Refection of an undying spirit: The Fault in our Stars by John Green

I borrowed The Fault in our stars from a friend and read it during the last semester break of college. I haven’t seen the movie but the book gave me an insight, which is why I chose to write on this. I found Green’s writing in the book unpretentious and very straightforward. In a simple narration John Green uses harsh reality to weave a sweet heart rending tale of cancer afflicted teenagers. The protagonists are crippled by the disease but their beings shine forth due to their undying spirit. By thumb rule a tale of lovers cannot be exemplified without some strong forces of opposition that endanger their tryst! Here, in The Fault in our Stars Green uses such a predicament that is more real than dramatic, but serves the purpose of making a connection with the readers.

The story sets off with a sixteen year old Hazel Grace a victim of lung cancer and her acquaintance with Augustus Waters, a survivor of osteosacroma. They meet at a support group and build up an interesting relationship over time, getting introduced to each other’s passions and likings. Augustus is drawn to The Imperial Affliction, a book that means a lot to Hazel. Hazel is piqued by Augustus as he draws her resemblance to Natalie Portman in the movie V for Vendetta, which she agrees to watch with him. Hazel also tells him that she wants to meet the author of The Imperial Affliction, Peter Van Houten who has left the story incomplete and she wants to know what happens to the characters thereafter. The story takes an interesting note when Augustus perseveres and uses his wish from the Genie Foundation to take Hazel to Amsterdam and meet Peter Van Houten. Hazel also has to make efforts to make her doctor grant her the permission to go. After overcoming resistances, they make it and Hazel’s mother accompanies them to the trip. But the meeting with Peter Van Houten turns out to be far different from what was expected. Instead of providing Hazel what she expected, the man acts rather insensitively and calls her a failed experiment of mutation. Hazel gets distressed but later they take a tour to the Anne Frank’s Museum and Hazel has to toil to climb the stairs. The place soon enthrals Augustus and Hazel and caught amidst a tide of emotions, they kiss and soon realize how much they love each other. The story takes a tragic twist when Augustus reveals that his cancer had returned. It becomes clear that he won’t survive and he dies following a few days of deteriorating health. The story closes to an end with Hazel receiving a eulogy from Augustus, post his death. She expected that he had written an ending to The Imperial Affliction, but instead receives a piece of writing about how grateful he was to have known her in his life. Hazel also feels the same.

Green takes us through the tenacious struggle of the characters interspersed with moments of joy and fulfilment. The Fault in our Stars explores all shades of probabilities in the relationships of the characters. The reader perceives them in the bonding of the parents with the teenagers, the teenager friends and the ones they develop while interacting with those whose lives are easier than theirs. The characters accept the inevitable, yet their good humoured take on their destinies would make one bound to appreciate their boldness. Augustus’s friend Isaac charms the readers with his wit instead of arousing pity in the reader’s heart for going blind due to cancer. They spare no moment to be in merry and indulge in pleasures as they realize that life is too short for them to keep brooding over their maladies. In the subplot of the story involving The Imperial Affliction, the reader stumbles upon an anti-climax over the meeting of Peter Van Houten. But as the story ends, Green clears all impending queries that arise in the reader’s mind while going through the story.

There is very limited use of rhetoric and as a non-fiction genre, The Fault in our Stars plays upon the delicate intricacies of life, as varied as it could possibly get. This is where I feel that Green scores in creating a warm, endearing story of star crossed lovers with an undying spirit. One should consider reading this book, especially those who are suffering from depression or think that life is too cruel for them. The plot of the book will bring a realization that we are really fortunate for even the most little things in life that make us happy!

My feeble science lab adventures: Part 2

Read into the life of Einstein, you'll find reason enough to cheer for yourself even if you were bad in studies!

Reportedly, Einstein's teacher at school had told his father that there was not much to expect from him as he did very poorly in his lessons. If his teacher had lived long enough to see him come up with E= mc², I'm sure the teacher had to turn ostrich for the rest of her life! 

Of all the science lab sessions I had in my school days, the physics lab sessions were the most dreaded ones. In the chemistry lab you could tweak the chemical experiments and their results in some manner, and a hit and trial identification wasn’t that tough when you could guess the main reacting components. But this was painfully difficult, at least for me in case of the physics lab experiments. Some days back I came across a facebook meme where it mentioned that if the tree had fallen on Newton’s head instead of the apple, our lives would have been a lot easier. With due respect to Sir Issac Newton, I wouldn’t have disagreed to this fact when I was in school. Remembering myself during the physics practicals, I would have wished that a whole lot of these adventurous physicists actually lost their way before they stumbled upon their discoveries. But again, these men changed everything and physics is one of the highly significant branches of science. Anyway, I didn’t feel so magnanimous while figuring out the experiments. The thing that I disliked the most about the physics practical classes was the mathematical calculation we had to sort out with the formulas. Almost all the time invariably, my results would show up highly deviated from the expected range of values.

The physics lab was on the floor just above the chemistry lab and unlike the latter it was well lit and ventilated. As far as I recollect, the first experiments began with some measuring instruments which were taught to us. I clearly remember, there were Vernier callipers and screw gauge. At first sight they appeared to me like tools from Frankenstein’s lab. The Vernier Calliper was a set of sliding scales and it had a metallic strip that could be used for measuring depth. When you extended the scales to their limits, it appeared like a junior AK-47. When teachers didn’t look, kids would love to use the Vernier Callipers to simulate an intense war field targeting the enemy with the supposed lethal weapon. Though initially confounding, using the Vernier callipers turned out to be easier compared to other experiments we later had. And the screw gauge! The screw gauge was used for precision measurements as you could figure out the value till the third decimal place. I felt screwed while counting places of 100 markings. Later more was in store as we came across the application of theoretical physics in the lab practical.

