Beauty from beyond

Hello everyone!!! I went to Ooty on Muharram (4th Nov 2014) and took some wonderful close-ups of the simplest of things. I want these to express the beauty in the simplest of things: from the rich orange of a carrot to the electric blue of a wing of a bug to the glassy demeanor of morning dew.

The Secret Life of Bees

It is always said that a good book stays in your heart long after you’ve turned the pages, and ones like these come in very rare. I was very fortunate enough though, to stumble upon ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ by Sue Monk Kidd ‘one fine day’, even if it could be called a typical day. The Secret Life of Bees is a heart-touching book about racism, inequality, imperfection, female power and above all, the need for love for all living things, even a bee.

It’s the summer of 1964, the time when 14-year-old Lily Owens’s life is about to spin into a whole orbit. Lily’s life is shaped around the fuzzy memory of the afternoon her mother was killed, presumably by Lily herself. Everything changes when her black stand-in-mother, Rosaleen, pours snuff juice on the three deepest racial discriminators in Sylvan and Rosaleen is jailed. Hesitant at first, then desperate to free Rosaleen and herself from the clutches of a brutal and unfeeling father who makes her kneel on grits, Lily takes off, breaking Rosaleen out of jail, to Tiburon, S.C., the destination on the back of a picture of black Mary’s belonging to her mother. Fate leads her to an electric pink house with an equally eccentric trio of the black beekeeping sisters: August, May and June Boatwright. She is introduced to the breathtaking world of beekeeping, honey and Our Lady of Chains. She falls for the hum of bees, the gold of honey, the feel of the beekeeping veil, and most of all, the care she receives, especially having been starving for it her whole life. But will the honey last? Will she have to kneel on grits again? Will racism ever end?

The first thing that attracted me towards the book was its title. It was very funny - who would write a whole fictional book about the secret life of bees? Wouldn’t it be boring? Sue Monk can. Secondly, the description Sue gives of the bees’ and Lily’s lives are astonishing – the metaphors she uses, especially. She captures the perception of an adolescent wonderfully, the way Lily can be both mature and immature. She words the pain, pathos and self-doubt Lily has with excellent clarity too. My most favourite element of the book was the folklore that was used and how metaphorical it was to life, not to mention the quotes, my favourite being, “The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters,” by August Boatwright. The book talks about divine female spirituality and their dignity and how we must find Our Lady of Chains in ourselves and not only in her statue.

On the contrary, there might’ve been downsides to the book. Firstly, the book dragged during Lily’s stay in the Boatwright sisters’ house and I found the main conflicts not very substantial. Sue Monk could’ve clearly distinguished the rising action and climax too. I also thought the ending was quite abrupt and formulaic. Throughout the book, it doesn’t take a wizard to find what happens next and the deposition is quite conventional.

                  

Newspaper Articles: EGGSTAR FOUND CRACKED!

FAR FAR AWAY, NORTH FAIRYCAVE

Our beloved head of the egg league and egg tennis captain, Mr. Humpty Dumpty, has met his fat, his cruel destiny. He has fallen to his death from the great Muggle Wall on Friday the 13th at 9 a.m.

He had been there to pay his rites to his late grandpa, the rocking rockstar, Jackfruit Blueberry, but finally had to share the same grave.

The Three Little Pigs of Police have come to a conclusion that it is a pre-planned murder as evidences say so. There was an egg marked on the place where he sat. He was covered with yolk and was in a state no one could fix him.

There have been evidences that spring up a list of suspects. There are four suspects who have strong evidences against them. A green apple has been found in the site of murder, so the Pigs say it might have been Pegasus. About 13 feet away, a pail and a crown has been found, suspecting Jack and Jill. A golden hook was found under a tree near the spot of murder, an evidence against Captain Hook.

The new head of the egg league, Mr Egg Megg, has also reported strange sightings in the sky. A horrible sign. He had seen the dreaded Omelettes who turn eggizens into a cruel, unimaginable, unforgivable state: peppered omelettes.

