Nepal, a popular tourist resort has natural and artistic backdrop. Nestled in the majestic Himalayas it is overwhelmingly beautiful. One can reach Nepal from India either by air or by train. We- a group of four decided to take the latter. One has to get down at Raxaul and then take any form of conveyance to reach Birganj a dusty border town in Nepal.

A night’s rest in Birganj and then we started for the first leg of our tour – a trip to pokhara. If you journey by local bus a seven hours trip will invariably lengthen to nine or ten hours.

By the time we reach Pokhara we are sapped of energy. A night’s rest is a must. The next morning we went for local sight seeing. Pokhara is no longer the small idyllic spot that is supposedly a tourist’s paradise. It is quite a busy town. A number of hotels have sprung up along the lake side. A stroll down the lake side is pleasant in the evening. Boat ride in Pokhara lake is a popular tourist activity. Our sight seeing itinerary included a view of the sun rise, Bindubasini temple, Davis falls, Mohendra cave etc. The walk through the cave was indeed a novel experience. In the evening we bought some curios from the shops that lined the lake side.

From Pokhara one can go to Muktinath by taking a flight to jomsom and then availing the jeep facility. The flight from Pokhara to Jomsom ( 24 minutes ) was the most unforgettable and thrilling experience of the entire trip. One can view the majestic Himalayan ranges during the flight. The Himalayas with all its aura and pristine beauty is a balm for the eyes and the mind as well.

You can trek to Muktinath or take a jeep. The jeep ride along the bumpy road which is motorable but not pitched is rather unpleasant. The landscape here is quite barren with a vague resemblance to Ladakh. The ride takes one and half hours. Muktinath temple is set atop a mount. There are 108 dharas. Most pilgrims bathe in the dharas and then offer puja in the temple. After a night’s stay at Muktinath one usually returns to Jomsom – we did the same. Jomsom is a sleepy town but one can get a hotel of one’s choice easily. Since there are no evening flights available tourists have to spend the night in Jomsom and then catch the next morning flight.

The next morning we boarded an eighteen seater plane and returned to Pokhara. From there we started for Lumbini – the birth place of Lord Buddha. No bus goes to Lumbini directly. One has to get down at Bhairava, a place 22 kms from Lumbini and then avail a car or a bus. By the time we reached Lumbini it was evening. There are few hotels in Lumbini. Most of the tourists put up in monastery rest houses. Lumbini is spectacular not just because of its historical importance but also because of the grandees of the monasteries build by various Buddhist countries.

Lumbini is spread over 1150 bighas of land. In the middle is the monastic zone. One can only gaze in silent awe at the spectacular beauty of the monasteries – special mention need to be made of the Myanmer, Thailand & Srilankan monasteries. One needs to spend the entire day in the Lumbini development project to view this world heritage peace site.

Our next destination was Manokamana, a temple of goddess Bhagwati, situated atop a mountain, is believed to have the power to fulfill wishes.  We availed the rope way to reach the temple. A ride in the rope way always sets your heart a flutter and this was no exception. There are many hotels in this tourist spot. The weather here is quite balmy unlike other parts of Nepal we visited.

After spending two nights in Manokamana we set out for Kathmandu. On our way to Kathmandu by bus we were guided by one of our fellow passengers to put in any hotel an Thamel. The hotel we chose was Annapurna – a neat well maintained hotel meant for middle income group like us.

Kathmandu being the capital has all the marks of a city – the usual hustle bustle, dust, smoke and fast paced. We started sight seeing with Pashupatinath temple. We also visited Boudhanath and Swayambhunath monasteries. Each of the places mentioned has distinct features of its own. Pashupatinath had all the marks of an Indian temple thronged by worshippers who stood in long queues waiting patiently to offer puja. It was rather noisy. In comparison Boudhanath and Swayambhunath monasteries were peaceful. Unlike Pashupatinath photography is allowed in these two places of worship.

Next day we started for Dhulikhel, a tourist spot, took only two hours by bus from Kathmandu. Dhulikhel had the tranquility and meditative nature which draws tourists yearning for solitude. Bhaktapur is situated in between Kathmandu and Dhulikhel. A visit to Bhaktapur is a must – it is the ancient Nepalese capital. The architectural designs of  the palace and temples of Bhaktapur is a marvel. We took a guide who informed us in great details about this ancient capital of Nepal.

From Bhaktapur we started for Nagarkot – a tourist paradise with its serene ambience and its virgin forests. One can enjoy the scenery from the various panoramic view points of Nagarkot. From the watch tower at the highest peak one can also view the sunrise and sunset. There is a trekking trail from Nagarkot to Benepa – 3 kms away from Dhulikhel. The trekking route is exciting between the lofty pines and far flung serene Nepalese hamlets.

