Saturday 24 December 2011

HAPPY BITHDAY MY QUEEN



Some like sunday some like monday, but i like your birthday.happy birthday my dear ......
Sending birthday blessings filled with love and peace and joy wishing sweetest things happen right before your eyes.
              When god made u he was having a good day! coz ur so special , so kindhearted , that its difficult 2 tell in words ... happy b irthday


M0ney is short. times are hard. i just txt yu yu'r birthday gift. happy birthday!!



God made the sun , the earth , themoon ,the stars , but love he could not make another one when he made a love like you . happy birthday dolly


Love and death is unpredictable, u never know whe its gonna come and snatch your breath....!

I have a simple calculation on how long we will be friends. count the stars in heaven+sand on shore multipled by the heartbeats = forever!




If some1 asks me what is friendship, then "i would sit next 2 u, pull u all close 2 me, put my arms around u n say proudly, this is friendship......

Baby happy birthday to hope u will always have a good health, more career in life..and hope that more birthdays to come..always take care and i love u so much. chinnu



A smile is a curve that sets everything straight and wipes wrinkle away hope u share a lots and receive a lots 4 days 2 come happy birthday

Da stars wishes u,da brightness of moon wishes u,da sunshine wishes u,da waves wishes u,da flowers wishes u,da morning wishes u,wish wishes u last but not da least a heartless wishes u ""happy birth day""

          God think the world is beautiful then he born u many more happy returns of the day my queen

Today is a day of celebration. why? because, years ago on the same day, god sent me my flesh and bone conscience. wishing my friendly inner voice a very happy birthday.

For u i am always here to stay,each year to wish  happiest .May god bless you with his choicest blessing my honey bunny.....take care...!!!!!

Happy birth day, on your special day a wish from me to say... thank you... for all your caring ways! may you have a day that's as wonderful as you. my cute .......


Wednesday 21 December 2011

history of Wang Lin

Wang Lin



Born: Mar 30, 1989 in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province, China.
Height: 174cm

Country: China 
Division: Badminton Women's Single



Major Achievements

The highest world ranking: 1
2006 China Badminton Masters champion
2008 Danish Open badminton singles title2008 French Open women's singles badminton champion
2009 World Championships women's singles badminton in India second runner-up
2009 People's Republic in the Eleventh National Games champion
2010 France World Badminton Championships singles title



World champion Wang Lin will miss the Russian Open Grand Prix as she has not recovered from a knee injury.




The Chinese shuttler, who won the world title in Paris last August, had been out of action for seven months after injuring her anterior cruciate at the China Masters in September, in her first match as world champion.

She made her comeback at the Yonex Australia Open Grand Prix Gold two months ago and stunned everyone by reaching the semi-finals.

She then reached the quarter-finals of the Yonex Sunrise Malaysia Open Grand Prix Gold in May. Two weeks ago, she qualified for the main draw of the Li Ning Singapore Open, but injured her knee while playing compatriot and world No.1 Wang Shixiang in the second round.

Now ranked No 44 in the world, Wang Lin would have been among the top draws in the tournament, which is devoid of the top badminton stars, who are now all busy preparing for this year’s Yonex BWF World Badminton Championships in London from August 8-14.

In her absence, the star attractions will be Japan’s Sayaka Sato (above), and Ai Goto, who are seeded first and second respectively, although the firm favourite has got to be China’s third seed Lu Lan.

The Badminton Asia Championship (BAC) silver medallist, who was world champion in 2009, has had her fair share of injury problems as well, but has now firmly re-established herself on the world circuit and is currently ranked 26 in the world.

In the men’s draw, Finland’s Ville Lang is the top seed but he can expect some of China’s latest youngsters to give him a fight.

Japanese pairs dominate the doubles competition with their men’s and mixed doubles pairings earning the top seedings.

Naoki Kawamae-Shoji Sato and Hiroyuki Endo-Kenichi Hayakawa are expected to contest the men’s doubles final after being named the first and second seeds respectively.

Endo-Hayakawa have the slight edge over their higher ranked compatriots after beating them 21-17, 21-18 to win the Yonex Australia Open Grand Prix Gold in April.


In the mixed doubles, Shintaro Ikeda and the glamorous Reiko Shiota (left), are the top seeds, but they are expected to have a tough fight on their hands from second seeded Russians Alexandr Nikolaenko-Valeri Sorokina.
Sorokina will also play in the women’s doubles where she and partner Nina Vislova give Russia their only top seeding in the competition.

Once again, it is another Japanese pair, Matsutomo Misaki-Ayaka Takahashi, who will be their main stumbling blocks.

Meanwhile, two North Korean shuttlers made it to the main draw of the women’s singles on Tuesday.

O Ye Gyong and Kim Un Sun joined Russians Polina Makkoveeva and Maria Parkhomenko in Wednesday’s main draw.


history of Wang Shixian shettle player of china

wang shixian


 His is a Chinese name; the family name is Wang (王).
1 women's singles player.
Born: Feb 13, 1990 in Suzhou city, Jiangsu province, China.
Height: 168cmHeight 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in)
Weight 60 kg (130 lb; 9.4 st)
Country China
Handedness Right
Coach Zhang Ning

Division: Badminton Women's Single

Major Achievements
2009 Malaysian Open Grand Prix Gold Champion
2009 China Masters Badminton Singles Champion
2010 Korea Open Champion
2010 Swiss Open Champion
2010 Uber Cup 23th World Women's Team Championship runner-up
2010 Guangzhou Asian Games Champion
2010 China Open Badminton Women's Singles runner-up
2010 BWF Super Series Finals Champion
2011 Malaysian Open Champion
2011 BWF Super Series Korea Open women's singles runner-up


Career


Wang Shixian was admitted into Chinese Junior National Team in 2005 and was soon promoted to the second-level adult team a year later. But she got the chance to compete in international stages only in 2009, after being transformed to the first-level adult team.

2007

Wang Shixian competed in the World Junior Championship but lost to a Korean player in the final.
[edit]
2009

Early in this year, she won her first Super Series title in Malaysia open, beating her teammate, Wang Xin. In the China Masters, Wang Shixian beat a series of strong rivals, including her teammate Jiang Yanjiao and Malaysian single player Wong Mew Choo. She also helped to win the team gold for the Jiangsu Province in the 11th China National Games but was beaten in the final of the women's singles by Wang Lin.

2010

Wang Shixian won gold at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou beating Wang Xin.

2011

Wang Shixian won the first two titles competed in the year which is the Super Series Final beating Bae Youn-joo and the Malaysia Open beating Wang Yihan. Wang Shixian also won the All England Open beating Eriko Hirose in the final.



Personal life



Wang Shixian told the media that she liked to listen to CDs and tasting different kinds of food in her spare time.





