Editor’s Page

I believe that the finest of the human race is distilled in its children. The sheer pleasure that young ones bring is
amazing in its recurrence and simplicity. Their happiness is infectious and revelatory. Very simple things excite them
& were you to let your emotions ride on theirs, like pollen on a dizzy bee, you would find the least effort expended in
being happy – a yellow balloon, candy puff, a clown, a school of pigeons through which you can run with arms spread
out, a spinning shriek called a merry-go-round ride, a mildly crushing bear hug and finally a walk into the sunset, atop
a dear someone’s shoulders. Simple wants translate into peels of laughter and grand tales, spun from the merry air
dotted with wide-mouthed kids, their face resting on their palms. Their innocent questions (like in the poem A Child
Asks…) and statements make me realise how far from a blissful life I am. The simple joys that I earnestly yearn are
easily found in the company of these tiny tots for they are the untainted source of what is truly fine.
Recently, a Sunday caught me playing with a girl of four. I was initially reluctant, as I was engrossed in writing an
article for this issue! But large, moist eyes framed in a cute pig-tailed cherubic face can destroy the most sternly
resolved mind! I enjoyed my morning and noon with her & I was reeling out story after story about what an elephant
(which was visiting a nearby temple) was saying (while it kept lifting its trunk) and how it misses its family, how
helicopters fly, how mosquitoes are dangerous dragons who will grow big and eat up naughty kids. We were playing
all sorts of games & running around the house. I realised how easily I got tired, but happiness unlocks energy which is
not available otherwise. After a while I decided to put her to sleep. Whether she needed it or not, I definitely did.
While telling her another story & insisting she close her eyes and try to sleep, she smiled slowly. I asked – what
happened? – and she replied, “Will you marry me?” I was taken aback for a second but feigned a quick recovery. I
replied, “Sure, why not? But what do you plan to do after getting married?” And she gave me a quizzical look with a
smile and said, “You can tell me stories and play with me and then we will eat mummoo (kid-talk for food)
&…&…& you can tell me a story and put me to sleep.” I was so moved that I gave her a quick hug and kissed her on
her button nose. On serious reflection, what more do I need? A good involved conversation, lots of fun & excitement,
time shared with dear ones and finally getting to sleep with a smile!
I met her after several months and after some time together I asked her, “So, when are we getting married?” She
looked at me with a puzzled expression. I continued, “Remember? You asked me to marry you?” She lowered her
gaze and smiled shyly. “No, I have to go to school first & … you are very old for me.” I burst out laughing & realised
that she was growing up, and would soon stop being a child.
This issue of Alvibest is mostly dedicated to children, growth and innocence.
I enjoy it when my colleague, in the office, calls me over for a quick tea so that she can tell me her son’s recent antics.
A blogger sent me a picture of her son with his head covered with a bucket. “Can things get cuter than this?” she
asked me. My sister fires a volley of pictures of her son in cute poses. My friend insists on showing me pictures of her
daughter in every new dress she gets (from every angle!). It seems that the happiest pieces of life have a child
associated with them; maybe it’s the child in that person. My mother flips through old albums and sighs. She turns
around and tells me, “You were so cute as a child”, and, straightening herself, she continues, “Now look at you.
Sheesh!”
14th of Nov. is Children’s Day in India. It marks Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday. He was very fond of children. Back in
school we’d get toffees and a pat on our head; kept us happy then and the memories keep me happy now.
In this issue, we introduce a few columns, including one which provides us with translation of a renowned work in
Tamil literature and a column about a particular writer/artist. The poem Autumn Leaves comes with an interesting
metre of aaBcc, which I have never seen before and there are a few nonfiction pieces which should serve as joyous
reading. Raju shares with us his experience of reading the very interesting Through The Looking Glass. An
Ephemeral Life reveals the ways of men even in the times of great distress and a child’s waning innocence. The article
about Eliminating Competition In The Formative Years might provide some insight to parents as well as teachers.
Joan C Urquhart’s monoprint is a very interesting art work which we have included in this issue.
Included at the end are submission guidelines. We would be very interested in reading your work and including them.
Readers, who are interested in contributing time and effort in reviewing submissions, working on the design (we thank
all the little ones, esp. Emma, who helped in the making of this issue’s cover design) and layout of the magazine as
well as the logistics, are welcome to write to editor.alvibest@gmail.com. Suggestions and ideas are welcome at
feedback.alvibest@gmail.com. We hope you enjoy this experience and join us on this journey. Happy reading.
THANK YOU! 4

A “CHILD” ASKS… 5

WHEN WE DANCED... 7

AN EPHEMERAL WORLD 10

WRITER OF THE ISSUE: SHELDON ALLAN “SHEL” SILVERSTEIN 20

WHISPERS IN THE CLOUDS 22

TRANSLATION: GEMS OF TAMIL LITERATURE 23

TRYING TO WRITE NONFICTION 27

OMBRALITÀ / SHADOWINESS 29

ELIMINATING COMPETITION IN THE FORMATIVE YEARS 30

WHO’S LOVE? 35

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS BY LEWIS CARROLL 38

CONFESSIONS OF A BAD MOTHER 45

AUTUMN LEAVES 46

ART OF WRITING: TELLING VERSUS SHOWING 48

POINT-COUNTERPOINT 52

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 54
 Artwork

Thank You!
 Poetry

A “Child” Asks…

Aditya

I think I'll grow,

When I get to know,
What the answer is,
To the questions I ask.

They are but five;

Not wise not high.
And counting is easy,
From thumb to pinky.

Why do I study planets,

Of world so far ‘n comets?
Do you know that planetarium,
Was a playground, blithesome?

Why need dollars ‘n sterling?

Isn't it all confusing?
When, what they need is the same,
In Bombay or in Brisbane.

Why look up a telescope?

Or deep down a microscope?
When we miss what is straight ahead,
Cottony blue o'er a green bed.
 Why do we have marriages?
And then.... why divorces?
No laws – but I love my mommy.
No laws – and my mommy loves me.

Why longer life, do we need?

Are they better days we'll meet?
More ice-cream? Or a week with five Sundays?
What good, if it’s the same, ending anyways?

Let me ask one more

Please don't say no!
If I should grow, then why -
Follow, and not probe ‘n pry?

When We Danced...
Avuncular pleasures are few but, aah! such
pleasure be they, that any more and
hedonism would be redefined. Recently my
sister and her four-month old son visited us
and then stayed with us for a few months.
Amongst the many things we – my nephew
and I – did, there is this one ritual which grew
to be very dear to me. Before I get into that, I
would need to detail certain things which
facilitated the birth of this activity!
My sister loves to sleep, so much that we
were worried that she might go into labour
while she was asleep. She stays awake till
way after I have fallen asleep and stays
asleep for many hours following my diurnal
rise. We haven’t noted a single day which
serves as an exception.
My mother likes to get all her work – prayers,
cooking, cleaning, chores, etc. – done in the
morning. No, she doesn’t have her dinner
then, but a significant portion of her work gets
completed by 11:00 a.m. And while she says
her prayers she will not touch certain “things”,
which includes babies.
My nephew, for reasons unknown, is a lot like
me in his schedule. He rises early, goes to
bed early (well, if you skip the occasional
going-to-bed game of his), must have his
food on time and burps exactly 48 seconds
after his last mouthful. He is good, I must say,
for one tends to morph flaws into benign
goodness with the able hands of sophistry.
Nonfiction
Anand Krishnaswamy
With all the characters set, and it is a fine
feeling of a theatre director that I have now,
we shall now study the ritual. I really wouldn’t
want to call it that (and I have no clue what
my nephew wants to call it) but for the lack of
a better word. So ritual it shall be. We
designed various rituals and regularly
changed their forms to introduce variety for
him, but this one was serendipitous.
It all began one deceptively common day with
his cries, gurgles, and finally a bear hug
which thrilled him more than the noisiest toys
in his kitty. My sister dreamily handed him
over to me. I took him out asking him about
the weather and what he thought about the
recent evacuation initiative in the Gaza Strip.
He stuck his tongue out for both. We really
need news reporters like our man here. I
walked him up and down the length of our
house discussing a variety of things and
pausing to obtain his expert expression on
them. Soon he got bored, which I believe has
little to with me or my conversations but with
his sense of time; matters of the world can
occupy only thirty minutes of his morning.
I decided to strap him to the car-seat, which
is basically a basket-like contraption to house
a baby, and, when babies are unavailable,
can contain washed socks and sundry. He
demanded some entertainment. Rattles and
soft toys and spinning tops and musical ones
were brought out one after another and were
operated, sometimes, simultaneously. He
sulked at the little bouncing toy, which
repeated its trick of the past few days and
then looked up at me. I took him off his
basket and he was excited about what was
due in the next few minutes of which I surely
had no clue.
I walked him up and down the house again,
until I reached the audio-visuals room, which
is nothing more than the room, which houses
all appliances that make usually pleasant
controllable noises. With him wriggling on
one arm, I picked the DVD with the widest
choice of songs and pushed it into the player.
Out came a “Long, long time ago, I can still
remember” in Don McLean’s voice! Our man
straightened his neck and – thank god –
stopped squirming. He looked all around him
and then again at my mouth. I kept it pursed
with a “guess-what” smile. He looked up into
my eyes with his head still unsteady on a
rock-n-roll neck. When the guitars picked
pace, our man smiled. Hmmm. This was
interesting. Then I turned him to face the
player with all its coloured bands flaring up
and falling to the beat. When I turned around,
he quickly spun on a still supple axis and kept
looking at the rainbow band singing in a
man’s voice with some nice guitar tracks.
I slowly started swaying him to the music and
he shrieked with joy. It was such a delightful
reaction from him in the morning. His laughter
and such shrieks are pretty much the only
things that make the mundane task of
babysitting a shade better. He loved it when I
sang the “Bye, bye, Miss American Pie”
blowing some air in his hair on the “bye” and
“pie”. Slowly the dancing got a little bit more
like Volkstanz and he was delighted when I
spun him around my no-longer-supple axis!
His shrieks transformed into “Encore” and he
kept pumping his fists!! The song changed to
“Summer of 69” and the young rocker was
busy head banging – well, not really, but kept
moving himself back and forth by pushing
against my chest. To a more mellow “Annie’s
song” and “When you say nothing at all” he
glided well on the “floor” and enjoyed the
slow dance.
I was tired sooner than the 4th or 5th song
started and I sat on the cane hammock. I
made him sit on my lap with his back well
cushioned on my stomach. We began
swinging to the Tamil number “Thoda Thoda
malarnthathenna” from the movie Indira.
Soon he was sleeping like, well, a baby.
This was just the first day and I happily
shared this with my sister who was excited to
know that her son had an ear for music. My
mom had watched some portions of the
various dances we had performed in the
room and was happy without much reason!
My sister started envisioning the days when
he would learn music and croon like Kishore
Kumar and funny scenes of him serenading
to women, who for all practical purposes
weren’t born at that point of time. He was
busy sitting in his basket making spit bubbles.
The next day was to herald similar fare until
he grabbed hold of my jaw with both his
hands. I rubbed a really fast swivelling nose
against his and after his laughter subsided he
held on to my jaw. I looked at him through
narrowed eyes and then let a smile grow with
the beat of “Pudhu Vellai Mazhai” from Roja. I
shut the door and slowly started humming the
tune to him. I placed his head against my
chest so that he could feel the vibrations.
Humming turned to singing and singing
turned into a full song with instrumental
interludes mouthed to something quite distant
from the real note of the instrument. We
swayed together and I held him aloft while
trying to impress upon him the beauty of
some lyrics. Then we were back in the cane
basket, the one that held adults and now,
held the bond that had grown between us,
and swung around till he fell asleep.
The following days let him hear other songs
and now he could clearly specify which songs
he liked; he basically reached out to the
music system. If he didn’t like a song, he
would look vacantly at me and slowly frown. I
would change the song. His all time
favourites were “American Pie”, “Annie’s
song”, “Bantureethi Kolu”, “Vaseegara”,
“Hungama hai kyoon barpa” and some
others, which I have forgotten.
Soon he started making sounds to match
what he heard. It was difficult to believe that a
child so young would do that. He would try to
sing, or so it appeared. We would put him in
his basket and then place him in front of the
TV. In the mornings, some channels
broadcast Carnatic music and we would let
that play to him. He would listen with rapt
attention and then draw in his breath. He
would let it out with what seemed like a cry
but turned out to be an accompaniment to the
piece being played on TV. I even recorded a
few of his recitals. Very interesting.
After he left, I haven’t played that disc again.
Nothing sentimental, but merely didn’t find
enough drive to play it. Maybe I needed
someone to dance with me. Maybe I needed
him around. Those were fun days when he
danced like a baby possessed by the most
cherubic and frivolous devils, though I am
sure he would deny all of this once he grows
up; like how I deny that the reasons aren’t
sentimental!

