Toba Tek Singhs around the world.

"Only once in the course of this long journey, punctuated by suffering, blood, illness, mud, did she believe she had caught a glimpse of a modicum of serenity and wisdom. She had already reached the far side of the Urals. On the way out of the village half consumed by a fire she saw several men sitting on a bank scattered with dead leaves. Their pale faces turned toward the mild late autumn sun, radiated a blissful calm. The peasant who was driving the cart jerked his head and explained softly, "Poor people, there are a dozen of them wandering around here now. Their asylum was burnt down. Oh, yes, madmen, you know."

- Dreams of My Russian Summers
  Andrei Makine

Freedom.

"How was your hair then?" I asked.
"Afro"
"And what were you wearing?"
"A daishiki."
"Don't you think that might have affected your sentence?"
"Of course"
"Was it worth a year or two of your life?" I asked.
"That's all of my life," he said, looking at me with a combination of dismay and confusion. "Man, don't you know! That's what it's all about! Am I free to have my style, am I free to have my hair, am I free to have my skin?"
"Of course," I said. "You're right."

- From The Twentieth Century
  Howard Zinn

Extracts from a Book.

"...it was one of those unclassified affections of which there are so many."

"How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking one felt, or disliking? And to those words, what meaning attached, after all?"

"Love had a thousand shapes. There might be lovers whose gift it was to choose out the elements of things and place them together and so, giving them a wholeness not theirs in life, make of some scene, or meeting of people (all now gone and separate), one of those globed, compacted things over which thought lingers, and love plays."

- To the Lighthouse
  Virginia Woolf

Tiger Tales

"Look, he said to his imagination, if this is how you're going to behave, I shan't bring you again."

Going Postal

Terry Pratchett

I remember reading The Thak Man Eater with my back to the window in the TV room on a summer afternoon when, in one of those rare moments of peace, no one in my house seemed to be around. And I remember finishing the tale and staying in my chair, not daring to move, for fear of attracting the tiger's attention that I knew was lurking somewhere behind my right shoulder, waiting for me to reveal myself with the slightest movement. 

Since then, Corbett's tigers have stalked me in dreams, waking me up convinced that they were hiding beneath my bed, and they have followed me on solitary walks in the hills near Kasauli, defeating all sensible responses - there are barely any tigers or leopards left in India; they are not natural man-eaters; if there was one in the vicinity, it would be known, especially if it were a man-eater - there's always a first time, argues the imagination.

And so, my walks are accompanied by a pounding heart, a watchful eye and an ear straining to recognise the sounds of the forest and be alert to the warnings provided by its folk when a predator is on the prowl. My feeble attempts at self-preservation may be laughable but I do observe more of the forest and forest-life now. 

Once upon a sea...

And, as my erudition was essentially nourished by anecdotes, I told him one suitably in keeping with his passion and our haven in the carcass of an old boat. Once on a perilous sea an English warship met a French vessel, and before embarking on a battle with no quarter, the English captain addressed his historic enemies, cupping his hands around his mouth: "You, Frenchmen, fight for money. But we, subjects of the Queen, we fight for honour!" Then from the French vessel this jovial riposte of the captain's could be heard blowing across in a gust of salt wind: Each man fights for what he does not have, sir!"

- Dreams of My Russian Summers
  Andreï Makine

"These truces with the infidels," he exclaimed, without caring how suddenly he interrupted the stately Templar, "make an old man of me!"

"Go to, knave - how so?" asked Cedric, his features prepared to receive favourably the expected jest.

"Because," answered Wamba, "I remember three of them in my day, each of which was to endure for the course of fifty years, so that, by computation, I must be at least a hundred and fifty years old."

- Ivanhoe
  Sir Walter Scott

"Laughing a tiger's laugh..."

Corbett, an old favourite, shall probably recur time and again here, but to begin, I give you an extract from Jungle Lore that always makes me grin - 

"The seven pea fowl after crossing the glade had evidently taken to their legs for Magog had gone at least a hundred yards into the dense scrub and tree jungle before I heard a flutter of wings and the squark of a pea fowl, followed immediately afterwards by a frightened yelp from Magog and the angry roar of a tiger. The pea fowl had evidently led Magog on to a sleeping a tiger, and birds, dog, and tiger, were each expressing their surprise, fear and resentment, in their own particular way. Magog after his first yelp of fear was barking furiously and running and the tiger was emitting roar upon roar and chasing him, and both were coming towards me. In the general confusion a peacock - giving its alarm call - came sailing through the trees and alighted on a branch just above my head, but for the time being I had lost all interest in birds and my one and only desire was to go somewhere, far away, where there were no tigers. Magog had four legs to carry him over the ground whereas I only had two, so without any feeling of shame - for deserting a faithful companion - I picked up my feet and ran as I had never run before. Magog soon overtook me and the roaring behind us ceased. 

I can picture the tiger now, though I could not do so at the time, sitting down on his haunches on reaching the open glade and laughing a tiger's laugh, at the sight of a big dog and a small boy running for what they thought was dear life, while all that he was doing was to shoo away a dog that had disturbed his slumbers."

My two penny worth

Now read on...

When does it start?

There are very few starts. Oh some things seem to be beginnings.

The curtain goes up, the first pawn moves, the first shot is fired. (Probably at the first pawn.) - but that's not the start. The play, the game, the war is just a little window on a ribbon of events that may extend back thousands of years. The point is, there's always something before. It's always a case of Now Read On.

- Lords and Ladies

Terry Pratchett

In honour of my brother.

The river slunk sullenly a the bottom of its bed, like a student around 11 a.m.

Men at Arms
Terry Pratchett