There was torque effect, pendulum and its relation with acceleration due to gravity, electric circuits, real and virtual image using lens, tracing magnetic field (I liked this one) and some more I don’t remember. I was once floundering in my internal assessment when I had to determine the weight of a rock (picked up from the school ground) in a torque effect experiment. There was another weight suspended at the end of a metre scale to balance the weight of the rock. My results were betraying the torque principles and I kind of goofed up the calculations to make things fall in place. I was however happy that I didn’t get the pendulum experiment. Every time I did this experiment during class, the pendulum bob would share a love-hate relationship with me while dancing away under the gravitational acceleration. There was some relationship between the height of suspension and the time taken by the bob to sway on its path. The bob didn’t comply with the laws in my case and I would rather end up copying accurate values from a friend’s copy.

The lens imaging was nice. We used the wall as a screen and the trees outside were used as the objects. A cute little faint image of the trees was captured on the wall. Tracing lines of a magnetic field was also nice. The iron pins would arrange themselves along the lines of the magnetic field and we would then trace it on a paper. I also remember that while setting up a very simple circuit I got a small electric pang that felt like an ant bite. The only thing that was a problem in the experiments was when the calculations of an experiment deviated madly beyond the expected ranges. During tests you could only pray that you guessed really well while trying to match the right values when there was a sign of faltering. In chemical experiments you could take the help of a neighbouring friend as the same test or not more than two test variants were given for assessment to the entire class. This privilege didn’t exist in case of physics experiments as each had unique results and the teacher would later verify with your set of instruments.

The physics practical room was like a huge hall. There were stretches of cupboards or drawers, whose flat tops were used as tables for the experiments. If our teacher was absent for a practical class, the substitute teacher would usually ask us to practice on our own. This was a golden chance to chatter away 80 minutes of a double period practical class while putting up pretence of being deeply engrossed in an experiment with an Einstein like expression. There was enough light coming in and sometimes if you worked near to the window, you might want to stare at the trees outside in our school campus. I liked watching the trees, especially if they bore flowers and their leaves swayed in the breeze.

And all this ended after I passed out my tenth standard board exams. I would only catch a peek into the physics lab later to see how my science stream friends were faring in deadlier experiments. Some obviously aced them and were totally brushed up with all the concepts. And for some who chose science to feel secure among the herd of science opters didn’t appreciate the unexpected complication of the subject! No it wasn’t bad. I realize it now that our teachers were really good in teaching us stuffs that made Salt Lake School produce a brilliant lot of academic achievers. Most of my contemporary friends are doing really well and I feel proud to share the same batch. It’s not been that long I have left school. But I do feel nostalgic when I recollect sweet memories of my schooldays!

The Grecian urn that teases the heart

This is a follow up to my series of tributes to the literature classics that stole my heart. Last time it was Tennyson’s Tithonus, a very beautiful piece of work. This time it is ‘Ode on a Grecian urn’ by John Keats. Now it is really difficult to express my feelings and the flight of imagination that Keats evoked inside me. The reason is very simple. Feelings, especially love and gratitude cannot be put into words. No matter how hard you try, the other person may only get an essence of what you actually feel and you will end up with a feeling that you failed to convey what you wanted. Ode on a Grecian urn is a cherished poem which has left an irremovable impression in my being. This poem is based on a very beautiful observation which is otherwise missing in the vagaries of the mundane human life. Keats’s poem leads me to an amazing insight and I find it deeply spiritual. By spirituality, I mean living one’s life with a feeling of an unseen entity that craftily drives the working of the universe. It gives you a feeling of freedom from the shackles of life. This is what Keats summarizes the poem to. But let me start off with how actually this poem moves on with mesmerizing ideas, one after another.

The entire poem revolves around the multitude engravings of people, nature and things that adorn the face of an ancient vessel- the Grecian urn. Keats admires the urn like an artist admires a beautiful art piece. He carefully unfurls the urn’s beauty like a legendary lore. The scenes carved on the urn’s surface come to life with Keats’s enquiries about what he sees. He beholds beautiful valleys, woods and trees, men or gods- he himself is not sure, playful men chasing maidens, a youth playing a flute beneath a tree and a priest leading a procession with a heifer which is to be sacrificed at a green altar. And what amazes him about all these things? That everyone he can see, is living in eternal bliss. It is because their moments of ecstasy have been frozen for eternity. The tree will enjoy perpetual spring never having to shed its leaves; the young lovers will never face disappointment as they are immortalized in the anticipation of meeting their beloved, the youth will play on sweet melodies on his flute untethered, and the heifer will forever gaze at the skies unsure of his fate. Keats further imagines that the procession that has arrived for the ceremonial sacrifice has left its town desolate for forever. So if anybody ventures into the empty town, there will be no one to inform the visitor about why the place continues to remain abandoned.

Keats stresses upon a very remarkable note- the mutability of the material world. He finds the marble men, maidens, trees and things thriving in bliss, as they will never perish. Here I feel he makes a hint at what mortal pursuits are aimed at, i.e. in finding happiness or bliss. Anything we do in the material world is with a purpose of gaining happiness. But the small moments of happiness or what we expect would make us happy soon fades out. We only get a glimpse of the ultimate bliss when we fulfill our desires in the material world. There are places in the poem which can make one sure that Keats is actually talking about something like this. He refers to the different pursuits of the marble beings as living a life free from ‘human passion’- that cloys your heart and cripples you with feverishness for holding onto the pleasures too tightly. He further upholds the urn as a beacon of hope for people who are steeped in misery. The urn’s wisdom is stressed upon as it ‘teases’ men’s imagination such as the poet himself, as does eternity to a mind that attempts to gauge everything. Remember I spoke about spirituality in the Grecian urn? The poem’s conclusion aptly hammers on this philosophy. Keats pays his homage to the urn by referring to it as an epitome of the ultimate truth- “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”. So the urn that has stood the test of time will continue to convey the beautiful truth that lies above the material world of transience.