Wednesday 14 September 2011


                                                       SELENA GOMEZ BIOGRAPHY

Date of Birth22 July 1992, Grand Prairie, Texas, USA Birth Name Selena Marie Gomez   Nickname
Selly Selenita Conchita Height
 5' 6" (1.68 m)





                                                                                   Mini Biography

Selena Marie Gomez was born to Mandy Cornett and Ricardo Gomez on July 22, 1992. At a young age, she moved from New York to Grand Prairie, Texas. Giving birth to Selena at 16, her mom Mandy recalls living "paycheck-to-paycheck". Selena started out on "Barney & Friends" (1992) as "Gianna" in 2001 where she really discovered her talent. Unfortunately, they dropped her from the series after just two years. In 2003, she had a very small role in the movie Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) and a bit part in 2005 when she played "Julie" in Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial by Fire (2005) (TV) with Mitchel Musso and in 2006 as "Emily Grace Garcia" in Brain Zapped (2006) (TV) when she recorded a song for the movie. She she guest starred as "Gwen" in "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" (2005) and as Hannah's rival, the 'evil' "Mikayla", in "Hannah Montana" (2006). Selena's amazing talent landed her roles in two Disney series, both spin-offs. Unfortunately, neither show was picked up until 2007 when she got the role of "Alex Russo" in the magical series "Wizards of Waverly Place" (2007) which she auditioned for three times. In March 2008, she made her first animated movie Horton Hears a Who! (2008) and later starred in Another Cinderella Story (2008) (V) with Disney Channel star Drew Seeley for ABC Family. Her two Disney Channel Original Movies Princess Protection Program (2009) (TV), with real-life BFF Demi Lovato, and Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie (2009) (TV) will both air Summer 2009.
Selena Gomez was born and raised in Grand Prairie, Texas. Her mother Amanda [Commonly known as Mandy] Cornett is an Italian woman from Dallas, Texas and her father Ricardo Gomez is from New Mexico. Mommy Mandy gave birth to Selena at 16, and her parents divorced in 1997. Nearly 10 years later, she was remarried to Brian Teefy. Selena is best known for her role as "Alex Russo" in the show, "Wizards of Waverly Place" (2007), and as "Mary" in Another Cinderella Story (2008) (V). Selena signed a record deal with Hollywood Records just before her 16th birthday and is recording an album, due out Summer of 2009.
Personal Quotes

Be yourself always, there's no one better!

I was never the girl who thought I need to make sure I look like all the other girls. I think you look best when you stand out.

[on Having Her Own Band] I'm going to be in a band - no Selena Gomez stuff. I'm not going to be a solo artist. I think that I don't want my name attached to it. I basically want to make music that is fun and that parents and kids can jump around to and have a good time to.

I wanted to be like my friends. I hung out with girls who had blue eyes and blond hair and I thought, 'I want to look like them!'

[on declaring she will remain a virgin until marriage] I said, 'Dad, I want a promise ring.' He went to the church and got it blessed. He actually used me as an example for other kids. I'm going to keep my promise to myself, to my family and to God.

[on wearing a purity ring] I've had my ring since I was 12 years old. But for me it's not something I want to go around saying, 'Hey, look what I have.' It's a promise I made to myself and God. I think some people misinterpret that as a trend and think everyone's getting one.

[on reports that she and friend, Demi Lovato had a feud] You can't care (about reports like that), It's really toxic what they do to the girls in the industry.

[on Lindsay Lohan and her time in rehab] I don't think anybody should be mean because you never understand what's someone is going through. And it is partly (this) business, because it is crazy and hectic. So I think that nobody should be rude. If this were a normal person, you wouldn't be so judgmental. I feel like people shouldn't judge as much, they should give their sympathy.

[on revealing she would prefer to date someone who is not famous] You kind of can't help who you'll fall in love with. I'd date someone who isn't in the business in a heartbeat.

I love Katy Perry! She gave me a song for my second album.
Everyone wants songs written by Katy Perry. I asked her and she was so nice - she just said, 'Yeah, you can have it.' She was very kind.
I don't actually like dates. I get awkward as I never know what to do.
For me, the person that I really admire because they came from this Disney world would be Shia LaBeouf. He had his own show on Disney Channel. He was really funny and I loved his show. Then he started to do films. Now he is doing really great films and he is respected as an actor. I really like him a lot as an actor. I think he is cute, too, so that helps. I feel that I can relate to him the most.
I'm going to be Katy Perry for Halloween. I'm going to have the blue hair and the ice cream outfit she did. It's going to be awesome.
[on working with Katy Perry] It is so much fun. It's very soulful and it's kind of got her flair mixed in with my dance kind-of-a-little techno vibe. So it was really amazing and I really loved it. I was extremely honored, cause I'm a huge fan of hers.
[on Justin Bieber] I love Justin. When he first started to come over from Canada his manager contacted me and he just said that he would like to meet me and he was just such a good kid.
[on Demi Lovato] I love her. I completely love her and her whole family to death. I will always talk extremely highly of her and I always have.
I love Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Katy Perry. They are all about being themselves and I love that.
(on going to her firs concert - a Britney Spears show) We were in the nosebleeds with my cousin. I got the T-shirt and glow sticks and I just remember it being the highlight of my life! I felt like I was on cloud nine!
(on doing a Britney Spears tribute for her concert) We are working on a Britney tribute, which I'm so stoked about, 'cause I love Britney. I was like, 'I have to do it.' I wanna do a mash-up of all her songs and just go for it. We're gonna do a little tribute. We're gonna do her hits, ' ... Baby One More Time,' and then I think we're going to try to incorporate 'Toxic' and that phase. And then we might do some of her recent, new stuff.
(on performing songs from Britney Spears during a tribute concert) I'm not going to even touch Britney! She's so good. I wouldn't want to butcher it. I'm just going to pay tribute to her! I'm gonna say she's awesome.
(On Rebecca Black's song "Friday") I love it! Total guilty pleasure! I totally admire her, I think it's awesome that she hasn't taken that downward spiral that other child stars have taken.
[on her boyfriend, Justin Bieber] Yeah, he is romantic. He gave me a bottle of his new perfume the other day. (2011)




Sunday 14 August 2011

CARTOONS HISTORY

cartoons i love cartoons

The History of the Cartoon
I.

Introduction


Cartoon (humorous drawing), pictorial sketch or caricature, by implication humorous or satirical, and usually published in a newspaper, magazine, or periodical. In recent years the word has mostly been used to describe three specific kinds of drawing. These are the political, or editorial, cartoon—the main daily or weekly pictorial comment in a newspaper or magazine, referring to a current political or social issue; the pocket cartoon—a single-column drawing on a topical subject, often on the front page of a newspaper; and the single-joke, or gag, cartoon, which relies for its effect on amusing social commentary or wordplay.

Before the introduction of the term “cartoon” in its modern sense in the 19th century, satirical and humorous drawings of all kinds were referred to as caricatures. Today “caricature” is used mostly to refer to distorted portraiture that emphasizes the characteristic traits of an individual; it may either stand on its own or form part of a cartoon. Beyond these central forms, the term “cartoon” has also been applied to comics, television and film animation, multi-frame jokes published in newspapers, continuity strips, graphic novels, humorous advertising, humorous book and magazine illustrations, and satirical puppetry.

II.

The Origins of Cartoons


What may be seen as possibly the earliest political cartoon is an anonymous woodcut entitled Le Revers du Jeu des Suysses (The Other Side of the Swiss Game), produced in 1499. In this, the pope, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the kings of France and England can be seen playing cards while, under the table, a Swiss soldier stacks the decks in a satirical commentary on French ambitions in Italy (the support of elite Swiss soldiers was essential to France). At about the same time, Pope Alexander VI was depicted as a devil and in another drawing a Jesuit priest is given a wolf’s head. Perhaps the most memorable caricature of this period—and one exactly datable and attributable to a known artist—was an anti-Protestant woodcut by Erhard Schoen of 1521, showing the Devil playing a pair of bagpipes, the bellows of which are depicted as the head of Martin Luther.

