Quote Quintet - September

Inspirational teachers leave their imprint on us, in some form or the other. The first teacher to have made a difference to my life, in terms of the way I think, act and see life was Ms. Anjali Mathur. My class teacher in sixth, she fed to my brain the concept of class existing as a family - a huge family of 40 members and one head. However, that is not the point I take up in this post. One of the great things I learnt from her was a habit, of taking down quoteworthy words in a diary. That simple habit made me better at conversations, and added a dimension of organization to my mind which always existed as a colourful mess of thoughts. The habit has stuck by.

In the recent past, while preparing for Civil Services examination, I have been exposed to some brilliant content. Constantly feeding on Caravan, Outlook, The Hindu, The Indian Express and journals of the ilk, I usually come across quotes and anecdotes which are worth compiling and sharing with a larger audience. Certain statements made unassumingly, by ordinary men and women, which are concise and simple, often encapsulate in them an entire dogma, an entire story or an entire experience. I have decided, that at the end of each month, I will put here five of the best sentences I read in the whole month. I do hope readers of Nascent Emissions will like this initiative, and be kind in their responses, as they always have been. The obvious inspiration for this post, besides an awesome teacher, is an earlier post by me, titled - Let's Quote India.

Here we go for today -

On Islam
"The Hadees says anything good must be spread around."
- Mohammad Khurshid Khan

Mr. Khan, mentioned above, has an excellent story behind him. He can be addressed in two disparate ways - as Pakistan's Deputy Attorney General and as a Shoe Shiner. Donning an orange bandana and Ray Ban glasses, he sits at Sikh shrines across India, polishing shoes of devotees. Why? To atone for the beheading of a Sikh at the hands of Islamic militants. Last I heard, he was lambasted for 'disgracing' Pakistan and even removed from his top government post. So much for a display of goodness.




On Time
"Time may suggest possible ways. But to step on the right one is not the work of time. It is the work of man."
- Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar
After having been voted the "Greatest Indian After Gandhi", and having suffered glory and censure posthumously, almost in equal quantities, articles on him became omnipresent, no matter which journal/newspaper you subscribe to. One came across his words on the Constitution, various Constitutional Offices, on accountability and then, a simple statement on time and importance of human action.






On Travelling

At one of my favorite places

"We travel initially to lose ourselves. We travel next to find ourselves."
- Pico Iyer, Wanderlust
I am not a great travel fan, for I have a weakness. Once you take me to a new place, and if that place appeals to me, I would want to keep going back. I love the Kumaon region in India crazily. And I somehow have this feeling that I need to go back there, find a secluded spot and connect with those parts of mine I never knew existed. Pico Iyer puts this whole, complex, amazing feeling in a simple line.



On Assam Violence
"I must have done something terribly wrong to turn from a zakat giver to a zakat taker in the space of a few months."
- Firdaus Ahmed (one of the many affected by violence across Assam)
For those who do not know, zakat is Islamic way of redistributing wealth. It is a amount of money each financially able Muslim is supposed to donate in order to support those without means and ability. And it is this noble instrument, by the means of which, Firdaus Ahmed expresses the reprehensible irony which lies behind the madness which communal violence unleashes.

On Tweeting

@saumyakul

"You have crossed your daily limit for tweeting. Please try again after some hours."
- Twitter
This was done to me in the middle of fierce Indo-Pak match tweeting. Just when the thrill was peaking. I, along with a lot of comrades, who said good-bye to diseased facebooking, devoted ourselves to twitter when we all realized the futility of the 141st word. Turns out it was a technical glitch, suffered by many twitter users collectively. On this topic, I have been advised to shut up, lest the telecom officials get ideas about restricting tweets per day and followers per month. So shut up I will.

With Anjali Ma'am, second from left. And Radha ma'am. And Geeta Ma'am.

Gratitude to-

Outlook Magazine

The Hindu

The Hindustan Times

Twitter