I couldn’t think of a better word beginning with “T” to
represent India, so that will have to do. Regular readers know that I am a fan of the blog, News From
1930, which provides a daily news summary based upon the author’s reading of
the Wall Street Journal from the corresponding day in 1930. (See here
for my prior description of the blog).
A few items of interest from today’s
entry:
Wednesday,
September 3, 1930: Dow 240.42 +0.0 (0.0%)
“With the new high-speed ticker in full service, the entire
machinery of Wall Street seemed geared to greater efficiency yesterday.”
Prof. C. Persons quit job in Census
Bureau because higher official decided to exclude from count of unemployed
those laid off with “promise of reemployment at some indefinite future time”;
Prof. Persons estimates there are 5M unemployed, contradicting census estimate
of 2M-3M.
Editorial: “Deep as may be American
sympathy for … self government, the Indian question cannot be judged by
American viewpoints.” Sir J. Simon makes case that India not ready, although
British govt. pledged to “give them that opportunity as rapidly as they are
prepared for it.” India is mix of a dozen languages with hundreds of dialects,
as well as religious split between Hindu and Muslim. Also, rigid caste system
“is not a promising field for independence and self government.”
Also: Times asks J. Gerard's list of 64
“rulers” of US how to tackle business depression. Buckling down to work recommended
by S. Mitchell of Electric Bond & Share and A. Zukor of Paramount; W.
Crocker of First Natl. Bank San Francisco, sees depression as severe only
compared to 1929 boom, says mental adjustment needed to slower advance
in business; W. Green of AFL, calls for teamwork between business and govts.,
fulltime employment of workers. (emphasis mine)
Tantra, tapas, tattva, tejas, trimurti, Tara…(diacritics unavailable). Anyway, very interesting stuff!
A much more extensive vocabulary than mine, Patrick. I thought that you were trying to pull a fast one on me with tapas, until I looked it up. My entire prior use of the word involved tasty bites at spanish restaurants (preferably taken with Sangria). You learn something new every day!
Kim,
I doubt my vocabulary is more extensive, it's just that I've had some training in Sanskrit and Indian worldviews.
My first paper as an undergraduate (many, many years ago) on a topic in Indian philosophy and religion happened to be on "tapas" for the late and dearly missed Ninian Smart. It was a subject I became interested in largely because I noticed that Raghavan Iyer had dedicated his nonpareil work on Gandhi's moral and political philosophy to his wife, Nandini, as an "exemplar of tapas." Several decades later, Nandini, who was responsible for my transition from a finish carpenter to a part-time academic, has become my best friend (her son is the travel writer, novelist and essayist, Pico Iyer). Intriguingly, tapas has been used to formulate the historical "interiorization" of Vedic sacrifice (yajna) in Hinduism and corresponding proto-philosophical speculation one finds in the Upanishads (hence an inner process of meditation and self-purification that burns off personal 'impurities').
As our daughter would now chime in, "OK dad, way TMI."
lol. Well, I appreciate the lesson.
Tamils are an excellent choice for the letter "T". An ancient people with a rich literature, stereotyped for their work ethic more than anything else. (And I am not ethnically a Tamil, but a Punjabi.)
I'm partial to Chola bronzes, especially Shiva as Nataraja: http://www.nortonsimon.org/collections/browse_title.php?id=F.1973.05.S
One more example (it's the background on my monitor): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Shiva_Nataraja_Mus%C3%A9e_Guimet_25972.jpg
Today we are going to retroputeshestvie in November 1930. A help in this newspaper 'Tonight' distant days. : The names of stores with long non-existent non-existence 'erami', photos, more like drawings in the title – the name Kutepova, Wrangel, Trotsky. Is it really 'thousand years' was? Judge for yourself. Publication of the Diet session, entitled 'Relations with Russia leaves much to be desired' as if written today.