060. The Home Coming. Rabindranath Tagore Story. Reintroduced by P S Remesh Chandran

060.

The Home Coming. Rabindranath Tagore Story. Reintroduced by P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

First published: 14th Sep 2014
 

Rabindranath Tagore was an educator, social reformer, poet, playwright, novelist and short story writer. His poetical collection Gitanjali was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Home Coming is the tale of a 14 year old boy who was a nuisance to his mother, was sent away for studying and died there unloved and longing for his home. There has not been a single person in India who did not weep after reading this Tagore story. 

The boy grew up lazy, wild and violent and thought about doing new mischiefs every day.
 

Phatik Chakravarthi was a fourteen year old Bengali boy whose father died very early. He grew up lazy, wild and disobedient. His younger brother Makhan Chakravarthi was quiet, good and fond of reading. Phatik thought about doing new mischiefs every day. One day he and his retinue of boys pushed into the river a wooden log meant to be shaped as the mast of a boat. Makhan, objecting to this and sitting firmly on the log, was thrown to water along with the log. At home, when he was questioned about this, he beat not only his brother, but his mother also. It was then that his uncle from the far Calcutta City arrived. He agreed to take the boy along with him to Calcutta to be educated there. The boy was only glad to leave, but the mother was only half-relieved and half-sad. 

He missed the meadow, mountain and river in his native village, became a failure at school and began to always ask, when holidays would come.
 

Phatik's uncle had three sons of his own and his aunt did not like this new addition to their family. A fourteen year old boy will have his own problems too. He was fast growing up. He was neither a child nor a man, crossing the line in between. He missed the meadow, mountain and river of his native village. Therefore it was no wonder he became a failure at school. He answered no questions, was beaten badly daily at school and ridiculed by all including his cousins. He grew impatient about returning to home and began always asking, when the holidays would come.

 

In his delirium, he talked about things in his native village, asked his mother not to beat him anymore and called out fathom-marks which steamer-sailors in his native village river did.

  

One day Phatik lost his lesson book and was scolded and abused much by his aunt. It served as the last hurt to break him. On a rainy afternoon after school, feeling fever and headache, he sought shelter somewhere and did not return home. He did not want to trouble his aunt any more. Police help was sought the next day. They found him and brought him home, shivering and fallen into a delirious state. He talked about things in his native village, asked his mother not to beat him anymore and called out fathom-marks which steamer-sailors in his native village river did. He moved restlessly, his hands beating up and down. His condition seemed critical to the doctor, and his mother in the village was sent for. When his mother arrived moaning and crying, and calling his names, he was nearing his eternal home which is Heaven. His last words were: Mother, the holidays have come. 

Tagore's story Home Coming was one of the two first glances into the grief and sorrow of little minds, the other being Coventry Patmore's poem, Toys.
 

The question is how we treat our children. Children are the flowers of humanity. Yet, we do not see the grief in those tiny hearts. Up to four years, a child is said to be in the hands of the God, but since then they are this World's property. A bit of love, a soft touch of solace or a tiny word of consolation would be enough for them, but we do not spare them. Millions of children are worn out for want of care, nursing, assistance. Tagore was purposeful in writing such a story as this to open the world’s eyes towards the world of children’s deep sorrows, unheeded by the grown up world. No wonder he was dedicated to children and started that India’s World University, Saanthi Nikethan, where teachers and students sat beneath mango tree shades and learned. Tagore's this story was one of the two first glances into the grief and sorrow of little minds, the other being Coventry Patmore's poem, Toys.

 
(Prepared as a lecture to literature students in 1996)


Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles


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Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of 'Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book'. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Kerala.

059. A Nincompoop. Anton Chekhov Story. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

059
 
A Nincompoop. Anton Chekhov Story Reintroduced 

P S Remesh Chandran   
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

Article Title Image By JJ Jordan. Graphics: Adobe SP.

Anton Chekhov was a Russian short story writer whose stories became famous for their surprise endings, just like Oscar Wilde’s, Maupassant’s and O.Henry’s. He found his characters from among the middle class and poor people of Russia. In his story The Nincompoop, he explains how the weak people in this world are crushed easily by the cunning rich. 

Had there been no writers in Russia such as Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Alexander Pushkin, Mayakovski, Chekhov and Solzhenitsyn, there would have been no revolution, whether there had been a Lenin or not.

