Prof. Bipan Chandra, apostle of secular values, passes away..

The SOWMEN MITTER Initiative for Language ENGLISH & Related Studies (SMILERS) mourns the passing away of Prof Bipan Chandra, one of India's pre-eminent historians and ardent crusader against distortion of History and a powerful voice against communalism at this time when an august body like the Indian Council of Historical Research may, for obvious reasons, be used to make us believe that the two epics - the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are events of History. His death at this crucial juncture means a great loss not only to the academia and cultivation of history as a discipline to seek out the truth, but also to the overall secular ethos of the Indian literati and society in general. We respectfully pay our homage to this secular soldier of Modern Indian History.

 http://smilersedu.blogspot.in/2014/08/condole.html

SMILERS mourns the passing away of U.R.Anantha Murthy

The SOWMEN MITTER Initiative for Language ENGLISH & Related Studies (SMILERS) mourns the passing away of U.R.Anantha Murthy, renowned writer and social activist. Ananthamurthy had created a style of writing with social relevance in Kannada which had a big impact on Indian literature.

A socialist by conviction, Ananthamurthy was a firm advocate of secular values, pluralist culture and social justice. In his death, the country has lost a public intellectual of great calibre.

The SMILERS conveys its heartfelt condolences to his wife, daughter and son.

Two tales of Jack London ..

"He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive."
--from The Call of the Wild (1903), by Jack London
Jack London’s two most beloved tales of survival in Alaska were inspired by his experiences in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush. Both novels grippingly dramatize the harshness of the natural world and what lies beneath the thin veneer of human civilization. The canine hero of The Call of the Wild is Buck, a pampered pet in California who is stolen and forced to be a sled dog in the Alaskan wilderness. There he suffers from the brutal extremes of nature and equally brutal treatment by a series of masters, until he learns to heed his long-buried instincts and turn his back on civilization. White Fang charts the reverse journey, as a fierce wolf-dog hybrid born in the wild is eventually tamed. White Fang is adopted as a cub by a band of Indians, but when their dogs reject him he grows up violent, defensive, and dangerous. Traded to a man who stages fights, he is forced to face dogs, wolves, and lynxes in gruesome battles to the death, until he is rescued by a gold miner who sets out to earn his trust. [Courtesy: Vintage Books]