The Judgement-Seat of Vikramaditya – Sister Niveditha

The old palace of Ujjain was ruined and buried under the sand and dust in the course of the time. Trees grew and the people forget about it. The shepherds of the nearby villages to these ruins of Ujjain took their herds of cattle to the forest for grazing.  The boys had leisure time to play when the cows were engaged in grazing. One day the boys found a place very suitable for their childish play. The place is uneven and one end of the beautifully carved stone peeped out form the earth. In the middle there was a green grass mound, looking just like a judge’s seat.

One of the boys ran forward with a whoop and seated himself on it. He called other boys to bring their cases before him and he would have trails. Then he straightened his face and become very grave to act the part of a judge. The other boys thought it was fun and quickly made up some quarrel and appeared before him. When the judge had sat down on the mound, he was just a common boy. He seemed quite different when he had heard the case. He had become very grave and took the case seriously. His tone, his manners sounded strange and impressive.  He gave wise judgement on hearing the trails. They boys still thought it was fun but when they presented another dispute, the judge’s answer was quite impressive and satisfactory to both parties. The judge pronounced the judgement as if it were out of the depth of a long experience with clearly-spelt wisdom. The incident has become a strange experience for all the boys.

Soon the news of these plays of boys spread through the countryside and the people from all villages began to take their disputes to the court of the herd-boy on the grass under the green trees. They were all satisfied with judgements. Thus, all the disputes in the neighbourhood were settled amicably and justly.

The shepherd boy, by chance, seated himself on the mound and not knowing anything about the seat of Judgement, he acted like a judge. He was innocent, and was basically a good-natured boy. He had no cunning thoughts. He was a happy boy, contented and playful. Thus, sitting on the Judgement-seat of Vikramaditya he dealt with the disputes and settled them justly.

After a few days the news of the court in the forest reached to the king’s notice. He thought that the boy must have sat on the Judgement-Seat of Vikramaditya. He spoke that all at once without thinking. The learned men agreed that it was so for they knew that the ruins in yonder meadows were once Vikaramaditya’s palace. The king had always desired to be possessed with the spirit of law and justice. He thought of digging the place to find the Judgement-Seat. So, the work began and they discovered the Judgement-Seat below the mound.  It was a black marble slab supported on the hands of twenty-five stone angles. It was surely the Judgement-Seat of Vikramaditya.

With great rejoice, the Judgement-Seat was brought to the palace of the king. It was put in the chief place in the hall of justice. Then the nation was ordered to observe three days of prayer and fasting and on the fourth day the king would ascent the new throne publicly.

People gathered in large numbers to see the taking of the seat. When the king was about to sit on the Judgement-Seat, one of the twenty-five angels spoke: “Stop, do you think you are worthy to sit on the Judgement-seat of Vikramaditya? Have you not desired to rule over the kingdoms that are not yours?”

The king knew that his own life was unjust. He confessed that he was not worthy. The angel asked him to fast and pray for another three days. With these words, the angel spread its wings and flew away into the blue. The king saw that the seat was supported only by twenty-four angles.

Three days passed. This time another angel asked the king if he did not covet the riches of another? He confessed that he had. The angel asked him to fast for another three days and flew away. This went on for ninety-six days and he observed fasting for three days more. It was the hundredth day. As he was about to occupy the seat, the last angel spoke. It asked the king if he was pure in his heart. The king confessed he was not. The last angel too flew away into the sky bearing the slab on its head.

The king realized the truth. Only when he was pure in heart, like a little child, could be perfectly just. That was why the shepherd boy in the forest could sit on the Judgement-Seat of Vikramaditya.

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A Talk on Advertising – Herman Wouk

‘A Talk on Advertising’ is an attack on the Advertising Business. In this essay Herman Wouk expresses his bitter sense of displeasure on today’s surprisingly prospering business of advertising. He strongly pointed out that the field of advertising business has been degenerated into a ‘racket’ than a business and how it is grossly abusing even the noblest things like Language, Nature, Art and Youth. Wouk strongly deplores on how advertising business is corrupted with social evils and immoral values. 

Herman Wouk addressed to the gathering of advertising professionals just after the formal dinner speech of Marquis. He pointed out that all these professionals are finding their daily bread in this advertising business and tried to entreat them to redeem this strange, bittersweet miracle of their lives by giving up the advertising business at once.  He boldly states that the professionals of advertising business are not entitled to enjoy the wealth that has been earned (by them) through their advertising business.

