285 Year Old New Year Resolution

 ޖަނަވަރީ މާ

When I first read the great Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, I was perhaps not yet 20 years old.  As I read about this great man it occurred to me how important it was for him to continuously improve his self. 'Self help' and 'self improvement' may have yet to be coined!

Young Benjamin Franklin thought hard on how he could ‘cultivate his character ’. To do this he had to identify the best of virtues and work hard on each one for the rest of his life. Being a printer’s apprentice and a printer himself, he made himself a card with week days on top and the 13 virtues he wanted to embrace, he was just 20 years and the year was 1726.  So this is the 285 year old New Year Resolution: ( had someone told him that he would be one of the signatories of The Declaration of Independence 50 years later as one of the "Founding Fathers of the USA ", do you think  young Ben would have believe  that prophesy?)

1-  Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2-  Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."

3-  Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time."

4-  Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."

5-  Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing."

6-  Industry. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary       actions.

7-  Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8-  Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty."

9-  Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve."

10- Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloths, or habitation."

11- Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable."

12- Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, 
        or the injury of your own or  another's peace or reputation."

13- Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

 Franklin did not try to work on them all at once. Instead, he would work on one and only one each week "leaving all others to their ordinary chance". While Franklin did not live completely by his virtues and by his own admission, he fell short of them many times, he believed the attempt made him a better man contributing greatly to his success and happiness, which is why in his autobiography, he devoted more pages to this plan than to any other single point; in his autobiography Franklin wrote, "I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the benefit.”

Thank You!

Tribute To Jonathan Livingston Seagull

The above photo by me (and enlarged several times) is of White Cheeked Tern and not of Seagulls.  I have been toying around with the idea of writing a few lines about Jonathan Livingston Seagull by the creative genius, Richard Bach for some time. One of the sweetest books I came across and enjoyed reading over & over again so much. Over the years I may have bought four of five copies of this spiritual and philosophical novella, the latest copy was for my daughter. The others were borrowed by friends and perhaps their friends borrowed from them! Who knows? This cycle might be going on as I write this ;-). Fine with me if they are not collecting dust!

Since I have been using photos shot by me in this blog, I desperately wanted to shoot a seagull, but the species the famous writer Richard Bach uses as a metaphor in his famous book is uncommon in Maldives. Let me use this image of our Gaadhooni or White Cheeked Tern for the time being. (Till I get to a bona fide photograph of one)

Richard Bach is 75+ as I write this, but he was a robust young man of 34 when he surprised the publishing world with a book about a seagull that wanted to explore flying! Publishers are not of the romantic brood or breed, but hardcore, thick-skinned unsmiling businessmen! And in the West everyone knows that gulls are scavengers, opportunists and have little or no ‘table manners’. No wonder when Bach sent out his manuscript, eighteen publishers rejected what later turned out to be a publishing phenomenon!  This thought-provoking little book sold more than a million copies in the first year (1970) alone and broke all hardcover sales records since Gone With The Wind written by Margaret Mitchell the same year Richard Bach was born! (Talk of coincidences!)

Born in Illinois USA, his whole life has been about flying, writting about flying, or around planes and gliders and para gliders which, he says is the closest to actual flying. Richard Bach claims to be a direct descendant of Johann Sebastian Bach, the seventeenth century legendary German composer who is perhaps one of the greatest composers of music of all time.

Another favourite of mine is Richard Bach’s “The Bridge Across Forever” in which he writes about how he met his 2^nd wife, Leslie Parrish and his concept of soul mates! (If you are of the romantic type, pls do read this!)

“JLS” contained fewer than 10,000 words & I have written over 444, but no publisher will buy this at 4.5% price of Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach! Life is not fair eh?

Thanks!

Tribute to Hope

When you read Greek Mythology one thing is sure, there will never be a boring moment. We may not agree with them today, but centuries later, their illustrious imagination still keeps us dumbfounded!

According to ancient Greek mythology when the first woman on this earth was made of water and clay by order of Zeus the supreme ruler of all Greek Gods . This first woman was to be gifted with a talent or a quality of each & every single Greek God  (and they had plenty) . Thus she was named Pandora which roughly means ‘who is gifted with all’. Among her many qualities & talents were beauty, music, persuasion and also curiosity.

