Make Your Own Homemade Hand Sanitizer

Some commercial hand sanitizer contains ingredients as scary as the germs they protect you from, so why not make your own hand sanitizer from ingredients you select? This is an excellent project for kids as well as adults since the project can be expanded to include a discussion about hygiene and disinfection. Youll save money, protect yourself from germs, and can customize the scent of the hand sanitizer so it doesnt smell medicinal. Homemade Hand Sanitizer Ingredients 2/3 cup 99% rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) or ethanol1/3 cup aloe vera gel8-10 drops essential oil, optional (such as lavender, vanilla, peppermint, grapefruit)bowl and spoonfunnelrecycled liquid soap or hand sanitizer bottle Make Hand Sanitizer Nothing could be easier! Simply mix the ingredients together and then use the funnel to pour them into the bottle. Screw the pump back onto the bottle and youre ready to go. How It Works The active ingredient in this hand sanitizer recipe is the alcohol, which needs to comprise at least 60% of the product in order to be an effective disinfectant. Essential Oils in Hand Sanitizer In addition to adding fragrance to your hand sanitizer, the essential oil you choose may also help protect you against germs. For example, thyme and clove oil have antimicrobial properties. If you are using antimicrobial oils, only use a drop or two, since these oils tend to be very powerful and might irritate your skin. Other oils, such as lavender or chamomile, may help soothe your skin.

Thomas Hardys The Mayor of Casterbridge Essay - 1450 Words

Thomas Hardys The Mayor of Casterbridge. Sex is so intertwined in our society that it pervades each facet, including television, books, advertising, and conversation. Movies like The Matrix toss in gratuitous sex because the audience nearly expects it. Thomas Hardys The Mayor of Casterbridge, therefore, is exceptional in its lack of sexual situations. The subject of sexual motivation and its inherent ambiguity with regard to Henchards actions is a topic that caught my attention from the very first pages of The Mayor of Casterbridge. Continually in the novel there is tension, but it is never described as sexual. Much the same, there are countless marriages during the novel but no related sexual attraction is discussed. The†¦show more content†¦It seems that for Henchard, maturity involves a kind of assimilation of female suffering, an identification with a woman which is also an effort to come to terms with with [his] own deepest sel[f] (Showalter, 394). It is not until the end of the novel that Henchard realizes th is, withdraws from society, and loses his will to live. However, his wrongdoings are not completely restricted to women. For this reason, I believe that this indicates not misdirected sexual energy, but a general lack of knowledge. Henchards act of selling his wife had clearly been mentioned between husband and wife prior to the actual incident, but that does not mean that it was well thought out. In fact, it seems that Henchard rarely thought things out to a full extent. Selling his wife in the first place would lead me to believe that he never loved Susan at all. I married at eighteen, like the fool that I was; and this is the consequence. But a fellow never knows these little things till all chance of acting upon em is past (9). Further, this quote shows that Henchard did not even think thoroughly about marrying Susan. He claims that he was a fool because he was eighteen; I say that at this point in the novel, he had not grown emotionally in the least. Likewise, Henchards relationship with Lucetta seems to be centered on a debt he felt he owed her forShow MoreRelated Human Destiny and Chance in Thomas Hardys The Mayor of Casterbridge1228 Words   |  5 PagesHuman Destiny and Chance in Thomas Hardys The Mayor of Casterbridge Present readers might perceive that Thomas Hardys viewpoint in the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge is severe and depressing. However, most people adored Hardy during his living years. In an era when the Industrial Revolution was bringing dramatic and sometimes disturbing changes to England, he celebrated the nations roots in its rustic past. In an era when new ideas like Darwins theory of evolution challenged long establishedRead MoreJohn Hardy s Far From The Madding Crowd And The Mayor Of Casterbridge1544 Words   |  7 Pagesresolutions. In Thomas Hardy’s famous works Far From the Madding Crowd and The Mayor of Casterbridge, the differing portrayals of relationships and style of characterization dictate the theme and overall likeability of the two rather similar novels. Despite the similarities, the positively thematic ideals depicted by Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak’s complex relationship in Far From the Madding Crowd rivals that of Michael and Susan Hench ard’s toxic relationship in The Mayor of Casterbridge, causingRead More Essay on Fate and Chance in The Mayor of Casterbridge1615 Words   |  7 PagesFate and Chance in The Mayor of Casterbridge  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      Thomas Hardys disillusionment over religion was a major theme in both his novels and his poetry. In his mind there was a conflict over whether fate or chance ruled us. He explores this dilemma in the poems I Look Into My Glass and Going and Staying. Each poem takes a different stance on the matter. 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Thus, Hardy suggests to the reader that the main

Job Roles In Hospitality And Events Industry †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Job Roles In Hospitality And Events Industry. Answer: Introduction Tourism, hospitality and events sector have grown tremendously over the last few years. This growth has opened up new avenues for the people with business degrees, to display their skills and excel in the field. This report concentrates on three main job roles in the domain of tourism, events and hospitality industry. The skills and competencies required for each job has been discussed. Tourism Industry Job role: Director of Sales and Marketing The director of Sales and Marketing looks after the marketing of a particular segment like of a particular city or a country. His responsibility also revolves around generating sales, which means getting more tourists to visit. Skills required: Critical Thinking- The ability to analyze situations and derive solutions Project Management- The ability to handle a particular project allocated to him/her (Sisson and Adams 2013). Analytical Skills- The ability to analyze data and represent the goals in numbers Technical skills- The ability to make optimum use of technology while dealing with consumers and generating sales. Hospitality Industry Job role: Customer Experience Manager A customer experience manager looks after the experience that the customers have derived from their stay in the hotel or from their experience when visiting a restaurant. Skills required: Organized- The manager needs to have good organization skills and the ability to manage large number of people (Getz and Page 2016). Communication Skills- He/she must be a good communicator. Product and market knowledge- The manager should have full knowledge about all the dishes in a restaurant or other relevant knowledge. Strategic Thinker- The manager needs to lead a team that will strategically cater to the needs of the customer and innovate ways to please them and enhance their experience. Events Industry Job role: Events Planner An event planners works with a company or an individual to organize an event for them. These events could range from weddings to birthday parties and even corporate events (Blickley et al 2013). Skills required: Organized- The planner needs to be very organized to make the client`s event a success Personable- He/she must be a people person as his job requires communication with various parties for purchases, arrangement and negotiation Creative- He/she needs to be good at creativity and come up with new ideas. Communication skills- Good communicator Multitasking- Event management includes taking up lot of responsibilities and one needs to manage them all. Conclusion Therefore, for business students the hospitality sector is a good domain. They can develop the various skills required by practices like taking confidence and communication classes, taking up responsibilities during their school days and learning how to plan strategically. References Blickley, J.L., Deiner, K., Garbach, K., Lacher, I., Meek, M.H., Porensky, L.M., Wilkerson, M.L., Winford, E.M. and Schwartz, M.W., 2013. Graduate student's guide to necessary skills for nonacademic conservation careers.Conservation Biology,27(1), pp.24-34. Getz, D. and Page, S.J., 2016.Event studies: Theory, research and policy for planned events. Routledge. Sisson, L.G. and Adams, A.R., 2013. Essential hospitality management competencies: The importance of soft skills.Journal of Hospitality Tourism Education,25(3), pp.131-145.

The Case Study of Jones-Free-Samples for Students-Myassignment

Question: Discuss about the Case Study of Jones. Answer: Introduction This is a case summary of patient Jones aged 60 years who has been admitted at the health care hospital with symptom of urinal effects, this led to diagnosis of prostatic hyperplasia. It is also referred to as benign enlargement of the prostate. Medically it has been described as non cancerous however it leads to increases in the size of the prostate. The increase of the size of the prostate is involved in the hyperplasia of the prostatic and epithelial cells. Medically it leads to increase in cells number rather than the individual size of the cells. When these cells are large, they push downwards and narrow itself into the urethra which results in the increase of the resistance received by the urine when being released. This condition commonly causes resistance to the flow of the urine in the body. This causes the bladder to work extra function which leads to progressive increase in hypertrophy and weakness of the muscle mass. When this condition remains at the same state untreated for long time, it causes recurrent urinary tract infections and at times is a risks factor of kidney stones. Presentation of Aetiology and Path physiology of the diseases BPH involves the stoma and epithelial cells which often arises in the section of urethral and transition zones on the glands. The growth of hyperplasia causes the enlargement of the growth and this offers restrictions on the flow of urine. BHP has been presumed as part of the ageing process among men and is hormonally reliant on testosterone hormone production in the body. Over 60 % of men have demonstrated histopathology BHP as they reach the age of 60 years same as for the case of Mr Jones. The insuring dysfunction of the bladder results in obstruction of the urethra emptying; this causes lower urinary tract symptoms, (Moore Gay,2004). Common observable symptoms as for this patient are the frequent urinary , urgency and nocturia experience which entails awakening at night, incomplete emptying and intermittent stream force. Often complications have been observed however in fewer cases. this complications include urinary retention , impaired bladder emptying , renal failure cases and recurrent urinary tract infections and hematuria, (Rogers et al., 2008). Causes Studies have often linked hormones such as the androgens and testosterone which are related to hormones as part of the cause of this condition. This position has been supported through experimental trials of castrated men not developing this disease when they continue ageing. Other linked causes include dieting among men. Studies have shown that dietary patterns affect the development of the diseases. Studies done in countries like China have suggests that high protein intake may play crucial role in cancer development and further men in urban cities consuming animal protein were encountering high prevalence rate, (Lepor, 2010). As people age benign prostatic hyperplasia tend to be more prevalence, theories such as disrepair theory have suggests that growth of BPH results from decline of the functionality of the fibrosis and weakening of muscular tissues of the body, (Lepor, 2011). This essence provides the important aspect of the functionality of the prostate and excretion of fluid often produces by the prostatic glands in men glands. As with patient John in the case study, it is relevant that his lifestyle just reflects the level of toxicity injected in the cells of the body promoting growth of benign cells hyperplasia. His lifestyle is that of heavy consumption of alcohol and presence of modifiable risks factor which is obesity. Management of the Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia Treatment options have been offered to manage the condition. These treatment avenues involve lifestyle management changes which are meant to ensure that medication, self catheterization and surgery are recommended treatment options available. Medication often used to ensure that benign growth are the use of alpha1 receptor blockers and 5aplaha reductase inhibitors which are used to minimise pressure on the urethra and for easier access and passage of urine. At times this conservative treatment fails; however, surgical removal is essential for this case. Other alternative medical approaches have been used to manage this condition such as the use of saw palmetto, however much research has not been put forward to manage this, (Lepor, 2006). Underlying Path Physiology of Post Operative Deterioration Patient Jones in this case study has shown that he is not affected by post surgical clinical distress by the symptoms. This is clearly demonstrated by the clinical observations of normal blood pressure, pulse at the rate of 120bpm, temperature slightly below normal at 35.0 degrees Celsius and pain score at 0/10. With the patient state and lifestyle management he is currently undertaking the disease management condition is likely to deteriorate as he is being discharge. The effect of quality of life has often been assed using the quality of life index which values indicate that less than score of three have shown to illustrate bothersome. Patients often showing obstruction and bothersome symptoms have been categorised into stage I of the disease, but those with no bothersome symptoms are ranked as stage II have Quality of Life score of more or equals to 3. Those displaying significant obstruction shave shown to have been categorised as stage III. There are those with complications of the disease which include retention of the urine, signs and occurrence of bladder stones, recurrent bleeding, and infections are termed as stage IV of the diseases, (Pinto et al., 2015). Nursing Management Skills For low grade stage disease can be managed through active surveillance by medical nurse, to monitor for any development of any complications. A high grade stage of the disease would need a more invasive nursing management, which can entails readmission to surgical process. However for this to take effect there is need to manage the patient age state, co-morbidity, social economic aspects and the preference values available, (Tanguay et al., 2009). As a nurse proper understanding of the disease path physiology and clinical management of BPH would ensure that better individualised care and person cantered approach towards its management which often proves a more cost effective approach . This nursing management technique often assess whether the diseases is life strengthening, leads to serve obstruction which often causes hydronephrosis, infection occurrence and immune suppression to the patient which may cause ultimate death. Care needs to taken with management of bladder, as its damage can be drastic and swift. As a case such as these, bladder functions can be impaired immensely, this can lead to poor voiding and occurrence of back pressure changes happening in the kidney, which alters and disrupts other functions. Thus watchful modal treatment should be applied with BPH management. As nurse there is need for watchful waiting and adequate and immediate medical attention being offered to the patient with regards to the age, and social economic state and other parameters which are associative to the care process, (Bradway et al., 2013). Hence having a thoughtful experience and understanding of the path physiology of the disease state is important in ensuring that the disease is cared through a balanced clinical approach and ensuring provision of personalized care for the patient. Interdisciplinary Health Care Team Nutritionist With regard to patient Jones state of health there is need to ensure that lifestyle counselling needs to b e adopted before any discharge is made. The mentioned dietary behaviour whatsoever would need to ensure that the overload of alcohol consumption and body mass index currently being observed for the patient is high and needs critical management. Nutritional counselling needs to be undertaken in order to ensure that there is reduction in the level of carbohydrates consumed which lowers the obesity level and reduces the breakdown of fats in the body which are often released as ketones. There are numerous studies conducted which has enlisted dietary factors and the risks of BPH. These aspects are confined to how the patient will manage consumption of proteins, high energy intake such as alcohol and promote consumption of soy products which studies have shown to lower immensely the prevalence of prostate diseases especially among the Asian population. Thus basic role of a nutritionist in BPH management is to provide advice on the dietary management with regards to dietary and lifestyle management of the patients. Patient such as Jones needs to consider lowering intake of fats and increase the amounts of therapeutic foods upon discharge as this has shown to improve the care process among the BPH patients. Caregivers A care giver plays a crucial role in ensuring that disease management and care of BPH is followed to the latter. Caregivers have acted as enablers who affect medication behaviour among aging, (Kusljic et al., 2013). Patient Jones needs a caregiver who will always ensure that they offer the support needed by the patient in ensuring positive recovery of the diseases. Studies have shown that older patients with caregivers who are often assisted with medication care had better health outcomes. Patients with adequate care management were less likely to experience complaints with respect to medical attention, thus care givers offers the necessary support both in ward and outpatient care in ensuring that the right medical protocol is adhered to. Psychologists services Evidence based care process has observed that usage of useful health care implementation of culturally sensitive health care linked to psychological well being of patients is essential for care of BPH. The need in hospital psychological help is essential in ensuring that management state of the patient is stabilized. Often defining characteristics for this patient involves the occurrence and experience of residual urine, lower tract infections that may occur postoperatively, anxiety and depressions symptoms associated with transurethral resection of the prostate. Thus providing support of these services ensures that the patient cope up with symptoms and progress of the disease positively and learning how to cope up with it after and before discharge at the facility. Conclusion Patient management care will be thus essential in ensuring care for the patient is provided. Adequate medical history and care management after surgery is essential in ensuring that the patients receive essential health care. Proper level of care guarantees improved quality of life to the patients. Clearly understanding the patho physiology of patient Jones, assessing his patho physiology and involvement of greater health care team is essential for his recovery process and positive health improvement. References Bradway, C., Bixby, M. B., Hirschman, K. B., McCauley, K., Naylor, M. D. (2013). Case study: transitional care for a patient with benign prostatic hyperplasia and recurrent urinary tract infections. Urologic nursing, 33(4), 177. Kusljic, S., Manias, E., Tran, B., Williams, A. (2013). Enablers and barriers affecting medication-taking behaviour in aging men with benign prostatic hyperplasia. The Aging Male, 16(3), 112-117. Lepor, H. (2006). The evolution of alpha-blockers for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Reviews in urology, 8(Suppl 4), S3. Lepor, H. (2011). Medical Treatment of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia. Reviews in Urology, 13(1), 2033. Lepor, H., Hill, L. A. (2010). Silodosin for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia: pharmacology and cardiovascular tolerability. Pharmacotherapy: The Journal of Human Pharmacology and Drug Therapy, 30(12), 1303-1312. Moore, K. N., Gray, M. (2004). Urinary incontinence in men: current status and future directions. Nursing research, 53(6S), S36-S41. Pinto, J. D. O., He, H. G., Chan, S. W. C., Toh, P. C., Esuvaranathan, K., Wang, W. (2015). Health?related quality of life and psychological well?being in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia. Journal of clinical nursing, 24(3-4), 511-522. Rogers, M. A., Mody, L., Kaufman, S. R., Fries, B. E., McMahon, L. F., Saint, S. (2008). Use of urinary collection devices in skilled nursing facilities in five states. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 56(5), 854-861. Tanguay, S., Awde, M., Brock, G., Casey, R., Kozak, J., Lee, J., Saad, F. (2009). Diagnosis and management of benign prostatic hyperplasia in primary care. Canadian Urological Association Journal, 3(3 Suppl 2), S92S100.