We started for the last leg of our journey the next morning our destination being Kathmandu from where we could catch our flight for Kolkata. Since there was one more day to spare we decided to visit Patan, another famous historical site. It is an enchanting mélange of palace buildings, artistic courtyards and graceful pagoda temples. Listed as a World Heritage Site, the former royal palace complex is the center of Patan’s religious and social life, and houses a museum containing an array of bronze statues and religious objects.

Our visit to Nepal would have been incomplete if we hadn’t visited its famous Casino. Though luck didn’t favour us but the visit was enjoyable.

We bid adieu to Nepal after a 15 days tour carrying with us fond memories of the place.

Please visit Amazing India Photos for viewing photos.

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Related Articles

• July 5, 2010 -- Top Ten Best Budget Touchscreen Phones (6)
• December 14, 2009 -- No Discussion Until Joint Resolution On Telangana- Pranab (0)
• December 11, 2009 -- Telangana- Agitation, Politics or Denial? (0)
• December 10, 2009 -- Legalize Prostitution- Supreme Court (1)
• November 25, 2009 -- India Supports NATO’s Offensive in Afghanistan (0)

I totally remember one such occasion when this nasty piece of iframe got through my pc via my ftp client straight into my blogs and oh well, that was pretty hellish

And then I searched and researched. And found a set of highly acclaimed and popular wordpress plugins that guaranteed my site’s security, free of cost

I suppose this post will help you locate some of those security plug-ins essential for any wordpress-enabled site.

1) For SPAM protection, forever and Always,  you can rely upon the Akismet plug-in that checks through your comments against its web service and notifies you.

It keeps those suspected comments from showing themselves on your site until you yourself approve of them.

You will need an Akismet API key for configuration.

Download Akismet

2)Wassup. A really convenient tool to track down your visitors for real alongwith their IPs so that you can ban them later on with the plug-in I will discuss after this. Wassup enlists Spy visitors, current visitors  alongwith all visitors together. Very useful tool that gives you the suspect’s IP and country details with time of visitation. WassUp works with two anti-spam function to detect and skip (if you want) referers spammers and akismet spammers.  If someone tries to hack your site, it not only prevents but also notifies you.

It gives you several other details such as hostname,referrer,spider,search engines used,keywords,SERP (search engine result page),operating system / language / browser, pages viewed (chronologically and per user session),complete user agent,name of user logged in,name of comment’s author,top ten charts with aggregate data.

Download Wassup

3)WP-Ban is required to ban users on the basis of their IP, IP Range, host name, user agent and referer url from visiting  your blog. You are required to create a custom ban message which wil be shown to the banned IP, IP range, host name, user agent or referer url if ever they try to access your blog. You are given the opportunity to exclude as many IPs from being banned.

Like the previous two, WP-Ban records such attempts and gives you statistics accordingly. Wildcard matching is allowed in this plug-in.

Download WP-Ban

4) I was totally floored with the Theme Authenticity Checker, a plug-in that helped me identify and get rid of malicious codes embedded in themes that you download from untrusted sites. Its pretty good considering you don’t have to manually do the checking and can always rely upon this plug-in.

Often, such codes lurk in unexpected places of the theme and no matter how hard you try, decoding can be a mess especially if you are a beginner.

Download TAC

5) Admin SSL gives  you that extra protection by providing you with a secure wordpress login and admin pages. It forces SSL on all pages where passwords can be entered and is capable of working with both Private and Shared SSL. Admin SSL can be installed on WordPress MU to force SSL across all blogs (only works if you have a Private SSL certificate installed) from WPMU 1.3 upwards. You can add other URLS (e.g. wp-admin/) which this plug-in secures through the configuration page.

Admin SSL

6) In case, your site gets hacked or you see iframes, or get that stupid database 500 error, you would want to upload the backup you last made. With the DB- Backup plug-in, everything runs smoother than you could imagine. It allows you to easily backup your core WordPress database tables along with other database tables.

Download WP DB- Backup

7) Just in case everything goes kaput, you can always begin afresh by reinstalling everything the hacker took away from you. How? why, with WordPress Data Base Manager of course. Plain and simple. This plug-in allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries.  It also supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database which is pretty awesome if you wish to skip some time the manual process.

Download WP- DB Manager

Secure WordPress practically gives your  site security a finishing touch. It removes error-information on login-page, adds index.php plugin-directory (virtual),removes the wp-version, except in admin-area, removes Really Simple Discovery, removes Windows Live Writer, remove core update information for non-admins, remove plugin-update information for non-admins, remove theme-update informationfor non-admins (only WP 2.8 and higher), hide wp-version in backend-dashboard for non-admins, Add string for use WP Scanner, Block bad queries, Validate your site with a free malware and vulnerabilities scan with SiteSecurityMonitor.com

Secure WordPress

9) WordPress Login Lockdown

Imagine thinking hard to invent a very difficult password for your WordPress account only to know that it can be cracked with brute force password discovery method.No worries, prevention is possible. Login LockDown records the IP address and timestamp of every failed WordPress login attempt. The plug-in searches for IPs that repeatedly fail to login properly and bans them. This helps any brute force password discovery.