A shoemaker makes shoes for his bread. A singer sings for her supper. A capitalist leads a large enterprise. A pilot flies, a coal-miner digs, a sailor moves things, a minister preaches, an author tells stories, a laundryman washes, an auto-worker makes cars, a painter makes pictures, a street-car conductor moves people, a stenographer writes down words, a lumberjack saws and a tailor sews. The people appreciate their services and cheerfully feed them for their skilled craft. But what does an advertising man do?  

The advertising men induce human beings to want things that they do not want. They create unnatural desire for unnecessary and undesirable things among the people. They create ‘want’ where ‘want’ does not exist. They induce people to use more things than they naturally desire. The more useless and undesirable the article is; the greater effort of advertisement is needed to dispose of it.

People naturally crave for meat and so the advertising of meat is on a negligible scale. Nobody is born craving tobacco. Therefore, tobacco is the largest item of expense in its distribution. The advertising people thrive richly in the service of utterly useless commodities like tobacco, underarm pastes, soaps and whisky. Hence, both producers of undesired things and the people of advertising business share the immoral haul. 

Advertising is unproductive and wasteful. Its evils are still more worse. Advertising destroys everything that is good and beautiful in this land. It has tarnished creation. The advertising people have destroyed the purity of Love, the beauty of Nature, Art, Language and Youth in the harness of commerce.

The advertising people ill-use the language in the service of advertising. They make the language so cheap that they would begin to think of it as a lie. 

God has created this wonderful land. The advertising people have turned ‘Nature’ into a painted hag, crying ‘come buy’. Artistic inspiration is misutilised. The beautiful young girls are used as models for lying. This is sheer misuse and vandalism. They sell everything by the falsehood of advertising business. 

An artist has the privileges of the court fool. Advertising evades truth for gain. They spoil everything that is fair for sheer greed of earning money. It is certainly not a decent work. At the end, Herman Wouk apologises for attacking the advertising business and wishes and expects his efforts will be successful if anyone of them repents and leaves the advertising industry.

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Refund — One Act Play: Summary

The Refund, one Act play, is an unusual story. A student who was a bad performer in school comes back to the school as a young man and wants a refund of all the fees that he paid. He jeers his professors, calling them names and tells them that they were as much “good for nothings” as he was and since he did not derive any value from them, it is only rightful that he be paid back all his tuition. He also threatens the school with legal action if they don’t return his money. The Principal is livid, but the Maths teacher sizes up the situation quickly and proposes a solution.

She says that each of the teachers would administer an oral quiz to him and if he gets even one question right, then he is deemed to have passed all his exams and so he will not be entitled to any refund, otherwise he can be given a refund if he fails to answer ALL of the questions correctly. According to her plan, every professor should ask him two questions – one easy and the other hard. The young man agrees to this proposition since he is determined to get his money and so he looks forward to answering every question incorrectly even if he knows the right answers to some or all of them. So, one by one, the teachers quiz him – the Biology professor, the English professor, the Chemistry professor and the Physics professor but he answers all of them incorrectly and is quite delighted at the progress he is making. The Principal feels uneasy but the Maths professor assures her that she can handle it. Finally it is the turn of the Maths professor. She says she is going to ask him the easy question first.

Her first question is, “If we represent the speed of light by X and the distance of the star Sirius from the Sun by Y, what is the circumference of a one-hundred-and-nine-sided regular polyhedron whose surface area coincides with that of the hip-pocket of a state railway employee, whose wife has been deceiving him for two years and eleven months with a regimental sergeant major of hussars”.

The young man is flummoxed with this question but recovers quickly and says “28 apricots” as the answer. There is tension in the air as the Principal and other Professors look expectantly in the direction of the Maths Professor, who coolly says that it is the wrong answer and that the correct answer is 27 apricots. The young man is greatly relieved and looks extremely happy in flunking this quiz. The Maths teacher turns around to the horrified Principal and coolly says that the young man is right about asking his fees back and that the school should refund him.

The Maths teacher turns to the young man and asks him how much the school owes him. Overjoyed at the prospect of getting some money, the young man goes over each year and the fees for that year in detail and comes up with the final amount the school owes him. All along as he is counting mentally and saying what is due to him, the Maths teacher writes the figures down on a piece of paper and calculates the total. Finally the teacher acknowledges to the young man that his mental arithmetic adds up correctly. The young man says that they can bet on it since he has it all worked out.

That is when the Maths Professor drops the bombshell that her asking him what the school owed him was her “hard” question and that since he got it right, he has now passed his course with flying colors and so the school doesn’t owe him anything now. That is when the young man realizes that he has been tricked and as he prepares to leave the school in disgust, he is mocked at by each of the professors in turn. 

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