'Nature doesn’t promise you anything - an after life, rewards for good behaviour, protection from enemies, wealth, happiness, progeny, all the things that humans desire and pray for. No, nature does not promise any of these things. Nature is a reward in itself.’
And with that fitting introduction, Ruskin Bond takes you into his personal paradise. He talks about his formative years and the influence that nature has had in shaping his thoughts and work. The book is interesting in bits and parts.I enjoyed his memories of a childhood spent at his grandfather’s house in Dehra. Building a makeshift platform on the banyan tree…curling up with dog-eared books…and stealthily observing the antics of animal life in the overgrown garden below; all struck a nostalgic chord with me.The sojourn in the Himalayas was also engrossing. He captures the stark beauty of the unforgiving terrain with all the fondness of a native. Especially poignant is the account of The Leopard. Read it and feel the elemental connection.I revelled in the chapter on ‘Rains’…more so because I read the book during the monsoon. I have always had a specialty affinity for this particular season and over the years have made quite a few jottings of my own. Some of his notes mirrored mine and all I wanted to do was snuggle up and read on...and on.
On the downside…I didn’t much take to the tedious descriptions of plant-life. It was too reminiscent of a college-lecture to hold my interest. While the book didn’t match the wit and sheer charm of 'My Family and Other Animals', it does resonate with all who have spent many a hazy summer day in their native places…soaking in nature and never ever realising the treasures surrounding them.
When you grow up
and have children of your own
Do please remember
something important
A stodgy parent is no fun at all
What a child wants
and deserves
Is a parent who is
SPARKY …and with that li’l post-script, Roald Dahl sums up the essence of Danny The Champion of The World.Danny is a small boy, living with his father in an ancient gypsy caravan. They run a filling-station and lead an idyllic life in the countryside. Danny’s father is a fount of interesting ideas and information. Everyday brings something new and undiscovered to learn and Danny idolizes his dad.
But as it is with idols and their proverbial feet-of-clay, Danny soon discovers that his dad has a vice : Poaching. Poaching pheasants, to be precise. He dreams up of outlandish ploys to catch the birds and his favourite hunting-ground is owned by the wealthy (but nasty) Mr.Victor Hazell. Danny is soon swayed by the romanticism of the whole exercise and eventually his father intends coming up with a master plan. Mr.Hazell holds an annual pheasant shooting-party. A grand affair attracting the rich and influential, it is Mr.Hazell’s moment of glory. And Danny’s father wants to teach the vile, beery-faced landowner a lesson..... by emptying the woods of every single pheasant. A sizeable task and here’s where Danny’s clever idea comes into play.The book is a tricky one to judge. You start off a bit disgruntled to read about Danny’s father encouraging the unlawful act of poaching. But gradually like Danny you see the brilliance, daring, devilry and sheer thrill of the chase. Thanks to Dahl’s fiendish story-telling, the tables are turned and you are drawn towards the father-son relationship. It is warm, exciting and thanks to the one big flaw, all the more believable. One of Dahl’s more down-to-earth ventures.
Summer vacations as a kid were intricately linked with a stack of Nancy Drews and Enid Blytons (well, we didn’t have Cabot and Rowling back then!). I thought the sun shone out of Nancy’s every orifice…Ned Nickerson was my first non-dimensional crush…and I was content in the knowledge that come what may; the 18-year old, strawberry blonde, girl detective extraordinaire would emerge victorious in the end.
At a book-fair recently, I came across the first Nancy Drew Mystery Story (The Secret of The Old Clock). It was going for a lark…I was feeling nostalgic…and so I picked it up. Hardbound with a smattering of pencil-drawings, it had language oh-so-propah…I couldn’t resist smirking.
If Nancy Drew was written today, she would have been a slick, cussing-at-regular-intervals, intense teenager. Gone would be the ‘oh-dear-I-seem-to-be-locked-in-a-van-surrounded-by-horrible-men’ reaction. She would not be a perfect-heroine but a more acceptable underdog. Ah well, those were the days…
As for the mystery itself, it revolves around the missing will of a deceased but wealthy man called Josiah Crowley. Finding the will is imperative if a bunch of deserving candidates are to benefit from it. So Nancy Drew is off….chasing robbers, dealing with snooty debutantes…warding off pretentious fortune-hunters…and finding a missing clock that could hold the key to the whole mystery. All this while being impeccably dressed, well-mannered and being blessed with brainwaves at the drop of a hat. GO SUPERRR-NANCY!