An Ephemeral World
Morning came as moist slaps on his buttocks.
He woke up with a start and through the
threads of early morning slime in his eyes he
searched the sea for signs. He stared at the
expanse of undulating gray. Over the past
few days he looked at the sea as one does a
wife caught red-handed in adultery. He had
always turned his gaze on the waves as a
farmer might look at his patch of earth; she
was his playground, his tilling ground and
now she was a graveyard but not as dead as
one. Another lusty tongue of brine reached
under his towel to lick him. With a recently
learned panic he moved back, using his
hands to drag him away from the cool infinity
that had devoured most of his village and all
of his respect for Her; where there is fear,
respect is contrived.
His wife woke up to the hasty rustling of his
retreat and looked around while calling out,
“Hari... Hari... kanna Hari...”. Muthu crawled
over to her and turned her frightened face
towards his. She continued, “Hari’s appa,
where is Hari? Is he back? He must be
hungry.”
“Shush dear, shush”, he replied and hugged
her. He rubbed her arms with his sand-
covered palms, a roughness unlike what fate
had dealt them with the smoothness of water.
When she stopped shaking he consoled her,
“Lalli, Hari is happy and peaceful.” She
looked up at him wanting to question peace
in drowning but her tears distorted her face
and choked her. She continued sobbing and
beat her head on his chest. He looked
skyward hoping that the tears wouldn’t rise
Fiction
Anand Krishnaswamy
but eddy back into his throat. He searched
every cloud for something that resembled
chubby cheeks and a toothy smile, maybe a
cloud that moved as fast as Hari used to
between the coconut palms. He looked out
into the sea and hoped that at least the sea
would be kind enough to assure them that
Hari was fine, but she kept shining in the
sunlight and throwing up froth.
He turned to look at Renu who was lying in
the cool shade of a young palm tree. Dancing
coins of sunlight on her delicate ten-year-old
feet seemed to tickle her in her sleep and
made her giggle. Lalitha leaned over Muthu’s
shoulder to look at their daughter laughing in
her sleep. They had woken to many days
with those jingling giggles and he was glad
that some things were still left untouched by
the recent calamity. His wife wiped her tears
on the edge of her saree and walked over to
Renu. Suddenly she threw sand on her and
started beating her on her back and head.
“Laugh, will you? Tell me. Laugh, will you?”
Renu woke up crying and shouting with
surprise at being woken up thus.
“Amma, please don’t. Amma, stop it, please.
Amma, help me”, Renu cried, trying to
escape her mother’s blows. Muthu winced at
hearing her instinctively call out to her mother
to save her from her mother’s beating!
“Why didn’t you die? What use are you?
Laughing like a jackal. Laugh, will you?”
“Amma, please ma.”
“You should have died. You should have
drowned instead of Hari, you wretched
burden.”
“Amma please don’t hit me. Ayyo”, Renu
shrieked and all the birds flew off the nearby
trees. Finally, Muthu decided to intervene.
“Enough Lalli. Now, go get some wood. I said
enough”, and he threw her away from his
daughter. Renu rushed to hug her father
trying to hide behind him while carefully
watching her mother’s next move.
Lalitha stared at him and then at her daughter
before she spat on the ground and left to pick
the firewood from the damp groves on the
other side of the road. Renu was still sobbing,
her frail body beating involuntarily against
Muthu’s ribs. When she saw her mother
cross the road she said, “Appa, I won’t be a
burden. I will help. Please, don’t pray that I
should drown. I was only dreaming of how
you and Hari used to tickle me and...”, she
started sobbing.
Muthu pulled her closer and wondered
whether things would be normal again. He
ran his hand through her hair. He noticed that
the back of her dress was mostly ripped
apart. She would have to manage with this till
the hut was ready and some utensils were
purchased. It was good that she wasn’t a
woman yet. He slowly pushed her away and
asked her to go back to sleep. She shook her
head and sat leaning against the palm tree.
Muthu stood up to explore the beach around
him. Many people were sleeping in the open.
Those who had muscle and some money
managed to get a place in the tents that the
people from the city were putting up. He had
to go there today as one of the officers had
promised him one for his family. He had to
get some food too. The best option was to
get firewood before others did. If all the
firewood was with him then someone would
bring their food over to cook and he could
barter some wood for a handful of rice or
some fish. He had to be careful too and not
deny Babu’s men the firewood. Rumour had
it that Krishna, who was also bartering
firewood, had not met with an accident on the
day after he refused Babu’s men some
firewood. It was difficult to trust anyone
nowadays.
Muthu collected the dried palm mats that he
had made for his family and rolled it securely.
He had to place it on top of a tree such that
no one would notice it. He placed it high up
and asked Renu to keep watch. Dry palm
leaves were a scarcity too. If Renu spotted
someone climbing the tree, all she had to do
was shout and Muthu had enough time to
rush over and grab the thief. From his perch
he saw Renu looking up and he was quickly
aware of his minimal clothing. She will
become a woman soon, he thought to himself
and descended.
“You stay here and keep an eye on the mat.
If you see someone even look up at it, call
out to me. Ok?”
“I will fight him and scare him away.”
Muthu smacked her on her head and said,
“Just call out to me.”
From within the folds of his towel he brought
out his partly smoked beedi (a thin, country
cigarette) and licked an end of it. He needed
to smoke but didn’t want to exhaust this one.
Maybe he could ask some of the city people
who came in those vans for a beedi. After all
they were here to help them.
While walking towards the water for his
morning ablutions, Muthu met Nelson. Muthu
and Nelson nodded at each other and were
about to cross ways when Nelson stopped
and asked, “Muthu, how is Hari’s mother
today?”
It was common custom to assume that
tragedy only hits the womenfolk.
“She is better but without the food and a girl
to bring up, it is difficult.”
They paused looking out towards the sea.
“Maybe you and your family could go to the
camp they set up yesterday near the church.
I know Father Pereira to be a kind man and
he would welcome your family.”
He paused a little before continuing.
“They also give some free food twice a day.”
“Really? Is there enough for the three of us?
When do they feed us? No money at all?”
Nelson nodded and shook his head
appropriately.
“Will they take our women away?”
“Muthu, are you mad? This camp is with the
church. All the good Christians from the city
have come to help us. Why would they do
something like that? Father Pereira is a nice
man. He is god fearing and knows the true
message of the god.”
Muthu had no time for religion nor was he
interested in the character of people as long
as he got to eat something. Even if they
asked him to clean the toilets near the church
he was willing to do so. He turned around
and was about to go when he stopped and
turned back to Nelson who had already
squatted near the water front.
“Nelson, you haven’t told others have you?”
“Umm. No. They set up the camps only
yesterday.”
“Thanks. No need to tell others. We are
friends and have always gone out fishing
together, so you told me. Ok? No need to tell
others. How is Anjalai’s mother?”
Nelson nodded his head and Muthu, after an
uncomfortable moment, turned around and
ran towards where his daughter was.
“Renu, go wipe your face. Let’s go and get
amma and leave for the church.”
“What happened, appa?”
Muthu was already climbing the tree to
retrieve his mat. He threw a twig and a few
leaves that he caught in his fist at Renu.
“You cur, do you have to ask so many
questions? We are going to the church
because they are giving us food.”
He jumped from the tree with the mat. He
scowled as he landed and got up with a limp
and grabbed Renu’s hand as they headed in
the direction in which Lalitha had gone.
“Free? They are giving us free food?”
“Yes, now keep running.”
Renu suddenly stopped in her tracks and
Muthu ran a few steps before realising that.
“What is it you wretched girl? Why can’t you
hurry?”
“You are going to sell me off to someone
there? Why would someone give free food? I
know, you and amma are going to sell me off.
Please appa, don’t do that. I won’t be a
burden. I won’t complain for food”, Renu
pleaded and took a step backwards.
Muthu pulled in a deep breath and shook his
head.
“I will never let you go. You are my child.
Amma only spoke in anger in the morning.
She misses Hari and she is confused. All
three of us stay together unless the sea
swells again”, he said and looked towards the
sea.
Renu turned around and looked at the sea as
if worried that the sea would return to correct
its mistake of taking the wrong child. She
walked a few steps towards her father without
taking her eyes off the sea and then she
turned around and stopped.
“Truth?”
“Truth”
Renu ran towards her father and then they
both started running towards the groves.
They found Lalitha collecting some wood and
tying them together with strands torn from her
saree.
“Lalli, let’s go. Leave the wood here.”
She looked up startled at the mat and the girl
barely able to run apace with her father.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Near the church. They are giving free food.”
“What? Why would they do that?”
Muthu went and grabbed her hand and then
let it go. He bent down to untie the wood and
took the strands together and used them to
tie his mat.
“Some people have come from the city and
have set up a new camp near the church.
They are offering food to everyone out there.
We need to rush before the supply is over
and before they change their mind.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her along.
He made sure that mother and daughter were
on either side of him. Renu had already been
careful about that.
They ran towards the church and reached
there only to notice that many people from
the village had already queued up before
them. He looked around and felt the bile rise.
“Damn greedy fellows. They have reached
here before us. Lalli, you try to edge nearer to
the supplies and tell them all kinds of
woman’s problems that you are facing. I will
go through the other queue. Renu, come with
me.” Lalitha ran half the distance and then
slowed down to a walk as if she were
suffering from something that makes one limp
and bend over. Muthu watched her
performance and wondered “How many times
has she done these things with me?” but he
realised that now wasn’t the time to worry
about such extrapolations. He practically
dragged Renu down the mud path and
reached the line outside one of the tents.
He tried to join ahead in the queue but people
shouted at him and pushed him back. He
tried to fight back, but there were too many
people. He stood quietly in the queue. Ahead
of him was the grand old man amongst
fishermen, Nachchu. Muthu gave him a slight
bow and stood behind him. Nachchu had
become an outcaste amongst the fisher folk.
He had not lived up to the tradition of passing
on tales of the seas and other pieces of
wisdom. He should have known how to read
the skies and the waves and predict the swell
of the tide. Everyone thought he had not
served his role. Nachchu turned around to
look at Muthu, but Muthu looked away.
Nachchu waited long enough for Muthu to
look at him but returned to facing the head
ahead of him. Muthu scowled at the back of
Nachchu’s head.
“You too think I should be dead, Muthu?”
Muthu was taken aback and managed to
mutter something.
“Unnh? I didn’t hear. You too want me dead,
right?” Nachchu asked again now turning
around and facing Muthu.
Muthu looked him straight in his eyes and
then saw the queue move before returning to
Nachchu’s unwavering gaze.
“What is the point growing so old and not
being of any use, ayya?”
“I wanted to be and I still want to be, but that
sea can never always be understood. In my
70 years around here I have never seen her
behave like that. My father never told me
stories of her swelling so destructively. How
can I know everything?”
Muthu softened and placed an arm on his
shoulder.
“At least you could have saved some children
and not hurried to save your life”, said the
person who was standing ahead of Nachchu.
Muthu and Nachchu stared at him.
“What else do you expect me to say? Anil
was just ten feet away from you and you
could have swam up to him and saved him.
But you wanted to save your dirty old life.”
Muthu removed his hand from Nachchu’s
shoulder. Nachchu turned around to look at
Muthu.
“Muthu?” Nachchu looked into Muthu’s eyes
before continuing, “Had I swam then we both
would have died. There was no way I could
save anybody. The best way was not to come
in their way.”
Muthu looked away and said, “You could
have tried, ayya.”
Nachchu kept looking into Muthu’s eyes
hoping to see something human in them.
“Ok. Then I will not come in your way too.”
Nachchu left the queue and walked away.
Muthu wanted to call out to him and ask him
to forget things but before he could do that
the man standing in front of him said, “Serves
that old wastage right” and other people
around him murmured their assent. Muthu
realised that they might be right and let
Nachchu walk away. The man in front of him
spat on the mud and turned to Muthu.
“When are you getting converted?”
“What?” asked Muthu and realised that Renu
was not with him. He stretched on his toes
looking around and found her nowhere.
“They are going to convert you, right? I was
asking you when your ceremony is.”
“Convert? Convert me to what?”
“Christianity? Why do you think they set up
this camp here? They have come to spread
the message of their god and they...”
“But I don’t want to convert.”
“Shush, don’t tell them that before they give
you the food. And how does it matter whether
you are Hindu or Christian? You need food
and a hut. Karthik mama in the temple is not
giving you any so you might as well convert
to Christianity or anything.”
“What do they do in a conversion?”
“I don’t know. I told them I would get
converted on Sunday. Seems a good day for
them. You can tell them the same thing.”
“But Nelson told me...”
“Oh! Nelson was the one who sent you
here?” he smiled. “He has sent a lot of people
out here and such hunters are promised food
and a hut in exchange. He seems to be doing
a good job.”
“Nelson didn’t tell anyone else. Only me.”
“How do you think so many people got here?
Nelson and other ...”, he looked around
before he decided not to use the word which
swayed treacherously on the tip of his tongue
and said, “other Christians have been sent
out to bring in the sheep. But how does it
matter? We are being fed.”
“But won’t the goddess be angry that you did
this?”
“The goddess can feel anything. She didn’t
protect my son nor is she giving me any food”
he paused before continuing, “No god exists.
Everyone, even these people from the city”
he paused to move ahead with the queue,
“these sweet talking people are all here for a
goal. Do you think they would care if we tell
them that we don’t want to convert? They
would simply stop feeding us and give some
silly reasoning for that. Trust me. Play along
and stay alive.”
Muthu was silent. Would Lalli agree to this?
Where was she? Where is Renu? Was this
man speaking the truth? Why did Nelson lie
to him? He was hesitating wasn’t he? Why do
they want to convert us? What else would we
have to do? Will they take our women away?
He kept mulling over these and more while
waiting his turn. He prepared himself for any
kind of question that they might have to ask.
When the man ahead of him started
collecting the food parcels they asked him,
“So when are you planning to move closer to
the Holy God and live in his grace and
kindness?”
“What?”
They lowered their voice, “When are you
going to church for the ceremony?”
“Oh! That. This Sunday.”
They were not convinced, but put on a smile
and said, “Jesus is great and kind. He will rid
you of all your worries and pains and give
you a pleasant life. Only if you realise the
truth and follow him.”
He smiled at them and nodded his head
before turning to leave. He looked at Muthu
and said, “Remember what I said.” He left the
place hiding the parcels under his shirt.
“Dear Child, you seem to be troubled and
have lost a lot. Was it your child? Your wife? I
am sure your hut doesn’t stand anymore. We
are all sorry for you.”
Muthu nodded his head and couldn’t take his
eyes off the curd-rice bowls and fish curry.
“Jesus hears you and wants to make you feel
better. He will take care of whomsoever you
have lost. You must believe in Jesus and
follow his way.”
“Yes, I will.”
Lalitha arrived just then.
“Hari’s appa they say they are going to make
us Christians. What is all this?”
“Shush, Lalli.” He smiled at the nuns behind
the counter. “They are nice people and their
god... our god is here to help us.”
“But what about our goddess? No, we can’t
sin like this.”