From history we know about the abject poverty of the peasants and workers in Russia and how they were helpless to utter a word against the thorough exploitation by the rich and powerful in the time of the Czars. It was stories like this which prepared people for the coming peasants’ and workers’ revolutions against the ruling aristocrats in that vast sub continent of Russia. It is true, the writers of Russia soon became tired of the political killings following the revolution and writers like Alexander Solzhenitsyn later condemned the suppression of people by communist party monarchs, but it was indeed the writers of Russia who tilled the ground for sowing the seeds of revolution. Had there been no writers in Russia such as Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Alexander Pushkin, Mayakovski, Chekhov and Solzhenitsyn, there would have been no revolution there, bloody or not, whether there had been a Vladimir Illyich Ullianov Lenin or not. 

Without ‘Mother’ no revolution would have been possible and without sparks of revolution leaping out here and there no ‘Mother’ would have been thought about.

That the writers and the revolutionaries in Russia shared a mutually respective relationship is undisputed which is a solace and encouragement to historians and students of literature. By reason of his extremely volatile ideas, though was considered as a nuisance by party ranks, Mayakovski made many unforgettable poems about the life in rural Russia. It is remarkable to note Lenin’s comment on Mayakovski which he made in a crowded party committee. “I never like this fellow Mayakovski for his unruly behaviour and indiscipline, which a party cadre like me can never tolerate. But we should all read his that particular poem titled ‘Those Who Hold Committees Everyday’ the hint in which is there is committee everyday, everyday and everyday and nothing is happening any day, any day, any day. That is a poem which opens our eyes to what people think about us so-called communists.” It is interesting to also note that one of the loftiest and lengthy poems about the life of Lenin came from Mayakovski. His poem ‘Let Rail Workers Awaken’ is also equally famous. When we scan the literary and revolutionary fields of Russia, we can see that they magnificently supplemented and supplied each other. Without ‘Mother’ no revolution would have been possible and without sparks of revolution leaping out here and there, no ‘Mother’ would have ever been thought about. 

A Nincompoop is a person who suffers everything without a word of protest, a common figure and national trait in many countries.

A Nincompoop is a person who suffers everything without a word of protest, a national trait in China and Russia which made communist monarchs easily subject their people to persecution and totalitarian tyranny. Such people are there in every community, society, country, age. The rich and the powerful make use of their services and exploit them successfully for long years. There will not be enough genes of rebellion in their blood to revolt. Powerful and crafty writers teach even such inert people to react, protest, unite and cause changes. Like almost all other Russian writers, Anton Chekhov indeed was against such submission and surrender. We know, Anton Chekhov’s stories have a surprising twist towards the end and we shall see what it would be in this story. 

Four days one child was sick and three days the teacher had toothache. Seven rubles gone from salary!

The Master of the House and the Governess of His Children, Julia, are the only characters in the story. One day the Master called Julia to settle their accounts till then. He will not part with a single Ruble unnecessarily. And she had no protest. They had agreed on a salary of forty rubles a month but he was now willing to pay her only thirty rubles. It is OK for her. She had worked for two months and five das but he would count only two months. Thus an amount of sixty rubles only was due to her. Again OK. Nine Sundays and three holidays were taken away and twelve rubles also were taken away. Four days one child was sick and three days the teacher had toothache. Seven rubles gone! Julia broke a cup and saucer and it was only right to deduct two rubles. One child climbed a tree and tore his jacket. The other child’s shoes were stolen by servants in the house. Fifteen rubles less. An advance of three rubles had been paid but then Julia objected. She had been paid no advance but a gift of three rubles by the wife. He won’t listen to objections. He deducted ten plus three equals thirteen rubles anyway. So, she is to be paid eleven rubles, not eighty. He readily gave eleven rubles in cash. No objections. She even said Merci, in thanks. It was then that the Master of the House exploded: Why didn’t you ever protest in spite all this cunningness and stubbornness on my part in cheating you? ‘In other houses everything was taken away through clever calculation, here I got at least eleven rubles’- was her reply. This slavish subjectivity was characteristic of all Russian women. The Master was only testing the Governess of his children and gave Julia the full eighty rubles in cash, and he scolded her for behaving like a Nincompoop. She ought to have protested in those other houses. It is very easy for the weak in this world to be crushed by the cunning, and protestation is the only way out. Julia learned her lesson anyway. Now we know how writers in Russia prepared their people for protestation, change and revolutions.
 
