the longest journey in the world poem

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“The Furthest Distance In The World” – a poem by Rabindranath Tagore

The furthest distance in the world Is not between life and death But when I stand in front of you Yet you don’t know that I love you   The furthest distance in the world Is not when I stand in front of you Yet you can’t see my love But when undoubtedly knowing the love from both Yet cannot be together   The furthest distance in the world Is not being apart while being in love But when plainly cannot resist the yearning Yet pretending you have never been in my heart   The furthest distance in the world Is not but using one’s indifferent heart To dig an uncrossible river For the one who loves you

The writer of this poem was Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), a Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright who reshaped Bengali literature and music.  He was the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). I confess that I had never heard of this poem – or even of Tagore – until I was introduced to it recently by a dear Chinese friend.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 22nd, 2013 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Cultural issues . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.

One Comment

This is not from Tagore, it was at first written by a Chinese female novelist Xiaoxian Zhang, in one of her stories. One famous Chinese magazine published it as Tagora’s work by mistake. It is also not a very good translation.

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34 The Longest Journey

Table of Contents

The Longest Journey Poem and Explanation

“The Longest Journey” by M. Rosen captures the familiar childhood ritual of going to bed through a narrative lens. Let’s break down the poem stanza by stanza:

1. ‘Last one to bed

has to switch out the light.’

It’s just the same every night.

There’s a race.’

This opening stanza sets the scene for the nightly routine in the household. There’s a sense of competition and urgency as the children rush to bed to avoid being the one to switch off the light, which seems to carry an threatening weight.

2. “I’m ripping off my trousers and shirt,

he’s kicking off his shoes and socks.

‘My sleeve’s stuck.’

‘This button’s too big for its buttonhole.’

‘Have you hidden my pyjamas?’

‘Keep your hands off mine.’

 Here, the frantic energy of bedtime is vividly portrayed. The siblings are in a rush, dealing with minor inconveniences and fight over small things, all while preparing for sleep.

3. “If you win

you get where it’s safe

before the darkness comes

but if you lose

if you’re last

you know what you’ve got coming up is

the journey from the light switch to the bed.

It’s the Longest Journey in the World.”

 This stanza introduces the underlying fear associated with being the last one to bed. Winning the race means reaching safety before the darkness sets in. However, being last means facing the heavy task of moving in the dark room, which is perceived as a long and frightening journey.

4. ‘You’re last tonight,’ my brother says.

And he’s right.

There is nowhere so dark

as that room in that moment

after I’ve switched out the light.’

 The realization of being the last to bed brings a sense of fear. The darkness of the room is emphasized, highlighting the fear that accompanies it, particularly after the light is turned off.

5. “There is nowhere so full of dangerous things,

things that love dark places,

things that breathe only when you breathe

and hold their breath when I hold mine.”

 This stanza delves into the imaginative fears that the child experiences in the dark. The room becomes a place filled with imagined threats that thrive in darkness, heightening the child’s anxiety.

6. “So I have to say:

‘I’m not scared.’

That face grinning in the pattern on the wall,

isn’t a face

That prickle on the back of my neck

is only the label on my pyjama jacket

That moaning-moaning is nothing

but water in a pipe”

 The child tries to reassure himself by denying his fear and rationalizing the perceived threats as harmless everyday objects. However, the tension between their fear and attempts to suppress it is palpable.

7. “I’m not scared.’

Everything’s going to be just fine

as soon as I get into that bed of mine.”

 Despite the fear, the child maintains a facade of bravery, convincing themselves that everything will be fine once they reach the safety of their bed.

8. “Such a terrible shame

it’s always the same

it takes so long

to get there.”

 The repetition in this stanza emphasizes the prolonged and agonizing journey from the light switch to the bed, heightening the sense of suspense and fear.

9. “From the light switch

it’s the Longest Journey in the World.”

 The poem concludes with the duplication of the title, emphasizing the length and difficulty of the journey from the light switch to the bed, metaphorically capturing the child’s experience of confronting fear and darkness every night.

Summary of The Longest Journey

“The Longest Journey” by M. Rosen is about bedtime fears and sibling rivalry. Each night, siblings race to bed to avoid turning off the light, fearing the dark room. Being last means facing imagined dangers lurking in the darkness. The child denies fear, pretending everyday objects aren’t scary. Despite efforts to reassure, the journey from light switch to bed feels endless. The poem captures the struggle with fear and the relief of reaching safety. It portrays the universal childhood experience of confronting darkness, showing how imagination magnifies ordinary things into terrifying threats, yet ultimately finding comfort in the familiarity of bedtime rituals.

Figures of speech of The Longest Journey

The poem “The Longest Journey” by M. Rosen utilizes several figures of speech to evoke vivid imagery and convey emotions. Here are some examples:

1. Metaphor:

   – “the Longest Journey in the World” – The journey from the light switch to the bed is metaphorically depicted as the longest journey, emphasizing the perceived distance and difficulty.

   – “That face grinning in the pattern on the wall” – The pattern on the wall is compared to a grinning face, highlighting the child’s imagination and fear.

2. Personification:

   – “things that love dark places” – Darkness is personified as something that “loves” certain places, adding a sense of menace to the atmosphere.

   – “things that breathe only when you breathe” – Imagined threats in the dark are personified, giving them a sinister quality.

   – “That prickle on the back of my neck is only the label on my pyjama jacket” – The sensation on the back of the neck is likened to the label on the pyjama jacket, suggesting the child’s attempt to rationalize their fear.

4. Hyperbole:

   – “It’s the Longest Journey in the World” – The journey from the light switch to the bed is exaggerated to emphasize its length and the fear associated with it

5. Alliteration:

   – “that moaning-moaning is nothing but water in a pipe” – The repetition of the “m” sound creates a rhythmic effect, drawing attention to the mundane explanation for the noise in the dark.

These figures of speech contribute to the poem’s rich imagery and help evoke the emotions and experiences of the child confronting bedtime fears.

Answer each question briefly: The Longest Journey

1. ‘It’s just the same every night.’ What is just the same every night?

2. ‘There is a race.’ What for?

3. What happens if one wins? What, if one loses?

4. Who is the loser in this poem and why?

5. How does the child-poet feel when the light has been switched off?

6. ‘I’m not scared.’ Who says this? How many times? Why?

7. ‘Such a terrible shame.’ What is the matter of shame?

8. Explain the meaning of:

‘From the light switch to my bed, it’s the longest journey in the world.’

1. “It’s just the same every night.” – The routine of going to bed and the subsequent race to avoid switching off the light is the same every night.

2. “There is a race.” – The race is to avoid being the last one to bed and therefore having to switch off the light.

3. If one wins the race, they reach the safety of their bed before the darkness comes. If one loses, they have to face the journey from the light switch to the bed, which is portrayed as a frightening experience.

4. The loser in the poem is the child who ends up being the last one to bed and has to switch off the light. This is because they have to confront their fear of the dark during the journey to their bed.

5. When the light has been switched off, the child-poet feels scared and anxious about the darkness and the perceived threats within it.

6. “I’m not scared.” – The child says this multiple times as a form of self-reassurance, trying to convince themselves that they are not afraid of the dark and the imagined dangers within it.

7. “Such a terrible shame.” – The shame refers to the prolonged and fearful journey from the light switch to the bed, highlighting the child’s discomfort and reluctance to face the darkness.

8. “From the light switch to my bed, it’s the longest journey in the world.” – This line emphasizes the perceived length and difficulty of the journey through the dark room, highlighting the fear and apprehension associated with it for the child.

Tick (✔) the best answer: The Longest Journey

1. The phrase ‘ripping off’ in line 5 means

• pulling or removing sharply.

2. Lines 21-23 show that the child-poet is afraid of

• dangerous animals.

3. Lines 24-27 show that the child-poet’s fear is –

4. Lines 7-10 show that the children are

• fighting with each other.
• in a tearing hurry to go to bed.
• going to run a race.

5. The words ‘what you’ve got coming up’ in line 16 mean

• the race you’re going to run.
• the problem you’re going to face.
• the nightdress you’re going to put on.

6. Lines 28-38 show that the child-poet

• is not afraid at all.
• is afraid and behaves like a coward.
• is afraid but faces the situation with courage.

1. The phrase ‘ripping off’ in line 5 means – pulling or removing sharply. ✔

2. Lines 21-23 show that the child-poet is afraid of – the dark. ✔

3. Lines 24-27 show that the child-poet’s fear is – imaginary. ✔

4. Lines 7-10 show that the children are – in a tearing hurry to go to bed. ✔

5. The words ‘what you’ve got coming up’ in line 16 mean – the problem you’re going to face. ✔

6. Lines 28-38 show that the child-poet – is afraid but faces the situation with courage. ✔

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10 of the Best Poems about Journeys

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

According to Thomas de Quincey, Wordsworth clocked up an estimated 180,000 miles during his lifetime, walking around his beloved Lake District (to say nothing of the Quantocks, where he lived near Coleridge during the 1790s).

Andrew Marvell, ‘ Bermudas ’.

Where the remote Bermudas ride In th’ocean’s bosom unespied, From a small boat, that row’d along, The list’ning winds receiv’d this song. ‘What should we do but sing his praise That led us through the wat’ry maze Unto an isle so long unknown, And yet far kinder than our own?

This poem, from the seventeenth-century poet Andrew Marvell, is set in the Atlantic ocean and focuses on a group of people aboard a boat, and clearly in exile from their native land. They spy the island of Bermuda, and sing a song in praise of the island. The next 32 lines of the poem comprise their song.

The people aboard the boat praise God for leading them to this previously undiscovered island, which seems ‘far kinder’ than the island they have left behind, namely Britain.

These people have endured and eluded sea-monsters and storms, and God has led them to safety on the ‘grassy stage’ of this new island. It is mentioned that they are fleeing England because of ‘prelates’ rage’, namely religious persecution – so ‘Bermudas’ is a poem about undertaking a difficult journey to find a new place where a community of people can start afresh.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner .

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner.

‘The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top.

‘The Sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea …

Written in 1797-8, this is Coleridge’s most famous poem – it first appeared in Lyrical Ballads . The idea of killing an albatross bringing bad luck upon the crew of a ship appears to have been invented in this poem, as there is no precedent for it – and the albatross idea was probably William Wordsworth’s, not Coleridge’s (Wordsworth got the idea of the albatross-killing from a 1726 book, A Voyage Round The World by Way of the Great South Sea , by Captain George Shelvocke).

The poem is one of the great narrative poems in English, with the old mariner recounting his story, with its hardships and tragedy, to a wedding guest. Variously interpreted as being about guilt over the Transatlantic slave trade, about Coleridge’s own loneliness, and about spiritual salvation, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner remains a challenging poem about a journey whose lessons the ship’s crew, and we as readers, continue to learn from.

Robert Browning, ‘ How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix ’.

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I gallop’d, Dirck gallop’d, we gallop’d all three; ‘Good speed!’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; ‘Speed!’ echoed the wall to us galloping through; Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we gallop’d abreast …

Beginning with the wonderfully rhythmical lines ‘I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; / I gallop’d, Dirck gallop’d, we gallop’d all three’. But this poem, describing a horse-ride to deliver some important news (although we never learn what the news actually is). Instead, the emphasis is on the journey itself, with the sound of the galloping horses excellently captured through the metre of the verse.

This poem has a notable claim to fame: in 1889, it became the first poem (spoken by the author) to be recorded on a phonograph, when Browning recited (half-remembered) words from the poem into an Edison phonograph at a dinner party.

Henry Cholmondeley Pennell, ‘ The Night Mail North ’.

Now then, take your seats! for Glasgow and the North; Chester! – Carlisle! – Holyhead, – and the wild Firth of Forth,

‘Clap on the steam and sharp’s the word, You men in scarlet cloth: –

‘Are there any more pas .. sengers, For the Night .. Mail .. to the North!’ Are there any more passengers? Yes three – but they can’t get in, – Too late, too late! – How they bellow and knock, They might as well try to soften a rock As the heart of that fellow in green …’

Before W. H. Auden’s more famous ‘Night Mail’ poem from 1936, there was this poem, whose full title is ‘The Night Mail North (Euston Square, 1840)’ – 1840 being the year the penny post was introduced in Britain. Pennell captures the snatches of conversation on the train as it prepares to embark on its long voyage north and the passengers settle down for their journey in this skilful piece of what we might call documentary poetry.

Emily Dickinson, ‘ Our Journey had advanced ’.

Our journey had advanced; Our feet were almost come To that odd fork in Being’s road, Eternity by term …

In many of the best journey poems, the journey is a metaphor for something greater – and this is certainly the case in this Emily Dickinson poem. And what journey is greater than that from life into death, mortality into eternity?

A. E. Housman, ‘ White in the moon the long road lies ’.

White in the moon the long road lies, The moon stands blank above; White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love.

Still hangs the hedge without a gust, Still, still the shadows stay: My feet upon the moonlit dust Pursue the ceaseless way …

In this poem, the king of lugubrious English verse writes about leaving his beloved, with the road lying ahead of him that ‘leads me from my love’. And although he trusts that the same road will eventually lead him back to his love, first he must travel far, far away.

W. B. Yeats, ‘ Sailing to Byzantium ’.

That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect …

W. B. Yeats wrote ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ in 1927, when he was in his early sixties, and the poem sees Yeats’s speaker announcing that the country he’s left behind is ‘no country for old men’.

Being old, the speaker felt out of place there, and so he is making a journey (a pilgrimage?) to the ancient city of Byzantium, which can be read as a symbol for his yearning for spiritual meaning: the poem, then, is about a spiritual journey, and renouncing the hold of the world upon us in order to attain something higher than the physical or sensual.

D. H. Lawrence, ‘ The Ship of Death ’.

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit and the long journey towards oblivion.

The apples falling like great drops of dew to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

And it is time to go, to bid farewell to one’s own self, and find an exit from the fallen self …

A poem of angst and death, ‘The Ship of Death’ uses the metaphor of a journey to invoke the idea of self-discovery: the poem involves the poem’s speaker calling for the reader to prepare a ‘ship of death’ – ‘the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith’ – to transport them to ‘oblivion’, travelling from ‘the old self’ to ‘the new’.

T. S. Eliot, ‘ Journey of the Magi ’.

A nativity poem with a difference, ‘Journey of the Magi’ (1927) is spoken by one of the ‘Three Wise Men’ (as they’re commonly known), as they make their journey to visit the infant Jesus. The speaker reflects on the hardships he and his fellow travellers endure on their journey, and the implications of the advent of Christ for the Magi’s own belief system.

Philip Larkin, ‘ The Whitsun Weddings ’.

This poem, the title poem in Larkin’s 1964 collection, describes a journey from Hull to London on the Whitsun weekend and the wedding parties that Larkin sees climbing aboard the train at each station. Actually inspired by a train journey from Hull down to Loughborough in the Midlands, ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ captures the hope and togetherness these wedding parties symbolise – although the poem can also be read in a less optimistic way .

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Dag Hammarskjöld

Dag Hammarskjöld ( 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961 ) was a Swedish diplomat, the second United Nations Secretary-General , and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He oversaw U.N. responses to Cold War crises, the decolonization of Africa , and the Arab-Israeli conflict . He was killed in a plane crash while attempting to mediate the Congo Crisis .

• 1.1 Markings (1964)
• 2 Misattributed
• 3 Quotes about Hammarskjöld
• 4 External links

Quotes [ edit ]

• UN Press Release SG/360 (22 December 1953)
• United Nations Bulletin Vol. XVI, No. 4 (15 February 1954)
• Address to the Swedish Academy (20 December 1954)
• As quoted in The Times [London] (27 June 1955)
• As quoted in news reports (18 March 1956) and Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988) by James Beasley Simpson
• Statement after diplomatic talks, as quoted in Look (19 September 1956)
• Speech at the celebration of the 180th anniversary of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (16 May 1956)
• "An International Administrative Service", From an Address to the International Law Association at McGill University, Montreal, 30 May, 1956. Wilder Foote (Ed.), The Servant of Peace, A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, The Bodley Head, London 1962, p. 116.
• Statement to the General Assembly of the United Nations (3 October 1960)
• Statement on UN Operations in Congo before the General Assembly, 17 October 1960.

• On Nikita Khrushchev as quoted in The Times [London] (4 October 1960)
• On accusations by Nikita Khrushchev, as quoted in The Times [London] (4 October 1960)
• As quoted by Rolf Edberg, Swedish Ambassador to Norway, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Hammarskjöld in Oslo, Norway (10 December 1961)
• Servant of Peace : A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations (1962), p. 107; this has sometimes been paraphrased: It is in playing safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.
• Statement inspired by the work of British sculptor Barbara Hepworth , quoted in The Christian Science Monitor (18 Jun 1964)
• In a letter to a friend, as quoted in Hammarskjöld (1972) by Brian Urquhart
• On Nikita Kruschev , in a letter to a friend, as quoted in Hammarskjöld (1972) by Brian Urquhart
• As quoted in Know Your Limits — Then Ignore Them (2000) by John Mason
• As quoted in As I Journey On : Meditations for Those Facing Death (2000) by Sharon Dardis and Cindy Rogers
• As quoted in Living in Grace : The Shift to Spiritual Perception (2002) by Beca Lewis, p. 158
• As quoted in Sacred Seasonings (2003) by Sherri Purdom

Markings (1964) [ edit ]

• Give me a pure heart that I may see Thee. A humble heart that I may hear Thee, A heart of love that I may serve Thee, A heart of faith that I may abide in Thee.
• A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles a man to assume responsibility .
• Destiny is something not be to desired and not to be avoided. A mystery not contrary to reason , for it implies that the world , and the course of human history , have meaning .
• Variant translation: Friendship needs no words — it is a loneliness relieved of the anguish of loneliness.
• Variant translation: For all that has been — thanks. For all that will be — yes.
• Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.
• God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity , but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder , the source of which is beyond all reason .
• He who has surrendered himself to it knows that the Way ends on the Cross — even when it is leading him through the jubilation of Gennesaret or the triumphal entry into Jerusalem . Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.
• I believe that we should die with decency so that at least decency will survive.
• I don't know Who — or what — put the question, I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone — or Something — and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.

• In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.
• In the faith which is "God's marriage to the soul", you are one in God, and God is wholly in you, just as, for you, He is wholly in all you meet. With this faith, in prayer you descend into yourself to meet the other.
• In the last analysis it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions life puts to us … Hence too the necessity of preparing for it.
• "1925-1930"
• Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in. You will be living off stolen goods, and your muscles will atrophy.
• The myths have always condemned those who "looked back." Condemned them, whatever the paradise may have been which they were leaving. Hence this shadow over each departure from your decision
• Maturity: among other things, the unclouded happiness of the child at play, who takes it for granted that he is at one with his play-mates.
• Never, "for the sake of peace and quiet," deny your own experience or convictions.
• Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.

• Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.
• Respect for the word is the first commandment in the discipline by which a man can be educated to maturity — intellectual, emotional, and moral. Respect for the word — to employ it with scrupulous care and in incorruptible heartfelt love of truth — is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race. To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It causes Man to regress down the long path of his evolution. "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men speak..."
• Variant translation: The longest journey is the journey inward, for he who has chosen his destiny has started upon his quest for the source of his being.
• The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others.
• There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life's point of no return.
• Time goes by, reputation increases, ability declines.
• "To forgive oneself"—? No, that doesn't work: we have to be forgiven. But we can only believe this is possible if we ourselves can forgive.