The nuns behind the counter stiffened.
“You must speak to our Father Pereira and
discuss this with him. You are keeping others
away from the gift of god.” And she raised her
eyebrows towards the ever growing queue
behind them.
“No, no. My wife is not in her senses. She
has lost her son and is hysterical. We are
sure that we want to convert. Please don’t
listen to her.”
The nuns gave him a smug grin and covered
the large bowls of food.
“I think you should talk to Father Pereira first.
He will help you find your true spirit and guide
you towards the grace of god.”
Muthu realised that all was lost. He glared at
his wife who still didn’t understand how her
husband could betray their goddess. He
smacked her on her head and left the line.
Suddenly, he turned around, dropped his
mat, ran towards the counter and scooped
large quantities of curd-rice in his hands and
ran away with his wife following him. People
shouted from all directions but none left the
queue. The policemen standing nearby
couldn’t break the queue quick enough to
chase them.
When Muthu reached a safe place he sat
down under a tree. He offered Lalitha one
handful of rice and started eating from the
other hand.
“What about Renu?”
Muthu then realised that his daughter was
missing for a long time.
“Keep some for her in your saree and don’t
let anyone see it or even smell it.”
He started scraping the rice, which stuck to
his chest while on the run and licked them off
his fingers.
“It has been a long time since we had proper
food.”
Lalitha was busy gulping down her share.
Muthu suddenly started hitting her and
shouted at her.
“Who asked you to open your mouth? Do you
think I wanted to convert? We could have at
least taken the food and then left the place.
We need not have returned on Sunday for
the conversion. You wretched woman. You
are the singular reason for all my losses and
misery.” He started kicking her and shouting
profanities. She tried to cover herself but
continued eating and even picked the
morsels that fell on the dry leaves. Muthu
realised her dismal state and stopped hitting
her but kept throwing insults at her and her
character and her entire family.
Once they were done, Lalitha burped and
Muthu stared at her. They suddenly burst out
laughing and hugged each other while
laughing. The trees were good protection
from the road and many a passerby. He
reached under her saree for what he had
missed over the past few days and she too
thrust her stomach towards him. Suddenly
they heard voices nearby and broke away
from each other. Someone was shouting that
some TV van had come and people were
running in a particular direction. Muthu rose
to notice a dish antenna far down near the
camp.
“Let us go from the other side. Maybe they
have some clothes to give us”
Lalitha straightened her saree and got up.
They walked around the camp to the other
side
They managed to take the long route to the
site where they saw a van parked with the
dish on top. There were few people holding,
what Muthu now recognised as, cameras.
Some fancy looking men and women were
talking into microphones facing these
cameras.
“How do they just talk without anyone talking
to them?” Lalitha asked.
“I am told they are paid for that. Very rich
people they are. They have big cars and
bungalows in the city.”
“Just for talking? I am sure that Vasanthi
would do well in this business, and her
husband without her.”
They rushed to the spot and kept walking
between those handsome people. Some of
Muthu’s friends were crowding around the
ladies hoping to be caught on camera.
“This will go on TV, amma?” one of them
asked the reporter.
“Cut. Cut it out. Maya, we need to roll again”,
shouted the cameraman.
“Why don’t you guys keep these filthy men
away? I will not do a retake again. This will
be the last time”, shouted the lady who was
called Maya.
“Sweetheart, you will do it again and again till
we get it right.”
The men were shooed away and some of the
security was called in to keep them away.
One security man asked the cameraman,
“Will you let me come on camera? I will keep
them away. No money, just 2 minutes.”
The cameraman looked at the lady he called
Maya, who shrugged.
“Fine, but you will have to say whatever we
ask you to.”
They kept shooting something over and over
again.
Muthu asked one of the men who was
shooed away, “Are they giving out clothes?”
“Not these people. These people are from the
TV. Pastime.”
Muthu was disappointed and turned to
Lalitha.
“Let us go back behind those trees”, she said
with her eyes on the ground.
“No. Not now. Where is Renu?”
They looked around and started calling out to
her name. They lowered their voice as they
neared the camp lest they get caught. One
fellow fisherman walked past them and asked
them what they were looking for. Muthu told
him.
“Your daughter? I think she is there with the
TV people.”
Muthu was surprised. What would Renu have
to do with them?
They walked back to the vans and looked
over shoulders to check within every small
circle. They finally spotted her sitting on a
rock with a strange tattered doll in her hands.
They walked closer to that crowd.
“Why doesn’t someone explain to this brat in
her language?” shrieked the reporter.
Renu immediately jumped to her feet and told
the cameraman, “Ayya, I am sorry. Did I do
something wrong? Should I be crying more?
Is the dress not torn enough?”
The cameraman got down on his haunches
and held Renu by her shoulders.
“See, kid you need to play with your doll.
When I wave my hand you should throw it
down. Then this nice auntie will come to you
and ask you what happened. And then you
have to tell her the following 3 lines and cry
simultaneously. Don’t cry too much and act
natural. Say these lines with me: What do I
do?...”
“What do I do?” Renu repeated.
“Where do I go? ...”
“Where do I go?”
“My parents were washed away in the sea
and I have no one in this world for me. Go on,
say it.”
“What do I do”, she sniffed and continued,
“Where do I go? My parents washed away
the sea...”
“No, damn it. It is were washed away in the
sea.”
“Haan. My parents were washed away in the
sea and I have no one in this world for me”
and she burst out crying.
Lalitha began crying and started to go over to
tell Renu that they were alive but someone
pushed her back and asked her to shut up.
Renu immediately stopped crying and smiled
at the cameraman.
“Was that correct?”
“Good girl. Now go and sit there and wait for
me to wave my hands. Ok?”
“Ok”, she said and went and sat on the rock.
Muthu and Lalitha looked at each other with
confusion.
“We are rolling now and 1 and 2 and go.”
“This is the fate of this village after 6 days of
the tsunami striking their shore. Families are
broken and people still comb the beach to
find loved ones. While the government and
the opposition are busy blaming each other,
these people lie in wait for relief – relief from
such a life.”
The cameraman waved at Renu and Renu
stood up and threw the doll to the ground.
“This girl is one of the survivors and has her
own tale to tell”, said the reporter and walked
over to Renu. In broken Tamil she asked
Renu, “What happened little girl? Where are
your parents?”
“What do I do?” Renu sniffed and rubbed her
eyes. “Where do I go?” she asked the
reporter and held on to her hands. “My
parents were washed away in the sea and I
have no one in this world for me”, she said
and she burst out crying.
The reporter patted Renu’s head and
disengaged herself.
“This is the sad story of over a thousand
children along this coast. When will their
problems be solved? Only time will tell. This
is Shobhana Rajkumar Mulchandani
reporting for WhatNext? Channel.”
“And….Got it. Great job. Wonderful.”
Everyone started clapping and the reporter
was finally smiling.
Someone near Muthu spoke to his neighbour,
“Smart kid. She sure knows how to make
money. For all you know, she might never
have had parents in the first place. Women
and girls can always survive with their tears
and body.”
Muthu lunged at him and started hitting him.
Lalitha tried to stop him and other people
joined in the fight too. The policemen rushed
with their whistles and started pulling the men
apart.
“He is a mad man. He simply attacked me.”
The policeman looked at Muthu and asked,
“Aren’t you the man who ran away with the
food?”
Before Muthu could reply, the policemen
started beating him up and Lalitha shrieked
and shouted and finally the men stopped.
“That will teach you right. Trying to create
problems, are you?”
Renu heard the confusion but wasn’t aware
of her parents’ presence. She walked up to
the cameraman.
“Please give me my money”
“What? Oh! Yes. Here keep this.”
“But you said 100 this is only 20.”
“Cheeky girl, you know the difference? Have
you ever seen a hundred?”
Renu had not but was shrewd enough to nod
her head.
“I only have 50 with me. Here take it. Hey!
Return my 20... hey! Get that girl.”
But Renu was already running between the
men who were more interested in the
thrashing that Muthu was getting.
When Muthu managed to get up he asked
Lalitha, “Where is that wretched girl?”
Lalitha looked around to find Renu missing.
“I don’t know. She is not here.”
They stumbled over to the cameraman and
asked him about Renu.
“That urchin ran away with my 70 rupees.
This village is full of thieves. You people
deserved that tsunami.”
Lalitha stared at him and then spat on him
before helping Muthu walk away. They went
and sat beneath a nearby tree and she
started wiping the blood off his cheeks.
“That girl has become a whore”, he said.
“Hari’s appa, I told you she was a burden.
Now let her take care of herself.”
“Give me that curd rice.”
Lalitha unwrapped the parcel she had made
for Renu and both of them sat to eat it.
“Can you believe it? She killed us while we
were alive. What kind of a child would do
that?” he asked between mouthfuls.
Lalitha continued to eat her food.
The sun began to set beyond the dark greens
of coconut palms. Muthu realised that there
was very little chance of his getting a new
boat to go fishing or even convincing
someone to hire him. They sat for a long time
without speaking and in mute coordination
rose to return to their bed on the sands.
“We have lost our mat”, he said.
“I saw a thatch roof lying unclaimed in the
groves”
“I doubt whether it would be available now.”
“Let’s pass through the groves. If it is not
there we will go make ourselves one” she
said and then paused.
“Shall we stop at the goddess’s temple before
going home?”
Muthu started walking without replying to her.
The goddess hadn’t saved his son and had
also left him bereft of good food from the
camp.
When they reached the temple they saw a
large tent erected at the side of the temple.
“I told you. Aatha would surely protect us and
our family” Lalitha said and started running
towards the temple.
Muthu followed her in an embarrassed run.
He was ashamed to look inside the sanctum
sanctorum but bowed his head at the altar.
They quickly rushed to the tent to ensure they
get their food before it was exhausted. They
both stood in the queue and awaited their
turn.
“See? I told you. We needn’t change our
religion. Aatha will take care of us.”
Muthu nodded his head and kept looking at
the earth near his feet. How could I be so silly
and forget the goddess? Why did I go to that
camp? I should have come here in the first
place and maybe found some work too?
Tomorrow I shall return here.
“Muthu? You are Muthu, right?”
Muthu looked up at Babu. In sheer fright and
respect Muthu undid the little cloth that he
tied around his head and held it in his hands.
“I thought you were basically collecting
firewood and bartering it for food. I heard that
you refused to give my men some wood.”
“Ayya, I would never do that. Anytime your
men wanted something, I gave it to them.
This is my word.”
One of his men walked over and whispered in
Babu’s ear.
“Oh! It wasn’t you. Good. We don’t want
unnecessary qualms, right?”
Muthu nodded his head vigourously.
“Who is this? Your wife?” he asked and
looked at her from head to toe.
Muthu looked at Lalitha and then at his feet
but said nothing.
“Hmmm. Anyway, what are you doing here?”
“Ayya, my child hasn’t had food for many
days and she is lying ill at home. I thought we
could take some food and” he peeped over
the few shoulders that barricaded the table
on which supplies were placed, “and some
clothes.”
“Come with me”, Babu said and then looked
at Lalitha, “and you too.”
He took them to the other side of the temple
and put his hands on Muthu’s shoulders.
Babu’s man stood nearby and Muthu kept
looking at him.
“The situation is like this. There are lots of
evil men trying to convert our men and
women into Christians and Muslims.”
“Muslims too?”
“Oh! You didn’t know? Go near the pond near
Karrupayyah’s house. They have set up a
camp there.”
“This is so unfortunate. Why don’t people
come here?” Lalitha asked.
“You shut up”, Muthu said.
“Why shout at your young wife, Muthu? She
is right. Hence, we decided this. If they steal
our men we will steal theirs.”
“Perfect. That is the right thing to do, ayya.
You are very clever”, Muthu said.
“Hmmm. So, this food is primarily for people
who we plan to convert.”
“But we believe in the goddess too. Couldn’t
you spare some for us? Just a little. My
daughter is nearly dying, ayya.”
“Sorry Muthu. Come after a few hours and if
there is anything left you can take it home”
Babu said and then turned to look at Lalitha.
“There might be a lot so both of you should
come.”
“Before our dogs eat them up”, Babu’s man
said and started laughing. Babu burst out
laughing too.
“Ok? Now go home or sit somewhere on that
side”, he pointed to the dykes on the other
side of the field.
“At least some cloth ayya.”
“For your wife?”
“No. To at least cover my daughter’s body if
she dies tonight.”
“Come on, Muthu. One who wasn’t killed by
the sea cannot die so easily. Come
tomorrow.”
Muthu and Lalitha left silently. They walked
towards the grove without a single word
exchanged. When the silence got too heavy
to bear, Lalitha decided to say something.
“We should have asked the priest.”
“Shut up. With you revealing your breasts I
am sure even the priest would have mistaken
you for a whore.”
“What? What did I do?”
“Had you not behaved like that in front of
them, we would have got food and clothes.
He must have thought you were up for a
price.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Did you see how they were looking at you?
Don’t act innocent.”
“Then why didn’t you sell me to them? At
least you would have had your food and
clothes.”
“Aaah! Now you want the company of the rich
men?” and he started hitting her and kicking
her. She started howling and ran into the
groves. He chased her and threw stones at
her. She hid behind a tree to escape them
and his blows.
Finally he got too tired to do anything but
walk. She kept a safe distance from him and
walked ahead.
“The thatch was here”, she said and started
looking around in vain.
He sat down and started crying. Muthu shook
about his shoulder and wailed.
“What did I do wrong in my life? Why do I
have to suffer? Didn’t I behave nice with you?
And you, god? And you?” he looked towards
the sky and screamed.
“Hari’s appa, please. We will find some way
to get out of this. Please, please don’t do this.
How can I manage things if you break
down?” Lalitha said and joined in his crying.
They hugged each other and sat there in the
darkness of their lives.
When they finally reached their spot on the
beach, they found Renu sitting leaning
against the young palm tree.
“Appa, amma. Where were you? I was so ...”
“You wretched whore! What did the man from
the city do to you? How much did he pay
you?” Lalitha shouted and started thrashing
Renu. Renu managed to escape and from a
distance of a few yards replied, “Why? What
happened? He promised me 100 but was
trying to cheat me with a 20.”
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Selling
yourself for money. We are poor and hungry
but not a family of whores and pimps.”
“What? I didn’t sell anything. They merely
wanted me to sit on the rock and cry while
they took pictures... no, a movie of me. All I
had to do was cry and make it look like I was
a lost child.”
“And you said that we were dead.”
“Oh! You saw the shooting?” she asked with
excitement, but seeing the look on their face
she killed her smile and continued, “That was
just a line that they wanted, Appa, doesn’t
mean anything. If they were giving us food
and clothes in exchange for one line, what’s
the harm?”
Muthu and Lalitha looked at each other.
Muthu sank to the sands and Lalitha hugged
the tree and cried softly. Renu carefully
walked over to her father with a lungi (long
piece of cloth used to wrap around the waist)
in her hand.
“Appa, this I bought for you.”
Muthu looked at her without saying a word.
Renu placed it a little away from where he sat
and backed off. She turned to her mother.
“Amma, I found this thatch in the groves and
decided to drag it here for ourselves.”
Lalitha fell to the sands and started crying.
Muthu beckoned Renu to come and sit on his
lap.
“You are not a burden, my child. We are
sinners” he said and hugged her. Renu burst
into tears too. Lalitha crawled over and patted
Renu on her head.
“Appa, some TV people are coming to the
other side of the village tomorrow.”
 Column