King Shrek, Queen Fiona, Merlin and several other have gathered on Saturday at the egg yard to pay their final eggs to our beloved friend. He will stay in our yolks forever.

NIVETHA

23/09/2013

Writing to my dear 'Pan'ski...

From: ‘Pot’snair of Kitchen Utencity
To: ‘Pan’ski of Pots n’ pans                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                                            

Dear ‘Pan’ski,

Save me! Save me! Ever since I was bought from that store, I’ve been tortured and hurt beyond my limit. The woman who bought me is extremely monstrous and cruel; you should just listen to what she did to me.

The little girl in this household ‘hell’ wanted to play baseball (panball in our place), so she used me as a bat and I ended up losing my hand! You see, when the ball soared through the air, the little demon swung me to hit the ball but finally, I ended up being thrown into the air too! I bumped onto the tarmac in front of the Graveyards’ house. I’m reeking with that old lady’s body lotion! Also, the crazy demon puts me on the stove for a longtime and Me. Fire is harsh on me and burns my back! Please send me some soap next time; I’m turning ugly and black all over.

This warty woman talks nineteen to the dozen. Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah this, blah that! I get agitated just by talking about it. She talks about unnecessary thing like nail polish (this slimy thing that dyes the small pink thing on the ends of their fingers), etc. Oh, I hate her! She’s a mouthful!

The little meanie here once turned me upside down and sat on me with her pants all dirty. Ewww! It was so gross! Man. I can never forget the stench! It reeks of well…you-know-what.

I recently hears that you’ve run away from you owner, Pansk. Well then, I would like to ‘heed’ some advice from you. I’m deciding to run away, anon. If you had joined a second-hand shop as you told, will you please find me a vacancy? I’ll send my PV (Paniculum Potae) shortly. Meanwhile, please tell the owners that I’ve done PPD ( pots n’ pans diploma) and MKD (Master of Kitchen Dishes).

P.S.

Please send me a couple of soaps and perfume. I’m malodorous.

P.S. again

You better RSVP me back again.

With loads of curry and gravy,

‘Pot’snair.

22-08-2013

Maybe not-so-gluttonous: Mughal Cuisine

 Good morning everyone! I’d like to start off my speech with few facts. I’m sure everyone here knows that India was the richest country a few centuries back and that Mughals were a legendary lineage of kings who ruled for over 3 centuries in India, their rule leaving an enduring legacy of art.  They were connoisseurs in beauty and food and they mastered in the ‘art’ of cuisine, a topic that I’ll be speaking to you about.

The Mughal Emperors impressed courtiers, nobles, foreign guests and dignitaries at their dining table. The menu, finalized by the hakim (royal physician), would consist of about 100 dishes, each prepared by one cook. Diners took their place on the ground, atop rich carpets laid with protective white sheets. The Mughals followed the Indian custom of the time by beginning their meals with pickles, freshly sliced ginger and lime.  The centrepiece of the imperial spread was usually a dish of rice cooked with ghee, spices and meat: the pilaf. This was accompanied by a huge variety of game bird, fish, lamb, venison and beef cooked in different styles. Food to be decorated with fresh flower petals and edible thin foils of silver and gold.  After their meals, they rinsed their hands with perfumed water poured from jugs held by servants. They also ended the meal with chewing on betel nut, or paan. What they introduced was the tradition of desserts, that is, the eating of something sweet at the end of the meal, rather than at the start or in the middle.

Cutlery were usually studded with rubies, diamonds, jades, etc, the most stunning being a 16^th century gold spoon encrusted with rubies, emeralds and diamonds made for Akbar. Mughal cuisine was strongly influenced by the Persian cuisine of Iran, which featured dried fruits and nuts, ingredients commonly used by imperial cooks in meat and rice dishes. In fact, under the Mughals, fruit was a symbol of sophistication and their elevated position in society. At the time of the Mughal rule, fruits and nuts were thought of as incredibly opulent and luxurious.