If you have made it this far in this post, then I admire your patience and maybe your heart for things. I remember most of my friends in class either dozing off while the poem was being taught or cursing the whole fraternity of romantic poets who made things really complicated for the English exams. We had Keats’s poem for our twelfth standard board examination, and as far as I remember I was lucky enough to get it on the question paper.  Now, taking the entire poem in a literal sense would sum up to an eccentric poet dreaming away with possibilities of varied interpretations of the engravings on an urn which was created thousands of years ago. Visualizing this would be funnier: a man staring at an urn and running his wild imaginations. But again, that’s why poetry acts as a medium for subtle things in life that might not fit into logical facts. Poems like the Grecian urn are made to reflect on aspects of life that revitalizes the passion to live. Yes it is lofty, and those who didn’t like literature (let alone poetry), would rather like to be sent to hell than extricating the poets’ fantasies which never stopped getting loonier for them. For me, I had a heart for such things. The visualization of frozen ecstasies delighted me immensely, such that I have wished in some beautiful moments of my life that those moments could be immortalized on a beautiful urn like the Grecian urn. There are some moments really beautiful in our life where we would want to remain captured forever, beyond time and space. And this is exactly where Grecian urn led me!

In any case, I would recommend all to read the poem for once. Who knows what musings it might lead you to?

No this is not a Grecian urn, it's a huge vase
that Romans loved to keep it in their gardens.
Anyway, it comes close to a sculpted urn......

The dark room

What is the most ingenious thing you can come up with to make a noisy kid running errands to fall in line? Scare him. This is easy. Because no matter how difficult a kid is, he is bound to be scared of something or the other; be it a dog, a scary person, or a conjured up monster or Boogie man who lives under the bed. Yes, this was the perfect tactic for my pre-primary teachers to handle a classroom of fifty odd frenzied and boisterous kids who would drive them nuts. They would often warn a trouble maker in the class about taking him/her (it was ‘him’ mostly) to an ominous ‘dark room’ on the first floor. No matter how naughty a kid was, the dark room sounded scary and this worked till we were in the pre-primary class.

Now, what was this dark room? Since we were in the pre-primary class, it did pique curiosity in our little hearts about how this dark room actually is. My room number was 2, class section B. The dark room was in the first floor while our classroom was in the ground floor. It was visible at a diagonal view from my classroom and always had its doors closed. Pre-primary was the first elementary class of our school. That meant that we were the youngest kids in the school. We were confined to the ground floor and did not ever try to climb the stairs, which was exclusively meant for the seniors who had classes in the top floors. So all we could do is, catch a glance then and now from our classroom, to the above floors that appeared inexplicably large to us. What the above floors looked like was best left to our imaginations. Anyway, the dark room was a mysteriously spooky place which appeared to be a small closed room. And, once again what lay behind the closed doors was fodder for our babyish imaginations.

Well, my teachers kind of trained their creative imaginations upon us while attempting to frighten us with hideous things that lived behind the closed doors of the room. Each one of them had their own creep suited to scare the kids. Some bluffed about a monster in the room with red eyes, horns like a bull and a scary grimace with its fangs jutting out. Some teachers even loved to accessorize the evil monster with a trident or that sort of thing. Some teachers were exceptionally good at giving us creeps about the dark room. I remember one teacher telling us that the dark room was like an endless dark tunnel. She said that whosoever enters it loses his way for forever while grappling in the never ending darkness. The stupid monster created by other teachers didn’t scare me. But this dark tunnel thing really gave me goosebumps.

Some teachers were extra zealous in intimidating kids by pretending to drag them into the dark room. I can’t blame the teachers either, for some children were horribly naughty, and fairly innovative in throwing all sort of tantrums. There were some bullies who loved to poke others with sharp pencils or keep kicking the front kid’s chair and harassing others in all possible ways. And there were fights. Kids love to fight and often these were pretty dangerous with both parties hurling pencil boxes and duster (even school bags at certain times) at each other. Sometimes, one would form coalition with the enemies’ foes and charge the assailants. Blood spill was not uncommon, and the defeated party would immediately report to the teachers’ jury with its indictments. A trial would follow and the guilty would be punished according to his/their degree of culpability. If convicted of high degree non-pardonable crime, the ill-fated criminal would be reduced to tears while the teacher ordered his/her deportation to the dark room. The journey to the dark room was however cut short as the kid would be taken to the principal’s room instead. A brief rebuke from the principal would discourage the kid from creating nuisance for some days.

When I used to peep at the dark room from my classroom, I would find that the teachers entered a room just beside it. It was the teachers’ staff room. Once I caught sight of a sister entering the dark room with a tray and cups. I thought this was for appeasing the dark room creature with some refreshments to keep him satisfied, lest he should venture out and gobble up the kids. However, it was not long before we were promoted to class 1 and we could finally climb the stairs to the first floor, and came across the mysterious dark room.

My class 1 section was just beside the classroom next to the dark room. It turned out that the dark room was actually a small makeshift room with a nice bed used as a sick room. It was also used as storage for sundry eatables including tea, coffee, etc for the teachers. So that explains what I saw earlier. The sisters also used to the dark, albeit sick room for keeping their bags and stuffs. The room soon lost its scary charm and for the rest of my school days, I saw kids screaming and parading in front of the dark room. We soon forgot that this room was once a mysteriously scary place that was used for creating all sorts of imaginative perils that one would never try to discover. The teachers had to take other routes to tame the wild kids.

Few days back I was watching the Harry Potter film, The Chamber of secrets. This is when my ‘dark room’ memory popped up. Our school maybe one-hundredth the size of Hogwarts and the dark room was only a wee bigger than Harry’s closet. But the way the room spooked us, it was not any less intriguing than the dreaded chamber of secrets. And of course, we had our share of magical experiences while running our minds about the heinous possibilities that lay behind the closed doors of the dark room.

My long lost delights of tiffin boxes- cakes!

Some days ago I went to a local grocery shop to buy something. The shop is always decked up with all sorts of snacks, confectioneries, biscuits and stuffs that please your taste buds. A common sight in such shops is packets of chips hanging from the shop exteriors like streamers. In case you want to buy one, you pay the shopkeeper for it and carefully tear off a packet of chips from the chains of hanging packets. Anyway, I wasn’t interested in the chips. I bought whatever I needed and was heading back to my home. This is when my eyes caught the jars filled with the once familiar Bapuji cakes in the tea shop just beside the grocery shop. I remembered how these little cubes of cake were once synonymous with tiffin snacks in my schooldays.