Pandora was also given a jar with everything evil in it. (it is said a sixteenth century mistranslation of the Greek word ‘pithos’ which is a large jar, as a ‘box’ changed  what should have been Pandora’s Jar into the now famous ‘Pandora’s Box’) she was given this jar and ordered not to open it under any circumstance. But remember this beautiful lady was also given the gift of curiosity! She could not resist her curiosity or as they say, her curiosity got the better of her!

As she opened the lid of the jar (or box) everything in the jar (well, almost everything) escaped from this confinement.! Out flew every kind of disease and sickness, hate and envy, and all the bad emotions that never experienced freedom before!! Pandora slammed the lid close, but it was too late! Everything evil was already out of the box. They flew away, out into the world.

Deep in her misery, Pandora heard one last creature in the jar, pleading to be out! “My name is Hope.”  What could be worse that what has already happened?  Pandora in her total despair, opened the jar one last time and let the sweet little creature out! With a nod of thanks for being set free, Hope flew out into the world, a world that now held Envy, Crime, Hate, and Disease – and also Hope.

It is hope that keeps us going, that gives us the courage to face sicknesses, uncertain future and what gives us the strength to face new worlds and frontiers.  We marry our spouses, face new ventures, go to foreign countries or learn new skills.

The famed English poet, novelist & lexicographer (A Dictionary Of The English Language) Samuel Johnson so eloquently said " A second marriage is the triumph of Hope over Experience" !

Tribute To The Hibiscus

The Hibiscus ( rosa-sinensis)  which literally means “Chinese rose” most commonly known as the "shoe flower" is a native of Asia, specifically China, India and the Pacific. It is called "shoe flower" because the flowers were traditionally used to polish shoes in Jamaica and some Asian & African countries.

Hibiscus tea is made from the (sepals) of the Hibiscus sabdariffa flower, an herbal tea consumed both hot and cold by people around the world..   Perhaps this is the reason we in the Maldives call this beautiful flower"  އިމާ ސަ” ( Tea Flower) . According to what I heard, some of those who went to Egypt learned to make this herbal tea here by drying the petals and sepals of this flower. Since they must be from the Nobility, perhaps the name caught on and the flower got a new name. It is likely it was known by a different name till this new name became a household one!

While in Egypt I came to love what the Egyptians called Karkade’. Later I learnt that this herbal drink served chilled in Summer and hot in Winter is very popular in the neighbouring countries too, especially in the Sudan. It is said that Hibiscus from Upper Egypt (in Egypt,this is the South ) and Sudan is highly prized in both countries. This drink is said to have been a preferred drink of the Pharaohs. In Egypt and Sudan wedding celebrations are traditionally toasted with a glass of hibiscus tea. Even now on hot Summer days typical street in downtown Cairo one can find many vendors and open-air cafés selling  karkadé  .

This is also the National Flower of Malaysia. The word bunga in Malay means "flower", whilst raya in Malay means "big" or "grand". The hibiscus is literally known as the "big flower" in Malay. The flower can be found imprinted on the notes and coins of the Malaysian Ringgit. Hibiscus flower preparations are used for hair care. The flowers themselves are edible and are used in salads in many Pacific Islands.

A flower to decorate girls’ hair, to shine shoes, to lower blood pressure, to add luster to your hair, to decorate your salad and a fine beverage for hot days and cool nights.  The late dictator who exaggerated everything beyond proportion must have forgotten to call this " Mother of All Flowers" ! ;-) 
Thank You!

Tribute To Asia Tsunami Victims

This is the monument we in the Maldives erected as a memorial to the lives lost in that day. A day time stood still and it was only 9.25am for the rest of this very long and fateful day! Everyone touched by this life defining moment will never forget where he or she was at 9.25 am of December 26th 2004!


