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Tales from the Island of Serendip
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Started by Flex Mentallo,

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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Embark on a journey to discover yourself

Why do you feel defeated?

Keep going. Even time has been searching for your unique passion.

The chains that bind you, don't accept them as your clothes

Melt these same chains and turn them into your weapons

Embark on a journey to discover yourself

Why do you feel defeated?

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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The Doctors of Philosophy have finally landed, and it isn't a simulation

Those of you who have followed Serendip since the beginning will know that my friendship with Lucina goes back more than ten years, and with her husband Purnabha almost as long. Long, long before they were married. That friendship predates Serendip by at least 6 years, which I launched in 2012 (it's a ship, right? - so I launched it) and in the process, what began as a reminiscence has become a record of real time events.

 

Yesterday, both Purnabha and Lucina had their PhD vivas, and passed with flying colours. And I was extremely moved to find my name among those credited in their theses.

 

All credit goes to them for the sheer grit and determination they have shown to win through against appalling odds - especially Lucina, who had to combat tradition, family, class and chauvinism. Purnabha is a very smart guy, and he said to me recently, that when he first met Lucina, he saw her as someone he could mentor. It gradually dawned on him that she was so much smarter than he was, that she had become his mentor. She has an extraordinary intellect. And of course, in our chauvinistic world, beauty and brains don't mix. And white people have to come to the rescue because non-white people cant rescue themselves. [I'm calling bs on that one I hope y'all realize].

 

I would like to believe I have never fallen short of her standards, but woe betide me when I do!:fear:

 

Because she wont hesitate to let me know.

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Tales from the Island of Serendip updated thread navigation for the new site (please bookmark)!

Serendipity

Serendipity - Paddyfield School - The Story of Mohan - Sometimes

 

Sting

School bully!

 

El Puente

Muralist Joe Matunis - El Puente de Williamsburg - Return to Paddyfield School - Lucina

 

Bells from the Deep

Werner Herzog - Juliane Koepcke - The lost city of Kitezh - Sadko - St Clemente

Virgil Finlay - Reed Crandall - Graham Ingles - Berni Wrightson - Al Williamson

Flex studies for larger paintings

 

pcalhoun & jimjum

Clark Ashton Smith - Pat's poems - Jimbo's excellent paintings

The Life of Father Hess - Kasauli Art Camp -  Sketches of Bonhooghly - The Death of Mohan Ghosh - Rabindranath Tagore

DavidMerryweather art collection

 

Black Marigolds

In Search of Lost Time - Georges Seurat - Roger Fry - The Trojan Horse - Ananda Coomaraswamy - The Great Stupa at Sanchi - Ajanta caves - Black Marigolds

 

Detective Stories

Johannes Vermeer 1632–1675: A Detective Story - camera obscura - Han Van Meegeren - The Theft of the Mona Lisa - Donato's Captain America and other works - Rainer Maria Rilke - Cornell Woolrich - Cat's space themed paintings - Netsuke - Hart Crane - Cat's 'Creation' - Boba's illustrations - Caravaggio's Nativity - Las Meninas - John Singer Sargent - Flex large painting - Thomas Nashe - Tom O' Bedlam - Georges de La Tour - Flex exhibition - Joseph Wright of Derby - John Martin

 

The Bosnian Conflict

Andrei Tarkovsky - Welcome to Sarajevo - Margaret Moth - Yasna's cat - Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo - Miss Sarajevo - the Serious Road Trip - War Child - the Help album - The Ruin

 

pcalhoun writer and collector

Autobiographical notes - Jade tiki - Ubbo-Sathla by Clark Ashton Smith - Robert Q Sale - Tekkai Sennin - Bakemono - Zuni fetish - Yooshi's ghosts - Kuniyoshi

 

Steven Assael

Paintings - drawings

 

Photos of Nirmal's Village

When Shabana was 11 - Mohammed Yunus - Grameen bank - mosaics of Ravenna, Venice & Florence - Duccio's Maesta - when Tuku was a child - We cry to Thee, O Conqueror of love - Grunewald - Michael Leunig - The Metamorphosis of the Gkmloooms - We shall rise

 

Steven Assael's Bride Paintings

Bride paintings with details - Spirits of the dead keep watch

 

Kolkata

Flex photo essay - Lucina's gold medal

 

The Hero's Journey

The Courts of Chaos - 'The Heroes' by Charles Kingsley - Medusa - Archetypes - Chris Vogler - Galaxy Quest - the Trickster - Prometheus

 

In the Beginning

Altamira - Shanidar - flower burial

 

Interlude

Mir para - Lija and her baby - Lullaby - Her name is Zoa - My relationship with Bonhooghly

 

Before They Pass

Threnody - Jimmy Nelson - The Lost Steps - Witness - Jean Baptiste Debret - Johann Moritz Rugendas - Sebastião Salgado - Serra Pelada

