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Before explaining my experience I want to tell you two things that my grammar is not so good and my answer is little long……I am living in India and preparing for competition exams to get a government job.It was 22 November 2017 and I was burning the midnight oil because I had cleared tier 1 of my exam and preparing for tier 2. At night i felt little uncomfortable but it is my nature to study even in uncomfortable position after some time I felt little more uncomfortable so I lied down to bed and relaxed some time.Next day when I sneezed I felt slight pain at groin area I ignored it but when I felt continuous uncomfortableness I went to the washroom and examine my scrotum I saw that left testesticle is swollen and when is touch it I felt some hardness than I google it and search the desease similar to my symptoms I found prostate cancer, hydrocele, inguinal hernia etc desease having same symptoms when I searched it on YouTube I found that I got hydrocele and also read that hydrocel is not such a big problem until it affects your daily life. I searched also some treatment to hydrocele by home remedy or yoga by ramdev. I aslo tried some yoga and felt some relief I continued it. At the beginning of day there is no swelling but at last of the day it came again and at night (25th November 2018) I felt more uncomfortable. I walked some distance for relief but there is no relief when I touched my groin area I felt pain when I touched that area and also felt problem while walking. I guessed whether I got inguinal hernia. Ye us dar jaisa hi tha Jaise harry potter film main kisi ne voldamord ka naam le lia ho (it felt same like as I talked about Lord Waldamord in harry potter series) I weeped and cried as I am a perjurer I thought it is justice from god. So again I prayed to my god “o god please give me the last favour that I did not have inguinal hernia. But after some more time I realized that I am really suffering from inguinal hernia. Now I started to think how to tell this to my family. Because I din’t want to give tension to my family. But I told this to my family members in some way.Then my family started to know about it and find information about hospitals. Than we decided to admit in government hospital because we afraid that private may remove my kidney or other organ. So we met the surgeon in the government hospital. He did my physical examination and said that I had inguinal hernia and to ensure this they asked to do scrotum ultrasound and said me to remove my puberty hair. They told me the name of lab for ultrasound it cost 750 rs. I got an ultrasound and show the report to the doctor. After seen the report surgeon conformed my disease and gave me list of some other test blood, x-ray, ECG etc. After saw these he gave the date of operation. And told me to admit in hospital one day before surgery. I reached and admit in the hospital one day before surgeon said me not to eat and drink anything after 11 p.m. and I followed the same he said. (medicine for cough and avoid constipation)In morning two bottle of glucose injected After two operation in the morning my number was taken. And I was taken to operation theatre. I was shiver because of glucose and in operation theatre two bottle of glucose also injected in my body. After that they covered my eyes. First doctor of anaesthesia came and said me to sit and not to move he gave anaesthesia injection and asked me to lie. After some time my body started to numb. Slowly, all the parts below my chest became numb. I was feeling like I turned my legs. After some time they started operation at that time I tried to move my legs and I was unable to move my legs at that situation I felt the pain of patients who paralyzed and unable to move their body and ask for euthanasia. Mujhe Guzarish ke Hritik Roshan ki yad aa gai ( I remembered Hritik Roshan role in Guzarish Bollywood movie) at the time of surgery I have experienced such a large number of tools being put inside my body. But I feel no pain because my body was numb that time. The whole surgery take half and hour the operation was successful and surgeon repaired my hernia spot with a mesh. I was taken to my bed. My numbness take more than two hours to go. They said me not to speak much with my family members because it creates abdomen pressure and advised me to put my hand over operation when cough or sneeze. And after that I started to feel some pain and slowly slowly it become worse but it was bearable, I was also experiencing back pain at that time. I am unable to sleep in day and also in night and moan whole night. Whole night I waited for the morning, the time was became very slow and that night was also very long. Next day they gave me pain killer, after that I didn’t feel pain but unable to sleep whole night. I had a lot of trouble sitting for the first time after surgery my father help me to sit but i felt strain in my surgery area. Doctor said that they will discharge me on Saturday while operation was took place on Wednesday, but on Saturday Doctor was absent so they discharge me on Monday. All four days I ate fruits, pudding, Daliya (Indian food) etc, But unable to fresh in morning forth day on Monday I went toilet and freshed my stomach (I have said my English is bad so try to understand). I thanked my God to give me such a supportive family that all four days passed easily. After discharged from Hospital I booked a cab and returned my home with my family. But when I was getting down the stairs of the hospital I felt very uncomfortable and strain, slowly slowly I got down the stairs. When I returned home most of time I spend in rest and slowly slowly I increase my diet, eat fruits some days, not used stairs several days. It took three weeks to walk me perfectly. After two weeks I started preparing my exam the date of exam was on 18 febuary .One Month :- increase my walking timing use stairs and started doing some work. But not lift any weight even 2kg. feel little pain.Two Month:- feel pain occasionally after two month. travel almost 50 kms by metro, auto and feel no pain. Gave my exam Two hours Mathematics break and than two hours English. Feel pain, uncomfortableness but unable to do anything because exam was important.Three Month:- Able to walk more distance lift weight but not more than 2kg. feel pain sometime.I am a boy who do a lot of physical activities because of flexible body but after this surgery unable to do anything because of a fear of recurrence of hernia, doctor said recurrence rate is very less but I have a fear so I avoid physical activities.God always do everything for a cause I want to achieve many things in life so never concentrated in one work now I can use my concentration in brain power. Please pray for me that after one year I become completely fit.Thanx

There seems to be no limits to the extent that people are willing to stand up for the guy.There is no accounting for human stupidity or ignorance https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/464018517733024/Some people consider the right to shop and get a haircut more important than the right to breathe and think they have a perfect legitimate right to do these things because they are Americans.Is it karma or irony that John McDaniel, a vocal protester against the Governor of Ohio's shutdown orders, has recently died of COVID-19?Somehow carrying a semi automatic loaded weapon into the Michigan senate has something to with personal liberties and being able to leave the house during a pandemic.People will support him even though he blatantly acts against the interests of the people who vote for him.Americans seem to think they can ban imports from China but still be able to buy cheap Nikes or clothing at Walmart and somehow don’t see the connection between the two.Many people think its perfectly OK to impose their religious dogma on the rest of the country, even though it may be oppressive or discriminatory to minority groups.Now I know what it must feel like to belong to a massive personality