Aaj Pehli Taarik hai……and I can’t get the Cadbury Ad out of my head. It’s catchy and appeals to my innate silliness. AND I didn’t know that it was, in actual fact, an ol’Kishore Kumar song from a movie called (what else?): Pehli Taarik.
So yeah, I have a retro mind-worm and I hum it at the most inappropriate moments.
…............................................................................ (um, cos I don’t know how to jump from one topic to another seamlessly)
And what better way to start off a month than with *Four Weddings and A Funeral*? I love this movie. The only chick-flick I can sit through without making gagging sounds. Though the ending was a bit too hindi-filmi-ish for my liking.
But, great lines...Hugh Grant...fantastic ensemble cast...Hugh Grant...and well, Hugh Grant. And I have always wanted a wicked-mad uncle like Gareth…cracks me up every single time. Brit-humour is the best; drier than a bone with a sting in it’s tail.
Here are a few:
Tom: Oh, I don't know, Charlie. Unlike you, I never expected "the thunderbolt." I always just hoped that, that I'd meet some nice friendly girl, like the look of her, hope the look of me didn't make her physically sick, then pop the question and, um, settle down and be happy. It worked for my parents. Well, apart from the divorce and all that.
~
Fiona: Where's Gareth?
Matthew: Torturing Americans.
Fiona: How thoughtful of him.
~
Carrie: Having a good night?
Charles: Yes. It's right up there with my father's funeral for sheer entertainment value.
~
Tom: The great advantage of having a reputation for being stupid: People are less suspicious of you.
~
Matthew: I remember the first time I saw Gareth on a dancefloor. I feared lives would be lost.
~
Gareth: We had the most delightful girl at our table. Carrie, apparently her fiancé's terribly grand and owns half of Scotland. How about you?
Charles: I seem to be stuck in the wedding from hell, ghosts of girlfriends past at every turn. Next thing I'll bump into Henrietta and the nightmare will be complete.
Henrietta: Hello Charles.
Charles: Hello Hen, how are you? [Hen bursts into tears]
That was it, first post of the month. Am brushing over the ick moments, as we all know that I am Lady Bountiful where those are concerned. Plenty more posts to whine and whinge about those. So long....a happy, non-homicidal month to all.
A couple in the opposite building had acquired two goats. I saw them grow from spindly-legged kids to sprightly, handsome fellas. Was admiring them one day, when a friend remarked that they were probably being fed so heartily as they would most definitely end up on the dinner table someday!
Oh yes, Charlotte’s Web was déjà-vu for me.
So we have an unassuming pig named Wilbur. His previous owner, Fern still comes to visit him at his new barn…he gets three full meals…is surrounded by an odd but cheery menagerie and has a new best-friend in the form of Charlotte the spider. *Pig-Heaven*
But there’s trouble in paradise. One of the ol’sheep lets slip that Wilbur is going to end up as Christmas Dinner. Now Wilbur is a young and unworldly pig…so he squeals and he whimpers and he whines. But Charlotte will NOT be a guest at the pity-party. She puts her crafty mind to work and comes up with an ingenious plan.
With an artful bit of spinning, she weaves words (*Some Pig*, *Terrific*, *Humble*) into her web eulogizing her friend. Her idea is that if she builds up the pig’s cred, he might just stand a chance of becoming famous and avoiding an early, sticky end.
Will the plan work and save Wilbur from a fate worse than pot-roast? Read and soak in the magic of E.B.White. Essentially a children’s book, Charlotte's Web has enough nuances to keep you hooked as an adult too. The rustic descriptions of farm-life….the passing of the seasons, so closely mirrored by the changing emotions of the animals…the dry wit and the homilies woven in effortlessly….all add up to a soothing classic.
Special mention for Garth William’s artwork….beautiful and awash in a soft palette (by Rosemary Wells).This book is a fat l'il treasure and makes you wish you were a dreamy, uncomplicated child again.
Here’s hoping my star-crossed goats have as happy a life as ol’Wilbur.
