lolita: a murder of morals or is it?

It took me a lot of time to convince myself that Lolita was not a love story but a tale of self-deception and rationalization masquerading as "love". Its a conundrum,an illusion that requires a lot of insight into Humbert Humbert and still one might be on the edge.The character's construction is a marvel in itself,you will repel and sympathise at the same time while forgetting his lecherous desires.The narrator, Humbert Humbert, is a fascinating construction. As readers, we find ourselves simultaneously repelled by his actions and sympathetic to his yearning. We are utterly charmed by his wit, intelligence and verbal acrobatics, sometimes to the point where we lost sight of what he's doing to his object of desire, Lolita.
I would suggest that all readers reaquaint themselves with the concept of the "unreliable narrator" before they sink into Humbert's hypnotic web of logic. When you find yourself sympathizing with Hum about Lolita's "cruelties", try to remember that you are seeing everything through his twisted and self-serving lens. Humbert has rationalized his behavior so deeply and reports it to us so entertainingly, that we find ourselves accepting his interpretations of people and events at face value. However, we must remember that Hum is capable of the most monsterous of deceptions (note how long it takes him to inform Lolita of her mother's demise), and of self deceptions. Read between the lines. Question his reading of events. Pay attention when his reporting is at odds with his interpretations of them. As one example, Humbert tells us that he was seduced by Lolita, giving us the impression that she was sexually mature and a willing partner. Contrast that with his throwaway mentioning of her "performing" for him in exchange for treats, and watching television as he took his pleasure in her. And don't ignore Lolita sobbing each night, as he seems to do.
Look beyond the circus to the grime beneath it, and appreciate the mastery that gives us both.

I would therefore like to restrict my comments to the morality of the book, and to those who to this day view the book with outrage. Even those who admire the book somehow feel compelled to comment that they are "disturbed" by it. Why is this? Let us first examine the novel itself.
As everybody knows, it is the story of Humbert Humbert, a full-grown, adult male--not an old man--who seduces a compliant twelve-year old girl, and then goes on to have a year or so long "affair" with her. I put the term "affair" in quotation marks, because it probably isn't appropriate to describe a sexual relationship between a full grown male and a female child in such terms. Is it safe to say that most rational human beings disapprove of such relationships? It is certainly safe to say that Nabakov--and his narrator--know that such relationships are wrong. This is important. The tale is not only told in the context of a moral universe, it is also told by a character who is in acceptance of a moral universe. Oh, he makes a comment here and there about some medieval king marrying his twelve year old cousin, but clearly, his heart isn't in it. He knows that he is a monster, a "brute."
Indeed, his goal was never to have sex with a conscious Lolita to begin with. His goal initially was only to fondle her after drugging her to induce sleep; she was never to know what he was doing. Of course this is also reprehensible, but clearly it shows a conscience at work. A conscience motivated in part by fear, to be sure, but also a conscience for the welfare--at least early on--of this little girl. Conscience is not normally a factor in purely prurient forms of entertainment.
Following this encounter, he takes Lolita on a journey across, around, and through the United States, living in hotel rooms, and buying clothes and food on the move. Toward the end of this, we find one of the most moving paragraphs in literature: "And so we rolled East . . . We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour-books, old tires, and her sobs in the night--every night, every night--the moment I feigned sleep." The narrator's revelation of such anguish on the part of his victim clearly works against the argument that this novel was merely intended to be pornographic.
Humbert makes it clear that he loves his Lolita. There can be no mistake about this. He loves the way she moves. He loves the down on her arm. He loves her grace on the tennis court. He loves the way she flicks her head at him when looking up from a book. He loves her toes, her shoes, her name. He describes her in beautiful, poignant, poetic language, memorable and moving in every respect. Indeed the English language has rarely been used so wonderfully. But nowhere in this book does he describe in such terms or any other terms her sexual characteristics, or comment at length or in glaring detail his physical relations with her.
Finally, there is no effort to sugar-coat the effect of all of this on Lolita herself. We learn that after she left Humbert, she entered into a series of tawdry sexual escapades--still at too young an age--with a debased playwright. We last see her in her late teens, married to a bumpkin, and living in a clapboard shack surrounded by weeds.
Obviously, to anybody who has bothered to read this book, the presentation of the subject matter is not what is objectionable. Therefore, what apparently disturbs most people is the subject matter itself. But why? Why doesn't the latest grisly serial-killer-of-the-month novel inspire such protest? (Has there ever been a time in the history of the world in which so many novels have been written about serial killers?) Why not the barely-disguised soft-porn trash by Danielle Steele or Jackie Collins? Or the latest Anne Rice gore fest? While Lolita is not really a morality tale, it certainly doesn't glorify its subject matter the way novels such as these do.
So what is it? I think that with Lolita Nabakov has perhaps unconsciously touched a nerve. We, as humans, are rational creatures. We know what is right, and we have set rules for ourselves to follow. Everybody agrees that murder is wrong. But sexual mores have changed and continue to change in our affluent Western societies. Abortion has become legal, which gives women more sexual freedom. Homosexuality has become acceptable, which allows men more sexual freedom. Prostitution and pornography are rampant. Without discussing the morality of any of this, our society is now in rapidly changing and uncharted territory. Perhaps the objection to Lolita is from those who look at the book, and wonder how far we are going to go.

book review:Satanic Verses

This is a tour de force, a show of strength, a performance. It's the sort of novel that requires a Big Style and a lot of learning to write. It's not the sort of thing that can be attempted by just anybody. I could not write this book. Few people besides Rushdie could even attempt it. It is stamped with the mark of the man himself--his culture, his milieu, his education, his beliefs, his passion and his experience. And what are "The Satanic Verses"? They are lyrical yearnings made verbal depicting the clash between the world of rationality and that of superstition, between the world at the time of the Prophet and today's world, between the cold fog of England and the hot sweat of India and the Middle East, between the rationality of the Enlightenment and the mythology of a time long ago, between a secular interpretation of life and a religious one. In short there really is a clash of civilizations that is being worked out in today's world, and Rushdie is here to give us his take on this earth-shaking process.

Better to risk the time on Tolstoy, Melville or Joyce where one has the report of literary history as a guide. Here we have a novel reviled and revered but only a little over 22 years of age. A lot of flash and glimmer goes by the way of the popular mind toward something Great, but in time may be more clearly seen as pedestrian, even banal, faddish and brought before our eyes by the celebrity of some event--like a sentence of murder upon its author--only to fade with the yellowing of the newspapers of yesteryear.

