Glimpses from two years...

Compared to the photo folders starting from 2002, when we first switched to digital cameras, the one for 2020 is very sparse. Then, to my horror, I discovered that I had even omitted to make a folder for this year - 10 months into 2021! All our pictures are still on our phones and have not been synced. A mistake that I have sought to rectify. Along the way, I saw a few pictures that I wanted to share with you—in no particular order. I've highlighted earlier references to my blog in green. Click on them if you want to read more!

Celebrating my birthday with my sis and nephew (behind the camera) during MBIFL 2020. The last memorable time I visited a restaurant for a sit-down meal, I think.

 

Row of Ponkala pots waiting for the consecration and a line of devotees waiting for lunch... Last public function/festival attended..

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The streets were quiet, no growling, prowling beasts. So the peafowl chose to cross over from the wildernesses and grace our yard.

My first haircut during the lockdown. Poor Ani was the guinea pig. I had put the trimmer at the longest setting for the back and sides. Unfortunately, Kunju distracted me as I was tapping off the hair on the trimmer and the length went to zero. I kept my head and uttered not one peep when disaster struck in the next swipe. Even while taking this picture, Ani didn't know how his haircut actually looked. It was two days later that he came to me saying, "Amma, I don't know why, but a part of the back of my head feels very prickly." I RAN!!!

 

My painting helper who made the project a breeze. Very protective of his coiffure, as you can see...

 

The black and white kitten who grew up into an exceedingly handsome tuxedo cat with white gloves and socks. He was so fond of snuggling that if he was allowed inside while I was doing Sudarshan Kriya or meditation, he would curl up in my lap and lie there the whole time. It helped center me better. He has since disappeared, but we are grateful for all the lockdown cuddles and candid picture moments like this...

 

Teach a kid to make chappati dough and he will give you this! I screamed when I opened the container to make the chappatis!!!

A picture that I love looking at and a process that I will never, ever repeat! Much as the color gradient is attractive, it was a headache to find books. Yikes!!!

 

Soaped hands are germ-free. Give soap to a teen with too much time on his hands and...

 

My coral jasmine making me smile in the midst of the pandemic. 

 

A pair of Indian cormorants nesting in Thekkady, the only trip we undertook in December before things got really bad Covid-wise in Kerala. 

No words required! Enjoy!!!

From my Bookshelf - The Cliffhangers by Sabin Iqbal

This year, I am resurrecting a long-dormant section of this blog. What is a bookworm to do but review books? 

There are quite a few reasons why I bought this book from MBIFL. First of all, I had seen the author as he had been one of the organizers of the writers' workshop that I had mentioned earlier. Also, the novel is set in a place that is close to us - Varkala, one of the most popular tourist spots in the district. I wanted to see how the writer had treated a modern story set in Kerala and I am always interested in seeing how the untranslatable parts of our language and culture have been handled.

Imagine my surprise when Sabin Iqbal turned out to be the father of one of my son's friends! So this time, I had no trouble asking him to sign my book and chat with him a little about his writing habits...

 

And he kindly posed when my son requested a picture...

Oh, by the way, Mr. Iqbal was also the festival director at MBIFL2020!

Due to my backlog of reading material and a certain writing challenge that is underway, I didn't get to the Cliffhangers till two days ago. And once I did, there was no putting it down. 

The novel deals with four young adults: Moosa, Thaha, Jahangir and Usman who live near the Cliff in Varkala. Their friendship was forged in common pain and humiliation in childhood and they still cannot let go of it even at the ripe old age of nineteen and must keep on secretly pestering the perpetrator in retaliation. By this time, the four friends have earned the name of the Cliffhangers. They keep each other company in the all the adventures of youth - love, weed, fights, sports and general mayhem. 

What sets them apart is that they have made a conscious choice to keep away from the polarizing politics and religion of their region. The foursome are not model characters, but they have unique ways of dealing with those friends who they deem to have got the initial signs of the disease called fundamentalism. And very effective it is too - when I read the novel, I dearly wished I could deal with a few friends and relatives the same way. 