 

Sting and the Rainforest Foundation

Sting in the tail - Raoni’s message - Rolling Stone - World in Action - 30 Most Generous Celebrities list Before they pass away - Yanomami - Christina Haverkamp - The Haximu Massacre - pcalhoun on rip-off charities - Love Story - Darkness in El Dorado - Kenneth Good & Yarima - The Good Project

 

Lost Cities

Mridula & I - Bitter fruit - El Dorado - The Lost City of Z - Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett - Garden Cities of the Xingu - Caral

 

Interlude

I want she don't go back to that hell

 

Heaven's River

Nazca - Maria Reiche “the lady of the desert” - Secrets of the Inca - Wari tomb - the end of all things - Machu Picchu - the Sacred Valley - The condor at Pisac - Ollantaytambo - the "eye of the llama" - The Viracochan image - the pyramid of dawn - Momia Juanita

 

Alternative Histories

Jericho - Çatalhöyük - The Great Mother - Tierra del Fuego - Lilith

 

Flood

Cataclysm - Epic of Gilgamesh - Genesis - mythological diffusion - "Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan" by John L. Stephens - Hamlet's Mill - the Sampo - the Phoenicians - the Paraiba Stone - Fusang - Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies - Zheng He - The Bosnian Pyramids - Maya - Xibalba

 

Sunk

Atlantis - Guanahacabibes - Mysterious grid - Bimini Road - Yonaguni - Mu - James Churchward - Out of the Aeons - Lemuria - Kumari Kandam - Ice Age Civilization - Graham Hancock - Lost Continents - Zealandia

 

The Human Condition

E. J. Michael Witzel - Laurasian mythology - humanity's emergence - The Isle of the Dead - What Dreams May Come

 

Was God an Astronaut?

Eric Von Daniken - Chariots of the Gods - The Morning of the Magicians - At the Mountains of Madness - Carl Sagan

 

Steven Assael

Druso

 

U.F.O

Kenneth Arnold - flying saucers - Roswell Incident - Maury Island - "men in black" - Project Sign - Project Blue Book - "foo-fighters" -  Alien abduction - the size of the universe - Multiple universes - Stephen Hawking - Fermi's paradox - the Drake equation - The Silence - N-rays - innate releasing mechanism - Carl Jung - The Roper Report - The abduction - The Dark Side of the Moon - gamma-ray bursts - Ordovician extinction - Invader - Budd Hopkins - the abduction of Linda Cortile - John Mack - Aliens in America

 

The Search

My red book - Carl Jung's Red Book - Charles Steffen - Ernst Haeckel - Jeffrey J. Kripal

 

Lost Horizons

You are as the yellow leaf - The Snow Leopard - Lost Horizon - Shambala - Hollow Earth - the Thule Society - The Way of the White Clouds - António Andrade - Tsaparang - Mount Kailash - Bhagavad Gita - The Upanishads - Navratri

 

Interlude

Update from Lucina

 

Festival 

Durga Puja - Ramlila - the hijras - City of Light

Further update from Lucina - Calcutta Botanical Gardens - Indian ComicCon

Puri beach - Juggernaut - Temple of the Sun - Kajuraho - Reprise - pcalhoun 'Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus'

 

Interlude

Lucina's Conference - Market Day - More Photo of Village Life - Ongoing Correspondence - Ganges 'Beauty Spot' -Eid

 

A Christmas Carol

The sheer exuberance of Bengali village life in a hundred photographs

 

Labyrinths

Pan's Labyrinth - Symbolic Pilgrimages - Chartres - The Mystic Rose - A Pilgrim's Progress - The Labyrinth of Buda Castle

King Minos - 'Da-pu-ri-to-jo Po-ti-ni-ja' - the first European civilization - the palace at Knossos - bull dance

Thera - Tsunami - Akrotiri

Mycenaean ascendancy - Pasiphaë - the Minotaur - Theseus and Ariadne - the integration of the shadow - Betrayal - Right of Passage

 

The Holy Grail

The Da Vinci Code - the Ark of the Covenant - Knights Templar - the grail in literature and television - Perceval, le Conte du Graal - Joseph of Arimathea - King Arthur - the grail in movies - Excalibur

Imitatio Christi - Heresy - King of the World - Crusade - "God will know His own" - Simon de Montfort - The Inquisition - "Not a bird sang for a generation" - the Wasteland

Sin, redemption, pain, and healing - Bayreuth - Hans-Jürgen Syberberg - Healing the Wound - Wings

 

Cloudlets Bright Career

Remembering Mridula - Her death and funeral - Keats' poem - Tagore poem

Mary Elizabeth Frye - A family grieves

Lucina's work on crop studies - Meeting a politician - Lucina's new apartment

Tuku and Mono - 'I have murdered my wife' - On a dead child by Robert Seymour Bridges