A number of other artists of this period also produced heavily allegorical and often fantastical drawings which have resonances in the modern cartoon. However, it was in Italy at the hands of the Carracci family and others such as Pier Leone Ghezzi—the first artist to earn a living solely by this kind of work—that the modern cartoon can be said to have been moulded. It was also in Italy that these early caricaturas flourished, and almost uniquely so until collections of such drawings (especially those of Ghezzi) found their way across Europe, and Hogarth began his sequence of “modern moral subjects” in England in the 1730s.

III.

The 18th Century


Lord Byron is reputed to have said: “Ridicule is the only weapon the English climate cannot rust.” In the field of cartoons and caricature it could be argued with some justification that the English—or more properly the British—have often wielded the sharpest weapons of all.

The first British artist to excel in this area—for many the true founder of the modern cartoon in all its aspects, whether socio-political satire, caricature, or simple graphic humour—was William Hogarth. He was also the first artist to mass-produce his own work, in the form of engravings, for sale to the public. His satires on the follies and vices of his age—beginning with A Harlot’s Progress and The Rake’s Progress—were a great success and set the tone for all future work. However, Hogarth’s successors differed from him in two respects—they had their work reproduced by etching rather than engraving and they were more concerned with political propaganda and pictorial jokes than moral themes.

The London-based printer and publisher Arthur Pond produced a collection of European caricatures (including many by Ghezzi) in 1744 but, according to Horace Walpole, the first Briton to make satirical drawings of specific political figures was the amateur artist George, Marquis Townshend. However, Hogarth’s two most important successors in the 18th century were Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray.

IV.

The Early 19th Century


Rowlandson was primarily a social satirist and made numerous prints that commented on the manners and fashions of the day, or that depicted bawdy scenes. However, he is probably best known for his creation of what is perhaps the first cartoon character, Dr Syntax, in The Three Tours of Dr Syntax (1809, 1820, and 1821).

Though Rowlandson did in fact produce many fine political drawings (especially of Napoleon), it was James Gillray, with the support of the leading West End print-seller Mrs Hannah Humphrey (above whose shop he lived), who dominated the political field in this period. His attacks on Pitt, George III and George IV, the French Revolution, and Napoleon bore a savagery and passion that have only recently begun to reappear in the political cartoon.

The last of the really important British graphic satirists of the Georgian period (before France began to dominate the scene) was George Cruikshank. Working at first with his brother Robert in the Scourge, his illustrations to William Hone’s pamphlets attacking George IV forced the king to try to bribe him to tone down his work. He also produced a series called Monstrosities (1816-1829), mocking fashions, and was so popular that Sketches by Boz, which he illustrated, sold at first largely on the artist’s name rather than that of the then little-known writer Charles Dickens. However, in about 1847 he joined the Total Abstinence movement and his work lost its edge completely.

Other notable British artists of this period include William Heath (Paul Pry), who edited and illustrated the Northern Looking-Glass (1825-1826), the first caricature magazine in Europe; John Doyle (HB), the grandfather of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; and the gifted Robert Seymour, who was the main illustrator of Figaro in London (a precursor of Punch) and who produced seven plates for Dickens’s Pickwick Papers before his untimely death by suicide.

The technique of lithography, invented in 1798, gave artists the opportunity of drawing directly on to the printing surface and allowed a much wider range of textures and colours than was possible with etching or engraving (see Prints and Printmaking). Caricaturists were not slow to exploit the new medium. Foremost among them was the Frenchman Honoré Daumier, whose work dominated this period and who exerted enormous influence worldwide.

The early 19th century was also the era of the mass development of the press. Hitherto, humorous or satirical drawings had only appeared as individual works of art or as limited-edition prints—often hand-coloured—available only in specialist shops in large cities such as London. In the 19th century, however, with the advent of lithography and woodblock engraving, cartoons and caricatures began to appear in newspapers and magazines, which were widely disseminated and sometimes also used colour printing techniques.

In France the cartoonist Charles Philipon, generally acknowledged as the father of the modern humorous magazine, founded La Caricature in 1830. In its pages, he and Daumier, among others, mercilessly lampooned Louis-Philippe. On one occasion, Daumier drew him as Gargantua (the giant whose legendary exploits were popularized by Rabelais) sitting on a commode and Philipon himself once depicted him as a pear—the subsequent furore led to both artists being imprisoned. Then in 1832 Philipon began the less political but even more successful magazine LeCharivari, with contributions by Daumier, Paul Gavarni (under the pseudonym Guillaume-Sulpice Chevalier), Jean-Ignace-Isodire Grandville (under the pseudonym Gérard), and others. When in 1835 French censorship laws prevented direct attacks on individuals, the satirists took to using type-figures, Daumier’s characters Ratapoil and Robert Macaire being particularly noteworthy.

 Meanwhile, in Britain, the Northern Looking-Glass (which had been republished as a monthly sheet of caricatures by Thomas Maclean in 1830) paved the way for Gilbert à Beckett’s Figaro in London (1831), with its maxim that “Satire should, like polish’d razor keen / Wound with a touch that’s scarcely felt or seen”, and ultimately led to Henry Mayhew’s hugely successful magazine Punch: or the London Charivari (1841), modelled at first on Philipon’s journal (as reflected in its subtitle).


It was in a feature in this latter weekly magazine, two years after its foundation, that the word “cartoon”, in its modern sense of a humorous or satirical drawing, was first used. A competition had been announced for designs for frescos to decorate the walls of the new Houses of Parliament in Westminster (the old building had burnt down). When all the entries—which took the form of traditional cartoons, or templates of the kind used for fresco painting, tapestries, mosaics, and so forth—had arrived, an exhibition was held in 1843. Punch lampooned the show and at the same time drew attention to the plight of the city’s underprivileged masses in a series of six poignant drawings by its main artist, John Leech. The first of these, appropriately superscribed “Cartoon No. 1”, depicted a crowd of dishevelled people looking at the exhibition, with the caption “Shadow and Substance”. After the series ended, the word “cartoon” continued to be used for the magazine’s main weekly full-page topical drawing. Later, however, it became more widely used to describe humorous or satirical drawings in general and that sense has remained to this day.

                                                                                 V.

The Late 19th Century


The second half of the 19th century saw a flowering of first-class talent in cartoons and caricatures. In France—appearing in Le Rire (1894), Le Journal Amusant, and other publications—were Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Gaspard-Félix Tournachoy (under the pseudonym Nadar), André Gill (under the pseudonym Louis Gosset de Guines), Gustave Doré, and the Russian-born master of the caption-less drawing, Caran D’Ache (Emmanuel Poiré). Owing something in style to the German painter and poet Wilhelm Busch and others, the work of Caran D’Ache had considerable impact on the more open, less cross-hatched style of drawing that would come to characterize 20th-century cartoons, comic strips, and animation. A typical example of his histoires sans paroles (stories without words) is “The Cow and the Train”. This comprises seven almost identical full-face images of a cow standing in a field, seen, as it were, from the viewpoint of an invisible passenger in a train. Over the seven frames the cow’s eyes move from left to right as the train passes by and in the eighth frame it lowers its head and resumes grazing.