• To love life and men as God loves them — for the sake of their infinite possibilities, to wait like Him, to judge like Him, without passing judgment, to obey the order when it is given and never look back.
• We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.
• What makes loneliness an anguish Is not that I have no one to share my burden, But this:

• You are not the oil, you are not the air — merely the point of combustion, the flash-point where the light is born. You are merely the lens in the beam. You can only receive, give, and possess the light as the lens does. If you seek yourself, you rob the lens of its transparency. You will know life and be acknowledged by it according to your degree of transparency — your capacity, that is, to vanish as an end and remain purely as a means.
• Your body must become familiar with its death — in all its possible forms and degrees — as a self-evident, imminent, and emotionally neutral step on the way towards the goal you have found worthy of your life.
• Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them.
• It is easy to be nice, even to an enemy — from lack of character.

Misattributed [ edit ]

• Johnny Cash , in an interview for The Academy of Achievement (25 June 1993)
• William Hazlitt , in The Spirit of the Age (1825)

Quotes about Hammarskjöld [ edit ]

• Kofi Annan , in "Dag Hammarskjöld and the 21st century" (6 September 2001)
• Kofi Annan , Nobel lecture, Oslo, Norway, (10 December 2001)
• Rolf Edberg , Swedish Ambassador to Norway, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Hammarskjöld in Oslo, Norway (10 December 1961)
• Dwight D. Eisenhower , as quoted in Studia Mystica Vol. XVI, No. 1 (1995)
• John F. Kennedy , in a Speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations (25 September 1961) · (downloadable public domain MP3 audio recording)
• John F. Kennedy , during a meeting with an associate of Hammarskjöld, quoted in the Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture given by Sture Linnér (15 October 2007)
• Albert Lutuli , in his Acceptance Speech of the Nobel Peace Prize (December 10, 1961)

External links [ edit ]

• Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General: the official website of the UN
• Biography at the official Nobel Prize site
• Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
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QCR520 TG2 2011

Saturday, april 7, 2012, a creative poetry lesson on the poem "the longest journey in the world".

Where did u get the blindfolds and the sound clips?

The Longest Journey Questions & Answers

Hi Everyone!! This article will share The Longest Journey Questions & Answers. This poem is written by M. Rosen. In my previous posts, I have shared the questions & answers of The Piggy Pub , The Homecoming and Angels on Earth so, you can check these posts as well.

The Longest Journey Questions & Answers

Word galaxy.

• Ripping off – removing quickly by pulling in
• You’ve got coming up – going to happen for you
• Scared – frightened, filled with fear
• Grinning – giving a wide smile
• Prickle – a slight stinging feeling on the skin
• Moaning-moaning – repeated long deep sound

Question 1: ‘It’s just the same every night.’ What is just the same every night?

Answer: The last one to bed has to switch off the light. So, every night, there is a race to undress and get into bed before others can do it.

Question 2: ‘There is a race.’ What for?

Answer: The race is to undress and to get into bed before others can do it.

Question 3: What happens if one wins? What, if one loses?

Answer: One who wins has not to switch off the light. He can get to his bed before darkness comes. The one who loses has to switch off the light and reach his bed in darkness.

Question 4: Who is the loser in this poem and why?

Answer: The child-poet is the loser because he is the last to undress and he has to switch off the light before going to bed.

Question 5: How does the child-poet feel when the light has been switched off?

Answer: The child-poet feels very scared. He feels the journey from the light switch to his bed is the longest journey in the world.

Question 6: ‘I’m not scared.’ Who says this? How many times? Why?

Answer: The child-poet says these words four times. He does this to keep up his courage and to reassure himself that he is not scared.

Question 7: ‘Such a terrible shame.’ What is the matter of shame?

Answer: The child-poet has to reassure himself again and again that he is not scared, yet he can hardly take a step in the dark. The way from the light switch to his bed seems to him to be the longest journey in the world. He considers it a matter of shame that it is always the same with him.

Question 8: Explain the meaning of: ‘From the light switch to my bed, it’s the longest journey in the world.’

Answer: When our heart is full of joy, time flies quickly and even a long period of time seems to have passed in a flash. But when our heart is heavy due to some fear or worry, time seems to hang heavy on us and even a small moment seems to linger endlessly. Here a child tells us how terribly he feels frightened in a dark room. After switching off the light, he has to reach his bed in the dark. It is only a few steps to the bed, but the child’s heart is so filled with fear that from the light switch to his bed, it appears to him to be the longest journey in the world.

Question 9: Choose the correct option:

1. the phrase ‘ripping off’ in the line 5 means.

(a) teasing (b) wearing (c) pulling or removing sharply

2. Lines 21-23 show that the child-poet is afraid of

(a) the dark (b) ghosts (c) dangerous animals

3. Lines 24-27 show that the child-poet’s fear is

(a) real (b) imaginary (c) justified

4. Lines 7-10 show that the children are

(a) fighting with each other. (b) in a tearing hurry to go to bed. (c) going to run a race.

5. The words ‘what you’ve got coming up’ in line 16 mean

(a) the race you’re going to run. (b) the problem you’re going to face. (c) the nightdress you’re going to put on.

6. Lines 28-38 show that the child-poet

(a) is not afraid at all. (b) is afraid and behaves like a coward. (c) is afraid but faces the situation with courage. So, these were The Longest Journey Questions & Answers.

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Longest poem ever published

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The longest journey in the world

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The Longest Poem Ever Written: Shahnameh – The Epic Book of Kings

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In 977 AD, a Persian poet named Ferdowsi began on a grandiose poetic journey that would take him 33 years to complete. He used ancient Persian tales which had been told from generation to generation for several millennia as the source for writing his poems about epic kings and heroes and about mythical creatures and adventures. This resulted in the creation of the epic which in Persian is called Shahnameh or translated The Book of Kings, the longest poem ever written in history. Ferdowsi's great aim was to revive the ancient Persian culture, mythology and language after the invasion of the Islamic Caliphate of the Arabs.

The Life of Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi was born in 935 AD in the city of Tus located in the modern day province called Khorasan in northeastern Iran. At this time, the Samanid dynasty had restored native Persian rule on Iranian territories as the second post-Islamic Persian empire after the eastern parts of the Islamic Caliphate had been liberated from the Arabs in 861 AD. Ferdowsi came from a line of wealthy noble families which generation after generation inherited the title dehqan. The dehqans were among the social top class and were the leaders of communities and owners of land. By the time Persians were violently forced to become Muslims after the invasions, the dehqans converted to Islam not for following Islam itself, but mainly for using their social authority for preserving the ancient Zoroastrian culture of Persia. For centuries, the dehqans were the preservers of the traditional customs, culture and literature of ancient Persia and hence acted as fundamental factors for the survival of Iranian identity. Dehqans were often able to afford the best education which resulted in Ferdowsi gaining considerable knowledge in literature. He was closely tied to the ancient Persian culture and studied ancient scripts which inspired his poetry.

In the year 977 AD, a shift in power had been initiated in Persia with the end of the Samanid dynasty and the beginning of the Ghaznavid dynasty. Ferdowsi became a poet of the Ghaznavid royal court and due to the exquisite and superb quality of the poems that he wrote, the king entitled him Ferdowsi . This name derives from the Persian word pardisi or fardisi which means from paradise . With the new title given to him by the king, he began writing Shahnameh which would become the greatest poetic journey of his life and one of the greatest works of poetry in the world.

Statue of Ferdowsi in Tehran, Iran ( http://toos051.persiangig.com/new_folder/Ferdowsi_Statue.jpg )

Shahnameh – The Epic

Prior to writing Shahnameh, Ferdowsi collected literary material from ancient sources such as from the middle Persian Pahlavi work named Khodaynameh, which translates to Book of God in English. The documentation of this ancient work was ordered by the Sassanid king Anushiravan and was based on historical facts documented by Zoroastrian priests as well as legendary accounts of mythical eras written in Avesta, the holy book of the Zoroastrian religion . Some ancient sources has stated that the Persian literary tradition of recording royal events and mythical stories has existed at least from the time of the Achaemenid era in the 6th century B.C, although the stories are thousands of years older and have been transferred verbally for generations. Many of the stories are very similar to ancient Indo-Iranian/Aryan stories, indicating the close connection of Persians to their Aryan heritage.

Ferdowsi divided the timeline of Shahnameh into three major periods; the mythical era , the heroic era and the historical era . A very brief description of each era follows:        

The mythical era comprises of poems about the creation of the world and of the first man named Keyumars who became the first king. Keyumars's grandson Hushang discovered fire and established the yearly fire festival Sadeh . Jamshid the shepherd, who became a great king in the favor of God named Ahura Mazda, ruled the lands with prosperity and struck down the evil demons named deev . Jamshid also established the Persian New Year Nowruz meaning New Day which is celebrated on 20 March every year. The child of the devil Ahriman, the evil serpent man Zahhak, killed Jamshid and became the new king. Ahriman kissed Zahhak's shoulders and out of his shoulders, two snakes grew out. Zahhak tried to cut off the snakes but they always grew out again, he was cursed. The snakes required to be fed with fresh brains of young boys every day. Zahhak therefore fulfilled their requests in fear of being killed by the snakes. This led to the uprising of the blacksmith Kaveh who refused to sacrifice his last son. Kaveh started the uprising and made a banner out of his leather apron by putting it on top of a spearhead. With the help of the people and a prince named Fereydun who eventually became king, they captured Zahhak and chained him to mount Damavand in northern Iran, the highest volcano in all of Asia and the highest peak in the Middle East. There are stories about king Fereydun and his three sons Salm, Tur and the youngest Iraj. They inherited the three corners of the world after their father died and Iraj inherited the empire of Persia. This resulted in jealousy of the two older brothers towards their younger brother Iraj and stories about epic wars between the brothers are told. Iraj was killed by Tur and Iraj’s grandson Manuchehr became the king of Persia to avenge his grandfather's death.