cult.Many Americans will say he is the best President ever without actually being able to articulate why and back it up with solid numbers and facts.America is not a democracy but an oligarchy where the many are ruled by a few.Rather than a United States, the U.S is more like a collection of small independent countries run by governors who happen to be controlled by Washington. This pandemic has shown that states are largely autonomous in their power..As of June 2019, the top 10 percent held 69.4 percent of total U.S. net worth (that is the value of all assets a person holds minus all their liabilities)Americans are unaware that Mexicans didn’t steal your jobs, technology did and the majority of people are simply wage slaves working for the 1%. Companies move to Mexico because its cheaper to produce goods there or the jobs in the US have been replaced by machines.If a guy is rich enough and brags about how much money he has people will actually believe that hes a successful businessman despite seven bankruptcies and three wives.Trump can not even borrow money from a US bank but somehow he is in charge of the US Treasury and Central Bank. Go figure.America is the only country where you can lose an election but still become President.Farmers are having to throw out millions of gallons of milk and produce rots in the fields as they have no way of harvesting or getting the product to the market. People no longer have jobs, no money and cant buy anything at the store anyway.People whose sole means on making a living on tips from being paid $2 an hour are now unemployed and homeless, and most do not have health insurance.Millions of Americans believe Fox News is actually real news and not just entertainment.Americans believe that a gaudy rich real estate developer living in a gold palace in New York understands what its like to be poor and living paycheck to paycheck.You talk a great game about what a great country you are but cant seem to score enough PPEs and ventilators for everybody. Governors have to smuggle in supplies from Korea without the Federal government finding out.The country grinds to a halt as soon as people miss one paycheck.And yes, Fundamentalist Christians are the worlds biggest hypocrites.The health system is a joke.Trump has spent over 100 million dollars on his security detail to visit his Mar-a-Lago resort. That works out to about 250 times his annual salary.He has spent about 1 day in 4 playing golf while on the job. Or about the same as Obama did in 8 years as President.Probably the first time in history that some one who dodged the draft for Vietnam gets to make the commencement address at West point.Trump wants to build a wall to keep out immigrants even though 40% of illegals come in legally and overstay their visas. there is also such a thing as airplanes that immigrants use.Speaking of the wall, in Texas some parts of the border run through private property, and a wall would put some parts of United States on the Mexican side of the border. The government is trying to take peoples land off them by force to build the wall.Trump took credit for the wall that was mostly built by Obama. He was simply adding to it, maybe a few hundred miles out of a 2000 mile border.Trump said the new wall panels would be impossible to climb but video records show it being scaled in under 3 minutes.Trump said he would drain the swamp. All he has done is fill it with alligators.Steven Miller’s father or grandfather was a Hungarian Jew who came to America to escape the Nazis. if Miller had been around the time of his grandfather in WW2 he would likely have ended up in Auschwitz, not be allowed to enter the US and Miller not have been born.Ivanka Trump signed over 500 business patents for her company with the Chinese government while campaigning to buy American.Trump called Jeffrey Epstein a “ terrific guy”. Said Epstein liked his girls “really young”Trumps mother was an immigrant from Scotland and his grandfather ran a brothel in Oregon in the early part of the 20th century. Grandfather was kicked out of Germany for avoiding the draft.Trump pushed for the use of an anti malarial drug that actually increased the death rate and many people died from taking it.Trump received about $480 million from his father and probably would have made more money if he had just invested it in the stock market.Trump is estimated to have personally lost over a billion dollars in 10 years.Trump is reportedly known to cheat at golf.If you are a daughter-in law or girlfriend to the son of the President. You can get a $180,000 dollar a year paying gig without reporting it to Congress as a political donation.Stormy Daniels got 130,000 dollars from Trump. All we get is a fucking T-shirt.Its amazing what you can get people to lie about if you pay them enough or give them enough authority they are not qualified for.Jared Kushner failed his security clearance a dozen times, had multiple omissions and finally got clearance on Trumps say-so.No one, including White House staff, knows what Ivanka Trump does all day.To make money on his casinos Trump would have had to bring in close to a million dollars a day to break even. That was impossible and the casinos folded within 6 months.Trump actually wanted Marla to abort Tiffany (she was unplanned) and hoped she’d have nice breasts.Steve Muchnin the Secretary of the Treasury believes that its possible to make a $1200 subsidy check from the government last 10 weeks.This is the same guy who used a government tax-payer funded jet to go on his honeymoon.Best one I heard yet: “If we are going to have a dictator in America, i want it to be Donald Trump”.Donald Junior seems to have spent the best part of his adult life trying to gain his fathers respect and admiration while the Donald regards him as a bit of a failure and a disappointment. Going on safari shooting rhinos just made him look like a bit of an insensitive tone-deaf jerk.14 year old Barron Trump has a whole floor to himself in Trump Tower and favors wearing suits to copy his dad.Not commonly known but Trump wears platforms in his shoes to appear taller. Has bragged that he is 6′2″ but he is the same height as Barack Obama who is 6′1″.The states that scream most loudly about being anti-government and anti-Washington are largest beneficiaries of federal Aid, including Kentucky, the home state of Mitch McConnell and many are Republican.Jared Kushner’s sister-in-law was in China selling US visas to rich Chinese for $500,000 a pop until the government got wind of it.Jared Kushner’s father is a convicted felon who paid a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law as payback for a bad business deal. He did 2 years in a federal penitentiary. The guy who put his father in prison was none other than Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie.Trump canceled the health insurance on his grand-nephew who had a serious life-threatening illness, as revenge for a dispute over a family will..Mike Pence’s wife told reporters her husband didn’t know he had to wear a Mask at a visit to the Mayo clinic even though he was specifically told by the hospital everyone had to wear a mask.Trump suffers an affliction (Dunning-Kruger) where he believes he is the smartest guy in the room knows better and more than all the experts, including generals and doctors and called himself a “natural” at medicine despite no training or expertise in the field.Stupid people often lack the cognitive awareness that they are actually stupid. This is why Trump is unaware that telling people to drink bleach is not only stupid but he just doesn’t understand why it’s stupid.When asked if she married Trump for his money Melania said he wouldn’t have married her if it wasn’t for her looks.Former Secretary of Energy Rick Perry didn’t know America’s nuclear missiles came under his department.After 3 years in office Trump has still not released his tax returns.Melania is NOT fluent in five languages. In televised shots she says hello in Italian and then reverts to English. She spoke English to a