The day...

The day dawns bright and clear - with smiles and sparkles and happiness and cheer.
Work to do and things to finish - the smile sets forth to complete these with a relish

Targets to reach and miles to go, the day flies by with a smile on show
The day goes by and the smile wonders why?
Why are the challenges just piling by
The smile disappears and the sparkle dims, desperation and tiredness creeps from within.

Hope comes out and cheers ahead, the smile which faltered shows her head.
Time stretches as the smile and sorrow fight, who is the winner and whose is the worst plight
Smile and sorrow both side by side, as they fight for their time in the night

The evening draws to a close and the night looms ahead, but it seems as though the smile has gone abed.
Where is the smile, the sparkle beheld? No one knows where it has fled.

As night draws near, the sparkle is dead. The one sought for is gone abed.
With the smile and the sparkle out of the way, comes desperation and tears charging ahead.

Things that seemed bright and sunny seem drab and dreary.
The challenges that cowered in front of the smile, now rain upon with a vengeance that has no guile.
Tears filled eyes and a sorrowful face, beckons all those horrid dreams to face.

As things seem to take a turn for worse, as they say - the eyes get closed to await the next day.
The night goes by and dawn draws clear - again with the smile in front and the sparkle in the rear.

The small ambition...

I came across a folder on the PC that said Pulitzer prize books. I opened this and saw that there were 50 books all in all. When  I went through the list, I came across barely 10 books that I had read and some of them being ones that I really appreciated.

With such a ready made folder at my disposal. I have set myself a challenge to read all the books that have won the Pulitzer in the fiction category. Having googled this, I realize that my list has grown to 85 books over the last so many years from 1918 to 2012. 

So here I am putting this list down here, hoping that I finish each and every one of these books before the year is out. 

• 1918: His Family by Ernest Poole
• 1919: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

• 1921: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• 1922: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
• 1923: One of Ours by Willa Cather
• 1924: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
• 1925: So Big by Edna Ferber
• 1926: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (declined prize)
• 1927: Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
• 1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
• 1929: Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin

• 1930: Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge
• 1931: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
• 1932: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
• 1933: The Store by Thomas Sigismund Stribling
• 1934: Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
• 1935: Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
• 1936: Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
• 1937: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• 1938: The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand
• 1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

• 1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• 1941: no award given ^[2]
• 1942: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
• 1943: Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
• 1944: Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
• 1945: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
• 1946: no award given
• 1947: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
• 1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
• 1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens

• 1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
• 1951: The Town by Conrad Richter
• 1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
• 1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• 1954: No award given
• 1955: A Fable by William Faulkner
• 1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
• 1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee (posthumous win)
• 1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor

• 1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
• 1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• 1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
• 1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner
• 1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
• 1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
• 1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
• 1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
• 1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday

• 1970: Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
• 1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
• 1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
• 1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
• 1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
• 1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
• 1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever

• 1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
• 1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (posthumous win)
• 1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
• 1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• 1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy
• 1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
• 1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• 1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
• 1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison
• 1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
• 1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar HijuelosBilly Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow

• 1991: Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
• 1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
• 1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
• 1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
• 1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
• 1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford
• 1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
• 1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth
• 1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham

• 2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• 2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
• 2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo
• 2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• 2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
• 2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• 2006: March by Geraldine Brooks
• 2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• 2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
• 2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

• 2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding
• 2011: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

So I guess..I have 7 months and quite a few books to go. Mind you, my target is not to finish reading all these books. But to read a substantial portion of them and be able to understand why these books were commended and selected for such a great honor as the Pulitzer. 

The fisherman...

As all stories go....A long long time ago.....

There was once a fisherman. He seemed to be overly fond of fish. He was already a big fisherman in his locality but he wanted to become better known for his prowess. So he set out on the seven seas, made friends with creatures like the mermaids and the such.

They advised him, "Set out towards the south. You will get many riches and your fame will grow." The fisherman took these words to heart and he began making preparations to set out. But he was confused about the destination. South could mean anything.

By then, unknown to him the mermaids had passed word about him and his prowess to her friends in the south. As word passed from ear to ear, a village head decided that he would like the fisherman to be a part of their village.  Soon representatives from the village approached the fisherman and promised him riches. The only thing he had to do was to tell everyone that he was a part of the village and fish for them. They promised him that he could select people who would help him in this big mission entrusted to him.

Swayed by the promises of the riches and the big name he would have, he agreed. He traveled to the south seas and settled with the villagers. As promised, he began to get the riches every month. But he found that he had to many a things for the village in return for these riches or else he would get berated.

Almost an year had gone by since the fisherman joined the villagers. But the fisherman did not have any friends. The people in the south, in the new village did not understand him. The representatives who had come to meet him earlier now ignored him though he had the same status as them. The others made fun of him behind his back.

Things did not seem too great for the fisherman. But he wanted to stay here awhile. He wanted to prove his mettle if nothing else. He moves and still moves stoically forward.

He thought to himself,"Let them say what they want. Let them do what they want. I will prove my worth. I will give what I can and take what I may. And then....Then I will leave this place and move on to bigger...better things...."


And so the story ends...At least for now...Don't rage at me now. Like I said, I am waiting for the story to complete. But this story teller feels that the northern winds will blow and our fisherman will pack up his bags and leave...leave for good....from a place where no one understand him and does not talk to him to a place where he would fit in much much more....So until further progress on this...Adieu...