Kids born in the 80s and 90s are better familiar with Bapuji cakes. It still comes in the same intact packaging as I have always seen it- a square cube of cake neatly enveloped within a wax coated paper. The front bears the name ‘Bapuji’ in both Bengali and English inscribed in huge letters. It also sports a bold capital ‘R’ in red, indicating that you choose only an authentic Bapuji cake and be wary of fake ones that tarnish the famous cake brand.  When I check with my oldest Bapuji cake memories, I find that the packaging still continues to come in the same prosaic blue and yellow checkerboard design. This apparently understated yet immensely popular cake was a widely preferred option for a kid’s snack. When I was a kid, Bapuji cakes were a wholesome option at a pocket friendly price. It was always available at the cheapest rate compared to any other cake that was available in the market. I remember it being priced at Rs. 2.50 initially, which later increased little by little, when Bapuji had to keep up with its standards while struggling with the inflating market prices. Now I don’t know how much it costs, maybe around Rs. 8 or 10 I guess, as it has always been the cheapest available option among tiffin cakes.

So, how did this humble Bapuji cake fare in its taste reports (Pun intended)? Well, it was tasty and cheap enough for kids (and their moms) to religiously stick to it as an ideal snacking option when they couldn’t do any better. There were always some die hard Bapuji cake fans who wouldn’t settle for anything else, or at least have the cake as a complementary option along with some other snacks. I remember that I too was a regular with Bapuji cakes in middle school when I started taking tuitions after school hours. The cake had a brown caramelised top and the rest of it was yellow. It had a crumbly texture with a distinct taste, not the usual sugary sweet taste you get in most tiffin cakes. It was pleasantly sweet with a nutty flavour. I assume that the nutty flavour was imparted to it as the cake was loaded with peanuts. It also contained dark coloured chewy raisins, very less amounts of candied papayas and some delightfully large lumps of pethas! I have an attraction for these mushy, translucent white things called ‘pethas’ since my childhood. These sinfully sweet pethas are nothing but dried mounds of pumpkins loaded with sugar syrup. The sweet syrup spreads into your mouth as you chew up the mushy petha. Pethas are common in Indian made local brand cakes (at least in my city) and also in sweet shops. They are generously used by many moms and grandmas while baking cakes at home. You won’t find these in English cakes or at least in those popularly sold brands (Yeah, you know what I am talking about, at least for those who live in India) that decorate the shelves in shopping malls. For when I had a Bapuji cake, my moments of ecstasy would be when I would discover a piece of petha in it. I would cherish it and keep it for my last bite.

There was one more cake I remember which both my Didi and I loved. It was however not as popular as Bapuji was and I remember that it was available only for short period of time in the market. However, this was the best tiffin cake I had ever tasted and I still long for it. It had a name, something like ‘jam sandwich’. I was very small and used to go to playschool at that time. But this ‘jam sandwich’ or whatever it was called, stole my heart. I faintly remember its taste but I do remember that it was very tasty. It was smaller in size compared to Bapuji. It was a plain cake, in a flat rectangular shaped. The cake actually had two slices sandwiching a delicious spread of red jam in between them. I remember having it in my breaks at the playschool. Even Didi enjoyed it, although I don’t know if she remembers. By the time I was old enough for school, this cake vanished from the shops and I was left like a forlorn lover. I regret not even remembering the brand which manufactured it.

There was one more cake-dumping-me story, and thankfully I remember its name and taste as well. This was manufactured by Great Eastern Bakery and used to be available at the Mother Dairy outlets. I remember Baba (my father) buying them for me and Didi. This one was a fluffy cake, larger than Bapuji. I don’t remember it containing any fruit bits or nuts but it had an amazing essence. Its taste was something like bubble gum but it tasted marvellous. I remember myself getting hold of the white plastic covering that contained the cake. I would rupture the covering and gorge on mouthfuls of the yummy cake. Sadly, Great Eastern stopped manufacturing these after some time and once again my cake pleasures were nothing more than a joyous stint. I remember one more cake brand which earned my Didi’s admiration very much. It was called Farini. Though I hardly remember having Farini cakes, I remember that Didi used to gloat over it. At some time we used to eat cakes of a brand named Gemini, and it was tasty. It was not excellent, but its added flavours and artificial scents were somewhat better than the other cakes. I remember Didi comparing Gemini cakes with Farini. So I got an idea of what Farini cakes used to taste like.

Nowadays this niche of small tiffin cakes comes in myriad varieties. You get sliced cakes, cup cakes, cream-filled/ jam-filled centre cakes (doesn’t taste as good as it sounds), marble cakes, and a variety of flavoured tiffin cakes- fruit, chocolate, vanilla, pineapple, strawberry and what not! There are quirky innovations like two in one cakes, and the worst combination I came across was that of orange and chocolate. Sometimes I have been greatly displeased by buying a chocolate tiffin cake and finding candied fruits in them. They made the cake taste worse than Rum balls. However, I do agree that some of them are good. There is a brand named ‘winkies’ available nowadays and its cakes are not bad. Some time back I had a swissroll they make and I liked it.

But what happened to our beloved Bapuji and their likes? They had to make way for fancy junk foods that revolutionised the whole concept of snacks in the fast food genre. Over the last two decades while we grew up, there were chains of fast food outlets expanding, often crowding at places where kids and youngsters hang out. It isn’t that the cakes and other readymade snacks we had exactly topped the ranking on the nutrition list. Oh! And I forgot about instant noodles. It soon became a tiffin staple for many, even though its nutritious value and safety were always debatable by health experts. Our moms usually preferred that we eat home cooked meals in lunch breaks. But I still feel that the whole fast food trend that satiates our taste buds while endangering our health is a major hazard to deal with. The oily, fat ridden, junk foods can easily get the kids addicted as they undoubtedly have a lip-smacking taste. Anyway, I guess people are getting aware these days as these really plump kids afflicted with child obesity run a risk of getting a heart attack like a sixty year old man!