It will stay in print for decades and remain a torn in the side of the followers of the Prophet until they lose their hatreds, their prejudices and especially their fears. Yes, Islam fears. It fears science, education, Western culture, women and much of what constitutes the post-modern world. Unlike learned arguments and reasoned debates or shouting matches that change no minds, this novel will persuade many (mostly young) minds that a religion born in the barren, superstitious desert, sired by the tribal mentality of the Bronze Age, and forced upon others by the sword has no more relevance to today's problems and challenges than the religions it replaced. The problem for the reader is not the length of the novel. It is in the fact that few readers will have the background necessary to appreciate much of the references, allusions, puns, jokes, asides, and other bits of wordsmithing from the very cosmopolitan and worldly Salman Rushdie. But no matter. It will require some effort of attention and concentration, some very real investment of time and effort on the part of the reader; but as the pages turn and the fantasy begins to stand out from the realism, as the time of Mahound clashes clearly with the time of an Indian/Muslim Bollywood actor, as the Ayesha of ancient is differentiated from the Ayesha of today, as the Gibreel of the film is made distinct from the Gibreel of legend--indeed as the web of mystery and magic, of fact and fantasy, of goats and gods becomes a fabric like a woven rug of artistry, one begins to appreciate Rushdie's intent and artistry. And this is the way it is with all great works of literature: there are levels. On the level of the mass mind, there is a world of people and events; on the level of the initiated, there is added a rich vocabulary of shared intellectual experiences. But Rushdie is no dry intellectual novelist: he can create intriguing characters and the tension necessary to sustain a narrative. Now what is needed (I believe) for all but the most learned readers is a guide to the novel written by someone who knows Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, modern culture and has a good grasp of their histories. Such a guide will be written by some academic somewhere--and indeed may have already been written, or is being written. And so I read the novel from beginning to end and found it uneven and marvelous, a bit obtuse at first but as my familiarity with Rushdie's intent, style, and structure grew, so too did my enjoyment of this rich satire. Yes, this is a satire similar in intent to the works of Voltaire or Twain however distant in style they may be. It is a satire upon not only Islam and Hinduism and the mass culture from Dhaka to Manchester, but a satire on the never-ending delusions of a pitiful, but ever hopeful humanity.

the land of misinterpreted faith...

The dispute over Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid, it is said, is creation of the colonial rule. It is difficult to be very sure on how far direct is the hand of the colonial rule in inventing and or sustaining the dispute between some elements from both the communities. However, there is little doubt that the colonial rule benefited from the dispute and therefore did not seem to take effective steps to see the dispute resolved. The authorities under the Colonial rule allowed the dispute over title of the land to acquire communal overtones. Whatever the former colonial masters did, or omitted to do, the post-Colonial state fared even worst in the matter. Post-Colonial State allowed the dispute over the land title to almost completely polarise the two communities. Essentially a title suit between the plaintiffs and the defendants over a piece of land was allowed to acquire religious and communal colour with competing all India mobilisations by political leadership belonging to both the communities. Even the most secular Prime Minister of the country - Jawaharlal Nehru found himself unable to resolve the dispute and / or stop it from acquiring communal colour, when he had the opportunity in 1949.

There are no two opinions that in the year 1528 a mosque was built by Mir Baqi by one of the Governors of the Mughal Emperor Babar. The Sangh Parivar maintains that this mosque was built after destroying a Ramjanmabhoomi temple, which existed on the land whereas the Muslim political leaders as well as most reputed historians of integrity insist that there is no credible proof that there was any Ramjanmabhoomi temple.

After the anti-British rebellion in 1857, the crown proclaimed that it would remain aloof and would not interfere in the religious matters of people of the Country. The Colonial power however, was often called upon to mediate disputes between communities. The Colonial State did not prove to be an honest mediator in the disputes. The state had its own axe to grind - legitimising the rule of the intruder being the uppermost. At times, the state even invented and created new disputes so that it was called upon the mediate. Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute appears to one of such disputes created by the Colonial rulers. The District Gazetteer of 1905 notes that till 1855, Hindus and Muslims prayed in the same premises which is now contentious Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site. After 1857 rebellion, an outer enclosure was put in front of the mosque and the Hindus who were forbidden access to the inner yard raised an outer platform (chabutra).

Hindu priests wanted a temple constructed on the Chabutra to be able to conduct their worship without vagaries of weather, as Chabutra was an open platform. It is not clearly known as to when and how the Chabutra came to be constructed, and whether the Chabutra was raised on a land having legal title or an usurped land adjoining the mosque called Babri Mosque.

In 1934 riots, which were triggered off by the slaughter of a cow in the village of Shahjahanpur near Ayodhya, riotous mobs demolished part of the wall surrounding the mosque and damaged the domes. However, the mosque was restored at the cost of the Government.Interestingly, there was also litigation between Shia Central Board of Waqf and Sunni Central Board of Waqf in the Court of Civil Judge, Faizabad. An inquiry was conducted the Commissioner of waqfs under the UP Muslim Wafqs Act. By judgement dated 23/3/46, it was held that the mosque was found by Babar Shah and used by members of both sects.

Till 22nd December1949, Muslims offered namaz in the Babri Masjid. However, on the night of 22nd December 1949, idols of Bhagwan shri Ramchandra were surreptitiously smuggled and installed inside the mosque. Constable Mata Prasad at Ayodhya Police Station reported the incident next day morning and the District Magistrate K.K. Nayar sent the following message to the Chief Minister and Chief Secretary by radiogram:
"A few Hindus entered Babri Masjid at night when the masjid was deserted and installed a deity there, DM and SP and force at spot. Situation under control, Police picket of 15 persons was on duty at night but did not apparently act."
K. K. Nayar, who later contested elections on the then Jan Sangh ticket, wrote in his diary:
"The crowd made a most determined attempt to force entry. The lock was broken and policemen rushed off their legs. All of us, officers and men, somehow pushed the crowd back and held the gate. The gate was secured and locked with a powerful lock brought from outside and the police force was strengthened."