Elsewhere on the Continent, Virginio headed Il Fischietto in Italy and in Germany—working for such new magazines as Fliegende Blätter (1845), Kladderadatsch (1848), and Simplicissimus (1896)—were such accomplished artists as Eduard Thöny, Thomas Theodor Heine, Olaf Gulbransson, George Grosz, Karl Arnold, and Busch.

Britain, meanwhile, could boast, among others, John Leech, cover-designer of Punch, Richard Doyle, Linley Sambourne, and John Tenniel. Tenniel is perhaps best known for his illustrations to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, but he also drew over 2,000 cartoons for Punch, including the famous and much-parodied caption-less cartoon “Dropping the Pilot” that satirizes the sacking by Kaiser Wilhelm of his greatly respected chancellor Bismarck, who is depicted as a harbour pilot leaving the ship of state captained by Wilhelm. Another memorable cartoon of this period (and one that has given a phrase to the English language) is “The Curate’s Egg” by George Du Maurier. Here a curate dines with his bishop, who comments: “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad Egg, Mr Jones.” The curate meekly replies: “Oh no, my Lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent!”.

Many new magazines also appeared in Britain at this time, among them Strand Magazine, Fun, Judy, Pick-Me-Up (edited by the cartoonist Leonard Raven-Hill), Tomahawk, and Lika Joko. This latter was founded by Harry Furniss, who created the famous Pear’s Soap cartoon advertisement in which a bedraggled tramp seated at a desk is writing a testimonial for the product: “I used your soap two years ago; since then I have used no other”. Vanity Fair (1868) quickly became renowned for its full-page, full-colour chromolithographic caricatures of celebrities by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini), Spy (Leslie Ward), Max Beerbohm, and others. In 1888 Francis Carruthers Gould joined the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette as the world’s first daily newspaper cartoonist.

In the United States as well there were now important artists and magazines. The forerunner of them all, and perhaps the first truly American political cartoon, was “Join or Die” (Pennsylvania Gazette, 1754) by Benjamin Franklin. In this a snake is shown cut into eight sections, each one marked with the initials of one of the eight American colonies that Franklin felt should unite in their struggle against attacks by French settlers and Native Americans and later against British rule itself (see American War of Independence). The year 1812 saw the publication in the Boston Weekly Messenger of “The Gerry-Mander” by Elkanah Tisdale—a cartoon salamander made by combining map outlines of rigged voting districts in Massachusetts and attacking the Republican governor Gerry Elbridge.

A number of political cartoons later appeared in earnest during the administrations (1828-1836) of President Andrew Jackson. However, it was with Harper’s Weekly (1857) and later with the American Vanity Fair (1859) that political cartooning really began to take root in the United States. The foremost exponent at this time—who was also the inventor of the symbol of the Democrats (a donkey) and of the Republicans (an elephant)—was the German-born Thomas Nast. Nast is perhaps best known for bringing to book the corrupt New York politician William Tweed, a leader of the Tammany Society, by featuring him and his cronies in biting caricature-filled cartoons such as “A Group of Vultures Waiting for the Storm to ‘Blow Over’—’Let Us Prey’” and “The Tammany Tiger Let Loose—What Are You Going to Do About It?”. The Austrian-born Joseph Keppler, another major figure in this period, founded the leading humour magazine Puck (1876). However, the United States’ first native-born cartoonist was James Albert Wales, who founded Judge in 1881.

VI.

The Early 20th Century


The invention of photography at the end of the 19th century and, from it, the development of process printing gave still more flexibility to the humorous artist. Also noticeable was a loosening up of style. Long explanatory captions became progressively shorter and the drawings themselves—especially those of Phil May and others—became more dynamic and far less laboured.

At the beginning of the 20th century Punch was still the rather genteel, middle-class magazine that it had become in the previous few decades. Outside Britain, however, cartoonists were less timid, as the work of the Frenchman Charles Léandre, in the newly formed L’Assiette au Beurre (1902), bore witness. During World War I satire became even sharper as artists such as the Dutchman Louis Raemaekers, the Briton Edmund Sullivan, and the Australian Will Dyson drew gruesome pictures of the Kaiser and his victims. Nevertheless, there were still many cartoonists who looked on the bright side. Bruce Bairnsfather created the pipe-smoking, walrus-moustached Cockney character Old Bill; the archetypal aged “Tommy”, or private soldier; and the “Fragments from France” series of trench-warfare cartoons in the Bystander in 1915. His best-known drawing shows two British soldiers marooned in a shell-hole under heavy bombardment, with the caption “If you knows of a better ‘ole, go to it”. In Weekly Dispatch (1914) Bert Thomas famously depicted a Tommy saying “Arf a Mo’, Kaiser” as he lights his pipe before engaging the enemy. W. Heath Robinson produced fantastical drawings of war machines, and the Australian-born H. M. Bateman (whose “The Man Who …” series began in the Tatler in 1912) dreamt up bizarre situations in delightfully funny cartoons. One of the most familiar images of this time—if only because of its widespread use as a recruiting poster—was Alfred Leete’s cover illustration for London Opinion (1914), showing a pointing Lord Kitchener with the slogan “Your Country Needs You” (a design later adapted by James Montgomery Flagg in the United States, featuring Uncle Sam).

New satirical magazines continued to appear in the early decades of the century. The French cartoonist Paul Gassier founded Le Canard Enchainé in 1915, Bertoldo was launched in Italy, and Krokodil began publication in Russia in 1925. Others, however, were less successful and often short-lived. In America Puck eventually folded in 1918, despite the fact that Louis Raemaekers had been a major contributor in its final year, but as one era drew to a close another was about to begin.

VII.

The New Yorker and the Development of the Cartoon in the United States


Charles Dana Gibson had made his reputation drawing the “Gibson Girls” in Life magazine (founded in 1883) and in 1902 Clifford Berryman, commenting on a bear hunt by President Theodore Roosevelt, had created the “Teddy Bear” in the Washington Post. In 1915 Al Hirschfeld also published his first stylish caricatures for the New York Times.

With the launch of the New Yorker in 1925, however, the American cartoon began to take a new direction. This developed into a distinctive style of irreverent humour combined with a slick and sophisticated drawing technique that was to have considerable influence worldwide in the years to follow. The magazine’s approach was in direct contrast to that of the staid, rather genteel humorous magazines that Punch and its like had by this time become. With its stable of witty writers like Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley, the New Yorker also introduced a whole new breed of cartoon artists. Pre-eminent among these was Peter Arno (Curtis Arnoux Peters), who consciously departed from the long explanatory captions of Victorian times and the “He-and-she” two-liners of the 1900s and popularized a much simpler form of cartoon joke: the illustrated single remark. As Robert Benchley admitted: “Peter Arno may not have been the first to make use of the overheard remark as a basis for a drawing, but he has made himself the High Priest of the school.” Among other artists enlisted by the New Yorker were Ralph Barton, whose drawing style, combined with the use of solid blacks seen in the work of Aubrey Beardsley, directly influenced the Briton Nicolas Bentley (who even dropped the “h” from his Christian name so that his signature could be symmetrically laid out in two lines of capitals like Barton’s); the half-blind James Thurber, whose quirky sense of humour more than made up for his lack of skill as a draughtsman; and Charles Addams, master of black and macabre wit and best known for his “Addams Family” of cartoon ghouls. Mary Petty, Alfred Frueh, Gluyas Williams, and Rea Irvin also helped shape the magazine. During the 1930s and the war years, many cartoonists who had emigrated from strife-torn Europe, such as the Romanian Saul Steinberg, became regular contributors.