Login page is not displayed to a user who fails to log in repeatedly thrice within 5 minutes. Further options can be modified by the Administration tool.

Download Login Lockdown

10) WordPress Firewall works almost like the Windows Firewall. Safe to say inspired by the latter, this plug-in investigates web requests with simple WordPress-specific heuristics to identify and stop most obvious attacks.

With WordPress Firewall you can turn on or off directory traversal attack detection; turn on or off SQL injection attack detection; turn on or off WordPress-specific SQL injection attack detection; turn on or off blocking executable file uploads; turn on or off remote arbitrary code injection detection; add white listed IPs; add additional white listed pages and/or fields within such pages to allow above to get through when desirable.

Download WordPress Firewall

Hey there are many more. You can always check upon WordPress Plugins for more downloads 

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Related Articles

• December 1, 2009 -- Without IMEI?! (0)
• October 3, 2009 -- Delhi Metro Scare (0)

While choosing one for a family member, I felt this need of a single list that could include at least the most competent mobiles in the sphere of flexible budgets.If, however, you feel I skipped a particular model, feel free to suggest it to me

1) The first phone that comes to my mind is Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic. It runs on Symbian S60 5th Edition which is pretty old actually considering the present market being dominated by android phones. But somehow it has managed to  connect to many people because of its cheap price and package. Let’s see what it has.

Nokia 5800 has a 3.2-inch touchscreen with 640×360 pixel resolution and 16 million colors. It has a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and Carl Zeiss optics and 3x digital zoom. It comes with an inbuilt 140 mb and 8GB Micro SD Card  which can be extended up to 16GB.

5800 has Stereo FM with RDS. There’s a TV-out and a stylus included in the package. Although in some parts of the country, it comes without one. Call me old-fashioned, i still love using one

Data connectivity includes Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, integrated GPS.

Nokia 5800 is priced at Rs. Rs. 12,600 INR

2) Nokia 5530 Xpressmusic is a cheaper version of Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic with its 3.2 MP camera coupled with a powerful LED flash and a 4GB memory card(extendable up to 16 GB) and 70 MB internal memory, you can simply spoil yourself with media. Nokia 5530 XM has kinetic scrolling enabled that gives you the ultimate scroll experience. In terms of screen size, its not exactly a deal-maker. The screen has been reduced to 2.9 inches but like 5800 XM, its display remains unchanged. i.e., 360*640 pixel resolution.

Nokia Stereo Headset WH-205 (In-ear headphone) and standard 3.5mm headphone jack are bundled with the set.

5530 has a fast CPU (438 MHZ) that actually takes browsing, gaming and media experience to a higher level than even the Nokia flagship 5800.

Sadly, the phone lacks a 3G connectivity although WiFi, bluetooth and Edge are included in its model features. Somehow, that has proved to be a real drag in the model. It also lacks a standard GPS system and a TV-Output.

Battery lasts lesser than most phones of Samsung in this range.  A fully charged battery will offer a  talk time up to 4.9 hours and music playback time up to 27 hours.

The phone is a full touchscreen one minus a keypad. Those of us infected with Texting Mania are definitely going to sulk over this.

Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is priced at – Rs.13,000/- Indian Rupee (INR)

3)Nokia X6 16 GB will be my next choice.

X6 has a 3.2 inch (16:9 aspect ratio)(640×360 pixels) Capacitive TouchScreen, a 5 MP camera with Carl-Zeiss optics and dual LED flash, TV-out, video editing, online sharing, Nokia Music store, full web browser and Flash Lite support.

Connectivity features  include a high speed MicroUSB connector, WLAN (China WAPI), Bluetooth 2.0, WCDMA, GPRS/EDGE, HSDP, standard WiFi option, A-GPS with OVI maps 3.0.

X series comes with different memory card options. Since this is a best budget phone list, you should rather get the 16GB memory card option.

Nokia X6 16GB is priced at a convenient Rs. 15, 500 (INR)

4) LG Cookie GD510 Pep is another high-end phone that can be included in this list. Like Nokia 5530 XM, this one too sports a candy-bar form factor and a resistive touchscreen, with 3 inches and 240×400 pixels resolution  supporting 256k colors.

It comes with 42 MB inbuilt memory and 2 GB card(extendable up to up to 8GB). Other features include advanced handwriting recognition, motion Sensor Gaming, auto-rotating display It gives you the option of one Touch Social Networking Applications, FM radio, 3 way homescreen & Fun UI, One Touch Smart Key,

LG Pep offers GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth with A2DP, and Micro USB. LG Pep has optional solar panel battery cover for charging battery via solar energy and accelerometer sensor. Its available in standard black and silver colors.