Zahhak bound on mount Damavand. Baysungur's Shahnama, 1430. ( Wikimedia Commons )

The heroic era comprises of poems about legendary love stories, epic heroes and battles. A man named Sam, who was the fellow companion of king Manuchehr, became the father of a child who he named Zal. Zal was born albino with white hair and pale skin. Manuchehr thought the child was demonic and Zal was therefore rejected as an infant and put on top of mount Damavand to die. Luckily, the loving and wise mythical bird Simorgh who nested in the mountain, found Zal and nourished him. Simorgh had experienced three ancient world destructions from which she harbored the knowledge of all ages. When Zal had grown up, he left the custody of Simorgh. Simorgh gave him three golden feathers from her wing which Zal could burn in a sacred fire whenever he needed help from Simorgh. Zal met his love, princess Rudabeh and she fell in love with Zal's unique features, charisma and wisdom. They eventually married and Rudabeh gave birth to a boy who they named Rostam. Rostam grew up to become the greatest hero of Persia. He went on seven adventures called the Seven Quests of Rostam, where he together with his loyal and strong horse Rakhsh fought battles with the White demon, The beautiful Sorceress, the Dragon, the Lion and various kings. Rostam found his love, princess Tahmineh and they became parents to a boy named Sohrab. Rostam gave Sohrab a bracelet as a gift when he was an infant before leaving him and Tahmineh. Sohrab grew up without ever seeing Rostam until several years later when the armies of Rostam and Sohrab met in a battle. Father and son did not know each other until Rostam fatally wounded Sohrab in a duel. It was then, while Sohrab was dying in his arms, that Rostam noticed the bracelet around Sohrab's neck. Rostam then tragically realized that he had killed his own son. The legendary love story is also told about Bijan, the son of a famous knight from Persia and Manijeh, the princess of an empire called Turan in modern day Central Asia, which mythologically was the greatest enemy of Persia. This love story ultimately resulted in an epic war between the two empires.

Iranian miniature painting of the mythical bird Simorgh ( http://nadiaartgallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/simorgh.jpg )

The historical era comprises of historical accounts starting from the dynasty of the Parthian kings after Iranian territories had been freed from Greek and Macedonian rulers. A lot of the focus is put on the succeeding dynasty of the Sassanid emperors and the stories regarding this dynasty are exquisitely told. Shahnameh ends with the Islamic Arab conquest of Persia in 651 AD. Ferdowsi poetically described this event as a major disaster over what he calls the arrival of “the army of darkness”.

The Legacy of Ferdowsi

After 33 years at the age of 71, Ferdowsi finished the writing of Shahnameh on 8 March 1010 AD and in 1020 AD, Ferdowsi died at the age of 82. He was buried in his birth place Tus. Shahnameh contains 62 stories, 990 chapters and 60 000 rhyming couplets which makes it the longest poem in the history of literature, a work seven times longer than the Illiad of Homer. Ferdowsi wrote his work entirely in classical Persian which is still spoken today by Iranians and people related to the Iranian culture in countries once part of Greater Iran. It was a linguistic renaissance considering that the Persian language was officially banned in Persia by the Arab rulers for almost 200 years. Today, Shahnameh is a common book in Iranian households and it is the national epic of the Persian speaking world. The epic stories of this masterpiece influenced the literature of Asia for centuries and the stories are enthusiastically told to this day. The philosophical message of Shahnameh is that since the world is transient and everyone is merely a passerby, one is wise enough to avoid cruelty, lying and other evil deeds. Instead one should strive for justice, truth and order which brings happiness, ease and honor. Ferdowsi put lifelong dedication and sacrificed a lot to complete his work. Ferdowsi's writing style is that of a superb poet's. His epic language is rich, moving and lavish so that it truly enchants the reader. He is remembered as the greatest of the Persian poets who with the power of the pen rescued and revived the Persian language, culture and heritage.

Ferdowsi's tomb in Tus, Iran ( Wikimedia Commons )

Below are the words of Sohrab spoken to Rostam as he did not know he was dying in the arms of his father. From Shahnameh - The Persian Book of Kings, translated by Dick Davis:

I brought this on myself, this is from me, And Fate has merely handed you the key To my brief life, not you but heaven's vault – Which raised me and then killed me – is at fault. Love for my father led me here to die. My mother gave me signs to know him by, And you could be a fish within the sea, Or pitch black, lost in night's obscurity, Or be a star in heaven's endless space, Or vanish from the earth and leave no trace, But still my father, when he knows I'm dead, Will bring down condign vengeance on your head. One from this noble land will take this sign To Rostam's hands, and tell him it was mine, And say I sought him always, far and wide, And that at last, in seeking him, I died.

Featured image: Rostam the hero fighting the Dragon in the Seven Quests of Rostam. Iranian miniature illustration from Shahnameh ( iranonline.com )

References:

Zoroastrian Heritage by K. E. Eduljee – Heritage Institute

Ferdowsi & The Shahnameh – Shahnameh.eu

FERDOWSI, ABU'L-QĀSEM – Encyclopaedia Iranica

A thousand years of Firdawsi’s Shahnama is celebrated – The Ismaili

Shahnameh – Rostam: Tales from the Shahnameh

By Mahbod Khanbolouki

This would be a chalenge to read :)

Mahbod Khan Bolouki was born 1989 in Helsingborg, Sweden. He is the oldest child of two brothers. Early in his childhood he developed a big interest for music and science. He started to play the guitar when he was 6 years old... Read More

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The Journey

By mary oliver.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice— though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do— determined to save the only life you could save.

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The Mahabharata, the longest poem ever written, is still relevant after 4,000 years

This article was published more than 1 year ago. Some information may no longer be current.

Miriam Fernandes with the cast of Mahabharata. Dahlia Katz/Handout

At 200,000 verse lines and 1.8 million words, it took more than half a millennium to write the Mahabharata . The epic Sanskrit poem, spanning the tale of love and warfare between rival families, is seven times the length of The Iliad and The Odyssey combined.

Yet, it’s proven to be endlessly adaptable, with films that date back to the 1920s, along with television series, comic books and novels. This past fall, Disney+ announced a new series adaptation set to premiere in 2024, in collaboration with Bollywood producer Madhu Mantena. And in February, Ontario’s Shaw Festival debuted a dynamic two-part play offering a modern retelling.

Sohini Sarah Pillai, a comparatist of South Asian religious literature and professor at Michigan’s Kalamazoo College, says, “The Mahabharata is the OG Game of Thrones .” That’s down to the themes of bloody warfare and family feuds, and even the body count, though the Mahabharata ’s, at 1.6 billion, far eclipses the HBO show’s still impressive 6,887.

How has the longest poem in the world – and one that dates back roughly 4,000 years – stayed so relevant? According to Miriam Fernandes, who co-wrote and co-adapted the epic with Ravi Jain for the Shaw Festival, “It’s a story that’s meant to be digested over a lifetime. It doesn’t leave us with any answers. It leaves us with more questions, which we can come back to at different points in our lives.”

The story includes countless broad themes: family, warfare, love, misogyny, patriarchy. And as the pair worked on their labour of love, the world shifted in ways that unexpectedly added a new gravity to their script’s narrative, with the murder of George Floyd, the #MeToo movement, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, the list goes on. As Fernandes explains, “I think that’s part of what it means to adapt an epic.”

Pillai explains, “If there’s anything to do with anything in the world, it’s in the Mahabharata . It’s an encyclopedic kind of work that contains everything.”

Needless to say, it was key for Fernandes and Jain to find a unique perspective. They decided to focus on the concept of dharma, which refers to a social order where the most privileged take care of those with the least. The pair knew that “the secret to unlocking the meaning of the text is knowing it’s not just in words, it’s through feeling,” Jain notes. That meant offering more than just dialogue. Their Mahabharata is a cavalcade of creativity that presents its diverse South Asian cast against a backdrop of art projections, soundscapes, live music (including opera), classical Indian dancing (including odissi and kathakali) and, of course, food – the ultimate unifier.

In a rare feat, the play does – to a degree – tell Mahabharata ’s story from beginning to end. The two parts can be seen on separate days, but if seen in one, the show includes a Khana (community meal) interlude.

Many adaptations came before theirs, serving as inspiration. “There are as many Mahabharata s as there are characters,” said author Anand Neelakantan, who has written two novels based on the poem. “Some say there could come to be more than 1,000 versions, and even more as it keeps reinventing itself and as the characters evolve over centuries. It’s not the religious instruction book as it is made out to be by some; it’s much more deeply layered with so many contradictions in itself.”

The epic poem does indeed touch on the evolution of Hinduism, with the Bhagavadgita chapter considered an essential text on the matter. That’s also been a point of contention, however, as some schools in India – currently a Hindu nationalist country – have made the Bhagavadgita compulsory, without celebrating the plurality and diversity of the Mahabharata (which also contains, it’s worth noting, a fair bit of caste violence), notes Pillai. Even so, it has seen Muslim, Jain and Sikh retellings, too.

Keen to strip it of its emphasis on religion and violence, author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni reimagined the Mahabharata with her 2008 bestselling novel, The Palace of Illusions, which is written through the lens of Draupadi, the epic’s main female protagonist, as she navigates a patriarchal system.

Divakaruni was raised with the Mahabharata , but it was only as she grew older that she realized it was almost always told from a male perspective, even as it dwells significantly on women, both as heroes and victims, and the violence waged against women during conflict. Taking inspiration from Margaret Atwood, who retold The Odyssey through The Penelopiad , and Madeline Miller, who retold the same epic through Circe , it became vital to re-examine the Mahabharata in hopes of spotlighting the cost of war to women.