VIII.

World War II



World War II gave rise to an enormous expansion of cartoon talent. On the one hand, both sides in the conflict realized the power of the pictorial image to convey a powerful message both to the barely literate and to those who spoke a different language—and thus used cartoons and caricature as part of a wider propaganda campaign that also included cinema newsreels, posters, aerial leafleting, and so forth. On the other hand, people needed relief from the deprivations of war, and cartoons, as much as music halls, concert parties, humorous films, radio comedies, and other light-hearted entertainments, were much in demand.

One of the most influential artists on the side of the Allies—and arguably the most potent force in political cartoon and caricature worldwide this century—was the New Zealander David Low, who worked in Britain for the London Evening Standard during the conflict. Among his poignant drawings were “Rendezvous”, attacking the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939: Hitler bows to Stalin over a dead soldier while remarking to his former enemy “The scum of the earth, I believe”, in reply to which Stalin doffs his cap with the words “The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume”. At the time of the evacuation of Dunkirk, he summed up Britain’s dogged fighting spirit in the face of impending disaster with the famous drawing “Very Well, Alone”, showing a young Tommy standing resolutely on the cliffs of Dover shaking a clenched fist at the stormy sea and the oncoming waves of German aircraft. While the epithet “Heath Robinson” has become a term for any absurdly and impracticably ingenious contrivance, Low was responsible for introducing the word “blimp” into the English language: deriving from his popular creation Colonel Blimp, an overweight, bald-headed, reactionary old diehard with a drooping moustache, famed for the bizarre logic of his comments on world affairs usually delivered from the steam-room of a Turkish bath while wrapped in a bath-towel.

Other important political cartoonists working in Britain at this time were Philip Zec (whose “The Price of Petrol Has Been Increased by One Penny—Official” nearly led to the Daily Mirror being closed down by the government), Vicky (the German-born Hungarian, Victor Weisz), George Whitelaw, and Leslie Illingworth. Carl Giles (later the creator of a long-running series of cartoons for the Daily Express peopled by an extended family, dominated by “Grandma”), Sidney Strube, and Joe Lee concentrated more on social issues, and Osbert Lancaster, taking his lead from France, developed the single-column pocket cartoon into a form hitherto virtually unknown in Britain. Other innovators were Pont (Graham Laidler) and Paul Crum (Roger Pettiward), who in their separate ways began a tradition of crazy humour which led ultimately to The Goon Show and Monty Python’s Flying Circus (see The Goons; Monty Python).

Many cartoonists came out of the forces themselves. Pre-eminent among these in Britain were JON (W. J. P. Jones), creator of the Desert Rat “Two Types”; Raff (Bill Hooper), who invented Pilot Officer Percy Prune; and the widely published David Langdon, who is credited with inventing the open-mouth technique for indicating talking cartoon characters and also created the poster campaign “Billy Brown of London Town”. Yet perhaps the best-known poster cartoonist of the war period was Fougasse (Kenneth Bird)—subsequently the only cartoonist to become editor of Punch—with “Careless Talk Costs Lives”, his series of posters warning that idle gossip among civilians might be overheard by German spies and aid the German war effort.

In Europe, too, the cartoon tradition flourished, even among the Axis powers. In Germany, Simplicissimus and Kladderadatsch continued until 1944 and the new Nazi papers such as Der Stürmer, Schwarzer Korps, and Der Angriff spawned their own artists, frequently anti-Semitic, such as Bogner, Fips, and Mjölnir (Hans Schweitzer). Equally gruesome in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were the anti-Nazi drawings of Soviet artists such as Boris Efimov, Deni (Victor Denisov), and the trio known as Kukryniksi (Mikhail Kupryanov, Porfiry Krylov, and Nikolay Sokolov). French cartoonists, working either under the Vichy régime, for the Resistance, or in exile in Britain included Jean Effel, Ralph Soupault, Paul Gassier, Jean Sennep, and Albert Dubout. In Australasia there was powerful political commentary by Gordon Minhinnick, H. B. Armstrong, and others.

One of the most important American cartoonists to come out of the war years was Bill Mauldin, of the US forces magazine Stars and Stripes, the antics of whose bedraggled duo, Willie and Joe, had much in common with Bairnsfather’s World War I equivalent. Artists working less close to the front lines included Daniel Fitzpatrick, Arthur Szyk (who drew colour covers for Collier’s magazine, among others), Rollin Kirby, and Carey Orr.

IX.

The Post-War Years and the Contemporary Scene


In 1937 the Hungarian Stefan Lorant (later the first editor of Picture Post) came to Britain and set up the pocket magazine Lilliput, which nurtured some of the country’s finest cartoonists. Notable among these were the earliest published drawings by a 15-year-old Gerard Hoffnung (who was later to become famous for his cartoons on musical subjects) and the first cartoon by Ronald Searle featuring the imaginary girls’ school St Trinian’s. Lilliput, along with London Opinion, Men Only, and others, became a great success during the war years and, together with older-established magazines such as Punch, continued after the conflict. However, as well as political/editorial cartoons, a wealth of gag cartoons also appeared in newspapers such as the Daily Sketch and Reveille in post-war Britain.

In the 1950s and 1960s the work of Carl Giles, André François, and Ronald Searle, each in their very different ways, became very influential both in Britain and abroad. Other important artists working in Britain at this time included Norman Thelwell (famed for his drawings of little girls on ponies), Anton (Harold Underwood Thompson and Beryl Antonia Yeoman), Alex Graham, Leslie Starke, Eric Burgin, and Norman Mansbridge. Rowland Emett was best known for his spindly drawings featuring railways and trams. E. H. Shepard memorably created the illustrations for Winnie the Pooh, and the Canadian Russell Brockbank was acknowledged as the undisputed king of the motoring cartoon. On the political side, David Low continued to dominate the scene until his death in 1963; Margaret Belsky became the first woman to draw a daily front-page political cartoon; and in 1957 Vicky created “Supermac”, a cartoon character lampooning the aged Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan.

With the 1960s also came the satire boom led by such television programmes as That Was The Week That Was, which had its own resident cartoonist, Timothy Birdsall. This was also the decade in which the satirical magazine Private Eye was founded, quickly establishing itself as a powerful vehicle for graphic lampoonery, and the period that saw the return of a more savage tradition with the work of Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman. In 1967 the Australian-born Pat Oliphant, perhaps the most influential cartoonist in post-war America, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In the decades that followed, many new cartoonists appeared on the scene and some older ones died in their prime. Among the latter were Mark Boxer and Mel Calman, two talented exponents of the pocket cartoon, and Michael ffolkes (Brian Davis), who specialized in stylish and flamboyant drawings.

