AN ARTIST’S STORIES

It was a warm evening when I strolled into the Oxford bookstore on Park Street, Kolkata, with my mother, my creative writing teacher, Ms. Richa Wahi, and a few other education specialists to attend a story telling session by Ms .Xanthe Gresham, who had also hosted a workshop earlier that day.We had had a rather scrunched and uncomfortable ride in the car, and it would have to take something vastly entertaining to impress me when I’m slightly provoked, so I didn’t expect the session to be very fun for me and considered it beforehand to be a very kiddish affair.

I guess we should never judge a book by its cover.

There was an air of excitement in the bookstore, which was evidently due to the upcoming session. After being presented with refreshments and a brief introduction about Xanthe, the performance began. Xanthe strolled onto the stage with amazing confidence and began the legendary story of the Persian hero Rustam and how he was born with great vigour. It was about how an older legendary hero, Saam, abandoned his newborn son to die in the mountains of Iran, just because he had white hair and was thought by his father to be sent from the demons (this boy, by the way, turned out to be the first ever albino). However, he was left beneath a nest of huge birds and survived by being brought up with them, and he was known as Zaan, or the white-haired one. Meanwhile, as he grew older, Saam realized that there was nothing evil about a person’s hair colour, and so he went rushing back to the mountains to see if his son was somehow miraculously alive. He found him in the nest and took him home after he bid farewell to his bird mother. After they returned, Saam wanted his son to be married, but Zaan was heavily against the proposal. As he paced, thinking, he unknowingly crossed over to the enemy land of Kabul, and saw the beautiful princess Rudaba. Both of them fell madly in love with each other, and the two kingdoms reunited under their marriage. A few years later, after performing the first Caesarean section, Rustam was born. I liked this story because it was highly involving and participative and what would have been a common garden fairytale was changed into something much more by Xanthe.

Next, Xanthe began a story about her grandmother, who had the unfashionable name of Mabel, but was known as “Mabs”. Mabs had a minor passion of knitting, and knitted various things, from scarves to caps to toys to shawls. Xanthe gave a detailed, well-connected and rhyming description about her grandmother’s possessions, which were all somehow relevant to a hat that Mabs had made. It started with some sheep, and ended with the hat. I had the honour of playing the part of a skull lying on one of Mabs’ shelves. This was easily the most interactive story of the lot, not to mention that it entertainingly chronicled the journey of wool from sheep to hat, and it was noticeable that the audience was entertained and was ready, almost craving, for more.

The third story was about a Russian boy called Ivan (who was born out of an oak tree branch) and the evil goddess Babbyaaga (this name was said with a demented, deep and evil voice). Babbyaaga liked to eat boys of Ivan’s build, and so she tied to lure Ivan using various funny and odd methods of baiting. When Ivan finally did fall into her trap, she took him to her house, which had a highly secret (and blubbery) password. However, with the help of Babbyaaga’s cat, Ivan broke out and Babbyaaga was slain, after ingesting millions of gallons of water. This was a hugely funny and fast-paced story, which tells us that a mother’s love means a lot to a child.

The final story was a scary but funny story about how a man marries a skeleton bride in a fit of drunkenness on the day before his wedding. Realizing his mistake the next day, he rushed to the local priest and asked if he could marry again on that day. In the meantime, his accidental bride had followed him and felt sad after overhearing what the man said. The man’s actual bride arrived and saw the sad skeleton after being told what had happened. She reassured the skeleton by saying that every ounce of love that he showered her with, every child that they had, would as much the skeleton’s as much as it was hers. This was a funny take on marriage in a slightly scary way and it really amused the audience. 

With that the session came to a close. Certificates of participation were handed out to the people who had attended the workshop. I really couldn’t believe the effect the session had on me. I had entered a cranky teenager and left a happy, contented person. The storytelling session was extremely fun, and  undoubtedly she is one of the of the finest storytellers. The expression and confidence with which she narrates simple stories weaves some kind of magic. I would like to thank Xanthe for demonstrating to me that stories are more than just words on paper.