This design of the memorial represents different aspects of the 2004 Tsunami in the Maldives. Steel balls symbolise the country's twenty atolls. The upwards motion of the design signifies the rising of the waters. The core of the memorial consists of vertical iron rods; each one representing a life lost. To the families of the people presumed missing   or dead, their relatives will never be represented as statistics, but with fondest of memories and sadness over the lost hopes and dreams.  Perhaps the tiniest and most vulnerable target of this devastating behemoth of a tidal wave, Maldives lost 82 lives and 26 are still presumed missing. Displaced people from different islands totaled 8352 and over twelve thousand people were homeless.  Seven years later still we have families living in ‘temporary ‘shelters.   May we never see such a day again.  So frightening was the time (9.25 am ) we still  shudder to think of that beautiful morning which became the most unforgettable day of our lives!

According to National Geographic and other reputable scientific journals, the shifting of the earth’s plates in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004 caused a rupture more than 600 miles long, displacing the seafloor above the rupture by perhaps 10 yards horizontally and several yards vertically. That doesn't sound like much, but the trillions of tons of rock that were moved along hundreds of miles caused the planet to shudder with the largest magnitude earthquake in 40 years.

Within hours of the earthquake, killer waves radiating from the epicenter slammed into the coastline of 11 Indian Ocean countries, damaging countries from Indonesia to East Africa.

 By the end of the day of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, it had already killed 150,000 people. The final death toll was 283,000.

The Indian Ocean tsunami traveled as far as 3,000 miles to Africa and still arrived with sufficient force to kill people and destroy property.

Many of us still want to believe that the Tsunami was a curse sent to punish some evil people.  Let us not blame an already grieving people by adding insult to the injury, as they say. In hard times we are expected to do what we can and stop judging and blaming the bereaved.

Thank You.

Tribute To Flying Fish

It must be quite an exhilarating sight  to see for the first few times,  a flying fish break the surface of the sea on calm days and dart at very high speeds and fly over to a safe distance far from us noisy intruders and once again dive headlong with a minimum splash!

The dive would have appealed to springboard divers like Greg Louganis and the streamlined body of this extremely Artful Dodger had been studied by flying enthusiasts in the early days of the aero plane.  The powerful tail and the elongated pectoral fins help the fish take off and actually fly for almost 40 or so seconds and up to about 150 feet!

Till the crew of Japan’s NHK recorded on film a flight of 45 seconds, the record for duration of flight for this aerial fish was 42 second! In the last few days I have watched over a hundred such short flights and seen these acrobats turn in mid air and change course! But getting an acceptable standard of a photo of one of these shy fish is almost impossible when your boat is going at 30 kilometers and the fish is going at 50 and in the opposite direction! You get almost ten seconds to hold the camera loosely to minimise camera shake and yet firm enough not to drop it also in the breakneck speed,  frame, focus and shoot! If you lose that first ten seconds or so, the fish is beyond ‘reach’ of your normal lens but still going on steady just a few feet off the surface of the blue vastness!

The learned  ancient Greeks who gave unpronounceable ‘scientific’ names to everything mistakenly thought that the flying fish left the sea to sleep on land, and thus named this delightful fish "Exocoetidae" which literally means ‘sleeping outside bed’ !

Many of our tiny islands have been blessed with showers of the flying fish at certain times of the year. Islanders just grab what they can from their homes and run to the beach and collect as many as they can when these sudden explosions of flying fish happen. It is believed they commit this apparent mass suicide to escape the mouths of the huge and extremely fast Yellow Fin Tuna! Out of the Tuna’s reach and into the hands of a thankful, humble people whose sustenance has always been from the sea around them!

Thank You.

Tribute to Munnaaru

It is always very interesting to hear or read what visiting foreigners say or write about our country or regarding one of our famous monuments or our culture. The minaret of the Friday Mosque being one of the most striking monuments in Male’, let us read what one Englishman wrote when he first saw the MUNNAARU.

