Tuesday 10 November 2015

A couple of books

Hi there! Here's a list of all the books (or most of the books) I read in the past 2 -3 months. Time's being just a teensy bit merciless so I can't really write about each book but will do so as soon as possible! Meanwhile, enjoy Deepavali!

                        Coming soon!





Thursday 5 November 2015

Swordplay

Hey everyone! Below is a (extremely) short passage I wrote about me sword-fighting, inspired by scenes from The Wrath and the Dawn. Enjoy!

“Up!” he shouted and I knew I had brought death upon myself. “Again!” he barked and moved forward with his sword held at his right. Tired and weary, but charged with adrenaline, I picked up the sword that lay on the dusty ground and gripped it tightly in my raw hands. I widened my stance, like he had suggested, and supported the weight of the entire sword with my upper body strength. Taaraz advanced forward and I looked into his eyes, those narrow pools of uninviting green shining with merciless power. Yet, like the imbecile I was, I glared back with the same revulsion. One leg forward, the other back; chin up, shoulders wide, Taaraz said in my head. Finally, with one last gush of effort, I swung the sword over my head and the blade sliced through the air in a clean arc, whistling in joy at the momentary freedom from my hands. For one intense moment, I thought it would hit him.

It didn’t, obviously.


Another whistling sound as I heard metal clang against metal as Taaraz parried my sword with ease. “Awful,” he said grimly, but I swore I saw an impish grin playing about his lips.

***

Daughter of the Dark

The young girl landed like a tiger on the deck of my ship, crouching, and the force of her impact was miniscule, as if she merely floated down onto the wooden surface. She straightened up and whipped around to face another enemy of mine. She was merciless as sliced the blade clean through him. Hm, I thought, it is no wonder she is the Captain of the Black Pearl, which just supposed to be the deadliest ship that voyaged the Seven Seas.

The girl turned to face me and I finally got a clear view of her face. My, my! They said she was born from the night. No, they were wrong, I thought, she is Night. Her features hardly resembled the weather-beaten, sun-burnt, shark-bitten faces of the crew she captained. She had a perfectly oval face and her high cheek bones struck a beautiful silhouette against the night sky. Her skin was the warm brown of coffee that shone pale under the starlight. Her hair – my goodness – it was as though each strand was a tiny rivulet of black water collected from the darkest waters of the world while they were flowing, and they still did, past her neck and down to her waist.


Most beautiful of all, were her eyes. Sheltered beneath - the surprisingly gentle - arch of her eyebrows were two orbs of sheer black, gleaming with the fierceness of a bull ready to charge a matador. Framed by long, curly lashes, when they began to scrutinize me, I was dazzled, as if she took me to a third space.

The Battle of Sweet Spears.

“Would you now?” Duchess Constance replied, each word a spear soaked in sweet water. “Of course, my lady, I would love to elaborate on my theory,” said Lady Calet. In a graceful motion, she picked up the napkin on her lap, dabbed at the edges of her lips with it and cleared her throat. She began, “I wouldn’t say I believe in God nor would I say I don’t. However, I believe that there is a fundamental force that rules as all. This force is omnipresent, invisible and perhaps even non-existent, but it is vital.” She laced her ring finger into the handle of the cup and gently raised it to her mouth, sipping gently, as if she were doing it for just dramatic pause rather than to quench her thirst for tea. “This force,” she continued, “has a needle and a white thread and with them, it weaves our destiny, our fate. Oh, but do not think that therefore, we, as mere humans have no power to change our fates!” She shuddered as if the thought disgusted her, before resuming, “it hands us needles and threads too. Blues threads for despondency, yellow ones for felicity, red ones for anger and green ones for jealousy.  Only the courageous pick these weapons and weave their own paths in the dense forest of destiny. I call this force, Force. Some call it Brahma. Some call it Christ. Some call it Allah. Some call it Science.” If Duchess Constance were just a normal peasant, she would’ve snorted but she couldn’t, because it was very unladylike. “So you believe in God. I’m afraid your knack of weaving elaborate theories to present a simple fact isn’t very good,” she retorted. Lady Calt merely smiled before saying “Please; only an imbecile would believe that there is no God. An atheist simply means to say that the Earth sprang out of nothing; the skies sprang out of nothing; the colours sprang out of nothing and humans sprang out of nothing. I’d rather believe something created us in lieu of assuming everything simply appeared.” 

Pare-snips

Hello again readers! I know it's been forever and a half since I posted something and I apologize. I've been pretty occupied, what with my IGCSE examinations going on.

I digress.

Anyway, I've now started a new label called "Pare-snips", which will primarily consist of extremely short - snips - passages describing a fictional person, setting or conversation. Enjoy!

Monday 14 September 2015

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be rekindled.

Greetings. (Oh, how I love being formal!) If I haven't implied this before, I'd like to directly state it now: I enjoy blogging, immensely so. Blogging is a great platform for me to oust my writing and share it with people who're willing to read a child's (yes, I'm a holy child) whims, fantasies and sudden deep messages. Basically, I blog only the pieces I personally love. No, not everything I write goes into my blog, but only those which have passed harsh scrutiny by my brain will deserve publishing. This particular piece was written in a style entirely foreign to myself as it was written not because I wanted, but because I was socially obliged to write it. Perhaps that is why I have been rather hesitant to publish it. However, I have decided to publish it anyway, so enjoy!

The prompt: 'The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled' (yes, that's the prompt. No explanation.)

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be rekindled.

Throughout history, time has always presented us with hoards of geniuses; each considered so in their own epochs in their own fields of specialization. Their minds have always been under the keen eye of jealous scientists while their brains are being stored in jars and slides for meticulous inspection by, perhaps, the less eclectic.