Today there is a growing tradition in Europe of caption-less drawings, often with a strong political message. Other cartoons, however, such as those of Steve Bell in Britain, whose attacks on the premiership of Margaret Thatcher were described in the House of Lords in 1987 as “an almost obscene series of caricatures”, seem to be reviving the tradition of malicious lampoonery that harks back to Gillray. On the caricature side, whether one looks at the work of David Levine in the United States, Mulatier-Ricord-Morchoisne in France, or that of countless others, it seems that cartoon art is becoming ever more influenced by photography, combined with the sort of extra-fine draughtsmanship that was practised by such artists as Tenniel in the 19th century.


Nevertheless, whatever new path the satirical artists of the future take, and however controversial it is, their vision of society, politics, and daily life will continue to play an important role in contemporary culture. For as Michael Foot, former leader of the British Labour Party, has said: “Nothing to touch the glory of the great cartoonists! They catch the spirit of the age and then leave their own imprint on it; they create political heroes and villains in their own image; they teach the historians their trade.” 

MOTHER TERESA HISTORY

Other Names and Nicknames:
Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu
Function:
Saint
Traditions:
Missionaries of Charity, Christianity
Main Countries of Activity:
India
Date of Birth:
August 26, 1910
Place of Birth:
Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
In His/Her Body ("alive"):
No
Date Left His/Her Body:
September 5, 1997

Mother Teresa, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, attained world wide fame for her life dedicated to serving the poor and destitute.

Mother Teresa was born (1910) in Akopje, Kosovo in what is now the Republic of Macedonia. Little is known about her early life but at a young age she felt a calling to serve through helping the poor. At the age of 18 she was given permission to join a group of nuns in Ireland. After a few months of training Mother Teresa travelled to Calcutta, India where she formally accepted the vows of a nun.

In her early years she worked as a teacher in the slums of Calcutta, the widespread poverty made a deep impression on her and this led to her starting a new order called “The Missionaries of Charity”. The primary objective of this mission was to look after people, who nobody else was prepared to. The Missionaries of Charity now has branches throughout the world including branches in the developed world where they work with the homeless and people affected with AIDS. In 1965 the Society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI

At around this time the life of Mother Teresa was first brought to wide public attention through a book by Malcom Muggeridge who wrote a book and produced a documentary called “Something Beautiful for God”.

Throughout her life Mother Teresa has been given some of the most prestigious awards throughout the Globe.These include:

The first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. (1971)
Kennedy Prize (1971)
The Nehru Prize –“for promotion of international peace and understanding”(1972)
Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975),
The Nobel Peace Prize (1979)
States Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985)
Congressional Gold Medal (1994)
Honorary citizenship of the United States (November 16, 1996),

Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Prize "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $6,000 funds be given to the poor in Calcutta.When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" Her answer was simple: "Go home and love your family ."Over the last two decades of her life Mother Teresa suffered various health problems but nothing could dissuade her from fulfilling her mission of serving the poor and needy. Until her very last illness she was active in travelling around the world to the different brances of "The Missionaries of Charity"Following Mother Teresa’s death the Vatican began the process of beatification, which is the second step on the way to canonisation and sainthood. Mother Teresa was formally beatified in October 2003 by Pope John Paul II and is now known as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.Mother Teresa was a living saint who offered a great example and inspiration to the world.




 


TEACHINGS

Analyzing Mother Teresa's deeds and achievements, John Paul II asked: "Where did Mother Teresa find the strength and perseverance to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart."

It is known nowadays that privately, Mother Teresa experienced doubts and struggles over her religious beliefs which lasted nearly fifty years until the end of her life, during which "she felt no presence of God whatsoever,", "neither in her heart or in the eucharist" as put by her postulator Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk. Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God's existence and pain over her lack of fait

Where is my faith? Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness... If there   be God — please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such           convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul... How painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal... What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.

Mother Teresa's words are  

“By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus. ”Small of stature, rocklike in faith, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was entrusted with the mission of proclaiming God’s thirsting love for humanity, especially for the poorest of the poor. “God still loves the world and He sends you and me to be His love and His compassion to the poor.” She was a soul filled with the light of Christ, on fire with love for Him and burning with one desire: “to quench His thirst for love and for souls.”

On 10 September 1946 during the train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling for her annual retreat, Mother Teresa received her “inspiration,” her “call within a call.” On that day, in a way she would never explain, Jesus’ thirst for love and for souls took hold of her heart and the desire to satiate His thirst became the driving force of her life. Over the course of the next weeks and months, by means of interior locutions and visions, Jesus revealed to her the desire of His heart for “victims of love” who would “radiate His love on souls.” “Come be My light,” He begged her. “I cannot go alone.” He revealed His pain at the neglect of the poor, His sorrow at their ignorance of Him and His longing for their love. He asked Mother Teresa to establish a religious community, Missionaries of Charity, dedicated to the service of the poorest of the poor. However, the prevailing poverty in Calcutta had a deep impact on Mother Teresa's mind and in 1948, she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta . On August 17, 1948, she dressed for the first time in a white, blue-bordered sari and passed through the gates of her beloved Loreto convent to enter the world of the poor.

After a short course with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, she returned to Calcutta and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor. She started an open-air school for homeless children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and she received financial support from church organizations and the municipal authorities. On 21 December she went for the first time to the slums. On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Vatican to start her own order. Vatican originally labeled the order as the Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese, and it later came to known as the "Missionaries of Charity". The primary task of the Missionaries of Charity was to take care of those persons who nobody was prepared to look after.

  She visited families, washed the sores of some children, cared for an old man lying sick on the road and nursed a woman dying of hunger and TB. She started each day in communion with Jesus in the Eucharist and then went out, rosary in her hand, to find and serve Him in “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for.” After some months, she was joined, one by one, by her former students. By the early 1960s, Mother Teresa began to send her Sisters to other parts of India. The Decree of Praise granted to the Congregation by Pope Paul VI in February 1965 encouraged her to open a house in Venezuela. It was soon followed by foundations in Rome and Tanzania and, eventually, on every continent. Starting in 1980 and continuing through the 1990s, Mother Teresa opened houses in almost all of the communist countries, including the former Soviet Union, Albania and Cuba.

The physical and spiritual needs of the poor, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity Brothers in 1963, in 1976 the contemplative branch of the Sisters, in 1979 the Contemplative Brothers, and in 1984 the Missionaries of Charity Fathers. She formed the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa and the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, people of many faiths and nationalities with whom she shared her spirit of prayer, simplicity, sacrifice and her apostolate of humble works of love. This spirit later inspired the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests as a “little way of holiness” for those who desire to share in her charism and spirit.
 She has received a number of awards and distinctions Numerous awards, beginning with the Indian Padmashri Award in 1962 and notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, honoured her work, while an increasingly interested media began to follow her activities. She received both prizes and attention “for the glory of God and in the name of the poor.” These include the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971), Nehru Prize for Promotion of International Peace & Understanding (1972), Balzan Prize (1978), Nobel Peace Prize (1979) and Bharat Ratna (1980).

