Category: Essays

Man is a machine no doubt. He is a marvelous piece of work. The only difference is that man has got life and consciousness which machines don’t have. The machines are time-saving devices. They increase man’s life and, if properly used, they add comfort to man’s life. Such are innumerable electrical and electronic devices.However, when we use machines as labor-saving devices, we are also prone to cause unemployment on a large-scale. When one machine is used to do the jobs of a number of people, naturally, many hands will become surplus. So, this is the tendency of throwing the workers on the roads for which Gandhiji criticized machines, otherwise he was not opposed to them. Let us have a look at his own words.“I am not fighting machinery as such…

Coins have been in use since long. Previously there were pice, annas, two anna pieces, four anna pieces, eight anna pieces and rupee. Later came two rupee coins. I was introduced only a few years ago. I’m comparatively a heavy coin.I’m round in shape with a double layer of metal. On one side, I’ve the three-lion mark with the words India and on the other, the bold figure 5 with the word rupees in English and in Hindi and the year of my coinage. As I came out of the mint, I was brand new. First, I was sent into a bank. The first customer who got me was very happy. He kept it in his cash box and then gave it away to a shopkeeper.The shopkeeper gave me to…

Scientific and archaeological discoveries tell us that man has probably emerged from animals through the process of evolution. ‘The Origin of Species’, the world famous work by Darwin, specifically highlights this point, may be more theoretically and philosophically than scientifically.If we look at the human body carefully, we learn that even at present man is not much different from animals in various aspects. At best, he is an evolved animal. The animals are like human beings in many respects. They have feelings like us. They feel heat and cold and pain like us. They love, hate and fear like human beings. They do not have a developed brain.Hence, probably they cannot think. The toughest thing against them is that if they cannot speak and express their views. If they could…

I was born in a stable a few years ago. I was able to walk just after my birth. My mother was very loving to me. She took great care of me. As I grew up, I was allowed to move a few steps outside the stable.Slowly, these steps were allowed farther and farther from of the stable. In this venture, my master, a large burly man, also helped me a lot. My mother was taken out to graze. Then I was also allowed to accompany her. I tried my best to keep close to her. One day, I was sold to my present master. He yoked me to a tonga after getting my hoofs nailed. ADVERTISEMENTS: He took me to several places. Then he started plying me regularly from…

This is the last line in the famous “Ode to the West Wind” written by the renowned Romantic Poet, P.B. Shelley. Shelley was an optimist and despite his depiction of the prevailing gloom, he believed in the final triumph of a glorious future for mankind. In his poem “Hellas,” he says,“The world’s great age begins anew.”Even Tennyson, the representative poet of the Victorian age, says, ADVERTISEMENTS: “Ring out the old, ring in the new.”The same poet says,“Old order changed, yielding place to new.”John Keats, another Romantic poet and a contemporary of Shelley, says, ADVERTISEMENTS: “There is budding morrow in every midnight.”Thus, most of the poets and thinkers agree that darkness and gloom cannot last forever. Even if one takes the meaning of Shelley’s line literally, we have to realize in…

It is said that these days, more people die of accidents on the roads than of any diseases. Some of the accidents on the roads take place because of mechanical failure of vehicles. But in most cases the fault lies with human beings who drive these vehicles.A person can make some error while-making a turn or passing through a crossing and that results in accident of some magnitude, minor or major. Such instances are not many. Most often the cause of an accident is rash driving on the part of the driver of one vehicle or the drivers of both the vehicles that collide. Rash driving some time may not cause an accident by collision.The driver may lose control over the brakes and the vehicle may just slip away downwards…

If I were a cloud, I would be one of the benevolent kinds. I mean I wouldn’t discriminate between places. I would rain equally on all places irrespective of the terrain. That may seem strange and even impossible.It is because a cloud is not an independent agent of nature. It is guided, controlled and even constrained, by laws of nature. The cloud is formed when the summer heat forces water in seas and oceans to evaporate and rise and float in the sky. The cloud keeps floating in the sky till it is compelled by certain reasons to rain.This happens when it strikes a high mountain. This also happens when coolness in temperature in the atmosphere is caused by the abundance of trees, etc. Thus, I can rain only if…

Water is called “the elixir of life”. This is, indeed, the name which the Indian Nobel Laureate, C. V. Raman, has given it in his celebrated essay of the same name. The earth comprises two thirds of water and one third of land. Water is essential for all living beings. There can be no life without water.Human beings, animals and all kinds of plants all need water. Much of the beauty of the earth is because of the presence of plenty of water on it. The main sources of water are rain, rivers, lakes and underground water, besides seas and oceans which are the main store-houses of water. Rains are caused by clouds. This rain helps the forests to grow which in turn also cause rain. Rain also feeds the…

It is sometimes said, ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride them.’ I fully agree with those who say this. Still, I do not think anything wrong if I were to run the horses of my imagination.Accordingly, I’m in a mood to imagine myself a bird. Hence, I want to contemplate how I would look and feel and behave if I were a bird. Naturally, if I were a bird, I’d have a small body which would be well-equipped with soft wings and feathers like every bird. I do not here want to go into the intricacies of difference in wings and feathers of various kinds of birds.It is because I do not want to divide the world of birds on any pretext like the artificial division among human beings…

AIDS is a deadly disease for which so far no foolproof treatment has been discovered. Of course, great research is going on in this field. It is said that a vaccine has now been discovered but how far it is successful, is still doubtful. But its efficacy in saving the new born babies is said to have been proved to an acceptable measure.The best safeguard against this devastating disease is the precautions that we should take and bear in mind. The first reason how a man gets AIDS is through infected blood transfused into his body. So, if we need transfusion of blood for any reason, we should make sure that it is AIDS free and has conclusively been tested as such. In is quite understandable that we should use…