The life of Anton Chekhov:

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 1860-1904 was a Russian doctor who not only delighted but excelled also in writing plays and short stories. They became classics and he is now considered as one of the founding figures of modern drama. In modern short story also his role was none other. His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov was Russian and his mother Yevgeniya Morozova was Ukrainian. They were merchants by tradition. His father had musical qualities and his mother story-telling abilities. He benefited from both. They fell in finance, lost house and properties and lived in poverty in Moscow. By writing literary pieces for newspapers and doing menial jobs he continued his university education and reached Moscow where he took his medicine degree in 1884. By that time he had also gained footing as a writer. Celebrity publishers and printers had already noted him and his was paid handsomely for his regular pieces. He also began to write for the theatre. He also travelled extensively through Russia. Since their fall in fortune, he had also financing his family’s life. In 1892 he even bought an estate near Moscow and even became a landlord- a model landlord who helped and dispensed medicine free!

In 1898 he purchased land and built a villa in Yalta where he preferred to stay with his widowed mother and sisters, his brothers been died. In 1901 he married the actress Olga Knipper who stayed in Moscow and he in Yalta as he wished: ‘he didn’t want his moon to appear in his sky everyday’. Chekhov died of tuberculosis six years later in 1904 in Germany. Anton Chekhov’s death like ‘sleeping peacefully like a child’ would remind us of the death of Tennyson ‘lying in his bed, the full moon falling on his face, with a Shakespeare in his hand’!

For many writers, what Matthew Arnold wrote is true: their readers cannot reach the finer ones due to the thick surrounding undergrowth of too many inferior ones as in the case of Wordsworth. But not for Chekhov! His short stories already numerous in number are almost all masterpieces. Even if his plays, novellas and letters all vanish, his short stories will keep him immortal. Comedy and light humour are hallmarks of Chekhov stories. Translations of his works gained him international fame. Today many literary critics consider him second only to Shakespeare.

Four-act plays, one-act plays, novels, novellas, nonfiction and short stories:

The noted four-act plays by Chekhov are Untitled Play 1878, Ivanov 1887, The Wood Demon 1889, The Seagull 1896, Three Sisters 1901, The Cherry Orchard 1904. On The High Road 1884, Swansong 1887, A Marriage Proposal 1889, The Wedding 1889, and The Night Before The Trial 1890 are one-act plays. The Shooting Party 1884 is a novel and The Steppe 1888, The Duel 1891, Three Years 1895, and My Life 1896 are novellas. A Journey To Sakhalin 1895 is nonfiction. His short stories are numerous. 

Article Title Image By Rowan Heuvel. Graphics: Adobe SP. 

Written in: February 1991
First published on: 14 September 2014


Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of 'Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book'. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, Kerala. Mother University educated and father British Council-trained Teacher. Matriculation with Distinction and Pre Degree Studies with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma Studies in Electronics and entered Politics. 

047. Think Twice Before Publishing With Free Article Directories. Essay By P S Remesh Chandran

047.

Think Twice Before Publishing With Free Article Directories. Essay By P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum 

01. Article Title Image By Kropekk PL. Graphics: Adobe SP

First published: 2nd May 2012

Online publishing platforms are a great solace not only to those who seek up-to-date and current knowledge, but for those who wish to publish articles without complications also. Websites like Wikinut serve this purpose fine. One can also publish articles in free article directories like Go Articles and E Zine which would surely bring traffic to one's website. But once a sensible writer steps into this alien field, he would soon realize that he has actually stepped into a treacherous bog. 

A flood of inferior links comes as a deluge to search results, obscuring all your good links.
 

It is the wish of every writer who owns a blog or site to drive more traffic to his or her blog and site. Publishing articles in the articles data bases Go Articles and E Zine is the most advised way for attracting traffic into a site. The idea is, since these are reputed sites and by publishing in them your name becomes noted, clicks leading to your site will correspondingly increase and this increase of activity in your site will eventually lead to your site’s ranking going higher up with search engines. These data bases offer back links to at least four or five of your sites. You certainly will get more traffic to your site. But, no sooner you begin publishing your articles with these data bases than your digital world will become cramped and confused with hundreds of links leading to inferior sites, obscuring all good links which you have cherished for long. Therefore think twice, before publishing with them. 

If you are not interested in making money from your website, never publish in these free article data bases.
 

