With older relatives, I often get high praise for my ability to use technology efficiently. With great pride, my grandparents and great-aunts and great-uncles, sing praises of my abilities. Some of my abilities that my family advertises:Varsha can fix the speakers! (I put the cable into the socket) Varsha can fix the camera! (I uploaded photographs)Perhaps I could add to my resume - I can find 'Contact Us' on a website. I can change a printer cartridge. I can download and use Skype. I can burn a CD (and a DVD). I can use a pen drive to carry files from the computer to the laptop. I can send music via email. I can use a DVD player. I can attach speakers to a music system. I am, apparently, the source of knowledge and information about everything technological, including how to use Bluetooth, 'Download App', touch-screen, wireless internet . . .What an interesting resume that would … [Read more...]
Performing in Renage
A very dear friend of my sister's organised a performance for us at a chapel in Renage. That was when we learned what effective publicity is.Michèle, who, I should mention, is in her seventies, did absolutely everything to make people come for our performance. She, helped by two friends, went (literally) from pillar to post putting up posters. She made signs to direct people to the chapel, and went and put them up on lamp-posts. When we drove towards the chapel, we saw our own faces everywhere. Every wall, every lamp-post, every pillar had a poster of our performance thanks to this formidable lady. She sat and folded the programmes for the performance - easily a hundred or more - insisting that she had nothing else to do, while we, the dancers, ought to rest. She went individually to each neighbour and convinced all her friends that they would not get the opportunity to watch a … [Read more...]
Oranges
I do not like oranges. I'll write that again - just to make it very clear. I do not like oranges.In Athens, orange trees grow on either side of the road, utterly unwanted.It is true that juice companies are gradually beginning to market Greek oranges with eye-catching notes on their packs saying 'Made from real Greek Oranges!' As a normal thing, though, Greek oranges often have the reputation of being so sour that only the British could possibly want them. And even the British can use it only for marmalade. As a result, piles of oranges are swept to the side of the road, much like we have dead leaves waiting to be burnt. While in Greece, my sister often stole oranges silently and self-consciously from rubbish heaps and defiantly ate them.Needless to say, I never did.I've voluntarily eaten a whole orange once in my life. Orange-eaters everywhere are wide-eyed at the story.I was … [Read more...]
Arangetram!
Anushka Iyer and Riya Dash will be performing their Arangetram today!The Arangetram is the maiden performance of a dancer, during which she attempts to convey her understanding of her art form to a discerning audience in the presence of her guru.Venue: Tilak Smarak Mandir Date and time: 28th June 2013; 17:45 Credits Nattuvangam: Guru Smt Mythili Raghavan Vocal: Shri Sivaprasad Mridangam: Shri Shankar Narayanan Violin: Shri Bala Subhramanyan Make-up: Shri Mohan and Smt Lakshmi Comperes: Aishwerya Sudarshan, Nisha Seshan, Varsha Seshan … [Read more...]
Monsters University
When humour, action, plot, story, character and setting are all rolled into one, how can I not leave the cinema hall smiling like I have a tummy full of food and am ready to sleep?Monsters University made me happy. Why should anyone (particularly me) pretend to write a review? I like Mike (and Sullivan). I love 'OK'. I love the story. I love the Monsters University campus. I love the idea - and hugely respect the fact that such a grand prequel was made for a movie like Monsters, Inc.In short, I like animated films and this one did not let me down! … [Read more...]
Can this be true?
In Nigeria, my grandfather was once invited to dinner for some 'special festival'. Alone and interested, he decided he would go - but someone warned him against it. My grandfather doesn't know who these people were who warned them. "We heard that you were invited for this function, but please take some sincere advice from us - don't go."My grandfather, puzzled but obedient, decided not to go.The next day, he found out what the 'special festival' was. Apparently, at midnight, there is a blackout. Innie-meenie-mynie-mo --- and one person is selected at random. That person becomes the human sacrifice.My grandfather also insists that human flesh was sold in the market, just not displayed. It was hung behind leaves, but openly sold.The 1950s, not 'modern'. The impression of 'uncivilised Africa' was particularly strong. Was this a tale told to my grandfather to frighten him? Or would … [Read more...]
The Lost Years
When I first read Mary Higgins Clark, I remember how amazed I was. All Around the Town remains one of the most powerful books of all time in my memory.Yet, when I read this, there was the sense of something artificial. As craft, detective fiction shines. I enjoyed the intricacy of the narrative. Romance within a detective novel adds a little sugar and a little spice. Wondering who-what-why keeps the brain alive. Following Mariah's life as an investment advisor with a mother who has Alzheimer's is absorbing. I was curious about the precious parchment, supposedly the only letter ever written by Jesus Christ.But The Lost Years did not touch that core of my being that I want fiction to touch. The romance was interesting, not exciting. Mariah's life was absorbing, not moving. The history was background, not intriguing.Detective fiction remains, for me, craft - not art. 'Syntactic' … [Read more...]
Bangalore in a Nutshell
It rained when I didn't expect it too. It didn't rain when I did.I read five and a half books.I met a classmate from school. I probably haven't seen her for a decade and when I saw her, I was utterly disoriented for a few seconds. "Am I really in Bangalore? Really?"I heard hundreds of stories from my grandparents. One about alleged cannibals (and my grandfather's escape from them). One about how my uncle aged four cheerfully went and reported to his parents (my grandparents) that my mother sounded like an engine. She had an asthma attack and was unable to breathe. One about how my aunt threw water on my mother when she fainted and my uncle thought it was a grand game. Many, many, many.I stayed up playing Uno till - what? - 2 in the morning.My train back home was 8 hours late. But I'm back. … [Read more...]
Getting a Promotion
In the Air Force, it is compulsory to speak Hindi to get a promotion. Commands must be given in Hindi.So my grandfather, a recipient of the AVSM (Ati Vishisht Seva Medal) had to prove he could speak at least a little Hindi in order to be promoted. The problem was that he could not speak Hindi. (For my foreign readers: that happens a lot in the south. Many south Indians - particularly in my grandfather's generation - find Hindi and other north Indian languages hopelessly difficult. No one around them speaks Hindi; it was not even compulsory to study it in school. Sounds, grammar and gender - they're all complicated.)My grandfather was told, "Tell that soldier to come here."Proudly, my grandfather said, "Idhar aao!""Good! Now send him back there."That was a difficult one. My grandfather had no clue how to say 'back' or 'there'. So he did the only thing he could think of doing. He … [Read more...]
Stormswift
Madeleine Brent, ah, Madeleine Brent. So many of your books are based on the same thing - an English girl in a foreign land, falling in love with an Englishman under impossible circumstances. How is it that I love them all?The power of the narrative just gripped me right through the book. A sense of peace always came with the eager anticipation of the next twist in the tale. I think that's something I could probably say about all Brent's works.Is Stormswift exceptional? I don't know. I want to say that it is because I was just swept away by the tide of the tale, poring over page after page even though I've read the book before. An English girl, sold to a pacha in Afghanistan, whipped into sexual submission, discarded as barren, adopted as a servant by a half-Greek-half-French doctor in captivity... All this happens even before the book has begun. Jemima Lawley, the English girl, … [Read more...]