Tools and Approaches of Conflict Resolution

myth of cupid and psyche essays

myth of cupid and psyche essays The myth of Cupid and Psyche is recurrent throughout Indo-Aryan cultures, from Scotland to India. The best known version of it is perhaps the Germanic fairy-story Cinderella (Slade 2003). However, the earliest documented version is by Apuleius in his book The Golden Asse (Apuleius 1566). Apuleiuss tale about a man, Lucuis, who gets turned into an ass, includes the myth of Cupid and Psyche as an application of the central theme of the book into the wider realm of mythos. The central theme in both stories is the consequences that come with the attempted satisfaction of curiosity. Bulfinchs version (Bulfinch 1855) is more meant for children and public readers, while Apuleiuss tale is directed towards the elite of society. This is why Bulfinch censored many facts of Apuleiuss story, such as the near death of Cupid by the oil, the murderous Psyche who plots with her sisters to cut off her husbands head, and the tale Psyches sisters tell her about her husband being a great serpent full of deadly poison with a ravenous and gaping throat, (Apuleis 1566) who is waiting for the death of his child so that he can devour both the infant and his wife. Bulfinch tells the tale of Cupid and Psyche much more simpler than Apuleius, while still guarding some of the same themes. A theme emphasized by Apuleius is the growing from a child to a mother, as Psyche did. Cupid and Psych are often portrayed as children by Bulfinch. Cupid, mischievous enough in his own nature (Bulfinch 1855), is described as having golden ringlets and a snow-white neck, characteristic of children. He is a servant still to his mother, and is even described by Psyche as a beautiful youth. There is no mention of Psyches pregnancy in Bulfinchs version until the very end, and it is assumed the child was conceived after her trials were completed. Apuleius, however, describes cupid as rash and hardy, who...

Recovery Hydrogen sulphide from Oil Refinery an enviroeconomic study Essay

Recovery Hydrogen sulphide from Oil Refinery an enviroeconomic study - Essay Example Additionally, the iron sulfide can cause upsets in treating systems and plugging in disposal wells. Aside from its corrosive nature, H2S is also a very toxic and very flammable gas. At low levels, H2S has a "rotten egg" smell. At levels of 100 ppm, H2S will paralyze the olfactory system, making it appear odorless. At levels above 700 ppm, H2S can kill instantly. To add to the threat this creates, H2S is heavier than air, allowing it to creep along the surface where it becomes a potentially life threatening, explosive hazard. Therefore it is extremely important to extract this compound from refineries for safety of humans and expensive machinery. However, Hydrogen Sulphide also has some significant uses. The most important industrial use of hydrogen sulfide is as a source of about 25% of the world production of elemental sulphur. The manufacturing process is based on burning about 1/3 of hydrogen sulfide to sulphur dioxide, then letting the resulting SO2 react with H2S. Other uses are in metallurgy for the preparation of metallic sulfides. It also finds use in preparation of phosphors and oil additives, in separation of metals, removal of metallic impurities, and in organic chemical synthesis. Hydrogen sulfide is also used in nuclear engineering, in the Girdler Sulfide process of manufacturing heavy water. The primary source of H2S is the Desulfovibrio sulfide reducing bacteria (SRB). SRBs reduce naturally occurring sulfate found in oilfield waters to hydrogen sulfide, which in turn reacts with iron to form iron sulfide. They are especially efficient in low-oxygen environments, such as in swamps and standing waters. Some other anaerobic bacteria liberate hydrogen sulfide when they digest sulfur-containing amino acids. Hydrogen Sulphide can be created anywhere where sulphur comes in contact with organic material at high temperatures. Processes for Hydrogen Sulphide recovery The most obvious method to avoid creation of Hydrogen Sulphide is to eliminate the sulphate from water prior to its injection. This can be done by using a nanofiltration membrane which removes all particles greater than one one-thousands of a micron resulting in high quality injection water free of silica and bacterial materials thereby insuring continued injection rates reflective of initial reservoir conditions.This process is very cost effective because it reduces the cost related to sour gas and oil treatment or dedicated "sour safe" pipelines and allows use of less costly metallurgy for the operation due to reduced stress cracking and corrosion. It also reduces the potential for necessary addition equipment on a platform with limited space and weight capacities. Another method for removing Hydrogen Sulphide is by caustic washing. Caustic treating (sweetening) removes all the hydrogen sulphide and convert most of the mercaptans to disulphides. Chlorine is also used to control odor and for H2S control. Continuous chlorination is a widely used and effective method for oxidizing hydrogen sulfide, especially if the water pH is 6.0-8.0. Chlorine is usually administered as sodium hypochlorite, which reacts with sulfide, hydrogen sulfide, and bisulfates to form compounds that do not cause foul taste or odors. Other oxidizing agents besides chlorine can be added to the water to oxidize H2S. These include hydrogen peroxide, potassium

Quantitative data analysis Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Quantitative data analysis - Assignment Example we also have 44 people in the 2 (v26) (N) and on average, they have 68 V01 with standard deviation of 28.175 v01.the last column shows the two groups Std error mean. Basing on table 2, the p value of Levenes test is .185.In this case, this p value is greater than 0.05 the alpha. Therefore, we will have to use the middle row of the output (‘labeled Equal variances assumed.’).So we will have to assume that the variances are equal and we need to use the middle row of the output. The labeled column ‘‘t’’, provides a calculated t value. In this case the t value is -3.961 assuming equal variance (the sign is ignored for two tailed t test). The labeled column df provides the degree of freedom related with the test. In this case we have 106 degrees of freedom. The labeled column sig (2 –tailed) provides p value related to the t test. In this case, the p value 0.185. The sixth step is to decide if we have to reject the null hypothesis. In this case: If p ≠¤ ÃŽ ± , then reject H0.Therefore,0.185 is not equal or less than 0.05.so we fail to reject the null hypothesis. This means that we failed to observe a difference in the attitude to catalogue shopping between men and women. As shown in table 3, for each dependent variable, the output shows the sample size, minimum, maximum standard deviation, standard error and confidence interval for every independent variable level (quasi) In this case, the p value of 0.520 is greater than the 0.05; we fail to reject the null hypothesis. This means that there is limited evidence that the variances aren’t equal as well as the variance assumption homogeneity may fit. The 2 is the between groups degrees of freedom, 105 is within groups degrees of freedom,0.723 is the F ratio from the F column,0.487 is the p value and 986.098 is within groups mean square estimate of

Honda in Europe Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Honda in Europe - Case Study Example The paper tells that the issue of cultural diversity, in regards to international marketing, is of utmost importance. It is, therefore, critical for Honda to treat the culture of each country in its own context. Furthermore, different countries from the European region have different cultural values, which significantly affect their thinking behaviors and actions. Honda appears to have made a grave cultural mistake while designing its global marketing strategy and, therefore, it will be very wise to understand the cultural practices and values of each country and design strategies that resonate the individual’s country’s culture. The poor performance of Honda in Europe has been thought to have resulted from the failure of the company to understand the culture of European countries and instead treating the market as a homogenous block. The differences amongst different European countries have been split between high-context versus low-context cultures – Honda ough t to design its marketing strategies to be in line with these cultural divisions, to enhance acceptability of its products in the respective countries. Ideally, Honda ought to have understood that the kind of advertisement that is suitable for low context cultures is different from that which is suitable for high context cultures. In essence, the advertisement for high-context culture should encompass an embedded approach where the weight is put on the general view and feel instead of providing the literal information.... In conclusion, it is not wise for Honda to market its products the same way in all countries because it is improbable that an advertisement intended for a low-context culture will work in a high-context culture and vice versa. Given that Europe is a multicultural block, Honda should take into account the two cultural segments when designing a market strategy. Is it wise for Honda to market its products the same way in every country? It is not wise for Honda to enter the global market with a similar strategy in every country because, actually, this is the mistake the company committed, in the past, leading to poorly performance in different regions especially in Europe. It is important to pay attention to various political, social and economic forces that influence business in different countries and design strategies that resonates to those factors. These factors are very essential because they are used to define the decisions to take when producing, selling and delivering products a nd services to consumers from different parts of the world. Honda should carefully assess the style, taste, culture and values and believes of its customers from different countries because these factors are essential when designing an international marketing plan. For instance, Honda should apply marketing mix that is unique to individual countries, based on factors such as language barrier, economic circumstances among many others. Socio- economic considerations, technically, are important factors that influence the company’s taxation, transport cost, people’s taste and needs as well as the competition from other companies. From the statistics, Honda is facing stiff competition from different regions, especially the

