What is it about Georgette Heyer that she can turn imagination into language so brilliantly?I reread another Georgette Heyer, before reading Simon the Coldheart, and found myself skipping large sections of it. I think time has made me a little uncomfortable with the romance that she portrays. I squirm more than a little, and run my eyes over the pages sometimes, without reading much. I realise I don't like her ideas of mastery in romance or the way in which so many of the heroines just seem to give in.Yet, I enjoy Georgette Heyer.Why?Each page sparkles with fun. I love the humour; laughter rises to my throat time and time again. Those are the answers that come to me instinctively.But Simon the Coldheart is not one of those novels. It's not one of those with joyous gurgles of laughter. It's one in which the romantic element kicks in quite late in the novel. But I read on and on, … [Read more...]
British Library Workshops
As part of the Reading Challenge organised by the British Library, I will be conducting four workshops!Age-group 5-7 Read Aloud and Colour your Thoughts! 12th January, 2014 Stories are always more fun when they have pictures. When they have more pictures, they are more interesting! So read a story, or listen to a story and imagine... Whatever you imagine, put down on paper. Draw and colour images from what you read – fill your ideas with colour! The best illustration will receive a prize. Show and Tell 9th February, 2014 Bring something from home and talk about it to the other children. Build your confidence as you talk about something you love. After that, let your imagination go wild. Look at the toys around you in the Junior Section of the library and try to talk about what you … [Read more...]
The Worry Tree
I remember having a conversation with a friend about the challenges faced by each generation. "Our grandparents had to work hard - physically," I said. "My grandmother has so many stories of how difficult it was to make dosa batter and things like that. Our parents had financial difficulties, more than anything else. What about us?" "We have emotional and intellectual issues," my friend said, thoughtfully, "basically about who we are and what we want from life."In that sense, I think The Worry Tree reaches out to the children of this generation. Children who are worried. Children who sometimes don't realise that problems around them aren't their fault.I loved the idea of the book, reading page after page with a half-smile. I love the pages at the end where the child who owns the book can write down his or her own worries, hang them up on the worry tree, so to speak.I took about an … [Read more...]
Pegasus
What a mixed bag of emotions!Pegasus was wonderfully imagined. I loved the ideas of feather-tip fingers, strong human hands and flexible wrists, being bound to the pegasi of the sweet green land... Beautiful! There was a kind of raw beauty that reached out and touched me, page after page. The beauty of the Caves - the Caves that are so full - I want to see them too! I feel shivers at the thought of beauty that is so profound that you cannot see it. Rather, you feel it, if you distance yourself from space and time. It was an experience of bliss, reading Pegasus.There has to be a 'but', though. It was long, a little too long, I thought. Maybe not too long, actually. Long in ways that it should not have been long, but not long enough when it came to knowing what happened. I want to know more. It ended all wrong for me.The biggest enemy of beauty is not ugliness. It is … [Read more...]
Con Person
I felt like a con-person the other day at the airport. Every con-artist finds a way to function; I could have stumbled upon one too.I was in the car, dropping my grandparents to the airport. As soon as we reached, I jumped out of the car, ready to go to the airline counter to get wheelchair assistance for my grandfather. I know how irritating it is to have a car standing in the same place, blocking the entrance to the airport. I wanted to avoid that.Standing at the airline counter, I watched the driver unload my grandparents' luggage and arrange it on a trolley. A niggling thought rose to my head; I pushed it away.My grandparents got out of the car; I watched them. A part of me knew I should go to them, but I was waiting for the wheelchair.Finally, the gentleman with the wheelchair appeared. He helped my grandfather into the chair. I pushed the luggage trolley, while my … [Read more...]
Chocolate Mousse!
Making something delicious is uniquely delightful! I discovered that as a teenager when I used to beat batter well to get all those awkward emotions out of me.It's wonderful what 3 eggs, 250 grams of chocolate, 250 grams of cream, 2 teaspoons of rum and a few spoons of sugar can make. God bless the one who invented chocolate mousse.Oh, and I want to direct a special ray of gratitude to the one who made the recipe that I follow, which does not require the painstaking separating of eggs. The makings were delicious. In just a while, I'll taste the finished product too. It's something I'm willing to postpone bedtime for. … [Read more...]
No School
Winter is here!Cold face, cold hands, cold feet... Ah! It's lovely!The first morning that fog descended on our school was almost surreal. It was not Pune; it could not be Pune! Cold face and all the rest, sure, I knew all that. But that kind of fog? It was as if we were on a hill-station! We could not see things two feet away from us, let alone the school buildings. Everything was misty; school had disappeared!Standing in queue to punch in, I realised I wasn't the only teacher delighting in the mist. "No school!" cried one of the teachers. "The school has gone on holiday! No school! Let's go home!" … [Read more...]
Performed Yesterday!
There's nothing in the world like the thrill of performing. Even if it's just a tiny performance at my teacher's place.Nothing much went wrong.There were no black-outs, but that was okay.I was to sit on a small wooden stool for one scene, but no one but I seemed to know where the stool was and I was already on stage. So I got a rickety blue stool instead and I sat on it rather shakily. A few scenes later, when Radha needed the wooden stool, she had to bring it herself. But that was okay too. Everything went remarkably smoothly, despite the fact that we were using the kitchen and the balcony as wings for our stage.My video camera was with a parent in the audience, but there's not a single video on it.But finally, it's not the video that matters. It's what my teacher says. And she hasn't said anything yet. … [Read more...]
Performing on Tuesday
The thrill of performing is here again! A little performance, a private performance this time - not on a stage, and for barely twenty people."We'll do it in a very simple way," said my teacher. "Those who are playing boys will dress in salwar-kameez. The girls will wear practice saris."Doing it at my teacher's house, we began to play with the lights. Black-outs, yellow light, white light - we could do that much."Krishna at least should wear Krishna costume," my teacher amended. "And Radha, of course."We used a stool as a cradle for baby Krishna as we practised, and we spoke about how we could decorate it. I brought a beautiful doll that looks like a real baby. Another dancer brought a lovely cradle."Even the others, like Yashoda and Kamsa..." my teacher said, thoughtfully. "It will be better if you wear costumes, I think."The kitchen and balcony were our wings; the music … [Read more...]
11.12.13
The date today made me think of something that always made me feel special. In many ways, I know I was a strange child.When I was about nine years old, I discovered two extraordinary things.The first was that when I turned ten, I would have a double-digit age for a very long time ahead. The precious uniqueness of a single-digit age was nearly over. Only if I lived to be a hundred would I be special again. Until then, I would be ordinary. Two digits. 10, 11, 12, 13 ... All the way to 99. I was so struck by this notion that I cried on my tenth birthday.The other extraordinary thing I discovered as a nine-year-young girl was that many, many years later, my birthday would fall on a very special day - 10.11.12. I was thrilled at the idea. At nine, though, I had a long, long way to go, but I was tremendously excited about the fact that one day in the distant future, I would have a … [Read more...]