The decade of 1980 will be remembered as a bloody decade with communal clashes all over the country as the issue of Ramjanambhumi was politicised and nationalised by the Sangh Parivar. The Ramjanambhumi, which had hitherto remained a dispute between some elements from both communities in Ayodhya, was taken to every nook and corner in most cities and even rural areas all over the country. The demand for which the mobilisation was aimed was to open the lock of the Babri Masjid and permit puja and darshan. After the lock was opened, the next demand was handing over the entire site for construction of Ramjanmabhumi Temple and shifting of the mosque outside panchkoshi parikrama. Legally, it was difficult to achieve this fete without the intervention of the courts and the state. The issue of title of the property, which is the main legal issue involved in the dispute pending in the courts operates against the protagonist of Ramjanmabhumi temple. For right to worship cannot be claimed as an easement on somebody else's property. So far as law is concerned, faith and belief, or even proof of place of birth of Bhagwan Ramchandra is also not a relevant issue to decide the title and / or grant right to worship. Agitational mobilisation by the Sangh Parivar was to pressurise the state and the courts to act and the pressure did work.
First the UP State acquired the place surrounding the place in the name of providing certain facilities to the pilgrims, the site on which Rajiv Gandhi laid foundation stone of the Ramjanmabhumi on in November 1990. Babri Masjid was then demolished on 6.12.92 by mobs mobilised by the Sangh Parivar. The Courts as well as the state allowed the mob to assemble in the naïve belief that the Mosque will not be touched.

Then the Union Government issued ordinance named 'Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Ordinance' on 7.1.93 for acquisition of 67.703 acres of land, including the site of Babri Masjid. The Ordinance was later replaced by an Act. The Union Government also made a Special Reference under Article 143(1) of the Constitution of India to the Supreme Court for the opinion of the Court on:
"Whether a Hindu temple or any Hindu religious structure existed prior to the construction of the Ram Janma Bhumi - Babri Masjid (including the premises of the inner and outer courtyards of such structure) in the area on which the structure stood".
The reference itself was slanted in favour of the majority community. The Court was called upon to give its opinion whether any Hindu religious structure existed prior to construction of Ram Janma Bhumi - Babri Masjid. ... The structure that stood was certainly not "Ramjanma Bhumi" but Babri Masjid admittedly constructed by Mir Baqi. The only contention of the protagonist of Ramjanma Bhumi Temple being that the same was after demolition of Janam Asthan Temple. Secondly, no time frame was prescribed for examination of existence of Ram Janma Bhumi - Babri Masjid. If the referendum had been answered in positive, the Union Government would have been compelled to hand over the entire site on which Babri Masjid stood to the Hindu litigants or a trust or association. The Supreme Court however rejected the reference as superfluous.

To summarise, admittedly, Babri Masjid was built by Mir Baqi in the year 1528 and is noted in the waqf register of Sunni Central Board of Waqf. In 1885 and 1886, the claim of the Hindu litigants was only on the Chabutra as they wanted to construct a structure to protect the devotees from the vagaries of the weather and no more. On the strength of adverse possession, the courts dealing with the dispute during the colonial period rejected the prayers of the Hindu litigants to construct any structure even on the Chabutra. The prayers were rejected even though the courts held (it is not known on what evidence) that the Masjid was built on land held sacred by the Hindus but that occurred 356 years ago on the same spot. After independence, the Hindu litigants adopted incremental approach, slowly enlarging their rights and claims with combination of surreptitious acts, agitational mobilisation and repeated applications to the court. Surreptitious acts when no legal claim left on their side. Another round of litigation on threat of agitational mobilisation. The claims were based not on the strength of title to the property but on their right to unhindered and unrestricted worship. After the idols were smuggled inside the Mosque, there was another round of litigation, which virtually ignored the title and turned the court into a receiver of the property giving the Hindus increasing access to the property as and by way of right to worship, while the Muslim community was denied the access in spite of the fact that the property was a waqf property. After the locks were opened in 1986 on the ground that there would be no problem maintaining law and order if the locks are open, the Hindu nationalist forces were emboldened even more. As they were mobilising their forces and indulging into hate propaganda, the State remained a mute bystander refusing to act and take preventive measures for maintenance of law and order. Even the courts when they had the opportunity did not act decisively and the hoodlums of Hindu nationalist forces were allowed to assemble in large numbers, ultimately resulting in demolition of Babri Mosque and construction of a make shift temple. The Courts as well as the executive rewarded those who demolished the Mosque by legitimising the "rights" acquired by force in the name of maintaining status - quo and maintaining law and order. The Central Govt. acquired the disputed site and the surrounding areas under the Acquisition Act, thus depriving the Muslim litigants of their defence or claim of adverse possession to the disputed site. The Supreme Court majority Judgement legitimised the acquisition by state in the name of maintaining public order. The litigants from the minority community, we feel, are fighting a losing battle - not because their claim to the title of the disputed site is weak or defective, but because they cannot match the power of the Hindu nationalist forces in creating law and order problem, which is material in influencing the decision making in our country. The Hindu nationalist forces have enlarged their rights and claims from Chabutra to worship on the very disputed site not because of their legitimate claim but by threatening not to obey the orders of the Court in matters of "faith".

a valley of pain,agony and despair...

On March 23, 2000 five civilians Zahoor Ahmed Dalal, Juma Khan, Mohammad Yussuf Malik, Juma Khan (different from the one mentioned earlier) and Bashir Ahmed Bhat werekilled at Pathribal and the Government claimed them to be responsible for the massacre of 35 Sikhs at Chattisinghpora on March 21, 2000.They were branded as terrorists for life...In the aftermath of the Sikh massacre at Chattisinghpora, the security forces had claimed to have eliminated five 'foreign militants' responsible for the carnage in an encounter in Pathribal forests. The bodies of the five persons killed were charred beyond recognition. Subsequent public protests forced the state administration to exhume the five bodies and order DNA tests on them to establish the true identity of those killed. However, the DNA samples collected and sent to laboratories in Kolkata and Hyderabad were found to be fudged. An embarrassed government suspended the entire team of forensic experts headed by Dr Balbir Kaur, head of department of forensic science, Medical College, Srinagar. Later, fresh samples were collected by experts from Kolkata and Hyderabad. The final reports received from the two laboratories on Monday said there was conclusive evidence that the five people killed in Pathribal were locals and not foreign militants as claimed by the police.

