Long sentence part 3

It was becoming obvious to me that creating records just for the sake of it was not a pleasant experince. But egged on by fellow forummers ( or muppets, as we liked to call ourselves), I gave it one more try, and in this third instalment of the as yet unfinished long sentence, the sentence goes on to become over 5000 words long. Phew !

Here is part 3 of this long sentence marathon:

Long sentence part 2 ( continuation of part 1)

My long sentence in part 1 was 2067 words long and was incomplete. I continued from where I had left off, and the long sentence became 4041 words long at the end, with one more part yet to come. I tell you, it is a torture to the writer as well as it is to the readers, but records are records, and must be created, I suppose.

Here is part 2 of the long sentence:

Long sentence part 1

Few of us, members of a forum, came to know that there are some authors who have written very long sentences and have entered into record books. Following facts were brought to our notice-

“Some facts about long sentences

* Jonathan Coe’s novel, ‘The Rotters’ Club’, contains a sentence of 13,955 words. This is generally considered to be the longest sentence in English literature.
* One of Molly Bloom’s soliloquies in James Joyce’s epic novel ‘Ulysses’ features a sentence of 4,491 words.
* The Guinness Book of Records lists the longest proper sentence as one from William Faulkner’s novel ‘Absalom, Absalom!’ (1,287 words).
* Some ancient languages, such as Sanskrit and Greek, did not have any punctuation. So all their sentences were long!
* A Polish novel, ‘Bramy Raju’, contains a 40,000-word sentence.
* There is a Czech novel, by Bohumil Hrabal, called ‘Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age’ which is one long sentence. “

Watching English movies in 1970s

I had posted my experience of watching Bollywood movies in 1970s. Everyone in India did that. But they were not the only kinds of movies. There were “English” movies as well that would get released in some movie halls.

Watching English movies was an entirely different stuff from watching the desi movies like Bollywood ones. Watching these foreign(pronounced “foren”) movies, as well as observing those who had come to watch such movies made for some interesting observations.Here are my experiences of watching English movies in 1970s:

Watching Bollywood movies in 1970s

Watching Bollywood movies in 1970s and earlier was an altogether different experience from what it is now a days. These movies were virtually the only affordable means of entertainment for Indian public.And it was a suppliers’ market those days as far as watching these movies was concerned, in that the demand for movies outstripped supply those days.

Here is how a typical bollywood movie goer watched a typical bollywood movie in 1970s ( and earlier):

Cricket experts

Considering that there are many different kinds of cricket experts, classifying them into various categories is a Herculean task. In fact, legend has it that the first person to try it got so confused that he gave up the exercise as next to impossible. He told himself- “Charles buddy, instead of classifying cricket experts and breaking your head in the process, why don’t you classify cricket, bats….. monkeys, elephants etc into different phylums, sub phylums etc.”. And that is how Charles Darwin went on to classify various animals, plants etc and stumbled upon his theory too, called- “survival of the fittest”.

Here is an attempt to finish the unfinished work of Charles Darwin. A brief classification of various kinds of cricket experts. It has to be kept in mind that everyone who follows cricket is a cricket expert. There is no category such as a non expert among cricket followers.

Playing been in front of a buffalo

Traditionally, Cow has been revered by Indians. On the other hand, bhains ( water buffalo) has not received a similar treatment though it is in all respects, similar to a cow, apart from looks.
Cow is fair and smooth in looks, bhains is dark and hairy, that is what may have been held against the bhains by the ancient Indians. This shows the discrimination on the basis of colour and skin, that was prevalent in the past.

Not only was a bhains not given the same exalted status as a cow, it was in fact made a butt of jokes and ridicule.Ancients made it out to be the vaahan of Yamraj. One Asura was depicted as a Bhains and called Bhainsasur.If we look at the Hindi muhawaras,bhains has been ridiculed much more than even a donkey. Just look at the muhawaras:

Pillion riding in India

Introduction

Now that Tata have announced Nano, their Rs one lakh car, will that spell doom for the two wheeler industry? I hope not. It is not just the affordability factor. There are other factors that makes two wheelers, especially motor bikes such a great machine to have. I am not just talking about going from one place to the other even via narrow by lanes, from under the closed level crossing gates, poor roads etc. I am talking of the human factor, especially the human who sits behind on the pillion.

The fourth department of cricket

If you believe coaches and other experts, then a good cricket team is one which excels in three departments of the game. Viz;

1.Batting
2.Bowling
3.Fielding

Professional teams pay attention to all the three departments. Not so professional teams, those who live in the past, think that fielding is a new age fad, a passing one, and they firmly believe that batting and bowling is all that is needed to win matches. Then there are those teams which go a step further. They believe that even bowling is a waste of time and effort, and that a team only needs to concentrate on batting to win matches. And funnily enough, this particular team employs coaches for bowling and fielding, and these coaches are hardly ever required to break a sweat by that team.