Thursday 31 January 2008

Anna Karenina


The character of Anna Karenina in the 1967 screen version .

It appears that the story for "Anna Karenina" came out of an episode in which Leo Tolstoy arrived at a railway station shortly after a young woman had committed suicide. She had been the mistress of a neighboring landowner, and the incident stuck in his mind...


As Tolstoy biographer writes, "A dreadful lesson was brought home to him... He tried to imagine the existence of this poor woman who had given all for love, only to meet with such a trite, ugly death."


A couple of years later “Anna Karenina” came to life.

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
And thereby rolls out the colourful life of Anna, the most beautiful and charming of women, caught in a loveless marriage, finds herself swept off her feet by the dashing and playful Count Vronsky. Her yearning for happiness only brings more tragedy upon her as she is cast aside from the society and separated from her own son.

In the meantime ‘Kitty’, who was first led on by Vronsky but later ignored with the arrival of Anna, finds love in a very different “Levin” whose struggle for life, for labour, and the understanding of life and death brings another dimension of life to the story.

Tolstoy has masterfully interwoven these two stories without confusing or boring the reader, and has left any judgement (if any is needed) for the reader.

This is truly a masterpiece! It’s beautifully written! I haven’t read Tolstoy before and now I know why he’s regarded as a Great in the literary world.

The only thing that irritated me was the aristocratic life style (which of course has nothing to do with Tolstoy, for it’s the way the Russian societal structure works!). Maybe he was trying to portray its absurdity through the character of the down-to earth Levin.

It’s not at all possible to sum up the book in a few paragraphs, for the book itself was 850+ pages! But to put it in two words, an “Epic Masterpiece”.

Friday 25 January 2008

Have a break, Have a Kit-Kat!

For those of you wondering whether I'm dead....... not so soon! For the last month or so I've been living in the micro world or rather the nano world! Yes it's a very exciting place!! Where atoms and electrons mingle together and where vapour particles deposit forming beautiful patterns, ............well, at least in my imagination!

And for some weird reason all the equipment that I use seem to be behaving themselves very well! hmm........that's a first!

Anyway, after a very 'occupied' couple of weeks, it's Friday ahead of a long weekend, with fine weather (outside; not in the lab) And my supervisor is nowhere to be seen!

I need a break to get back to real life! (before the boss appears back at his desk!)

Good, I'm going to grab "Anna Karenina" which I've been trying to read for more than a month , and slip out of here!

Maybe snap up a Kit-Kat on my way!

Monday 7 January 2008

Sydney!!



The City of Sydney



Guess what this is?


Yup, it's the Australian landmark, The Sydney Opera House.


The Sydney Tower


The view from the Sydney Tower

Someone I met during the Sydney trip
:)

Thursday 3 January 2008

An African Safari??

Yup it's a Safari all right! but not in Africa.

The Australian climate is so close to that of the Sub-Saharan Africa, many of it's locals feel completely at home here.



White on Black or Black on White?
According to our Safari tour guide it's White on Black, how you determine the original colour of an animal is from his nose or snout.

Why do Zebras have stripes?
Zebras live in packs, when a predator like a lioness attacks, they would start running together, keeping their young ones in the middle, the movement of black and white stripes together creates an optical illusion, which confuses the predator and makes it difficult for him to single out one Zebra, or more preferably a Zebra cub.

Isn't nature amazing?




This lazy looking bunch can actually achieve speeds of upto 40 miles per hour!! close to that of a race horse!

Their eyes are tiny so their vision is not very good. So they rely on their sharp hearing for anything happening around them. Their aerial like ears could gather sound signals for upto 3 kms!!!!!!

The big fellow wasn't quite happy with our bus being close to their space, even though we were not making any noise under our guide's instructions. So we had to flee the area, before he got all worked up.




Ah! The tallest of them all!
They say a Giraffe never sleeps!
Which is partly true. They are supposedly closing their eyes for about 20 minutes a day, but that is while standing up! They never lie down! So if you ever see a Giraffe lying down, it can only mean one thing, it's dead!

Geez, I wonder if they ever get foot aches!

Wednesday 2 January 2008

Busy vacation!

Back at work after a rather long holiday! well, it was just about 2 weeks, and a very hectic 2 weeks it was!

My parents came down under for a holiday so was quite busy visiting all the places that are worth visiting in Melbourne and Sydney......... within 12 days!

Watch this space for some pics from our travels....coming soon!