When I think about a certain Tufail Mattoo,the 17 year old who was killed by a tear gas canister which struck his head during a protest in srinagar in June this year,I think of these lines from Randy Travis's song "valley of pain"

"DON'T LET ME GROW BITTER I PRAY

GIVE ME STRENGTH TO CARRY ON

MY WAY IM LEANIN'

ON YOU LIKE A WOODEN CANE WHILE

I'M WALKIN THROUGH I'M WALKIN THROUGH

THE VALLEY OF PAIN"

The striking feature of all these heinous crimes committed was the brazen and barefaced realization among the murderers that they will get away with it.What protest we are witnessing in Kashmir today is not the outcome of prvocateur's self centred ambitions to oust an Abdullah but these are women with stones and pots and pans of their homes out on the street to let the Government know that the faith with which they had elected Omar is now long gone.Violence makes you impatient and impatience gives you a certain strength and it becomes a vicious cycle.

Our PM is a noble man and not much of a statesman unfortunately,not a hardliner and certainly not the best man for the Kashmir today.He talks about economic reforms and developmental works at the time when the protesters have lost all faith in Governance.Omar is right when he says that there is a need for a "political package",one that restores the faith and curbs the ebullient separatist ideas so fervent currently.People are in turmoil and suffocated with their unstable identity on the world map and it will take more than a speech by Dr. Abdullah on national televison to heal all these wounds and angst.

Once as a kid I was told that what describes us as human is the ability to constantly feel the pain of others,to understand the meaning of their tears and to pray for them rather than praying for ourselves.Torn between political mess,geographical wrangling and economic distress....kashmir is bleeding.It will need more than honest prayers of all the indians....and thats the saddest fact.

indian shopping: a culture of chaos

Crowds, clutter, cacophony—these are the defining characteristics of shopping in India. Or to borrow a concept from Clotaire Rapaille’s book, The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do, the Indian “culture code” for shopping in India is Chaos. In fact, taking the Indian shopper out of chaos is like taking a fish out of water. We feel at home in the hustle bustle of local markets and start having withdrawal symptoms in a structured sterile atmosphere

Delhi’s Khan Market is an upscale reinterpretation of the bazaar. It is as upscale as it gets in traditional retail—commanding India’s highest retail real estate rental, and attracting a steady stream of high-value shoppers—and yet there is nothing upscale about its physical reality. Neat, clean, structured, streamlined, refined, aesthetically pleasing or even pleasant-smelling—these are not words that you can associate with the Khan Market experience. What you have instead is a full frontal assault on the senses, the constant refrain of honking cars circling the perimeter, a jam-packed disorderly parking lot, merchandise spilling on to the sidewalks, walls lined with foreign magazines, a bangle-and-bindi-wallah’s stall juxtaposed alongside a store that sells designer sunglasses, uneven dusty back lanes where you have to watch your step. In the midst of this haphazard retail madness are charming stores and cafés tucked up tiny winding staircases—delightful, whimsical, providing that rush of discovery, each one unique in character. This is the chaotic Indian version of the quaint and trendy West Village in New York.

Now let’s switch tracks to luxury brands in India, which inhabit the other end of the spectrum, ensconced in beautiful shopping malls, high ceilings, wide corridors, stores neatly lined up with glass fronts, the merchandise pre-edited and displayed like pieces of art in a gallery. There is no chaos here, no clutter, no cacophony, and as yet, no crowds—there is instead the highly controlled, air-conditioned, squeaky-clean, serene setting of a modern luxury mall like DLF Emporio in Delhi or UB City in Bangalore or the Grand Hyatt Plaza in Mumbai. These malls are purpose-built to provide a sumptuous environment for luxury brands, but the piquant question that the Khan Market experience raises is this: If the culture code for shopping in India is “Chaos”, would luxury brands benefit from recognizing and leveraging it?

Most luxury professionals would baulk at even having “luxury” and “chaos” mentioned in the same sentence. Admittedly Khan Market is not quite luxury in the traditional sense, but if Good Earth can sell Manish Arora crockery, Ogaan has a line-up of Indian designers, and Amrapali stocks high-end jewellery, we are in the luxury ballpark, talking to the same consumer who has both the means and the inclination to buy luxury. In which case, why not bring the mountain to Mohammed? In other words, bring Western luxury brands to traditional high-end markets such as Khan Market—or South Extension or Greater Kailash or equivalent ones in other cities—embracing the vibrant chaos and the well-heeled crowds that come with it

Even in the new luxury malls springing up, I would make a case for incorporating the comforting elements of chaos. Instead of the rarefied atmosphere of a luxury cathedral, create the merry hustle bustle of a Hindu temple. Instead of awe-inspiring interiors, create warm and inviting ones. Instead of wide-open spaces, intimate ones. Instead of minimalist displays, lush ones. Instead of the cookie-cutter sameness, uniqueness and character.

Incorporate a whiff of Khan Market, allow the thrill of discovery, make room for whimsy and charm. Create luxurious chaos.

Ayn Rand:the propagation of immorality

Herewith, a few excerpts from the Rand collection.
• “It was the morality of altruism that undercut American and is now destroying her.”
• “Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society. Today, the conflict has reached its ultimate climax; the choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequence of freedom…or the primordial morality of altruism with its consequences of slavery, etc.”
• Then from one of her arias for heldentenor: “I am done with the monster of ‘we,’ the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: ‘I.’”
• “The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself.”
• “To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men.”
• “The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral….”

This odd little woman is attempting to give a moral sanction to greed and self interest, and to pull it off she must at times indulge in purest Orwellian newspeak of the “freedom is slavery” sort. What interests me most about her is not the absurdity of her “philosophy,” but the size of her audience .She has a great attraction for simple people who are puzzled by organized society, who object to paying taxes, who dislike the “welfare” state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts. For them, she has an enticing prescription: altruism is the root of all evil, self-interest is the only good, and if you’re dumb or incompetent that’s your lookout.