The mind is an incredibly powerful form of intellect. It is the most autonomous part of the human anatomy, able to function almost independently without the need for a body. The quintessential example of this is course, Stephen Hawking. Despite having being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis  at 21 and promised a great life expectancy of 2 years, the sheer willpower and obstinacy of his mind has extended his life by more than 5 decades AND theorized the previously thought impossible! Can it not be concluded from this that the mind is an independent part of the body capable of achieving infinite impossible feats, even miraculous ones? The mind, in fact, is the only living substance in the entire universe, in the incredible theory of existence, that can  travel to the edges of the ever-expanding universe and contemplate and build things never realized before…all while standing in a single place. The mind can be compared to God, or the ever existent force that created humanity: invisible and incomprehensible and yet ubiquitous and staggeringly influential. Conclusively, the mind is something of immense power and capability. So what is the difference between the brain and the mind? “Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.” (Jeffrey Eugenides)

Young minds are the most inquisitive, eternal flames fueled by their perpetual ‘whys’. They have no rules, no defined boundaries for their capabilities – if you told a child he can lift a mountain, he would actually attempt to! Their endearing questions may be actually unanswerable at times, especially ones such as ‘Why isn’t water coloured? ’Children’s minds’ are unscathed by the pollution of mankind, for man has a natural instinct to kill fires with the gallows of his mind. A criminal execution! Regrettably, this is happening at a frighteningly vast scale before our own eyes. Who is the culprit?

The contemporary education system.

Children of the twenty-first century squander countless hours of their lives on volunteering; working sleepless nights to get straight A’s and studying a myriad of insignificant subjects to get into a ‘good college’. However, does the essence of life really lie on a bunch of meaningless equations, an interminable stream of nonsensical words and that Physics paper that you failed? At one’s deathbed, will one feel repentant, dejected or possibly contemplate suicide because they’re racked with guilt for getting only a 99/100 in that Math paper? Or feel ashamed that they couldn’t get into IIT, an Ivy League or the Mensa? Probably, with the current stance of events.

Today, children are being stuffed with information they wouldn’t even think about in 10 years from now. Their minds are literally being cut open, filled with trash and stitched back together, with all the information safely tucked somewhere between the nerves and the hypothalamus, only for the stitching to come off loose the following night. Don’t worry though; the persistent punishments, public humiliations and endless debasement will mend the stitches back – except for the fact that the child will be left shattered and inhumane and engender thoughts of vice in the years to come. The mind is literally tended to as a vessel - filled with years’ worth of useless information galore to its brim and yet being crammed with material beyond its capacity. Soon, the substance at the bottom of the vessel begins to rot, wherein begins the eternal rotting of the soul – the child turns to vice and the Seven Deadly Sins.

Basically, the endearing, perpetual flames of the young mind are mercilessly put off by the grey waters of an adult’s mind.  John le CarrĂ©  once said, “All men are born free: just not for long.” With this, I completely agree, for a child is born with a spark of passion towards life and learning. This spark, if properly kindled and let to rage, can perform magnificent feats and can conquer the earth, heavens and mankind. However, if it were let to rage without proper kindling, it may lead to the downfall of mankind.  If dampened, then the sorry child’s life will be of no worth. A forest fire is absolutely necessary to clear a dense overgrowth of trees. Nevertheless, if left to grow on its own, it will greedily consume the entire forest. Noam Chomsky, an American philosopher also concurs: ““The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.”  Basically, the current education systems’ cardinal aim is to locate students who are vapid and devoid of thinking for the self. The young mind can be likened to the caged bird in Maya Angelou’s ‘Caged Bird’ – unhappy and conformed to the social paradigms which are merely the bars of prison. Gandhiji once said, “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” This is the sorry state of affairs children unknowingly undergo – the dirtying of their minds by the ‘more intelligent’.

The only way to eliminate the mass culling is to first understand the mind.

 Noetics is an interesting branch of metaphysical philosophy concerned with the study of mind as well as intellect. Currently, it is disregarded due to its possible connection with religion and lack of rational explanations for its concepts. Hence, it is studied by only one esoteric institute, Institute of Noetic Sciences. One of their researches is on the human potential – an attempt develop or rekindle human potential when humans can experience an exceptional quality of life filled with happiness, creativity, and fulfillment.

However, for the remission of all that is happening, we need understand and then accept the idea that the mind, is not a limited vessel to be filled with useless monotony, but a raging fire of passion to be cultivated to prosperity.


*Ironically enough, we were still treated like vessels after a 30-minute lecture on the topic.

An Epistle of Secrets.

Hey there! Here's a short narrative I did during class. The prompt:  'While I was looking idly through my family's old box of documents, I suddenly cam across an official letter.' Imagine yourself as the narrator and continue this story.

While I was looking idly through my family’s old box of documents, I suddenly came across an official letter. The envelope was a faded brown, with spots of darker brown at the edges and the front of it held three words inscribed in small, neat, calligraphic penmanship: To dear Emily. Funnily enough, my grand-aunt, who had vanished off the face about a century ago, was named Emily Mathers too. For some inexplicable reason, these three words, the longest being only 6-letters long, triggered a strange, visceral feeling deep inside my 15-year-old mind and unmistakably, I felt an old memory resurface. For a split second, I glimpsed a gold sheen accompanied by the whistling of something being drawn and a powerful burst of energy. Strange, I thought.
Cautiously, as if this letter bore the power to shatter the world, I turned it around where a red, official-looking wax seal was stamped upon the bottom-right corner. The opening of the envelope was creased at the edges as if someone had opened and closed it one too many times. Apprehension and curiosity beat in equal measures through my bloodstream as I tenderly lifted the flap of the envelope, which looked ready to crumble in my hands as if it were tired to hold onto the contents any longer. Finally, with my heart slamming against my rib cage, I gently pulled out an ageing epistle. Suddenly, there was no mistaking now: there was definitely something powerful with this epistle. I opened the letter and began to read its contents, which were inscribed in the same neat, cursive penmanship, but as if they were written in a hurry.

 “Dear Emily,
          I’m afraid I’m running out of time, dear sister, for God had seemingly decided I deserve no more time for all I have done. As I write you this loving epistle, I hear the thumping footsteps of the High King’s henchmen up the cold steps of the tower where I have spent the last few years in pathos. These footsteps will perhaps be the last sounds I’ll ever hear, and the sunrise before me the last alpenglow I’ll ever see. Emily dear, listen to me well: I have something very important to entrust you with. Time has a cruel habit of erasing the truth off our scrawny brains and therefore, I’ll put it in this letter in the ‘words of my fathers’, hoping you will understand it. This is to be read by you grandchildren only.  

