the money how does he continue running the shop. Secondly are people so good? Are people always so good natured in a community?

However there is the realistic part of the story also. That there exsists a group of people in society that live the way as described in the book. There are bums and there are blah.

The Steinbeck has written a Utopia Realist. Utopian in a sense that the novel idealizes the values of the lower classes and insists that good fellowship and warm-heartedness are all that are needed to create a paradise anywhere on earth, even here on run-down Cannery Row. The characters in the novel are accordingly stereotyped at times: the gruff madam with the heart of gold, the grocer who is a tough and even extortionary businessman but who nevertheless keeps the Row going and is capable of extreme generosity, the shiftless man who can't hold a job but will tenderly nurse a puppy back to health.

Realitist in the sense that the weight of current events sometimes breaks through: This novel is set immediately following the Depression and World War II, and for many on Cannery Row, the war did little to end the Depression. In all these ways, the "real world" intrudes

Q 4) Evaluate Cannery Row as a novel based on Place and Community rather than Plot and Action.

A 4) Cannery Row is a story of people and place. It has no story. Steinbeck shows how a bunch of people are living together in this community. There is no main story, but every chapter tells us little of the characters and their life in the community. The starting description of the story gives a vivid description of Cannery Row.

For the characters in Cannery Row may be more than they appear to be-more

than obscure storekeepers or drifters-but they, like the humanity which they

represent, are far less than perfect. Neither their happiness nor their means

of achieving it is simply the "good" way compared to the "bad" way of the rest

of the money-grubbing world. Mack and the boys, like the rest of us, often

break when they wish to build, hurt when they want to love; and, like the rest

of us, their immediate appetites often distract them from their deeper need to

give of themselves.