She is fighting two battles: the first, against the idea of the State being anything more than a police force and a judiciary to restrain people from stealing each other’s money openly. She is in legitimate company here. There is a reactionary position which has many valid attractions, among them lean, sinewy, regular-guy Barry Goldwater. But it is Miss Rand’s second battle that is the moral one. She has declared war not only on Marx but on Christ. Now, although my own enthusiasm for the various systems evolved in the names of those two figures is limited, I doubt if even the most anti-Christian free-thinker would want to deny the ethical value of Christ in the Gospels. To reject that Christ is to embark on dangerous waters indeed. For to justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil. For one thing, it is gratuitous to advise any human being to look out for himself. You can be sure that he will. It is far more difficult to persuade him to help his neighbor to build a dam or to defend a town or to give food he has accumulated to the victims of a famine. But since we must live together, dependent upon one another for many things and services, altruism is necessary to survival. To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy. That it is right to help someone less fortunate is an idea which ahs figured in most systems of conduct since the beginning of the race. We often fail. That predatory demon “I” is difficult to contain but until now we have all agreed that to help others is a right action. Now the dictionary definition of “moral” is: “concerned with the distinction between right and wrong” as in “moral law, the requirements to which right action must conform.” Though Miss Rand’s grasp of logic is uncertain, she does realize that to make even a modicum of sense she must change all the terms. Both Marx and Christ agree that in this life a right action is consideration for the welfare of others. In the one case, through a state which was to wither away, in the other through the private exercise of the moral sense. Miss Rand now tells us that what we have thought was right is really wrong. The lesson should have read: One for one and none for all.

It is revealing that as Rand refined her idea of the heroic personality from the Howard Roark of The Fountainhead to John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, the type became steadily drained of, indeed, personality. Galt seems little better than a robotic mouthpiece of merciless ideology. Howard Roark was already peculiar enough, since he would just sit staring at the phone while waiting for work. He might at least have read magazines. Subsidiary characters, like Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart, possess something more like real personalities. This deadness of such central characters is an excellent warning that Rand had passed beyond a desire for mere human beings as her ideals. (Jung probably would have detected an animus projection.) This was an unhelpful bit of falseness, not to mention humorlessness, with which to burden her case for capitalism.

Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society. Moral values are in flux. The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep. Trolls walk the American night. Caesars are stirring in the Forum. There are storm warnings ahead. But to counter trolls and Caesars, we have such men as Lewis Mumford whose new book, The City in History, inspires. He traces the growth of communities from Neolithic to present times. He is wise. He is moral: that is, he favors right action and he believes it possible for us to make things better for us (not “me”!). He belongs to the currently unfashionable line of makers who believe that if something is wrong it can be made right, whether a faulty water main or a faulty idea. May he flourish!

On Tagore's anniversary....

From renovating Tagore auditoria, establishing new ones in major cities, publishing a book on his paintings to running a special train to Dhaka, the government has drawn up several plans to perpetuate the legacy of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore to mark his 150Th birth anniversary.

Tagore,the first Nobel laureate Of India and a phenomena in his own has been a pandemic idea throughout eastern India and Bangladesh but the western world mainly Europe has now forgotten this charisma it once reverberated with.They simply don't read him anymore nor do the India progeny of the west who are more enlivened by levis and twilight than Gitanjali. The west has long ago declared Tagore as the 'bright pebbly eyes of the Theosophists' and has disgraced his contemporary thinking by referring it as a descent of Hinduism and a flow from Ganges.That's what the West does the best....Europe has Americanised and America has probably Mars-ianised.Yes,I shall keep a patriotic tone on his 150Th anniversary.

If Tagore had been a religious thinker and that too a Hindu by vision then it baffles me how Bangladesh which is mainly a Muslim state adopt his song "amar sonar bangla" as its national anthem.London has honoured and rejected Tagore but Indians need to realise the embodiment of mosaic of thoughts,colours and ideas Tagore represents.

It is indispensable to talk of Tagore and not of his distinction with Gandhi,the two foremost thinkers of all time.Nehru said on the death of Tagore "It is not so much because of any single virtue but because of the tout ensemble,that i felt that among the world's great men today Gandhi and Tagore were supreme human beings.What good fortune for me to have come in close contact with them"Tagore and Gandhi were both admirers of each other but differed in the way of thinking about issues like nationalism,internationalism,patriotism with Tagore's view being more of a logic based and less of a conventional nationalist-but India need Gandhi's emotional chauvinism with the nation more than the Tagore's pragmatism and unparochial outlook which is what India has post 1991.Tagore's political thought was complex. He opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists. His views have their first poetic release in Manast, mostly composed in his twenties.Evidence produced during the Hindu-German conspiracy trial and later accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarite conspiracy, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister and former Premier . Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement, denouncing it in "The Cult of the Charka", an acrid 1925 essay. He emphasized self-help and intellectual uplift of the masses as an alternative, stating that British imperialism was a "political symptom of our social disease", urging Indians to accept that "there can be no question of blind revolution, but of steady and purposeful education".Such views enraged many. He narrowly escaped assassination by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916. The plot failed only because the would-be assassins fell into argument. Yet Tagore wrote songs lionizing the Indian independence movement and renounced his knighthood in protest against the 1919 Jallianwala bagh massacre. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "chitto jettha bhayashunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "ekla chalo re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Despite his tumultuous relations with Gandhi, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi-Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, ending Gandhi's fast "unto death".

Tagore lampooned rote schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed pages torn from books until it dies.These views led Tagore, while visiting Santa Barbara on 11 October 1917, to conceive of a new type of university, desiring to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography."Here, Tagore implemented a brahmacharya pedagogical structure employing gurus to provide individualised guidance for pupils. Tagore worked hard to fund raise for and staff the school, even contributing all of his Nobel Prize money. Tagore’s duties as steward and mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy; he taught classes in mornings and wrote the students' textbooks in afternoons and evenings.Tagore also fundraised extensively for the school in Europe and the U.S. between 1919 and 1921

Tagore was not only a creative genius, he was a great man and friend to many. For instance, he was also a good friend from childhood to the great Indian Physicist, Bose.Tagore had a good grasp of modern - post-Newtonian - physics, and was well able to hold his own in a debate with Einstein in 1930 on the newly emerging principles of quantum mechanics and chaos. His meetings and tape recorded conversations with his contemporaries such Albert Einstein stand as cultural landmarks, and show the brilliance of this great man.

Rabindranath lived in one of the southern rooms on the ground floor of Udayan. After his illness he had become susceptible to heat, so an air conditioner had been installed in his bedroom. The room was not large. On one side a long table stood against the wall with its rows of medicine bottles, tonics, glasses. There was a bed, an armchair, some books in a small bookcase, and a few leather-stuffed cane stools for visitors. On the walls hung a couple of his own pictures, the picture of a horse by the Chinese artist Ju Peon, and a Japanese cloud-filled landscape. Beside it, there was another smaller room. The whole world: all the world's mountains vistas oceans and cities, all life's togetherness and loneliness, today, for the poet was confined within these two rooms and the two verandas on the sides.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Excerpt from Gitanjali.....

the big chill cafe:lets die fat!