LG Cookie Pep is priced at Rs. 7,799/- Indian Rupee (INR). In some parts, its available at 6, 800 INR as well.

5)I was wondering what to put next in the list. And voila, pat came the reply Samsung Corby B5310 Pro!

The touch-operated QWERTY side-slider Samsung B5310 Corby PRO is the flagship of the Corby lineup. It has 2.8” (16M color) QVGA resistive touchscreen display. Samsung phones are gurus in touch experience and Corby is no exception.

The model offers a 3MP camera, FM radio with RDS, Bluetooth, USB and a 3.5mm standard audio jack complete the highlights of the device. WiFi and GPS are added features which outshine those of LG Cookie.

Standard features like integrated social websites, chat applications are included for that geek feeling.

The new Samsung Corby Pro B5310 is available in India at price of Rs.13900

6)No Samsung list of budget phones is complete without the inclusion of any Star! So, I shall talk next about Samsung Star 3G.

Star includes 3.2 mega-pixel camera with smile recognition and Power LED Flash, a 3.0-inch WQVGA full-touch screen and Samsung’s TouchWiz User Interface with Mobile Widgets and an accelerometer sensor.

You get a 80MB Internal memory, expandable up to 8GB via microSD card. Among other features are Stereo FM Radio with RDS, HTML Internet Browser. Connectivity includes Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 3G/HSDPA, GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900MHz. An additional feature is mobile blogging.

The 1000mAh Battery gives you a talktimeup to 8 hours.

Samsung Star 3G costs Rs. 11,000/- Indian Rupee (INR)

7)I would also like to include Samsung Preston in this list.

Samsung Prestonn S5600 is a a mid-range touchscreen phone, equipped with 3G. ALthough lookwise, its quite similar to Tocco, its packed with extra features. The S5600 has the added bonus of HSDPA for faster internet access at up to 7.2 Mbps.

It has a TFT touchscreen , 16 million colours, 240 x 320 pixels (2.8 inches) with auto rotate and a 3.15 megapixel camera with smile detection autofocus and flash. It supports a Video camera (QVGA, 15fps) plus includes a secondary camera for video calling.

Connectivity includes 3G/HSDPA,  standard GPRS/EDGE, Bluetooth and USB2.0. It comes with 80 MB internal memory and can be expanded with higher micro SD cards up to 16GB.

It has a talk time of 3 hours and standby time of 300 hours.

Preston is priced at Rs. 14,000 (INR)

8)Let us move on to the next phone. I should vouch for Samsung Omnia Lite B7300

Omnia Lite B7300, a smaller version of Omnia, is a convenient multimedia tool and runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional packed with Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, PDF viewer). It is a 3-megapixel stylish WM smart phone with a TFT resistive touchscreen display.

Other data connectivity features include A-GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, DLNA, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD slot for memory expansion, USB v2.0, microUSB and Organizer.

Internal memory is sadly much lower, counting only in MBs a mere 250 MB but can be thankfully expanded.

Samsung Omnia Lite B7300 is priced  at Rs.12,404 (INR)

9)Alright, we move on to the next model. Now I would look stupid if I do not include any model from HTC here. Although my vote goes straight for Hero, yet its not exactly a budget phone. So let’s contend ourselves with HTC Tattoo, alright?

Tattoo is a really cool phone. The plus point of Tattoo is its Android platform. It features a 2.8 inch capacitive touchscreen(240×320 QVGA) and HTC sense user interface and integrates Google’s services including: Google Maps, search, Google Mail, and Android market.

It has, like the above mentioned phones, a 3.2 MP Camera, a good 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 processor. Tattoo comes with 256MB RAM(inbuilt memory)  Connectivity includes GPS with Digital Compass, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, 3.5mm Headphone Jack, Quad-band GSM/EDGE and of course 3G.

HTC Tattoo costs Rs. 16,900/- Indian Rupee (INR)

10)HTC  Smart is another such cool phone to own if you are really into HTC smartphones.

It runs on Brew Mobile platform with 300 MHz processor, and sports a  2.8 inch TFT resistive touchscreen, 256K colors. It has a 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels coupled with LED flash. Internal Memory is 256 MB flash; 192 MB RAM. Can be expanded. Unlike many, this phone supports Stereo FM radio with RDS,

Bluetooth Connectivity( v2.0 with EDR), Integrated GPS, and 3G (HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps) are among its data connectivity features.

Smart is packed with standard battery Li-Ion 1100 mAh that gives a standby time up to 450 h (2G) / up to 600 h (3G) and talktime up to 7 h 30 min (2G) / up to 6 h 10 min (3G)

HTC  Smart 3G Price – Rs. 9,900/- Indian Rupee (INR)

By the way, in case you wish to have the ultimate touch-screen experience, go for HTC or Samsung. For completely satisfactory customization and unlimited  features, choose a Nokia. If into photography, a Sony Ericsson is best for you. LG is for fun and thrills .