“Even today, so many stories of this heft are being told from the male angle and the woman is interpreted through the male gaze,” says Divakaruni, “They’re always seen as someone’s mother, wife, daughter; they have no identity other than that. That really bothered me, because I could see the strength of these women and how interesting they were.”

Zeroing in on the motivations of these characters makes the poem more accessible, adds the author, whose book is taught today in classrooms around North America and the U.K.

The Mahabharata has become a story that belongs to everyone. From its mixed media to its diverse cast, the Shaw Festival production alone is a product of the world, and that was intentional for Fernandes and Jain.

Along with keeping the basis of the famous narrative, the play offers a new gender balance in characters and cast – and less of a toxic patriarchy. Adds Jain, “We’re hoping to curb the expectations of the white audience, because some are going to come in and be like, ‘Where’s the Bollywood number?’ We focused on how we can take you into a world in a way that everyone can feel like they belong, and it’s at once familiar and at once foreign for everyone.”

Ultimately, just like the many adaptations before it, the pair’s interpretation of the Mahabharata continues to prove it has something for everyone – it’s simply too grand not to.

As Jain says: “It’s time travel; you’re buying a ticket to go somewhere else and hopefully when you come back, you will be different, and you will be changed.”

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The Longest Poem in the World

The Atacama Desert is the driest desert in the world. Parts of the Atacama have not been splashed by a raindrop in recorded history.

This blog post is excerpted from Jerry D. Moore's  Incidence of Travel: Recent Journeys in Ancient South America​ .

"Arid plains do not dream." —Raúl Zurita, The Desert of Atacama VI

The Atacama Desert is the driest desert in the world. Parts of the Atacama have not been splashed by a raindrop in recorded history. Northern Chile is particularly arid. Away from a few narrow river valleys, the landscape is barren of vegetation and nearly empty of life. In portions of the Atacama, soil samples are absolutely lifeless even at the microbial level, the only place on Earth where this is true. The wind scrapes. The gravelly sand is gray. The distant hills are slate, and the deep-blue sky is fringed by a fog bank climbing from the Pacific Ocean to the west. There are few traces of human lives, except for the lines on the land that brought me to this desolate place thousands of miles from my home.

It is October 2009, and I am here with my friend, the poet and essayist Bill Fox. Bill’s thirteen non-fiction books and innumerable essays orbit around issues of how people make sense of landscape, an intentionally broad topic he has explored in such different places as the Great Basin, the Central Desert of Australia, and Antarctica. Seven years before, Bill and I met as fellows at the Getty Research Institute, where we immediately realized that we had a lot to talk about. Our divergent interests intersect at many points, and those conversations have continued over the last fifteen years.

Which is why we were in Chile. We flew north 1100 km from Santiago to the port and mining center of Antofagasta, where I had reserved a 4 × 4 Chevrolet pickup at the airport. We stopped at a mini-mart and bought four gallons of drinking water. I traveled with a duffle bag packed with duct tape, vise grips, a Leatherman™, a machete, an entrenching tool, and other stuff for emergency repairs. We left Antofagasta following the coast, drove east through a coastal chain of hills before joining the Pan-American Highway, and traveled south about 40 km where we turned off the pavement and headed southwest into an unnamed arroyo. Using my Garmin GPS, Bill and I calculated our route, tracing a graded gravel road past nitrate test borings and tailing piles. We followed our bearings and best guesses to the south until we spotted a small triangular dry lake bed, shimmering alkaline in the desert sun, which we recognized from our Google Earth research. I turned off the engine and let the truck roll to a stop. We were enveloped in dry silence. Just north of us, we saw low berms and broad, shallow trenches bulldozed into the desert.

We were at the location of the longest poem in the world. It is a four-word poem that stretches over 3 km, the creation of the Chilean poet Raúl Zurita. The poem in its entirety reads, “ni pena, ni miedo,” or “without pain, without fear.” Born in 1951, Zurita was swept up in the repression that followed the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende and the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Initially imprisoned with hundreds of other political prisoners in the pitch-black hold of a ship, after his release Zurita used his art as a tool of resistance. This geoglyph is one result.

“Geoglyph” is an elastic term, stretched to cover a wide variety of human-made works on the ground: figures, ritual pathways, labyrinths, intaglios, and other forms. As with so many inscriptions on the landscape—whether mounds, rock art, roadbeds, or tombs—most geoglyphs are simultaneously obviously human and profoundly unknowable. Ironically, this remote poem carved into the Atacama Desert is the most literal and oddly accessible example of a geoglyph I have ever seen. In Zurita’s case, we know about the contexts surrounding this work: the tortures and disappearances during the seventeen years of the Pinochet regime, the response and resistance that poetry reflects, and the capacity for works of art to respond profoundly to human events of enormous scale—whether genocides or broken hearts. Of his poetry in general, Zurita commented, "Art draws attention to things of this magnitude. Poetry is something like the hope for that which has no hope."

Yet with all of the available information about this poem inscribed in the Atacama Desert, neither Bill nor I anticipated the physical beauty and sculptural impact of Zurita’s poem. The letters are carved in an elegant cursive script flowing through the sand. The stems and arcs of each letter are formed by broad flat trenches, about 40–60 cm deep and 6–8 m wide and flanked by crisp berms about a meter tall. The work is surprisingly sculptural in execution, and it is deeply affecting. The berm edges are spiked with evenly spaced stakes that once guided the grunts and cuts of the bulldozer, undoubtedly driven by a man more accustomed to carving roadbeds and causeways than cursive letters but whose pragmatic expertise was brilliantly turned to art.

Bill stepped over a berm and into the broad shaft of the first "n" and began walking the poem, later writing, "The land turns to prose under my feet." I climbed a small hill to the south to look at the poem. The wind ruffled softly. At the distant edge of the playa, an intense mirage shimmered blue, echoing the Pacific Ocean further west. Other than the poem itself, there were few signs of human action. Rare footpaths headed toward the ocean. I find the base walls of a three-sided windbreak with a sawed cow bone from an encampment sometime in the recent past. The sun-dried carcass of a horned toad baked on a stone. These were the only signs of life: except—of course—for Bill, me, and the poem.

Jerry D. Moore is professor of anthropology at California State University, Dominguez Hills. His research focuses on cultural landscapes, the archaeology of architecture, and human adaptations on the north coast of Peru and northern Baja California. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Getty Research Institute, the Institute of Advanced Studies (Durham, UK), and other agencies and foundations. He is the author of Architecture and Power in the Prehispanic Andes: The Archaeology of Public Buildings (1996), Cultural Landscapes in the Prehispanic Andes: Archaeologies of Place (2005), Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists (2012), the 2014 SAA Book Award winner A Prehistory of Home , thirty-five peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and sixty-seven professional papers.

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• What Is the Longest Epic Poem Ever Written?

An epic poem is a long piece of poetry that tells a story. This type of story is typically centered around an important event in the history or culture of a particular place and often describes some act of heroism demonstrated by a principal character. Epic poems are written in dactylic hexameter, a specific rhythm used in certain poetry. This type of literary work is believed to have originated in historic oral storytelling traditions and is characterized by its discussion of cultural issues, norms, and values. This article highlights the longest epic poem ever written.

The longest epic poem ever written is the Mahabharata, an ancient Indian Sanskrit epic. This poem tells the story of two princes, Kaurava and Pandava, during the Kurukshetra War. This war began as a result of conflict between these two individuals, who were also cousins, and their right to rule the Kuru Kingdom. Several characters play the role of storyteller within this epic, telling a number of stories at the same time. Over time, many of these stories have been extracted and expanded upon, resulting in a number of literary works.

The Mahabharata contains approximately 1.8 million words, which are distributed throughout its 200,000 verses. Of these verses, about 24,000 make up its central idea and are referred to as the Bharata. The Mahabharata is organized into 18 specific books, also known as parvas. These books cover a vast number of events, including how the story was first told to the original author, the events leading up to the war, and the aftermath of the fighting.

Some of the historical information about the poem is yet to be confirmed. Most academics, for example, believe this poem dates back to between the 8th and 9th centuries BC, although others suggest its origin could go back to as far as 400 BC. Some individuals claim the epic was written over a number of generations, although most researchers credit Vyasa with writing the principal portion of the poem. According to many Hindus, Vyasa existed as part of the god Vishnu.

Themes of the Mahabharata

The Mahabharata is considered to be just as important as the Quran, the Bible, the plays of Shakespeare, and the epic poems of Homer. It is often part of philosophical and religious discussions, particularly in terms of the purusartha , which represents the four principal aims in life, as practiced in Hinduism. The other principal theme of the Mahabharata is the idea of a just or fair war. In the Mahabharata, one of the characters presents this idea by asking if the suffering caused by war is ever justifiable. This question leads to a discussion among several characters in the book, who go on to set some rules of war. These rules include topics like conditions of captivity, treatment of the injured, having cause to attack, and who can be attacked. This discussion has influenced a number of issues in military ethics. One of these results is the Just War Theory, which establishes a set of criteria that dictates whether or not a war can be morally justified.

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The Longest Walk in the World Traverses 16 Countries

I n 2020, a reddit user devised the longest possible walk in the world : a 14,334-mile (23,068-kilometer) trek between Cape Town, South Africa, and Magadan, Russia. The "longest walk," if you will, doesn't require boats, aircraft or other vehicles to accomplish, but it might take superhero levels of endurance, strategy and luck to pull off.

Let's be clear: Nobody has accomplished this walk to date. It passes through 16 countries and, while the distance itself isn't totally impossible, it's the complications of the walk that make it unlikely that anybody will ever do it. Here's why.

How Long Would It Take?

Let's start with the endurance of the journey. It would take 562 days to complete if you walked for eight hours a day without resting. That would be a considerable feat for even the most highly trained athletes and veteran thru-hikers.

The dramatic elevation change alone — 76.5 miles (123,114 meters) — you'd experience would be equivalent to climbing up Mount Everest 13 times, according to Global Rescue .