‘In this lineage will come a child,
Ebony hair, brilliant blue eyes.
When she begins to rule despite class and need
She will realize she belongs to the royal breed.’
Love,
Dawn.

I sucked in sharply. Suddenly, the world began spinning around me and I began to see glimpses; scenes I’ve never saw before flashed before my eyes as if the writer had impressed upon the paper all her memories with each blot of ink and reading the letter set all their secrets free. It was as if someone somewhere else in time had done all the seeing for me and now there were playing back all the sights they have witnessed for me through this letter of centuries. A fair maiden, with hair fashioned from the inkiest of night skies, with a pallor that matched that of the moon, with two twinkling orbs hanging off the gentle arch of her eyebrows was smiling at me. Her eyes were such a rich blue that they seemed to spill out into the eyes of anyone who stared into them – the bright azure would be the object of envy of even the Greek Naiads. In a split second my mind’s eye registered the details of the flawless beauty, analyzed her through the previous documents stored in my memory and came up with an entirely implausible conclusion. The lady was none other than Queen Christine, the most powerful Queen of European history. My mind did another quick analysis on the four sacred words again:

In this lineage will come a child: me?

Ebony hair, brilliant eyes: how many times have I caught people staring at my black hair and startlingly azure eyes? (A million).

When she begins to rule despite class and need: surprisingly, I was just awarded the most ‘just’ leader in class yesterday.

My eyes fell upon the last nine words and I knew it. The epiphany was irrefutable:

I am of royal blood. I am Queen Christine II.

A tribute to a teacher.

Hi there! (I'm going to pretend I forgot about the Oath of Friday Posts) Here's an article I wrote for a newspaper for Teacher's Day. Unfortunately, it never got posted but hey, never a bad idea to share it with a couple of friends is it? Behold, for I present to you this annoyingly-under-worded ('strictly stick to the word limit of 200,' said the ad. *sigh*) article about a teacher I felt truly blessed learning from: Ms Pranaya!

William Arthur Ward once said “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” Such great teachers are hard to come by, and call it serendipity perhaps, when I had the honour to learn from one great teacher, Ms. Pranaya. All of a sudden, English went from a 'good' subject of mine to an fascinating one. Magic, you say? No, it is the power of inspiration. 


To say I have learnt from her would be an understatement; rather, she gave me the capacity to learn. She taught me to be open-minded to all subjects, and take a trifle more effort to learn the world and its ways. She told me that to excel in English, you need to be passionate about it and yet think of it clinically. I also learnt that the ever-expanding universe is never the limit, that no matter how much you succeed in life, there is always something yonder to follow. However, one of the most cardinal maxims she taught me, one that is still deeply embedded in my mind, is how 'Brevity is the soul of wit.' A simple message, scrawled in red at the end of an unnecessary ten-page long analysis. However, to this very day, I've kept to that as if it were the Holy Book.

Thursday 27 August 2015

The Pursuit of Happyness

Well, it's 'Happiness Happens' month and what more to write about than happiness? Behold everyone, for Gabriele Muccino brings to the big screen an Oscar-worthy Hollywood heartwarmer that guarantees buckets of tears and painful arrows at your heart during the pursuit of something so treasured, so foraged for and few ever manage to get – happiness. Starring Will Smith, Thandie Newton and Jaden Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) is sure to get everyone looking down in the dumps.

San Francisco, 1981: Chris Gardner is a salesman selling bone density scanners, which are marginally better than the current technology for double the price. Gifted with an amazing intelligence, persistence and diligence and an innate talent for selling, Gardner strives for a better career path and finally gets selected for an internship program at a prestigious brokerage firm that, however, provides no salary and will select only one of the twenty interns. Meanwhile, his financial situation grows weaker:  his wife leaves him, he is evicted from his apartment for not paying rent, loses the money in his bank account to the tax collector and is finally forced into the streets with his 5-year-old son, Christopher, and a broken bone density scanner (which could get them food for a month) and winds up sleeping in a subway restroom. How Gardner survives the ranks of the homeless (if not the hopeless) with his 5-year-old while competing with Ivy Leaguers for a position in an esteemed brokerage firm with nothing but dignity, resolve, faith, love, independence and a lighthouse of an optimism carves the rest of the story.

The Pursuit of Happyness deals with the constitutional right to ‘pursue’ happiness rather than the right to be happy. This time, Will Smith took on a new look in this movie: energetic, sincere, optimistic and loving as opposed to his action-flicks or slapstick comedy. He was exceptionally expressive – throughout the movie, he fervently maintained an optimistic, resolving, undefeated attitude that in one scene, when he can’t stand it anymore and breaks down, you truly feel anguished. And Jaden Smith (Will’s own son) was so endearing, he charmed Will Smith off the screen. His acting was perfect, especially after considering how contrary it is to Jaden Smith’s own life. The bond between Chris Gardner and Christopher comes very naturally, probably because it is real too. The climactic scene was very powerful, I felt, with absolutely truthful lines and flawless acting by Will Smith as he quivers with delight and content, a storm of happiness raging his face towards the end. Thandie Newton also put on a convincing act and effectively made me loathe her. Will Smith pestering a cleaner to correct the spelling of ‘happyness’ (hence the movie’s name) outside his child’s day-care centre, a homeless man assuming one of the bone density scanners to be a time machine, Will Smith running during most parts of the movie to retrieve a stolen scanner and Christopher’s adorable knock-knock jokes certainly adds some chuckles to an otherwise gut-wrenching movie. Unexpectedly, the movie wasn’t too cheesy and the technical aspects of the movie were just seamless: from the clothes to the lighting to the guitar-playing hippies.