The whole of Mother Teresa’s life and labour bore witness to the joy of loving, the greatness and dignity of every human person, the value of little things done faithfully and with love, and the surpassing worth of friendship with God. On March 13, 1997, Mother Teresa stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity. On 5 September Mother Teresa’s earthly life came to an end. She died on September 5, 1997, just 9 days after her 87th birthday. She was given the honour of a state funeral by the Government of India and her body was buried in the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity. Her tomb quickly became a place of pilgrimage and prayer for people of all faiths, rich and poor alike. Mother Teresa left a testament of unshakable faith, invincible hope and extraordinary charity. Her response to Jesus’ plea, “Come be My light,” made her a Missionary of Charity, a “mother to the poor,” a symbol of compassion to the world, and a living witness to the thirsting love of God. Following Mother Teresa's death, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the second step towards possible canonization, or sainthood.
Less than two years after her death, in view of Mother Teresa’s widespread reputation of holiness and the favours being reported, Pope John Paul II permitted the opening of her Cause of Canonization. On 20 December 2002 he approved the decrees of her heroic virtues and miracles.




Saturday 13 August 2011

Gandhi.... nation father

SELF GOURNMENT

Gandhi wanted self-government for India but he believed that all Indians must work for it as one hand. Trying to overcome the urban-rural divide, he transformed the Indian National Congress, which was confined on the upper and middle class to a strong national organization thus joining large sections of the -till then- excluded groups as women, merchants, the peasantry and youth. Gandhi also promoted among his countrymen national self-respect and confidence in their ability to put an end to British rule.

He then perfected the method of satyagraha that he had discovered in South Africa, and developed what he called the “new science of non-violence” involving moral conversion of the adversary by a delicate “surgery of the soul”
"Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good." Gandhi

The Untouchables In his trial to consolidate all Indians, Gandhi paid special attention to the 'untouchables'; the lowest rank in the Hindu religion that were terribly humiliated and were not allowed to do but the lowest work. When a family of Untouchables asked to join Gandhi's religious group (the Ashram), Gandhi welcomed them but then the neighbours threatened that they would boycott them and the wealthy Hindus who shared in supporting the group with money stopped their support.

Instead of blenching, wise Gandhi decided to move the whole group to the part of the city where the Untouchables lived and planned that the whole group would earn its living by doing the low work that the Untouchables did. While carrying out his courageous plans, he was called aside by a Moslem merchant who told him he wanted to help the group and asked him if he would accept money from him. The following day after Gandhi approved, the merchant returned back with so much money that Gandhi said "God has sent us help at the last moment."

  "Democracy is an impossible thing until the power is shared by all, but let not democracy degenerate into mobocracy." Gandhi was repeatedly imprisoned and resorted to hunger strikes as part of his civil disobedience. When World War II broke out, both the Congress Party and Gandhi decided not to support Britain unless the British grant them complete independence (the "Quit India" movement). He was again imprisoned (that was his final imprisonment) in 1942, but was released two years later, in 1944, because of failing health.

By 1944 the British government had agreed to withdrawal from India on condition that the Congress Party and the Muslim League solve the problems between them. Despite of Gandhi's refusal and resistance to the idea of partition, India and Pakistan became separate states when the British withdrew from India in 1947. (See video for Gandhi with Lord and Lady Mountbatten
of Burma at the Viceroy's Palace New Delhi.)
  In 1946 and 1947 severe fights broke out in many parts of India especially where Hindus and Muslims lived side by side. Gandhi lived among them alone and unprotected. In the parts where he lived, peace came sooner because when the two sides started fighting, Gandhi said he wouldn't eat until they stopped fighting. Both Hindus and Moslems respected him so much that they stopped.

When the government of independent India decided, with public support, to break its promise of transferring to Pakistan its share of assets, he opposed the whole country, and successfully awakened its sense of honour and moral obligation through fasting. This wise and courageous act maddened some Hindu nationalists who could not understand him and thought he was harming the Hindus.

The Assassination 

On January 30th, 1948, he was walking slowly from his home to attend a prayer meeting when a thirty-nine years old Hindu called Nathuram Godse who mistakably thought Gandhi was harming the Hindus by being friendly to Muslims shot the Great Soul after respectfully bowing to him. (Click on picture for video) A few minutes later a man came out to the waiting crowd and announced that the little old man who sacrificed with all he had for his country, who reshaped the lives of many, who changed the path of the world, who inspired -and still will inspire- mankind till the end of the world was dead.
Through out the long story of Gandhi's life, we tried to deduce Gandhi's characters and suppose how his personality was like. We are mentioning the characters and the reason we called Gandhi so
Mahatma was very honest; even when he was only a child he did not lie to the head of his school and did not give him a more convincing excuse for not attending the school games. He always felt terribly guilty for his mistakes. Even as a young man when he once stole a piece of gold from his brother at the age of fifteen, the deed lay so heavy on his mind that he decided to admit it. He wrote the story of what he had done and gave it to his father. He did not only confess his guilt but asked "adequate" punishment for it. His father read the letter and tears -which Gandhi said 'cleansed his heart and washed his sin away'- trickled down his face. In his autobiography Gandhi wrote about that day,

" This sort of sublime forgiveness was not natural to my father. I had thought that he would be angry, say harsh words and strike his forehead. But he was so wonderfully peaceful, and this was due to my clean confession. A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance. I know that my confession made my father feel absolutely safe about me, and increased his affection for me beyond measure."
Such an incident also shows another side of Gandhi's character. He was courageous enough to confess his guilt, as he was courageous enough to refuse to take off his turban when the judge of the court in South Africa ordered him to do so. He was courageous enough to refuse to move from his first class seat. He wanted to know the conditions of poor peasantry. He went to them and the people crowded around him by hundreds. The police ordered him to leave but he refused and when he was taken to court he explained why he disobeyed the police then courageously and very wisely asked the judge to punish him. The court did not know what to do with him so they released him.

In this little body, Gandhi owned incredible strength and patience. When the Untouchables joined his Ashram and the others antagonized them, Gandhi did not yield but did even a more unexpected reaction by moving a whole group to an area where Untouchables lived. Gandhi was patient enough to wait for help until it came with the help of the Moslem merchant. No question he was really patient and sacrificing to bear all the suffering and imprisonments he had gone through.

His sacrificing character is also seen in South Africa when he gave up a financially good position to join with the poor Indians he was working for.

Last but not least, Gandhi's peacefully inclined character is not just obvious from his non-violent policy of non co-operation with the British or refusing to obey unjust laws however calmly accepting any given punishment, but it can be traced sometime before when he was a young lawyer in South Africa. He worked hard to solve the problems between his employer Abdullah Sheth and the opposing merchant outside the court, and after hard work he was finally able to do so in a friendly way.

No doubt the Mahatma (Great Soul) wouldn't have been called so without such fine and even better characters. We can never finish writing about him but this page has to find an end.

 Gandhi arrived in India on 15th January (by the beginning of World War 1). He found himself already known as a leader and " a Great Soul". However, he decided to travel all over India to familiarize
imself with his country even more. Gandhi settled near Ahmedabad where he started a religious group-home. Anyone of any race or religion was welcomed there if he was ready to make certain promises  which are:

q Always say the truth;

q Never fight or hate others;

q Eat only what was necessary to keep healthy;

q Own only what was necessary.

Then Gandhi plunged into politics and soon became the dominant figure in the Indian National Congress. Gandhi worked for a policy of non-cooperation with the British in 1920-22. He abandoned violence and continued civil disobedience. Organizing protest marches against unjust British actions and demanding boycott of British goods, he was -and for the first time by the British- imprisoned in 1922; but was released two years after.