Permitting and Packing Would be Impossible

This length of an expedition would also require months of research and meticulous planning to acquire the permits and visas to legally pass through 16 different countries and potentially hundreds of local provinces. Border crossings and checkpoints would likely take you off the optimal route, adding more time and distance to the journey.

You would also need to stay informed about world news as you travel since many of the areas you must pass through could be experiencing civil unrest or natural disasters.

Pack weight would also be an issue for solo travelers traversing extreme climates and weather conditions. You could always swap out your warm-weather gear for insulated, waterproof items as you head north, but the amount of medical and survival gear needed to stay safe would add considerable bulk and weight.

Even with the newest ultralight gear, every ounce you'd need would add up and cause severe wear and tear to your back and joints. These items come at considerable premiums, and your bank account would quickly dwindle just with hiking boots alone.

The very best hiking boots, for instance, last for approximately 500 miles (804 kilometers). So, at roughly $200 a pair, you'd need to budget nearly $6,000 on footwear alone to complete the journey.

The walk also has shortcuts through several remote and rural areas, which would make it difficult to replenish your pack with food and water along the way. Even with access to a smartphone or satellite communication device, you would pass through several dead spots, making it challenging to translate, pay for goods and services and stay on the route without a portable map app.

What You'd See if You Could Do It

All this is say that a thru-hike from Cape Town, South Africa, and Magadan, Russia, would be a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. You would have the opportunity to witness some of the world's many natural and historical wonders.

The hypothetical route takes you through wildlife reserves in Botswana, the Pyramids of Giza and the Al-Khazneh Temple at Petra, Jordan. It's safe to say you would have a lifetime of stories by the time you ended your arduous journey in the vast expanses of Siberia.

Aside from the terrain, weather and geopolitical factors, anyone who's ever completed a bucket list thru-hike like the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail knows that long journeys are full of unforeseen challenges and setbacks.

Your greatest asset to complete the long walk is luck, and even with all the luck in the world, this hypothetical trek would be nearly impossible when you account for all the variables.

Now That's Crazy There really is a world's longest hiking trail. It's the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) that stretches 3,100 miles (4,988 kilometers) through the United States from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. It winds through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana reaching Canada in Glacier National Park.

Original article: The Longest Walk in the World Traverses 16 Countries

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The Longest Living People in the World All Abide by the ‘Power 9’ Rule

By Emily Abbate

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Every day we’re inundated with the “right” things to do to live a longer life. Drink eight glasses of water a day , they say. Go to the pharmacy for an off-label prescription , advise others. And others task us with the impossible—yet promising—task to just keep a positive mindset .

Today, the average life expectancy of an American is 76.4 years, and in 2023 over 70,000 Americans reached their 100th birthday. But in the Blue Zones, or regions of the world where people live exceptionally long lives, individuals are ten times more likely to live to 100. These places—specifically the Barbagia region of Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, Japan, Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; and Icaria, Greece—are packed with centenarians.

It was only a matter of time until medical researchers, demographers, epidemiologists, and anthropologists dug in to find out the common denominators among these places. Thus, emerges the Blue Zones “Power Nine”—or nine things that the five places who have the highest proportions of people who reach age 100—have in common. National Geographic’s Dan Buettner, published these findings in his book, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest . We tapped our own longevity experts to weigh in on each of the nine pillars.

1. Move naturally

Studies show that sedentary behavior like sitting for 13 hours a day or walking less than 4,000 steps per day can reduce the metabolic benefits of acute exercise, while occasional activity could help reduce post-meal insulin levels. Researchers even found that “soleus push-ups” (that's calf raises for the majority of us) done in a sitting position have been shown to fuel metabolism for hours. In other words: You don’t need to set aside 90 minutes every day to exercise day after day. Exercise snacks , or small bouts of movement incorporated throughout the day, are proven to be just as effective as larger planned-out workouts—and much more accessible to most.

So, where does someone begin? Dr. Kien Vuu , founder of Vuu MD Performance and Longevity, author of Thrive State, says it starts by thinking of your work day differently. Have a bike? Opt for walking or biking for short distances, including to the office if that’s an option for your commute. Once you’re at your desk, try leg lifts or seated stretches, take the stairs to grab coffee, or opt for walking meetings if you’re chatting with someone who’s also in-office. Just a few minutes of activity breaking up sedentary behavior can reap many benefits.

2. Say yes to happy hour

By now, most everyone has indulged in a non-alcoholic beverage , whether or not you're on Team Dry January/Sober October. Although there’s loads of research praising the benefits of ditching alcohol altogether, a glass of wine is praised in Blue Zones. Not because of the wine’s health benefits, per say, but more so because of the socialization that comes hand-in-hand with imbibing now and then. “In longevity cultures, moderate alcohol consumption often occurs in a social context, emphasizing the role of community and celebration,” says Dr. Vuu. “The key might lie more in the positive social interactions and less in the alcohol itself. Positive relationships contribute to mental and emotional well-being.”

3. Take time to down shift

We’ve all heard it before: Stress is no good for us. Still, it’s often unavoidable. “When you notice your body tensing or your emotions rising, take a deep breath, hold for a few seconds, and slowly breathe out through your nose,” says Dr. Michelle Loy , an integrative medicine specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and assistant professor of pediatrics in clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. “The more you practice this, the better it gets. It can be done anywhere, anytime, and doesn’t interact with any medications or supplements.”

Not sure where to start? Begin before bedtime, making a couple extra minutes before you fall asleep to practice. Then, bring it into other areas of your day.

4. Give your diet a plant slant

Rich Roll . Chris Paul . Justin Fields. Kevin Hart. We’ve covered loads of guys who stick to a mostly plant-based diet (and exhausted the benefits of a plant-based diet , too). Blue Zone researchers agree, recommending that individuals seek out plant-based sources of protein, like beans, including black, soy, fava, and lentils, over meat. And when you’re in the mood for an animal-based option, opt for 3- to 4-ounce serving of pork.

5. Find your crew

If there’s one thing many learned during the last few years when it was at times stripped away from our day-to-day, there’s extreme power within connection and friendship . Those that live the longest identify close friends, and commit to those relationships for life. “Love and positive social interactions have been shown to release oxytocin, known as the ‘love hormone,’ which plays a role in bonding and reducing stress levels,” says Dr. Vuu. “So, loving, supportive relationships can lead to long-term improvements in emotional state and physical health.”

6. Abide by the 80% rule

Researchers found that the people in Blue Zones eat their smallest meal in the late afternoon or early evening—then don’t eat any more the rest of the day. This falls into what’s called the "80% Rule," which recommends people stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full. If you’re not good at exercising this type of restraint. Dr. Loy has a tip: “When you are starting to feel full, put away part of your meal in a Tupperware—or ask for the server to pack it to go,” she says.

7. Put your loved-ones first

Investing time in your family is something that not only pays off emotionally, but in terms of longevity as well. Successful centenarians keep aging parents (or grandparents) nearby, commit to a life partner, and if they have children, they make an effort to spend time with them.

8. Find a place you belong

Research shows that attending a faith-based service four times per month could add four to 14 years to your life expectancy. If religion isn’t your cup of tea, there’s always the opportunity to dive deep into your own personal wellness . Seek out a squad that makes you feel accepted and seen, whether that’s your local CrossFit gym or a weekly trivia ritual at the restaurant down the block.

9. Know your “why”

When you know why you wake up in the morning and have a purpose in your day-to-day life, research shows that you can add up to seven years to your life expectancy. The Japanese concept of Ikigai encourages individuals to find their personal calling or purpose, adds Dr. Loy, who recommends asking yourself four questions and finding where these answers intersect:

• What do I love? (Passion)
• What am I good at? (Profession)
• What does the world need? (Mission)
• What can I be compensated for? (Vocation)

“It may take some soul-searching, but it is worth taking the time to engage in this personal quest, as when you find your Ikigai, or several, it brings clarity to how you live your life,” she says.

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Israel’s Deadly Airstrike on the World Central Kitchen

The story behind the pioneering aid group and how it mistakenly came under attack..

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

The Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers delivering food in Gaza has touched off outrage and condemnations from across the world. Today, Kim Severson on the pioneering relief crew at the center of the story, and Adam Rasgon on what we’re learning about the deadly attack on the group’s workers. It’s Thursday, April 4.

Kim, can you tell us about the World Central Kitchen?

World Central Kitchen started as a little idea in Chef José Andrés’ head. He was in Haiti with some other folks, trying to do earthquake relief in 2010. And his idea at that point was to teach Haitians to cook and to use solar stoves and ways for people to feed themselves, because the infrastructure was gone.

And he was cooking with some Haitians in one of the camps, and they were showing him how to cook beans the Haitian way. You sort of smash them and make them a little creamy. And it occurred to him that there was something so comforting for those folks to eat food that was from their culture that tasted good to them. You know, if you’re having a really hard time, what makes you feel good is comfort food, right? And warm comfort food.

So that moment in the camp really was the seed of this idea. It planted this notion in José Andrés’ mind, and that notion eventually became World Central Kitchen.

And for those who don’t know, Kim, who exactly is Chef José Andrés?

José Andrés is a Spanish chef who cooked under some of the Spanish molecular gastronomy greats, came to America, really made his bones in Washington, DC, with some avant-garde food, but also started to expand and cook tapas, cook Mexican food. He’s got about 40 restaurants now.

Yeah. And he’s got a great Spanish restaurant in New York. He’s got restaurants in DC, restaurants in Miami.

Come with me to the kitchen. Don’t be shy.

He’s also become a big TV personality.

Chef, are you going to put the lobster in the pot with the potatoes?

We’re going to leave the potatoes in.

Leave the potatoes in!

He’s one of the most charismatic people I’ve ever been around in the food world.

He’s very much the touchstone of what people want their celebrity chefs to be.