The Impact of Occupational Segregation on Working Conditions

The Impact of Occupational Segregation on Working Conditions Zoe Stux â€Å"Critically evaluate the claim that occupational segregation in the British workforce leads to lower pay, lower status and increased insecurity among women employees† Occupational segregation finds it roots in the social behaviour of society, by definition this means a separation within job roles by gender. Feminist movements paved the way for women to have equal life styles and occupational choices for women in Britain. Legislation currently in place would lead to the assumption that inequality is not possible in today’s organisations given that there are anti discrimination and equal pay laws to protect the workforce without having to rely on the trade unions. Yet, when considering the effects of direct and indirect discrimination it becomes apparent how an organisation may apply a condition of employment to all employees which can be weighted to affect a large proportion of one gender over another if it is so designed. It is necessary here to demonstrate that current legislation allows some discrimination, for example, a disabled woman requiring a carer to help with personal duties is allowed to state only women can apply. Despite the ab ility to discriminate there is evidence to suggest that equalities within the genders are lessening and women are becoming more present in senior roles, the assumption is that the equality will pass from the top down the chain to affect the gender segregation on a larger scale lessening the increasing levels of discrimination over time. In contrast it could be the divide is not diminishing, and in fact current occupational segregation retains a level of inequality between the genders with regards pay, status and increasing insecurity. Cockburn recently (1991 p123) states â€Å"it will remain a fact of life that women are severely disadvantaged compared to men in their career opportunities†. This evaluation will assess the suggestions that women’s inferior place within the workforce leads to lower levels of pay for the same roles, lower status in general placed on their roles and the increasing insecurity of the roles performed by women whilst critically debating the various viewpoints to look at how the relationship between the employer and employee is introduced and subsequently managed. Whilst considering the view that women are disadvantaged through social constraints, biological constraints and personal choice allowing for the impact in Britain for future generations. As recently as 2004 it is suggested work status is far from equal with most management structures showing primary male domination. However, whilst many companies continue to operate within these male confines there have been an increasing number of women in management roles within recent years breaking the inequality traditions in status. However in line with feminist theories these areas are under represented within the professions and senior management. For those that achieve success on equal grounding it is often the case that women will be required to fit the male value system already established within the organisation, thus suggesting that women may achieve levels of perceived power but the opportunity to make decisions affecting the power will be biased towards the male institutionalised practices already in place. This can translate to a new mind set and change in belief system which for some this can be difficult to adapt to. For those that do not achieve a level of seniority occupations tend to be limited to clerical or secretarial roles and are primarily held as part time (Rose, E (2004) p557). Rose successfully illustrates for a small percentage of the workforce success is possible however for the masses lower status roles are the norm, assuming that these levels of employment are lower down the organisational chain the level of reward will be suitable to the roles therefore less than the male managers. However according to the equal opportunities commission (hereby referred to as EOC) in 2005 there was an average twenty percent difference between the genders in each employment section with regards wages earned on an average hourly rate. Although banking was a much higher rate at forty percent and not included in the average. It could be argued as Rose states above most female roles are primarily part time which would lead to less remuneration and increased insecurity. Although the same study shows dif ferentials between high profile roles which are assumed to be full time with the bias favouring males within these roles. Historically a biological viewpoint was used to control the workforce, and all collective bargaining would have been pursued by the trade unions led by men bargaining for men. Trade unions and workers alike were concerned with controlling wage levels and entry into trade ensuring the skills required by industry were sought after therefore controlling the flow of work and the financial demands that could be made, if women had been able to contribute to these tasks the reward level would have decreased as women were deemed cheap labour. Whilst this would be beneficial to employers who would decrease outgoings and protect profit margin it would be detrimental to the male workforce and unions, illustrating an impact of male trade unionist methods to drive towards male domination in the workplace. Biological theory was used to manipulate society to believe women were not capable of carrying out physical labour as men were; this served the purpose of providing a reason to prevent female pr esence in physical industry and at the same time set a cultural way of thinking. Biological theory argues that men are naturally stronger than women due to the way the body is constructed and this permits men to carry out certain tasks woman can not. Social acceptance of this granted the woman’s place was at home given the childbearing and nurturing ties to the female. In contrast biologically men’s behavior is seen as predatory and aggressive. However, there is the suggestion that roles are culturally determined as opposed to biologically, and the parental relationship cements social development. Children are manipulated by social norms at a young age to reinforce gender differences, for example a girl wears pink and a boy wears blue, a girl is given a doll or a tea set and a boy receives a car or a football. As the child gets older media influence will be introduced through adverts, popular television or movies to reinforce the socially acceptable roles for the genders (Oakley 2005). In support for this idea the functionality of the two genders is underpinned by analysis from several societies which concluded that there were no tasks with the exception of child birth that could be completed by only one of the two genders (Rose 2004). Biological attributes do not restrict women from roles; this was further supported through evidence observed during the Second World War where women were forced to take on men’s roles because of the shortage of people available. Based on this assumption it could be suggested that the divides seen in today’s workplace are intentional on the part of the female workforce who chose not to be equal and accept the pay differences secure in the knowledge that their income is secondary and whilst potentially insecure in the employment world it is not important to the family world and therefore of little consequence. Despite the Second World War the biological view would continue after the war had finished. This swift change in attitude back to the old social norm would prove to be difficult for some women to cope with. The myth that biologically women were incapable was squashed, however the value system that had created social structure before the war was still present with the men who returned therefore the social constraints were restored. However, the awareness of women being physically capable was a reality for society to develop and accept it was social and cultural beliefs that stopped women from working. There became an understanding that a reserve army of labour could be called on when required by policy makers and employers alike to achieve common goals, exploiting women into the workplace when it suited those in control. Male perception did not change and work was seen as a secondary focus to family, this created a vacuum where women were manipulated by others to conform to social rul es. It would appear modern society has not moved on that much, according to the equal opportunities commission in 2006, sixty seven percent of the female population of working age were in employment verses seventy eight percent of men under the same criteria, this would fit within social assumptions today where to a certain degree women remain primary family carers. Interestingly this research quantifies that forty three percent of women working were in part time employment whilst only eight percent of the men fulfilled part time roles, this would support the assumption that men remain the primary breadwinners in mass society. Purcell (2000) explains that from the 1980s changes have been seen within British society, until the 1980s women were active in the workplace until the birth of their first child, when they would remain inactive until school age or another child was born and the cycle would repeat. However by the end of the 1980s two thirds of mothers were active within the wo rkplace and approximately half of these returned to work within nine months utilising family and childcare options. Therefore gender changes and opinions within society have been demonstrated resulting in the counter argument for the gender nurturing social arguments demonstrated earlier. In contrast there is also the view that Britain’s economic climate has dictated these levels of work as increasingly families need to draw two wages in order to cover the high cost of living which is not relative to the rises seen in salaries. Supporting the view of exploitation further is the investigation of the reserve army of labour which proves to be beneficial to industries. The foundation of this idea is in Marxist explanations, suggesting that capitalism required a secondary outlay of potential recruits who could be relied on in times of both economic recession and boom to provide a flow of supply and demand in terms of workforce. This is essentially a flexible workforce with few rights and therefore the inability to make demands on the employer, whilst the employer has the right to reduce wages and increase the rate and extent of the worker exploitation at will. This is extreme and in today’s society would be tapered to meet legislation and social standards, although this does not necessarily mean the exploitation has ended, it has simply taken a different guise. In their book Women in Britain today (1986) Beechey and Whitelegg conclude that women would be less able to resist redundancy due to lack of trade union representation and their lower financial value within the workplace which makes them a high risk to increasing insecurity. However this study is dated and whilst in some areas trade union representation is valid this is not the case across mass private industry. Beechey and Whitelegg go on to suggest women are more likely to accept work at a lower rate than a male counterpart given they will not be aggressive and negotiate, and from a political viewpoint unemployed women are less likely to register unemployed as with primary incomes from their husbands they would not be eligible for benefits, thus supporting the claim that the segregation between the two genders within the workplace leads to insecurity for women. However in contrast to the insecurity being suggested this theory would imply when Britain went through a recession in the 20th Century the part time and flexible lower paid workforce would have been the first to suffer, yet this was not the case. The answer to this would be, for the same reason the reserve army of labour was considered a good idea, when in recession the primary function is to save long term financial plans, therefore making commercial sense to retain the cheaper labour on the workforce inadvertently providing incre ased security during times of recession and economic crisis. There is mass evidence to support the perception that management and trade unions perceive female workers to have a lower commitment to paid work. It is largely these ideals which populate within the labour markets of today, showing women to be secondary to their male counterparts, exploited at will, to control the labour markets and placed in insecure roles because they are not valued (Purcell 2000 p133).This is also supported by Homans (1987 cited in Rose 2004) where interview techniques were questioned when direct discrimination was uncovered and the reasons provided illustrated the view that women will project a lack of commitment to the role, either requiring time off to have a family or caring for an existing family. In contrast Rose (2004) establishes that although the majority of organizations have been traditionally dominated by men, there are a percentage of female senior managers pulling through to powerful positions and this appears to be increasing. In 1991 nine percent of the total women surveyed represented a small number of executive managers and directors. However in 1998 this increased to eighteen percent and four percent of these were director level. On the other hand in 2001 the number dropped to nine percent, although this figure did not include executive directors, therefore there is no like for like comparison making analysis difficult to draw conclusions from. It may be the changing social climates of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries have led to this change in female presence. With a change in social attitudes it is possible to see both genders have been suppressed with women missing the workplace opportunities and men increasingly missing family life. A movement in social acceptance can now see men remain at home while the woman goes out to work reversing the traditional roles. However whilst changes to social thinking are beginning there is the suggestion that the perception of women in power is a false one, despite the movements into senior roles the movements come from organisational restructure, changing job titles and removing levels of management to make opportunities less. Therefore the reality does not translate to total equality as power would be cascaded back up the chain towards the men. It would appear the opportunities for development and progression become stifled and the female workforce are only able to reach a particular point in the structure before they hit the ‘glass ceiling’ and their progression is halted. The lack of development in many cases appears to be attributed to women taking time off to have families, the assumption then is that by the time they return to work priorities have changed and long unsociable hours are a problem, leading to static working practices and fewer women successfully climbing the ladder. It appears industry is asking women to make a choice between motherhood and career but not working to aid the two in working side by side. Kirton and Greene (2001 p46) appear to agree, women have to make a choice, they place women at a disadvantage in the workplace due to less experience, lack of training and education compared to male counterparts. However they go on to suggest there are two counter points that can have a positive effect on a woman’s career; by working uninterrupted without family breaks it demonstrates commitment combined with the ability to project a long term ambition through working steadily and when required including late nights. Given that not all women will want to start a family these restrictions will not apply to all, however the statistics seem to indicate these are the minority of women or in exceptional cases women will have both and make sacrifices within the family to return to work with the aid of a non work support network of family and frie nds or childcare. Although the EOC statistics show a high percentage of female workers in part time employment it remains that over half the employed women surveyed were working in full time roles. Sly et al (1998) relate education and occupational qualifications as key to the success of women with the workplace. In 1997 eighty six percent of women qualified from A Level or above were economically active whereas fifty two percent of those with no formal qualifications were inactive. On the other hand both full and part time roles primarily fall within the clerical, secretarial, service and sales areas of the employment sphere as a total out of this collective group over sixty percent of the workforce were women. For the same exercise with the male workforce related to roles such as managers, administrators, craft, plant and machine operators, the statistics accounted for sixty percent of the male working population reinforcing the gender prejudice. Although there will always be a gender differential b etween traditional industries such as construction, manufacturing, education and public health despite drives to change these dynamics, it is worth noting the most recent study in 2006 states that women’s employment has increased seventy percent since 1975, yet in contrast fifty seven percent of women use either part time, flexible working time or home working in order to meet family commitments as well as complete the economic requirements of a day job supporting the theory that gender segregation leads to lower status and increased insecurity for women. Discrimination with the workplace would appear to be subtle and careful. By definition organizational segregation is the separation of the two genders within the workplace environment. However within this concept there are two styles to be considered. Horizontal segregation, where the workforce is primarily one specific gender, for example, within the construction industry men make up ninety percent of the entire workforce as detailed on the labour force survey for 2006 October to December, this can be attributed to the strong male social values within the industry. In comparison the same survey shows public admin, education and health is primarily a female sector role with women accounting for seventy percent of the total. However what are not evident are the levels employed by women and how the senior managers are gender split. Alternatively, there is also vertical segregation, where the opportunity for career progression is tapered to a particular gender. The implication with vertical segregation is that women would be affected given that it is women who are less likely to fulfil roles within management or senior executive posts. Liff ((1995) p476) suggests that the reason women fail to make the career progression which causes vertical segregation can be found in the division of labour within social confines. A manager is expected to work long hours and within this principle lays the issue, as British women whether working or not are still expected to carry out the same level of domestic duties for the family resulting in the inability to work late often which is suggested makes women unsuitable for progression to management and senior executive levels therefore reducing them to flexible part time roles with low pay and less security than management positions. Within the two types of segregation the workforce is split further, two sections primary and secondary, otherwise termed dual labour markets. The primary labour market is attributed to high pay, excellent working conditions, favourable promotional prospects and job security, secondary sector workers are disposable and easily replaced and transferring between the two markets is difficult either within the same or different organisations. Rose (2004), states that women are the primary of the two genders to appear in the secondary category, due to their low status in society and tendency to not belong to a trade union. However in contrast to the dual labour theory there are limitations not considered, workers within the textile industry where the job roles are similar whether primary or secondary still see a pay discrimination due to gender, the theory also fails to take into account the moving social scales of today’s society which sees many women in primary roles but in areas w here women see a high percentage of employment, for example, public health care and education. The 2006 EOC study for 2005 illustrates within the high paid jobs category, the gender gaps on four areas have a close to equal split however the other six areas show large discrepancies suggesting primarily male management. What is difficult to ascertain from the research on the areas of wide discrepancy gender split are the number of women who have chosen to work within limited roles with limited responsibilities due to family commitments verses the number of women forced into these roles because of the male constructed value system dictating they are inferior to the role of management. From the 1970s work ethics changed to reflect an increasingly flexible work pattern. Consumer society expected faster and quicker trends to be available to them resulting in the change of work ethic hence seen. The 1970’s saw a requirement for flexible low income workers to manage the production lines based on the changes from Fordism production. The reserve army of labour would become ideally suited for this and naturally this comprised of women. Loveridge and Mok (1996 cited in Mullins p165) confirm that women encompass an ‘out-group’ which makes the basis of an industrial reserve pool providing additional labour when required by society. However there is the suggestion that in the 1970s this was not a forced choice for women but one entered into willingly, although the family remained the primary concern there was also increasing financial pressures as social movements changed. Hakim (1998) supports this and suggests that there are three types of women who choose their preferences about home and work. There is a home centred attitude which prefers a home life to a work environment, a work centred view which for some are childless but have a strong commitment to their work and finally the adaptive who want a little of both but do not want to commit to a career. Hakim also suggested that with regards to a woman’s qualification there was a correlation between them marrying men with a higher qualification than their own thus leading to the assumption that they would rely on this as a primary income therefore resulting in family becoming the primary focus. This would indicate that it is not viable to apply the same theory to all women as there are differing personal choices within these statistics which can not be quantified. In contrast to Hakim, Crompton et al (1999) argue that it is the structure of the labour market which moulds the individuals career, suggesting men will turn to traditional male jobs whilst women will opt for traditional female roles reinforcing male roles as aggressive and physical whilst female roles are caring and nurturing, strengthening the structures that produce the gender differences which in turn make it difficult for those within the confines to pursue a career not stereotypically for their own gender. Thus, supporting the suggestion that women continue to be subjected to discrimination, which provides them with disadvantages within the employment relationship including, lower pay, lower status and power and greater insecurity. Employment relationships have undoubtly changed over recent years along with social belief systems and the relationship between the two is intensely fused. There is no denying that women have more freedom within the workplace in today’s society, although there are still constraints to this freedom it is progress none the less. However it would appear these freedoms come with painful choices to be made; in the cold light of day reality will push to suggest it is not possible to have it all. Women with children will require a degree of flexibility in order to enjoy their families, however this does not have to mean choosing lower status, part time, insecure employment at the expense of high profile full time management roles however the support needed from colleagues and family is greater than those who do chose to not work full time, although the balance is possible to obtain. It has taken nearly three decades to make the small improvements seen since the 1970s, if this is followed through to the natural conclusion those with the power now can influence others performing up the ranks within the labour market and as such in another thirty years there should be considerable improvements on where we are today. Attitudes and beliefs take time to change and as it would appear to be the social constraints of attitude that find us in a gender segregation of the workforce it stands to reason that these differences will lessen as attitudes change. There is always the risk that as we see poor political decisions made affecting social policy there will be a reversal of attitudes. However with the economy balancing precariously it is necessary in many cases for both men and women to work full time and aspire to be the best of their field and maximise their potential in order to provide for themselves and their families providing a stable economic background. With regards the claim that occupational segregation leads to lower pay there is some truth to this – what is difficult to assess is the level those are accepted by women and the level they are forced. It is not quantified how many women within the workforce challenged their wage to be equal to that of men. Although lower status compared to male counterparts is at present unfortunate as social policies change and those women there now cascade down to others there is the opportunity to improve these rates and become level within the management and decision making roles. Increased insecurity is difficult to define as by its nature it implies that the insecurity is becoming worse. However in order to understand this it is necessary to understand how the workforce feels about this. The assumption that women’s roles are secondary to that of their husbands would indicate there is no insecurity as his salary would form the main income. However this does not take into account w omen who are the sole breadwinner and in some cases have a family to bring up. Where it could be argued that the inequality in pay and status is in fact advantageous as should cut backs be necessary the lower incomes will survive over the higher levels which make a bigger financial impact on the profit and loss accounts. In general it would appear there remains discrimination and prejudice towards women in the labour market which manifests through lower salaries and status however progress has been made and will continue to be made in order to abolish these unjust differences. There is a requirement needed to understand the assumptions on gender differences by senior managers of today. When designing policy it is becoming ever more important to offer individualism and flexibility as opposed to static terms and conditions. By understanding the diversity within the workforce there will derive an understanding of how to motive the team and therefore produce exceptional results which of course is the aim of all good Chief Executives. Bibliography Rose ED (2004) Employment Relations 2nd Edition, FT Prentice Hall Liff S (1995) Industrial Relations Theory and Practice in Britain, Blackwell Business Hollinshead G, Nicholls P, Tailby S (2000) Employee Relations, FT Pitman Publishing Oakley A (2005), Gender Women and Social Science, Policy Press Beechey V, Whitelegg E (1986) Women in Britain Today, Open University Press Mullins LJ (1996) Management and Organisational Behaviour 4th Edition, Pitman Publishing Kirton G, Greene AM (2000) The Dynamics of Managing Diversity: A Critical Approach, Oxford Butterworth Heinemann Crompton R, Harris F (1999) Attitudes, Womens Employment, and the Changing  Domestic Division of Labour: A Cross-National Analysis, Oxford University Press. Purcell K (2000) Gendered Employment Insecurity, London Routledge Ledwith S, Colgan F (1996) Women in Organizations, Macmillan Business Hakim C (1998) Developing a Sociology for the Twenty-First Century: Preference Theory, British Journal of Sociology, 49(1), 137-143. Colgan F, Ledwith S (2002) Gender and Diversity: Reshaping Union Democracy, Employee Relations, 24(2), 167-189 Grimshaw D, Whitehouse G, Zetlin D (2001) Changing Pay Systems Occupational Concentration and the Gender Pay Gap, Industrial Relations, 32(3), 209-229 Hogue K, Noon M (2004) Equal Opportunities Policy and Practice in Britain in Work Employment and Society, 18(3) 481-506 Equal Opportunities Commission (August 2007) Facts about Men and Women 2006; http://www.eoc.org.uk/pdf/facts_about_GB_2006.pdf Communities and Local Government Labour Force Survey (August 2007) Tackling Occupational Segregation Fact Sheet; http://www.womenandequalityunit.gov.uk