That’s it Guys. I know there were a good many I excluded. But hey, you can always help me out

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Related Articles

• October 21, 2009 -- “”I don’t see the need to raise fuel prices “- Rao (0)
• October 6, 2009 -- “We Can Measure Neutron Stars Now”- India (0)
• August 17, 2010 -- ‘Nepal – A perfect holiday destination’ (0)
• December 14, 2009 -- No Discussion Until Joint Resolution On Telangana- Pranab (0)
• December 11, 2009 -- Telangana- Agitation, Politics or Denial? (0)

• The very first name that comes to my mind when trying to comprehend the term “classic” is Pride and Prejudice

Author: Jane Austen

Date of Release: 1813

This book remains the sweetest and most charming romantic comedy ever produced by any woman, that too, quite ironically with the Civil War at the background. Austen chose to completely ignore the vicious battles that England was engaged in and presents in front of us a bourgeois Victorian society dipped in the brush-strokes of Horatian satire.

The very first line of the novel: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife sets the light, comic and subtly ironic tone of the novel. As is obvious, the novel explores human relationships both on micro ad macro levels of the society and exposes various hypocrisies related to material possessions, sham glamour and matrimony. Feminists across the world point out Austen’s embedded interpolated plot to redefine the position of women in the society and their inter-related and complimentary financial and emotional dependence.

The 2005 movie poster of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley

The story revolves around five sisters Jane, Elizabeth, Lydia, Mary and Katy Bennet. The central plot contains the seemingly love-hate affair between Elizabeth and William Darcy, a handsome haughty noble whose First Impressions for the former is stated in the following lines: She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me.

Parallel plots are that between Jane Bennet, Lizzy’s elder sister and the most beautiful of all the Bennet sisters and Charles Bingley, Darcy’s bosom friend; and Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth’s dearest friend and Mr. Collins, the parish priest. How the intrigues and conflicts settle into peaceful unions, and how Elizabeth’s prejudice and subsequent pride and Darcy’s pride and subsequent prejudice constitute the central theme of the novel. An enjoyable read for sure!

• Hmm, no list of top ten classics is ever possible without the inclusion of  Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Dostoevsky’s novel is dark, sinister and exlores the mental agonies and anguishes of the protagonist Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student from St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker,Alyona Ivanovna  for her money.

A very queer character who recognizes himself with Napoleon Bonaparte as a self-justification for the crimes that he commits and his belief that murder comes as a natural and divine gift for some special individuals, Raskolnikov’s mental disbalances and physical agility simply stuns us to silence as we dwell deeper, or to be honest, are dragged to the vast abysses of the protagonist’s psychological darkness.

Sofia Semyonovna Marmeladova, a christian prostitute Raskolnikov discerns, shares the same feelings of shame and alienation as he does. She becomes the first person to whom Raskolnikov confesses his crime, and she supports him even though she was friends with one of the victims (Lizaveta). For most of the novel, Sonya serves as the spiritual guide for Raskolnikov.

Dostoevsky’s new anti-radical ideological themes find a free vein in the characterization of the hero. The action is focalized primarily from his perspective. Despite its name, the novel does not so much deal with the crime and its formal punishment, as with Raskolnikov’s internal struggle, a theme that has enchanted writers ,dramatists and poets right from the Renaissance Humanist Movements.

• Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist is another favourite of readers.

Dickens’s Twist is a an unlucky boy who suffers major traumas before being adopted and recognized socially. Born to a provincial sick woman who dies minutes after he is born, Twist is adopted for a short span by Mrs. Mann and the beadle Mr. Bumble in the workhouse who throw him out for being an extra burden. Then he is apprenticed to an undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry where Noah Claypole insults Oliver’s dead mother and the small and frail Oliver attacks him. However, Oliver is punished severely, and he runs away to London.

Twist’s next adventure begins as he is picked up by Jack Dawkins or the Artful Dodger as he is called. The Artful Dodger is a member of the Jew Fagin’s gang of boys. who trains him to become a pickpocket. During one such expedition, Twist gets caught but is rescued by the victim of the thieves, the old benevolent gentleman,

Mr. Brownlow whose housekeeper, Mrs. Bedwin nurses him back to life after he had fallen sick, and for the first time in his life he is happy.

The 2005 movie poster of Oliver Twist starring Elijah Wood

Old Dickens probably didn’t want Twist to have a less troublesome childhood and as such, the young boy is kidnapped by brutal murderer Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy Fagin. And he, being forced to burgle at Rose and Mrs. Mylie’s house (Fagin prompted by Mr. Monks, is wounded and further nursed to good health by them.

Towards the conclusion, it turns out that Monks is Twist’s half brother, and Rose, Twist’s  aunt. Monks receives his share of the inheritance and goes away to America. He dies in prison there, and Oliver is adopted by Mr. Brownlow.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is my next addition to the list.