So how does he go from being all those things you just described, to being on the ground, making local comfort food for Haitians? And how does this all go from an idea that that would be a good idea, to this much bigger, full-fledged humanitarian organization?

So he started to realize that giving people food in disaster zones was a thing that was really powerful. He helped feed people after Hurricane Sandy, and he realized that he could get local chefs who all wanted to help and somehow harness that power. But the idea really became set when he went to Houston in 2017 to help after Hurricane Harvey.

And that’s when he saw that getting local chefs to tap into their resources, borrowing kitchens, using ingredients that chefs might have had on hand or are spoiling in the fridge because the power is out and all these restaurants needed something to do with all this food before it rotted — harnessing all that and putting it together and giving people well-cooked, delicious — at least as delicious as it can be in a disaster zone — that’s when World Central Kitchen as we know it today sort of emerged as a fully formed concept.

The first pictures now coming in from Puerto Rico after taking a direct hit — Hurricane Maria slamming into the island. And as you heard, one official saying the island is destroyed.

Shortly after that, he flew to Puerto Rico, where Hurricane Maria had pretty much left the entire island without water and in darkness.

He flew in on one of the first commercial jets that went back in. He got a couple of his chef buddies whose kitchens were closed, and they just decided to start cooking. They were basically just serving pots of stew, chicken stew, in front of the restaurants.

The lines got longer. And of course, chefs are a really specific kind of creature. They really like to help their community. They’re really about feeding people.

So all the people who were chefs or cooks on the ground in Puerto Rico who could wanted to help. And you had all these chefs in the States who wanted to fly down and help if they could, too. So you had this constant flow of chefs coming in and out. That’s when I went down and followed him around for about a week.

And what did you see?

Well, one of the most striking things was his ability to get food to remote places in ways the Salvation Army couldn’t and other government agencies that were on the ground couldn’t. You know, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, doesn’t deliver food. It contracts with people to deliver food.

So you have all these steps of bureaucracy you have to go through to get those contracts. And then, FEMA says you have to have a bottle of water and this and that in those boxes. There’s a lot of structure to be able to meet the rules and regulations of FEMA.

So José doesn’t really care about rules and regulations very much. So he just got his troops together and figured out where people needed food. He had this big paper map he’d carry around and lay out. And he had a Sharpie, and he’d circle villages where he’d heard people needed food or where a bridge was out.

And then he would dispatch people to get the food there. Now, how are you going to do that? He was staying in a hotel where some National Guard and military police were staying to go patrol areas to make sure they were safe. He would tuck his big aluminum pans of food into the back of those guys’ cars, and say, Could you stop and drop these off at this church?

During that time in Puerto Rico, he funded a lot of it off of his own credit cards or with cash. And then he’s on the phone with people like the president of Goya or his golf buddies who are well-connected, saying, hey, we need some money. Can you send some money for this? Can you send some money for that?

So he just developed this network, almost overnight. I mean, he is very much a general in the field. He wears this Orvis fishing vest, has cigars in one pocket, money in the other. And he just sets out to feed people.

And there were deliveries that were as simple as he and a couple of folks taking plastic bags with food and wading through a flooded parking lot to an apartment building where an older person had been stuck for a few days and couldn’t get out, to driving up to a community that had been cut off. There was a church that was trying to distribute food.

We drive through this little mountain road and get to this church. We start unloading the food, and the congregation is inside the church. José comes in, and the pastor thanks him so much. And the 20 people or so who are there gather around José, and they begin praying.

And he puts his head down. He’s a Catholic. He’s a man who prays. He puts his head down. He’s in the middle of these folks, and he starts to pray with them. And then, pulls out his map, circles another spot, and the group is off to the next place.

And when Russia invades Ukraine, he immediately decided it was time for World Central Kitchen to step into a war zone. You know, so many people needed to eat. So many Ukrainians were crossing the border into Poland.

There are refugees in several countries surrounding Ukraine. So a lot of the work that they did was feeding the refugees. They set up big operations around train stations, places where refugees were coming, and then they were able to get into cities.

One of their operations did get hit with some armaments early on. Nobody was hurt badly. But I think that was the first time that they realized this was an actually more dangerous situation than perhaps going in after there’s been an earthquake.

But the other thing that really made a difference here is, José Andrés and World Central Kitchen would broadcast on social media, live from the kitchens. In the beginning, he’d be holding up his phone and saying, we put out 3 million meals for the people of Puerto Rico, chefs for Puerto Rico. It was very infectious.

And now, one of the standard operating procedures for people who are in the World Central Kitchens is to hold up the phone like that — you can see the kitchen, busy in the back — and talk about how many meals they’ve served. They have these kind of wild meal counts, which one presumes are pretty accurate. But they’re like, we served 320,000 meals this morning to the people of Lviv.

I mean, that scale seems important to note. This is not the kind of work that feeds a few people and a few towns. When you’re talking about 300,000 meals in a morning, you’re talking about something that begins, it would seem, to rival the scope and the reach of the groups that we tend to think of as the most important in the disaster-relief world.

Absolutely. And the meals — there are lots and lots and lots of meals. But also, World Central Kitchen hires local cooks. They’ll hire food truck operators, who obviously have no work, and pay them to go out and deliver the meals. They’ll pay local cooks to come in and cook. That’s what they do with a lot of their donations, which is very different than other aid organizations. And this then helps the local economy. He’s trying to buy as much local food as he can. That keeps the economy going in the time of a disaster. So that’s a piece of his operation that is a little different than traditional aid operations.

So walk us up to October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel. What does Chef José Andrés and the World Kitchen do?

Well, he had had such impact in Ukraine. And I think the organization itself thought that they had the infrastructure to now take food into another war zone. Gaza, of course, was nothing like Ukraine. But World Central Kitchen shows up. They’re nimble. They start to connect with local chefs.

Right now, they have about 60 kitchens in the areas around Gaza, and they’ve hired about 400 Palestinians to help do that. But getting the food into Gaza became the difficulty.

How do you actually get the food into the Gaza Strip? Large amounts of food that require trucks? You’ve got to realize, getting food into Gaza right now requires going through Israeli checkpoints.

And that slows the operation down. You might get eight trucks a day in, and that is such a small amount of food. And this has been incredibly difficult for any aid operations.

So World Central Kitchen, playing on the experience that they had in a war zone and working with government entities and trying to coordinate permissions — they took that experience from Ukraine and were trying to apply it in the Gaza Strip. Now, they had worked for a long time with Israeli officials. They wanted to make sure that they could get their food in.

And they decided that the best way to do it would be to take food off of ships, get it in a warehouse, and then get that food into Gaza. It took a long time to pull those permissions through, but they were able to get the permissions they needed and set this system up, so they could move the food fairly quickly into North Gaza.

And once they get those permissions, how big a player do they become in Gaza?

World Central Kitchen became a kind of a fulcrum point for getting food aid in to Gaza in a way that a larger and more established humanitarian aid operations couldn’t, in part because they were small and nimble in their way. So the amount of food they were moving maybe wasn’t as large as some of the more established humanitarian aid organizations, but they had so much goodwill. They had so much logistical knowledge.

They were working with local Palestinians who knew the food systems and who understood how to get things in and out. So they were able to find a way to use a humanitarian corridor to have permissions from the Israeli government, to be able to move this food back and forth. And that’s always been the secret to World Central Kitchen — is incredibly nimble. So —

Just like in Puerto Rico, they seemed to win over just about everybody and do the seemingly impossible.

Right. And World Central Kitchen says they delivered 43 million meals to Gazans since the start of the war. And I don’t think there was any other group that could have pulled this off.

Hey, this is Zomi and Chef Olivier. We’re at the Deir al-Balah kitchen. And we’ve got the mise en place. Tell us a little bit about it, Chef.

And then, this caravan, this fairly efficient caravan of armored vehicles, labeled with World Central Kitchen logo on the roof, on the sides — the idea was they head on — this humanitarian quarter, they head on this road. The seven people who went all in vests — three of whom are security people from Great Britain — you have another World Central Kitchen employee who has handled operations in Asia, in Central America. She’s quite a veteran of the World Central Kitchen operation.

And you have a young man who someone told me was like the Michael Jordan of humanitarian aid, who hooked up with World Central Kitchen in Poland. He was a hospitality student and had just become an indispensable make-it-happen guy. And you have a Palestinian guy who’s 25, a driver.

So this is the team. They have all the clearances. They have the well-marked vehicles. It seemed like a very simple, surgical kind of operation. And of course, now, as we know, it was anything but that.

After the break, my colleague Adam Rasgon on what happened to the World Central Kitchen workers in that caravan. We’ll be right back.

So Adam, what ends up happening to this convoy that our colleague Kim Severson just described from World Central Kitchen?

So what we know is that members of the World Central Kitchen had been at a warehouse in Deir al-Balah in the Central Gaza Strip. They had just unloaded about 100 tons of food aid that had been brought via a maritime route to the coast of the Gaza Strip. When they departed the warehouse, they were in three cars.

Two of the cars were armored cars, and one was a soft-skinned car, according to the organization. When the cars reached the coastal road, known as Al Rashid Street, they started to make their way south.

And what do we know about how much the World Central Kitchen would have told the Israeli military about their plans to be on this road?

Yeah. So the World Central Kitchen said that its movements were coordinated. And in military speak or in technical speak, people often refer to this as deconfliction. So basically, this process is something that not only the World Central Kitchen but the UN, telecommunications companies going out to repair damaged telecommunications infrastructure, others would use, where they basically provide the Israeli military with information about the people who are traveling — their ID numbers, their names, the license plate numbers of the cars they’ll be traveling in.

They’ll sort of explain where their destination is. And the general process is that the Israelis will then come back to them and say, you’re approved to travel from this time, and you can take this specific route.

And do we know if that happened? If the IDF said, you’re approved, use this route on this night?