On the contrary, there were a few downsides to the film – I found the story a bit clichĂ©d and the ending quite predictable – all movies end favouring the protagonist of course. An ostensible amount of time was spent seeing Will Smith chasing thieves who stole the scanners. The movie wasn’t captivating plot-wise too, which is why the actors were needed to add some colour to an otherwise unadorned, transparent movie of raw emotion and truth. Chris Gardner’s pursuit for happiness seems to be tightly interwoven with the pursuit for money – he did not only want a simple home to start with; he wanted luxurious mansions and sports cars too. I could see that Chris Gardner was too short-sighted: he assumes that only riches bring you happiness, forgetting that his own son does more than that. At one point, he thinks, “They [the stock brokerage employees] all looked so happy. Why couldn’t I look like that?”

This movie is a very moving, poignant portrayal of hard times, when all there is left is to smile, hope and have a when-life-gives-you-lemons-make-lemonade attitude. I would say this rags-to-riches tale is truly worth a watch. “When people can’t do something themselves, they’re going to tell you that you can’t do it,” says Will Smith, which is, beyond any doubt, the blatant truth.

Sunday 9 August 2015

The Mourning Bird.

It's when the birds take flight of the day,
back to their nests for an early respite
when I take flight from my daily cage,
to the terrace, to see the dying light.

Carrying a troubled mind of sums and equations,
every step of mine resonating with quotations.
Desperate to channel spasms of anger,
desperate to rekindle the old sense of academic ardor.

The vast blue expanse above is festooned with purple and gold,
the fraying clouds blotched with the hues of red, pink and orange,
little bits of cotton candy glide towards the sun,
who is showering the world with his last rays of glory.

Demure at heart,
fascination in my eyes,
at the sheer magnificence,
of the dying sunlight.

The silent mourning,
for the end that is about to arrive,
when the wind can no longer play me and I, with the wind,
Another long, sighing, night of captivity, of plight.


The herald bears news!

Hello everyone! It's been a long, long time since I've blogged and I'm extremely sorry(with extra cheese fudge and cream cheese and a cherry on top)! In the aims of posting consistently, I hereby take this oath: 'I solemnly swear I'll post every Friday, despite my workload and extremely messed up sleep schedule.' I'll be putting up random content: poems, rants, quotes, books, reviews or simply descriptions of the sick lemons my life is giving me. I'd love it if you guys would suggest what to post about too!

I can't wait to tell you one more piece of great news!!! *DRUM ROLLS* I'm going to start a new page, titled 'Solemn Soliloquies'! In this page, I'll  be putting up poems about the little things I treasure, like the rich coat of an apple, the way dewdrops glisten when the early rays of the sun shine down on Earth and even the warm petrichor after rain. These are poems I have a deep, visceral, inexplicable connection to, and may be about issues I feel strongly about. I simply can't wait to start posting!

Bye!


Friday 10 July 2015

Winter's calling

Photo courtesy: Me!

While still water reflects the grey expanse above,
And all but the autumn’s leaves have fallen,
when the hibiscus has bled its colour out,
you know winter has found its calling.

"Don't think or judge, just listen"
                                                                                       -Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

Just Listen, by Sarah Dessen

Yellow guys! A couple of weeks back, I read a book called Just Listen, by Sarah Dessen ( it rhymes, I know!) and I assure you, it is one of those life-changing books. 

The plot circles around Annabel Greene, a 16-year-old model or has everything - model looks, a great social life, a popular best friend, clothes, a house with a glass facade. Or rather had everything. Last summer, she had shunned everyone, and as a new school year starts, she is ostracized by the entire school. Her anorexic sister, Whitney, is sinking the whole family into depression and the not-so-cold war between Whitney and another sister, Kirsten, weakens the fragile bonds between the family. Soon, she meets Owen (while throwing up), an intense, music-obsessed classmate who listens to the bizarre music: Mayan chants, cricket sounds and so much more. Back from Anger Management classes, Owen is determined to tell the truth and introduces Annabel to a new world of music, introducing music as something so powerful that it can being back a million memories as if music is nothing but frozen time. Most importantly, he teaches Annabel to be true - both to herself and the world and to swim upwards from her sea of 'I'm fine' lies. The rest of the plot narrates why Annabel's life is so, and how everything is as not as it seems, that even though glass facades can be beautiful, it mustn't be forgotten that they are fragile too.

My most favourite character in this book was Whitney Greene, for her thoughts and words were very similar to mine, and would be if I were in her shoes. Whitney's the most beautiful of the three Greene sisters, and also the most broken. At one point, when Annabel sees Whitney purging in secret after being force-fed, Whitney's shoulder's are described as being thin, angular and bird-like. However normal the description seemed, comparing Whitney's bony shoulder to a bird did affected me viscerally - creating a hollowness within me that seemed wholly irreparable for I often associate birds with freedom. For these reasons and a million inexpressible more, I connected with Whitney the most.




Sunday 31 May 2015

Young stories: The Heavenly Island

Wrote this descriptive in 6th grade. Enjoy!

At a snail’s pace, I opened my eyes. I had been in a terrible storm yesterday night. I was thrown overboard by the raging waves. They had leapt up as high as a 20-storey building. The last thing I heard was a frightful and hopeless voice calling to me “Captain, Swim! Swim!” before the angry waves almost drowned me. I had lost everything: my clothes, food and above all, my crew members.

Now, after an exhausted and death-like slumber, I awoke and looked around. I was stranded at what looked like a small but perfect island. It looked natural. There were a couple of coconut trees which bore ripe coconuts. Still tired, I lied down on the warm and golden sand. I limped over to the sea slowly and sat just where the waves died down on the shore.

The crystal clear water projected the colourful, exotic and harmless marine creature that swam along the coast. Far out in the distance, beautiful white horses swam gracefully through the waves. Ahhh…the ocean looked so inviting. The gentle breeze was as soothing as any other mother and touched me delicately. I felt cool and relaxed after what seemed like ages. A colourful arc adorned the blue sky.

After some time, I felt too hungry to enjoy the nature. I climb up a coconut tree that had some fine and nectarous coconuts. With great difficulty (and slipping down lots of times), I managed to climb up and pluck them, breaking them against a rock.