The Scarlet Letter follows the public shaming and punishment of a young woman named Hester Prynne in mid-17th century Boston. When Hester becomes pregnant, everyone believes her to be guilty of adultery: she has been separated from her husband for two full years, and the baby cannot be his. The magistrates (local law enforcers) and ministers order her to wear a scarlet letter “A” on the bodice of her dress, so that everyone can know about her adultery.

The novel deals with the various trials and tribulations on the part of Hester who faces the world with her baby daughter Pearl, conceived in the prison. As the plot turns more intense, Hester’s ex-husband disguises himself as Roger Chillingworth and seeks revenge upon her lover who disgraced Hester into imprisonment and the sin of adultary. Pearl’s father, the author reveals later, is the minister, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale.

Twisting the plot a bit, Hester is made to confess Chillingworth’s true identity to Dimmesdale decide to leave Boston and go to England, where they might hide from Hester’s husband and create a new life together. The plan never is realized in truth and Dimmesdale throws open his shirt so that the scarlet A that he has carved onto his chest is revealed to his parishioners, thus confessing his sins to the townsfolk.

Both the lover and ex-husband die a year after and Hester and Pearl flee the country.When Hester dies, she is buried near the minister, and they share a gravestone containing an image, described as follows: “On a field, sable, the letter A, gules.”

• Next classic novel that springs to my mind is Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina(1875-1877)

Anna is the agonized symbol of Tolstoy’s notion of conflicts between true love and adultery set against the backdrop of high society in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. A rich and complex masterpiece, the novel charts the disastrous course of a love affair between Anna, a beautiful married woman, and Count Vronsky, a wealthy army officer.

Capturing a number of characters intrigued and counter-intrigued within the framework of nineteenth century Russian society, Tolstoy examines the myth of failing human expectations and a cruel and rigid society and exposes individuals to its reckless manipulations.  Anna’s life twists again and again as she painstakingly takes up the herculian task of learning through her troubles.

The challenges faced in the pursuit of happiness and contentment are cautioned against. Tolstoy brilliant portrayal of the thoughts and motivations of the characters reveal in unexpected turns their desperately concealed truths.

• Franz Kafka wrote a number of memorable novels, but none could stand perennially enchanting as his The Trial, a classic and a damn good classic!

The plot begins with Joseph K’s arrest. K., the bank clerk, unaware of the reasons of his arrest, is allowed to make telephone calls and is permitted to contact his lawyer, Hasterer. He is also allowed to go to work in the bank where three of his subordinates , the rigid Rabensteiner, the fair complexioned Kullich and Kaminer keep their presence concealed from him for a long time.

The next few chapters deal with his summonings from the cournt, the Usher and his wife, K.’s anger directed towards the stupidity of the court and the erratic court proceedings.  Badly shaken by a visit to other convicts, K. returns to talk to Bürstner again, but cannot find her. A commotion in the hall reveals that Fraülein Montag, a sickly teacher, is moving in with her. Upset by this sudden change, K. goes to Fraülein Mon-tag who refuses to state reasons or excuses.

K.’s Uncle Karl sees Dr. Huld along with  K in the country where the latter gets attracted to the Lawyer’s nurse, Leni, and sneaks off to visit her in the middle of the conversation where he is seduced.  Slowly, as the story proceeds, we are told that Leni sleeps with accused men and Block is one such. Block tells K that he would lose his case.

Towards the end, Joseph K. dies in the hands of two men who stab him with a butcher’s knife, echoing the proverb, Life comes full circle.

• And how can one possibly forget the great work of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby?

A thoroughly concentrated fiction based on the great American dream, Gatsby is the author’s symbol for the attainment of material pursuits. Fitzgerald explores the compelling appeal of this dream, and the circumstances that render it as deceptive as it is enduring.

A young man from North Dakota, James Gatz changes his name to Jay Gatsby and manufactures a persona “out of his own Platonic self-conception.”

Gatsby falls for Daisy, a beautiful, rich young woman and pursues her even though she has by then married a repulsive suitor from her own class. He gains possessions and tries to impress her by throwing lavish parties etc. But Daisy rejects Gatsby’s suit, as her feelings and behavior are controlled by the conventions of her class in ways that the innocent “American dreamer” does not understand.

Towards the end, it is the social stance versus dreamer’s possession that concludes with Gatsby’s failure. The discrepancy between Gatsby’s dream vision and reality is a prominent theme in this book. Class structure, coded American history and secluded individual aspirations are subdued to social recognition that leads all together to Gatsby’s end.