Ever wished to dine in with Alfred Hitchcock or Casablanca or Johnny Depp.....this is the place to look out for.The cafe started out in 2000 with its first outlet in East of Kailash,with Italian cuisine and an ice-cream cafe. Presently, it has four outlets, one in Kailash colony market, the original East of Kaliash outlet was closed, two in Khan market and DLF Place Saket.

I would refrain from commenting on outlets other than the Khan market because I haven't visited the others.I landed to Big chill cafe 3 years ago with recommendation buzzing in my ears.Those were the times when i used to get frustrated with the mundane college life and set out explore the capital to gather some peace of mind and savour the bliss of solitude(introvert,huh?)

When you enter the restaurant, you feel that you have been teleported to a film arcade as there are framed posters of all movies imaginable covering the walls. You aren’t allowed to take pictures of it though, I found out.Its firstly the decor that hits you. Its absolutely fantastic.The husband - wife duo who own the place have actually collected a lot of these during their stay in London and then ordered the rest from various poster places. Very very innovative idea and so fresh compared to the regular dimly lit punjabi restaurants that we see in Delhi.So take in the posters of movies like ‘ Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, sharing space with numerous framed Coke ads of various vintages. Make sure you spend time looking through those posters as a tribute to the labour of love of the owners. The name of the restaurant has been inspired by the movie ‘Big Chill’ and its large poster beckons- “What would the world be like without your friends and loved ones? ” and to put it simply that sets the tone of the place.

The food: Oh Lordy! The food. Their tomato basil soup is to die for as are a lot of their pastas and pizzas. but the real winner is their desserts. People - TRUST ME - really - if you’re on a diet or need to refrain from sweet - don’t go. The chocolate squidgy cake (my all time favourite) is just divine! Some of my friends are more partial to the ice creams(the chocolate super fudge has been known to break many a diets) and cheese cakes.

Among the main course - the best Pizza’s would surely be the ’Chickonara’ and the ’Four Fourths’. They have a ’non commercial, homely’ feel about them. The cheese used in the Pizza’s is good and consistent in quality. The chickonara is a chicken lovers BONANZA. A must try....The pastas are great 99% of thr time, although I’ve had a sneaky suspicion that I’ve been served with stale pasta on more than one occasion in the past! The meatball pasta and spaghetti bolognaise are the best.Their espresso coffee is definitely good, and has a solid, full bodied flavour and medium acidity. Best enjoyed without sugar!!! As an accompaniment to the pasta’s or pizza’s, try their signature style of Ginger Fizz, which is excellent.If you want to grab a sweet dish after a meal, try the Chocolate Truffle Cake or the Chocolate Decadence cake

All in all-go there-if for nothing else then for the mouth watering mudpie and sqidgy cakes.You will die fatter but oh!so much happier:)......Prices are rather high, but you definitely get your money’s worth. The Big Chill is my favourite restaurant in Delhi and is only rivalled by the All-American Diner and It’s Greek To Me, two other amazing eating joints. You cannot live in or visit this city without making a trip to this haven of culinary delights. There’s nothing more I can say, except: believe the hype. And, of course, bon appetit!

the murder of Mr. English...

Once upon a time,there was a certain Mr. English and he was escorted to the land of Lalu by a certain East India Company in three piece suit and hat with vision of Guest's paradise and thoughts of personal growth.Decades passed and he faced calamity after catastrophe after crucifixion and now he is reduced to tattered, minimal clothes.

YES, Indian wannabes and cool-ers(or errs?) have developed their own idiosyncratic version of English and with no grammar police and no Mr. sentence correction,we have reduced English to.....

"but exactly yaad nahin raha"

"its time to think HATKE"

"chill maar yaar"

"aur bata,wassup with you"

"stud,hai yaar"

And according to Professor David Crystal, it might not be long before this becomes the Queen’s new English. He says that there are more than 350 million Indians who widely use Hinglish in their daily lives as a common mode of communication. This number is far beyond the total number of people speaking in English, both in the United States and the United Kingdom.

So the face-book-ers(or errs?) and orkut-ers,have developed their own "eaasy-peezy,lemon-squeezy" avatar of the language and william and william are in deep distress,popping up pills at night.What led to the emergence of this concept? Firstly, Indians are known to be the brainiest in the world. There are people who might debate on this statement…but it is a fact! Indians are found in every part of the world. And so, with Indians come the Indian language which obviously is mixed with the local language. This local language in most cases turns out to be English.
Secondly, connecting with the world has its own perks! The Indian culture is slowly and steadily gaining popularity outside the subcontinent. These mainly include Bollywood movies which have been found to be quite amusing, thanks to its song and dance sequences. These movies are a good source of Hinglish.
Thirdly, with the advent of globalization, Internet was introduced to Indians. With Internet came online social networking in the form of Orkut scraps, emails, chats which introduced us all to another form of Hinglish. This included using English script as a medium to communicate in Hindi. A few years back, this trend might have seemed to be very weird and probably quite difficult to comprehend to what is being communicated. This is the most common form of Hinglish used by one and all. This is to such an extent that there are some who find it quite a task to actually read in Hindi. And so, it is not very hard to believe that Hinglish would soon spread through the Internet.
In India, English has had and still enjoys a status in itself. This is due to the Colonial history that the country has.

And we need some chauvinists and critics to cut the "crap".The rising popularity of this metamorphosed and genetically damaged Mr. English can put a permanent veil on our own languages.

So let english be english and let us take pride in the fact that Rabindranath tagore won nobel by writing in Bengali.We actually don't need this desperate "sms-chat" mess up of the universal language.

yodleeeyooo-a walk down kishore's lane

Kishore was a singer,actor, director and composer, rolled into one. His was also a comic spirit, both on the screen and off it. He even indulged in clowning. But a clown is not all laughter. There is a pang in his heart, a sob in his throat or a tear in his eye. If Kishore could rattle off "Main hoon jhumroo", he could also chant movingly "Door gagan ki chhaon mein".