Mr. Iqbal's writing is simple and powerful (I know, I know, Premam and Vimal sir have ruined those adjectives for all time to come!), there was nothing that sent me running to my dictionary. But there were some lyrical passages about the beauty of the seaside town that had me wishing I could go to Varkala this very moment and be there to see it for myself. Those lyrical passages are the relief spots in the otherwise hopeless outlook on the polarizing trends that are happening in our state, country and the world over. 

Of the characters, the most memorable for me are Moosa's Mother, the quiet and erudite Vivekanandan, Jonathan Boyce, SI Devan and the foursome themselves. The most memorable scenes are those of the cricket match, the curing of the fundamentalist disease as mentioned earlier, the killing of the white rooster and several others which, if I were to mention them all, would have me writing down the whole story here.  

Mr. Iqbal's novel reminded me of Golding's Lord of the Flies at times although there are few similarities. There is always that sense of impending doom hanging over the protagonists and the little world that they inhabit.

Another thing that piqued my interest is the foursome's repeated attempts to learn English. They failed miserably in their school years, can understand enough English to make out different accents, but don't have the confidence to speak. Mr. Iqbal returns to this obsession of the boys throughout the book. The uniquely Malayali love-hate relationship with English is something about which I could write a whole another post!

My recommendation for what it is worth: everyone should read this book. I would have recommended that it be a college text book for its linguistic and artistic merits as well as its core message, only that textbook committees might vote against it for the racy parts. My fifteen-year old read it, liked it and he was not fazed, but he forbade his 11-year old brother from reading it. 😀

Afterword: As I sat back after reading the novel, I thought about what it is that really holds the country called India together. Going by the nature of the volatile elements in the novel, this country should have been burned, razed to the ground or hacked into pieces by now. Why hasn't it happened then?

The answer is this. There is a silent majority in this country. These people keep their heads down and go about their daily business without trying to separate man from man on the basis of color, class, creed or politics. They understand that all people have the same basic necessities and if everyone cooperates, life can be peaceful and enjoyable. Some of them hold fast to the ideal that all people are equal. Some of them are wise enough to understand that the forces of Isfet and Ma'at (chaos and order in Egyptian mythology) are always at war and one or the other must have the upper hand at times. They bide their time till action becomes the need of the hour. And there are some who have the touch of the Divine and spread acts of compassion and care across all man-made divisions.

There will always be hotheads who are prompted by Ares (forgive me, my kids have transmitted their Rick Riordan addiction) to create unrest and war in the name of whatever they can cook up at that moment. As for me, my prayer is the same as this great son of India's:

Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high,
where knowledge is free.
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
Where words come out from the depth of truth,
where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection.
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost it's way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.
Where the mind is led forward by thee
into ever widening thought and action.
In to that heaven of freedom, my father,
LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE!”  

-Rabindranath Tagore

Brimming with literary energy

As promised, I am back with pictures and impressions of the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters also known as MBIFL. For those who are not in the know, this year the capital city hosted the third edition of the festival. Kanakakkunnu Palace veritably turned into a palace of letters...

This time I was determined to visit the festival at least three out of four days, so I booked a "Delegate" pass online. I was so happy that I did because I was greeted with a pretty tote bag upcycled from an old bedsheet...

It reminded me of my own efforts way back in 2014. I was very glad to learn of the green protocol that was strictly enforced at the venue, which meant that even plastic water bottles were confiscated at the entrance. I was glad that I had carried my steel water bottle. The venue had plenty of kiosks where water, cooled sambhaaram and naruneendi juice were available. 

Unlike my random forays to the festival avenue in the past two years, I was determined to get information on all things festival this time around, so I followed MBIFL on Instagram. Five days before the festival started, I got an update saying that Mathrubhumi was conducting a workshop in English writing called "The Sentence". That is how I came to attend the workshop as I mentioned in my last post.

The workshop was led by Dr. Manu Remakanth who heads the Department of English at SN College, Chempazhanthy. He lent us two 'brushes' to help us with descriptive writing. Between his fascinating class and the group exercises, I didn't even notice the passage of time.