Movie - Philadelphia :: essays research papers

In the movie Philadelphia a lawyer named Joe miller takes a heroic journey. His journey is taking a case dealing with an Aids patience that is working in a distinguished law firm . Andrew Beckon is wrongfully accused of losing an important document regarding an important cort case. To make the call of this hero more interesting, he has a personal problem with homosexual behaver . Also , he has to deal with society ‘s mindset on gays. Joe turns down the call at first, but then receives it after realizing that, Andrew Beckon has no one else. Next, in the hero’s journey Joe goes though the "jumping off point" of his journey. He is interfaced between the know, that Andrew Becker was fired from his job at the law firm. Also, The unknown why was he fired from a well-known law firm after being called " One Of the best", by the head director. Joe Miller is faced with finding the facts, mainly about why was this "promising" lawyer without a job? Was the firing of Andrew Beckon because he was an active homosexual with Aids? This being one of the biggest struggles taken by this hero? Now, In this case Joe faces many challenges. One: being how people really feel about homosexuals. The second: proving to the journey that sex preference does not hold an individual working ability . The Third challenge, being up against highly trained layers being accused of firing aid patience. The forth challenge dealing with, finding out why Andrew was really fired. Though the Joe’s whole journey there are two helpers. One Andrew Beckon himself , is aware of what other law firms reactions are to aids patience working for them. The other being Joe’s wife making him aware of whom in their family is homosexual. With both of them influencing this hero, Joe is shown that some things are really are an important risk.He is just learnig that not everyone thinks his way( Man and woman). Now at this point in the movie Philadelphia Joe ungues the abyss. He is faced with the greatest challenge of his whole journey. Can he win this case before Andrew passes on? Also, do homosexuals really make people more or less of a person? He cannot take any more challenges until he looks though himself to find the answers to defend Andrew. Joe Miller encounters a drastic change in the way he thinks and views about homosexuals; after going though the case. In the beginnings of his quest Joe is afraid to even touch Andrew. Now he is like a brother to him, part of the family in a sense. He now seems to look at homosexuals in a

The Inhabited Woman

The novel, classified as a semi-biographical one, is the author's first bestselling novel. It can be considered as a contemporary classic. In fact, Randall (2004) reiterated, â€Å"The Inhabited Woman grabs us from two unexpected directions: its consciousness of the centrality of woman in struggle, and its retrieval of the cycles of birth and rebirth which are such an important part of indigenous cosmology† (Forward, p. 6). On the one hand, throughout the novel, Lavinia (one of the main characters) struggles with being a business-minded woman in an architectural industry composed primary of men.The plight a woman’s struggle first took shape in Chapter One when a battle was referred to as the roots of a tree of which the writer entered into through its circulatory system (Belli, 2004, p. 7). As with any circulatory system, there must be a constant blood flow that helps all the parts function properly. If the blood flow is interrupted, then problems begin to arise. Thus, the other hand, the roots of the tree must be healed in order to make the system work. Hence, the writer refers to time spent in Europe (Bologna) as a place where Lavinia’s artistic nature was tame.However, she had left that place to have opportunities to showcase her innovative side (Belli, 2004). The parallelism between the protagonist, Lavinia, and the author is striking and obvious. Both women are well-educated members of the upper class who were raised in a world of political turmoil. Significantly, they have a choice of not paying attention to the glass ceiling that these politics entail or allowing it to be their ruin. Both women choose a life far from the one of limited opportunities and poverty.Instead, the women pursue a life of luxury, education, and continuous learning. In order to acquire a true reflection of how Gioconda and Lavinia were alike, their lives must be examined. Gioconda lived a comfortable, protected and sheltered life. She was educated in the best of schools as well as given a sheltered life away from bullets and bombs. Gioconda was also loved and nurtured by her parents. Later on, Gioconda joined the Sandinista movement. Sadly, this took her away from luxurious living and eventually forced her to be exiled in Mexico in 1975 (Wikipedia, 2008).Lavinia, similar to Gioconda, lived a sheltered life until she joined the revolution and fell in love with a war hero. Over the years, countries around the world have been in constant struggle to gain a free government; a democratic government free from dictators and tyrants. Many books have been written about this topic. Few books have focused on the author’s feminist struggle for freedom and democracy, and in the process, a struggle for self identity and self worth. As Lavinia’s journey through a life of opportunities begins, she goes to a job interview.It is a typical interview symbolic of a male’s ego and testosterone. Julian sees Lavinia as a woman that can expl ain architecture blueprints in simple terms but as a sex symbol, all the same (Belli, 2004, pp. 13-17). Lavinia’s goal was to prove she had a great deal of knowledge of architecture and could succeed on her own merits. Thus, although she thought of men and sex throughout the book, Lavinia predetermined that marriage, for her, would be placing limitations on one’s self—unless, of course, the right man came along (Belli, 2004, p.22). Nevertheless, the fact remains that the novel was full of sexual context. One example is an office romance that was present in the early stages of the book. A man and a woman were having sex openly, as if they were wild animals. Belli (2004) wrote, â€Å"I know only that they make love to each other like healthy animals, without garments or inhabitants. ’ ‘That is how our people loved before the strange god of the Spaniards forbade them the pleasures of loving’† (p. 41).Despite being forbidden of this fruit by a god, as in the holy bible when Adam and Eve were forbidden of eating from the tree of good and evil by the Lord (Genesis, King James Version), one can say that Lavinia’s people had disobeyed a god. As a result of this disobedience, (Adam and Eve) they were forced to go forth out of their comfort zone and learn how to live on their own (Genesis, KJV). Thus, just as Adam and Eve had to learn (as children do from their parents), so were many lessons taught in the novel.In one incidence, while Lavinia was watching one of her sex partner’s named Felipe sleep peacefully, she referred to him as a child (Belli, 2004, p. 42). This is important because Lavinia thought of her seeds as the seeds of oranges that are capable of falling on good soil and bearing fruit (children). She also considered the Earth as an orange because it is round and flat. Yet, symbolism used to compare child bearing to orange trees blossoming is of extreme value because Lavinia mentioned Ute, the wom an who taught Felipe to love.In fact, Lavinia indicated that Felipe considered Ute as the â€Å"Mother and lover in one woman†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Belli, 2004, p. 47). Thus, just as an orange tree must bear forth fruit that produces a continuous cycle of orange trees, so must women bear forth children who will, in turn, grow up to replenish the Earth. Another reason why much symbolism exists in the novel is because of the realism. Lavinia read a book that â€Å"†¦said that Jules Verne had never left France, and yet he had still managed to reach the moon with his imagination and predict many of humanity’s deeds and discoveries† (Belli, 2004, p. 55).This is what Lavinia desired out of life. Consequently, the mind (or imagination) can open up doors to endless opportunities and countless lessons. Unlike the body which comes to a closure upon death, due to the mind, legacies can live on. Lavinia’s grandfather tapped into this concept as he gave Lavinia some final wor ds that included â€Å"†¦Now that I am nearing Omega, I leave you this legacy: nothing that is done in the name of universal culture is ever a waste†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Belli, 2004, p. 56). Thus, through these words Lavinia was taught that no matter what the struggle or the triumph, a lesson is available to be learned.Yet, the reader can learn from the symbolisms that exist in the novel. One such lesson came as Lavinia’s grandfather died on New Year’s Eve by sneezing to death (Belli, 2004, p. 56). Just as her grandfather had talked about Alpha and Omega (the beginning and the end), the lesson here is that just as one year comes to an end, another one begins. Although Lavinia’s grandfather died out, history still lived on through his granddaughter. That history included Lavinia coming in contact with members of the National Liberation Movement (NLM) that showed up at her door one day, wounded.It is a history that also includes Lavinia referring to her admiration of Che Guevara of Italy, her grandfather’s fascination with Fidel Castro and the ideal of revolution, and even the NLM members’ being referenced to tropical Quixotes by Lavinia (Belli, 2004, p. 71). Yet, the reality of all lessons is that there are often harsh ones to be learned. Lavinia had to witness the same people she had helped (two men and one young woman) bodies being shown as bloody and dead in the paper when she returned to work.Just to not be discovered as a helper to these individuals, Lavinia had to tell a lie to a co-worker in regards to which of the men was Fermin (Belli, 2004). Just before the book takes a turn where Lavinia changes from that lively woman with endless opportunities to do anything or be anything in life, she manages to sum of what the reader considers as the main theme of the book: Man with his deeds can change features, appearances: he can sow or cut down trees, change the course of rivers, make those huge dark roads that trace snaking paths along the earth.But he cannot move volcanoes, life up the canyons, interfere in the dome of the heavens, prevent the formation of the clouds, change the position of the sun or the moon. (Belli, 2004l, p. 85) This exert is symbolic of how since the beginning of time man-kind has altered things. In the bible when the City of Babel was being built were the people wanted to come together and build a tower to heaven, rather than use stones that were already made by God, man created bricks for building (Genesis 11:1-9, KJV).Yet, man-kind had been told to fill the earth. Since they would not do it themselves, the Lord sent angels to scramble their languages and force them to do so (Genesis, KJV). Due to the fact man-kind sowed a bad seed, there are many languages today and the reason why there are many wars. In the bible, when the City of Babel was being built, God realized that man-kind would not think there was anything they could not do if they were to succeed at this.So, God had to take action against it (Genesis 11:1-9, KJV). Throughout the novel, no matter what happened, Lavinia could always use her imagination to make things as she wanted to. However, no matter what, it did not change the fact she went from being the leader of her own life to being lead (by Sebastian and Lorenzo) and then to even turning to God for instruction. Due to these factors, one might consider Lavinia as putting profession first, politics second and religion last.In this scenario, Lavinia encountered the struggle of woman to find their place in the world—a struggle that often finds woman having to pay the ultimate price of disobedience. References Belli, G. (2004). The Inhabited Woman. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Randall, M. (2004, Spring). The Inhabited Woman: Foreward. (Contributor). Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Wikipedia. (2008, February 13). Gioconda Belli. Retrieved March 23, 2008, from website: http://en. wikipedia. org/wi ki/Gioconda_Belli

Bureaucracies and Interest Groups in a Democratic Society

Bureaucracies and Interest Groups in a Democratic Society Ever since our founding fathers first signed the Declaration of Independence and wrote up the Constitution, they had plans for the United States of America to be a representative democracy. That is, we elect public officials based on their platforms to serve as leaders and to make important decisions for our country. But, like most other democratic nations around the world, the elected officials such as congress are bogged down with so many problems that they cannot function without a little help. Because of the many problems Congress must face, they create agencies that are assigned specific jobs or missions and then are given certain powers to complete these jobs. These agencies are known as bureaucracies. Some people argue that these bureaucracies and high ranking elected officials, such as the president, are becoming far too powerful in their position. They say that there is nothing in place to slow down or stop some of the decisions they make.English: View of Capitol Hill from t he U.S. Suprem...Other people believe that they are limited in their actions by political and electoral pressures. I believe that there is an adequate system of checks and balances in place to limit these political positions and groups from becoming too powerful. I think that each level of government does not let the other one obtain too much power. Other factors such as interest groups, voter opinion, and internal conflicts among themselves, all seem to limit their power in government as well.A main source of limitation placed on all elected officials and bureaucracies are interest groups. An interest group can be defined as a private organization that tries to shape public policy. (p.184) They try to influence and pressure these public officials to get what they want. Many people believe that interest groups are usually out for themselves and are not concerned about...

Picking Up Where You Left Off By Earning An Online Degree Essay Example

Picking Up Where You Left Off By Earning An Online Degree Essay Example Picking Up Where You Left Off By Earning An Online Degree Essay Picking Up Where You Left Off By Earning An Online Degree Essay Not everything happens in life exactly how we picture that it will; in fact most things do not happen as we pictured them. Such is the complexity of life and our ability to enjoy it; if we are somehow able to go along for the ride and adjust accordingly than we may suffer far less disappointment. That does not mean, however, that it is necessary to simply give up our dreams. While dreams may be derailed at times, sometimes they are worth pursuing again in the future. Such is often the case with earning a college degree. While some of us went straight to college and finished our degree in four years – even going on to earn graduate degrees – there are those of us who never made it and left school without earning their degree. Life circumstances may have been such that the pursuit of such a degree was a low priority in the face of other opportunities, financial hardships, or life changes. But for a great many students who left school without that degree in hand, the desire to achieve it never really goes away. And perhaps they revisit the idea somewhere down the road – for personal accomplishment, to further a career, or to begin a new profession. What these students may find is that the opportunities for higher education have changed in the way of online degree programs offered for non-traditional students. In fact, many universities and colleges – bolstered by the availability and popularity of the Internet – offer online degree programs today, so that students can earn their degree without taking a leave of absence from their jobs – or their lives.

