ANURADHA DEV – Page 9 – Guyana Times International

Freedom!

March 1, 2013 TIMES INT'L

“The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one’s country deep enough to call her to a higher plain” – George McGovern On Saturday, Guyana celebrated its 43rd anniversary of being a Republic. We, the Guyanese people, celebrated our 43rd anniversary of being a Republic. Thousands of people celebrated one event. They celebrated one of the most momentous days in our country’s history. And sure, there was some excessive vulgarity and all, but at least people from all of our diverse cultures were…

Time

February 21, 2013 TIMES INT'L

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” – William Penn Time. There’s always so much of it, but at the same time, so little. Time speeds up at the most inconvenient times – like when you’re trying to get in some last minute rushed studies that you left too late. And then time slows down when you don’t want it to – like when you’re stuck in an excessively boring class. I guess Einstein did have a thing when he spoke about the ‘relativity’ of time…

Republic Day

February 15, 2013 TIMES INT'L

“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him” – Abraham Lincoln Despite being the shortest month on our calendar, February certainly seems to be one of the busiest. We have Valentine’s Day and then right on its heels, we have Republic Day coming up next week. (Then for me, my brother’s finally going to be a teenager. It may be easier dealing with him now rather than with…

Expectations

February 7, 2013 TIMES INT'L

“One isn’t born one’s self, one is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas and you have to work through it all” – V. S. Naipaul Expectations are powerful things. We all have expectations. We have expectations of our families, of our friends, of our leaders. After all, man is a social being, and the very meaning of “social” implies ‘expectations’. By social conditioning, we expect certain things. It’s how we’re built. And those expectations can make all the difference. If you have unrealistically high…

A day of eye-openers

January 31, 2013 TIMES INT'L

By Anu Dev Two weeks ago, for “Caribbean Studies”, our class took a trip to Berbice. I’d visited Berbice loads of times already with my family and I always loved it there. But the trip two weeks ago was different in many ways since we were going as a class to observe Berbice from a more analytical perspective rather than as tourists. It wasn’t simply to be a casual jaunt into Region Six – we were there to work. And so, for the first time, I visited some schools in…

Things that make me go “aaarghhhh!!!”

January 25, 2013 TIMES INT'L

By Anu Dev Throughout your day, there are always people out there who just make you want to pull your hair out and wonder, “Why in the world would they do that?” There’re the little things. Like when you’re at the supermarket idly wondering whether you want chunky or smooth peanut butter. Then some random shopper just reaches over you and grabs something from the shelf as if you were completely invisible! So you end up snapping, “Excuuuuuuse me!” because they just couldn’t say, “excuse me”. We’re all too busy…

Field trips

January 17, 2013 TIMES INT'L

“A child educated only at school is an uneducated child” – George Santayana I’m pretty sure that everyone who’s gone to school has gone on at least one field trip during their school life. At least I hope so. And I’m equally sure that some of your most exciting memories are probably the ones about the field trips. And that’s to be expected, isn’t it? Who doesn’t relish the chance to get out of those dusty, old classrooms? I’m not going to dwell on the droning voices!! And it’s definitely…

Be original

January 10, 2013 TIMES INT'L

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation” – Herman Melville To say I was incredulous after reading an article in the papers detailing Palm Court’s plans for a “majestical ball” drop to usher in the New Year, would probably be the understatement of the year, I think. I was kerfuffled! Of all the ways to celebrate the New Year, of course we have to imitate the Times Square extravaganza? We don’t have the imagination or creativity to come up with our own Guyanese idea of…

A New Year!

January 3, 2013 TIMES INT'L

Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. – Lord Alfred Tennyson, 1850 I really don’t know why, but New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are two of my favourite days of the year. Maybe it has something to do with that feeling of freshness that accompanies the thought of a new year. For me it’s practically impossible to be in a bad mood on New Year’s. I…

The End of the World?

December 28, 2012 TIMES INT'L

By Anu Dev What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly -Richard Bach On Friday the world was supposed to end, at least according to the people who chose to interpret the Mayan Calendar that way. And practically everyone was talking about the supposed ‘End of the World’. People who believed the world would actually end were agonising about it. And people who felt the need to let the rest of the world know that they didn’t believe the world would end were scoffing…