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Title
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en_US
The Tortoise and the Hare: A Fable Retold
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Description
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en_US
This is a hardbound book (hard cover)
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en_US
Original language: urd
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en_US
By Zakir Husain; Translated from the Urdu by Khushwant Singh
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Creator
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en_US
Husain, Zakir
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Contributor
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en_US
Husain, M.F.
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Date
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2016-01-25T19:50:47Z
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en_US
2007-03
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en_US
1970
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Date Available
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2016-01-25T19:50:47Z
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Date Issued
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en_US
1970
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Abstract
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en_US
The foreword describes this book--in landscape format, about 8¼ x 6½, 41 pages long--as a children's story for adults. It was Husain's last book written in Urdu before his death. The story is set in a contemporary Indian scene. A tortoise tries to approach a fast-paced teacher walking to school. After some difficulties in understanding each other, and especially after impatient interruptions from the teacher, the tortoise can ask his question about a race long before between a tortoise and a hare. Did it happen, and who won? The teacher promises to bring a historian the next day to answer the question. Simple full-page illustrations of two and three colors punctuate the story every few pages. The teacher of history is insulted to receive a question about fairy tales, but later recommends that the tortoise ask the Professor of Ancient Culture, Civilisation and Literature the next day. The tortoise wonders what kind of learning humans go in for these days, when a simple, straightforward question ties them in knots (12). The doctor versed in literature begins to answer the question by stating that India and Greece excelled in fables, which reach back to Buddist times in India and are concentrated in the Jataka tales. In Greece the fables are ascribed to Aesop. The doctor breaks into a long disquisition and the tortoise falls asleep. The learned Dr. Philfor walks away. The teacher promises to bring a Professor of Philosophy the next day. The philosopher, Al Phailsuph al Hindi, offers various logical possibilities for understanding the probable or possible course of the race, including one possibility which actually equals the standard telling of the fable. He also includes the race according to Zeno's parodox, according to which, if the tortoise starts in the lead, he must end up winning. The tortoise loves this explanation! Too much discussion has given the philosopher a headache, and he needs to return home. At school, a significant conundrum is raised. A teacher has two students who scored a perfect 50 on a test, but one wrote better than the other and so was given a score of 55 out of 50. Tortoise and hare meet for their race, and tortoise gets his head start of two-and-a-half yards. In the midst of the race, a dog hunts down the hare and kills him! The tortoise is overwhelmed with regret and guilt for getting the hare into this situation. To measure one's own knowledge against another's, to confront one's own method of prayer against another's, to weigh one's own deeds against another's--all this is the way of error. It is a sin and I am guilty of that great sin (41).
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Identifier
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en_US
6148 (Access ID)
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Language
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en_US
eng
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Publisher
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en_US
National Book Trust, India
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en_US
New Delhi
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Subject
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en_US
PZ8.2.H87 Tor 1970
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en_US
One fable
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en_US
Title Page Scanned
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Type
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en_US
Book, Whole