bunch of French school children and relied on an interpreter for the rest. Probably speaks some Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian and some heavily accented English.Its possible to have bone spurs and play college level football when you are the President.Trump say often he attended Wharton business school but he was in the less well-known undergraduate school, not the graduate MBA program. One of his teachers said Trump was one of the laziest students he had ever taught. Penn was relatively easy to get into in 1965 when Trump was there.Trump said he was one of the smartest students in his year but there is no record of him coming anywhere near the top 50 students and his name is not listed anywhere in the summa cum laude class of 1968.So far the president has said little if anything to comfort the families who have lost loved ones due to the corona virus. What he has said is perfunctory and brief and lacking in any real compassion.Recent headline. Melania has been having a long time affair with the head of security at Tiffany in Trump Tower and he looks like Michael Avenatti. Trump knows about it and is perfectly OK with it.Trump and Melania were planning a divorce but it has been put on hold since he became the President. Watch this space.4 people died in Benghazi, the hearings lasted 2 and half years and cost 5 million dollars. 60,000 people have died in the last 2 months and Trump is still President. No charges were ever filed against Hillary Clinton.Trump is still waiting on that 3 am phone call.When Mike Pence went to Germany they flew back via Scotland where Trump has a golf course and airport is about a 2 hour drive from the course. Pence and his security detail were pretty much ordered to use his boss’ hotel as accommodation.The Trump International Hotel in the Federal Post Office building recently petitioned the federal government i.e. the President for a break in the rent, so basically you have the owner of a private hotel business petitioning himself for a rent break.Trump apparently likes to eat pizza with a knife and fork.There is something wrong when 30 million people sign up for unemployment assistance one month into a lock down.Kelly Anne Conway actually though there was a Covid 1–18, not realizing “19” stood for 2019.Report: Trump Hired 200 Illegal Workers in NYC and Paid Them $4 an Hour, if they Got Paid at AllStarted a fraudulent university bearing his own name, which was then sued by thousands of its students, subsequently closed down, and to settle the suits, agreed to pay $25 million (!) in restitution.Was captured on video saying “And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.”Paid off porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to stay silent about their affair, then lied about it repeatedly.Used his fraudulent Trump Foundation to buy a portrait of himself, pay off porn stars, and bribe Florida Attorney General to drop a lawsuit against him. Then was forced to close up said fraudulent foundation.Hired Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, who was paid millions of dollars by Russian oligarchs, subsequently indicted, and found guilty of tax evasion and money laundering.Perpetuated the known false “birther” conspiracy against President Obama for years.Endorsed known pedophile and child molester, Roy Moore, for US Senate.Repeated the absurd campaign promise countless times that “Mexico will pay for the wall”. Then, when he took office, blamed Democrats for not giving him money for the wall.Campaigned on “Lock her up,” which was ridiculous at the time, and turned into another broken campaign promise.Continually called the Mueller investigation a “witch hunt”, even after it resulted in 35 indictments, convictions and guilty pleas. All while this investigation was conducted by people who reported to him in his own Justice Department.Falsely proclaims all news he doesn’t like to be “fake news.”Routinely tramples the First Amendment by attacking and insulting reporters.Locked immigrant children in cages.Appointed to the Supreme Court a man who was, very credibly, accused of sexual assault.Commuted the sentence of disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, and pardoned disgraced Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.Sided with Vladimir Putin over America’s Intelligence agencies.Withheld aid to Ukraine in exchange for a personal favor that Ukraine investigate his political rival.Impeded, and continues to impede, oversight investigations by Congress.Repeatedly promised to release his taxes when elected, then refuses to release his taxes as promised.Has told over 16,000 lies or misleading claims while in office.When you are Donald J Trump Jr. You write a book about how your father has been victimized and bullied by the media and the Liberals. May as well be useful for something.Ivanka said she was going to work for all women when her father became president. So far she has done squat for working mothers, maternity leave and went so far as to say it was not her responsibility. Pretty easy to be a working woman when you can afford nannies and maids.When your daddy is President its “take your daughter to work day” at international summits where you hobnob with the foreign heads of state and pretend to be one.When the Trumps meet the Queen its a family affair as even Eric’s and Junior’s wives and children went along for the ride.Be publicly made the butt of jokes when other world leaders gather and talk about Trump. Justin Trudeau was laughing about how Trump made his own staff’s collective jaws drop at his behavior.Trudeau admits to talking about Trump after President calls him 'two-faced'Trump refused to attend a Veterans Memorial service because it was raining.Ivanka and her husband declared a personal income of $120 million dollars last year while working as unpaid advisors in the White house.Many of the apartments in Trump Tower are owned by shell companies backed by Russian oligarchs and Putin’s cronies. One paid close to double the market rate for his apartment.Trump pulled out of a security deal with North Korea without first telling his Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of State. Japan’s Shinzo Abe almost had a heart attack.The US government had been working very closely with the WHO in China overseeing the pandemic in China before Trump pulled its funding saying they had been working with the Chinese and had not warned the US about he pandemic. The US has known since January but did nothing till late March about it.Bill O’Reilly was one of the biggest blowhards and loudmouths on Fox News until he got fired for sexually harassing his staff. He had to pay a $20 million dollar settlement.Fox News pundit Sean Hannity is a college dropout.Melania herself only finished one year of architecture school in Slovenia and did not graduate. She tried to make out she had a degree in design until it was shown to be a lie on her CV.She likely worked illegally on a tourist visa, used a special visa for “geniuses” to gain her green card and then went on to sponsor her parents for residency in America. her husband wants to ban all illegal immigration. But not if you are a Slovenian trophy wife.Trump tried to sue the Scottish Parliament when they built windmills in front of his property n Scotland saying they ruined his view. His case was thrown out of court.Tiffany is probably the only member of the family to have gone to graduate school, with a Law degree from Georgetown University in Washington.Ivanka, Donald and Donald Junior all attended Penn University with Ivanka attending the Wharton school of Business.Donald Junior was known best for partying hard at college and not known for his scholarship or brains. Mostly majored in beer pong.Trump held up the distribution of subsidy checks so he could put his name on them. The checks are tax payer money, not specifically from the Donald.The CDC spent weeks working on a detailed report including flow diagrams, on how to deal with the pandemic but once it reached Trump’s desk it was promptly