John Wayne Gacy Murder Trial Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

John Wayne Gacy Murder Trial - Essay Example Repetitive patterns were evident in his criminal acts. John Gacy’s criminality and psychopathy did not arise from nothing; possibly, there are development issues and life experiences that would have caused them. John Wayne Gacy Murder Trial Introduction John Wayne Gacy was an American who was convicted for murder and sexual assaults. Evidence indicated that between 1972 and 1978, he murdered and sexually assaulted at least 33 young men and teenage boys. Due to his serial killing he earned the tag â€Å"Killer Clown†. Also, evidence indicates that the defendant was living a double life; that of committing murders and that of engaging in political and charitable activities. Murder trials show that he was convicted of more murders than any other person in the American history. Based upon this historic murder trial, therefore, this paper will analyze the case and document and respond to a number of issues relating to the case (Mendenhall, 1996). Specific psychological chara cteristics and patterns that might be inferred about the individual Since the offences that the defendant committed were â€Å"unusual†, it is important to understand the specific psychological characteristics and patterns that might be inferred about him. The testimony that was made during the trial indicated that Gacy had psychological characteristics and patterns that to a greater extent depicted his atrocious actions. Those who worked for him testified that he was violent and in most cases showed intention to commit sexual assaults; actually, they testified that they had survived sexual and violent encounters with him (Amirante and Broderick, 2011). Friends, family and his former employees also testified that Gacy had mood swings and was â€Å"awfully tricky†, a trait he used to succeed in handcuffing them. Most of the sixty witnesses who testified during trial took notice of these characteristics and patterns. Since such characteristics are often associated with t he insane, this was not the case with Gacy as psychologists had confirmed that he was sane, and he committed the offences while in sound mind. Psychologists and medical experts who testified for the defense agreed that he was very intelligent and generous. However, they also noted that he was schizophrenic; that is, he had antisocial behaviors or suffered from manifold personality disorder (Peck and Allan, 2001). A review of the individual’s signature and modus operandi In order to effectively execute his actions, John Gacy adopted his own specific signature and modus operandi. His signature and modus operandi enabled him to execute his actions with â€Å"efficient and effective† ease before he was eventually arrested. He admitted that his signature characteristic was to keep the people he had killed beneath his bed or in the attic for a number of hours prior to burying them later on (Kozenczak, 2003). His modus operandi is what enabled him to lure his victims easily a nd even sometimes manage to effortlessly trick them into being handcuffed so that he can execute his intentions. He would promise his victims employment opportunities in his construction company and then follow them up with alcohol. Once they were drunk, he would chloroform them and tie them to a chair. It should be noted that all his victims were male aged between 9 and 27 years. He sexually assaulted them, strangled them, or stuffed underwear into their mouths (Amirante and Broderick, 2011). When not using that tactic, he would drive around the town in search of

BFS 3430-09D, PRINCIPLES OF FIRE BEHAVIOR (BFS3430-09D) Essay

BFS 3430-09D, PRINCIPLES OF FIRE BEHAVIOR (BFS3430-09D) - Essay Example Fire research is conducted because the authorities of United States must be willing to analyze the impacts of the measures that are taken in order to handle any fire related situations. The fire researches are conducted in order to check the efficacy of fire department in reducing any threats of fire outbreak. In addition, the authorities are also interested to know and assess whether any further measures and advancements are required to cope the issue of fire outbreak or not. Fire researches are also there because the USFA wants to know the precautionary steps that are taken by people in order to construct any buildings. The buildings must be constructed by considering the risk of fire outbreak and there must be sufficient measures for safety of lives. Therefore, it is quite clear that fire research in the United States is conducted in order to gain awareness about the authenticity of present developments related to fire handling and to assess the effectiveness of fire department in resolving any fire related situation. The fire researches are also there to make the performance of fire department better. Walton, William D., Bryner, Nelson and Jason, Nora H. (Ed.) (2000). Fire Research Needs Workshop Proceedings. Gaithersburg: National Institute of Standards and Technology. Accessed on 20th June 2009 from

Textiles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Textiles - Essay Example The fabric is heavier and thicker compared to most other fabrics. The thickness and weight is depending on some issues such as the novel yarn used. The thick structure and heavy weight of the fabric are caused by the fact that the novel yarn used for the fabric has a different structure and form which in most cases includes multithreads used for the yarn (Sekhri, 2012). The texture of the fabric is rough, unlike most other fabrics which are smoother. It is however not very rough, while the degree or roughness may depend on the individual fabric and based in the novelty yarn used. As stated, the yarn used for the fabric is the novelty yarn which comes in different structures and types. There are a number of novelty yarns with different structures and designs. These include the ply yarn, the Core, Eyelash, Bouclà © Ribbon, Chenille, Crepe yarns. Each type of yarn is based on a different The structure of the novelty fabric is complex and according to the India Textile Journal (2014), this comes from the fact that the yarn used many have a number of threads made into one. The multiply yarn for instance has three then sewn into one and this makes the fabric to have a differed structure. The ply yarn, named so die to its three plies of threads, ahs these threads, each thread having this purpose such as offering strength, design and merging (Strong, 1953). This gives the fabric a novelty form of structure. The beauty of the fabric emanates from the structure which is a raised structure with a rough feel. Ironing this garment would press the fabric and this would reduce its beauty and the rough feel texture. Hand wishing the fabric would be best as this would protect the good quality of the fabric. The fabric can also be machine-washed but with gentle tumbling. If the fabric has to be machine-washed, then gentle cycle would be better to avoid destroying the fabric structure. The fabric is a little delicate due to its special textural features. Tumble drying would

themes and issues in Broken Soup essay Essay Example for Free

themes and issues in Broken Soup essay Essay Winner of the guardian children’s fiction prize, Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine is a novel for young inspired readers. Rowan Clark, a young 15 year old girl is thrown into a whirlpool of problems where one thing leads to another. Loss, grief, friendship, family and love play a big role in the story. The death of her brother Jack, attempted suicide of her mum, the unexplained relationship between Jack and her friend Bee and also the mysterious boy named Harper who befriends Rowan. Everything is linked. Everything will refer back to the themes and issues of Broken Soup. Broken Soup’s theme of loss and death is shown through Jack, his death and the detrimental effects it caused the Clark family. The calamity of Jack’s death affects and influences those all around him. The deceased Jack broke the hearts of many but left an exceptionally large hole in the one who gave birth to him. Jane Clark had missed her son more than anyone else and thus had lost the will to live. The tragic passing away of Jack transpires before the beginning of the book. Rowan’s younger sister Stroma is too young to remember Jack. Unfortunately, this is not the case for Rowan and her mother. The loss of Jack was so great that it destroyed the Clark family. Rowan’s father left the family forcing Rowan to care for the family. With little time to socialise, Rowan must look after both her mother and younger sister. The bereaved Jane Clark can no longer take it, ergo tries to escape the torture by all means killing her self. The death of a loved one can make people lose themselves. Their loss makes us do stupid things. Jane Clark is no exception. She is the paragon example of the severe effects of the theme loss and death. The romance between Jack and Bee illustrates what love can achieve; Valentine uses this to emphasise Broken Soup’s theme of Love and family. The end product of Jack and Bee’s relationship was a child whose part in Broken Soup was to bring Rowan and Bee together as a family. Sonny is given birth to after Jack dies and therefore can be said to have a part of Jack in him. This part of Jack later helps the ultimate recovery of Jane Clark. The love of Bee and Jack was subtle and a secret kept from their family and friends, thus the revelation about Sonny is used to bring those close to Jack together. If Bee and Jack had not met, the Clark family would still be in  strife. Love is powerful and unexplainable. How it brought two families together is an unforgettable part of the story, in which it creates the very essence of the themes love and family. The importance of a friendship can only be portrayed by the one between Harper and Rowan. Harper has ample time and Rowan has many problems so Harper is always there for Rowan, for the better and especially the worst. If Rowan ever needed to shed tears, Harper had his shoulder for her to lean on. Rowan’s mother is fortunately hospitalized after causing self inflicted injuries. As expected, Harper goes to the Clark residence to collect her belongings. Wondering why he took so long, Rowan is particularly moved when she hears Harper had cleaned the house of any blood. Harper was a boy who met Rowan by pure luck. The more they learned about each other the stronger the bond between them. Harper was seldom self centered. Upon hearing about Jack death, Harper does exactly what Rowan wants him to do. Harper is quiet; he takes Rowan’s hand and kisses it. Moments like this help to demonstrate the significant value of the theme friendship. Ultimately, the themes loss, grief, friendship, family and love are not only incredibly insightful issues but also relating to everyday problems. Jenny Valentine is without a doubt an emotionally deep writer. Readers have the opportunity to experience the themes and how they affect Rowan and those close to her. Valentine uses appropriate examples to profoundly exhibit all themes in Broken Soup. Naturally, the themes loss, grief, friendship, family and love all have their own significant meaning in the story.

World Language Policy Essay example -- Globalization Localization Lang

Globalization, Localization, and Language Choice In Britain they used to call a barometer a ?glass.? One would visit the ?glass? in the morning in order to get a sense of what the weather would be for the day. It was of course a rather chancy business, not least because on the average day in Britain you have a little of everything anyway. The poet Louis MacNeice caught the sentiment in a wellknown poem about impending doom: The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall for ever, But if you break the bloody glass you won?t hold up the weather. Perhaps the least observed phenomenon in the global system is language. Because it is so basic to human communication, we are apt to regard it simply as an unchangeable part of the communication process itself ? a kind of natural phenomenon as ordinary and ineluctable as weather. In fact, language is a social institution of enormous importance, and one over which we have a great deal of control (Edwards 1994, Tonkin 2003a). Human utterances are elective: we can either make them or not make them, and we are potentially capable of making these utterances in any language. Since language is fundamental to human social interaction, we begin by choosing our utterances in accordance with the code that we are born into: language is a form of human behavior, and we learn to talk through the need and the desire to participate in the community of which we are a part. Thus the language that we use also has symbolic value: it is a marker of our identity and it reinforces our sense of belonging. But it is an accident of geography or economics that we learn one language or another, that we are born into one speech community rather than another. Within that community, we lear... ...Werner, ed. 1998. Multilingual America: Transnationalism, Ethnicity, and the Languages of American Literature. New York: New York University Press. Tonkin, Humphrey. 2003a. Language and Society. New York: American Forum for Global Education. Tonkin, Humphrey. 2003b. The search for a global linguistic strategy. In Jacques Maurais & Michael A. Morris. Languages in a Globalising World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 319-333. Tonkin, Humphrey. 2004. Language equality in international relations. In Lee Chong-Yeong & Liu Haitao, ed. Towards a New International Language Order. Rotterdam: Universal Esperanto Association. 96-105. Tonkin, Humphrey & Timothy Reagan, ed. 2003. Language in the 21st Century. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Wright, Sue. 2004. Language Policy and Language Planning: From Nationalism to Globalisation. Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Also by Amitav Ghosh The Hungry Tide Incendiary Circumstances