So here is my tribe with our 'chief' in the paper the next day...

This time around, I carried a notebook and a camera as well as a printed schedule of the program of the day for the festival. Organizing is everything! Simultaneous discussions/conversations/solos were conducted at hourly intervals at seven different stages spread throughout the venue. The last couple of years, I just dipped in at various stages trying to take in as much as I could. But this time I sat through whole sessions whenever possible, took copious notes and photographs so that I would not forget all those wonderful nuggets of information, names of fascinating books mentioned in passing or any other tidbit that a budding writer could use. 

The highlight of the festival for me was seeing Alexander McCall Smith and listening to him read an excerpt from one of his books. If you've been a reader of my blog from the beginning, you know that I'm a huge fan, especially of the Precious Ramotswe series. So entranced was I just being able to see and listen to him that I quite forgot my celebrity phobia and actually got up to ask him a question about my favorite series! I also told him that he and James Herriot are the authors I turn to when my mind's chatter becomes too much and I cannot concentrate on anything. And if that were not enough, I waited till he was off the dais and offered the great writer a handshake and thanked him for writing books! Major fan-girl moment!!!

It was all the more astonishing because just 45 minutes before this had happened, I had been to the book signing event of Dr. Shashi Tharoor and hadn't opened my mouth to say anything except "Good Morning" and "Thank you" and had spent the silent eternity it took for him to sign my book mentally kicking myself for being tongue-tied.

But meeting Mr. Smith took the bridle off my tongue. Later during the festival I was able to ask Anita Nair about the conception of Idris and questioned Devdutt Pattanaik about whether the Adhyatma Ramayana didn't read like a huge conspiracy for genocide.  I also quizzed a few other writers about whether they avoided potboilers in their reading while choosing only literary fiction and asked them to share their own favorite books on the craft of writing. 

All in all, it was a soul-enriching, uplifting and absolutely scrumptious three days for me. I gave the festival a miss on my birthday because there were several things on the home front to be done that day and I had to stay at home. Besides, I probably would have undergone spontaneous combustion from all that inspiration in unmitigated doses!!! Here are a few more pictures of MBIFL from my camera.

 

This is one time I wish I had at least five clones to take part in all the fascinating programs held at the various stages scattered around the venue. There are photos and videos galore on MBIFL's Facebook page and Instagram page (link given previously) if you want to checkout this boon to the book lovers of the city. Hope you will join me for the next edition!!!

Books Kon Mari-ed!!!

Today's post is a placeholder of sorts. This week has been hectic with the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters, the third edition of the literary festival held at the Kanakakkunnu Palace Grounds here in Thiruvananthapuram. It is, without doubt, the best thing in the year for me, because it is held during the first weekend of February and my birthday is on the first of February. This means that the festival has been like a special birthday celebration for me for the past three years!!!

In addition to the festival, this year I was lucky enough to attend an English writing workshop held at Mathrubhumi in the run up to MBIFL this week, where I met a few members of my tribe - people who are crazy about language and passionate about writing. The shot in the arm that single day has given me is immense. 

But this is all I can manage today. I will regale you with tales of #MBIFL2020 next week for sure. For the time being, do enjoy pictures of my newly Kon Mari-ed, Pinterested and Instagrammed bookshelves!!! 😁

Starting with white spines, sliding into VIBGYOR and then fading into browns and blacks...

Things will stay like this probably till the day I get fed up with trying to find a title and not succeeding. Like I did two days ago trying to find Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird  to add to my picture of books on writing and creativity..

It was not till the next day that I remembered that the spine of Bird by Bird was red and searched in that section! 

Once I get fed up, it will be back to dividing by English fiction, non fiction and Malayalam books, all sorted by author's surname in alphabetical order. 

But for the time being, don't they look pretty?

Of course, this collection does not include my kids' books, spiritual and scripture books, dictionaries and encyclopedias, coffee table books or my collection of craft books. 😂😂😂