She took the frying pan out sigh.

1. this was submitted pre-earthquake-bombings, so pls. don`t hurl.

2. who put in the gazillion paras? who who? dimwits.

3. who gives ratings without critique? who who? double dimwits.

Bomb Blasts in Delhi yawn...

Freeze Frame #14 did I ever state there are no rules in poetry?

but coming back to your original question, in my opinion, no, poetry isn`t just throwing rhyming words together, no it doesn`t require any tangible form, and no, rhythm is not mandatory. I am clueless as to what you are hinting at. If the above submission does not seems like poetry to you, and or is not poetic, come right out and say it, I have no issue with that. constructive criticism always has a welcome.

The Bastard the title killed the first twenty paragraphs, and the writing style is not thing to rave about. Only two things make this a worthwhile read: the way the climax was brought out, and the detached emotions of the narrator that allowed the shame, acceptance and silence of the father to reverberate.

Corporal Punishment You guys have got it all wrong. {b}Teachers{/b} ought to be banned.

The Wicked Witch Of Western Literature # 43, you missed the mark very wide on that one, though ``they thought`` may well stick. but how do you explain the evolution from # 10 ``a good read`` to #42 ``fourth-rate``? Either you liked the piece or you didn`t (not that I care). does it really matter what saminasha, I or anyone else says about this work? no, we`re just after-the-fact hangers-on type critics, and all that should not detract from having some genuine feelings about it.

Sheedah Badma’ash sad story very touchingly written. may your friend find peace in his other world.

August 2003 #89, No, and No.

The Wicked Witch Of Western Literature in my experience, the only people who bear grudges against what they term ``fourth rate colleges`` are those who couldn`t get into them.

August 2003 #74, 75 stated that college campuses allow more freedom and you make “real” friends who share your newly discovered values. That is moot, colleges exist for experimentation and finding yourself. But students do grow up. Your ``real friends`` who shared your enthusiasms and other things college, too must have eventually ``grown up``. Is their value set still the same? I would think not, nothing is static. But eventually, when you get out of college, most people seek acceptance yet again in another grouping, this time with some permanence to it. they find themselves conforming to their surroundings, and eventually if that setting stays pretty much constant (ie not too many major upheavels in their life that warrant an about face), they end up with the values of people surrounding them, consciously or unconsciously imbibed. Friends who did not ``judge`` you in college, because you were all in the same boat - are they still free from the judgment taint today? They`ve been forced to become whatever they`ve surrounded themselves with, and so have you. And if you are not forced somehow or the other, you end up conforming anyway, just to ``blend in``, voluntarily, and out of need. Man is, after all, a social animal. He can`t live without the social order he is most comfortable with. If you changed your gender, religion, or sexual preferance, to me, those are the only things that can drastically change your personal lifelong value system because that means your thought patterns have changed - not developed but changed (there is a difference). Cancer cannot do that, a new wife cannot do that. Only you create a new, independent, ostracized self. Families come and go, friends come and go, societies come and go, health wealth come and go, but unless you reevalaute your entire existence and the learned prejudices that it is based upon, do a 360 degree shock to your system by being completely reborn, which includes reeducating your mentality, you`re still the same. you will form the same pro-con hohum judgments as everyone else, you converge. In the end, what you are basically doing is shedding one cloak for another. You think it is “more free”, but it is still just another form of the same repressed herd-mentality lifestyle you are leading..

five liters of ginger ale obfuscate things completely.

August 2003 aruna, freedom is just exchanging one suffocating cloak for another.

South Asians in the USA very exhaustive.

this punchline - ``This will be an enduring legacy that South Asians could leave behind not only for their own children but also for the Americans``.

won`t their own children also be, ahem.. American?

August 2003 # 54 aruna Another thing is that Desi (Indian,Pakistani) society is more judgemental with females than it is with males. The total absence of that society can be refreshing and relieving.

aren`t other societies - eg, American, Chinese, European etc.. - just as judgmental? And every society discriminates based on gender to some degree. There are desis in the US aplenty. If you left one set of asian society back home, did you not attach yourself to another (eventually roughly similar) set here, with your comfort level of values, mores and censures, assuming of course that you have neither changed your religion, gender nor sexual preference?

August 2003 # 54 aruna Another thing is that Desi (Indian,Pakistani) society is more judgemental with females than it is with males. The total absence of that society can be refreshing and relieving.

aren`t other societies - eg, American, Chinese, European etc.. - just as judgmental? And every society discriminates based on gender to some degree. There are desis in the US aplenty. If you left one set of asian society back home, did you not attach yourself to another (eventually roughly similar) set here, with your comfort level of values, mores and censures, assuming of course that you have neither changed your religion, gender nor sexual preference?

August 2003 don`t fret, aruna, you`re not alone. every middle eastern expat i have come across resonates like you.

The Wicked Witch Of Western Literature Dear Diary...