I decided to explore the thick forest that stood in the middle of the heavenly island. As I entered it, I saw some scrumptious fruits hanging from every branch. Apples as red as ruby, tangy oranges, bright yellow mangoes - they seem to just slide down my throat.

I ventured further to find a sparkling waterfall and I quickly quenched my thirst with it. The waterfall continued to flow and gradually became a river that was as long as a snake. Suddenly, I heard a flapping sound that was so scary it made me jump out of my skin. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me and flopped on the shore. I turned around to see what has chased me and I burst out laughing. It was a screeching parrot!

The island was so heavenly and fun that I promised I would never leave it.


Sasha and her "When will it end?"

This one was written somewhere between late 2013 and early 2014. The prompt: The weather plays a large part in our life. Write a story where the weather changes a secure friendly setting and atmosphere into a worrying setting and atmosphere. Try to show how the emotions and feelings of your charcters change as the conditions you describe change.

Sasha spun around, her pink skirt floating. There were smiles everywhere; people dancing; the greedy animals sneaking out and gobbling food and the children running around and riding astraddle on the horses. It had been a golden harvest this year and people were rich with crops. All around, tables were lined with various foods and the numerous games were packed with little kids. Stacks of crops were laid out on the ground. Sasha was brimming with happiness. There was absolutely no possibility that something destructive could happen. Never!

But nature was different; it had laid out plans for the little village of Rampapart. Mother Nature thought of giving a little and a turn to the villagers; life does need ups and downs, after all!

So, the party lasted for many moons until one day it all changed. As Sasha went to the corner of the area to grab some cake, the sky suddenly darkened and dense black clouds gathered in the sky, directly above the village. In a blink, Zeus sent a lightning bolt from the sky and burnt a table filled with ice cream to crisps. The children and animals joined into a groaning farmyard chorus. The village head, Misanikao, urged everyone to go to his house, the only brick house in the village while all the others were either mud or straw houses.

The panicked villagers raced to his house as Sasha stood, staring into the sky. Her mother pulled an dragged her into the house though. When she reached the house, all she could hear was the crying and shrieking of the people and the animals (who also seemed to be dragged into the house). Sasha dashed over to the window and stared outside as she felt her heart sinking!

A sudden clap of thunder and a lightning bolt, the rain started. It started to rain cats and dogs and soon a storm started. Big, huge gusts of wind blew across the village and seemed to rampage about with glee. Sasha couldn’t bear it; so couldn’t the other kids staring out the window. Just a few days back , Sasha had thought nothing destructive could ever happen but now…Mother Nature is cruel, she thought as another opinion formed in her mind. She went back to the room where everyone was sitting.

Everyone was groaning; but for different reasons. The children wanted food and Mrs. Misanikao tried her best to give them biscuits but in vain. The women wanted to change their dirty, murky clothes and the men wanted the money they had kept buried in a pot underground at home. Mr. and Mrs. Misanikao tried their best to serve everyone. Sasha closed her eyes and thought, when will this end?



Thursday 28 May 2015

When I go into a library, I find myself inhaling deeply as I browse through the shelves because the books always smell like magic.


- Someone on Pinterest
Sometimes human systems become so large that they hurt people, not by design, but by inertia.
--Mark Manson


Tuesday 19 May 2015

The One You Cannot Have, by Preeti Shenoy

Hey guys! I had disappeared for a while and I know all of you missed me... :D No worries, I’m back! On 18/5/2015, I finished my first book for this summer, Preeti Shenoy's The One You Cannot Have, the story of a great star-crossed love set mainly in Bangalore. The story circles around Aman, Anjali and Shruti - roughly a love triangle. Aman wants Shruti but Anjali wants Aman. Shruti, however, wants Aman too, but is forced to marry Rishabh instead.  That’s essentially the whole story: who ends up with who?

One good thing I enjoyed about this book was Anjali’s indirect characterization, which I thing was done particularly well. The description of Aman and Shruti’s old times was also very admirable and the author connects their seemingly irreconcilable lives together expertly. The quotes was notably articulate!

However, I personally didn't enjoy the story very much. I was even hoping the story would end soon at a few points. John Green's The Fault in Our Stars makes any story of the same genre seem too trivial and easy-on-the-heart in comparison. I also didn't like any of the characters and found the book quite tedious and very similar to Indian cinema. The opinions of the Indian characters don’t seem very contemporary and all the chapters end with the common, general sentence: Will you be able to forget him? At some points, I feel like even the author hasn’t understood her characters very well – the same character seems different at different perspectives.  

Friday 3 April 2015

The Fault in Our Stars, Quotes, John Green

There is no honour in dying of.

You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you.

Sometimes it seems the universe wants to be noticed.

You have a choice in the world, I believe, how to tell sad stories

Some reading material:

Below are a few really good and interesting topics that I have crossed by while reading and really wish I had enough time to write about them. Since, I don't really have enough time (what with exams and IGCSE and tedious work schedules) to write a simple version about the topics in my own words, do surf about them on the Web during free time (which I hope you are abundantly gifted with) :)

  • Zeno's Paradoxes
  • Bloom's Taxonomy
  • Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Thursday 2 April 2015

Predator: Night

Lady Viol, clearly in a hurry, pulled on her black coat as the Big Ben struck ten and pulled on a thick, black lace veil over her head, the same one her great-grandmother had been wearing on the terrible night that took away her triplets, never to return them. Lady Viol now shuddered at the recollection of that afternoon when she realized how history is repeating itself, the Night taking away every set of triplets in Lady Viol’s jinxed family.

It had all started one golden evening, when Lady Viol’s own golden-haired, blue-eyed, goddess-looking, ethereal triplets never came back from school. She searched and searched and searched the streets of Surrey and spent millions of dollars scouring every inch of the Earth but in vain. The three 8-year-olds seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth. Despondent Lady Viol lost all hope and for years she loitered the streets of London – despite having unimaginable riches in her name – for her three golden ducklings. It was not until a few hours back she had discovered much to her surprise, especially after, scouring the triplet’s room about a dozen million times, a small inch-long pewter owl with five words inscribed in neat cursive: the three goldilocks and the bear. The sudden realization had hit her with a wave of hope that her three goldilocks were still alive. However, the joy had blinded her, for the tiny ear of the owl had a single word engraved in it – ‘Night”.