Frozen in Time:A Book Review

Author:Ali Sparkes

The year is 2009, and Ben and Rachel are trying to figure out a way to spend their summer holidays when it is constantly raining. When suddenly, the waterworks are switched off. In celebration, they rush out into their jungle of a garden to play, when they discover a strange, gleaming object in the ground that refused to budge from its place. Dedicatedly, they dig around the object and discover a large vault buried under the ground. And inside the vault there are two....

The year is 1956. Freddy and Polly, the children of a famous British scientist, love helping their father. He has carried out research in cryonic suspension, meaning that he can freeze the hearts of animals and restart them whenever he likes. He froze his children almost on a daily basis. The children did not mind, they knew that they were helping their father with his research. But one day their father leaves them frozen for a little too long....

When Ben and Rachel discover Freddy and Polly frozen in the vault after fifty-three years, their life is completely turned upside down. They have to accommodate two children from 1956 in the 21st century,face bullies, participate in an ultimate showdown between two governments, rediscover a lost relative, and rescue each other. But can they pull through all of this alive and safe? Can they find out why Freddy and Polly's father left them frozen in time?

This a wonderful piece of work that is extremely gripping. The idea is too innovative to be true. However, I felt that I had reached the ending too quickly. It was filled with too many irrelevant things. The main focus was varying throughout the book. The ending was simply amazing. It is incomprehensible to think that someone could write such a mystifying ending.

All in all, I feel that it is a good book to read, but not entirely a good book to cherish.

The Monty Hall Problem

Let us say that you are at a game show. There are three doors, behind one of which there is a car(I don't know of which company!)and the other two contain goats. You are asked to select one of the doors. Then, the anchor of the game show opens one of the doors that you have not chosen, and there is a goat inside. So,do you stick to your choice or change your door to get a car??

Follow this blog to find out more! Also, you can give your own answers through comments and wait for the correct answer next week.

THE WRITERS’ CARNIVAL

It was a bright, sunny day when we reached Saptaparni to be a part of the writers’ carnival organized by Nivasini Publishers. To be honest, being a writer, I was feeling excited, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it back out awake.

My assumption was completely prejudiced and biased.

It was an illuminating experience. I picked up many writing tips, some new, some lost and forgotten, and some that I already knew. The carnival involved four great writing personalities in Hyderabad talking about how and why kids should write and in what ways it can help them. I was enthralled by the entrancing lives that these people led and while speaking to them, I realized that no matter how crazy or silly I was, my imagination would never be as good as theirs.

The first speaker was  Meetu Chawla, who is an education specialist, and also my mother, so the fact that she was speaking on Mother’s Day was almost rhetorical to me. She may as well have been saying, “Don’t you see? It’s Mother’s Day, yet I am still working. You should learn a thing or to from me!” Anyway, she gave us writing tips, told us the good and bad news of being a writer, and told us about playing with words, using wordplay techniques such as Spoonerisms and Portmanteau, and how to learn new words.    It was a fun talk as we created our own words, such as scrumpilicious and fantabulous, and switching the letters of words thike lis ( like this!)

The next speaker was  Janaki Thunga, who was an author and 75 years old. She also gave us writing tips. If you thought that the talk would be boring, you were wrong. This talk was brightened by a huge amount when she told us about the experiences she had while discovering these tips. She also showed us her various books and how she had used her tips in them.

The next speaker was Mrs Cheryl Rao, who is also an author. She gave us writing tips in quite a funny way. She gave us the tips, told us how she uses them, and also told us what catastrophes took place with her writing when she did not follow them.

The final speaker was 17-year old Ms Varsha who works for the Times of India and is one of their 10 star correspondents. She told us about the writing methods that got her into TOI at age 13, she spoke about the job of journalism and she also told us that while writing articles, the first draft that you write is the original you. If you try to change it, then you are trying to see to it that the reader feels happy. But as there are so many readers it doesn’t matter.