These sites are free article data bases, accessible to anyone. By publishing in them, you practically make your articles go public domain, which means anyone can use it anyway. Thousands of disciplined and legitimate readers use these data bases daily for gathering information on a wide variety of subjects. Students, teachers, writers, researchers, publishers, advertisers, all go there to find suitable articles, and they do find these data bases immensely helpful. It is true, this kind of exposure puts you on the main stream of publishing as regard to readership. And if you are interested in making money from your site, it is good again. But once you search, at times, where your articles are going, you will be horrified at the wantonness with which your articles are reused. There indeed are a few decent and imaginative websites which republish your articles as pages in the midst of which their advertisements are posted, doing it in a way that you will be thrilled at the beauty with which your articles are republished. But the most dreaded among them are indecent websites who download your articles from these data bases and use them for illegitimate purposes, in a way it would look that you have endorsed their activities. The end product will look horrible and make people think, who this wreck of an author is to have written such an insensible piece of writing.

02. Article Title Image By Glenn Carstens-Peters. Graphics: Adobe SP

The word ‘soil’ in your article will lead to some real estate firm and the word ‘money’ will lead to all kinds of hoary money making (loosing) techniques.

Suppose there is a website titled ‘Hundred Ways To Make Money’. They take your article on ‘A Walk In The Moonlight’. When they publish it, your article will not have the usual titles, sub titles, punctuation, lay out or justification. Almost all words in the article would have been made into links which would lead to their heinous advertisements. If you have the word ‘soil’ in the article, it would be made a link, which if clicked, would lead to some real estate firm. If you have put the word ‘car’ somewhere in the article, it will surely lead to some car financing company. The word ‘money’ will lead to all kinds of hoary money making (loosing) methods and financing. Links to your sites and blogs, when clicked, will lead to theirs. In search results, your name will be there, along with that ‘Hundred Ways To Make Money’ link, as if it is you who is running that site. Everything can be read, except your article which would be totally missing. A long list of such cheating sites can be added here for the care of writers: trivandrum locanto, bloglinez, shopturbo, infibeambooks, allvoices, lovepets, livinskiy, pageinsider, fashionbeautyonlinestore, rainoutfit, ebay, namepedia, bestpriceprobe, housesplans, 911pipl, milkandcream. This is just to show who can be there, using writers’ articles indecently. Do not please click their names and send more traffic to them from authors. But since the names of a few indecent sites are noted here, it would be inappropriate and inopportune not to mention the good and decent websites which reuse writers’ articles to the total satisfaction of those writers. They include heartattackforwomen, iraisedit, loudfeeds, blurbwire, pigroot, geliyoo and fearnowine, to mention a few. 

Soon your good links will disappear in an ocean of links leading to inferior websites.

Suppose you write for Wikinut and when someone searches on the internet for your name, Wikinut links will appear first. Once you publish in these data bases, it will change. These rogue websites which copy your articles will occupy the first, second, third and fourth pages, and if possible all the rest pages, of the search results. It is like they enjoying a free ride standing on your shoulders. They want pages for their web sites to run, which they cannot create themselves. They download and publish your pages their way, without observing publishers’ norms. A few writers will regularly type their names and see what results appear on internet searches. They will soon find that links to their good sites have vanished in a flood of links from rogue sites with their names, minus their articles. Many of them will make complaints to these data bases about how their articles were misused by many websites. They will get the following standard reply which is useless and impracticable to the writer anyway: 

“We do require publishers to follow our republishing guidelines: As most publishers simply need to be reminded that they must follow our guidelines for publishers, we first suggest contacting the owner of the site in question. If no response is received, you may then get into contact with the site’s web host (contact information can be found by going here: http://www.who.is and entering their website), requesting they enforce their Acceptable Use Policy. Please note, as you maintain the copyright to your articles, you are responsible for protecting that copyright.” 

It would not be as easy for the writer to disengage himself as it is to put his neck in the midst of this kind of a grinding wheel.

His articles going to the most wrong places is the dread of all fine writers. If you write an article ‘Advice against artificial baby feed’, it would promptly find its way into a site selling artificial baby feeds. If you write an article against keeping dogs in homes, it would be skillfully manipulated to promote a kennel. If your article is about one of your personal experiences, it will land in a book publishing website which was never connected with you, without any trace of your article there, your name still leading to them. It is unbelievable that many famous book publishing sites make use of this cheap trick ignominiously. Soon you would find that your articles are used for what you always have stood against and what you always have opposed. That would be a very disgusting experience for a writer. It would not be as easy for the writer to disengage himself as it is to put his neck into this kind of a grinding wheel because these links have come to stay, perhaps for ever, or till they get hold of another unawaring prey. A writer will normally wish to someday catch this website owner and present a thundering blow to his cheek or even break his neck. 

Be patient, wait and make your articles good. Fame will come your way.

