Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 10

An' I tried to be good, an' I can't. I get drunk, an' I go wild."
"Ever'body goes wild," said Casy. "I do too."
"Yeah, but you ain't got a sin on your soul like me."
Casy said gently, "Sure I got sins. Ever'body got sins. A sin is somepin you ain't sure about. Them people that's sure about ever'thing an' ain't got no sin—well, with that kind of a son-of-a-bitch, if I was God I'd kick their ass right outa heaven! I couldn' stand 'em!"
Uncle John said, "I got a feelin' I'm bringin' bad luck to my own folks. I got a feelin' I oughta go away an' let 'em be. I ain't comf'table bein' like this."
Casy said quickly, "I know this—a man got to do what he got to do. I can't tell you. I can't tell you. I don't think they's luck or bad luck. On'y one thing in this worl' I'm sure of, an' that's I'm sure nobody got a right to mess with a fella's life. He got to do it all hisself. Help him, maybe, but not tell him what to do." Uncle John said disappointedly, "Then you don' know'?"
"I don' know."
"You think it was a sin to let my wife die like that?"
"Well," said Casy, "for anybody else it was a mistake, but if you think it was a sin—then it's a sin. A fella builds his own sins right up from the groun'."
"I got to give that goin'-over," said Uncle John, and he rolled on his back and lay with his knees pulled up. 
 

Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 09

Tom grinned. "It don't take no nerve to do somepin when there ain't nothin' else you can do. "…

Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 05

The big cars on the highway. Languid, heat-raddled ladies, small nucleuses about whom  revolve  a  thousand  accouterments:  creams,  ointments  to grease  themselves, coloring matter in phials—black, pink, red, white, green, silver—to change the color of hair,  eyes,  lips,  nails,  brows,  lashes,  lids.  Oils,  seeds,  and  pills  to  make  the  bowels move.  A  bag  of  bottles,  syringes,  pills,  powders,  fluids,  jellies  to  make  their  sexual intercourse safe, odorless, and unproductive. And this apart from clothes. What a hell of a nuisance!
Lines  of  weariness  around  the  eyes,  lines  of  discontent  down  from  the  mouth, breasts lying heavily in little hammocks, stomach and thighs straining against cases of rubber.  And  the  mouths  panting,  the  eyes  sullen, disliking  sun  and  wind  and  earth, resenting food and weariness, hating time that rarely makes them beautiful and always makes them old.
Beside them, little pot-bellied men in light suits and panama hats; clean, pink men with puzzled, worried eyes, with restless eyes. Worried because formulas do not work out; hungry for security and yet sensing its disappearance from the earth. In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight of numbers of little worried men, reassure themselves that business is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery they know it is; that business men are intelligent in spite of the records of their stupidity; that they are kind and charitable in spite of the principles of sound business; that their lives are rich instead of the thin tiresome routines they know; and that a time is coming when they will not be afraid any more.

Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 04

For man,  unlike  any  other  thing  organic  or  inorganic  in  the  universe,  grows  beyond  his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man—when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when  narrow  dark  alleys  of  thought,  national,  religious,  economic,  grow  and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when
the crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live—for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live—for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know—fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 03

Al steered with one hand and put the other on the vibrating gear-shift lever. He had difficulty in speaking. His mouth formed the words silently before he said them aloud. "Ma—"  She  looked  slowly  around  at  him,  her  head  swaying a  little  with  the  car's motion. "Ma, you scared a goin'? You scared a goin' to a new place?" Her eyes grew thoughtful and soft. "A little," she said. "Only it ain't like scared so much. I'm jus' a settin' here waitin'. When somepin happens that I got to do somepin—I'll do it."
"Ain't you thinkin' what's it gonna be like when we get there? Ain't you scared it won't be nice like we thought?"  "No,"  she  said  quickly.  "No,  I  ain't.  You  can't  do  that.  I  can't  do  that.  It's  too much—livin' too many lives. Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes, it'll on'y be one. If I go ahead on all of 'em, it's too much. You got to live ahead 'cause you're so young, but—it's jus' the road goin' by for me. An' it's jus' how soon they gonna wanta eat some more pork bones." Her face tightened. "That's all I can do. I can't do no more. All the rest'd get upset if I done any more'n that. They all depen' on me jus' thinkin' about that."

Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 08

In the water, the man and his boy watched the Joads disappear. And the boy said, "Like to see 'em in six months. Jesus!"
The man wiped his eye corners with his forefinger. "I shouldn' of did that," he said.
"Fella always wants to be a wise guy, wants to tell folks stuff."
"Well, Jesus, Pa! They asked for it."
"Yeah, I know. But like that fella says, they're a-goin' anyways. Nothin' won't be
changed from what I tol' 'em, 'cept they'll be mis'able 'fore they hafta."

Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 07

Rose of Sharon looked helplessly at the old woman. She said softly, "She's awful
sick."
Ma raised her eyes to the girl's face. Ma's eyes were patient, but the lines of strain were  on  her  forehead.  Ma  fanned  and  fanned  the  air,  and  her piece  of  cardboard warned off the flies. "When you're young, Rosasharn, ever'thing that happens is a thing all by itself. It's a lonely thing. I know, I 'member, Rosasharn." Her mouth loved the name of her daughter. "You're gonna have a baby, Rosasharn, and that's somepin to you lonely and away. That's gonna hurt you, an' the hurt'll be lonely hurt, an' this here tent is alone in the worl', Rosasharn." She whipped the air for a moment to drive a buzzing blow fly on, and the big shining fly circled the tent twice and zoomed out into
the blinding sunlight. And Ma went on, "They's a time of change, an' when that comes, dyin' is a piece of all dyin', and bearin' is a piece of all bearin', an bearin' an' dyin' is two pieces of the same thing. An' then things ain't lonely any more. An' then a hurt don't hurt so bad, cause it ain't a lonely hurt no more, Rosasharn. I wisht I could tell you so you'd know, but I can't." And her voice was so soft, so full of love, that tears crowded into Rose of Sharon's eyes, and flowed over her eyes and blinded her.
"Take  an'  fan  Granma,"  Ma  said,  and  she  handed  the  cardboard  to  her  daughter. "That's a good thing to do. I wisht I could tell you so you'd know."

Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 06

"Sure,  nice  to  look  at,  but  you  can't  have  none  of  it.  They's  a  grove of  yella oranges—an' a guy with a gun that got the right to kill you if you touch one. They's a fella, newspaper fella near the coast, got a million acres—" Casy looked up quickly, "Million acres? What in the worl' can he do with a million acres?"
"I dunno. He jus' got it. Runs a few cattle. Got guards ever'place to keep folks  out. Rides aroun' in a bullet-proof car. I seen pitchers of him. Fat, sof' fella with little mean eyes an' a mouth like a ass-hole. Scairt he's gonna die. Got a million acres an' scairt of dyin'."
Casy demanded, "What in hell can he do with a million acres? What's he want a million acres for?"
The man took his whitening, puckering hands out of the water and spread them, and he tightened his lower lip and bent his head down to one shoulder. "I dunno," he said. "Guess he's crazy. Mus' be crazy. Seen a pitcher  of him. He looks crazy. Crazy an' mean."
"Say he's scairt to die?" Casy asked.
"That's what I heard."
"Scairt God'll get him?"
"I dunno. Jus' scairt."
"What's he care?" Pa said. "Don't seem like he's havin' no fun."
"Grampa  wasn't  scairt,"  Tom  said.  "When  Grampa  was  havin'  the  most fun,  he comes clostest to gettin' kil't. Time Grampa an' another fella whanged into a bunch a Navajo in the night. They was havin' the time a their life, an' same time you wouldn' give a gopher for their chance."
Casy said, "Seems like that's the way. Fella havin' fun, he don't give a damn; but a fella mean an' lonely an' old an' disappointed—he's scared of dyin'!"
Pa asked, "What's he disappointed about if he got a million acres?"
The preacher smiled, and he looked puzzled. He splashed a floating water bug away with his hand. "If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it 'cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he's poor in hisself, there ain't no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an' maybe he's disappointed that nothin' he can do'll make him feel rich—not rich like Mis' Wilson was when she give her tent when Grampa died. I ain't tryin' to preach no sermon, but I never seen nobody that's busy as a prairie dog collectin' stuff that wasn't disappointed." He grinned. "Does kinda soun' like a sermon, don't it?"