More importantly, I feel sad that we are forgetting to appreciate and be contented with small things in our life. This is the reason I feel is why we find the humble Bapuji cake adorning the jars of a roadside tea stall and it is unlikely that it would ever make a comeback in the lunchboxes. I am pretty assured; if I ask any child to have a Bapuji cake for snack, he would most likely baulk at the idea. Eternally, mothers always have had a hard time making their fussy kids eat their food (even my mom had to coax me immensely). But with the trend of the bar rising in unhealthy plus tasty combinations, moms face even a greater hurdle!

 

A fading delectable!

“Bug-ing” stories

A spider is a neutral option for both parties!

As you grow older, your wisdom grows supposedly. But there always exist some bugging problems that lie beyond the scope of your wisdom. You discover that there are bugging aspects of your life that can be dealt skilfully only by some expert (trust me when I say this).  Literally speaking, what bugs you should be taken seriously, and it is highly advisable that you form strategic alliances for the same.

My didi (elder sister) and I sort of shared a mutually symbiotic relationship when it came to bugs. She was (and still is) afraid of lizards and their kinds, while I was (and still am) phobic of crawling, wormy insects. So there are numerous instances where we would come in aid to one another when the dreaded bugs would imperil our lives. Lizards are not bugs, I admit it. But anyway, since lizards are creepy enough to disgust my sister, I put it under the bugs’ list for convenience. I remember her yelling and screaming when a furtive gecko would pop its head out from behind a tube-light on the wall. Sometimes the sinister creature would tease my didi by dangling its tail while being stationed on the wall. I had a feeling that these lizards kind of enjoyed while stoking panic in her heart. So what did I do when my sister started calling me for help? I rushed to her help and would employ the following strategies to shoo away the troublesome reptile:

PLAN A. = these sly lizards usually positioned themselves high up on the wall, much beyond my reach. When I was small, they were pretty far away from my reach. My plan A would be to clap and yell at the lizard to shoo it away. This would usually follow an episode of chasing the lizard across the walls of the room, while my sister would scream hysterically or simply vanish from the scene. Sometimes these lizards were too obstinate to leave the room and grin at me playfully while I kept on with my unsuccessful attempts. This is when I would adopt plan B.

PLAN B = I would arm myself with anything that was long enough to reach the pesky lizard. It would be anything ranging from a broom, rolled chart paper, clothes’ hangers or better still if I could get hold of a really long stick. I would bang my lethal weapon against the wall to scare the lizard away. This usually worked as a last resort, as the lizard would rush away trying to escape the bangs. My sister would give out a sigh of relief if the creature would escape out of the house. However, sometimes the lizard would run inside an electric socket or behind inaccessible hiding places (the tube lights were their favourites) and this would displease her immensely. A word of caution, in case you want to try out plan B. NEVER touch the lizard or bang on it with your banging weapon (whatever it might be). It often results the sloppy lizard to drop on the floor and it sheds its tail in the process (and I tell you it’s a very ungainly sight). It might also act as if it’s dead, and while you sink in remorse about unintentionally causing the death of an innocent lizard, the cheeky lizard might just run away!

My sister tried several things to keep away lizards from the house. She once heard that hanging egg shells on the walls keep lizards away. She applied the same without much success, as the lizards would rather amuse themselves with the shells. Once we got a gift of peacock feathers from my mom’s friend on our trip to Rajasthan. My didi was immensely delighted when my mom’s friend told her that peacock feathers are very effective in keeping away lizards. Back home I remember she displayed the peacock plumes like a hand fan on the wall of her room. It was effective for some days I remember. The lizards were confounded by the intimidating feathers initially, and I imagined that they would curiously peer at the feathers from their hiding places. But with time, I guess they got bold enough (or bored from missing out some adventure) to carry out their leisurely exploration across the walls. The feathers gathered dust and did not seem to scare the lizards any more.

Apart from lizards, my didi was a brave heart in facing all other sorts of bugs. This is when she came to my help when I performed my antics in the face of my horrid bug adversities. I dreaded wormy crawlers. My didi seized these instances to show her skills in coming up with solutions for those bugs that bugged me. The funny part (although this didn’t amuse me) about these wormy crawlers was that if they were touched by someone, they would roll themselves up like a ring. I guess it is their defence mechanism, and they tried to fool their rivals by acting dead. My didi was however filled with pity. She would carefully pick up the ringed crawler with a piece of paper (or sometimes even with her hands!) and gently throw it outside the window. She would later try to uplift my spirits by lecturing me about how these wormy crawlers were totally harmless and less disgusting (oh really?) than the loathsome lizards. I would remind her that I felt equally compassionate towards lizards and she would vehemently oppose my suggestion. Also, these creepy crawlers didn’t make her run about the house like the lizards did to me. When confronted, they would simply worm up into a ring (gross!). However, there was no way to keep away these crawlers from the house unlike lizards. So I counted on her in my moments of bugging distress.

Neither of us was scared of spiders but in my old house, there were some huge blooming spiders that hid themselves behind the sinks of the bathroom. I didn’t like the big spiders and strangely enough these creatures evoked pity in the heart of my magnanimous didi. I must elaborate why I felt so. When these spiders would breach our territories beyond the sinks, these things didn’t appear very nice at all. They would scurry over the floor and the walls with their eight legs, haplessly trying to figure out where they should be going. This would scare both me and my mom and we would start running about the house calling for help. If my father was not around, my didi would emerge as the hero in the melee. She would again apply her bug-management skills and capture the straddling spider. In her usual compassionate gesture she would bid farewell to the eight legged guy, tossing him outside the window, Touche! Once I remember didi cleaning the bathroom sink and suddenly calling out to our mom. My mom went to discover a huge spider planted itself on my didi’s vest. My didi unperturbed, seemed to be caressing the spider on her belly and asked mom to gently remove the spider so that it doesn’t get hurt.