It is advisable for the writer to wait, till traffic naturally finds its way to his website. If one’s articles are extremely good and he is good at devising apt tag words for his articles, readers will ultimately come to him, wherever his articles are posted. If there is a really good article on a particular subject in the internet, readers will eventually arrive at it some day, even if it gets buried in the last page of search results. If good articles cannot be searched and brought to readers, search engines also cannot thrive and exist in the long run. Therefore it is the duty of the writer to write, not spread. When it is his time or when it is the time of that particular article, it would sometimes be the only available article to be displayed on that specific subject, and how can it be excluded from being displayed? 

The virtue of Wikinut is (was) that there is no distinction between rich and poor writers. Really how much free are the free article data bases?

These directories are said to be free article submission directories. But there are two types of services they offer to writers: ordinary and premium. If you are rich and can afford paying money for sponsoring your articles, you can order premium services. Or, your articles won’t have headlines or bold sub headings. This arrangement is really something shocking, mean and ostentatious which does not fit the modern world and which no reliable publishing platform shall maintain. What change will money bring to the quality of an article, except in its look? Why should one submit articles to a directory which denies bold sub headings to a writer because he has no money? It suits only the barbarian times. It is something undignified for a writer to have denied such basic editorial services due to his having no money to pay. When viewed from these angles, Wikinut is the most generous articles data base and publishing platform in the world. There, there are no distinctions between rich and poor writers, and whatever online editing facilities and innovations are available there are allowed to all and shared by all. So, be patient with Wikinut and continue writing very good articles which nowhere else would be available. Someday it will be your day which is not far away.

03. Article Title Image By Glenn Carstens-Peters. Graphics: Adobe SP

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles


Tags

Article Submissions, Articles, Columns, Driving Traffic To Websites, E Zine Articles, Essays, Free Article Data Bases,Free Article Directories, Go Articles, Manipulation Of Articles,Misusing Internet Articles, P S Remesh Chandran, Protection Of Writers Rights, Public Domain Pages, Rogue Websites,Sahyadri Books And Bloom Books Trivandrum, Treacheries In The Publishing Field, Violation Of Article Usage Norms, 

About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran: 

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single. 

Author of several books in English and in Malayalam, mostly poetical collections, fiction, non fiction and political treatises, including Ulsava Lahari, Darsana Deepthi, Kaalam Jaalakavaathilil, Ilakozhiyum Kaadukalil Puzhayozhukunnu, Thirike Vilikkuka, Oru Thulli Velicham, Aaspathri Jalakam, Vaidooryam, Manal, Jalaja Padma Raaji, Maavoyeppoleyaakaan Entheluppam!, The Last Bird From The Golden Age Of Ghazals, Doctors Politicians Bureaucrats People And Private Practice, E-Health Implications And Medical Data Theft, Did A Data Mining Giant Take Over India?, Will Dog Lovers Kill The World?, Is There Patience And Room For One More Reactor?, and Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book. 

Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/psremeshchandra.trivandrum
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You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Blog: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Site: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/
E-Mail: bloombookstvm@gmail.com
 

Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.
 

Comments

Madan
5th May 2012 (#)

There are many good sites like Knoji, hubpages, suite 101 , Xomba that one can write on.

PSRemeshChandra
6th May 2012 (#)

Yes, dear Madan. There are many. But I was targeting on Go Articles and E Zine, according to my nature. The original title I intended for this article was 'Think Twice Before Publishing With Go Articles and E Zine. But I changed it to suit Wikinut's modesty. With these two sites, most observations noted above are true, I think. Those legitimate and decent customers of these sites who read and make use of articles posted in them certainly are outside the purview of this article.They are never responsible for this cluttering of search results. In fact, they do not even appear there. I did not know about Knoji. If it is Knol which is mentioned, it is sad Google retired the good Knol. Thank you Madan for the added information. 

Buzz
7th May 2012 (#)

Engaging and insightful article, PSRemesh with great advice. Very pleased to meet you, by the way. Thanks for sharing.

PSRemeshChandra
7th May 2012 (#)

I was only sharing my observations and personal experiences, so that my fellow writers, if they already do not, shall know in advance a few things. Thank you Buzz. 

Rebecca E
10th Aug 2012 (#)

a very interesting article, and some great points

PSRemeshChandra
10th Aug 2012 (#)

It is articles written by several good writers like you, Rebecca that caused me to think and write about the disappointments many writers feel about the publishing practices of a few famous article publishing sites and the after ill effects of publishing with them. Your article 'The Things You Will Learn Publishing A Book' which you published in April 2012 was informative and a good read. Why no similar articles since then?