Good 'friends'

George Orwell and William Golding were writers with great insight into life. Their books are read today by millions of students all over the world. The ideas they presented were pure genius. Their thinking was so advanced for their time that the basic elements used in these three books can be applied to virtually any human situation. In BC high schools most students read Animal Farm in grade 10 and 1984 in grade 12 both by Orwell, in grade 11 Golding’s Lord of the Files.

If someone properly understands and applies the message from these three books they will certainly be human their entire life. Meaning they would learn from what each of the characters went through in the story and make their life better in almost every way. As with anything if you learn from what you go through, you come out wiser and better able to tackle even more difficult situations in the future.

Animal Farm was written by Orwell as an allegory (exact comparison of one even to another) to the Russian Revolution to highlight the terror, manipulation and hardships the common people faced at the hands of the elite. It’s a story using animal characters to represent the actual players in what later became the USSR.

Lord of the Flies by Golding is about the breakdown of society in tough times. The underlying message is that ‘Man(and woman) is evil’ and that this evilness is just waiting to get out and show the worst of human nature. Its about a group of British school kids who get stranded on a tropical island and try to build a society. The struggle for control leads them to murder their best friends in cold blood for no apparent reason but what could only be described as classic ‘punjabi partybazi’ - dirty politics to maintain control.

1984 is perhaps the best fictional work I’ve read in English. It was written by George Orwell in 1949. He warned the world would turn into what Orwell predicted in the year 1984. It’s from this book that the whole big brother concept came from. Even after 55+ years everything he warned the world about exists today. The sad thing is most people don’t even realize this is the case. The basic idea is that about 1% of the population is the inner-party(who have all the power) these people use the 20% or so of the ‘outer party’ members through what can only be called brainwash to control the remaining 80% of the proletariat or ‘proles’ who are at the very bottom of society. Most of the techniques the inner-party governmental machinery used to maintain control of people have been used time and time again since this was written.

There is an agenda behind what people teach you at school. They want you do be independent thinkers and make you smart, and do things the smart way and not be manipulated by petty men. But some people never read books and stay in the pathetic ‘prole’ state their entire lives. Yes, getting summaries off the internet can get you marks and ‘pass’ English. But you will always remain a prole no matter what. Next time you’re asked to read a book, actually READ it. It just may do you some good down the road and get you out of a Jam:

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August 3rd 2005 was a good summer day. I noticed some activity behind our house as usual and ignored it a few times. The neighborhood kids were playing on a trampoline for quite a while and making noise. Then at about 3:30pm I saw this:

The man in the red is Sarbhjot Singh and the one in the blue shirt is Harman Singh. The one in the white shirt is his cousin from Abbotsford Harbir Singh(I think). Both Sarbhjot and Harman Singh have had a Khalsa School education and are generally good people and don’t cause too much trouble.

Harman Singh and Sarbhjot convinced Harbir that he was obese and needed to loose weight and they can make him lose weight. The proposition seemed like a glorious opportunity too hard to resist. He agreed not knowing what was in store. First they made him do pushups in their ‘bootcamp’ then they tied a rope to his waist and the other end to an old skateboard with wrights on it. They made the poor guy go under the trampoline and back from the sides over and over again.

They seemed to have finished up and I thought it was over and went back to my room. Then I heard steps and a bike go over the concrete over my window every few minutes, by the time I looked out there was no one there. When I went outside there was poor Harbir singh running as fast as he could and Sarbhjot behind on a bike trying to get him to go faster and faster. Harman Singh was keeping count of how much it would take to complete one lap. As soon as Sarbhjot saw me he had the kind of look a rabbit has when a lions about to pounce on him. He threw the bike down and went running in the direction he came from twice as fast.

Harbir was sweating like crazy and out of breath with a red face. I brought him a bottle of water and made him sit in the shade. After a few minutes he was able to calm down and talk. Both the culprits were standing on the other side of the fence and taunting him, calling him a ‘motoo’(fatty) and that ‘he will never lose weight’ and ‘always will be fat’ no matter what he did. Harbeer Singh tried really hard to keep the tears back.

I tried to explain to him what they were really doing. He said “they were only trying to help me get in shape.” I told him that I would play with him. And we did for about 45 minutes, 1 on 1 volleyball. The other two just sat on the trampoline burning in envy. Finally they came over and we all played.

The point of this post is not to defame any of the neighborhood kids but to instead make you think how many times you got manipulated like this under peer-pressure and suffered in silence unable to do anything. When you have time, read the above books, you will look back at your life in a whole new light and who knows you might just become wiser next time you’re in a situation like Harbeer Singh and tell your ‘friends’ to find someone who used online summaries for English class to pick on.