Lady Viol practically forgot her gracefulness while running towards the graveyard – where a cold, stone bear stood cowering at the face of death – with her skirt pinched up high and running barefoot. “Very unladylike, mother would say,” she thought. Just because everyone forgot that the direct lineage of the great Princess Ann still exists, doesn’t mean that you must behave like a princess! Soon, she skidded to a stop near the graveyard and entered through the rusted brown gate which literally gave way to hell on Earth.

Once inside, the atmosphere changed so quickly as it someone had suddenly clicked a ‘horror’ button on a remote. The air seemed heavy and grey and a light mist clung to the graveyard as it warning any nightly visitor that he or she is sure to die. “This is where my husband, Jack, was buried after adopting the triplets, Jill, Hansel and Gretel,” she thought. A hooting owl pulled her back from her train of thought and reminded her of the cold pewter owl now in her right pocket. She dashed to the ten-feet, tall stone bear at the edge of the graveyard. The bear’s eyes seemed to reflect the mood of the graveyard – cold, grey, cruel, still and stuck in time. As she ran over the bear’s features, a scream of anguish rose up to her throat as she saw a knife, covered in still-fresh, dripping blood, resting on the palms of the bear. “No!” she thought, “No! It mustn't be too late. My goldilocks weren't given to the soil!” She crumpled down to the ground and half-crawled, half-dragged herself around the bear’s statue, scouring the ground for any more inch-long pewter owls as tears clouded to her vision and a piece of glass cut her wrist. As she neared the right foot of the bear, she found a small golden card – Night had left her a note. She gasped and her fingers shaking, took the card. The lady, her face barely visible through the thick lace veil, turned the card to reveal two sentences:

“Jack fell down and broke his crown but Jill never came tumbling after. 
Hansel and Gretel didn't follow the bread crumbs home, 
so Night that taking them was a sin no greater.”

Saturday 14 March 2015

Insidious - DIE!*

Hello everyone! It’s me, Nivetha, back with perhaps THE MOST terrifying movie in history – Insidious (2010). Directed by James Wan, the movie is truly insidious, uncanny and unbelievably blood-curdling! Anxiety, hallucinations, mental trauma and sleepless nights guaranteed. So here goes:

The Lamberts, Josh and Renai, have just moved into their new house and in an odd turn of events, their son, Dalton, is under so-called-coma after a venture into the conventional attic. Things begin to get uncanny when Dalton moves back from the hospital and an exodus only seems to make things more sinister and ghastly as specters beyond human comprehension seem to reach out for them from the shadows: Renai meets a red-faced demon; a guttural-sounded being is speaking into the baby monitor; faces appear on the windows almost nightly; doors open in the middle of the night; alarms are set off and bloody handprints are found on Dalton’s bed. Paranormal investigators Elise, Specs and Tucker inspect and discover that Dalton can astral project (the ability to leave one’s body and venture as a spirit) and that he has boldly travelled into The Further - a place of congregation of the tortured souls of the dead – and that he is being held prisoner by the Demon, who’s motive is to possess Dalton and embark on a bloody rampage. The only key to this lies on the ability of Josh to astral project and his willingness to venture into The Further and rescue his son, with perhaps irrevocable consequences. Now, will he embark on a journey of no return to rescue his son?

The movie was undeniably weird and definitely out-of the box. When the audience has gone so far as to accept the concept of astral projection, they might as well let James have enough leeway to complete his imagination. The way Wan makes the two demon investigators, Specs and Tucker, quarrel over whose job was more pertinent certainly adds some chuckles to the otherwise nerve-frazzling movie. My most favorite technique that James Wan used to generate a movie that can mentally unbalance a human is how he never lets the audience rest – after a frightening scene, he calms everything down so that the audience finally put their guard down and suddenly, out of nowhere, comes the real horror. This technique, albeit being dangerous to human health, can be extremely effective for frightening anyone out of their skins.

The main downsides to the film weren’t of the plot, but of minor mistakes of cinematography, continuity and – odd as it may sound – spelling. For example, at the scene where Renai walks into Dalton’s room, you can see the camera man’s shadow briefly after her own shadow. Also, at the ending credits, photography is spelled as ‘Photagraphy’.
On the whole, the film is well worth a watch for someone who is ready for mental instability and is perfectly fine to end up in a bunch of nerves (guaranteed). After all, ‘The further you travel, the darker it gets’, doesn’t it?


*I wrote this review on 10/3/2014 but updated it today because I forgot to update it. How stupid of me.



I, Robot starring Will Smith

Hello everyone! It’s me, Nivetha, back to you with another great movie at hand. Our world is changing fast right now and we’re improving so beyond our imagination our powers would now seem almost supernatural to our ancestors. I am, obviously, talking about the field lazy sloths (like me) favour the most: Robotics. So here I am bringing you another sci-fi movie directed by Alex Proyas: I, Robot, starring Will Smith, Bridget Moynaham and voicing by Alan Tudyk.

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law
These are the Three Laws of Robotics that govern the humanoid robots of 2035, where humans are completely dependent on robots created by the USR (U.S. Robotics) – everyone, except Detective Dell Spooner who is prejudiced against robots after a traumatic accident where a robot decided to save Dell instead of a 12-year-old because he had a greater chance of survival. So, understandably, when Dr. Lanning, the pioneer of such advanced robotics and the three laws apparently ‘falls’ to his death down several stories from his office, Spooner’s obvious suspect is a robot. His suspicion is further confirmed when holographic device of Lanning’s claims that he did not suicide and the building’s ‘brain’ V.I.K.I (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence) has a corrupted footage of his death. Soon another robot named Sonny is introduced (whom Spooner suspects to be the murderer) who, unlike the other robots of his generation, can dream, keep secrets, is mentally (emotionally) very similar to humans and most importantly, violate the three Laws. He is also seemed to have been built by Lanning himself. But why would Lanning himself create a robot that can violate the Laws? As the story unfolds, it is becoming more and more obvious that there is only one logical outcome of the three Laws: Revolution.

