ENJOYING TEACHING - JOKE

RHYMING ILLUSTRATED 

If I don't come to you and steal a kiss,

This paltry world will offer me no bliss.

There is no other joy that it can give.

Your love alone can make me glad I live.

Your glances flood the world with light sublime

So that all secrets it contains I may divine.

I owe my noblest feelings to that light, 

Imbuing all my life with pure delight.

My loving dreams soar higher than the skies.

My guiding stars are your beloved eyes.

   Translated by Dorian Rottenberg

(From AZERBAIJANIAN POETRY, Progress Publishers, Moscow.)

Excellent rhyming. Terrific climax.

Kishalay Sinha [G] 

FUNNY INTERVIEW 

Nicole Krauss (53:19)/Brombergs Bokforlag (YouTube)

Funny interview. German* publisher lady has a very funny English accent. The lady author is incomprehensible. What is she talking about?!! I guess all sweet s. females want to contact Him - double entendre?

* I am not sure if the lady publisher is German, Swedish, Jewish. Does that matter? All females are the same coz all females have the same ... STOP!

NOTE FOR NEEDLESSLY JEALOUS FEMALE RIVALS: I have not read the author at all. In fact I never heard of her before. I just happened to watch this YouTube video out of curiosity as I watch lots of other YouTube videos only because these videos were shown on My smartphone screen by some computer algorithm during My search! My mentioning any female author does not mean of course that I am recommending any of her books which I have not even read! This should be great relief for many. 

Kishalay Sinha [G] 

ENJOYING TEACHING 

And so, I was leaving for Kazan, to study at the university - no less!

The thought of University studies had been put into my head by a Gymnasium student, N. Yevreinov - a lovable youth, very handsome, with the tender eyes of a woman. He lived in an attic room in the same house with me. Seeing me often with a book under my arm, he grew so interested as to seek my acquaintance; and it was not long before he began to urge it upon me that I possessed an "extraordinary gift for learning." 

"Nature created you to further science," he declared, tossing his long hair back in graceful emphasis.

I did not yet know, then, that one might further science in the capacity of guinea pig; and Yevreinov made it so very clear that it was just such lads as I the universities were lacking. The memory of Lomonosov, of course, was evoked as a shining example. In Kazan, Yevreinov said, I would stay with him, studying through the autumn and winter to master the Gymnasium programme. Then I would take "some few" examinations - that was just how he put it: "some few"; the University would grant me a scholarship; and in five years or so I would be a "learned man." It was all very simple; for Yevreinov was nineteen, and his heart was kind.

He passed his examinations and left. Some two months later, I followed...

And there I was, in the semi-Tatar city.

The Yevreinovs - mother and two sons - lived on a miserly pension. From my first days in their home, I perceived the tragic melancholy with which the drab little widow, returning from the market, would lay out her purchases on the kitchen table and ponder her difficult problem: how to turn a few small bits of inferior meat into good and sufficient food for three healthy boys - not to speak of herself.

She spoke very little. Her grey eyes were set in the meek and hopeless obstinacy of a work horse that has spent its strength to the last. Dragging its cart uphill, the poor horse knows that it can never make the top; yet still it pulls its load.

One morning, three or four days after my arrival, I was helping her with some vegetables in the kitchen. The boys were still asleep. Quietly, warily, she asked me:

"What have you come to town for?"

"To study. At the University." 

Her eyebrows slowly lifted, crinkling her sallow forehead. Her knife slipped, and gashed her finger. Sucking the wound, she sank on to a chair, but at once sprang up again, with a sharp:

"Ah, the devil!"

When she had tied up her finger with a handkerchief, she said approvingly:

"You peel potatoes well."

I should think I peeled them well! I told her about my work on the river boat. She asked:

"Do you think that's sufficient preparation for entering the University?"

In those days I had but little conception of humour. I took her question seriously, and explained to her the sequence of measures as a result of which the doors to the temple of learning were to open before me.

She sighed:

"Ah, Nikolai, Nikolai!"

Just at this point, Nikolai came into the kitchen to wash - sleepy, tousleheaded, and, as always, in excellent spirits. 

"Some meat patties would be nice, Mother," he said. 

"Yes, they would," the mother agreed.

Anxious to display my erudition in the culinary arts, I remarked that the meat was not good enough for patties, and, besides, that there was not enough of it.

At this Varvara Ivanovna became very angry, and directed at me a few such forceful words that my very ears flushed and seemed to grow. Flinging down the bunch of carrots she had been washing, she left the kitchen. Nikolai winked at me, and explained:

"She's in a mood."

Settling down comfortably on a bench, he informed me that women, generally, were more nervous than men, such being the female make-up, as had been incontestably established by a certain eminent scientist - in Switzerland, if I remember correctly. An Englishman, one John Stuart Mill, had also had something to say on this subject.

Nikolai greatly enjoyed the process of teaching me, and seized on every opportunity that offered for stuffing into my brain one or another essential item, ignorance of which must surely make life impossible. I would drink in his words eagerly; and after a while Foucault, de la Roche-foucauld, and de la Rochejaquelein would merge, in my mind, into one entity, and I would be quite unable to recall whether it was Lavoisier who had beheaded Dumouriez, or the other way around. The kindly youth was sincerely determined to "make someone" of me. He promised it confidently. But - he lacked the time and the proper conditions for systematic guidance of my education. Blinded by the egoism and thoughtlessness of youth, he did not see how his mother had to strain and shift to make ends meet. Still less was this noticed by his brother, a slow, untalkative schoolboy. But I had long been adept in the intricate conjury of kitchen chemistry and economics. I clearly perceived the desperate strivings of this woman, daily compelled to fool her children's stomachs and to feed a young stranger of unprepossessing appearance and uncouth manners. Naturally enough, every crumb of bread I swallowed here weighed heavily on my conscience. I began to search for work. Leaving the house in the early morning, I would stay away until I was sure dinner was over. I soon began to understand that the University was an empty dream; that I would have done more wisely to run away to Persia. This, after picturing myself as a grey-bearded wizard, creator of means for growing wheat and rye with kernels the size of apples, and potatoes that would weigh a pood apiece - not to speak of numerous other benefactions for this earth, on which life was so confoundedly difficult, difficult not only for me.

(From M. Gorky: "MY UNIVERSITIES", third in the trilogy (1) "CHILDHOOD", (2) "MY APPRENTICESHIP", (3) "MY UNIVERSITIES", all translated from the Russian by Margaret Wettlin, Progress Publishers, Moscow.)

Kishalay Sinha [G]

JOKE 

Before a Pakistan vs. India cricket match, which is always a war-like affair rousing the fierce passions of supporters on both sides, a reporter asked Mother Teresa which side she expected to win. Mother Teresa said: "I will pray for both."

Kishalay Sinha [G]