Born on 4th August 1929 in a middle class home at Khandwa, Kishore Da was the youngest .As a young boy, Kishore was full of mischief and pranks. He loved to play and almost never tired of seeking amusements. Kishore was very close to his sister, who appreciated his sense of humour. Though the interaction with his eldest brother was minimal as Ashok Kumar left to study law after graduating in science. He met his brother occasionally when Ashok used to come to visit the family. Though Kishore went to a prominent school at Khandwa, he was never interested and he hated reading books and having to learn under a discipline that seemed to curb his natural steam.
Kishore Kumar used to sing for his parents and they would give him money as a small token. His father often asked him to sing Ashok Kumar’s song from the movie Achut Kanya. (Main ban ki chidya .. bolun re..). Kishoreda was good at imitating and this was near to perfect when it came to singing K.L.Saigal’s songs. K.L.Saigal turned out to be his mentor and meeting him was his wish at the top of his mind. Sadly, the meeting with Saigal did not take place, for Saigal died soon after Kishore’s arrival in Mumbai.

Kumar disliked acting and instead wanted to become a leading singer . However, he didn’t have any formal training in singing or music. Through his brother Ashok’s contacts in the industry Kumar did though make his debut in films – initially failing to make an impression. But he continued acting, which allowed him to sing on the soundtracks of the films. At this stage of his career, Kumar’s style was derivative of K. L. Saigal’s. Once, Sachin Dev Burman came to Ashok Kumar’s house and heard what sounded like K. L. Saigal’s voice coming out of the bathroom. Impressed, S. D. Burman asked Ashok who was singing. Hearing the answer, he waited until Kishore Kumar had finished bathing. He had a little talk with Kumar during which he expressed his appreciation of his singing but advised,
"Don’t try to ape K. L. Saigal. Apers never make great artists. You should develop your own singing style."
After this, Kumar developed his own trademark singing style, which was completely different from the styles of Rafi, Mukesh and Saigal. He used to yodel in many of his songs. Sachin Dev Burman became his mentor and guide. S D Burman, who had never heard yodelling before, used to call it gala tod ke gaana (‘break-throat singing’). Yodelling became Kishore’s trademark, and the media described his singing style as “yodelling at the moon”.

categorizing kishore is like limiting fragrance but i will pick my 10 favourite kishore songs....

1.tum aa gaye ho noor aa gaya hai
2.chalte chalte mere ye geet yaad rakhna
3.dilbar mere
4.rim jhim gire saawan
5.Phoolon Ke Rang Se
6.Oh Mere Dil Ke Chain
7. Ek Ajnabi, Hasina Se, Yun Mulaqaat, Ho Gayi
8.Khai Ke Paan Banaaras Wala
9.jaanejan dhoondta phir rahan
10.pal pal dil ke paas

kabhi raastein aasaan hote toh safar se berukhi kam hoti,
kuch tum tak pahunchte lafz milte toh khud se shikaytein kam hoti,
kabhi ek do saaz toote na hote toh zindagi se khamoshi kam hoti,
kuch tum tak kadam aur chalte toh khud se tanhaaiyaan kam hoti.....

some light on Twilight...

Make no mistake....been touted as the next herculean success after Harry Potter,Twilight series surely is something to look out.BUT....wait a second!vampires....fine! whirlwind romance with the beautiful, perfect vampire Edward...fine! who apparently has teeth that make Donny Osmond look like Mr. Tooth Decay....fine!countless, breathless descriptions of Edward’s teeth...fine! adjectives like a bartender who forgot to put the regulator on the vodka bottle....now come one!give me a break.Few chapters into the first book and devoid of girlish hormones that cringe and crave for a romantic morality tale,you like me too will be bamboozled by the fact that this is the book that Potter is competing with.

Popularity is not an honest reflection of quality and Twilight proves just that.....in the hindsight its just a potpourri fable with ingredients like vampire and submissive characters and relationships.Meyer’s Mormon upbringing certainly comes through in the book, as Bella and Edward’s wild, passionate romance entails all but a few brief lip brushes, kisses that make Bella either faint or lose control of her senses....and you just thought indian movies are stupid!!!
ok...it has been called as 'erotics of abstinence'........ There’s a scene midway through Twilight in which, for the first time, Edward leans in close and sniffs the aroma of Bella’s exposed neck. “Just because I’m resisting the wine doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the bouquet,” he says. “You have a very floral smell, like lavender … or freesia.” .....if you are a guy,never try this line on a girl because you will enchance your single-hood and please,if you are a girl,what will you do if some guy comes up with this line....laugh on his face??

Bella was supposedly to be presented as a tough minded and independent girl but....Her absolute dependence on Edward to even breathe – she can barely exist when she’s out of his sight line – is both worrisome and disturbing. Her every thought is about him. Her every movement is dictated by her obsession with him. She throws herself at him to the extent that she is willing to be turned into a vampire just to spend eternity with him. Edward plays on all Bella’s emotions like a man who gets off on adoration. He follows her, he appears in her room at night, he listens in, telepathically, on her friends’ conversations. He is there in every dangerous situation brought on by Bella’s clumsiness to rescue her and make her feel like she just could not make it another day alive without his knighthood. I don’t know about you, but over here we call that stalking. Yet Bella seems unperturbed by Edward’s hovering and unflinchingly goes headlong into a dangerous, life threatening, almost one sided romance with him.

To be really honest,even when Edward does fall in love with Bella,it looks more like an emotion crying in despair out of inquisivity and surprise.Bella sees Edward as a typical teenage girl sees a rock star or movie star; she swoons, she idolizes, she fantasizes. Edward knows this and nearly teases her with it. Yet Bella never sees this. Rather, Meyer never gives Bella the awareness needed to see the relationship for what it is.

For me twilight is more of a svlvan prose and idyllic poetry....sung by a person devoid of Edward's charismatic powers and heroic antics and...yeah,yeah...teeth!!Gosh...there are way better love stories out ther.Give yourself a chance...

review:eternal sunshine of a spotless mind

Many times we complain of our lives being strangled and choked by our relationship and express our strongest desire to come out of the labyrinth but then we sit back and realise that how much we grow as a human being because of that other person and how little we appreciate this fact.We tend to go virulent,abusive,insulting,maniacal,interrogative but then again our heart feels incomplete without that other person.This is because sometimes we fall in so much love with that imperfect,deformed vision of love that we no longer need the perfect form.But as humans we get deeply entangled into wildness,verbal abuse and character assasination that we hurt our own soul mate but the ironic part is that the best heal for the wounds is found in the same person...