Writer of the issue: Sheldon Allan “Shel” Silverstein

Lasya

If you are a dreamer, come in,

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire,
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin,
Come in! Come in!
--Where the Sidewalk Ends (Cover flap)

In this issue we feature one of the most reluctant writers of children’s stories and poems. Known
to many lovers of poetry as a poet whose poems bring out the sheer simplicity of language and
the starkness of certain images and life, Silverstein started out as a children’s writer much later in
life. Putting it in his own words:

"I never planned to write or draw for kids. It was Tomi Ungerer, a friend of mine, who insisted... practically
dragged me, kicking and screaming, into [editor] Ursula Nordstrom's office. And she convinced me that Tomi
was right, I could do children's books."

Silverstein was, till 1963, mostly a cartoonist for Playboy, a scriptwriter and a poet. He, later, also
wrote songs for Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. In 1963, he wrote Uncle Shelby's Story of
Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back, which is a story about a lion who gets hold of a hunter’s gun
and practices long to become a good shot. Then he becomes part of a circus! This book didn’t do
as well as his next book which slowly shot him to fame. In 1964 he wrote and published, The
Giving Tree. This is a story of the relationship between a tree and a little boy who grows up
borrowing whatever the tree has to provide, leaving the tree with nothing more than a stump
towards the end. Soon after publication, this story found its way into sermons, bedtime stories,
moralistic lectures, the butt end of feminist ire and, recently, into email chains too! No matter how
it was received, its popularity grew.

Silverstein was born in 1930 (or 1932. There are sources which support either year!) in Chicago,
Illinois and grew his own unique style of poetry. He recalled his early years as follows:

"When I was a kid - 12, 14, around there - I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with
the girls. But I couldn't play ball, I couldn't dance... So, I started to draw and to write. I was... lucky that I didn't
have anyone to copy, be impressed by. I had developed my own style, I was creating before I knew there was
a Thurber, a Benchley, a Price and a Steinberg. I never saw their work till I was around 30."

This helped him develop a style which wasn’t pretentious and seemed to flow as one might expect
to hear him speak. Rhythm wasn’t always present and slang wasn’t unwelcome in his poems. His
wildly humourous creativity was an integral part of his poems. A poem, to him, was not merely for
literary effects, but for a whole array of purposes like humour, deep thought and sheer joy. His
love for simplicity is best captured in his words during an interview.

No, you should never explain the philosophy behind anything either. The philosophy behind it isn’t important.
The question is, if your work is weak and lacking so that it needs explanation, it isn’t enough, it isn’t clear
enough. Make it so good and so clear that it doesn’t need any further explanation. After all, you can’t run after
every person that buys your book and say, “Now come over and have some coffee and I’ll tell you what I
really tried to say in this book,” or “You don’t know what I tried to do in that movie. See, what I was really
trying to do, you don’t know what I did.” They know what you did. They know what you said.

Some of his pieces are too simplistic to be awarded a status beyond that given to a limerick, but
Silverstein wasn’t out to gather accolades although he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters
Hall of Fame and his song “A Boy Named Sue” won Johnny Cash the Grammy. His poems
resembled the outpourings of a little child. Like this one (Poem: Colors):

My skin is kind of sort of brownish

Pinkish yellowish white.
My eyes are greyish blueish green,
But I'm told they look orange in the night.
My hair is reddish blondish brown,
But it's silver when it's wet.
And all the colors I am inside
Have not been invented yet.

It is difficult to return from any poem by Silverstein without smiling. For all the popularity he has
earned now, he was a fairly reclusive person and shunned publicity of any sort. Most biographical
information is derived from his interviews which were few. After the one with the Publisher’s
Weekly, he totally stopped giving interviews.

"So I'll keep on communicating, but only my way. Lots of things I won't do. I won't go on television because
who am I talking to? Johnny Carson? The camera? Twenty million people I can't see? Uh-uh. And I won't give
any more interviews."

Post-1981, he concentrated on producing plays for adults. The much talented man (once noted as
the world’s only writer-cartoonist-composer-lyricist-performer) died of a heart attack on 10th May
1999. He shall be much missed by his aficionados. Unlike most creatives, Silverstein appealed to
people of nearly all age groups.

"I would hope that people, no matter what age, would find something to identify with in my books, pick one up
and experience a personal sense of discover. That's great. But for them, not for me”

More Information:
The Archive: http://members.tripod.com/~ShelSilverstein/
Homepage: http://www.shelsilverstein.com/
List of books: http://www.americanpoems.com/section/Books/Author/Shel+Silverstein
Make your own Bookmark: http://www.shelsilverstein.com/pdf/bookmark.pdf
 Artwork

Whispers In The Clouds

Joan C. Urquhart
 Column

Translation: Gems of Tamil Literature

AgniBharathi

The art and literature of a particular country and particular age reflects life as it was in that place at
that time. This was perhaps the primal reason why art and literature themselves came into
existence – the desire for mankind to break the boundaries of both space and time. In that
respect, Tamil literature stands in a unique place. Not only does its ancient literature reflect the life
of people in that era, but also in a way it was the literature that dictated the life of people then. It is
this aspect of Tamil literature that I shall try to present by means of translations and appreciation
in this column.

Tamil language is supposed to have been taught to the Sage Agasthyar by Lord Shiva Himself on
the Podhigai Mountain. Agasthyar wrote the first grammar for the Tamil language, Agathiyam,
which is now lost to the world. The first known work of grammar that we have today is the
TholkAppiyam written by Agasthyar’s disciple TholkAppiyar. Tamil grammar by itself has a unique
methodology. Like in any other language with a written script, the Tamil grammar too progresses
from letters, sound forms, written forms to words, their different forms as nouns, verbs, adjectives,
etc., on to sentences, prose, poetry and so on. But the uniqueness lies in the section of grammar
called poruL ilakkaNam. Literally this means the grammar of meaning.

This particular section lays down the discipline for the external (puRam) and internal (agam) life of
a person. The puRam section deals with his/her life in the society where he/she displays attributes
like wisdom, chivalry, generosity and so on. The agam section deals with the intimate and
romantic relationships as well as other facets of human relationships and interaction, which cannot
be disclosed in public. The various emotions and images that come out in both these aspects of
life are connected strongly with aspects of Nature and a poet has to use only those images and
objects of Nature that comply with a particular emotion or incident. This creates a very tight
bonding between life, art and the world, creating a peaceful harmony between man and Nature.

It is a regular practice in Tamil literature to start any work with a salutation to the Gods. This work
too should have typically started off with a poem that is a salutation to the Gods. But just to take it
a step further, it might be interesting to start off with a poem that is supposed to have been written
by the Lord Himself. This poem is the 2nd poem in the work kuRunthogai, which is compilation of
agam based songs written by many authors. This poem also finds mention in the thiruviLaiyAdaR
purANam written by the poet paranjOthi munivar in the thiruvAlavAik kANdam, tharumikku poRkizi
aLiththa padalam. This work describes the various sport and miracle conducted by Lord Shiva.
Transliteration
(An alphabet in uppercase requires greater emphasis. “z” should be pronounced as “yuh” while
touching the tip of the tongue to the roof of the mouth. “c” is pronounced as “ch” as in “chow”. A
“u” at the end of a word simply adds a phonetic “uh” with minimal stress on the “h”)

KongguthEr vAzkkai anjciRaith thumbi

KAmam seppAthu kaNtathu mozimO
Payiliyathu kezIiya natppin mayiliyal
SeRiyeyiR Rarivai kUnththalin
NaRiyavum uLavO neeyaRiyum pUvE

Meaning per word

fragrant flowers/studying and selecting/life/wings hidden/bee of high clan/
desire or bias/without telling/that which was seen/will (you) tell?/
that practised or is familiar with/long time/friendship/of a peacock nature
densely arranged teeth/maiden in the fifth phase of life/than tresses
more fragrant/are/you know/flowers

Summary
The hero (who is in love) asks the bee that forages the flowers for honey if those flowers have a
fragrance better than the locks of his lovely maiden (thereby also hinting that his heroine’s tresses
have a natural fragrance).

Word by word meaning

konggu fragrant flowers (also refers to the mountainous land surrounding Coimbatore)
thEr studying and selecting.
vAzkkai life
anjciRai hidden wings. The word actually splits into two separate words, ‘am’ meaning hidden
+ ‘ciRai’ meaning wings. The word ‘am’ is again a derivation from the word ‘agam’
which means inner thereby meaning that the wings are hidden inside.
thumbi bee of high clan. The word for a normal bee in Tamil is vaNdu.
kAmam literal meaning is desire. In this context it refers to bias.
seppAthu without telling.
kaNdathu that which was seen.
mozimO will you put in words? The root is the noun mozi, which refers to language. The suffix
‘mO’ transforms the verb mozi to a question.
payiliyathu practise/is familiar with. This comes from the root payil, which means to practise. A
person who practises something is supposed to be familiar with it. Hence the same
word is applied in the context of being familiar with people as well.
kezIiya for a long time. Also, the extending sound of the ‘I’ following kez is called an
aLabedai. This happens when the poet finds a word too short for musical effect
(innisai aLabedai), grammatical rules (isainiRai aLabedai) or to alter the meaning of
a word to make it a qualifer (poruLisai aLabedai). In this case an extension of sound
in this manner is allowed. The aLabedai used in this case is an innisai aLabedai.
natppin of friendship.
mayiliyal of the nature of a peacock. The word splits into two words as mayil + iyal. Mayil
means peacock. iyal means nature from which the word iyalbu or character, is
derived.
seRieyiRRu densely arranged teeth. The word again splits into two separate words – seRi being
the adjective for densely arranged and eyiRu for teeth. The extra R in eyiRRu makes
the whole word a qualifier for the next word that appears.
arivai maiden, more specifically, a woman in the fifth phase of her life. Tamil literature
classifies the life of a woman into seven stages namely – pEdhai, pedhumbai,
manggai, madanththai, arivai, therivai, periLampeN. Arivai should be in the age of
25-30
kUnththalin than the tresses. kUnththal means hair. The suffix ‘in’ here introduces a tone of
comparison.
naRiyavum more fragrant. The root word is naRi which is a qualifier meant to indicate smell.
uLavO are. The word uLavO is a distorted version of the word uLLavO. uLLa is the
equivalent of the verb ‘be’ in its different forms viz., is, are, etc.
nee you.
aRiyum knowing. The root word is aRi from which the word aRivu for deep knowledge is
derived.
pUvE flower.

History
As mentioned earlier, this song was supposed to have been composed by Lord Shiva Himself.
This was set in verse many centuries ago. The ruler of Madurai, seNbaga pANdiyan, once had a
doubt as to whether the hair of a woman had a natural fragrance or it acquired fragrance by the
application of various perfumes. He announced a competition offering a reward of 1000 gold coins
to any poet who could write a poem to resolve his doubt. A poor orphaned Tamil poet by the name
of Dharumi needed this money dearly. So he went and prayed to the presiding deity of the
Madurai temple, SomasundarEshwarar. Hearing his pleas, the Lord Himself took the form of a
human poet, composed this poem and gave it to him. Dharumi presented this poem in the
assembly of Tamil poets to the King. The King, impressed with the poem, offered the prize to
Dharumi. However, another renowned poet by the name nakkIranAr objected to this poem
claiming that the meaning of the poem was wrong and no woman could have natural fragrance in
her hair. A dejected Dharumi went back to the Lord with the poem and narrated all that happened.
The Lord enraged that somebody could find fault in His poem stormed into the assembly
challenging nakkIranAr. The poet was unfazed even after knowing that the composer of this song
was Shiva Himself. Shiva further enraged opened His third eye to the poet. The poet, unable to
bear the heat of His third eye, fell into the poRRamaraik kuLam (the golden lotus pond) of the
Madurai temple. At length, when the Lord’s anger subsided, He brought the poet back from the
pond and bid the King to give the reward to Dharumi.

Appreciation
This poem falls under the agam (or inner life) category of Tamil poetry. It belongs to the
subdivision of the agam called kuRinji. Agam is divided into five thiNais. Apart from these, two
rarely used thiNais are the kaikkiLai and perunthiNai. The former is one-sided love and the latter is
misfit love. The five thiNais called agaththin ainthInai (the five thiNais of agam) are kuRinji, mullai,
neythal, marutham and pAlai. Each thiNai has its own muthaRporuL (first object), karupporuL
(object of substance or quintessence) and uripporuL (object that belongs to this thiNai).
MuthaRporuL of a thiNai refers to the topography, the time of day and season of the thiNai.
KarupporuL has many aspects such as the animals, the birds, flowers, music, vocation, etc., that
is typical to that thiNai. UripporuL refers to a particular action or a particular incident in the
romance of the lovers.

In the verse quoted above, kuRinji thiNai is the land of the mountains. The seasons for this thiNai
are kUthir and munpani (The seasons of dry cold and early snow). The time of the day is yAmam,
night. The birds of this land are the peacock and the parrot. The animals are tiger, elephant and
bear. There are much more details, which we shall exclude from this discussion. The uripporuL --
object that belongs to this thiNai -- of kuRinji is the act of union. This is called as puNarthal (the
Tamil word for union). In the verse above, the first word konggu is rather interesting. Konggu nAdu
(the country of konggu) is the land that surrounds present-day Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. This land
has acquired the name konggu from the fact that it has (rather had) lots of fragrant flowers. The
areas surrounding Coimbatore and Palghat are mainly mountainous regions. Thus with the very
first word, the land of the poem is set.

The hero conveys in subtle words that his lover’s tresses have natural fragrance that exceeds the
fragrance of any flower. And this he does by asking the bee, which is an expert in the knowledge
of fragrant flowers. Even here, the hero does not ask a common bee but the bee of the highest
clan, the thumbi.

