Tuesday, February 17, 2009

THE MAGIC RING

Unleashing the poet in me..... Here i go...!!


In the good old days of the Judaean empire,
Who were gifted the land of ruby and sapphire,
Ruled a king who was David’s son,
He was none other than King Solomon.
One day the king, overjoyed by victory in a battle,
Summoned his courtiers and asked them to prove their mettle.
He came up with a task made in jest,
And instructed his ministers to start their quest.
“In some corner of this world lies a ring,
That can make a happy man brood and a sad man sing.
It is your duty to find me that ring,
I don’t want an answer ‘there is no such thing’ “.
The enormity of the task and uncertainty of the outcome
Bewildered the courtsmen and created a hum-drum.
They set at once to find the magic ring
That could make a happy man brood and a sad man sing.
Summer went by and then went spring,
But none could find the mystical ring.
A petty courtier who had also gone on the searching spree,
Was planning to give up and he sat under a tree.
He saw a blacksmith who toiled hard for a living,
But his face had a charm as if summer had been spring.
The courtier came to the wretched, yet hopeful man,
Narrated his errand and said “please help if you can”.
The blacksmith went in and brought a ring in his hand,
Etched a few words and called “Ye! Ring of magic land!”
The courtier got the ring and stood speechless,
For he realized that the ring was magical indeed and no less.
He thanked the pious man and was buoyed,
For his ordeal had finished and the king would be overjoyed.
The courtier reached his court and hailed the king with reverence,
And said that his task had been no less than penance.
The king had a look at the ring and was stupefied, Alas!
Were the words etched “This too shall pass!”
The happy king suddenly became quiet,
For what the ring said was right.
All his wisdom and all his wealth,
Would cease one day and come to an end.
The courtier explained the blacksmith’s plight,
Who believed that his wretched life would one day take a flight.
All his suffering was not for ever,
For life moves on and stalls, never!
Truly magical was the ring,
Which made a happy man brood and a sad man sing.
The mystical words for men of every class,
“This too shall pass, This too shall pass!”

Saturday, February 14, 2009

The BADILTAA quiz!!

1. He is credited with the translation of one of the most famous tales from the arab homeland, "One thousand and one Nights". Mystery still surrounds the origins of some of the most famous tales. For instance, there are no Arabic manuscripts of Aladdin and Ali baba which pre-date X's translation, leading some scholars to conclude that X invented them himself and the Arabic versions are merely later renderings of his original French. identifu X. Here is his picture..














Ans: Antoinne Galland



2.Dr. Theodore John Kaczynski also known as the X, is an American mathematician and critic who carried out a campaign of bombings from 1978-1995. his name X is actually a alias given to him during his course of investigation... and thats the name that made him infamously famous... what??



Ans: Unabomber

3. Picture representing what??













Ans:Delilah cutting Samson's hair!! (sorry if it was lame..!)

4.The phrase ............... is a principle with broad application that is not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation.It is often claimed that the term originally referred to a law that limited the maximum thickness of a stick with which it was permissible for a man to beat his wife. what is the phrase??

Ans: Rule of the thumb

5........... ..............(Spanish for "the golden one") is a legend that began with the story of a South American tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and would dive into a lake of pure mountain water. ........ ...........is applied to a legendary story in which precious stones were found in fabulous abundance along with gold coins. The concept of ......... ............. underwent several transformations, and eventually accounts of the previous myth were also combined with those of the legendary city. The resulting ......... ............. enticed European explorers for two centuries, and was eventually found to be in Colombia. Sir Walter Raleigh, who resumed the search in 1595, described ......... ........... as a city on Lake Parime far up the Orinoco River in Guyana. This city on the lake was marked on English and other maps until its existence was disproved by Alexander von Humboldt during his Latin-America expedition (1799–1804).

Ans: El Dorado

6.X was a young man who set fire to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in his quest for fame on about July 20, 356 BC. The temple was constructed of marble and considered the most beautiful of some thirty shrines built by the Greeks to honour their goddess of the hunt, the wild and childbirth. The temple was also one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, 425 feet long and supported by columns sixty feet high.
Far from attempting to evade responsibility for his act of arson, X proudly claimed credit in order to immortalise his name in history. In order to dissuade similar-minded fame-seekers, the Ephesean authorities not only executed him but also condemned him to a legacy of obscurity by forbidding mention of his name under the penalty of death. This did not stop X from achieving his goal. Even today in english dictionary, Y(derived from X) means an individual in constant pursuit of fame. who is X?
Ans: Herostratus

7.The story of X's birth is recounted dramatically in Mahābhārata, Book I: Adi Parva, Sambhava Parva. Bharadwaja went with his companions to the Ganges to perform his ablutions. There he beheld a beautiful apsara named Ghritachi who had come to bathe. The sage was overcome by desire, causing him to produce a reproductive fluid. Bharadwaja captured the fluid in a vessel called a X, and X himself sprang from the fluid thus preserved. X would later boast that he had sprung from Bharadwaja without ever having been in a womb. who is X?

Ans: Dronacharya

8.X's embrace of Christianity was unpopular with some of his fans and fellow musiciansShortly before his murder, John Lennon recorded "Serve Yourself" in response to X's "Gotta Serve Somebody". By 1981, while X's Christian faith was obvious, Stephen Holden wrote in the New York Times that "neither age (he's now 40) nor his much-publicized conversion to born-again Christianity has altered his essentially iconoclastic temperament. X has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature although he has never won one..!! he has also been voted in TIME's list of 100 most infuential persons of the century apart from being the second most popular musician to have a profound effect on the people.

Ans: Bob Dylan