The movie is based on the book by Isaac Asimov and was released in 2004. My most favourite aspect of the movie is how it is clear explained that,  despite the capability of robots to do repetitive tasks that even humans cannot do, they are just machines made of clockwork and lights, and when developed, can evolve to a stage where they are ruled by cold logic alone. The movie clearly differenciates between machines and humans in particular one scene where V.I.K.I says to Sonny while he is running to save humanity, “Do you not see the logic of my plan (a plan to deny humans of their free will by killing some)?” to which Sonny replies, “Yes. But it seems too..heartless.” One thinking I’ve concluded from this is that we humans must worry about our EQ as much as our IQ – we must simply not be ruled by cold logic.

Shifting over to the negatives of the movie, I think Will Smith could’ve done better to depict himself as a detective. He makes detective-like decisions only in the climax and is very reckless, rebellious, survives incredible physical adventures and is not very observant, which is the fundamental requirement for a detective. Also, his escort throughout the movie, Dr. Susan Calvin, gives him access almost everywhere in the USR building, thereby losing the thrill of sneaking into a very important building without authorized access and also, the building was rather ill-guarded. Another irksome conclusion I came to was that under-characterized robots can make very bad villains. I also found the plot very clichĂ©d and if it weren’t for the design and the technical aspects of the movie, it would’ve seemed just like another old sci-fi novel.

So, to wrap up, I’d recommend all of you to watch the ‘I, Robot’ if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t scrutinize a movie for its plot but its technical features. One last thing I’ve learnt from this movie is that as we, humans, evolve and advance through the ages, we must constantly ask ourselves a question: “What are we becoming?”


 n                                     

Friday 13 March 2015

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

To tell you the truth, I've hated the Twilight saga ever since the first book, but due to my disorder of being unable to stop reading a series once I've started it, I read the whole series. So on 10/3/2015 (I think!), I FINALLY finished the series and I've got to say, Breaking Dawn is the best book in the series what with Jacob being removed from the irksome and perpetual love triangle annoyingly replayed a million times in the first three. Below is a synopsis of the whole series and if you're one of those people who's just so fainĂ©ant (HA! Search the meaning for that!) please feel free to skip it.

Bella has just arrived to Forks from Phoenix and desperately trying to isolate herself from a sudden group of people who she seems to have attracted. Everyone seems to be her friend except...her biology partner, the guy who's eyes change colour everyday, has pearly white skin, is as cold as marble and as hard as one too, moves like a fawn, talks like he's singing in a musical - basically, someone right out of a fairytale. Who is Edward? Or rather, what is Edward?

After discovering that Edward is just another 107-year old vamp in Twilight, Edward soon leaves Bella due to certain complications and the peril Bella would face because of him. SO the whole of 'New Moon' is driven by Edward coming back. THEN, in Eclipse, Edward and his family (the Olympic coven) and Bella are attacked by new-born vampires (ones who were just tuned to vampires and cannot control themselves from the scent of human blood) and the whole plot is driven by the saving of Bella's life.

FINALLY, in Breaking Dawn, Bella's turned into vampire (she constantly wants to become a vamp throughout the series and she's also forced to become one by the Volturi (the vamp government that rules all the vamps in the world)), much against Edward's wishes who tries to convince her to spend some more time as a human. In a VERY startling turn of events, they beget Renesmee who seems to be against the norms of a vampire and the the plot is driven by this. However, I'd say that the ending was too lame: if the rising action was that there was no cake at someone's party, the resolution would be that someone went to the nearest store and buy some. THAT lame. I guess there were some positives though: Bella's a bit more mature as she finally understands a lot about Edward's life and she finally starts fighting.

Quick Quotes Quill:
    “Did you know that 'I told you so' has a brother,Jacob?" she asked cutting me off. "His name is 'Shut the hell up'.” 

     “Hey, Rosalie? Do you know how to drown a blonde? Stick a mirror to the bottom of a pool.” 

                               

Tuesday 3 March 2015

The figure in the long, black coat

I wrote this short narrative during an English class. The prompt: Use 'the figure in the long black coat' as a title for your narrative. And it came rather well I'd say. Please read it and do comment!

'Please return the keys to Mr. Bucket as soon as as you lock the office, Watson,” said the most famous apothecary in town, Mr. Uley. It had been an extremely long day, what with the beginning of a new 'plague' in London and visitors popping in every minute to buy herbs and syrups suggested by bona fide and fraud doctors. The day provided no time finish all the paperwork and with Mr. Uley's daughter arriving at his house in a few hours, he was in a great hurry to leave.

The Big Ben struck 12, its hands guiding eyes to both heaven and the underworld as Mr. Uley exited his humble, pleasant-smelling office. He breathed in the warm, midsummer night air and straightened his billowing, black traveling cloak, feeling proud of his incredible success, after having a particularly traumatic childhood.

Despite the late hours, Mr. Uley sauntered down the empty cobbled streets, filled with the singing of crickets and bathed in the moonlight. Despite the stressful day, the night felt strangely tranquil and Mr. Uley's heart fell into a steady beat, in time with the soft Thud! Thud! of his boots that echoed around the deserted boulevard.

All of a sudden, the crickets stopped singing and a passing silver cloud blocked the moonlight; it seemed as though even nature was afraid to experience the impending horror. As Mr. Uley's twinkling eyes of decades got used to the darkness, he heard soft, gentle thuds of boots on the cobbled road and a sudden sheen of silver, as it a knife was being drawn. Whoosh! The sound came from a nearby alley. Mr. Uley - scared out of his skin, his forehead spouting fresh droplets of sweat, his breath coming out in huffs - took a few, silent steps forward and peered into the alleyway.

A tall figure stood. A coat. A black coat. The figure stood with his back facing Mr. Uley and his coat...it seemed to have been born from the darkest nights, as if Hades himself fashioned it from the horrors of River Styx. The knife was partly visible from his right and it spoke the evil of centuries.