The aspects of kuRinji thiNai are established by the reference to flowers, which are common in the
hills and the comparison with the peacock, which is a bird of the mountains. Also, the fact that the
hero knows the fragrance of the heroine’s tresses is a subtle hint that they have united intimately.
The hero asks the bee very clearly to not give him a favorable answer merely because it is from
his own land.

English Rendering:
Oh Noble bee! Who discerns well
Flowers and nectar of a heavenly scent.
Speak true, such my doubts dispel.
My beloved, as dainty as a peacock,
She who is with well-set teeth. Have you known
A sweeter fragrance than milady’s locks?

References:
http://www.tamil.net/project madurai
http://www.tamilvu.org/library

Trying To Write Nonfiction
I had no clue what I was getting myself into.
Over a casual conversation with the Editor
(whom I shall call Ed hereafter) I offered to
write an article for the forthcoming issue of
Alvibest. He was glad that I offered and
asked me what I would like to write – fiction,
poetry, nonfiction or something else. I asked
him what was lacking. He said, “Nonfiction
writers are fewer. Many haven’t explored its
forms as much as fiction and poetry have
been explored.” Then he mentioned the
journal called Creative Nonfiction being one
of the very few that have taken initiative in
exploring the various facets of nonfiction. I
had never heard of the magazine, but I have
hardly heard of half the things he talks about!
I was spurred after listening to him talk about
the various sides to nonfiction and I offered to
write one for him. He smiled and said, “Sure”.
As I said, I had no clue what I was getting
into.
I returned home and decided to write a fair
sized piece of nonfiction. I seated myself in
the bluish light of my laptop and held my
fingers a few inches above the keypad. What
do I write about? I didn’t want to write about
some vacation I had recently; did enough of
that back in school. I looked around my room
and thought to myself, “Can’t write about that
vase. It’s a marriage gift and Sashi will surely
want to add her opinion of her uncle who
gifted it. The bookcase could be an
interesting topic, but what do I write about it?
Went and picked it up at a yard sale and
that’s about it.” I kept going to each and every
item in my room until I realised that I had left
Nonfiction
Rajesh Nagani
all the clothes on my chair and I should rush
and dump them in the washing machine
before Sashi starts complaining about having
to do all the work. I realised I needed some
samples of nonfiction before I could write
mine. So I hunted for some samples online. I
found some on Creative Nonfiction (why
didn’t I think of that before?) and on a few
other sites. I read some of them and kept
asking myself “What is nonfiction?” I
searched for an answer to that. Many sites
threw up some answers, which I distilled to:
anything that is not fiction or poetry is quite
likely to be nonfiction. One site actually said
that even diary and journal entries are
nonfiction – seemed too broad a category.
Book reviews and interviews were also called
nonfiction. I was more confused than ever.
I called up the Ed and asked him for some
pointers. He asked me to read R.K.Narayan’s
Writerly Life. I wasn’t sure whether I could
find a copy in Luxemberg and asked him
whether it was online. Of course, it wasn’t. I
was planning on ordering a copy (and hence,
delaying my ordeal by another week or two)
when my wife walked into the room and
asked me why I looked so worried. I told her
about my task at hand and how I felt that I
could write only after reading Writerly Life.
She was quick in rushing into our study and
returning with a book, which she kept
slapping against her palm to rid it of its dusty
inheritance. “Here”, she said and walked
away. I kept staring at the book wondering
how I had forgotten that I had the book with
me all this while! Sashi must have brought it
along. My books never gathered dust.
I read the book and thoroughly enjoyed
myself. Narayan writes effortlessly and his
works aren’t highbrow stuff. I think good
writing is essentially this and not the difficult
and convoluted style of writing that many
writers resort to. After reading his works I had
a rough idea about what to write. I could write
about the bike trip my friends and I had gone
on near the Alps. I had so many pictures from
that trip. I rushed to my cupboard and
extracted the albums one at a time. There
were marriage albums and college albums
and albums of my days in school. I liked the
purple one with silver embossing on it. My
brother-in-law had gifted it to me. I found the
album with our vacation snaps in it (which
also contained the biking trip’s pictures), but I
decided to spend some time with the purple
one. I poured over the pictures slowly and
with an ever-growing smile. Maybe I should
write about how the kids added salt in the
jalebi (a sweetmeat) mix that the bawarchi
(cook) had made. Maybe I could write about
how my aunt Sarla fussed over all the sarees
that mom had bought. How about the amount
of jewelry purchased for a typical wedding?
Sashi looked so nice in that picture where
she was just about to bend down and touch
mom and dad’s feet. Perfect picture. Maybe I
could write about what my wife went through
before she got married. Maybe I could write
about how none of that mattered. Maybe I
could write about dholis (palanquins) and
ghoda (horse)-rides at a wedding. About the
attire of the bride and the groom. About the
menu and how much effort goes into it. About
Neelu’s conversation with her future sister-in-
law; Sashi had told me everything about it.
About the dance after the wedding in the wee
hours of the day! How dad danced with mom,
and then with Sashi. Simple bhangra
numbers but so much joy. There was so
much to write in just 10 sheets of
photographs!
I started pacing my room trying to pick from
the possible topics. I would love to write
about the biking trip, but I was more involved
in the scenes in my purple album.
And then it struck me. Why not? I pulled out
my laptop and started typing in the latest
experience I had had: trying to write
nonfiction.
 Poetry

Ombralità / Shadowiness

Joan C Urquhart

Long little, dark little,

silent little shadow,
rich in fascination,
quiet like a dream
and filled with contradictions.
where do you sleep at night?
do you leap into another realm?
or do you telescopically retreat
inside a womb-like substance through my feet?
I hope that what persuades you in
will push you out again.

Short little, shy little,

shifting little shadow,
uncontained by hands and time,
you are too easily persuaded
by angles of projection.
why do you disobey me?
how can you grow one shape
but still invent a hundred more
without my help,
if you are filled with nothing
but dark air?

Strong little, strange little,

loyal little shadow,
you remain beside me day and night (with light)
unless I disappear.
It is clear that you surprise me;
if water cannot drown you,
if stones cannot crush you,
if paper cannot hide you,
what makes you disappear?
But most of all,
I wonder why you are the paradox
that I most want to draw.

Eliminating Competition In The Formative Years
The formative years should serve the sole
purpose of helping the child learn and realise
the mechanics of the world as well as the
internal mechanics of the self. It is
unfortunate that the formative years are
nearly entirely spent in preparing the child for
a job and earning a living. It is the
responsibility of parents and teachers, alike,
to help the child understand things without
bias and accents. Once a child learns about
something then she is free to work on it or
apply it, as she deems fit. To thrust
responses to information or knowledge is not
a part of true education. One such response
that is often thrust on young minds is that of
competing. Competition has taken on the role
of measuring the extent to which one has
learnt something and the extent to which one
can apply something learnt. In this article we
shall look closely at competition, why we
should eliminate it in the formative years and
how the formative years would transform in
the absence of competition.
Before we delve further into the necessity of
competition, we should first understand the
mechanics of competition. Competition helps
establishes supremacy. That is one of the
essential purposes of competing. Competing
requires a context. The context is usually an
activity, which is considered worthwhile. What
I mean by worthwhile is that the activity helps
secure an acceptable lifestyle for the pursuer.
If the activity was trivial or something which
didn’t provide such security, then there would
be little reason to compete as the rewards of
such a competition would not be of value.
General
Anand Krishnaswamy
Hence, the competition should not only help
establish supremacy but it must also provide
desirable rewards. Supremacy by its very
nature is exclusive. Pursuit of the highest
laurels is also the pursuit for exclusivity. Little
interest would be cast on a competition,
which rewards every participant equally richly
or meagerly. What matters finally is gaining a
quantum of respect in a society, and such
should be that quantum or the respect itself
that none match it. Were one not to be
respected for one’s achievements then little
worth is seen in competing to project the
achievement. Recognition is implied as well.
The recognition need not be at an
international or global level, but competing
must beget recognition for it to be of any
interest. Hence, to summarise, competition is
required in order to establish supremacy and
provide the rewards of such a supremacy,
which includes recognition and respect.
Now we shall consider the need for
competition. Why do we compete? Why seek
supremacy? Why seek exclusivity? Why seek
recognition and respect? This might appear
to be a ridiculous bunch of questions, but it
might be worth delving into. Propagation of
the self takes many forms and appears in
myriad guises. The need to be respected is
one such ruse. The desires of the ego are
very strong and competition is what feeds it.
Were it not for the ego, competition would
make no sense. What is it that seeks
respect? What is it what seeks exclusivity?
What is it that seeks supremacy? What is it
that wishes to be secure, always? If one is
comfortable while being a king and a pauper,
then he wouldn’t compete. How does
competing take form? Competing stems from
comparing. People involved in the same
activity (from concrete activities like say
singing to generic family of activities like
earning a living) are compared against each
other. This might arise explicitly or implicitly.
Once the comparison reaches a point where
definiteness is sought, competition is defined
for that activity. Without comparing there
cannot be competition. Comparing is active
when one’s worth or relevance is threatened
or even questioned. Amongst a bunch of
labourers at a construction site, the one who
works quickest or longest is considered the
better man and he might be paid an extra bit
at the end of the day. The writer who appeals
to a wider audience is in demand and
publishers will bend backwards to get a
contract with him.
Ours is a world which recognises winners,
and winners are picked by comparing and
competition. But the activity itself does not
require competition or comparison. To dance
well, to be a good doctor, to be a good archer
or to be a good student does not require
competition. One can be all of this without
competing. There are some who strived to
better themselves not to be more competent
against another, but for the sole purpose of
doing justice to a task and reveling in it.
Vincent Van Gogh is a famous painter. He
wasn’t a famous painter while he was alive.
He had sold but one painting before he died.
His failing health did not deter him from
continuing to paint. He did not compete but
he painted as well as he could. Another
example is of a sportsman by name Harold
Larwood. Many will instantly recognise him
as the man who defined bodyline bowling.
But his wasn’t the dream to bowl bodyline. He
was passionate about cricket and sought to
perfect the art of bowling. I still recall scenes
where his captain would place a coin on the
pitch and ask Larwood to bowl such that it
would bounce off the coin. Larwood always
made the coin flip. Present day cricket
doesn’t have any such bowler. This is what
he has to say about his early experience
(quoted with permission from the Larwood
family and Miles Orchard, the site
administrator of haroldlarwood.com):
‘At the age of 17, I was promoted to the
village's first team. Bowling in sandshoes
because I didn't own a pair of boots, I sent
down 20 overs during the match, even though
I'd worked down the mine all the previous
night.'
'I remember the game as if it were last week.
After a few overs my nose began to bleed.
Team mates, men they were, urged me to
leave the field. I refused and kept on bowling.
Down the mine I dreamed of cricket; I bowled
imaginary balls in the dark; I sent the stumps
spinning and heard them rattling in the
tunnels. No mishap was going to stop me from
bowling in the real game, especially this one.'
'My nose bled worse than ever, spattering my
shirt. I was again advised to go off but I
continued to bowl. Then a ball caught the
middle stump. My next delivery scattered the
incoming batsman's wicket. Although feeling a
bit weak by now I got ready for one more, and
hit the off stump. It was my first hat-trick.'
'Cricket was my reason for living.’
For such a person, competition makes little
sense. When he decided to join the
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, he was
offered the same amount he was paid at the
mines! There wasn’t much reward apart from
the joy derived from sheer passion.
Competing and comparing is for individuals
who seek reassurance from the outside world
and who do not find sufficient joy and
satisfaction in the task of their choice. I
personally feel that this deserves
acknowledgement and shouldn’t be merely
cast aside as something purely pedantic or
esoteric. Great many things are clearer once
we recognise the truth in that. When the act
alone is not sufficient and the accolades
awarded to the actor are considered more
important than performing the act to one’s
sense of completion, competition is essential
to serve these egoistic wants of such men
and women.
This has laid sufficient foundation for us to
understand the need to eliminate competition
in the formative years. Although the formative
years, as a phrase, would apply to the time
while one learns something new, I am
currently interested and focused on the
formative years in the sense of the initial
schooling that most children receive before
the age of twenty.
The initial years for the child are essential
because their mind is a blank sheet of paper.
What we instruct and what we expose this
child to are vital to note. While a child is
learning there is no necessity to compare her
with another child. Learning is an absolute
activity and the child deserves attention until
she can understand the subject thoroughly. In
our current system of education a teacher
spends X amount of hours teaching a
subject. It is unlikely that all the children in
her class can grasp the subject in the same
amount of time. Hence, the teacher feels that
it is wise to provide the children with nuggets
of information, with points to remember, as
these are quantifiable and help in covering
various aspects of the subject at hand. It is
also easy to relate effort and time required
when a subject can be broken down into such
chunks. What we need to do is not make the
job of the teacher easier but the purpose of
the lesson realised. If a child requires 10
hours to understand a subject, then the child
should get 10 hours. The child might
understand the same thing in 7 hours if
taught differently. Before we proceed with
outlining why and how competition must be
eliminated from the formative years, we must
realise that this calls for enormous energy
and patience on the part of teachers and
parents. Parents cannot outsource learning to
the teachers unless they are totally incapable
of instructing or investigating a subject.
Teachers who are reluctant to expend such
large quantities of energy shouldn’t be
teachers. Parents, who aren’t prepared to
learn how their child learns and help their
child in learning correctly, would do well by
not expecting their child to be a topper and
definitely not blaming schools and teachers.
Parents and teachers play a complementary
and supplementary role in the formative
years of a child.
We shall first see why competition must be
eliminated and then how. A child has no need
to establish supremacy while she is still
learning. While she is learning, all her energy
should be focused on understanding the
matter at hand thoroughly and internalising it.
It does little good, if a child “learns” Physics
very well and tops the class in the exams but
is unable to apply it to life or recall the
principles later in life. By avoiding competing
with her peers, a child learns how to learn
collectively and constructively. There is no
destructive rivalry that comes into play. Each
one of us, I am sure, has enough stories
about how someone in our school days would
not share notes or lie about not having
prepared for the exam and still score and in
some nasty cases, even steal another
person’s notes preventing him/her from
preparing well for the exams. If students
weren’t compared, there would be little need
for any of this. A child who is a slow learner,
which isn’t the same as someone who is
stupid, is affected when constantly compared
with other people. The slow learner, more
than others, should focus all her attention on
learning, as she cannot afford to be
distracted by anything. Competition
constantly distracts her. Most students learn
a subject in order to score high marks and
dispense with it! It might appear that by
eliminating competition we might create an
atmosphere where children will not bother to
learn, because they have no exams to pass.
We shall address this shortly.
Competition also prevents teachers, parents
and, most importantly, the student from
realising what her true passion is and where
her natural abilities lie. By insisting on
studying a battery of 10 subjects in a set
span of time, the child has little time, energy
and drive to figure out what is it that she likes
to do. This is vital. A child should spend the
initial years of her life to understand about the
various possibilities in this world and the
various activities one can indulge in. If a child
is interested in pottery, then the school and/or
the parents must realise it as soon as
possible and help the child realise various
facets of pottery as well as the lives of
potters. Knowing about the lives of potters is
not to instill fear or raise insecurity but to help
them shed any idealism that they might hold
about something. It is vital that a child is
exposed to the entire spectrum of reactions,
responses and consequences that surround
an act and this should usually follow a phase
of letting her enjoy the act and “getting lost” in
it. The formative years are fruitful if and only if
they can reveal the true passion of a child. It
is quite likely that a child doesn’t hold any
specific passion, but the school should strive
nevertheless in finding out a few areas where
the child’s interest lies. In an odd case when
the child holds no interest and reveals no
passionate appeal towards something, then
preparing the child with tools necessary for a
delayed realisation or a quotidian lifestyle
should suffice. Exceptions require different
approaches and the approaches cannot be
covered extensively in this article.
Revealing the results of exams must be
stopped. Exams per se are fine as they help
the teachers understand how clear a
particular student is about a subject. Exams
also help the teacher explain to the student’s
parents about the progress of their ward as
well as the areas where attention is required.
Giving the parents a number is pointless.
Were a teacher to tell the parents that their
ward has scored 86 would elicit (amongst a
few other reactions) a “What is the
maximum?” and once they are aware of that,
they would move to “So, is that good? Where
does he stand in the class?” and hardly ever
a “Does this mean he has understood the
subject well and can apply this at various
points later in his life?”
Children must be taught to respect
assessment procedures. This might not be
expected of children in early schooling, but
must be gradually introduced to the child. An
exam should not be presented as something
scary. If a child is made to realise that she is
being assessed continually, then she will find
it difficult to be afraid for such long stretches
of time (effectively for a whole year) and will
find it difficult to give her best throughout the
year. What we will get to know about the child
is her complete understanding and
internalising of the subject matter. The
assessment must involve more than one
person in order to avoid any human
prejudices from creeping in. Occasionally,
parents (preferably of a student in another
level/year) should be invited to discuss the
subject matter with the children and present
their impression about how well the students
have understood the subject. Of course,
there is a lot of energy and patience expected
of the adults. Who else, if not they, should be
interested? We shall not be going into
teaching methodologies and
innovation/creativity in teaching, but the
school will do well in bringing the children in
regular touch with people who have used
what the children are learning, in real life
beyond the textbook. Relevance of a matter
to the real world is essential.
Once a constantly flowing assessment
process is in place, students are comfortable
learning for learning’s sake without the sword
of exams and comparisons and parental
frowns, hanging above their head. A child
who doesn’t show interest in a subject can
have the subject postponed to a later year.
There will be a mandatory list of subjects that
a student should be familiar with before
leaving school whether it takes them ten
years for that or fifteen. The order in which
they are presented doesn’t matter always. No
one fails and eventually everyone passes. All
of this needs to be worked out with
continuous interaction between teachers and
parents. In such an atmosphere a child is
more open to passionately pursue a
particular activity. Even sports are taught in
order to perfect the role of each player and
not merely in order to win. An athlete is
taught to perform to his best ability. It is the
coach’s job to bring out the best in him.
Aikido is a good example of an aggressive
sport nurtured with the least sense of
competition. Sports coaches can do well to
spend time with Aikido masters and learn the
way of fighting without competing. Winning
and losing are presented as mere
consequences, but the course, as something
to be relished.
With competition eliminated, a school is more
receptive to otherwise worthless pastimes.
Origami sessions, cricket, pottery, volleyball,
ballet, karate, folk music, tai-chi and other
activities can be introduced as a part of
school-time activities, letting the child choose
what appeals to her senses and allowing the
child to taste them all if she wants to. The
child is more comfortable learning something
with the curiosity of a baby holding a rattle for
the first time. If an activity catches the eye
and mind of a child, then the child will
naturally explore it further without being
forced to do so for currently popular reasons.
Now we shall very briefly look at the life of a
student, who has been nurtured in such an
environment, beyond the formative years.
The formative years should help the child
gain a more holistic view of the world and not
prepare the child for the wrong world. By
nurturing the passions of some and freeing
the minds of nearly all the students, a school
prepares a child well enough for the world.
The child enters the world as a youth with a
sense of performing a job for the sheer joy of
performing it and always giving it his best.
When he is assured that he is giving his best,
he tends to fret lesser. If the youth finds the
job uninteresting, then the youth fearlessly
and in a well-planned manner, shifts to
another vocation. A child who was made to
realise her capabilities and to enjoy one’s
work will not be entirely uncomfortable in a
world, which is out to compare her with
others. Given that she is pursuing her
passion or her area of strong interest, her
sense of worth is derived from her activity
and there is a good chance that her attitude
might infect others as well. It is likely that she
might be drawn into the world of comparison,
but one can expect that she is aware of her
decision. With the backing of the school
(which is a lifelong support system) and of
parents and peers, the youth is not bogged
down by fears and pressure to be successful
in a shallow sense. Success is bred
holistically and from within.
Competition is not something base and
needn’t be shunned, but one should be
aware of the mechanics of the mind and in
such still awareness, clarity is gained.