The famous Dandi March  

 Probably the most famous of his protest marches is the ' Salt March' in 1930. At that time it was forbidden that the people make salt from sea water, but they had to buy it through the government. As an unfair law, Gandhi saw it must not be obeyed and announced that he will lead his followers to the sea to break the law; and he did. For three weeks the little old man walked bravely with crowds following him from Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea. In April, 1930 61 years old Gandhi, reached Dandi after walking 241 miles in 24 days There he held out a hand- ful of salt and said God had given the sea; no government and no man can deprive the people of it. As expected -and as he knew- he was imprisoned for some time but was released again in 1931and halted his campaign of civil disobedience after the British made concessions to his demands. In the same year, 1931 Gandhi represented the Indian National Congress at a conference in London.

" Nonviolent action without the cooperation of the heart and the head cannot produce the intended result." Gandhi

Gandhi leaves for England

Gandhi went to a college but didn't remain for a long time. He didn't like the lessons and he didn't do well. So he decided to go to England to study law. That was a difficult decision because it was against his religion to eat and drink with foreigners. Most of the leaders of his group didn't agree on his going. However, Mohandas, in 1888, set out for England leaving a wife and a child behind.

For the first three months in England, Gandhi wasted his time and money but in an amusing way. The young Indian tried to act like an English gentleman. He bought new clothes and a tall hat and every morning he used to spend a lot of time dressing and brushing his hair with care. Young Gandhi also took lessons in dancing, French, playing a musical instrument and such arts, but he didn't do well so he gave up all this and started to study law.

From India to South Africa   

In 1891, Gandhi returned to India. He started practicing law in Bombay but after a while he found his work very boring and he felt that this occupation is not suitable for him. However, a change occurred when he was advised to go to South Africa to work as an advisor to an Indian merchant called Abdullah Sheth. In 1893 we find the 24 years old shy lawyer in Durban, South Africa.

The 21 years he spent in South Africa were an extremely important turning point in Gandhi's life. In South Africa, Gandhi found that most of the Indians who had left India and came to Africa were considered of a low rank and were known as "coolies". Since Gandhi was one of them he was treated in the same bad way and was looked at with the same inferior eye. He experienced this feeling when he was riding a train and a man travelling in the same train discovered that Gandhi was sitting in a first-class seat. The man called the railway guard who ordered Gandhi to leave the first-class carriage. Gandhi refused saying that he had bought a first-class ticket and he intended to use it. Then a policeman came and forced Gandhi to leave the whole train. Another example, he was struck by a white man in a large public carriage because the man wanted Gandhi's place and Gandhi refused to leave it. Moreover, that place was outside the carriage, beside the driver and the man who wanted his place was the person in charge.

"We were all coolies. I was an insignificant coolie lawyer. At the time there were no coolie doctors, we had no coolie lawyers, I was the first in the field" Gandhi


These actions, and many others, were just an example of the explicit racial discrimination Indians in South Africa suffered from which propelled Gandhi to hard work to improve the way he and his people were treated. He led campaigns of protest but as a peaceful person he gradually adopted non-violent resistance known as "satyagrapha" (meaning "steadfastness in truth") and he achieved some success in securing racial justice for his people.

"Disobedience to be civil has to be open and nonviolent."

Gandhi



  After a year he finished his work with his employer Abdullah Sheth and intended to leave for India but when he knew that a law was to be issued to take even more rights from Indians in South Africa, he
decided to stay in South Africa and work for his people's rights and he did. But after two other years, Gandhi returned to India for several months and came back with his wife and two children. When he was India he tried to tell his people how badly Indians were treated in South Africa, but news of what he had done reached the white people living in Natal and when he tried to land stones and eggs were thrown at him. He was saved by the help of the courageous wife of the English Chief of Police who walked with him until policemen came to his help; and her husband who held the attention of the angry crowd while Gandhi was escaping from the back door.
Gandhi made many sacrifices for his fellow Indians in South Africa but he more and more believed that all problems should not be solved by hatred and violence but by love and in peace. And thus he, and his followers, quietly refused to obey unjust laws. Gandhi was often imprisoned but even then his followers went on with the work. In the end the government could do nothing about it and made many concessions to his demands including recognition of Indian marriages and abolition of the poll tax for them. And so, in1914 and after more than 20 years of hard work, Gandhi left South Africa after the conditions of Indians in South Africa had greatly improved.

Home

Mohandas Gandhi was born on the 2nd October 1869 in Porbandar, in the modern state of Gujarat. His family was a political Hindu family. Both his father and grandfather had been prime ministers to the rulers of two adjacent states and for a long time his father was chief officer in one of the states of India. However, the family came from the traditional caste of grocers and moneylenders. The name "Gandhi" means "grocer" (while the 'Mahatma' means Great Soul, a title given to him later by the great poet Rabindranath Tagore. Mohandas loved his father, who was a fine brave man, very much. He loved his mother too and was much influenced by her. She was a very serious woman in her religion (Jainism), a religion in which ideas of nonviolence and vegetarianism are supreme. Once she felt that her religion demanded that she should not eat until she saw the sun. It was the season of rain and the sun was not usually seen for a long time. Her children were so troubled that they spent hours looking up at the sky so they could hurry and tell their mother that the sun was shining and she could eat.

School

As an introverted child, it was not easy for Gandhi to make friends with other boys in school. He also said-in a book he wrote in his later life-that his only companions were his books and lessons. A small event concerned with school games affected him and in this early age he could learn from it. One day Gandhi was supposed to return to school at four o'clock for school games. He didn't have a watch and the cloudy weather tricked him. He arrived late; the games were over and everyone had left. The following day, he tried to explain to the head of the school why he was late but he was not believed. He was told he was lying. Honest Gandhi, a liar! No! No! But he could not prove he was innocent. So young, he began to understand that a man of truth must be a careful man as well.

"Your character must be above suspicion, and you must be truthful and self-controlled."

Gandhi

Marriage

Gandhi was married when he was only thirteen. However, this age in India at that time was not considered very young but there was another more efficient reason for his early marriage. As marriages cost families a lot, Gandhi's parents decided that the second son (the oldest son of the family was already married) and the third son, young Gandhi together with another relative were to be all married together. Gandhi's wife, Kasturba was also very young. She was only thirteen two.

Expectedly this early marriage hindered his lessons so he lost a year in high school. (His wife was illiterate) But later, Gandhi was able to finish two classes in one year.

"We were both thirteen...the wedding meant no more than wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives."

(Gandhi in his autobiography on the day of his wedding)

Youth

As many others, Gandhi made many mistakes during his youth but as a good man he suffered an extreme feeling of guilt afterwards which drove him to make resolution about his moral behavior that were to lead him through out the rest of his life.

For example, according to his religion eating meat was forbidden; but a friend of him convinced him to eat meat and deceive his parents by telling him that the English were stronger than they were and were able to rule over them because they ate meat.

For a year, Gandhi's friend arranged for him to eat meat in secret; but after, Gandhi gave up meat completely because he thought that nothing was worse than deceiving his parents in such way.

Also when Gandhi and a friend of his began to smoke-not because they liked it but they thought that it would please them to get smoke out of their mouths like grown-up men. However, Gandhi soon stopped because he found smoking dirty and harmful.

"Conscience is the ripe fruit of strictest discipline."