Coming from a food-loving culture, Hindustan seemed to Babur a land stripped of food. He writes in The Baburnama, “There is no grapes, quality fruits, mask melons, candles”. He did not fancy the local Indian food, which lacked the spices and flavours he was accustomed to in his native Samarkand.

From Kashmir, they imported temperate fruits unavailable in Delhi’s climate such as peaches, plums, apricots, apples, grapes and pears. They planted formal gardens of fruit trees over conquered territories and drank juices flavoured with essences. From the mountains, they brought down ice to keep their sherbets and desserts cool and palatable. Emperor Akbar had his own kitchen garden which he watered daily with rosewater because it added to the flavour of food when cooked.
This might sound downright ridiculous in our times, but in the age of Mughals, even cuisine was considered a form of art and high position. Who knows, presidents having a 100 cars, some bullet-proof even, might sound ridiculous in the future.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

‘One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs
And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls"
                                                                          - Saib Tabrizi

Now, doesn’t that verse sound good? It is by Saib Tabrizi, an Afghan, describing the beautiful and enduring city of Kabul, Afghanistan. Other than writing a poem about his hometown, Saib may have also suggested an idea on how to name a book to Khaled Hosseini who wrote the ‘Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction’ winner, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

The tale is of two cities: Herat and Kabul and two Afghan women, Mariam and Laila. At the beginning, we are dropped into the world of Mariam, a young girl living alone in a kolba in the outskirts of the splendid city of Herat (where she is forbidden to visit) with her unmarried mother. She is denied the simplest pleasures of life and is brought up by her epileptic mother who repeatedly reminds her, ““Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.” The sole reason for her to live is for her weekly visits from her insincere, charming father who runs Herat's cinema, and whose real family she longs to join. It is on her 15th birthday when her pre-ordained story is to be rewritten forever in the hands of the Koran and God. However, Hosseini isn’t the one to be stagnant on the same situation forever; before many pages have been turned Mariam's mother has died, and her unfeeling father has married her off to a 43-year-old acquiantance from Kabul.

Almost a generation later, we switch from Mariam's life to that of a neighbour, the young Laila, who is growing up in a liberal family with a father who believes in her education. She isn’t bound to the rules of her religion and we suddenly see Mariam from the outside: a silent, burqa-clad woman, always in tow of her husband Rasheed: a quiet couple. In a turn of pages, Laila is orphaned and ends up as Rasheed’s second wife. The 3rd part tells the story of how Laila’s child, Aziza, brings the two women together and of how their antagonistic relationship is turned into a relationship as strong as the ties between a mother and daughter. It tells of the sudden change of everyday activities of common people under the Taliban rule. Kabul is suddenly changed from a safe haven to the place where death awaits with his arms open. All people can see everywhere is brutality, starvation, injustice, and above all, inequality.

My most favourite writing style of the book was parts where Khaled took a completely different 3rd person’s point of view, representing Destiny. For example, when Mariam is signing a paper in her nikkah ‘under the watchful gaze of the mullah’, Khaled says, ‘The next time Mariam signed her name to a document, twenty-seven years later, a mullah would be present again.” It is later revealed that the document to be sign twenty-seven years later would be Mariam’s executioning paper.

Another astounding thing is the way Khaled intertwines both history and family together.
He portrays the suffering of women under the Taliban quite brutally, but he doesn’t mill over the sentiments. He goes on with the narrative, allowing the reader to form an opinion on his own. He draws Mariam and Laila and brings them to life, writing about how simple everyday activities, such as watching TV, were influenced by the Taliban.  The book displays the shackles of religion that bind Afghan women and forbid them from enjoying the simplest pleasures of life of dancing and singing.

At first, it seems like Mariam and Laila are completely different characters: their lives were completely contradictory - Mariam has always been tied back while Laila was always set free. It is amazing how Khaled tightly interweaves their lives together. Also, their difference in their lifestyles reflects on their attitudes towards Rasheed and every one of their daily activities. Mariam had one of those typical, religious-bound, obeying attitudes while Laila had a rebellious, Malala-like attitude.