Who’s Love?
“Hah! There he comes, that scoundrel!”
For a man given to the nice upbringing in the
midst of mooing cows and the gardener’s
warmth, Davies’ vehemence was unusual. I
was saved from the blend of ale and spittle
by the expanse of tavern wood that lay
between us under the pretext of a table. I
turned slowly, masked by a vanishing white
moustache of foam, to look at the target of
such rebuke. Richlow Spitz walked from
behind the tables like a tree’s reciprocating
sway.
I returned my gaze to Davies. With the vain
hope of telekinesis followed by a sillier want
of reducing the distance between them by a
mere squinting of the eyes, Davies
hammered his empty mug with the hope that
his cynosure, now seated on a tripod near
the bartender, would get hurt and fall
unconscious.
“Come, come Davies. One couldn’t have
wronged enough to be greeted thus & still
roam freely on the street.”
“Your father keeps me far from the streets
this man walks on, Master Reggie. He bows
lower to your father than to the Mayor
himself. Be not deceived by his looks; I know
him better than that stool, which seats him for
his daily drink. He is a scoundrel of the worst
kind, if there ever was one, and a nasty one
at that.”
The ale seemed to set his tongue wagging a
lot more than it would have back home. I
gave a quick look around the place,
Fiction
Ferdinand Thomas
searching for a face that was looking hard at
me. Fortunately there were none.
“Worried, Master Reggie? Me thinks, you
are,” and before I could protest in defense,
he continued, “Fear not, for your father’s
business carried him far and long enough
that he wouldn’t return before day break, and
if he did he wouldn’t look for you here.” So
saying, he winked at me and guzzled the
remainder of his drink.
“Mighty good ale, Master Reggie.”
“That is why I asked you to get me here,
Davies.” I was beginning to realize that I
would be the only one to be addressed as
“Master so-and-so”, which was enough for
any perky ear to rise in alert. I was trying to
avoid all conversation with him but he was
the only one who could have got me such
ale, without my father’s notice.
He looked a little uncertainly at my mug
before barking out an order of two pints to
Teresa. Teresa gave me a smile before
scampering off to clear the orders.
“Don’t you let her make you feel good,
Master Reggie. These girls need a smart
man to walk in so that they can have a
comfortable few days.”
I felt the blood rise to my cheeks.
“Thank you Davies; anyway I wasn’t
interested.”
He kept drumming his fingers and kept
looking at my mug. I drank it slowly, for fear
of letting it rise uncontrollably against the
downward press of my senses.
“Drink and be merry. This is the finest I have
ever had, and I have had a good many of
these.” He patted his barrel paunch with a
pride that seemed ridiculous to me. He
turned around to check what was keeping
Teresa. She was standing with Spitz. Davies
rose and staggered his way towards her. I
was afraid that the infamous tavern fights,
which I had only heard of, would break loose.
I gulped the ale and readied myself to pull
Davies out anytime and rush out of here. Or
better still leave him here and run away
nevertheless. Over the length of the mug,
which poured ale down my throat on the
inside and outside, I saw the bartender
intervene and hand two mugs to Davies.
Davies still stood there for what seemed like
eternity, and glared at the man he called a
scoundrel. When he moved towards the
table, the ale I drank seemed sweeter and
more relieving.
“Why must you” and I burped loudly, letting
loose a rushing footsteps of claps from nearly
every table. I covered my mouth and
continued. “Why must you be so stupid,
Davies,” I hushed at him when he finally sat
down, “Why indeed? You could have become
such an embarrassment.”
“That scoundrel wants service before me. I
called the pints first, Master Reggie, you
know.”
“Now stop it there and right now, Davies. I
think you talk silly. What could he have
possibly done to make you so red under your
collar?”
He looked at me with the ale splashing in his
eyes and his tongue hanging out as if to
catch any stray drops.
“I mean what did he do so wrong?”
He drank half his mug in one gulp and said,
“You know Teresa?”
“Don’t we both?”
“Not this little twerp,” he barked and drank
some more, “the pastor’s daughter.”
“Oh! May god rest her soul. I do know her,
Davies, but why bring her into this tavern?”
“She died.”
“Of course, I know that and...”
“He killed her.”
I don’t know how my face looked or how
much my eyes bulged out, but it brought
Davies’s head down on the table heavily.
“What?”
“He killed her, that scoundrel did,” and he
kept thumping his fists while not lifting his
head from the table.
“But wasn’t it pneumonia that killed her?”
He rolled his head for the length of his
forehead darkening the soft wood through its
passage and I accepted that as a no.
“What happened, Davies?” I shoved my mug
aside. The miner beside me helped himself
to it.
“He made her love him and when he had had
enough of her, he left her to herself. He used
wiles of sorts unheard to lure her and that
beast enjoyed himself while it lasted. He
ruined that pretty girl. She had entrusted him
with everything that was hers and her honour
that belonged to her father.”
I looked up at the scoundrel. He sat on his
stool with his single able arm on the counter.
“When she confessed her love to him, oh!
she must have done it so dearly, Master
Reggie, so sweetly with a little tilt to her head
and those pink lips” he broke off and looked
up to the heavens and smiled at the bunch of
cobwebs likening them to Teresa’s dusty
specter looking down at him, “He told her he
was a traveling salesman, and didn’t stay in a
place too long. Can you believe that? A man
tells a lovely lady that he has to rush off to
sell soap cakes! That broke her heart and
she jumped off the cliff into those cold
waters. Some fisherman saved her long
enough, before the pneumonia that he had
given her, killed her.”
“What do you mean he gave her, Davies?
Come now, it was her…”
“Were it not for his craft she wouldn’t have
jumped into those waters. Me says, he
pushed her.”
I wouldn’t argue with such a saddened man,
as much as I wouldn’t with anyone who sat
beside me and had such thick eyebrows
decorating the free rim of my mug. I looked
up to see that scoundrel limp his way to the
door. A shimmer on his breast caught my
eye.
“What’s that, Davies? He wears his flask
around his neck?”
“That silly Mayor gave him a medal for saving
a child from running under a carriage. Them
horses are intelligent, and broke his knee
and travels. Got that arm too. Funny world,
Master Reggie, rewards a murderer and kills
a lovely lass.”
 Reading Reminiscence

Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Raju

I remember reading this book many years ago. I liked it without falling in love with it. For someone
who was looking forward to counting his age in double digits, this book came as a nice fantasy
story. I read it once and left it on the bookshelf. When I entered my post graduate studies in
computer science, I found many highly recommended books decorating the line below the chapter
title with quotes from this book as well as from Alice in Wonderland. It is said that Through The
Looking Glass is a sequel to Alice in Wonderland, although I am still to find any allusion to that. I
wondered how computer scientists found a correlation between what Lewis Carroll wrote with
individual chapters in programming and other areas of computer science. That was one of the
reasons I decided to read this story again. I am glad I did.

Through The Looking Glass is a delight to read and there is abundant

joy for readers at various levels. The story is at once delightfully
imaginative, philosophical and entirely nonsensical with each reading
leaving us wondering which is which. There are a variety of places
where the story appears to have a deep philosophical purport and the
fantastic characters and events reveal themselves as mere disguise for
something less shallow than cheerful entertainment. At places the story
introduces silly characters and events associated with them. These
characters leave us tickled long enough till the next character and event
roll in. There is a lot of Nonsense writing, a genre presented by very few
writers in the world. Carroll was known for his Nonsense writing, which
formed the basis for several theories and articles about them. The
interesting thing with Nonsense writing is that, it lends itself to a variety
of interpretations. Consider the Jabberwocky,

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
 And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

And my reaction to this was not different from Alice’s reaction.

“It seems pretty,” she said when she finished it, “but it’s rather hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t like to
confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas ---
only I don’t exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate------“

Such a poem can be interpreted any way one pleases. Now that is Nonsense writing at its best,
but do pause to look at this poem at different levels. Alice’s statement “However, somebody killed
something: that’s clear, at any rate”, makes me wonder about the current state of international
affairs. Were I to explain to a child the current state of chaos in the world, I am sure he would
summarise similarly for me. Nearly most items in the newspaper or on a news channel revolve
around some killing somewhere, and both killer and victim are usually anonymous. And there is
little doubt that it does fill the head with ideas! Jabberwocky has found its place in so many forms
of art and human interaction. Carroll’s interpretation of a part of his own poem is as follows:

"I am afraid I can't explain 'vorpal blade' for you--nor yet 'tulgey wood', but I did make an explanation once for
'uffish though'! It seemed to suggest a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the
temper huffish. Then again, as to 'burble', if you take the three verbs 'bleat, murmer, and warble, then select
the bits I have underlined, it certainly makes 'burble', though I am afraid I can't distinctly remember having
made it in that way."