• Mark Twain’s memorable characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn can not be neglected. As such I will like to add to this list Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

A social outcast and a thirteen year old orphan, Huckleberry Finn is raised by Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas, both of whom blindly accept the hypocritical religious and moral nature of their society. Again and again, they try to guide Huck  towards being a gentleman and make him understand its codes and customs. Wary of the hypocrisy of the society and wanting to escape to nature (Twain’s beloved Mississipi), attempts to help Jim, a runaway slave so that the latter can to reunite with his family

The book follows Huck’s and Jim’s adventures rafting down the Mississippi River, where Huck gradually rejects the values of the dominant society, especially its views on slavery. Often critics claim the book to be  racist because of the constant use of the term nigger, but we must remember that its simply to create awareness against the prejudices and sham beliefs of the society that Huck so madly protested against.

• So difficult here not to mention a remarkable book by George Orwell, and often the highest voted and cherished work, 1984 published in 1949.

The movie poster for the novel

A book obsessed with the dystopian world that slowly crawls towards us, 1984, gives us a peak into a truthfully realized totalitarian world where absolute power is divided into three roughly equal groups–Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania. 1984 is set in Oceania, which includes the United Kingdom.

The author projects himself loosely into the character of the protagonist Winston Smith, an underling of the ruling oligarchy, The Party one of whose slogans is, He who controls the past, controls the future. people’s very thoughts are controlled to ensure purity of the oligarchical system in place.

The omnipresent and omnipotent Big Brother is the leader of this totalitarian post. Both Winston and his accomplice and lover, Julia try to expose the manipulations of the government and its unhealthy activities

I was really in several minds to include the last novel in this list. So engrossed was I in recounting the stories that it totally slipped  from my mind that there are a hundred more deserving books that must be placed in the list. But well, since, I have to be a bit ruthless in listing and thus shortening the world’s beloved classics, I will here provide you with the last one that well, claims that you will be altered to a great extent after reading it. Any guesses?

Alright, here you go.

Joseph Heller’s Catch 22!

My My!! No words or no phrase could be as practically famous as catch-22!!

Catch-22 follows Captain John Yossarian exploits and his constant fear of his life. He wishes to subvert the repressive military establishment and to survive. The bitterness of world wars and the subsequent forces of destruction of faith and belief in one’s compatriots and neighbours are revealed as the captain deliberates and tries to save his skin, while risking those of others.

Like any other modern novel, this one is too vaguely based on time narratives and confounds our senses by frequent flashbacks. Past and present are either loosely held together by memories or fused into untrackable wholes. The first part concentrates on the narrative present, the second part on the scene of the Great Big Siege of Bologna, the third part returns to the present, the fourth part centers on the actions of Milo, and finally on Yossarian’s escape from the military.

Heller mocks the political and social institutions exaggerates comically Yossarian’s series of misadventures, a modern Picaro perhaps.

There are a hundred more that must have been in this list and I offer my sincere apologies for my partiality towards the above mentioned books.

In case, you wish to contradict my list, please do so

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Related Articles

• November 25, 2009 -- Lakhvi and Six Others Charged Finally (0)

“The music in my heart I bore

Long after it was heard no more”

I will put Amitava Ghosh’s Shadow Lines in a similar category. Although it’s highly resistive to categorizations- it can be called a memory novel owing to the myriad of stupendously iridescent shards of memories embedded within its framework. Similarly, it claims a righteous placement right in between the manifold literature on post colonialism. At the same time, it’s a really loud cry against the prevailing nationalistic tendencies of the contemporary world in which Ghosh was writing. The highly definitive and descriptive imagery containing the maps, mirrors, reflections etc are in themselves, reflexive of the narrator’s personalized and depersonalized selves. What’s more, it’s also a great work full with modernist techniques.

The non-linear chronological progression of the novel coupled with the drifts across the worlds via the imaginative precepts of the mind is a fantastic method, to me, to bring out the confusions created by memories, remembrances and recollections. The novel begins in the year 1939 with Mayadebi’s departure with her husband and Tridib, her nine- year old son to England and concludes somewhere around 1970’s with the narrator’s exposure to the final “redemptive mystery” with May Price regarding Tridib’s death. It spans three generations of the Dutta Chowdhuries and the Prices and binds England, Cairo, Ceylon, India etc in a web of cartographic interpretations, transcendence of territorial boundaries and limitations of nations.The core of the story is the death of Tridib Dutta-Choudhuri, the narrator’s uncle, an archaeologist who presents the narrator-child worlds to travel in and

Nationalism in Shadow Lines is pitted against Internationalism. Reading from a gendered perspective, the narrator’s Thamma, a middle class teacher with deep nationalistic tendencies which ultimately are disillusioned towards the middle of the novel, is contrasted with his cousin Ila, the perfect globetrotter who distinguishes countries in terms of the standards and locations of Ladies’ Toilets in airports.

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Related Articles

• No Related Posts

The student was thrown into the swimming pool and was continually kicked at head and body whenever he tried to escape. This continued for 20 minutes at the completion of which he somehow saved himself and managed to reach his car and drove off.