Also by Amitav Ghosh The Hungry Tide Incendiary Circumstances The Glass Palace The Calcutta Chromosome In an Antique Land The Circle of Reason Sea of Poppies River of Smoke The Shadow Lines Amitav Ghosh www. johnmurray. co. uk First published in Great Britain in 1988 by Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd First published in 2011 by John Murray (Publishers) An Hachette UK Company  © Amitav Ghosh 1988 The right of Amitav Ghosh to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Li brary Epub ISBN 978-1-84854-423-9 Book ISBN 978-1-84854-417-8 John Murray (Publishers) 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH www. johnmurray. co. uk For Radhika and Harisen CONTENTSTitle Page Copyright Page Dedication Going Away Coming Home Going Away In 1939, thirteen years before I was born, my father’s aunt, Mayadebi, went to England with her husband and her son, Tridib. It startles me now to discover how readily the name comes off my pen as ‘Mayadebi’ for I have never spoken of her thus; not aloud, at any rate: as my grandmother’s only sister, she was always Mayathakuma to me. But still, from as far back as I can remember, I have known her, in the secrecy of my mind, as ‘Mayadebi’ – as though she were a well-known stranger, like a film star or a politician whose picture I had seen in a newspaper.Perhaps it was merely because I knew her very little, for she was not often in Calcutta. That explanation seems likely enough, but I know it to be untrue. The truth is that I did not want to think of her as a relative: to have done that would have diminished her and her family – I could not bring myself to believe that their worth in my eyes could be reduced to something so arbitrary and unimportant as a blood relationship. Mayadebi was twenty-nine when they left, and Tridib was eight.Over the years, although I cannot remember when it happened any more than I can remember when I first learnt to tell the time or tie my shoelaces, I have come to believe that I was eight too when Tridib first talked to me about that journey. I remember trying very hard to imagine him back to my age, to reduce his height to mine, and to think away the spectacles that were so much a part of him that I really believed he had been born with them. It wasn’t easy, for to me he looked old, impossibly old, and I could not remember him looking anything other than old – though, in fact, at that time he could not have been much older t han twenty-nine.In the end, since I had nothing to go on, I had decided that he had looked like me. But my grandmother, when I asked her, was very quick to contradict me. She shook her head firmly, looking up from her schoolbooks, and said: No, he looked completely different – not at all like you. My grandmother didn’t approve of Tridib. He’s a loafer and a wastrel, I would sometimes hear her saying to my parents; he doesn’t do any proper work, lives off his father’s money.To me, she would only allow herself to say with a sardonic little twist of her mouth: I don’t want to see you loafing about with Tridib; Tridib wastes his time. It didn’t sound terrible, but in fact, in my grandmother’s usage, there was nothing very much worse that could be said of anyone. For her, time was like a toothbrush: it went mouldy if it wasn’t used. I asked her once what happened to wasted time. She tossed her small silvery head, screwed up h er long nose and said: It begins to stink. As for herself, she had been careful to rid our little flat of everything that might encourage us to let our time stink.No chessboard nor any pack of cards ever came through our door; there was a battered Ludo set somewhere but I was allowed to play with it only when I was ill. She didn’t even approve of my mother listening to the afternoon radio play more than once a week. In our flat we all worked hard at whatever we did: my grandmother at her schoolmistressing; I at my homework; my mother at her housekeeping; my father at his job as a junior executive in a company which dealt in vulcanised rubber. Our time wasn’t given the slightest opportunity to grow mouldy.That was why I loved to listen to Tridib: he never seemed to use his time, but his time didn’t stink. Sometimes Tridib would drop in to see us without warning. My grandmother, for all her disapproval of him, would be delighted whenever he came – partly be cause she was fond of him in her own way, but mainly because Tridib and his family were our only rich relatives, and it flattered her to think that he had gone out of his way to come and see her. But of course, she knew, though she wouldn’t admit it, that he had really come to nurse his stomach.The truth was that his digestion was a mess; ruined by the rivers of hard-boiled tea he had drunk at roadside stalls all over south Calcutta. Every once in a while a rumble in his bowels would catch him unawares on the streets and he would have to sprint for the nearest clean lavatory. This condition was known to us as Tridib’s Gastric. Once every few months or so we would answer the doorbell and find him leaning against the wall, his legs tightly crossed, the sweat starting from his forehead.But he wouldn’t come in right away: there was a careful etiquette attached to these occasions. My parents and grandmother would collect at the doorway and, ignoring his writhings, wo uld proceed to ask him about his family’s doings and whereabouts, and he in turn, smiling fixedly, would ask them how they were, and how I was, and finally, when it had been established to everyone’s satisfaction that he had come on a Family Visit, he would shoot through the door straight into the lavatory.When he emerged again he would be his usual nonchalant, collected self; he would sink into our ‘good’ sofa and the ritual of the Family Visit would begin. My grandmother would hurry into the kitchen to make him an omelette – a leathery little squiggle studded with green chillies, which would lie balefully on its plate, silently challenging Gastric to battle. This was the greatest sign of favour she could show to a visitor – an omelette made with her own hands (it fell to the less favoured to feast on my mother’s masterly tidbits – hot shingaras stuffed with mincemeat and raisins, or crisp little alpuris). Sometimes, watching h im as he chewed upon her omelette, she would ask: And how is Gastric? or: Is Gastric better now? Tridib would merely nod casually and change the subject; he didn’t like to talk about his digestion – it was the only evidence of prudery I ever saw in him. But since I always heard my grandmother using that word as a proper noun, I grew up believing that ‘Gastric’ was the name of an organ peculiar to Tridib – a kind of aching tooth that grew out of his belly button.Of course, I never dared ask to see it. Despite the special omelette, however, my grandmother would not let him stay long. She believed him to be capable of exerting his influence at a distance, like a baneful planet – and since she also believed the male, as a species, to be naturally frail and wayward, she would not allow herself to take the risk of having him for long in our flat where I, or my father, might be tempted to move into his orbit. I didn’t mind particularly, for T ridib was never at his best in our flat.I far preferred to run into him at the street corners in our neighbourhood. It didn’t happen very often – no more than once a month perhaps – but still, I took his presence on these streets so much for granted that it never occurred to me that I was lucky to have him in Calcutta at all. Tridib’s father was a diplomat, an officer in the Foreign Service. He and Mayadebi were always away, abroad or in Delhi; after intervals of two or three years they would sometimes spend a couple of months in Calcutta, but that was all.Of Tridib’s two brothers, Jatin-kaku, the elder, who was two years older than Tridib, was an economist with the UN. He was always away too, somewhere in Africa or South East Asia, with his wife and his daughter Ila, who was my age. The third brother, Robi, who was much younger than the other two, having been born after his mother had had several miscarriages, lived with his parents wherever they happened to be posted until he was sent away to boarding school at the age of twelve.So Tridib was the only person in his family who had spent most of his life in Calcutta. For years he had lived in their vast old family house in Ballygunge Place with his ageing grandmother. My grandmother claimed that he had stayed on in Calcutta only because he didn’t get along with his father. This was one of her complaints against him: not that he didn’t get along with his father, for she didn’t much care for his father either – but that he had allowed something like that to interfere with his prospects and career.For her, likes and dislikes were unimportant compared to the business of fending for oneself in the world: as far as she was concerned it was not so much odd as irresponsible of Tridib to shut himself away in that old house with his grandmother; it showed him up as an essentially lightweight and frivolous character. She might have changed her opinion if he h ad been willing to marry and settle down (and she hadn’t any doubt at all that she could have found him a rich wife), but every time she suggested it he merely laughed.This was further proof that he lacked that core of gravity and determination which distinguishes all responsible and grown-up men; a sure sign that he was determined to waste his life in idle self-indulgence. And yet, although she would pretend to dismiss him with a toss of her head, she never ceased to be wary of him, to warn me against his influence: at heart she believed that all men would be like him if it were not for their mothers and wives. She would often try to persuade me that she pitied him. Poor Tridib, she would say.There’s nothing in the world he couldn’t have done with his connections – he could have lived like a lord and run the country. And look at him – oh, poor Tridib – living in that crumbling house, doing nothing. But even as a child I could tell she didnà ¢â‚¬â„¢t pity him at all – she feared him. Of course, even she would acknowledge sometimes that Tridib did not really do ‘nothing’. In fact, he was working on a PhD in archaeology – something to do with sites associated with the Sena dynasty of Bengal. But this earned him very little credit in my grandmother’s eyes.Being a schoolteacher herself, she had an inordinate respect for academic work of any kind: she saw research as a life-long pilgrimage which ended with a named professorship and a marble bust in the corridors of Calcutta University or the National Library. It would have been a travesty to think of an irresponsible head like Tridib’s mounted in those august corridors. Part of the reason why my grandmother was so wary of him was that she had seen him a couple of times at the street corners around Gole Park where we lived. She had a deep horror of the young men who spent their time at the street-corner addas and tea-stalls around ther e.All failcases, she would sniff; think of their poor mothers, flung out on dung-heaps, starving †¦ Seeing Tridib there a few times was enough to persuade her that he spent all his time at those addas, gossiping: it seemed to fit with the rest of him. But the truth was that Tridib came there rarely, not more than once or twice a month. I would usually hear when he came: Nathu Chaubey, the paanwala who sat in the stall at the corner of our lane, or my friend Montu, who could see the far side of the lane from his bathroom window, or someone at the second-hand bookstalls, would tell me. They all knew I was related to Tridib.When I go past Gole Park now I often wonder whether that would happen today. I don’t know, I can’t tell: that world is closed to me, shut off by too many years spent away. Montu went away to America years ago and Nathu Chaubey, I heard, went back to Benares and started a hotel. When I walk past his paan-shop now and look at the crowds thronging th rough those neon-lit streets, the air-conditioned shops packed in with rickety stalls and the tarpaulin counters of pavement vendors, at the traffic packed as tight as a mail train all the way to the Dhakuria overbridge, somehow, though the paan-shop hasn’t changed, I find myself doubting it.At that time, in the early sixties, there were so few cars around there that we thought nothing of playing football on the streets around the roundabout – making way occasionally for the number 9, or any other bus that happened to come snorting along. There were only a few scattered shacks on Gariahat Road then, put up by the earliest refugees from the east. Gole Park was considered to be more or less outside Calcutta: in school when I said I lived there the boys from central Calcutta would often ask me if I caught a train every morning, as though I lived in some far-flung refugee camp on the border.I would usually hear that Tridib was around on my way back from our evening cricket game in the park. My cricket game was the one thing for which my grandmother never grudged me time away from my homework: on the contrary, she insisted that I run down to the park by the lake whether I wanted to or not. You can’t build a strong country, she would say, pushing me out of the house, without building a strong body. She would watch from her window to make sure I ran all the way to the park.But if I happened to hear that Tridib was around I would double back through the park and the back lanes. Someone would always be able to tell me where he was: he was a familiar figure within the floating, talkative population of students and would-be footballers and bank clerks and smalltime politicos and all the rest who gravitated towards that conversation-loving stretch of road between Gariahat and Gole Park. It did not occur to me then to wonder hy he was well known, or known at all – I simply took the fact for granted, and was grateful for the small privileges his presence secured for me on those streets: for the odd sweet given to me by a shopkeeper of his acquaintance; for being rescued from a fight in the park by some young fellow who knew him. But in fact it seems something of a mystery to me now, why they put up with him: he was never one of them, he didn’t even live there, and he often didn’t have much to say.He was usually content to listen to their loud quicksilver conversations in silence: often when he came he would have about him the tired, withdrawn air of a man who has risen from some exhausting labour and ventured out to distract himself. But occasionally, when he was in the mood and somebody happened to say something that made a breach in his vast reservoirs of abstruse information, he would begin to hold forth on all kinds of subjects – Mesopotamian stelae, East European jazz, the habits of arboreal apes, the plays of Garcia Lorca, there seemed to be no end to the things he could talk about.On those evenin gs, looking at the intent faces of his listeners, watching his thin, waspish face, his tousled hair and his bright black eyes glinting behind his gold-rimmed glasses, I would be close to bursting with pride. But even at those times, when he was the centre of everybody’s attention, there was always something a little detached about his manner.He did not seem to want to make friends with the people he was talking to, and that perhaps was why he was happiest in neutral, impersonal places – coffee houses, bars, street-corner addas – the sort of places where people come, talk and go away without expecting to know each other any further. That was also why he chose to come all the way from Ballygunge to Gole Park for his addas – simply because it was far enough for him to be sure that he wouldn’t meet any of his neighbours there.Perhaps they put up with him simply because he wasn’t like them, because he was different – partly also because th ey were a little frightened of him: of the occasional, devastating sharpness of his tongue, and of the oddly disconcerting streams of talk that would suddenly come gushing out of him. But of course, he also had his uses: there was a streak of intensely worldly shrewdness in him which would stand them in good stead every once in a while.For example, he would give a student precise and detailed instructions on how to write an examination paper, because he happened to know that Professor So-and-so was going to correct it, and he liked answers that were slanted just so, and the student would do as he had said, and get a first class. Or else when someone was going to appear for a job interview he would tell him what he was likely to be asked, and when the interview was over it would turn out that Tridib’s predictions had been dead right.But equally his advice would sometimes seem deliberately misleading, perverse. Once, for instance, he told a young man who was going to be intervi ewed by a multinational company that the firm, once famous for its stuffiness, had recently been bought by a Marwari businessman and become very nationalist, and that he would not stand any chance at all of getting in unless he went to the interview dressed in a dhoti. The young man went off to the interview duly clad in dhoti, and found that the doorman wouldn’t let him in.Nobody was ever quite sure where they stood with Tridib: there was a casual self-mockery about many of the things he said which left his listeners uncertain about whether they ought to take what he said at face value or believe its opposite. As a result, inevitably, there were all kinds of conflicting rumours about him – especially because he was secretive about his family and his circumstances to an extraordinary degree – even more than was wholly warranted by the fact that everybody young was turning Maoist at that time.Someone would remark knowingly that he had heard that Tridib’s f amily was rich and powerful, that his father was a diplomat, the son of a wealthy judge, and his brother was a brilliant economist who had a job with the UN and lived abroad. But no sooner would he say it than a sceptical voice would cut him short and say: Where do you live, mairi? D’you think we’ve all dropped out of the sky that we’ll believe all that – don’t you know he’s married and has three children and lives with his widowed mother in a slum near Santoshpur?And since there was something just a little improbable about the son of a diplomat, scion of a rich and powerful family, turning up at those street corners for years on end, it was the latter kind of story that people tended to believe. Sometimes I would try to tell them the truth. But I was just a boy and I happened to have a reputation for being wide-eyed and gullible. Besides, they all knew we lived in a small flat down the lane; if I had tried too hard to persuade them that we had rich and powerful relatives they would only have thought that I was giving yself airs. When I was about nine Tridib once stayed away from his haunts in Gole Park for so long that the regulars began to wonder what had happened to him. I was the only one who knew, because I had stopped by at his house once (as I often did in those days) on my way to my maths tutor’s house, in the afternoon. This was during the time he was telling me the story of his journey to England in instalments. I had found him, as always, lying on a mat in his room at the top of the house, reading, with a cigarette smouldering in an ashtray beside him.When I told him that people were asking about him at Gole Park, he put a finger to his lips. Shh, he said. Don’t tell them a thing. Do you know what? I think I may have discovered the mound where the kings of the Sena dynasty used to bury their treasure. If the government finds out, they’ll take everything. Don’t say a word to anyone and don’t come here again for a while – you may be followed by secret agents. I was thrilled: I hugged the secret to my chest every time I was asked about him. He’d gone, I would say. He’s vanished. Then, one evening, on my way to the park, I heard he’d surfaced at Gole Park again.I doubled back and found him at his favourite adda, on the steps of an old house, surrounded by his acquaintances. I waved to him, from