--Letter, December 1877

Source:
Graham, Eleanor. "Lewis Carroll and the Writing of Through The Looking Glass", Introduction to Through The Looking
Glass. In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass, Puffin Books: Great Britain, 1981.

But one thing remains in spite of all the interpretations -- this poem is jolly good reading! There
hasn’t been a time when I read it and not ended up smiling. Even after reading Humpty Dumpty’s
explanation of this poem, it did not lose its initial charm and twinkling, lyrical quality.
The story starts with a layout on a chessboard along with a sequence of moves, which should get
any interested player to what is depicted on the picture. I didn’t quite bother myself to verify that,
but the Preface does claim that “it is correctly worked out, so far as the moves are concerned.” I
wonder what else needs to be correct, but the Preface proceeds to confuse things a bit.

What follows is a poem, which is very sweet. I read from a source mentioning that this poem is
from Carroll to Alice who had grown up since Alice in Wonderland and was no more the innocent
and interesting friend of Carroll, but a fine lady wedded and lost to society. The truth in this was
not verified but I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason behind this was the loss of an innocent little
friend to the ways of the world. I loved the following stanza the most, in that poem:

A tale begun in other days,

When summer suns were glowing--
A simple chime, that served to time
The rhythm of our rowing –
Whose echoes live in memory yet,
Though envious years would say “forget.”

The illustrations by John Tenniel and Henry Holiday are wonderfully apt throughout the story and
makes one pause and appreciate the strokes. It is said that Tenniel’s inability or disinterest to
illustrate a particular chapter lead to its entire omission from the story. We shall return to this lost
chapter later.

I loved the way the story starts, though one might debate that the story started much earlier than
the first line in Chapter 1: Looking-Glass House. The author creates a sense of suspense right at
the outset with the following start:

One thing was certain, that the white kitten had nothing to do with it:-- It was the black kitten’s fault entirely.

The dialogues in the story are very lively and help the reader gain an idea of the personality of the
speaker. I enjoyed the near real-life conversation that Alice has with the black kitten:

“Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,” Alice went on as soon as they were comfortably settled again, “when I saw
all the mischief you had been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out into the snow!
And you’d have deserved it, you little mischievous darling! What have you got to say for yourself? Now don’t
interrupt me!” she went on, holding up one finger. “I’m going to tell you all your faults. Number one: you squeaked
twice while Dinah was washing your face this morning. Now you can’t deny it, Kitty: I heard you! What that you
say?” (pretending that the kitten was speaking.) “Her paw went into your eye? Well, that’s your fault, for keeping
your eyes open— if you’d shut them tight up, it wouldn’t have happened. Now don’t make any more excuses, but
listen! Number two: you pulled Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk before her!
What, you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she wasn’t thirsty too? Now for number three: you unwound
every bit of the worsted while I wasn’t looking!”

The author reveals that Alice is a very naughty girl by letting her talk to herself about the
consequences of saving up all her faults and punishments. She wonders aloud what would
happen if they did that to her, and prison appears as one the possibilities! Carroll does not create
a situation to reveal Alice’s naughtiness but lets her present it without making her sound guilty
about it. The dialogues, thus, help reveal more about the character and this is true about most of
the characters in this story.
The story is basically about a girl who imagines a different world behind the mirror, a world where
everything is just like what it is in front of the mirror, but simply the other way around and different
in the possibilities it holds behind the walls beyond which Alice is unable to see from where she is
(i.e. in front of the mirror). She soon finds herself in the different world and her adventures, while
she strives to become a Queen, form the rest of the story.

What I shall present below are the pieces I loved and the portions that made me think, although
both categories are not mutually exclusive! The story starts out with a scene in Alice’s house while
she plays with her kittens. There is this interesting description of the snow outside, which captured
my attention.

“Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one
was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so
gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep,
darlings, till the summer comes again.” And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves
all in green, and dance about— whenever the wind blows— oh, that’s very pretty!” cried Alice

The imagery is wonderful and I loved it. Winter has always been treated as a cold season and this
dialogue presents winter in its warm and loving form. Very interesting. Then Alice passes through
the mirror and lands in the world in the looking glass. When she goes beyond the walls, which had
restricted her view of the new world, she finds herself in a garden whose paths always lead her
back to the house until after a conversation with the flowers in a flower bed, she realises that in
this world she would need to do things backwards and walks in the opposite direction in order to
head where she wants to! In the midst of the conversation with the flowers, she is offered an
interesting explanation as to why flowers talk.

“How is it you can all talk so nicely?” Alice said, hoping to get it into a better temper by a compliment. “I’ve
been in many gardens before, but none of the flowers could talk.”
“Put your hand down, and feel the ground,” said the Tiger-lily. “Then you’ll know why.”
Alice did so. “It’s very hard,” she said, “but I don’t see what that has to do with it.”
“In most gardens,” the Tiger-lily said, “they make the beds too soft— so that the flowers are always asleep.”

Then she meets the Red Queen who swiftly takes her through the woods. When they finally stop,
the Red Queen makes a fantastic statement, which I could immediately relate to the busy running
around that people do in the present day.

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very
fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in
the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

The Red Queen gives her the strategy (as a sequence of moves on a chessboard) to become a
Queen. Alice gets into a train and starts out on her adventures. She finds herself under a tree with
a very large gnat for company. While enumerating the name of insects that frighten her, Alice and
the Gnat have an interesting dialogue!

“Of course they answer to their names?” the Gnat remarked carelessly.
“I never knew them do it.”
“What’s the use of their having names,” the Gnat said, “if they won’t answer to them?”
“No use to them,” said Alice, “but it’s useful to the people who name them, I suppose. If not, why do things
have names at all?”
I couldn’t help smiling while wondering -- why indeed do they have names? The Gnat points her to
an insect in their world, known as the Bread-and-butter-fly.

“Crawling at your feet,” said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in some alarm), “you may observe a Bread-
and-Butter-fly. Its wings are thin slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of
sugar.”
“And what does it live on?”
“Weak tea with cream in it.” A new difficulty came into Alice’s head. “Supposing it couldn’t find any?” she
suggested.
“Then it would die, of course.”
“But that must happen very often,” Alice remarked thoughtfully.
“It always happens,” said the Gnat.

A very matter-of-fact discussion about the ways of the inhabitants of the Gnat’s world. The pure
inevitability of certain things and their acceptance is worth noting. Also, it would be worthwhile
noting the stupidity in holding some things as essential to survival (like weak tea and cream) when
they might not be so.

Alice then enters a wood where everyone forgets their names and no one has a name. One scene
in here touched me deeply about the intimate relationship between innocence and ignorance.
Alice meets a Fawn who doesn’t remember who she is. They decide to walk together for a while
till they reach the end of the wood where they should start remembering their names.

So they walked on together though the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the
Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and
shook itself free from Alice’s arms.
“I’m a Fawn!” it cried out in a voice of delight, “and, dear me! you’re a human child!” A sudden look of alarm
came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.

I don’t know exactly why, but I felt very sad after reading that. Soon, Alice is on her way and
meets Tweedledee and Tweedledum who sing the famous “The Walrus and the Carpenter” song
to her. The poem too has a very deep message hidden well inside it and a source online gave me
a new perspective. Such is the brilliance of the writer! Alice goes on her way and meets the White
Queen. When Alice feels depressed the Queen cheers her. I enjoyed the conversation after that.

“... Let’s consider your age to begin with— how old are you?”
“I‘m seven and a half exactly.”
“You needn’t say “exactually,”” the Queen remarked: “I can believe it without that. Now I’ll give
you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”
“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an
hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast...”

I couldn’t agree with her more! What is the point in believing only that which is possible?

I shant recount the adventures till Alice meets Humpty Dumpty. This chapter is very interesting
and Humpty Dumpty also provides the explanation for the Jabberwocky, which is best read in
person than discussed here. I enjoyed one dialogue between them, though.
 “I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t— till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice
knockdown argument for you!””
“But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,”” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—
neither more nor less.”

If everyone held on to that belief it would surely make the world a wonderful place for
conversations! But what I liked is what I understood Humpty Dumpty to say – people should
understand what the person is trying to say rather than introduce their individual connotations.

When Alice meets the White Knight (and many say that Carroll fashioned that character to
resemble himself) in Chapter VIII: It’s My Own Invention, there is this one scene when the Knight,
who can barely sit steady on his mount, falls into a ditch and continues talking as if nothing
happened.

“How can you go on talking so quietly, head downwards?” Alice asked, as she dragged him out by the feet,
and laid him in a heap on the bank.
The Knight looked surprised at the question. “What does it matter where my body happens to be?” he said.
“My mind goes on working all the same. In fact, the more head downwards I am, the more I keep inventing
new things.”

By far the most true statement I have heard about a creative mind, and so well cloaked is this
truth.

There is a good deal more of my favourites, but I’d rather not dwell on each of them lest the
reader feels little enthusiasm to go and pick up a copy of the book and read it for oneself. Chapter
IX: Queen Alice is a very interesting one and I couldn’t help reading it over and over again.

I had also promised the reader earlier in this article to discuss the Lost Chapter. It is said that John
Tenniel objected to the inclusion of this chapter named, “A Wasp in a Wig”. The omission is most
likely due to Tenniel’s disinterest to illustrate that chapter as was indicated in a letter to Carroll. It’s
a very interesting chapter and I wonder why Tenniel was reluctant to draw a picture for it. There
are plenty of possible pictures I can think of. I enjoyed that part when the Wasp tells Alice that
tying up the face is good for conceit.

“You’d be cross too, if you’d a wig like mine,” the Wasp went on. "They jokes, at one. And they worrits one.
And then I gets cross. And I gets cold. And I gets under a tree. And I gets a yellow handkerchief. And I ties up
my face - as at the present."
Alice looked pityingly at him. "Tying up the face is very good for the toothache," she said.
"And it’s very good for the conceit," added the Wasp.
Alice didn’t catch the word exactly. "Is that a kind of toothache?" she asked.
The Wasp considered a little. "Well, no," he said: "it’s when you hold up your head - so - without bending your
neck."
"Oh, you mean stiff-neck," said Alice.
The Wasp said, "That’s a new-fangled name. They called it conceit in my time."
"Conceit isn’t a disease at all," Alice remarked.
"It is, though," said the Wasp: "wait till you have it, and then you’ll know. And when you catches it, just try
tying a yellow handkerchief round your face. It’ll cure you in no time!"

Indeed, it is quite a disease one can do without!

In all, a very splendid book that brings home an understanding, usually unique, with every passing
reading. I would strongly recommend it to every reader who enjoys a bit of insightful reading which
gives you the option to switch to a very casual perusal, at any point, without feeling guilty of
having done injustice to the story or of self-indulgence in light reading.

Reference:
1. Online PDF version of the story (with some typos):
http://www.birrell.org/andrew/alice/lGlass.pdf
2. Lenny’s Alice in Wonderland:
http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/
 NonFiction

Confessions Of A Bad Mother

Anonymous

I would add an extra nine months, but for the record I’ve been a mother for nearly three years
now. I never wanted to be just a mother. I wanted to also be a mother. I was going to show the
world that motherhood would not stop me from doing anything that I would otherwise do. So I
packed in as much as I could in three years - from going on trekking trips to running playgroups to
writing to working. I did not just want to make a point. I wanted to hammer it in, over and over
again. I was possessed. Gradually, I became a monster that wanted to do a hundred things
including being a mother. I was spending so much energy doing my other activities that I came to
regard motherhood as an impediment, something that stopped me from going to musicals or
having friends over for dinner or even having a peaceful conversation with my husband.

I searched for that single instance when it all changed – it was like trying to locate the spot where
the first wave welled on the sea. The resentment that unfortunately gathered strength was, at
times, directed towards my boy. You are the reason why I don’t have a social life. You are what
keeps me from taking up a full-time job. Look what you’ve reduced me to; those kinds of things.

Such were the thoughts festering in my mind when a casual conversation with a friend turned
things on its head. She uttered the magic words “just embrace it”. It was as if a trigger had been
pulled. A coin dropped, a lever clicked and things just fell in place. Don’t fight it. Absorb it. Go with
the flow. The simplicity of the thought was so startling to me that I wondered why I hadn’t thought
of it earlier.

I now understand that as my son grows older, he will need me lesser with the passing day. But I
will continue to worry about him, all my life. Has he had his dinner? Did he eat his five portions of
fruit and veggies today? Why is he sniffling? Could it be flu? Has he applied to this University? I
wish he wouldn’t drive so fast. Is he interested in her? Isn’t he too young to be married?

You might say that I am being excessively harsh on myself and on mothers who get back to work
6 weeks after delivery. I am not for a minute suggesting that once we give birth, we must drop
everything and abandon our individual pursuits in favour of full-time motherhood – of course not. I
know I can never do that. I will never stop planning for my next big adventure. But I know that my
priority has changed once and for all. And there’s no point trying to think otherwise. It only leads to
conflict, one that I cannot resolve satisfactorily.

And the sooner I accept that I am anchored for life, the easier I can make my journey. There’s no
point fighting it. I can never be fancy-free as I once was. No, I don’t say that with regret. It is a
mere statement of fact. Now, if you will excuse me, I can hear my son coughing. I hope he hasn’t
caught the virus going around.
 Poetry

Autumn Leaves

Vani

They say it’s time for leaves and browns,

Red, yellow 'n orange garb for grounds.
I wonder why none stop to ask a leaf's tale...
As we fall and collect in mounds,
None stop to tend our gnarled frowns.

We were five friends, to each a brother.

Loved the same bloom and … another!
Autumn came tossing along, and we thought, why not?
We will fall when we want, in turn,
Telling tales that, in our hearts, burn.

Off he jumped, the Lusty one,

Sailed, so suave, under the Sun.
Cried when he saw young girls teased by the winds,
"Dear Nubile! Take me, with you, home."
Soon pressed he was ‘twixt her tome.

The Fatherly one stepped off next.

Left us advice under some pretext,
A little boy came prancing along to catch a brown.
Fatherly played, dodged ‘neath his chin,
But let the dear child finally win.

Then it was Artsy – the refined.