I love this panel of Betty and Hot Dog. Reminds me of Leo 'n' me. Hot Dog technically belongs to Jughead but has a soft spot for Betty. Similarly Leo doesn't belong to me but I always feel that the big-lug is rooting for me!:)
“I am Mary Lennox. I fell asleep when everyone had cholera, and I just woke up.”
Not a very cheery start, is it? And so a sour-faced, sullen orphan Mary is whisked away from her birthplace India to stay with her guardian, Mr.Archibald Craven at Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire.
The manor is a sprawling place surrounded by gardens and desolate moors. Mr.Craven is a reclusive widow and often travels abroad leaving Mary in the care of his unbending housekeeper,Mrs.Medlock and a cheery l’il chambermaid,Martha. In an attempt to pep up the sickly child, Martha regales Mary with stories of her younger brother Dickon. Dickon is a true child of nature...he can talk to animals, spend hours alone on the moors and make anything, absolutely anything grow. Almost a nature-sprite.
Martha also tells Mary about a Secret Garden in the grounds which has been kept locked for the past ten years. No one knows where the key is and even if they did, it would be useless.....since Mr.Craven has forbidden anyone to enter the garden.
By a sheer stroke of luck (or is it thanks to a red-breasted robin?), the now steadily improving Mary discovers the lost key and promptly enters the long-shut garden. Despite the air of seeming lifelessness, Mary sees that there is hope for renewal. With the help of her newly-made friend Dickon, she is soon spending happy-hours digging and planting and growing happier and healthier in the garden.
In the midst of all these developments, she is still disturbed by a mysterious crying she often hears in the manor. She soon finds out that it is Mr.Craven’s crippled son, Colin. The frail child stays in bed, is never visited by his dad, throws tantrums and is convinced that he is going to drop-dead soon! Used to bossing over the household, he meets his match in an equally pugnacious Mary. She snaps him out of his melancholy, befriends him and lets him in on the secret of the garden. As time passes; Mary, Dickon and Colin have some good sprightly fun doing honest labour and watching the garden come alive.
I read ‘THE SECRET GARDEN’ in the Classic Starts version. Simple, abridged…a fresh way to introduce the classics to kids (and useless adults like me). Adding to the charm were the brilliantly shadowed pencil-drawings by Lucy Corvino. It was a charming, light read. You empathize with Mary’s lonliness...get a little impatient with Colin’s moping...and wish that you were exactly like Dickon.
You cannot NOT love a Potter movie. Watching Rowling’s world recreated in painstaking detail exactly the way you imagined it, is always a fun ride. And yet….. being a Potter-purist might leave you a tad miffed where ‘Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince’ are concerned.
So
we have a teenaged Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) flirting with a muggle-waitress (apparently, in a bid to dull the shock of losing Sirius and have some semblance of reality in his life). But before things can get off the ground, Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) whisks the reluctant hero off onto the first of many tasks to come. A retired professor Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) is reinstated as Potions Master. But what about Snape (Alan Rickman), you ask? Hovering like a malevolent bat, he seems to have much more sinister things up his cloak than usual.Soon, Dumbledore is taking Potter along on trips down Voldemort’s memory lane (courtesy, The Pensieve). These flashbacks, coupled with one elusive memory involving Prof.Slughorn might hold all the clues necessary to bring about the destruction of Voldemort.
So yes, in essence things are moving along at a desired pace. You get glimpses into a young and even then, eerily-evil Voldemort’s life. Harry discovers a Potions textbook of an old student who goes by the pseudonym of ‘The Half-Blood Prince’ and uses it to do splendidly well in potions. There’s sufficient romantic angst what with Ron (Rupert Grint) snogging a tremulous (and irritating) Lavender Brown at regular intervals, much to Hermione (Emma Watson)'s impotent anger. Harry skitters around his new-found infatuation for Ginny Weasley(Bonny Wright). A grown-up Draco(Tom Felton) looks paler than usual, thanks to an impossible task set to him by The Dark Lord. And the Death-Eaters led by the deliciously sadistic Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) and an icky Greyback are wrecking havoc in Muggle and Wizard World alike.