between someone’s legs, but he was busy answering their questions and didn’t see me. Where have you been all this while, Tridib-da? somebody said. It must be three or four months †¦ I’ve been away, I heard him say, and nodded secretly to myself. Away? Where? I’ve been to London, he said. To visit my relatives. His face was grave, his voice steady. What relatives? I have English relatives through marriage, he said. A family called Price.I thought I’d go and visit them. Ignoring their sceptical grunt s, he told them that he had been to stay with old Mrs Price, who was a widow. Her husband had died recently. She lived in north London, he said, on a street called Lymington Road; the number of their house was 44 and the tube station was West Hampstead. Mrs Price had a daughter, who was called May. And what’s she like? a voice asked. Sexy? He reflected on that for a moment, and said, no, she wasn’t sexy, not in the ordinary way – she was thick-set, with broad shoulders, and not very tall.She wasn’t beautiful or even pretty in the usual sense, for she had a strong face and a square jaw, but she had thick straight hair which came down to her shoulders in a glossy black screen, like a head-dress in an Egyptian frieze, and she had a wonderful, warm smile which lit up her blue eyes and gave her a quality all her own, set her apart. And what does she do? someone sneered. Is she a wrestler or a hairdresser? She’s a student, said Tridib. At least, a kind o f student – she’s studying at the Royal College of Music. She plays the oboe, and one day she’s going to join an orchestra.It was then, I think, that I could restrain myself no longer. I thrust myself forward through the thicket of trousered legs and cried: Tridib-da, you’ve made a mistake! I met you last month, don’t you remember? You were in your room, lying on your mat, smoking a cigarette. You were looking for †¦ There was a howl of laughter and a chorus of exclamations: You fraud, you liar, you were just making it all up, you haven’t been anywhere †¦ Tridib did not seem to be at all put out, either by what I had said or by their laughter.He laughed too, shrugging good-naturedly, and said: If you believe anything people tell you, you deserve to be told anything at all †¦ Leaning towards me, he pinched my cheek and grinned. Isn’t that so? he said, with an interrogatory nod, his spectacles glinting in the lamplight. H is aplomb gave an uneasy edge to the laughter and the comments around him: it seemed now that he had made them the victims of a complicated private joke. There was an edgy hostility in their voices when he left. You can’t believe a word he says, somebody exclaimed, he just likes to bamboozle people and play jokes on them.But another, sharper voice broke in and said: Joke? He wasn’t joking, he believed everything he said: it was no joke, the fact is that he’s a nut – he’s never been anywhere outside Calcutta. I was furious with myself now for having exposed Tridib to their ridicule. You don’t know what you’re talking about, I cried. I was shouting at the top of my voice, so they listened. Still shouting, I told them the truth as I knew it: that Tridib had been to London, with his parents, many years ago, when he was a boy. They had aken his father there for an operation, which couldn’t be done in India. They had had to go, even though it was 1939 and they knew there might be a war. His brother Jatin had been left behind in Calcutta with his grandparents because he was older and couldn’t be away from school for so long. And yes, there was a family called Price, who lived in West Hampstead, but they weren’t relatives – they were very, very old friends of Tridib’s family, because Mrs Price’s father, Lionel Tresawsen, had lived in India hen the British were here, and he and Tridib’s grandfather, who was a very important man, a judge in the Calcutta High Court, had been friends. Long after Lionel Tresawsen went back to England his daughter had married a man who had taught her in college, whom everyone called Snipe because his name was S. N. I. Price. When she’d heard that Tridib’s father was ill she had written to them and sent telegrams to say that they must stay with her in London, because she’d bought a big house, and she’d been wanting to take in lodgers anyway.And it was true that she had a daughter called May, but she was a little baby when Tridib was in London, and as far as I knew he hadn’t seen her since. And Mrs Price had had a brother too, called Alan, who had been in Germany before the war †¦ I gave up, exhausted. That’s an even better version than Tridib’s, somebody said, with a snort of laughter. It’s true, I shouted back at him. If you don’t believe me, ask †¦ Tridib? A voice prompted, and they doubled up with laughter. I pushed my way out and ran all the way down the lane and up the two flights of stairs to our flat.I was an hour late, and my grandmother was very angry. In her controlled, headmistress’s voice she asked me where I had been, and when I didn’t answer she raised her hand, drew it back and slapped me. Where have you been? she asked again, and this time I blurted out that I’d been down at the corner. She slapped me again, really hard. Haven’t I told you, she said, you’re not to go there and waste your time? Time is not for wasting, time is for work. I met May Price for the first time two years after that incident, when she came to Calcutta on a visit.The next time I met her was seventeen years later, when I went to London myself. I went to England on a year’s research grant, to collect material from the India Office Library, where all the old colonial records were kept, for a PhD thesis on the textile trade between India and England in the nineteenth century. More than a month passed after I arrived in London, before I could meet May again. I had to go to a great deal of trouble to find her. She was playing in an orchestra and living on her own in a bedsit in Islington. Mrs Price gave me her phone number and I called her several times, but she was never in.And then, one morning, while looking through the entertainment page of the Guardian, I saw a notice which said that her orchestra w ould be playing the Dvorak Cello Concerto that evening at the Royal Festival Hall. I went there early that evening: I could only afford a ticket for a place on one of the benches behind the orchestra, and I had heard they sometimes sold out very early. But as it turned out I managed to get a seat quite easily: the soloist was a Swedish cellist who clearly did not have much drawing power. When I went in, I discovered that my seat was directly behind the woodwind section.Soon I saw her; she was fussing with her music-stand, dressed, like all the other women in the orchestra, in a black skirt and white blouse. I watched her as she arranged her music and chatted with an elderly horn player who was sitting in front of her. Her hair was still cut exactly as I remembered it from the time she had stayed with us in Calcutta: falling thick and straight to her shoulders, mantling her neck and the sides of her face; but where I remembered it as dark and shiny, it was streaked now with bands of grey which shimmered when they caught the light.Her shoulders, always broad for her height, had thickened; she seemed almost top-heavy now, for she hadn’t added an inch to her waist. I caught a glimpse of her face when she turned to say something to a woman who was sitting in the row behind. She had deep lines running from the corner of her mouth to her nose, and her eyes, which had once been a clear, bright blue, had grown pale and prominent. Watching her through that concert, I thought of her as she was when she came to stay with us in Calcutta, all those years ago. We had moved to a much larger house then, and she had been given the guest room, downstairs.In the evenings, whenever I managed to elude my mother and grandmother (who didn’t want me to bother her), I would slip into her room, sit on the floor and listen to her playing scales on the recorder she had brought to practice on. Often she would blush with embarrassment, put her recorder down and say: Look, this must be so boring for you, all these horrible scales. But I wouldn’t let her stop. I would insist that she go on playing, and I would sit there entranced, and watch her blowing into her recorder, frowning, the muscles in her cheeks knotting in concentration.She was not frowning when she played in that concert in the Festival Hall: it was evident that her mastery of her instrument was so complete now that she had to give little thought to the music. All through that concert she, and most of the other musicians around her, performed with a bored mechanical precision, very much like veteran soldiers going through a familiar exercise at their sergeantmajor’s command. When the concert was over I waited in my seat until the audience had left and the members of the orchestra were busy packing their instruments.Then I leant over the railing and called out her name. She looked up, narrowing her eyes. She saw me and gave me a politely puzzled smile. Then, to my surprise, she re cognised me, and her face lit up and she waved. Pointing at the exit she mouthed the words: I’ll see you outside. I went out into the plush, chandeliered foyer and waited. Five minutes later, I saw her, picking her way through the last stragglers, her shoulders rolling, like a boxer’s, as she walked towards me. We met half-way down the foyer and froze in mutual embarrassment.She put out a tentative hand, and then suddenly she smiled, rose on tiptoe, pulled my head down and kissed me on the cheeks, her oboe clattering against my neck in its leather case. As we made our way out, I asked her how she had recognised me, after all those years. She gave it a moment’s thought and said: I put two and two together I suppose – I knew you were in London; Mother told me. She stopped to give me a quick, appraising look. And besides, she said, it’s not as though you don’t bear a family resemblance to the boy I met in Calcutta – and I remember him ve ry well.Her voice had a deep, gravelly, almost masculine texture; I couldn’t decide whether it had always been like that or whether it had changed. While she was leading me towards Waterloo tube station through a maze of concrete walkways, she stopped to ask: Have you got anything planned for the rest of the evening? I shook my head, trying not to look too eager. Well, she said, pausing to think; you could always come back with me to my bedsit, for dinner. I can’t offer you very much – just a beansprout salad and some grilled fish. I don’t know whether you care for that kind of thing?Yes, I said, nodding. That would be very nice. She gave me a quick smile. If it’s any consolation, she said, remember I sprouted the beans myself. In the tube, on our way to Islington, I told her how bored she had looked through the concert. She nodded sheepishly. Yes, she said; you’ve guessed my guilty secret. I only stay on with the orchestra because I’ ve got to make a living somehow †¦ She cleared her throat, hesitated, and went on to add: You know – I spend most of my time working for Amnesty and Oxfam and a couple of other relief agencies, small ones, you won’t have heard of them.I asked her a few questions and she described the project she was working on just then with a businesslike briskness: it was something to do with providing housing for the survivors of an earthquake in Central America. It was evident that she found a great deal of satisfaction in her work. Her room was on the first floor of a house that looked out on Islington Green. As she stepped in and switched on the lights, a television set near her bed lit up too, automatically. She hurried across the room and switched it off. Turning to face me she said, guiltily, as though she were making a confession: I leave it on all the time.It’s my only real indulgence. It fills up the room – it feels a bit empty otherwise. It was a large, pleasant room, full of plants; its windows looked out over the trees on the Green. There was very little furniture in it – an armchair, a desk, and a large bed, pushed up against the wall at the far end of the room. There were also a few cushions, with bright Gujarati mirrorwork covers, scattered on the floor, but they looked as though they had been thrown there more to fill up empty space than to be sat on: it did not look like a room where visitors were often expected.With a formal, faintly ironic little bow May invited me to amuse myself by looking through her bookshelf while she made our dinner. Glancing through her collection of Russian novels in paperback, miniature music scores and illustrated health books, I came upon an old photograph. It was pinned, along with a dozen other scraps of paper, on to one of those large boards that I had seen hanging over many student desks in London. It was a picture of her, taken a long time ago. While I was looking at it she darted ou t of her cupboard-like kitchenette to fetch something from the refrigerator.She noticed me standing in front of her board and came and stood beside me. When she saw what I was looking at she gave me a quick glance and opened her mouth to say something. But then, changing her mind, she whipped around again and went back to the kitchenette. Curious now, I followed her there and stood leaning against the wall, watching her as she bent down to look under the grill. I remarked casually that the picture must have been taken a long time ago: that was exactly how she had looked, if my memory served me right, when she had stayed with us in Calcutta.Not quite exactly, she said, watching the grill, her voice ironically precise; it was taken at least a couple of years before that. She looked at me, dusting her hands, raising her eyebrows as though in surprise. That was the picture, she said, a copy of which I was once privileged to send to Tridib. Later, when we were eating our dinner, I discov ered that in 1959, when he was twenty-seven and she nineteen, they had begun a long correspondence. Tridib had written first, she told me.He had always sent Mrs Price cards at Christmas, ever since they left London in 1940. But that year he had sent two, one to Mrs Price and one to her. He had inscribed a little note in her card saying that he remembered her very well, though she could not possibly remember him, that it would be a great pity if they lost touch altogether, and he hoped that some day she would find time to write to him. She was both touched and intrigued: she had already heard a great deal about him.Smiling at the memory, she told me how his card had reached her just when she was trying to get over an adolescent crush on a schoolboy trombonist, who had had no time for her at all and had not been overly delicate about making that clear. It was nice to feel that someone wanted to befriend her. She had written back, and after that they had written to each other regularly – short, chatty letters, usually. Soon, penfriend-like, they had exchanged photographs. I like to think that Tridib received May’s photograph the day he came to Gole Park and told us that made-up story.Actually my grandmother was wrong about Tridib: he was nothing at all like the hardened gossip-lovers who spent most of their time hanging around the street corners at Gole Park. He was often maliciously dismissive of those people; marine mammals, he would say of them, creatures who sink to the bottom of the sea of heartbreak when they lose sight of the herd. The truth was that, in his own way, Tridib was something of a recluse: even as a child I could tell that he was happiest in that book-lined room of his, right at the top of their old family house.It was that Tridib whom I liked best; I was a bit unsure of the Tridib of the street corners. His niece Ila and I used to disagree about this. We talked about it once, when we were about sixteen. I was soon to leave to go to college in Delhi, I remember, and Ila and her parents had just flown in from Indonesia for a short holiday. Soon after they arrived in Calcutta, they came to visit us. I still remember how my grandmother gasped when Ila climbed out of the car, the tasselled end of her long thick braid swinging freely in front of her.Even my grandmother, who was very critical in all matters to do with appearance, especially where Ila and her family were concerned, pinched her chin and said: Our Ila is growing into a real beauty – she’s taken after Maya. But as for me, I was disappointed: ever since I could remember, Ila had worn clothes the like of which neither I nor anyone else I knew in Calcutta had ever seen, and here she was now, dressed in a simple white sari with a red border, like any Bethune College girl on her way to a lecture.Soon, growing tired of our parents’ conversation, we went out, the two of us, for a walk. Involuntarily we found ourselves walking towards the lake. But when we reached it and spotted an empty bench, we both remembered how we used to sit on those benches when we were children, with our arms around each other’s waists, pretending to count the birds on the little island in the middle of the lake, and, suddenly embarrassed, we turned and hurried off towards the Lily Pool Bridge, in the distance, the awkwardness of our silence making me trip where there was nothing to trip on.At last, because I could think of nothing else to say, I asked her whether she remembered those days when we were children and she and Robi used to come to Calcutta in the summers, and three of us used to go up to Tridib’s room whenever we were bored and listen to him, in the still, sultry heat of the afternoons, while he lay on a mat, propped up with pillows, cigarette smoke spiralling out of his fingers, and spoke to us in that soft, deep voice of his, about the behavioural differences between the Elapidae and Viperidae families of snakes , or the design of the temples at Karnak, or the origins of the catamaran.Or, for example, the time when Robi and I decided to become explorers in the Empty Quarter, and went running up to his room to ask for a few tips before setting off. He had smiled and gone on to tell us in ghastly detail about the circumcision rites of one of the desert tribes. And then, spectacles glinting, he had said: So before you leave you’d better decide whether you would care to have all that done to your little wee-wees, just in case you’re captured. I asked her if she remembered how Robi and I had spread our hands instinctively over ur groins, and how angry we had been when she had laughed. Mere vagina-envy, she said, laughing, and I tried to keep my face impassive as though I was accustomed to girls who used words like that. But I could tell she didn’t remember. I asked her, then, if she had any memory of the stratagems we used to employ to get Tridib to tell us about the year he had spent in London, during the war; of how we used to pore over his photographs when we could persuade him to bring them out; of how he used to tell us about the people in them, pointing out Mrs Price with May in her arms, orAlan Tresawsen, her brother, with his bad arm hanging limply at his side, and her husband Snipe, who used to treat himself with Yeast-Vite tonic for his neuralgia and bile beans for his blood, Doan’s kidney pills for his backaches and Andrews Salt for his liver, Iglodine for his cuts and Mentholatum for his catarrh; Snipe, who had once sent Tridib to the chemist’s shop on West End Lane to buy him a glue called Dentesive so that his dentures would not be shaken out by the bombs. Yes, she said nodding, mildly puzzled by my insistence, she did have a faint recollection, but she could not exactly say she remembered. But how could you forget?I cried. She shrugged and arched her eyebrows in surprise, and said: It was a long time ago – the real q uestion is, how do you remember? But of course, to me it wasn’t a question at all. I tried to tell her, but neither then nor later, though we talked about it often, did I ever succeed in explaining to her that I could not forget because Tridib had given me worlds to travel in and he had given me eyes to see them with; she, who had been travelling around the