So we heard from the World Central Kitchen that they did receive this approval. And the military hasn’t come out and said that it wasn’t approved. So I think it’s fair to assume that their movements were coordinated and de-conflicted.

OK. So what happens as this seemingly pre-approved and coordinated convoy trip is making this leg of the journey?

They started to make their way south towards Rafah. And the three cars suddenly came under fire. The Israeli army unleashes powerful and devastating strikes on the three cars in the convoy, most likely from a drone. The strikes rip through the cars, killing everyone inside.

Shortly thereafter, ambulances from the Palestine Red Crescent are dispatched to the location. They retrieve the dead bodies.

They bring those bodies to a hospital. And at the hospital, the bodies are laid out, and journalists start to report to the world that indeed, five members of the World Central Kitchen staff have been killed. And the Palestine Red Crescent teams were continuing to search for other bodies and eventually brought back two more bodies to the hospital for a total of seven people killed in these airstrikes.

And when the sun comes up, what does it end up looking like — the scene of these struck trucks from this convoy?

So early in the morning when the sun comes up, a number of Palestinian journalists headed out to the coastal road and started taking pictures and videos. And I received a series of videos from one of the reporters that I was in touch with, essentially showing three cars, all heavily damaged. One had a World Central Kitchen logo on top of it, with a gaping hole in the middle of the roof.

A second car was completely charred. You could barely recognize the structure of the car. The inside of it had been completely charred, and the front smashed.

And do we know if the strike on this convoy was the only strike happening in this area? In other words, is it possible that this convoy was caught in some kind of a crossfire or in the middle of a firefight, or does it appear that this was quite narrow, and was the Israeli army targeting these specific vehicles, whether or not they realized who was in it?

We don’t have any other indication that there was another strike on that road around that time.

What that suggests, of course, is that this convoy was targeted. Now, whether Israeli officials knew who was in it, whether they were aid workers, seems like a yet-unresolved question. But it does feel very clear that the trucks in this convoy were deliberately struck.

Yes. I do think the trucks in this convoy were deliberately struck.

What is the reaction to these airstrikes on this convoy and to the death of these aid workers?

Well, one of the first reactions is from the World Central kitchen’s founder, José Andrés.

Chef José Andrés, who founded World Central Kitchen, calling them angels.

He said he was heartbroken and grieving.

And adding the Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing.

And then, he accused Israel of using food as a weapon.

What I know is that we were targeted deliberately, nonstop, until everybody was dead in this convoy.

And he just seemed devastated and quite angry.

And so what is the reaction from not just World Central Kitchen, but from the rest of the world to this airstrike?

There’s, frankly, fury and outrage.

The White House says it is outraged by an Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza, including one American.

President Biden, who has been becoming increasingly critical of Israel’s approach to this war — he came out and said that he was outraged and heartbroken.

Certainly sharper in tone than we have heard in the past. He says Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians. Incidents like yesterday’s simply should not happen. Israel also has not —

And we’re seeing similar outrage from foreign governments. The British Foreign Secretary David Cameron —

The dreadful events of the last two days are a moment when we should mourn the loss of these brave humanitarian workers.

— said that the airstrikes were completely unacceptable. And he called on Israel to explain how this happened and to make changes to ensure that aid workers could be safe.

So amid all this, what does Israel have to say about the attack — about how it happened, about why it happened?

The response from Israel this time was much different, compared to other controversial airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. Often, when we’re reporting on these issues, we’ll hear from the army that they’re investigating a given incident. It will take days, if not weeks, to receive updates on where that investigation stands.

There are instances where Israel does take responsibility for harming civilians, but it’s often rare. This time, the Prime Minister —

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

— Benjamin Netanyahu comes out with a video message —

— saying that Israel had unintentionally harmed innocent civilians. And that was the first indication or public indication that Israel was going to take responsibility for what had happened.

The IDF works together closely with the World Central Kitchen and greatly appreciates the important work that they do.

We later heard from the military’s chief of staff. Herzi Halevi issued a video statement in English.

I want to be very clear the strike was not carried out with the intention of harming aid workers. It was a mistake that followed a misidentification.

And he said this mistake had come after a misidentification. He said it was in the middle of a war, in a very complex condition. But —

This incident was a grave mistake. We are sorry for the unintentional harm to the members of WCK.

He was clear that this shouldn’t have happened.

I want to talk about that statement, because it seems to suggest — that word, “misidentification”— that the Israeli army believed that somebody else was in this convoy, that it wasn’t a bunch of aid workers.

That’s possible, although it’s extremely vague and cryptic language that genuinely is difficult to understand. And it’s a question that us in the Jerusalem Bureau have been asking ourselves.

I’m curious if the Israeli government has said anything in all of its statements so far about whether it noticed these markings on these three cars in the convoy. Because that, I think, for so many people, stands out as making misidentification hard to understand. It seems like perhaps a random pickup truck could be misidentified as perhaps a vehicle being used by a Hamas militant. But a group of World Central Kitchen trucks with their name all over it, driving down a known aid corridor — that becomes harder to understand as misidentification.

Yeah, it’s an important question. And at this moment, we don’t know exactly what the Israeli reconnaissance drones could see, and whether or not they were able to see, in the darkness of the night, the markings of the World Central Kitchen on the cars. But what is clear is that when the cars were found in the morning, right there was the big emblazoned logo of the World Central Kitchen.

Mm-hmm. I’m curious how you think about the speed with which Israel came out and said it was in the wrong here. Because as you said, that’s not how Israel typically reacts to many of these situations. And that makes me think that it might have something to do with the nature of the aid group that was the target of these airstrikes — the World Central Kitchen — and its story.

I think it does have to do with this particular group. This is a group that’s led by a celebrity chef, very high-profile, who is gone around the world to conflict zones, disaster areas, to provide food aid. And I also think it has to do with the people who were killed, most of who were Western foreign aid workers. Frankly, I don’t think we would be having this conversation if a group of Palestinian aid workers had been killed.

Nor, perhaps, would we be having the reaction that we have had so far from the Israeli government.

I would agree with that.

Adam, at the end of the day, what is going to be the fallout from all of this for the people of Gaza? How do we think that this attack on World Central Kitchen is going to impact how food, medicine, aid is distributed there?

So the World Central Kitchen has said that it’s suspending its operations across Gaza. Because it essentially seems that they don’t feel they can safely operate there right now. And several ships that carried aid for the organization, which were sort of just on the coast — those ships ended up turning back to Cyprus, carrying more than 200 tons of aid.

So aid that was supposed to reach the people of Gaza is now leaving Gaza because of this attack.

Yes. And it’s also had a chilling effect. Another aid group, named INARA, has also suspended its operations in Gaza. And it seems that there is concern among humanitarians that other aid groups could follow.

So in a place where people are already suffering from severe hunger, poor sanitation, the spread of dangerous disease, this is only going to make the humanitarian situation, which is already dire, even worse.

Well, Adam, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me.

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today. The magnitude-7.4 earthquake that struck Taiwan on Wednesday has killed nine people, injured more than 1,000, and touched off several landslides. It was Taiwan’s strongest quake in the past 25 years. But in a blessing for the island’s biggest cities, its epicenter was off the island’s east coast, relatively far from population centers like Taipei.

And the first patient to receive a kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig has fared so well that he was discharged from a Massachusetts hospital on Wednesday just two weeks after surgery. Two previous transplants from genetically modified pigs both failed. Doctors say the success of the latest surgery represents a major moment in medicine that, if replicated, could usher in a new era of organ transplantation.

Today’s episode was produced by Lynsea Garrison, Olivia Natt, and Carlos Prieto, with help from Asthaa Chaturvedi. It was edited by Marc Georges, with help from Paige Cowett, contains original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

• April 5, 2024   •   29:11 An Engineering Experiment to Cool the Earth
• April 4, 2024   •   32:37 Israel’s Deadly Airstrike on the World Central Kitchen
• April 3, 2024   •   27:42 The Accidental Tax Cutter in Chief
• April 2, 2024   •   29:32 Kids Are Missing School at an Alarming Rate
• April 1, 2024   •   36:14 Ronna McDaniel, TV News and the Trump Problem
• March 29, 2024   •   48:42 Hamas Took Her, and Still Has Her Husband
• March 28, 2024   •   33:40 The Newest Tech Start-Up Billionaire? Donald Trump.
• March 27, 2024   •   28:06 Democrats’ Plan to Save the Republican House Speaker
• March 26, 2024   •   29:13 The United States vs. the iPhone
• March 25, 2024   •   25:59 A Terrorist Attack in Russia
• March 24, 2024   •   21:39 The Sunday Read: ‘My Goldendoodle Spent a Week at Some Luxury Dog ‘Hotels.’ I Tagged Along.’
• March 22, 2024   •   35:30 Chuck Schumer on His Campaign to Oust Israel’s Leader

Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Kim Severson and Adam Rasgon

Produced by Lynsea Garrison ,  Olivia Natt ,  Carlos Prieto and Asthaa Chaturvedi

Edited by Marc Georges and Paige Cowett

Original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The Israeli airstrike that killed seven workers delivering food in Gaza has touched off global outrage and condemnation.

Kim Severson, who covers food culture for The Times, discusses the World Central Kitchen, the aid group at the center of the story; and Adam Rasgon, who reports from Israel, explains what we know about the tragedy so far.

On today’s episode

Kim Severson , a food correspondent for The New York Times.

Adam Rasgon , an Israel correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading

The relief convoy was hit just after workers had delivered tons of food .

José Andrés, the Spanish chef who founded World Central Kitchen, and his corps of cooks have become leaders in disaster aid .

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The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

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Kim Severson is an Atlanta-based reporter who covers the nation’s food culture and contributes to NYT Cooking . More about Kim Severson

Adam Rasgon reports from Israel for The Times's Jerusalem bureau. More about Adam Rasgon

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