 

Tectonic Plates

Kevin Bubriski's photos of Nepal - The Earthquake - Everest's worst disaster - 'It's just a matter of time'

Family without Geography - Touched by an Angel by Maya Angelou - My second visit - Family drama - My birthday

My Village - A Neighbour's Wedding

 

Elegy

A trip to the Bay of Bengal - 'The Wanderer' by Eugene Field - Some ruminations on Serendip - Lucina's trip to South Korea - 10th World Bamboo Congress

 

Joseph Farquharson 

A little known Victorian painter - Valerie's letter from V for Vendetta

 

hic sunt dracones

Dinosaurs in comic books - Bones from the Earth - Paelo Art past and present - Mass Extinction Events - The Burgess Shale - Snowball Earth - Dinotopia - On the disappearance of snails - The Coelacanth, Living Fossil - Imaginary 'dinosaurs' - the real reason dinosaurs became extinct (according to Mr Bedrock) - Wonderful Life - Dinosaur Heresies - On dinosaur intelligence - the Anthropocene Era - Anosognosia - Teilhard De Chardin - Julian Jaynes - Wittgenstein - 'Acension' by Pat Calhoun - William Stout

 

Light/Shadow/Phoenix/Mirror

Lucina and Purnabha get married - The golden spice - Who offered this maiden? - Bride Feast - When I first met this skinny kid - 'An Epithalamion' by John Donne - Honeymoon in Darjeeling - The Captain Nirmal Sen Gupta Memorial Institute

 

Out of the Dark

The starfish - 'Fearless', the rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandev - Child Trafficking - Anoyara Khatun - The Dowry System - Rajabazaar - Roshni - Let there be Light - 'The Garden of the Prophet' by Kahlil Ghibran - 'Time Enough for Love' by Robert Heinlein - Roshni's new room - Roshni's Web Site is launched - The story of Luke - Independence Day - Progress report - Mission and Vision - http://www.roshniumeedki.org/index.php - Women's Football Team - the Nightingale of India - The Hijab - Women Taxi Drivers - TV station 24hgt - Make Love Not Scars

 

Reporting from Kolkata

Richard Henry Dana - Demonetisation - Wearing a hijab - Arshi and Nikat - Gayatri Mantra

 

The Story so far

A brief retelling of the whole story of my times in India for those who don't want to wade through the last 200 pages!

 

A detailed report on my visit to Roshni, November, 2016

First visit to Roshni's new base - Phil and Rita - Soccer Practice - Children's Day - 'Hijab', a poem - Food Festival - A walk around Rajabazaar - Proposal for a Women's Refuge - Craft fair - Pat Painting - Rajabazaar at night - Nikat and Zeenat - Arshi's family - Sealdah Station - Siliguri to Darjeeling - First sight of Kangchenjunga - Darjeeling - Sittong - Prayer to Durga - Mahishasura - Tribal groups - The Lepcha - Shelpu Bazaar - Namthing Pokari - Buddhist temple - Aahal - KFC - The Luke Holland Memorial Scholarships - Excursion to Nicco Park - The Fisher King

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Five scholars bios posted so far, along with a non-scholar's story, all intertwined with real time reporting...

Ramsha Khatoon

Ramsha Khatoon is a 13 year old girl. Her mother Yasmin Begum is a house wife. Her father Reyazuddin is a daily labour. He is working in a spectacles manufacturing company. He earns INR 4000/- monthly and this is the total family income of Ramsha’s family. She has 2 brothers and 1 sister. Her father is alcohol addicted and very irregular in his works. Reyazuddin also molests his wife and restricts Ramsha from going outside her house. Ramsha wants to play football and she has joined Roshni’s football team but someone from her community informed her father about this. Now her father is restricting her from going outside even for her school. Ramsha’s mother wants to give her proper education but she is helpless. She is not economically independent. Her husband only dominates but does not take any responsibility of the family. Ramsha wants to study and help her family. She dreams of a better future for her and her family.
 

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She wants to have a better life where she can achieve her education along with her passion for football. She also wants to make her family happy. She knows education would lead her to this goal. She wants to eradicate the disease of poverty from her family.

If her father one day declares end of her education then her dream will be incomplete and no one is there to support her. Her family will be immersed in darkness gradually.

Therefore, the present scenario necessitates an immediate support for Ramsha’s education to strengthen her. A little support may help her to achieve her basic need i.e. education and may assist her to fulfill her goal.

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'I have one room and also i have a small family, my father MD NASIM , he is a labour, who makes an envelop .my father's salary is five thousand per month and my mother MUMTAZ BEGUM , who is house wife. I have two elder sisters whose name is JIHA NASIM, she studies in class 10th she is a good student, and  other name is ZEBA NASIM. She also a student of class 6th.'

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