shelved.Trump watching a solar eclipseTrump has no dress sense or sense of sartorial style. His jackets and pants are too big, his ties are worn too long. He wears baggy clothes to hide his protruding gut. When he went to a white die dinner with the queen his white vest was lower than his jacket lapels and he looked like a huge penguin. He can afford to get bespoke suits but prefers off-the-rack or perhaps has his own tailor.Trump could not name a single book that he had read apart from his own, nor name any newspapers that he reads.On one occasion he wished out loud that he wished Melania could have been there, except she happened to be standing right next to him.Trump has a very peculiar way of standing. He will lean forward, stick his bum out and hang his hands in front of him as if holding two hot irons.THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY ITBy: Fintan O'TooleOver more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into corona virus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemicAs the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted … like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.”It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – wilfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly virus. Trump, his party, and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News became vectors of the pestilence.The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis, demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely to sow confusion and division. They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked on live TV.If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world’s leading nation – an idea that has shaped the past century – has all but evaporated.Other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to do? How many people in Düsseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas?It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has exposed it in the most savage ways.Abject surrenderWhat used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump – he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety.Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3 that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order.In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students travelling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and “recreational activities.”Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1, explained: “We didn’t know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours.”This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic.It is fuelled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the virus draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providential-ism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right.Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralyzed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted.The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence.Fertile groundBut this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it.There are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St. Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection.Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder.And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here.That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality.And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element.As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics.Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.THIS WAS ON A FRIEND’S PAGE: An anguished question from a Trump supporter: ‘Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?’THE SERIOUS ANSWER: Here’s what the majority of anti-Trump voters honestly feel about Trump supporters en masse:That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought "Fine." (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/04/10/trump-university-settlement-judge-finalized/502387002/)That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, "Okay." (https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hotel-paid-millions-in-fines-for-unpaid-work)That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, "No problem." (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/list-trumps-accusers-allegations-sexual-misconduct/story?id=51956410)That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, "Not an issue." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/11/22/donald-trumps-outrageous-claim-that-thousands-of-new-jersey-muslims-celebrated-the-911-attacks/)That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn't care, you exclaimed, "He sure knows me." (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/23/president-donald-trump-could-shoot-someone-without-prosecution/4073405002/)That when you heard him relating a story of an elderly guest of his country club, an 80-year old man, who fell off a stage and hit his head, to Trump replied: “‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ and I turned away. I couldn’t—you know, he was right in front of me, and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him. He was bleeding all over the place. And I felt terrible, because it was a beautiful white marble floor, and now it had changed color. Became very red.” You said, "That's cool!" (https://www.gq.com/story/donald-trump-howard-stern-story)That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw. (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-criticized-after-he-appears-mock-reporter-serge-kovaleski-n470016)That when you heard him brag that he doesn't read books, you said, "Well, who has time?" (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/americas-first-post-text-president/549794/)That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, "That makes sense." (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/19/what-trump-has-said-central-park-five/1501321001/)That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, "Yes!" (https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-trump-campaign-protests-20160313-story.html)That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man's coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, "What a great guy!" (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/donald-trump-orders-protesters-coat-is-confiscated-and-he-is-sent-into-the-cold-a6802756.html)That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, "Thumbs up!" (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/why-cant-trump-just-condemn-nazis/567320/)That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, "That's the way I want my President to be." (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-insult-foreign-countries-leaders_n_59dd2769e4b0b26332e76d57)That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they're supposed to be regulating and you have said, "What a genius!" (https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/12/29/138-trump-policy-changes-2017-000603)That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, "That's smart!" (https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-05/how-is-donald-trump-profiting-from-the-presidency-let-us-count-the-ways)That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was in the middle of water and you have said, "That makes sense." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/09/26/the-very-big-ocean-between-here-and-puerto-rico-is-not-a-perfect-excuse-for-a-lack-of-aid/)That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, "falling in love" with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, "That's statesmanship!" (https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/politics/donald-trump-dictators-kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin/index.html)That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids, has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas - he explains that they’re just “animals” - and you say, “Well, OK then.” (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-5-400-children-split-border-according-new-count-n1071791)That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise. (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2018/06/04/451570/confronting-cost-trumps-corruption-american-families/)What you don't get, Trump supporters, is that our succumbing to frustration and shaking our heads, thinking of you as stupid, may very well be wrong and unhelpful, but it's also...hear me...charitable.Because if you're NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.- Adam-Troy Castro