He sang paeans that he had designed.
And he spotted his soul up on a green bench.
"Dear poet with the pen you dearly hold,"
"Will you write my poem, so far untold?"
Then the Shy one we coaxed again,
"Let night fall, till then I will refrain."
The Moon swam softly in the starred Black lake.
No living soul did watch him descend,
But the Moon lit Shy till the very end.

I readied and steadied for the act;

I wasn't so eager; should I retract?
Always honour your word and season, Fatherly had said.
I shrugged and jumped, for falling sake.
A frivolous whiff carried me to a near lake.

Our dear tree said with a sigh.

“All are gone, and now these five.
No season for me; I, but, stand tall and see.
They say it’s time for leaves and browns,
But none stop to tend my gnarled frowns.”

Art of Writing: Telling versus Showing
In this column we shall explore various facets and
constructs that help us create a written piece not
merely as numerous words and syllables strung end
on end, but as a work of art which, like nearly all
examples of art, create a sensation in the audience, in
our case, the reader. Although the emphasis would be
on fiction, certain issues would be devoted to
nonfiction as well as aspects of writing in general.
Readers are encouraged to put forth their queries,
comments and interests
feedback.alvibest@gmail.com with the subject as "Art
of Writing: <month><year>"
In the earlier part of this column we had
explored the power and necessity of showing
in order to create a sensation. As much as
we shall agree that it is of utmost importance
to seduce the reader into the story and make
him breathe and live every scene, we should
also realise that the reader is human, and
living every detail of the story would only
leave him too tired to react appropriately as
the author desires. An able writer should
wield the sword that creates sensational
gashes on the naked breast, not too often
lest his art become trite and boring.
Describing every scene and passing thought
in the protagonist’s mind and in the minds of
every appearing character can leave the
reader with a tome partly read and discarded.
It is vital to recognise the apposite time and
situation to evoke the reader’s emotions. This
is one of the critical factors which go ahead to
make a story a well received tale, to which
readers connect and go ahead to make it a
best seller in the true sense of the phrase.
What we shall discuss in this part of this
column is the purpose of telling and some
Column
Anand Krishnaswamy
hints to help a writer decide when to employ
showing over telling and conversely. As is
true about most elements of an art, nothing is
etched on stone.
We shall now discuss various situations
where telling is more appropriate than
to
showing. Each of them has its individual
purpose and mastering each of them is
equally important. There aren’t many stellar
examples of telling that one might recall from
novels or popular short stories, hence, most
examples are constructed for the purpose of
this article.
Settings and passing scenes:
Although a story is a writer’s free expression,
it does well to have him lay it out to deliver
the effect he so desires. While reordering and
reshaping the story, one needs to massage
the emotive portions to heighten an effect
and strip the blubber off certain other chunks
of the story. If a story is long (say, a novel)
then some scenes are bound to enter merely
to serve the purpose of maintaining the flow
of the story and not let it appear as news
articles in the story of the world as told by the
morning newspaper. The major characters
will definitely go on a long drive, or meet near
an elevator and wait nervously till their
respective floors arrive, or order breakfast
while deciding how to go about getting all the
money out of the office from under the boss’s
nose; the author cannot afford to describe
each of these scenes in detail. It would be
easier and sufficient to say:
 Richard decided to order some more coffee
while he worked on the numbers on his laptop.
This is sufficient in most contexts. If the
coffee or the act of placing the order was to
be used to reveal something about Richard or
the setting, then the author might elaborate a
bit more, but this is not often required.
Another example is:
She decided to wait for him in the lobby,
where there were more people.
This is usually preferred over an elaborate
paragraph describing the lobby or an internal
monologue (which we shall come to soon).
The reader would do well to note that the
latter half of the sentence above also shows
us something about the relationship between
the protagonist and the person she is waiting
for: she doesn’t want to meet him alone.
Consider the following piece.
The street looked strangely familiar. The
hardware store was where he was expecting it
to be although the ice-cream stall was
obtrusively near the veggies and fruits shack.
The broken tile on the pavement was exactly
where he lowered his eye to, but the hustle
around the dry cleaners wasn’t expected. He
walked down and across the gramophone
record store, the coffee shop, the garage and
stopped for a second near the clock shop; no,
this was not how it used to be, but then what
was.
This piece has something interesting in it and
the reader would do well to re-visit it before
reading further. The telling is used to create
the location or setting details, but is also used
to create an abruptness one feels while
suddenly placed in a vaguely familiar locality.
Here telling is used in a form of showing (the
abruptness and a kindling familiarity). This
style was put to wonderful use by Dickens in
many of his works. We could transform this
into an immediate scene but it might draw the
attention of the reader away from what might
be the crux of this portion of the story (which
the writer must decide).
Such scenes have a purpose, and telling best
suits that purpose. Usually the “shown” parts
are artistic and a writer is lured into believing
that only these parts are worth spending time
over. This is farther from the truth than one
realises.
Rhythm
And the truth is that rhythm must be varied
and pulsating in a story, esp. a long one. If
the story is brief in length then there might
not be much opportunity to vary the rhythm
before the story ends. But apart from short-
short-stories, telling can be used to vary
rhythm and let the reader catch his breath. A
continuous stream of intense pieces and/or
immediate scenes, as mentioned earlier, will
leave the reader exhausted and the effects
that arrive later will tell less on his (dulled)
senses and the writer’s efforts will be all in
vain. Joyce would often string one such piece
after another. Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway
makes it a very heavy-breathing reading too,
albeit a worthwhile effort. Unfortunately, it
doesn’t always impress readers.
Repetitive action
Many of us have seen movies, which
centered on a sport. Seabiscuit, Bloodsport,
Lagaan, Rocky and a few others come
immediately to one’s mind. What one notices
in these movies is that the best fight, the best
presentation of the sport is saved for the last.
There are some sporting events that are
depicted throughout the movie too, but none
of them have as much emotion and suspense
as the final piece. Repeated events are run
through quickly in the form of various
newspaper headlines or announcements on
radio or such means. Older movies used a
directorial technique of showing the passing
days of training or workouts as quickly
flipping pages of a desk calendar in the
background with the main characters doing
their ordained activity in the foreground.
These are nothing but motion picture’s ways
of telling. If we observe the design of a well-
done movie, we have very many hints to help
us structure our written works. This necessity
and technique is not restricted to sport based
movies.
Repetitive actions in stories are best
presented in a varied manner. Some need to
be told and some need to be shown. A typical
technique used by many writers is to provide
a slightly detailed “first-look” at the activity or
sport with some good showing, then create a
scene of shown tension, so that the readers
start feeling the protagonist’s need to
succeed or avenge. Then a few scenes of
repeated action which lets us know how the
protagonist is building his/her web and then a
final scene or two where the reader’s pent-up
emotions are forced to burst over the
crumbling dykes of suspense. A popular
fiction novel like Rage of Angels does not
elaborate every court scene nor does Robin
Cook go into the medical details of each
scene in his books.
Character and physical traits
Fairly vital to most stories is the image that
they create in the reader’s mind about the
main characters of the story. In very short
stories, character development or showing
the actor’s character might not be possible.
They can employ telling to give the reader a
quick picture of the actor(s). In a novel or any
long story, there is sufficient space to let the
characteristics of the major characters evolve
and be shown. Although, telling can be
employed to provide these details, they
should not be used to provide an anatomical
description of the character. Something like:
Jacob was short, about five feet and was
blonde. He liked to wear expensive suits and
traveled in a Merc.
is surely unwelcome and quite likely out of a
user manual about Jacob. Terse showing and
telling are often confused and the best way to
tell what is the best means to employ at a
given point is to answer the question “Does
this characteristic feature help the reader get
a better picture and/or
love/hate/despise/empathise with the
character?” Depending on the answer to that
as well as the length of the written piece, the
writer should be able to arrive at the best
strategy of providing details about the actors
in the story. The above sentence could be
better presented as:
Jacob nearly always looked up, whether he
was seated in his Merc or standing erect
talking to someone and flicking blonde strands
off his Armani; not when he spoke to himself in
the mirror.
Exposition
I remember reading Arthur Hailey’s books
where he would present detail after painful
detail across several pages. I would readily
skip those pages. There are other authors
who do the same in order to provide a certain
realism to their story. Exposition provides
details without taking the story forward.
Telling is by far the only means of achieving
this. A writer who cares a lot for details as
well as the need to create an air of realism
would do well to tell clearly and convincingly.
A certain element of creativity can be
introduced, like a scene with two mechanics
working on a car and having a part technical
and part personal conversation, sprinkled
with an acceptable dose of “telling” details.
Interior monologues
Interior monologues are best suited for
stories told in the 1st person. Some writers do
present 3rd person thoughts as interior
monologue but that is not always the best
idea as it would appear as if the writer kept
jumping into every character’s head and
presented what they were going through.
Interior monologue should be unobtrusive.
Since one doesn’t think in scenes – well,
most people don’t – telling is best suited for
portions of interior monologue. Graham
Greene used the tool of “imagined” dialogue
very well in his splendid story, Awful when
you think of it (available online). It is about an
incident when the narrator is left alone with a
baby in a wicker basket and how he holds a
conversation with the little one. This is a fine
case of interior monologues projected as
dialogues.
Change of setting/scene
Often a writer needs to change the scene
without providing details about what
transpires between the end of one and the
start of the other. The protagonist is likely to
lock her house and then be in the office, and
no one would be interested in the bus she
took or the change she forgot to collect from
the conductor! It would be fine to say:
Lila locked her house and rushed to work. As
she walked into her office, she saw the clock
on the wall glaring at her: “You are 10 minutes
late.”
This should suffice. There is no necessity to
elaborate every single minute after the click
of her lock and the click of her heel as she
steps into her office.
We have discussed some places where
telling is best suited. Reading good literature
and some well planned practice should
enable a writer to know when showing or
telling is required.
In the next issue we shall discuss another
facet of writing.

Point-Counterpoint
It was amazing to watch them arrive at Mr.
Seth’s house before the first yawn of the
early morning sun touched the highest leaves
on the eucalyptus trees that lined the walk.
All of them in shades of white, white, off-
white, ivory, white lost to the blue of
detergent, grey turned white due to age or
bleach or both and hair which hastened to
out-whiten the thinning mane of the nearest
head. They wore caps to look serious and
white canvas shoes to look young and
determined.
Maybe the sun chose not to hurt their pride
and arrive before they did. Maybe the
shadow of light always precedes light itself,
for they were a shadow of what they were,
although Mrs. Rajarathinam was a well filled
shadow. It seemed that the order in which
they proceeded from house to house
gathering their battalion of early morning
walkers, reflected the energy levels; the least
energetic being injected with numerous
curled fists pumping up and down as
energetic as aerobic artists on TV and
variously pitched “Come on Mr. Seth. It is
luhvely” cries waking confused birds. Then
they would go for an hour’s walk down the
road without looking up at the eucalyptus
trees, which calmly looked down on their
pates and toothless laughter. The winds tried
to mimic their belly laughs, but such depth
was never known to vagabonds.
Today they returned early. Mr. Seth’s
daughter and her family were in town and
they had promised the young Sarika a long
Fiction
Govindarajan
trip in the zoo. Sarika had entertained all of
them the previous evening with her antics of
how she imagined “el-fants” would sway their
trunk when they saw her and how “jil-lafs”
would walk and she swayed her neck back
and forth to their merry laughter.
Mr. Seth asked his wife to bring the tea to the
garden and all of them sat in a small circle,
fanning themselves. Sarika had woken up
and she came running out in her chemise.
She rushed to sit on her grandfather’s lap but
he held her at a distance, “No Rani (queen), I
am all sweating. Chee, chee. I am dirty. We’ll
play after I have a bath. Ok?” She turned on
her heels slowly and looked for some patron.
“Ajit, I still think that Advaita holds the key to
the essence of life,” said Mrs. Rajarathinam
quickly, before the child picked her palpitating
laps as her human throne.
“But what about those who haven’t heard of
Advaita? Would they never attain salvation?”
wheezed Ajit Kumar Tandav.
“But…,” started Mrs. R.
“See, philosophy is something we need to
explore without starting with the end in mind”,
said Mani.
“What do you mean, Mani,” asked Gaurav
Kumar.
“It’s like this. Let’s look at life. How was this
created? Shouldn’t we understand that before
figuring out the best means of attaining an
end which we do not know to be good
enough? What is it that matters? Why are we
here? What are we meant to do? There has
to be a reason. The reason can’t be Vedanta
or Zen or things like that. And then there is…”
“I want to play with my Dolal Duck…”
“Sweetie, go and play with mommy. Dada
(grandfather) and his friends are talking
here.”
Sarika stayed and played with her Donald
Duck stuffed toy and whispered into its ear
hoping that someone would get curious to
know what she said and lean over to ask her.
“Life is not meant to be such a struggle. We
are losing focus of what is right in front of our
eyes for something that we do not know. Why
struggle to get something if that is what life is
meant to find and enjoy?”
“But I agree with what the Buddha said that
life is but suffering.”
“That’s humbug. Why should it be? We have
Buddha on one side and Osho on the other
and Osho has a following…”
“Oh, come on. You aren’t going to compare
them, are you? Buddha was …”
“Mrs. Rajarathinam, why are you against
Osho?”
“Exactly, we already have goods and bads
and that is what is driving our lives. We have
stopped enjoying life. We are more
concerned about what will happen to our
souls and what will happen to us after this
life. Will we reincarnate? Will we go to
heaven? Will we reincarnate in many forms?
What happened in our past lives? What
should we do to mend our soul’s way now? Is
our soul infinite? Are we part of a whole or we
part of a different whole? We want to know
the higher truth when we don’t know truth at
various levels below that higher truth. We
want to reach the heavens but care little
about this earth. We have stopped enjoying
what we have and have stopped respecting
the basic fibres of our life. I think we
should…”
Sarika shot up and put her hands to her
mouth and started laughing. She ran out of
the circle formed by the walkers, turned
around and laughed.
“Sari, what happened?” asked Mr. Seth and
then, looking at the periphery of the circle
they had formed in the lawn, he cried out,
“Sarika, what have you done? What is this?”
And everyone stared at the laces of their
shoes tied together and their once white
shoes transformed into a canvas of
toothpaste and brown streaks of mud splayed
across.
Sarika ran in shouting on top of her voice,
“Mommy, mommy, see what happened to
Dada and his flends…”
 Information

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