By the end of the day, I was surprised and astonished about the writing endeavours and feats that people had achieved. I was also fascinated at what a pinch of hard work can do. I now knew that thanks to these enlightening people and this enlightening carnival, my writing will improve by leaps and bounds .

   

A Prehistoric Nuclear Reactor!

Finally! The exams are over, but, aside from having fun, there is nothing to do. However, as I was surfing the Net, nuclear physics interested me. Check out what I found out!

Creating a nuclear reaction is not simple. In power plants, it involves splitting uranium(U) atoms, a process that creates energy in the form of heat and neutrons, which go on to split other atoms. This process is called nuclear fission.In power plants, sustaining the immense amounts of energy created by nuclear fission requires the use of many scientists and technicians.

In fact, it wasn't until the late 1930s that physicists Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard recommended uranium to be capable of sustaining a chain reaction. Szilard and Fermi conducted experiments at Columbia University and found significant neutron production with uranium, proving that the chain reaction was possible and enabling nuclear weapons. Szilard wrote on the night of the discovery, "There was no doubt in my mind that the world was headed for grief."

Due to the complexity of the process, the world was stunned in 1972 when French physicist Francis Perrin discovered that Mother Nature had done the work of inventing the nuclear reactor about 2 billion years before mankind did, beneath Oklo in Gabon, Africa. This natural reactor was formed when a uranium-rich mineral deposit came in contact with groundwater, Which slowed the neutrons ejected by the uranium molecules so that they could interact with and split other atoms. Heat was produced, hence the water turned into steam. Thus the process slowed. The environment cooled, the steam condensed, and the process repeated.

Scientists estimate that the Oklo reactor ran for hundreds of thousands of years, creating various isotopes expected from the reactions that scientists detected at Oklo. The nuclear reactions in the uranium in underground veins consumed about 5 tons of uranium-235. So far, no other natural nuclear reactors have been identified.

                                                           
                                        A diagram of the 1955  neutronic
                                                                                    reactor invented by Fermi and 
                                                                                    Szilard




So, no matter how many advances mankind makes in science, we later come to know that Mother Nature has done it all. It's amazing, isn't it?!

The Hunger Games: A Book Review

16-year old Katniss Everdeen runs her family. She has to go hunting illegally in the woods and trade her game in the black market for other amenities. Yet still it is difficult for her family to make ends meet. Ever since her father's death, her mother has retreated into her mind in shock, and her younger sister Prim is not of much help either. Katniss wonders when this time of agony shall end.

Katniss lives in Panem, a country which is located in an area once called North America. It is ruled by a strong city called the Capitol, and is built of twelve surrounding districts. Katniss lives in the twelfth district, the poorest, most uneducated, menial and starved district of Panem.

Katniss can't imagine how her family will survive without her. But she will have to imagine it when she volunteers to take the place of he sister to participate in the Hunger Games, an entertaining punishment(for the Capitol) for something terrible that happened in Panem's past. Each district must send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in a fight to the death in an unknown arena. The winner is the only one who survives, and gets fame and fortune. The losers get death. Will Katniss survive the Hunger Games to return and take care of her family again, or will she succumb to the extreme pressure and to the people out to murder her?

I like this book because not only does it catch the drama and adrenaline related to death, it also tells us that no matter what the type of government, if the people don't like it, they can speak up, whether they have the right to or not. This voice is the one that tips the scales in the history of a country. Suzanne Collins has managed to produce another gripping, award winning, bestselling book series after the Underland Chronicles. The Hunger Games will delight readers all over the world!

Paradox

Supposing you wake up one morning and go to the dining table for breakfast. Both your parents are already there.
Your mother says, "What your father says is false."
Your father, stuffing his face with sausages says, "What your mother says is true."




What do you do???