c# - ODP.NET Oracle.ManagedDataAccess causes ORA-12537 network session end of file -

Since I give my address at the bottom of this fortnightly column, I usually get a fair amount of email and snail mail. And being a diligent sort, I endeavour to read and reply most letters. However, recent events have called into question this process of civilised exchange. One outraged reader wrote recently to say that two of his articles had been rejected by the Times of India. "Why is it," he demanded, "the Times rejects my work, and publishes a fourth rate writer like Gurcharan Das?" I took his letter to a friend at the Times, and tried to sound casual, but my friend could tell that this was no ordinary fan mail. He gave me a sympathetic smile, and clearing his throat, he said, "your writing is not fourth rate--it is third rate, at least". I thought that I had misheard, but he added, "Well, third rate is better than fourth rate, and I hope your head won't get too swollen now" Another provocation came in May, from a reader in Mumbai. In elegant calligraphy, he wrote the most inelegant things. "You disgusting pig, yes, you, Gurcharan Pig. Unfortunately I subscribe to the Times of India, because of which, week after week, I am forced to read the pigshit you punctually keep defecating--glorifying globalisation, free markets, reforms, bullshit, blah blah. Everyone knows that the only real beneficiaries of globalisation are America and MNC's who cheat, exploit and pauperise the rest of the world, particularly, Third World economies. Here is an example of how they cheat…." Strong and dramatic prose, you will agree. My colourful reader went on to give the example of a computer he had purchased, which did not contain the promised software to drive the DVD-rom. He had complained to the dealer, the company, and finally to its headquarters in America. But to no avail. He ended his letter characteristically, "What do you, free market Bastard, have to say about it?" My advice to my reader is that he first cleans his mouth, either with an MNC or non-MNC toothpaste. Better still, like the "nearlynine" Saleem Sinai in "Midnight's Children", he scrub his roof-of-mouth with non-MNC Coal Tar Soap. Next, re-write a straight forward business letter to the same cast of characters, deleting this time all the colourful expletives referring to animals, their excreta, and those that raise doubts about the reader's paternity. I realise that this might sacrifice his natural style, but it might pay-off, and the global capitalist system would also be saved. A reader from Nagpur complains that I am coming between him and his son. "You see, we always read the Sunday paper together as a family under a Banyan tree in our courtyard. We drink tea leisurely and there is harmony in our ancestral home, until we read your column. Then we begin to argue like mad and our peace is shattered. My wife always seems to take my son's side and my brother mine. I fear that my son and I are drifting apart, thanks to you." I wish sometimes that I could write weekly, like Swami Aiyar or Jug Suraiya. The great American columnists, I'm told, wrote five, even seven days a week. I wonder how they had something to say everyday of their lives. Apparently, one of them, Bob Considine, I think, couldn't find anything to write about one day in 1973, and he solved the problem by writing a column, which in its entirety read as follows: "I have nothing to say today." My favourite is the liberal American writer, E.B. White, who wrote for years for the New Yorker. He was more of an essayist than a columnist--the difference being that the essayist's writing seems to endure while the 780-word rectangle, such as this one, loses its appeal in a few days. Flip through the pages of old newspapers and you will find that you are more likely to read the ads than the articles. E.B. White had an endearing modesty and a sense of one's limitations. He taught me to use simple, everyday colloquial English, to adopt an informal and relaxed manner, to claim a deficient memory, and to be flexible--that is, never be afraid to change your mind. The problem with writing in the first person, I have found, is to constantly run the risk of sounding irritatingly egoistic and self-absorbed. George Orwell solved it by pretending to be more modest that one is. He opened his famous essay, "Shooting an Elephant," in a way that both established his importance and downplayed it: "In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people--the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me."