I have answered a similar query Renuka Rajendran's answer to What are some of the greatest novels of all time? Why are they great?However I have left out a few absolute treasures in the list, and since I wrote that answer I have read a couple of books which just have to be included in the list of best books ever written, so here goes my list! I've limited my answer to works of fiction alone. I must add that the answer contains SPOILERS throughout.Thomas Hardy:1.Far from the madding crowd (Beautifully written book that charmingly portrays the rural landscape. The heroine is a bit vain and rejects a man who is good in every way but too simple for her tastes, but it all ends well in the end)2.Return of the Native(The dictionary defines heath as “An area of open uncultivated land, esp. in Britain, with characteristic vegetation of heather, gorse, and coarse grasses”. Not very appealing, right? But there is only one author who can make even the heath sound romantic and have you think wistfully that you were there, as he takes you through the various facets of it. You can almost feel the wrath of the stormy winds, the chills of the misty nights, the silence of its mysterious nature. ‘See’ its subtle, if not so charming, beauty. ’Return of the Native’-an enchanting, deeply moving book.3.Tess of the DurbervillesCharles Dickens:4.A tale of two cities( An epic story of love, war, sacrifice and loyalty. The ending lines in the closure of the novel which are the final thoughts of a man who sacrifices himself for the woman he loves is still etched in my heart ““It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to" I think it’s one of the first novels that made me cry inconsolable tears. )5.Oliver Twist( This book did not fail to make me shed a few tears over the way poor little orphaned Oliver was treated by some cruel people who were supposed to take care of him. And when Dick says his farewell to Oliver! That was the first occasion on which Oliver had ever encountered kindness. Thank God for the happy ending for Oliver though-Dick dies)6.Great expectations(another masterpiece of Dickens’)7.David Copperfield(This book has one of the best female characters in all books I’ve read-Agnes. Lovely, kind, intelligent she’s loved David all her life and finally a tad thickheaded as he is, David realizes the fact and they get together.)George Elliot:(one of the best writers in English!)8.Middlemarch(One of the best books I’ve read with so many interesting characters in it.Dorothea, Will, Lydgate and Mary were my favorites. Beautiful written prose, insights into each character and their thought process, the problems they encounter and their reaction to it, kept me hooked to the end. A book that shows that even intelligent women in those times found it difficult to carry out an action they knew to be right without a man's approval and that how often what we perceive of others is so wrong!)9.Mill on the Floss(Another favorite of mine, even more beautifully written than Middlemarch if that’s possible and one that I connected with more than any other because it has sibling love in it.)Jane Austen10.Pride and Prejudice(Another favorite female character of all novels I’ve read-Elizabeth Bennett. Enough said!)11.Sense and sensibility12.Emma(A woman that is a shining example to her gender)13.Persuasion(Best novel of Jane Austens’ in my opinion and a must read!)14.Mansfield ParkRobert Louis Stevenson:15.Kidnapped (Best novel by this author. One couldn’t help sympathizing with David-the Hero in the book and I read the book hastily to see what destiny awaited him after he was arranged to be kidnapped by his own uncle to deprive him of his rightful property. His friendship with Alec whom he comes to love like a brother and whose affection is reciprocated- and how much he misses him when he has to part ways with him is really heart wrenching and beautiful!)16.Treasure Island (A young man recounts his tale of getting entangled with pirates and respectable folk of his town in finding a treasure on an uninhabited island)17.The Strange case of Dr. Jenkyll and Mr. Hyde ( A really different sci-fi book in that it deals with how a doctor wishes to separate the 2 conflicting souls in him-good and bad-and the consequences he faces as a result of experiment gone bad.)Mark Twain:18.Tom Sawyer (This book and the one below of naughty but smart Tom and his not so bright friend Huck is a delightful adventure that I loved when I was a kid)19.Huckleberry Finn20.Prince and the Pauper(A really different novel about two boys-one a prince and the other a pauper-swapping places with each other and the hardships that the Prince endures in the hands of beggars and thieves and the unlikely nipper Tom playing King at the palace).Virginia Woolfe:21.Mrs. Dalloway (A classic Virginia Woolfe novel , the book revolving around the theme of time; sometimes an entire afternoon passes away taking more pages than the passage of 10 years)22. To the Lighthouse( A profoundly difficult but very interesting and unique read that explores various themes like time, symbolism, the journey rather than the destination, meaning of life, memories, perception, to name a few)23.To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Another favorite and one of the best books ever written. A classic "coming of age " novel that deals with the issue of racism, righteousness, dignity to name a few)24.The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas(One of the best classics ever written and certainly the best in prison break and revenge theme! Revenge, love, betrayal, philosophy, kindness,forgiving those who did you a wrong turn-the novel has them all. It also shows how revenge when taken too far, can have far reaching consequences that were unintended and are even worse than the wrong a victim suffers at the hands of his betrayers . In this book, the death of a child whose father did Edmond Dantes a cruel wrong and deserved punishment; the other is that Mercedes and her son suffers when all that Mercedes did was to marry a man who was her lover’s enemy when she thought him dead)25. Ivanhoe by Walter Scott(An epic historical novel set in medieval times that has bravery, chivalry, love, kindness etc. The 2 women in the novel, especially Rebecca, are one of the most admirable characters depicted in fiction).Victor Hugo:26..The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Just for its description of Paris architecture and some insights into it. The Heroine in the novel is not someone who appealed to me because she pines away after a worthless man who just wants to get into her pants and just because he is handsome whereas she treats a man who is willing to do anything for her, including sacrificing his own life to protect her from the town folk.)27. Les Miserables(One of the longest, but certainly one of the best books ever written!)28.Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell(One of the best classics ever written.Scarlett O’ Hara may not be liked by everyone and certainly even I found certain things that she resorted to, highly distasteful. But she has an iron will, she’s brave, loves passionately, is an intrepid business woman, and I’d love to speculate on the kind of woman she’d have become. Not a bad, bitter, cruel one I hope!)Leo Tolstoy:29.Anna Karenina(Another marathon epic classic that has some amazing characters in it who indulge in a lot of thinking and it is really interesting to follow up on their thought process. Levin, one of the characters in the book, is none other than the author, so one can assume that the thoughts and ideas he indulges in the novel are his own)30.War and Peace31.Little Women by Louisa May Alcott(Another childhood favorite and particularly appealed to the teen girl in me. I still remember Jo deciding to cut her beautiful tresses!)32.Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte ( One of the most beautiful love stories ever written. Jane Eyre is my favorite female character of all books that I’ve read and unlike other heroines, she’s not uncommonly beautiful. She’s a very special, kind-hearted, intelligent, sensitive, loyal woman who feels deeply, loves truly and has no false airs-admirable in every way!)33.Call of the Wild by Jack London ( A dog is treated cruelly and then with compassion; with the death of the one human who treats him right, he goes wild with his brothers-the wolves)34.Robinson Crusoe by Daniel defoe( Unless someone’s been living in another planet, they should know what the story is about. Being shipwrecked and how our hero survives and turns to God during the difficult years of his life)35.Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden( I’m glad I didn’t miss out on it seeing the title. Beautifully written)36.The age of innocence by Edith Wharton (delightful read about how a guy who is engaged to be married falls for another woman who returns his affection but how all the people around them strive to ensure he doesn't break his engagement. The way the wife and husband communicate is singular indeed. The closure of the novel in which his son meets the woman whom he loved once but couldn't marry because of social pressure and the way she is living her life which is entirely different to the desolation in which he expected her to be, are particularly singular)37. The scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Another favorite. The heroine is shammed and forced to wear the Scarlett Letter as a sign of adultery, but in the end we come to know she’s just as good(if not pious for not exposing her lover) and true as the rest of them.38. Barlasch of the Guard by Hugh Stowell Scott (historic fiction set in the time of Napoleon and how the various lives of the characters in the book are impacted due to the war. An old soldier sacrifices his life to bring Desiree, the heroine, and the man she loves together- and I’m guilty of shedding a few tears over it)39. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell ( Animal cruelty is explored in the book and being a lover of animals I really liked it –it’s my childhood favorite)George Orwell:40.Animal Farm (I thought it was just another book and only on reading reviews online did I come to know that Orwell portrays the turmoil faced by animals in the farm at the hands of the pigs as a metaphor for the Russian Revolution. Very thought provoking indeed.)41. 1984(a novel of political fiction in which the author writes about novel themes related to Surveillance and Privacy,Censorship, Nationalism etc)42.Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (One of the best novels of American authors; basically about the struggle a family faces during the depression)43.A farewell to arms by Ernest Hemingway(one of the best works of American fiction)44.The picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde (a shocking transformation about the corruption of a handsome man's soul)D.H. Lawrence45. Sons and Lovers (A son is unable to really fall in love because of a too attached mother who is not willing to let go)46. Women in LoveChildhood favorites:47.Heidi by Johanna Spyri (a childhood favorite)48.The Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift49. The Jungle Book by Rudyard KiplingAnything of Agatha Christie50. The Hercule Poirot Series51.The Man in the brown CoatErle Stanley Gardner52.Perry Mason series(especially The Case of the Careless Cupid and The Shoplifter's Shoe)53.Two Clues54. The Merchant of Venice by William ShakespeareEnid Blyton:55.The Magic Faraway tree; the Wishing Chair;Five go Off in a Caravan, Five Run away together, Finniston farm and The Smuggler's top (Famous Five); The Secret Seven; The Five Find-Outers and Dog series(Especially, the Mystery of the pantomine cat), the Naughty Girl series, The Twins at St. Clare's, the Malory towers series and the O'Sullivan Twins series.PG Wodehouse:56.The entire Jeeves-Wooster series((A master comic writer whose books are uproariously funny with the Gentleman’s butler Jeeves coming to the rescue of the hapless Bertie every time he gets into a tight spot)57.Mike-Psmith58. Blandings Castle and Uncle Fred series59. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (I’ll have to write an essay as to why I love this book but suffice to say I've read and re-read each of the 7 books so many times that they are in shreds. Sirius and Fred are 2 deaths I could not get over and cried a river! Thank God that Neville, Luna, the trio, Hagrid and the rest of the weasleys got to live!)60. The Lord of the Rings series by Tolkien(Aragorn! Legolas! Gandalf! Pippin and Merry! Sam –the kind of friend everyone needs and without whom Frodo would never have competed his quest, Bilbo! Ahh too many characters that I adore!. An epic fantasy even better than HP in my opinion)61. The Hobbit by Tolkien as well.62. The casebook, adventures and memoirs of Sherlock Holmes of which my favorites are: the Hound of Baskervilles, A scandal in Bohemia- because it was e first time Sherlock got defeated by a woman's wit and she is THE WOMAN-"To Sherlock, she's the Woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. Not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler..He never spoke of the softer passions save with a gibe and a sneer. And yet, there was but one woman to him and that woman was the late Irene Adler of dubious and questionable memory" Read this book more than a decade back but still remember these lines verbatim., and The adventure of the empty house(for obvious reasons) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle63.The Shiva Trilogy by Amish TripathiA gripping compelling tale and the 1st book of the series is the best of the lot.64. The Mahabharata Secret by Christopher C. Doyle (historical fiction. I got so interested in Asoka and his empire that I stopped reading this novel and started reading about the Mauryan empire instead! Ashoka's reign, said Wells, “for eight-and-twenty years was one of the brightest interludes in the troubled history of mankind.Definitely, one of the best kings that ever lived and even 2300 years back, an ecologist and environmentalist.65. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James66. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins67. Wuthering heights by Emily Bronte68.Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier69.Catch-22 by Joseph Heller70.The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles(A novel that has a real twist in the end!)71. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev.(For a novel written by a Russian author, it is rather a small book, but it is rather good!)72. Dracula by Bram Stoker (first vampire book that I enjoyed more than other books on vampires written later)73.Of human bondage by W. Somerset Maugham( The hero in this novel is enslaved by a impious woman and he takes a long while to fall out of love with her and finally finds someone who gives him happiness. He comes to realize that the ordinary life of a man, who is born, finds work, marries, has kids and dies is not a bad sort of life-it's perfect in fact and the most natural)74. Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert(classic realism in which a woman goes from bad to worse and ends up committing suicide)75.Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (A novel that is really funny and witty at the same time and will have you in splits till the closure. Some passages will make you pause and ponder over life in general, as well)76.The Alchemist by Paul Coelho77. The Great Gatzby by Scott.F. Fitzgerald (The closing lines towards the closure of the novel is particularly profound. And then there is this one: “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.” )78.The fault in our stars by John Green(A deeply moving book)79. HG. Wells' The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, and the Island of Doctor Moreau.EDIT:I didn't include controversial books the first time around, but I felt I had to include for a couple of these books are rather novel.80. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov81.The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain( is a crime novel by James M. Cain in which the anti-hero Frank covets another man's wife who falls for him as well and plots with her to Murder her husband. The plot is successful and they go away scot-free. However, Frank and his lover, Cora end up being justly punished for the Murder.82.Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger( it is a "coming" of age realistic fiction about a young man battling depression, alcohol and even contemplates suicide. But he has a good heart and dotes on his little sister, for all that)83.One flew over the cuckoo's nest by Ken Kesey(another controversial novel in which a man physically and verbally abuses a woman(not that she is super innocent), but she ends up defeating him in the end )I will keep adding to the list84. Vainity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray-"The novel without a hero" as the author claims has no heroine either. Becky Sharp in this novel is one character that shocked me beyond measure: made me shake my fists in anger; laugh derisively; shake my head wistfully; and the few seconds of pity I felt at her lot was immediately replaced by indignation at what she is capable of and what she would stoop to. A woman who cannot value the love of a husband, who cannot love her child, who is mean to the very people who are kind to her-that sort of woman doesn't deserve pity! She is someone who can take care of herself.85. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand-The best book I have read!Atlas Shrugged..I cannot conceive any other title that better suits a novel. The men who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders and what would happen if they chose to “shrug”. Her philosophy-that of objectivism would, has to resonate with every person , intelligent or otherwise. At least it would make them “think”. Usually works of fiction had great heroes, who were the epitome of sacrifice and goodness, who just gave without expecting, sacrificing everything for their love, so that the object of their love can go on living holding a special place for them in their hearts(Wow! What a return for the sacrifice of a human life!). The heroes whom I thought were great and the stories at the end of which I was moved to tears(Quasimodo of Hunchback of Notre Dame and Carton of a Tale of two cities comes to my mind for these 2 heroes gave up their lives for the women they loved. Of course in the latter case, the heroine, Lucie doesn’t ask for that sacrifice, but Esmeralda in the former! I was left with a bitter taste at the end of the novel and resentment towards the vain fool, but now my pity for Quasimodo is now infused with contempt for worshiping the “human” who didn’t even consider him as a friend, but accepted the protection he offered and knowing full well that he was putting his life in danger! ) don't make any sense to me now. Rand portrays the real hero this age demands-the man, the individual who works to discover the best in him, has a purpose and a goal and acts towards the achievement of it; who works for his own happiness, well-being and fulfillment. If you think such a man is selfish, and that selflessness, brotherly love, “love thy neighbor” without cause or reason even if he’s nothing but evil, is even possible,then is the person who is selfless doing it just because he is “living” for the sake of others? Hardly! Even altruism and charity are not acts that are totally devoid of selfishness. Say your intentions are good, you love helping out with environmental or children causes. And seeing the gratitude, a smile, the difference made to the world around you for the good of many makes you happy. That is why you do it. The happiness of others and the fact that you contributed for a good makes you happy. That is the essence of the heroes I loved in the novel. They love their life and they want to really "live" in the way humans were meant to, full of joy, without being apologetic about it and knowing that happiness is the normal state of the human mind. They live fully, love passionately and truly and work with a purpose. They are the ones who call a spade a spade.Shows how the old world faith-blind faith mind you- and superstition and mysticism cannot work anymore and those who try to live their lives in this age by those faiths and beliefs, are living a lie; a lie they will not admit, not even to themselves, but then wonder why is it that they don’t feel as good and clean and pure as they were made to believe that such faiths alone can give them that and damn anyone and everyone who reject mindless superstition and think rationally. They call those who don't accept their moral creed, which is evil, as evil and that somehow the values the Good uphold and follow goes against their definition of Moral Code and sneer that it’s in spite of the pain they are undergoing now, they are going to reach heavenly abode,without understanding why they are undergoing pain, without understanding that pain is not the normal state of the human mind, but the rest are damned forever!(WOW).This is book that has made me “think; no the book hasn’t made me think things I didn’t know, but things I never or only partially understood and never grasped. I admit I’m someone who felt that it was wrong of me to enjoy life “too much” when there were people suffering. I know now I didn’t have to feel guilty. Ah don’t even get me started on what Rand says about guilt! It’s so profound and so simple and so true, that I cannot conceive I hadn’t grasped it before.But the only aspect of the book offended me a bit since I am an Indian and a Hindu (I am entitled to Nationalistic feelings and love for my religion after all)is a couple of sentences/ passages from the book“..you who claim that you long to rise above the crude concerns of the body, who is enslaved by physical needs: the Hindu who labors from sunrise to sunset at the shafts of a handplow for a bowl of rice, or the American driving a tractor? Who is the conqueror of physical reality” the man who sleeps on a bed of nails, or the man who sleeps on an inner spring mattress? Which is the monument of triumph of the human spirit over matter” the germ-eaten hovels on the shorelines of the Ganges or the Atlantic Skyline of New York”. [I am a Hindu, not just by birth, but choice, and I can honestly say that I don’t labor from dawn to dusk, neither did my dad or grandfather. Yes, my grandfather was a farmer; my dad was a farmer for a few years and then a businessman and I can say that they didn’t sleep on nails that was for sure, and they labored in farm and in business, and the returns they got was more than just a “bowl of rice”. They lived their life fully and unapologetically like any other person who earns their bread by honest means ] Now to contemplate the next part of the sentence; the Atlantic Skyline is a glorious monument of triumph of matter, without a shadow of a doubt.[ Of course the comparison isn’t going to change the fact that slums exist in India, but hey comparing such a glorious skyline to the germ-eaten hovels on Ganges is just a bit unfair..the poor hovels just don’t stand a chance! After all there are around 32 UNESCO World Heritage sites in India, some of them are very ancient monuments that are a glorious triumph of matter in my opinion. The Great Chola Temples for instance, built in the 11th and 12th century-which stand still as an achievement of Chola architecture, of art, and one that captures the culture and history of a section of the Indians-The Tamils. The sculptures, the paintings, the vimana that soars to the sky at a height of 59.82 m above the ground, is certainly an achievement considering the time it was built in! and that it still stands speaks for itself. I could go on about other achievements, not just in India, but the rest of the world..Rome, Paris for instance]! And another reference to “fat Raja of India” is a gross generalization of Indian Kings. Yes, the sort she mentioned existed. Yes they made it possible for invaders and conquerors to loot the country for a Millennium no less. But there existed great kings before, during and after.