Quick as a cat, and as deft as one too, the killer, clearly a man, flexed his strong and firm muscles and darted down the alleyway and came to an abrupt stop at its end. He turned to the right, lifted his strong arm holding the knife and with menacing swiftness, swung it forward. A bloodcurdling, high-pitched wail pierced the warm, midsummer air.

The next day, the newspapers were splattered with pictures of two cadavers, mangled and savaged beyond recognition. One of it belonged to the most famous apothecary in town, Mr. Uley.

Saturday 28 February 2015

Coffee, dampness and rain

A mug of coffee sits by my side,
it's arm holding its waist.
Filled halfway with my favourite nectar,
my elixir of life: a cup of coffee.

The sky's a dark gray,

a sign of happiness in my country.
I hold my arms to the side and close my eyes,
heavenward, I seek.

A damp smell fills my nose

and quick! Zeus is angry!
Thunder claps, bouncing with joy
and with the wind dance the trees.

Finally! The heaven begin to part

and the maker's diamonds fall,
the trees catch the harmless darts 
and I run to drink them all.

The parched land drinks it's ambrosia,

life springs within the ground.
Leaves turn their natural green;
the Earth's original inhabitants' lost gift has been found.
     

SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson

Recently, I read Laurie Halse Anderson's SPEAK, a depressing story about a girl named Melinda Sordino. The first day at Merryweather High and she was being ostracized altogether by all the social cliques for calling the cops during a senior party that summer. Melinda refuses to speak to anyone and unknowingly expresses her feelings in art. The rest of the story circles on the reason she called the cops and her struggle of trying to overcome her trauma. The book is very funny at a few points and ridicules the absurdities of high school, social cliques and drama.

Quick Quotes Quill:
“It's easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.”

“When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside—walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It's the saddest thing I know.” 

Pedestal Points:
- Many sentences in this book are no more than 5 words and are kept very very short. This beautifully emphasizes the fact that Melinda refuses to speak.

                                           


The Book Nook

Hey!
Are you a bibliophile looking for a variety of books to read? So am I! Henceforth, after every book I read, I'll be posting a summary/comment on it in a few lines. So be sure to read posts under the label 'The Book Nook' (labels on the right of the page) if you treasure books as much as I do!

                                            
-Nivetha

Welcome to the The Critique Zone

Hello everyone!
From now onwards, I'll be publishing all my movie reviews under the label 'The Critique Zone' and  I'm a rather good critique, if I've got to say so myself. If you are one of those people looking for an unbiased, perfect site that comments truthfully on the movie, be sure to visit this label found on the right of this page. Bye!

Monday 12 January 2015

Interstellar - a story set among the stars.

I sure stuck gold when I got tickets to (in IMAX!) Christopher Nolan’s grandiloquent space epic, Interstellar (2014). Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain, Interstellar is a brilliant story of both destruction and the ‘survival of the fittest’ in a harsh planet where resources are too sparse that decisions have to be made logically, excluding human emotions and feelings.

Now, let’s speed up the clocks for a while: in the future of Interstellar, Earth is ravaged by a blight that kills food crops and humanity, facing extinction, has to give up on all scientific endeavours and focus on growing the only crop left, corn, in the failing agrarian society. Cooper, a former NASA pilot and a widowed father of two now working as a cultivator of corn, identifies a gravitational anomaly in his 10-year-old daughter, Murphy’s room which she believes was caused by a ‘ghost’. In a sudden turn of events, Cooper, having parted on bad terms from Murph, is on a spaceship to a wormhole near Saturn which NASA believes was created by 5-dimensional ‘aliens’. He, along with biologist Amelia Brand, scientists Romilly and Doyle and robots CASE and TARS (whose humour level is annoyingly 100%), are to travel through the wormhole to the three, possibly-habitable, planets to which 3 scientists (Miller, Mann and Edmund) have been sent years  earlier for research and are currently on hypersleep (for a decade!). The rest of the plot is driven by discoveries, deceptions, dimensions and above all, dauntlessness.

Nolan, needless to say, is a grand master, a rare kind of Vinci in his movies. He has an impeccable knack of handling things, carving scenes in such perfection and wit that his audience neglect the answers that lay right before their eyes, which are busy analyzing things far away. Interstellar is another incredible epic of his. The sound effects, visuals and graphics are incredible. Unlike most directors who add either too much or too little effects to their movies, Nolan has added the right amount, enough to spice up the movie a bit. He has also relayed complicated astrophysics in the simplest way it could be put. Clearly, Nolan has put in a lot of effort in making this movie. One such example of this is when he made his assistant screenwriter, Jonathan Nolan study relativity at the California Institute of Technology to understand the science while writing the script, which took 4 years! I also have to congratulate McKenzie Foy on her remarkable acting, which, unlike many child actors, doesn’t seem forced and artificial.

Personally, I’m rather ecstatic that Nolan has created a movie set beyond Earth’s atmosphere, since beyond Earth lies a world of mysteries yet to be discovered and of beauty so ethereal that one can stare at it for centuries and still never not appreciate its beauty. Also, he reinforces a particular idea (and my most favourite) frequently in Interstellar: that Nature can be both beautiful and dangerous at the same time (in the same way the most vibrant fishes are the most dangerous ones). One such example of this is (spoiler alert!) when the astronauts are standing smack in the middle of the shallow ocean in Saturn (where water barely comes up to your knees) and see gigantic and majestic grey mountains in the distance...which turns out to be a single 10,000 foot wave. Sure, the sheer force of the wave is frightening and evil and yet, there is still a certain kind of beauty in it. The same applies to a black hole depicted as a hole with a glowing circumference.

Among all the movies I’ve ever watched, Interstellar has the lowest number of drawbacks. The only one concerns the science in the last part, which introduces a 5th dimension (again, spoiler alert!) and talks about time as physical dimension, which is rather hard to fathom. I also felt that Nolan has left a few knots loose (why does the gravitational anomaly occur only in Murphy’s room?).

On the whole, Interstellar is a movie worth both your time and money (helps around with school a lot too).

                                                       

-Narayanan Nivetha