It’s been over two years my didi got married. Recently one evening while she visited us, we revisited a streak of the lizard phobic episode we were once familiar with. Oddly enough in this house where I currently stay, the lizards are very peculiar. Peculiar in the sense that these tailed creatures almost, always run over the floor. Seldom have I ever caught one of these guys perched on the wall like lizards usually do. They would hide behind cupboards, the fridge or shoe rack- things that would touch the floor. So while we were chatting away on the sofa, a lizard streamed across the floor. It caught didi’s eyes and she screamed as usual. We pacified her, telling her these lizards are not that much of a nuisance (though both me and my mom have to clean up their poop trails on the floor everyday). To her relief, there was no other lizard running on the floor that day.

Anyway, I was always grateful to didi when she saved me from wormy crawlies. After she got married, the job was relegated to my dad. But for my didi this thing has got a little complicated. The reason is that both my didi and my brother in law are scared of lizards. So they have to take many precautions lest an unwelcome lizard enters their home!

My feeble science lab adventures: Part 1

I liked science in my schooldays as long as it was confined to learning from textbooks (without the arithmetical parts, of course). We had laboratory practical classes I guess, from the ninth standard. This was a time when your lessons started getting complex with hints of a dangerous exam approaching, referred by the name of 'secondary board examination'. In my case it was called ICSE. Anyway, since this one is dedicated to my science lab experiences, let’s move on with that.

Our chemistry lab in the school was in the first floor. It didn’t have too much of light coming inside, so the lab was dark and once you stepped inside, a familiar ‘chemically smell’ greeted your nostrils. It was something similar to that of a pharmacist’s shop unless there was a release of Hydrogen disulphide or Chlorine gas or its sorts, that would make you wish that you were carrying an oxygen mask. However, the chemistry lab was both a delighting and interesting place to visualise. There were rows of tables which contained wooden racks (or so I remember). The racks had many shelves which were decked with colourful chemicals in glass bottles. Each bottle had the name of the chemical it contained pasted on it. But one had to be careful. There were always some overzealous kids who would secretly mix one bottle with the other or sprinkle some chemical powder or salt in them. The result would be that the liquid inside the victimized bottle would mysteriously change its colour like a chameleon. So, you had to make sure that the apparently harmless chemical was exactly what it was named.

In the beginning classes of chemistry lab, we were first introduced to the several apparatuses that are used in the lab. By the time I appeared for ICSE, I only remembered some test tube, Bunsen burner, Litmus paper and common stuffs because we got busier with the chemicals and their reactions than the collection of apparatuses we learnt. It was cool at the beginning, at least for me. We had to sketch the apparatuses on our interleaf lab book. Needless to say that this was the perfect and only chance to display one’s artistic skills on the lab copy. What later followed was a series of mind boggling chemical reactions and jitters if you were not sure if the reaction went right or not. I used to get nervous when I wasn’t sure if I was able to correctly identify a salt or gas.

I remember that once I was struggling to identify a precipitate because I couldn’t see anything settling at the bottom of the test tube. I hurried to the teacher with a perplexed face to know where the precipitate disappeared. I still remember our teacher shaking the test tube in front of my nose and telling me that the cloudy appearance of the solution indicated that there was a precipitate. Precipitates are not always like sand settling at the bottom!

Then there were horrid times named ‘viva’. Once we had a 5 marks viva as a part of internal tests. It wasn’t usually so, because for internal tests we mostly had written tests or experiments. Anyway, it was a bad luck for most. The viva was being conducted in the lab itself. The teacher seemed to be amusing herself while most of us were fumbling with the answers. The questions were tough compared to our standard and so most of us were securing a perfect ‘anda’ (anda means egg in Indian colloquial, also used for indicating zero marks for obvious reasons!). When my turn arrived I was as good as dead. This viva and oral test stuffs were my nightmares. I resented these tests like anything. Firstly I would suffer in anticipation with sweaty palms till my turn arrived. Secondly when my turn did arrive I would pray that I don’t swoon while trying to answer. Many a times I would stutter while answering, out of anxiousness. In this case I was mentally prepared for a wholesome anda beside my roll number on the grade sheet. I stood close to the teacher and suspected that she could hear my heart throbbing like a wild horse (I was grateful that it didn’t pop out!). To my dismay she asked me a question to which I knew the answer. She asked me what is the gas used for the flame on cooking burners. I answered “LPG” right away. Some kids, especially the brilliant lot were disheartened. Many of them couldn’t answer their viva questions and reasoned that my question was too easy. Maybe it was, but I had a nice feeling after this unexpected success. Later what followed was pretty humorous, at least for my friends. While I chatted with them during lunch my friend suddenly asked me,

“Hey, do you know the full form of LPG?”

“Sure, I do. It’s Low Pressurized Gas!”

And that did it. My friends went ROFL. My cheeky pal gleefully told me that I was lucky the teacher didn’t ask me the full form of LPG. Otherwise I too was destined for an anda.

There used to be a mad flurry before the chemistry lab class. Kids who would forget their lab coats would be running across corridors, rummaging inside classrooms to see if anybody had one in other classes. Teachers were always perturbed by such annoyance but it didn’t stop the kids from forgetting. Some were so regular without their lab coats; I suspected they didn’t buy one for themselves. For me detention was equal to purging in hell. I really don’t remember forgetting my own lab coat. I was also quite possessive about mine. I wouldn’t hand it out to any naive junior or a gawky senior. I would only share with one or two of my bosom friends in case they forgot. This lab coat sharing also had an interesting thing about it. For many who had their admirers in other classes would confidently come to school without their lab coats. Some were pretty popular and had a string of admirers in almost every other class. So some girls (or boys) would like to carry their lab coats even on non lab days in prospects of an unlikely brushing of fingers while handing out the lab coat to their heartthrob seniors.