world since she was a child, could never understand what those hours in Tridib’s room had meant to me, a boy who had never been more than a few hundred miles from Calcutta.I used to listen to her talking sometimes with her father and grandfather about the cafes in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, or the crispness of the air in Cuzco, and I could see that those names, which were to me a set of magical talismans because Tridib had pointed them out to me on his tattered old Bartholomew’s Atlas, had for her a familiarity no less dull than the lake had for me and my friends; the same tired intimacy that made us stop on our way back from the park in the evening and unbutton our shorts and aim our piss through the rusty wrought-iron railings.I began to tell her how I longed to visit Cairo, to see the world’s first pointed arch in the mosque of Ibn Tulun, and touch the stones of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. I had been talking for a while when I noticed that she wasn’t listening to me; she was following a train of thought in her mind, frowning with concentration. I watched her, waiting eagerly to hear what she would have to say. Suddenly she clicked her fingers, gave herself a satisfied nod, and said aloud, inadvertently: Oh yes, Cairo, the Ladies is way on the other side of the departure lounge.I had a glimpse, at that moment of those names on the map as they appeared to her: a worldwide string of departure lounges, but not for that reason at all similar, but on the contrary, each of them strikingly different, distinctively individual, each with its Ladies hidden away in some yet more u nexpected corner of the hall, each with its own peculiarity, like the flushes in Stockholm’s Arlanda, so sleekly discreet that she had once missed two flight calls because it had taken her so long to understand how the handle worked.I imagined her alighting on these daydream names – Addis Ababa, Algiers, Brisbane – and running around the airport to look for the Ladies, not because she wanted to go, but because those were the only fixed points in the shifting landscapes of her childhood. When I went to London, a decade later, often when Ila suggested going out somewhere, to a film in Brixton perhaps, or to a new Vietnamese restaurant in Maida Vale, I would jump to my feet and, before I knew it, I would cry: Yes, let’s go, let’s go on the Underground. She would burst out laughing and mimic me, saying: You’d think we were going on the bloody Concorde.To her the Underground was merely a means of shifting venue: it would irritate her to see how e xcited I got when we stepped on to the escalators; she would watch me as I turned to look at the advertisements flashing past us on the walls, gulped in the netherworld smell of electricity and dampness and stale deodorant, stopped to listen to the music of the buskers booming eerily through the permanent night of the passageways, and in annoyance she would tug at my elbows and hiss: Hurry, hurry, you can’t stop here, you’ll hold people up.And if I still lingered she would snap at me impatiently: For God’s sake stop carrying on like a third-world tapioca farmer – it’s just the bloody Underground. And I would say to her: You wouldn’t understand: to you Cairo was a place to piss in. I could not persuade her that a place does not merely exist, that it has to be invented in one’s imagination; that her practical, bustling London was no less invented than mine, neither more nor less true, only very far apart.It was not her fault that she co uld not understand, for as Tridib often said of her, the inventions she lived in moved with her, so that although she had lived in many places, she had never travelled at all. All through her childhood, every time her family came back to Calcutta for a holiday, they brought back souvenirs from wherever they happened to be living at that time. Her parents would bring back all kinds of things – Indonesian leather puppets or improbable North African stools with camellike humps.But there was only one kind of souvenir that Ila ever thought of bringing back and I was the only person to whom she would show them. We would slip away to the shade of the rusty water tanks on the roof of their house, and there, with a tight little smile, she would produce a large manila folder. They were always the same, and in time they came to mean as much to me as they did to her: they were the Yearbooks of the International Schools of whatever city she happened to be living in at that time. They were always full of photographs.There would be one of each student and then pages of others – of groups of friends, of parties and tennis matches, of whole classes together. For a long time I could not believe that they were really pictures of a school, because in the pictures the boys and girls were standing around all mixed up together, and besides, not one of them was in uniform. To me, the clothes they were wearing in those pictures seemed to have as little to do with school as the costumes at a circus. Then Ila would point herself out, and there she would be, dressed in jeans or a skirt, and even, once, a Persian lambskin waistcoat.She would show me her friends, standing beside her, and I would roll their names around my tongue – Teresa Cassano, Mercedes Aguilar, Merfeth ashSharqawi – names of girls mainly at first, and then, as we grew older, boys too – Calouste Malekian, Cetshwayo James, Juin Nagajima – names which imprinted themselves on my mem ory so that years later I recognised Mercedes Aguilar at once when she turned up in a photograph two continents away from where she’d been when I had first seen her in those photographs. Ila’s closest friends were always the most beautiful, the most talented, the most intelligent girls in the school.She would point them out to me in the pictures of picnics and fancy-dress dances. The three of us went to that together, she would say, Teresa and Merfeth and I; and we spent the whole evening talking to each other – you should have seen the boys buzzing around us – but Teresa decided that we weren’t going to dance that evening, just like that, so †¦ And she would point Teresa and Merfeth out to me, laughing, slender girls, making faces at the camera. But somehow, though Ila could tell me everything about those parties and dances, what she said and what she did and what she wore, she herself was always unaccountably absent in the pictures.When we w ere fourteen she once pointed to the picture of a boy who, to me, already looked like a grown man, with a face like an American film star, square-jawed and cleft-chinned, with long black hair that curled down to his shoulders. His name is Jamshed Tabrizi, she said, he’s a fencing champion and this year his father gave him a BMW sports car for his birthday; he can’t drive it yet because he’s not old enough, but their chauffeur brought it around to the school one day. It’s red, like lipstick, and as soon as he gets his licence, we’re going to drive down to the beach at Pattaya on Sundays; it’s just a few miles from Bangkok.And then, in a rush, looking at me sideways, she added: He’s my boyfriend. But a few pages later, in their class photograph, there he was, right in the foreground, in the centre of the front row, grinning, broad-shouldered, a head taller than anyone else, with his arms thrown around the shoulders of two laughing blond e girls. And before she flipped the page I caught a glimpse of Ila herself, on the edge of the back row, standing a little apart, unsmiling, in a plain grey skirt, with a book under her right arm.She saw that I had noticed, and when I came upon that Yearbook again a week later I discovered that that page had been torn out. I felt a constriction in my throat, for suddenly it seemed to me that perhaps she was not so alien, after all, to my own small, puritanical world, in which children were sent to school to learn how to cling to their gentility by proving themselves in the examination hall. Those schools were all that mattered to Ila; the places themselves went past her in an illusory whirl of movement, like those studio screens in old films which flash past the windows of speeding cars.I confronted her with this once, in London, when the three of us, she, Robi and I, happened to be together in a pub, the Kembles Head, on Long Acre, a short walk from Covent Garden. Robi was stopping by in London on his way to Harvard. He was on leave from his job in the Indian Administrative Service, so that he could take up a fellowship in administration and public affairs for six months. We had decided to spend the evening together. Ila laughed when I reminded her about those Yearbooks and, picking up her glass of whisky, she said: Of course those schools mattered to me, schools are all that matter to any child, it’s only natural.It’s you who were peculiar, sitting in that poky little flat in Calcutta, dreaming about faraway places. I probably did you no end of good; at least you learnt that those cities you saw on maps were real places, not like those fairylands Tridib made up for you. But of course, among other things, Tridib was an archaeologist; he was not interested in fairylands: the one thing he wanted to teach me, he used to say, was to use my imagination with precision. For instance, when Ila and I were ten, her family came to Calcutta from Colombo for a holiday.Ila came with Tridib and her mother to visit us, and her mother, in her kindly way, knowing how fascinated I was by the countries they lived in, asked Ila to tell me a story about their house that she thought would interest her. Their house was in a quiet part of Colombo where diplomats and senior civil servants and people like that lived. It was an area where sprawling bungalows with huge lawns were threaded through by lanes that were often flooded with puddles of scarlet gulmohur and yellow jacaranda. Their house was at one end of a very quiet lane.It was a big house with large verandas and a steeply sloping roof covered with mossy tiles. The garden was at the back. It seemed to stretch out from inside the house; when the French windows were open the tiled floor of the drawing room merged without a break into the lawn. It was a quiet secluded garden, with a bronze vat, taller than a child, standing like a brooding tumulus in a corner. And it had a blue-tiled lily pond i n the centre, in which plump, fantailed goldfish flashed their white bellies at the sun. There was only one problem: adjoining the garden at the back was a poultry farm.This caused Ila’s mother a good deal of worry, apart from the bother of the smell and the noise, for she had heard that snakes were certain to appear wherever there were chickens. Still, the house was surrounded by a very high wall, and when the breeze was blowing in the right direction the garden was as tranquil as a Japanese cloister. One morning, soon after they moved in, their cook Ram Dayal came running upstairs and burst in upon Ila’s mother who was taking her midmorning nap in an easy chair on a veranda. Mugger-muchh, shrieked Ram Dayal. Save me, burra-mem bachao me from his crocodile.He was a tall, willowy, usually drowsy man, but now his eyes were starting from his gaunt face and his lips were flecked with spittle. Never heard of such a thing, Ila’s mother said to us. Crocodile in my gar den; almost fell out of my easy chair. My grandmother and I looked carefully away from each other, but ever afterwards the thought of Ila’s mother, with her rounded figure, as soft and plump as two buns squashed together in a schoolbag, falling out of her easy chair at the thought of a crocodile in her garden, was enough to reduce us to helpless laughter.Man was in a state, she snorted. Never seen anything like it. But now, being the woman she was, she folded her tiny hands in her lap, pushed her knot of hair back to the top of her head and sat up in her chair in the way the family had come to know so well, that characteristic pose that had earned her the nickname of Queen Victoria. Shatup Ram Dayal, Queen Victoria snapped. Stop bukbukking like a chhokra-boy. Dekho burra-mem, he said again, his thin voice vanishing into a screech. There it is, in the garden. And right he was, Queen Victoria said, her voice shrill with amazement.Damn and blast, there it was – a heck of a huge great big lizard, all grey and black, nasty greatbig creature, with a little pointed head and a tongue like a bootlace, wandering about in my garden like a governor at a gymkhana. But being, as she was, the daughter of a man who had left his village in Barisal in rags and gone on to earn a knighthood in the old Indian Civil Service, she retained her composure. Muro-it, Ram Dayal, she cried. Catch hold of it before Ila-mem sees it, and cut its head off. (As though it were a penis or something, Ila said to me years later. But Ram Dayal was knocking his head against the wall now, the whites of his eyes showing, tears zig-zagging down his cheeks. Why did I come to Lanka? he wailed. I knew Ravana would come to get me. Shatup Ram Dayal, Queen Victoria snapped. She rang the little bronze bell she always carried to summon Lizzie, Ila’s recently arrived Sinhalese ayah. Yes madam? Lizzie said from the doorway. She was a thin, middle-aged woman with a stern mouth and a small, was ted face, always very neatly dressed in the blouse and sari of her native Kandyan foothills.Waving a hand with careful nonchalance, Queen Victoria said: Lizzie, at it-garden looking-looking. The animal was sunning itself now, its grey chest raised high on stiff forelegs. Lizzie, what it-thing being-being? Queen Victoria said. She always spoke like that to Lizzie, though Lizzie spoke very good English and even knew a little Hindi. It was a language she had invented on the spot when Lizzie first came to them on the recommendation of a senior Sinhalese civil servant. Lizzie looked at it and laughed. That’s a thala-goya madam, she said. Very common here, very gentle animal.Queen Victoria glared at the reptile. Gentle, by Jove! she said to us. Wretched beast could have passed for a bloody tyrannosaurus. She turned to look at Lizzie. No possible, she said, it-thing killing-killing? Kill it? Lizzie cried, once she had decoded this. But why to kill it? They keep snakes away. She ran downstairs, and a few minutes later they saw her go into the garden with an armful of cabbage stalks and vegetable peel. She scattered them on the grass and the animal darted forward and began to feed. Hai, hai, hai, gasped Ram Dayal. Hai, hai, hai!Determined not to be outdone by Lizzie, Queen Victoria stiffened her back and went out into the garden herself, taking a few vegetables with her. The animal fixed its eyes balefully upon her as soon as she stepped into the lawn. She froze. Then, drawing on her last reserves of courage, she managed to mutter to it: Eating-eating nice veggie-veggies? which was only her Lizzie-language turned inside out, but the animal’s tail seemed to flicker in answer and from that moment onwards she considered it a part of her household: she was always at ease with anything and anybody who would respond to one of her private dialects.After that, even though many of her Sinhalese acquaintances were alarmed to find a monitor lizard on her lawn and to ld her stories about how they had been known to break children’s shinbones with a swipe of their tails, she allowed it the run of her garden, except, of course, when she had parties, when Lizzie was made to tie it to a tree with a length of rope. One day, early in the morning after one of her parents’ parties, when the lawn was still dotted with cigarette stubs and half-eaten snacks, Ila went out into the garden to read.She had a book with her that she had had to put away the night before when she was only twenty pages from the end, because Lizzie had switched off the lights in her bedroom. She flopped into a deckchair beside the lily pond and in a moment she was absorbed in her book. Ten pages later, still engrossed, she heard a soft splash in the lily pond. It was a very gentle splash, no louder than the sound of a goldfish’s tail flicking the surface.But she stirred, and, not quite taking her eyes off the page, she caught a glimpse of a shadow, as slim and si nuous as a branch of oleander, stretching from the edge of the lawn, under her chair and into the pool. Then the shadow rippled, and this time she looked up properly and saw scales glinting on a long muscular body. She screamed, and the book dropped out of her hands. It hit the edge of her chair and tumbled off, and she heard a dull, fleshy thud as it struck scales and muscle. The whole length of the snake’s body flashed past under the chair with an angry rustle, and then, somewhere behind her, she heard a slow prolonged hiss.She turned, slowly, stiffly, in the way one has to when one knows that one’s lungs are suddenly empty and one’s muscles have gone rigid with fear. The snake’s head was about a foot from her back. Its body lay curled, in tight regular coils, flat on the earth, while its head had reared up, higher than the back of the chair. She was whimpering now, trying to call out, but at the same time, looking at the snake’s head, she saw it more clearly than she’d ever seen anything before, with the telescopic clarity of absolute concentration.She could see its tiny eyes, the flaring nostrils at the end of the sharply pointed head, the tongue, no longer flickering, drawn into the soft pink mouth in readiness, the fangs, erect now, and dripping. Then she heard another sound at the far end of the garden and dimly, without turning her head, she saw the thala-goya thrashing at the end of its rope, battering the tree it was tied to with its tail. The snake heard it too, and it hesitated for a moment with its body arched. Its eyes settled upon Ila again and its neck bent still further back till it was like a drawn bow.Then its head flashed forward. At that moment, reflexively, Ila turned her body, a very small movement, but enough to overbalance the chair. She fell, the chair tumbled over with her, and the snake’s fangs glanced off its steel legs. It reared back again like a snapping whiplash. Ila tried to pus h herself up, but her hands slipped and she fell back. And then, with all the suddenness of a knot springing undone, the coiled snake dropped its head on the grass and shot away towards the wall. She looked up to see the thala-goya lumbering after it. It had bitten through the rope.But the snake was quicker and it had slithered over the wall long before the thala-goya could cross the lawn. So, young chap, Queen Victoria said, patting my head, her eyes twinkling. What do you make of that? I glanced instinctively towards Tridib. He was looking at me, eyes narrowed, head cocked. I was nervous now: I could see that he was waiting to hear what I’d have to say, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. My mother and grandmother were exclaiming with horror about the snake, asking Queen Victoria how big it was, whether it was poisonous or not.Taking my cue from them, I chose a safe course: hoping to earn Tridib’s approval by showing him how well I remembered everything he to ld us, I asked Queen Victoria whether the snake was of the species Boidae or Elapidae. Queen Victoria goggled at me and mumbled something to the effect of: Well that’s a bit of an uppercut, young chap; I don’t think I could tell you in a month of Sundays. While she was mumbling I stole a glance at Tridib. He had pursed his lips and was shaking his head in disappointment. I sat out the rest of their visit in crestfallen silence.On the stairs, when I was going down to see them off, while Ila and her mother lingered over their goodbyes, Tridib said to me casually that, if one thought about it, there was nothing really very interesting about snakes – after all, if I saw one in the lake, for example, what would I do? I’d come back home and tell everyone, but in a few minutes I’d forget about it and get back to my homework: the snake would have nothing whatever to do with my real life. I did not particularly care for the suggestion that my homework was m y real life, but I kept quiet anyway: I c