On the whole, Hosseini had written a touching, heartfelt book, finally letting it out to the world how cruel Afghanistan had been under the Taliban, how, like the needle in a compass turning north, a man’s accusing finger turns to find a woman and  how Afghan every women had to learn to tahamal, endure.

The Shutter Island

Hey everyone! How are you? All back on track after summer, I suppose. No more lazy afternoons and long hours of sleeping! Anyway, over the summer I caught this wonderful psychological-thriller called ‘The Shutter Island’ (2010) on Star Movies and so here goes:

It's 1954, and up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient-cum-murderess from Boston's Shutter Island Ashecliffe Hospital. Before long he wonders whether he hasn't been brought there as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical to illegal to downright sinister. Teddy's shrewd investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records and places he suspects would break the case wide open. As a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, more dangerous criminals "escape" in the confusion, and the puzzling, improbable clues multiply, Teddy begins to doubt everything - his memory, his partner, even his own sanity.

Martin Scorsese, as always, has done a remarkable job in the making of the movie, especially the plot. Shutter Island was completely unexpected, and a great start to 2010. The script is fantastic; it has one of the most intriguing plots I have seen in a while. It is exciting, suspicious and can even alter your sanity as you put yourself in Teddy’s shoes. Minute after minute, you are driven insane as each scene delivers a new twist, a new lead to an almost-unsolvable case capable of turning you into a maniac. It had all the components of a great film. Everything, down to the set's lighting, was perfectly executed.

The acting is spot on from every character; none of it seems forged or out of place. Perhaps the most incredibly played character was of Teddy by Leonardo Di Caprio who conveys every single expression as if he were Teddy himself. Also, the name Teddy itself seems ironic -- such an innocuous name in such a gothic setting.
One of the few areas the movie lacked at was continuity: When Teddy is interviewing a patient at Ashecliff, she goes to pick up a glass of water. When she puts the glass to her mouth she isn't holding a cup at all. The next shot shows her putting it back on the table. And in another one, when Teddy is interviewing another patient, he scrawls in his notebook to the point of tearing the paper in one shot but the paper is intact in a later shot. Secondly, some parts were hard to understand as it requires a great deal of psychological knowledge and this made me presume a lot of scenes. By my reckoning, not everyone will like this; Shutter Island isn't your typical movie.

To put it all in one tight bag, the film is a smashing hit and both asks and answers the question, “Which would be worse? To live as a monster, or die as a good man?” Really, which one is?

-N.Nivetha

Pandora's Box

Wrote this short story in approximately 25 minutes in an English exam. So, sit back and enjoy!

I was never supposed to open the almost-colossal, brown, derelict oak door. Never. But I couldn’t. The secret has been concealed for years and being only a week away from the legal adult age of 18, I couldn’t resist the urge to open the oak door on the far end of the landing of the third floor. So, I did it. I opened it and across my eyes had laid a thousand, untold secrets.

It all happened on a Friday, the 13^th. My family – my mom, dad and my little sister, Becca – had gone out for lunch with some old acquaintances. Holding a tub of luscious ice-cream, I ventured into our new house. I had explored the first and second floors on the first day but I had been prohibited from entering the third floor. So, I was planning to do exactly the opposite today.

So, holding up the ice-cream, I climbed up the old, creaking stairs of the mini-manor. The stairs were wraped with a thick layer of dust and I couldn’t stop sneezing. As I climbed onto the flight of stairs that led to the third floor, I hastily pulled at the cobwebs which were graying the place and blocking out the scintillating sun. I finally reached the third floor’s landing and took a sharp take of breath, shocked at the scene that lay before me.