Quotes from the Grapes of Wrath

…. dogs whose breeds had been blurred by a freedom of social life, …...

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How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past? No. Leave it. Burn it.

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Wanta be a hell of a guy all the time.  But, goddamn it, Al, don' keep ya guard up when nobody ain't sparrin' with ya. You  gonna be all right."

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 Jesus Christ, one person with their mind made up can shove a lot of folks aroun'! - [ Tom Joad on his Ma ]

 

 

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The walls decorated with posters, bathing girls, blondes with big breasts and slender hips and waxen faces, in white bathing suits, and holding a bottle of Coca-Cola and smiling—see what you get with a Coca-Cola.

 

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Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 02

One  man,  one  family  driven  from  the  land;  this  rusty  car  creaking along  the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen.  Here  is  the  node,  you  who  hate  change  and  fear  revolution.  Keep  these  two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and  from  its  splitting  grows  the  thing  you  hate—"We  lost  our  land."  The  danger  is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If from  this  problem  the  sum  is  "We  have  a  little  food,"  the  thing  is  on  its  way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single pot,  the  silent,  stone-eyed  women;  behind,  the  children  listening  with  their  souls  to words  their  minds  do  not  understand.  The  night  draws  down.  The  baby  has  a  cold.
Here, take  this blanket. It's  wool.  It was  my  mother's  blanket—take  it  for  the  baby.
This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from "I" to "we."
If  you  who  own  the  things  people  must  have  could  understand  this,  you  might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine,  Marx,  Jefferson,  Lenin,  were  results, not  causes,  you  might  survive.  But  that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we."

Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 12

.....Them goddamn Okies got no sense and no feeling.
They ain't human. A human being wouldn't live like they do. A human being couldn't stand it to be so dirty and miserable. They ain't a hell of a lot better than gorillas.

Excerpt from : The Grapes of Wrath - 01

THE HOUSES WERE LEFT vacant on the land, and the land was vacant because of this. Only the tractor sheds of corrugated iron, silver and gleaming, were alive; and they were alive with metal and gasoline and oil, the disks of the plows shining. The tractors had lights shining, for there is no day and night for a tractor and the disks turn the earth in the darkness and they glitter in the daylight. And when a horse stops work and  goes  into  the  barn  there  is  a  life  and  a  vitality  left,  there  is  a  breathing  and  a warmth, and the feet shift on the straw, and the jaws clamp on the hay, and the ears and the eyes are alive. There is a warmth of life in the barn, and the heat and smell of life.
But when the motor of a tractor stops, it is as dead as the ore it came from. The heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse. Then the corrugated iron doors are closed and the tractor man drives home to town, perhaps twenty miles away, and he need not come back for weeks or months, for the tractor is dead. And this is easy and efficient. So easy that the wonder goes out of work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of land and the working of it, and with the wonder the deep understanding and the relation. And in the tractor man there grows the contempt that comes only to a stranger who  has  little  understanding  and  no  relation.  For  nitrates  are  not  the  land,  nor
phosphates; and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt nor water nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more than its analysis. The man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his  elements  knows  the  land  that  is  more  than  its  analysis.  But  the  machine  man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry;
and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself. When the corrugated iron doors are shut, he goes home, and his home is not the land.


[ Excerpt from Chapter 11 - The Grapes of Wrath - By John Steinbeck ]
 

Rango Comes to Visit

Can you spot him ?

 

[ Click on each image for full size view ]

 

 

 

 

 

 

KungFu Tournament 2012

This year both Alisha & Armaan took part in the Annual KungFu Tournament held in Hyderabad.

Armaan won a Silver in the under 12 yrs Boys Category for Katas

Alisha won a Gold in the under 12 yrs Girls Category for Katas
AND she won a Bronze in Sparring [ fights ] in the under 12 yrs Girls Category.

We are all so proud of them both !!