In his book “Two Thousand Isles - A Short Account of the People, History and Customs of the Maldive Archipelago” T W Hockly wrote in vivid details on the famous icon’s first impression on him. The year was 1926 and this is what the English gentleman wrote:

“The minaret which appears on the Maldivian stamp is rather exceptional and of a kind I had never seen before. It is a large, round, white tower about fifty feet in height. On top of this a tower of smaller diameter which is superimposed on the lower one like the tier of a wedding cake”

The stamp he was referring to was the first Maldive stamp with a drawing of this very Maldivian monument. According to our first President Mohamed Amin Didi, Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar built this minaret in 1085 Hegira, or around 1674 AD. (Almost a century before the American Independence!) The Sultan also appointed a Muezzin to call for prayers five times a day and was paid from the Government coffers. The Minaret was completed in the year 27^th of his long reign. And in 1324 H (around 1906 AD) Sultan Mohamed Shamsuddeen renovated the Munnaru and replaced the coir ropes which were used to bind the Munnaru with huge brass sheets as reinforcements. Six such brass belts on the lower section and two on the top part were used.

Even today, almost 337 years later this historic monument commands our respect and admiration and our visitors certainly look upon it in wonderment!

Tribute To Professor Harry Eng

I have always been fascinated with ships in bottles and wanted to try my skills with this amazing hobby. In my preparations and in the process of encouraging myself to plunge into this fascinating world of bottles and ships with tall masts and a score of sails all inside a small bottle, I came across something equally intriguing! The famous Impossible Bottles! The bottle is all right, what is seemingly impossible is the relatively large items that can be seen undamaged or re arranged inside a normal bottle.

A full deck of cards inside a normal olive oil or any glass bottle, is normal for those who pursue this unique hobby. The above is my version of an Impossible Bottle I made as a gift to my nephew.

I have constructed two wooden ladders, tied them at the top with strings so they would remain intact. Before putting the cork back I have inserted a wooden cross much larger than the neck of the bottle!

Professor Harry Eng, the Godfather of this art always gave the message “ THINK” in every bottle. So I also have shamelessly done that. His trademark and the wise word is glued from inside the bottle. “Sameer 2011” is glued from inside the bottle too!

Professor Harry Eng who popularized this hobby was a school teacher, former minister and elementary school teacher, educational consultant and magician.. He never messed with the bottle!

Harry Eng made some unbelievable bottles. Some claim he made more than 600. His signature was a knot in each bottle. Sometimes huge, sometimes small, but always bigger than the neck. The amazing Harry Eng died in June of 1996.

When friends scrutinise my humble endeavours, in imitating the great man, I assure them " No tricks, just smart thinking and old fashioned patience & dexterity"

Tribute To A Frenchman

When we see pictures of the Great Pyramids or The Sphinx at the Giza plateau just outside Cairo, or the amazing paintings and writings on hundreds of temples and on Granite Obelisks of Egypt, we forget a very important person! Who made all this possible? Because of whom can we understand today, what was written almost 5000 years ago? Who resurrected single handedly the history of a nation?

The Indus Valley and their great civilization is mind boggling, but mute! None can read what the Indus Valley scribes wrote millennia ago! We certainly can read what the Chinese wrote and there never was a period so dark that we could not read what the ancient calligraphers wrote in the Chinese language!

Hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians was a dead language for almost 4000 years until a young Frenchman by the name of Jean François Champollion (1790-1832) came to Egypt with Napoleon’s unusual ‘army’! This young Champollion after almost 20 years of hard, back breaking work deciphered this ancient language and laid the basis of what is known today as Egyptology!

It is easy to say that Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798. But never has a nation invaded another with this unusual and diverse teams of 167 scientists, members of the balloon corps, engineers, printers, geometers, astronomers, zoologists, botanists, artists (including painters, designers, sculptors and poets), mathematicians, economists, journalists, and so forth…

This tenacious Frenchman born on Dec. 23, 1790, has gone down in history as the man who succeeded in deciphering hieroglyphics, the ancient script of Egypt, on the Rosetta Stone, and numerous other documents. Yet, it was not merely a question of breaking a code, as one might imagine. Because of this single discovery, the ancient history of a mighty nation and a very important part of history was revealed.

Rosetta or in Arabic “Rasheed” is a small town on the Mediterranean about 45 kilometers from Alexandria. To this day the Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum after the British took the famous stone from the French in a war.

The only duplicated item in the huge Egyptian Museum today is a replica of this famous stone! The most important item in shining the light on Egypt is under a dim light in the British museum, well “protected” !