The SIkh group claims that the accused hurled ausive language at him. “I’m going to **** you up in Iraq, I’m going to **** you up in Afghanistan, I’m going to **** you up over here. The local police neither responded quickly, nor filed the incident as a crime of hate, the group said. “It is clear from the attackers’ references to ‘bin Laden’ and ‘Go back to Afghanistan’ and the fact that they kicked off his turban that this assault targeted not only him as an individual, but his Sikh identity.”

The Department of Justice is looking into the matter presently.

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Related Articles

• October 13, 2009 -- Indian Students Fear Australia? (0)
• October 5, 2009 -- Victims Turn Attackers- Australia (3)
• October 3, 2009 -- Another Indian Attacked by Aussie Goons (4)
• September 24, 2009 -- First Day, First Show! (4)
• November 25, 2009 -- India Supports NATO’s Offensive in Afghanistan (0)

Reminding us once again, the former PWD minister of Maharashtra talks about his previous feats such as the fact that he had built the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in just two years and at a cost of Rs2,000 crore when more expenses is expected in projects such as these in other states. He informed the media that he always is willing to vouchsafe for politics as the most important factor in developing social and economic conditions of the country. Thus he said, ” I don’t work as if I am making a political career. I work for the poor and downtrodden sections of society who don’t have food to eat, house to live in or clothes to wear. I strive to bring about a transformation in their lives.”

BJP has been long since missing a real thrust at the fore front ever since Atal Bihari Vajpayee stepped down as the Leader of Opposition. As we have been seeing for quite a few years, BJP, despite repeated efforts, has not been able to resurface after the parliamentary overthrow by UPA government. When the furore over Yashwant Singh’s controversial book regarding the role played by Nehru and Jinnah in partition took place, people looked up to BJP Leader L.K. Advani to pacify the agigated followers of BJP but only the man in question could tell his self-imposed isolation from the issue. Right now, the party is in a bad state, thanks to Liberhann’s report on the demolition of Babri Masjid where he points to former Prime Minister, BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee as being instrumental in the riots that burnt the country down back in December 6, 1992.

How far these shifts in the party work up to the party’s advantage will be seen in near future.

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Related Articles

• November 7, 2009 -- A New Maratha Likely to See Light From Tomorrow (0)
• November 2, 2009 -- Vodafone Pay Per Second Tariff (3)
• October 30, 2009 -- Airtel’s Pay Per Second Tariff (0)
• October 28, 2009 -- Willing to Talk On Meaningful Ideas- PM from Kashmir (0)
• October 28, 2009 -- Abdullah A Contented Man (0)

“He (Mukherjee) assured us that the resolution has to come from the state assembly first. Till then, there cannot be a discussion of the issue in the Lok Sabha,” Congress leader and Andhra Pradesh MP K.S. Rao told the media today.

“We want a clarification as early as possible to prevent division among people of different regions in the state,” Rao said.

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Related Articles

• December 11, 2009 -- Telangana- Agitation, Politics or Denial? (0)
• October 3, 2009 -- US Looking Forward To Manmohan’s Visit (0)
• August 17, 2010 -- ‘Nepal – A perfect holiday destination’ (0)
• July 5, 2010 -- Top Ten Best Budget Touchscreen Phones (6)
• December 11, 2009 -- Mayawati Seeks Three States of UP (0)

Sources have confirmed that trained suicide squads have been sneaked into India to carry out these suicide bombings and terror activities. This comes few weeks after India silently observed the infamous 26/11 anniversary.

All the coastal areas across the country are being repeatedly searched for possible threats.

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Related Articles

• November 2, 2009 -- Lahore Bomb Blast (0)
• December 14, 2009 -- Pak Officers Played Part- Headley (0)
• November 21, 2009 -- Pak Duo Held Guilty In Aiding Militants (0)
• November 14, 2009 -- Investigation is on for Headley’s Role (0)
• October 8, 2009 -- Indian Embassy Blasted By Taliban (0)

Headley a.k.a Daood Gilani has confessed  that these officers have been working with Lashkar on ‘Karachi project’ against India that as a major objective, works in recruiting Indian Muslims to spread Jihad in India.These young men after being trained Pakistani army officials return to India and breed terror as home-spurn and thus, save Pakistan from any involvement.

Many fugitive and a number of absconding terrorists, agencies have found out — Aamir Raza Khan, Mufti Sufi Patangiya and Rasool Parti and the remnants of Shahid Bilal gang from Hyderabad — have played an instrumental part in recruiting and training youth to become Jihadis. On same ground has the Indian Mujahideen been designed.

©2010 Sapped. All Rights Reserved.

Related Articles

• November 14, 2009 -- Investigation is on for Headley’s Role (0)
• November 21, 2009 -- Pak Duo Held Guilty In Aiding Militants (0)
• October 28, 2009 -- FBI Foils Terror Acts, US National Arrested (0)
• November 15, 2009 -- Suspected Spy Arrested From IGI (0)
• December 14, 2009 -- Indian metros Under Scanner (0)