This is a movie for anyone who has been or is in a relationship and has felt the fluctuations in their behaviours but found themselves still helplessly in love with the same person.

Ok...it is hard to believe that 'Joel' has been stupendously played by a certain Jim carrey who is vastly (and thankfully!) different from a certain Jim carrey of Ace Ventura and the likes.

I've met people like Joel. Unsocial, lonely, middle-aged guy who are no stranger to failing relationships, and people like Clementine. Strung out and depressed girls, with wavering hormone levels that invoke the devil in them, who are just looking for an outlet to express themselves.Eternal Sunshine requires great concentration but not laborious concentration although the subject matter can get a bit weighty when examining the metaphysical questions that the film raises. While the movie appears disjointed, it untwists itself to reveal a masterful story that has very few obvious holes other than the fanciful idea that memories could be selectively erased.

We begin in the apartment of Joel Barrish (Jim Carrey) as he awakens, seemingly deliriously, and begins his day -- Valentine's Day. On his way to work, he finds that his car has been dented, allowing the audience to relate to his character instantly. He's a brooding, self-effacing 30 something who's quite amiable when engaged but withdrawn. Impulsively, he decides to call in sick and hop a train to the beach. Of course, the beach is frigid, and, for that reason, is deserted save for a girl in a bright orange sweatshirt, Clementine. As the only two crazy enough to visit the beach in February, they seem to have an instant connection although their personalities are diametrical: Joel is an introvert, and Clementine is an extrovert. Clementine engages Joel, and they begin a firecracker relationship that begins with a visit to the Charles River.

The sanguine to his melancholy, Clementine seems to breathe life into the boring Joel, but just like that, she's gone. After a fight, Joel tries to reconcile the situation, but Clementine acts like she's never met him before. Confused, Joel seeks the advice of his friends, one of which, informs him that Clementine has had all of her memories of Joel erased by a company named Lacuna. In disbelief, Joel visits the "clinic" only to have his fear confirmed: Clementine has indeed erased Joel from her memory. Joel decides that he too will have the procedure because it's too painful for him to remember her. During the procedure, Joel is forced to reflect on his memories of Clementine, and he realizes that there were a lot of good times, great times. Joel has a change of heart, but the procedure has begun, and there's no turning back. Fighting to keep his memory of Clementine alive, we embark on a strange, imaginative (figuratively and literal) journey that evokes the full gamut of emotions. We're forced to confront how we conduct ourselves in and out of relationships. Ultimately, we see the best and worst sides of human nature, from the manipulative to the purely altruistic, and how they play a role, for better or worse, in a relationship.

For me, I was floored. It spoke to me. You will likely either love it or will find it hyped. I had to watch it again, and it flies by the second time. I could watch it over and over again because there are so many different takes on the message. It's a must see for anybody who's ever been in a relationship.

a look at bubbles and busts

The Economists like to be fancy with pedantic terms and cliches and presumptuously impose on "less economic times and more TOI" junta like me with horrendous mathematical figuses that baffles and belittle us.So I decided to give a closer(and a less boring look) on the bubbles and busts concept
With the recuperation from the greatest recession after the Great Deprsession in progress,it becomes important to analyse what went wrong.I decide to analyse this by taking pieces of jigsaw and scrutinising it....
1.so,what is a bubble and a bust?
It is a speculative mania that is charaterised by trade in high volumes at very inflated prices.The term "bubble", in reference to financial crises, originated in the 1711–1720 British South sea bubble, and originally referred to the companies themselves, and their inflated stock, rather than to the crisis itself. This was one of the earliest modern financial crises; other episodes were referred to as "manias", as in the Dutch Tulip mania. The metaphor indicated that the prices of the stock were inflated and fragile – expanded based on nothing but air, and vulnerable to a sudden burst, as in fact occurred. Some later commentators have extended the metaphor to emphasize the suddenness, suggesting that economic bubbles end "All at once, and nothing first, / Just as bubbles do when they burst,though theories of financial crises such as debt-deflation and the financial instability hypotheses suggest instead that bubbles burst progressively, with the most vulnerable (most highly-levered) assets failing first, and then the collapse spreading throughout the economy.
2.what causes the bubble?
A prime cause is liquidity that is indusced by banks by creating inappropriate lending rates.According to the explanation, excessive monetary liquidity (easy credit, large disposable incomes) potentially occurs while fractional reserve banks are implementing expansionary monetary policy (i.e. lowering of interest rates and flushing the financial system with money supply). When interest rates are going down, investors tend to avoid putting their capital into savings accounts. Instead, investors tend to leverage their capital by borrowing from banks and invest the leveraged capital in financial assets such as equities and real estate.In short,too much money chasing too few assets.
Greater fool theory
Popular among laymen but not fully confirmed by empirical research,this theory portrays bubbles as driven by the behavior of a perennially optimistic market participants (the fools) who buy overvalued assets in anticipation of selling it to other speculators (the greater fools) at a much higher price. According to this unsupported explanation, the bubbles continue as long as the fools can find greater fools to pay up for the overvalued asset. The bubbles will end only when the greater fool becomes the greatest fool who pays the top price for the overvalued asset and can no longer find another buyer to pay for it at a higher price.
other causes can be:
Extrapolation: projecting historical data into the future on the same basis; if prices have risen at a certain rate in the past, they will continue to rise at that rate forever.
Herding:the fact that investors tend to buy or sell in the direction of the market trend
3.Net Result of a Bubble:The one true constant with all bubbles is that they create excess demand and production. Once the bubble deflates, which it always does, a contraction or consolidation has to occur to alleviate the excess. Two perfect examples are the Dot Com Bubble and the current Housing Bubble. In both cases there were huge consolidations, bankruptcies, and deterioration of asset values.
4.the biggest bubbles of all time:apart from the recent Dot com bubble(1995 to 2000) and the real estate bubble,the history of the bubble dates back to as far as 17th century...
Tulipmania (1634-1638)
The Mississippi Bubble (1719-1720)
The South Sea Bubble (1720)
The Bull Market of the Roaring Twenties (1924-1929)
The Japanese "Bubble Economy" (1984-1989)