I quietly stepped onto the landing and tiptoed across, aware of the deafening silence and the distant call of crows. The floor boards groaned with my weight and I had hunch that something really wicked is about to happen. I felt an invisible force behind me, creeping along with me, trying to interrupt my progress. I flipped back several times, only to find dusty air illuminated by the iridescent sun pouring through the cracks in the ceiling, lighting the cold, dark, looming corridor.

I finally reached the door and as slow as a snail, pushed it open. The door, as slow as ever, creaked and swung open. The first details my eyes registers was the state at which the room stood crumbled. The ceiling, floorboards, walls and everything was swathed in a thick layer of dust, turning the room into a weird shade of grey. I put my finger on the wall and wiped out some dust and below the layer of gray, I saw a rick, golden, yellow spot - a sign of happiness. I thought – yellow to grey, frabjous to melancholy, happy to sad.

Another sinister thing about the room was the furniture it contained or rather, the box it contained. I crept to the box and tenderly kneeled before it. There was a copy of my favourite Greek legend, Pandora’s Box, lying neglected on this ancient – looking golden trunk. It broke my heart to see my favourite book, which I used to read every day, which was reminiscent to my childhood, laying in a sea of melancholy and neglect. I took the book and tenderly flipped through the battered copy, recollecting the story of Pandora, who, due to curiosity, opened a box and unleashed melancholy, sickness and all the negative aspects of life into the world. I carefully laid the book aside and studied the beautiful engraved trunk and… got almost a heart attack.

For, engraved in the center of the old, century-old trunk were two words in big, black, bold letters: Pandora’s Box.

                                 

Friendship...

Rainbows, colorful bands across the sky,

Represent friendships that never die.

Bright and strong, vibrant as ever

long-lasting bonds that are joined forever.

Just like how every color is unique,

Every friend is also unique.

Different thought of every kind,

pulls  people together, strongly bind.

Holding hands together,

Beautiful hearts combined,

Precious than gold and silver,

very hard to be mined.

Shining like corals in the vast, deep sea,

soothing hearts to bring ample peace.

A  person to tell our problems to,

A person who helps us in everything we do.

Like a needle in a haystack,

it takes years to be found.

But can be really worthful,

more than a million pounds.

The Structure of the Atom

First came Thales,

who thought the world rose from water

But then came Anaximenes, thinking along different lanes.

thought the world rose from air.

Democritus arrived later,

went on to say about atoms,

other philosophers thought this theory  wasn't better,

because a world made from tiny balls was something they couldn't fathom.

The common era arrived

and with it a blast of new scientists

such as Lavoisier, Proust and Dalton

who in their work were the finest.

Lavoisier set the law of conservation of mass

and Proust the low of definite proportion.

Dalton came up with the atomic theory,

and with this the three made history.

Bright and erudite, the 70s dawned,

JJ Thomson, Rutherford and Bohr were born.

in chemistry, these three were fond

for they made a discovery in which the three sciences could be bond.

JJ Thomson discovered the negatively charges electrons

and made the plum pudding model of an atom

But many thought he went in the wrong direction

As Rutherford proved JJ's theory's problems

Ernest Rutherford did the gold foil experiment,

fired alpha particles at atoms of gold,

they passed straight thought the atoms of the element

from this, the basic structure of the atom was mould.

Thought the structure seemed right, 

it raised questions about it's stability

Bohr came into the light and said,

"the atom has discrete orbits" sensibly.

Leep the Creep... LOL!

Geep the Creep went to steal something

So he went to the Gackenham home one Friday evening

He went to the safe to steal a gold ring

when he found it too dark to find a thing.

He came out with a cold drink

and peered into the dark with a blink

the figure he saw made him shrink

cuz it went chink chink!!! :P

He went near the switchboard to switch the light on

instead he kept shouting “c'mon, c'mon”

when the lights came on

he gave a big yawn

for it was the big, fat cat, Ron.

He laughed out loud

and made a cloud,

he the thief was too bound.

He left without a sound

and laughed out loud.

By Advaitha (my friend!) and me!

16-8-2013