Anyway what would a lab (especially chemistry) be without lab accidents? There were dangers of getting your skin burnt by acids if you were not careful while handling them. Once, two of my friends had got mercury poisoning. Mercury is very poisonous and it is a danger if it penetrates the skin and enters the bloodstream. The lab reaction had yielded small silver mercury globules and they didn’t appear dangerous at all (to be honest they appeared very pretty to me! Lucky I didn’t touch them). My friends were okay later on and they are still alive. A common accident in the chemistry lab would be the cracking of a test tube. If you heated it too long and washed it immediately thereafter, you had to brace yourself for glass shards. Our lab assistant would check if we were returning the apparatuses properly after using them. Well, some were pretty cool and one wouldn’t mind popping them inside one’s pocket (if they could fit it) to keep it as a souvenir in their home!

After the tenth standard I chose humanities. So I bid farewell to science lab sessions. Many times my lab encounters were harrowing in case as I already mentioned- couldn’t figure out the reactions. Now these things amuse me but I used to freak out that time. This was my first part of lab experience series. There is more to come shortly, as soon as I remember more of “my feeble adventures”!

Thank you. You can leave your comments. Take care!  

To human (or god!) is to err, but I felt bad for Tithonus.

During school life, I was really appreciative of the syllabus we had for our literature subject. I still find the selection of stories, poems and drama in my secondary and higher secondary syllabus as excellent choices for studying. It’s not that I liked all of them, but I had many favourites among them and most of them were unique and thought provoking in their own manners. We had Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Tithonus in our tenth standard board exam syllabus. This one was based on a Greek legend and it captivated my heart like anything. The mythical story of Tithonus is like any other nice Greek fable of the Gods and Goddesses, and their eccentricities that are symbolic of human vices.  

The legend of Tithonus talks of a strong mortal warrior, the son of Laomedon, the king of troy. Tithonus can be imagined as the robust, brimming warrior with the (un)usual drop-dead gorgeous looks the Greeks are famed of. All in all, his youthful radiance and imposing demeanour was enough to make one goddess named Eos to fall in love with him. Now this Eos was a divine goddess; by Greek legend the goddess of dawn. The Roman counterpart of Eos is Aurora. Eos’s beauty has been described in many mythological verses. When I read Tithonus I imagined her to be a celestial goddess, whose eyes shone like the morning star and her head bore a crown of red wavy locks that streamed across her divine face. Since she was associated with twilight (as Greek legend talks of Eos being responsible for bringing dusk and dawn to the mortal world), I imagined that she must be dressed in a golden robe which gleamed like fire. Later I found that the Greek goddess also had a pair of angelic wings (nothing unusual for a divine maiden!). Coming back to Tithonus, Eos kind of kidnapped him from the mortal world to her celestial palace of the east. Some mention that Eos’s abode was in the west, but according to the poem her heavenly dwelling is in the eastern limit of the horizon.

Eos was more than elated to bring the handsome Tithonus to her divine realm. But soon she discovered the curse of mortality that looms over mankind. Even if Tithonus accompanied her in the eastern palace, he was still a mortal. It meant that Tithonus would age and die in due course of time like all mortals do. This was unacceptable to the lovelorn goddess, who was simply head over heels with Tithonus. The idea of losing him seemed like the most repulsive thought that had ever come across her mind. So what did Eos do? How could she protect him from the impending death that threatens the mortal man once he steps into the mortal world? Voila! She had an idea. An idea that would change Tithonus’s fate for forever. She planned to turn Tithonus into an immortal god and went begging to Zeus for the same. Zeus made it straight to her; a mortal cannot be transformed into a god, even if a goddess is in love with him. So Eos used her wits and asked for the boon of immortality for Tithonus. This Zeus however, granted. The original legend of Tithonus and Eos talks of Eos asking for immortality for Tithonus but Tennyson’s poem has Tithonus, who asked for immortality from Eos. Either way, what follows is a story filled with pathos about the life of Tithonus.

Taking the case of the poem, it is Tithonus who asks for immortality and as described by Tithonus; Eos granted him with immortality like ‘wealthy men’ who don’t care showering others with lavish gifts. The grave mistake that was made while asking for the boon of immortality is that Tithonus did not ask for eternal youth. He only asked for immortality. So while Tithonus and Eos made sure that Tithonus would never die, they could not stop him from ageing. Poor Tithonus grew old and older. The entire poem is a monologue by Tithonus where he laments and curses himself for this stupid boon that proved to be a painful curse. Tithonus describes himself as a ghostly shadow with white hair- the result when one defies the law of nature. His body cannot exist anymore; it is as well reduced to dust. Alas! He cannot die. The poem talks about the three daughters of Zeus- the sisters of fate, who are responsible for the mortal span of a man’s life. Tithonus deems these three ladies as diabolic as they can ever be- since a puny mortal like him dared to challenge their power.

Tithonus’s laments will sadden your heart. He is explicit with his jealousy and his own depressed state of mind as he cries out how fortunate are the mortal beings who follow the nature’s course to death. Tithonus begs Eos to set him free by letting him die. Eos herself cannot bear the sight of Tithonus suffering so much. She doesn’t reply and leaves every day with teary eyes to bring daylight to the mortal world. Her taciturn stance scares Tithonus. He had once heard on the mortal world that gods cannot recall their gifts- and he realizes that it might actually be true. The part of Tennyson’s verses that really saddened me was Tithonus’s helplessness when he could see himself growing old each passing day lying beside Eos, while the goddess had the divine privilege of rejuvenating her youth every new morning. This is also the part where I felt amused thinking that gods are lucky enough not having to apply anti-aging creams to hold onto their fleeting youth. Lucky them! They enjoy eternal youth (chuckle!).  But for Tithonus, he could only haplessly watch himself getting wasted and couldn’t help but witness “immortal age beside immortal youth”.

I feel bad for Tithonus. I really do. He can’t be blamed actually- fancy a mortal being courted by a goddess! I mean who could resist such a temptation? Later on Tithonus truly understands how arrogant he was when Eos fell in love with him during his pinnacle of youthful exuberance. Wooed by Eos he was on cloud nine (literally speaking, as he shared the celestial palace of the goddess) and considered himself nothing less than that of a god. According to the legend, Eos turns Tithonus into a cricket and he lived eternally. So Tithonus was relieved from the immortality curse, albeit turning into an insect.

