If

[This poem is one of my favourites...]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man my son!

by: Rudyard Kipling (Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1905)

In the Time of the Butterflies...

"In the Time of the Butterflies", I watched this movie a few days back on TV and ever since then I am so much inclined, and with each passing day getting more and more determined, to read the novel which the film was based upon. I really liked the movie and I am dead sure I'll like the novel even more. [I am just waiting to get done with my current novel first...]

Written by Julia Alvarez, the story revolves around Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva, Dedé, and María Teresa who stood against and fought for the freedom of their nation from Rafael Trujillo, dictator of Dominican Republic. The sisters chose butterfly as the symbol of their rebellion which signifies independence - the very thing they were fighting for. Thus, they became known as "the Butterflies" or "Las Mariposas".

[After being labelled as a spoilsport bcuz I disclosed the climax, I am removing the paragraph which had originaaly been here... Please contact me personally to get a copy of that paragraph :-)]

Disclaimer: The novel is based on real incidents but is a work of fiction and narrates the lives of the Mirabal sisters from the personal accounts of Dedé on what happened during that time.