Harry is at his wittiest-best…a tad cocky but endearing nevertheless... Ron plays his role of the blustering bloke with ‘an-emotional-range-of-a-teaspoon’ to the tee….Snape is his usual crisply-loathsome self. And Dumbledore is a joy to behold…as always.
On the downside, vital characters (Hermione, Tonks, Lupin etc) look like scenery while Ginny gets centre-stage. If you haven’t read the book (really?!?)….it won’t make a spot of difference. But if you have…well, get prepared for some serious revamping.
In all, spell-binding to watch for the special effects and sheer grandeur of the sets. More screen-time for a few favourites would have been nice. But in the end it’s Harry Potter…and for the loyalty you owe the wee-Potter lad… just for that…you go and watch and keep the whining to a minimum.
Life at the Dursleys is the usual merry-hell, accentuated this time around by the presence of Aunt Marge (horrible sister to the terrible Mr.D). Constant barbs make Harry lose his temper and unknowingly inflate Aunt Marge; a serious bit of non-permissive underage magic. Resigned to the fact that he will be expelled from Hogwarts, Harry sets off on his own and unfortunately ends up meeting the Minister of Magic himself (talk ‘bout bad luck!).
But he gets off scot-free. Why? Because a spot of underage magic is nothing compared to the more pressing matter of an escaped convict, Sirius Black. A follower of Voldemort, Black has broken out of the wizard prison Azkaban for the apparently express purpose of getting to Harry.
So another year at Hogwarts starts... Finally there’s a new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher who seems to know his parchments: Remus Lupin. There are much-awaited trips into the glorious Hogsmeade. But there is also a wee bit of puzzlement for Harry as to why people keep telling him NOT to go looking for Sirius Black. After all, you don’t go looking for your prospective-murderer! But Black’s past is entwined with Harry’s and there’s serious evil underfoot.
Adding to the joyous proceedings are the shudder-worthy Dementors. This was Rowling’s imagination at it’s scariest best. Faceless, cloaked figures with decaying hands who feed on human happiness, they leave despair and depression in their wake.
Infact,Rowling introduced some of her most innovative creations in this book: The Knight-Bus, Dementors, Boggarts, Hogsmeade, The Marauder’s Map, Patronuses, Hippogriffs, Animagi and Time-Turners. She also created two extremely memorable characters in Remus Lupin and Sirius Black.
The book was perfect in every way: narration, build-up and unexpected surprises …all woven together with the trademark British humour.
The movie is releasing in a couple of days and I needed a refresher-course. After all, if I am going to be one of those *p-shaw* *tch*, the book was loads better than the movie types, then I better get my facts right!
Harry is now a full-fledged teen hero. He has heard ‘The Prophecy’ and has resigned himself to the fact that he will ultimately have a showdown with good ol’Voldy wherein one of them will DEFINITELY kick the bucket. All around the wizarding world, the Death-Eaters are wrecking mayhem. Harry, Hermione and Ron are effectively tangled in a rush of hormones and unexpected attractions. And Snape (at his nastiest best), has finally got the much-desired position of 'Defence Against the Dark-Arts' teacher.
Enough to make a normal teenager go barkin’mad.
But Dumbledore, being the supremely cool guardian/ protector/wizard that he is…has decided that it’s time for Harry to know exactly what he’s up against. Trips into Voldemort’s formative years (courtesy, The Pensieve) reveal that killing the former is not going to be a field-trip. His Mighty Big-Headedness had come up with the idea of ‘Horcruxes’. He had split his soul into six fragments and enclosed them in different objects with the seventh fragment residing in his own body. These objects could be anything, anywhere and to kill Voldemort means having to track them down first and destroy them. Ace villain move, that!
So accompanied by Harry, Dumbledore sets off on what the latter would call: to pursue the flighty temptress, adventure.
A relatively snappy read, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is engaging. After wading through the onerous 'Order of The Phoenix'…things finally seem to be going somewhere. The book is a tribute to the brilliance of Albus Dumbledore and is woven with the usual blend of humour, emotion and unexpected surprises.
A couple in the opposite building had acquired two goats. I saw them grow from spindly-legged kids to sprightly, handsome fellas. Was admiring them one day, when a friend remarked that they were probably being fed so heartily as they would most definitely end up on the dinner table someday!