Tennyson’s poem guided me into a deep insight. You see Tithonus is not uncommon in our daily lives. A person comes into this world and inevitably goes through the phases of infancy, childhood, adulthood and finally there comes a time when you start counting your days on this planet (unless you face an untimely death!). We are no less a Tithonus in our youth and during times of prosperity. This feeling of invincibility creeps into our psyche one time or the other. But there comes a time, either in the form of death or a stumbling fall when you realize how short-lived these apparent moments of glory are actually. You can get scared and even choose to freak out when you realize this. It kind of makes you feel doomed and cheated by this lustrous world of allurement. However I personally feel that these are opportunities to learn. Frankly, if you never know the worst you can never appreciate the best! Thank you Tennyson and Tithonus; for people like you some might get the message you are trying to throw at us. Also, not everything that seems like the end is necessarily so. Tithonus thought his reduced existence was a vicious suffering, maybe worst than hell. But when Eos turned him into a cricket, I am sure he enjoyed his life as an insignificant insect: hopping around the grasses and discovering the working of nature. If Tithonus didn’t live a life of plummeting glory, he wouldn’t have understood the serenity of the life of an anonymous insect.

Pardon me if you found this post to be a bit philosophical. My purpose of this blog series is to vent out some parts of my life and its understanding, and not necessarily meant to give cognizable and conforming facts which appeals the intellect. You see, I believe humans are driven more by emotions, likes and dislikes than by popular concepts of logic and propriety. Being one among the seven billion 'emotional' humans, I just created a series of my random musings. In short I want to create something fun and different.

Thank you if you read through the whole of it. Some may have already read Tennyson’s Tithonus. For those who didn’t, check it out sometime. It might evoke different feelings in you.

You can leave your comments. Next post coming soon! Take care.

Eos chasing Tithonus- a painting on a vessel.
I am sure if Tithonus saw this he would wish
that she never caught him!

The dance of squirrels!

Squirrels have always fascinated me, right from the time I was a little girl. Despite living in a city, I have been fortunate enough to be at places where my eyes have caught these cute little creatures scurrying over walls, trees and anywhere they can fit their little bodies. Today morning while I glanced out of my window, I saw a little palm sized squirrel running over the asbestos rooftop of my neighbouring house. My eyes were fixed on it as it twirled and hurried all over the place with its bushy tail.

I reminisced of my school days' memories while staring at the little creature . I remember that when I was in the third standard, I would long to sit at the last bench of the classroom ( though the last bench was loathed by most because it used to be a dark corner and you could hardly see the board; and worst still- the teachers had a knack of asking questions to the last benchers!). This classroom was a bit different. Luckily, there were large windows at the end of the classroom and the last benches were pleasant and not dark and intimidating. The attraction of the last bench was that the window looked outside to a beautiful Gulmohar tree. During recess after I had eaten my tiffin, I would stand beside the window and glance at the huge tree. Its little leaves danced with the wind and the golden Gulmohar flowers swayed gently. My eyes however searched for something else. My joy knew no bounds when I was lucky to see one or more tiny squirrels running up and down the branches of the tree! I was intrigued while my eyes followed their intricate movements and I was overwhelmed each time the squirrels would run really close to the window so that I could almost touch them.

We had to change our seats every week so that everyone gets to sit in the best and the worst seats of the classroom. I never liked the last benches, and was a meek and obedient sort who would prefer to sit within the teacher's reach and diligently follow the lessons. However, this case was different in the third standard. My little heart filled up with delight on the weeks when I could sit at the last bench. I would quickly catch a glance of the magnificent Gulmohar tree in between lessons. My delight was at its height when a substitute teacher would come in place of an absent teacher and ask us not to talk and put our heads down on the desk, so that she was not bothered by our nuisance. The substitute teachers thought this was a brilliant plan to keep us from making noise; which actually backfired a little later with the rising decibel of our suppressed giggles and chats. Anyway, at these times I would put my head down and hide my face with my hands. I would slowly turn my head and peep at the tree. There was something enchanting about the dancing leaves of the Gulmohar tree. My eyes filled with wonder as I stared at the Gulmohar petals and leaves sprinkling from its branches with every gust of wind. I would be totally ecstatic if I could see a squirrel at these moments.

Later, I think when I was in the fourth or fifth standard, I came across a mythological story of how the squirrel got its stripes. The legend describes that the squirrel had helped Lord Rama when he was building the bridge to Lanka with his army of monkeys. The tiny squirrel was no match to the strength of the monkeys who could do a way lot more than the squirrel. However, Lord Rama was so pleased with the Squirrel's devotion and eagerness to help, that he stroke the squirrel's back compassionately with his fingers and this left the indelible triple stripes that we see on the backs of squirrels. Recently, maybe a year or two before, I came across a very interesting fact about squirrels. These little guys behave pretty much like lizards (thank god they are not as yucky as lizards) for self defence. If you try catching a squirrel by its tail, it would simply drop it like a lizard! Imagine yourself trying to catch a cute little squirrel, and in case you grab its tail, the mischievous creature will leave its tail in your hands and run away.

If you ever watch a squirrel, you will be amused by how these guys communicate. I have caught squirrels calling out to their partners in a funny gesture. The little fellow would lift up its head and let out a sound which is somewhat similar to a bird's chirping. And while doing so it would rhythmically swing its fluffy tail up and down with the chirps. They continue it for some time and then would disappear among the leaves. They often chase each other and play around. You can't help but watch them in fun while they twirl around the tree barks, while their tails swivel gleefully.

Today as I watched the little squirrel from my window, my mind went digging about squirrel facts. I was reminded of some discrete pleasant memories that made me feel happy. And as I recollected the memory of my third standard, I discovered in surprise that there is also a Gulmohar tree visible from my window. As I adored the tree feeling nostalgic, its dancing leaves and the bunches of hanging Gulmohar flowers communicated an intimate feeling which I could feel in my heart.