[ To talk of before, Asoka for instance who lived 2300 years back and what British Historian HG Wells said of him in The Outline of History in 1920 ”In the history of the world, there have been thousands of kings and emperors who called themselves “their highnesses”, their majesties” and so on. They shone for a brief moment, and as quickly disappeared. But Ashoka shines and shines brightly like a bright star even unto today. From Volga to Japan his name is still honored. China, Tibet, and even India, though it has left its doctrine, preserve the tradition of his greatness. More living men cherish his memory today than have ever heard the names of Constantine or Charlemagne“. During -Chhatrapati Shivaji -instrumental in defeat from invaders who ruled the country for centuries!]. Thirdly, another things that the Orient mysticism somehow represents the collective thought of the whole population of the people of the country, even continent-! In her words-those “mystic ridden nations of the Orient”, particularly Asia-“When some barefoot bum in some pesthole of Asia yells at you” How dare you be rich-you apologize and beg him to be patient and promise you’ll give it all away” hmm. And then the reference to the Buddhism conversion of a particularly evil women. Any evil thought was inherited from mystics of the Orient and the mystics of the muscle are heirs of the mystics of the Spirit. I don’t deny it. But has not Christianity persecuted men of the mind for centuries as well? Galileo for instance, for proclaiming the fact that the Earth revolved around the sun. Every religion has done it. I only refer to this because she explicitly makes references to Hinduism, and Buddhism[of course she never claimed that the Ma Chalmers, who is evil personified because so on conversion to that Buddhism; all that the author mentions is that she’s commits an act of evil and she’s recently converted to Buddhism. I guess there are people who can take a good and interpret it to mean evil like Ma Chalmers eh! That was the thought that came to my mind. But of course the time in which the novel was written has to be taken into consideration as well.]So to continue why I love the book..The concepts(not abstract, hard to understand, but clear “rational ones”) on Reasons, consciousness, freedom, truth, justice, honesty,values and virtues, thinking, ideas,morality,guilt, sacrifice, faith, needs, desires, self actualization,productivity, and profits, goals, purpose of life,love,happiness, conflicts(between a person’s personal and professional values and the separation of the two can only lead to frustration-The life of Dr. Stadler, his frustrations, disappointments, hatred is a fitting example and even the struggle of its heroes-Rearden, Dagny, JG, Francisco, whom everyone would come to adore, admire, revere are only struggling because they were initially dictated by the moral code which they never believed to be good anyway, isn’t; how they come to realize it, and the way they don’t allow it to dictate their lives, shape their actions, is what makes them the heroes that they are and truly liberates them; it’s like fulfillment of their lives Quest. The achievement of their goals. Their unflinching morality, honesty, justice, and values are what sets them apart and make them the only ones capable of carrying the world, on their shoulders and they are not sorry of their ability and virtues, as they shouldn’t be!. These people are not just businessmen but scientists, engineers, artists, musicians, philosophers and scholars- and the author pays a rich, well deserved tribute to them all. )The speeches of Francisco and John Galt (their actions too of course)and the actions of Dagny and Rearden will leave you thinking how it is even possible to live any other way.“Through reason and freedom, an individual can achieve personal happiness and reach his full productive, heroic potential” –The core philosophy of the book 'Objective realism', all the philosophy on the values and virtues she propounds as good, the heroes of the novel, and this one sentence “I swear by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine ”makes Atlas Shrugged the best book(yes! I cannot believe that after 15 years of reading books I am reading this novel only now; at so “old” an age of 25!) I have ever read; I now understand why every bibliophile swears by it and had me wishing I had read it earlier for it made many things clear to me which weren’t before (if you have ever wondered how people can be so fake, if you are crying out if there are actually any genuine people left, if you are bewildered at the indifference of people around you, at the blatant corruption by those in power,the evasive/generalized statements they make and the even more inconceivable acceptance of the people who know it, but refuse to do anything about it, and if like me you pretend that you have it all figured out, then this book is for you! Oh your innocence is going to be shattered in so many ways, all good of course! )and is changing/shaping/convincing/making clear to me the many aspects of my life and the perception of the world around me. What a book!86: 44. Anne Frank Diary of a young girl:She’s just like any other teenage girl and her troubles are like that any teen girl faces-the only difference being she’s in hiding with her family, prosecuted for being a jew and in constant fear for her life. She writes about her everyday activities, thoughts and ideas in her diary and it doesn’t seem like a young girl has written them at all; she sounds so grown up as she indeed is! She is a bright girl, full of gusto, intelligent and cheery and even in the dark phase of her life, she finds things to smile about.“I've found that there is always some beauty left -- in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you.”“As long as this exists, this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?”87. Anne of green gables by L.M. Montgomery:What a book! I loved it..every single bit of it! The story is pretty simple. Anne Shirley arrives from an orphanage thinking she is going to be adopted; only the family(Marialla and Mathew) she thinks she is going to belong to didn’t expect a girl but had been looking particularly for a boy to adopt. However they soon are won over by Anne’s charm and situation and are loath to let her go. She is one of those people who can just chatter continually without a pause and delight in doing so.Here is one such conversation where she admits she talks too much.“Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it, although it's difficult.”Her imagination is ripe too and she often lets her imagination run away with her, earning the ire of Marialla. Matthew however, takes a liking to her from the start and loves to hear her chatter away.New to everything, her wit, charm and intelligence soon makes Anne a favorite with everyone at school including Diana who comes to be her best friends. Anne’s take of the world around her, her imagination and the way she expresses it, her friendships, her finding a family and love, her ambitions and how she grows up to be a beautiful, strong and intelligent woman is what this book is all about. It makes for a lovely read indeed!88. Old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway89. Lady Charlotte’s lover by D.H. LawrenceImages Source: Google ImagesQuotes Source: GoodreadsI hope everyone found/find these books just as engrossing and delightful as I did! :)