Dan Brown's Inferno

Dan Brown’s Inferno (2013) is quite unlike his earlier books in that here the author turns an environmental activist in that he constantly reminds the reader of the global ecological crisis and the problems of overpopulation. It reads more like GB Shaw’s plays that carry some social message or the other.

Though in the earlier novels, it was possible to suspend disbelief at the kind of code-cracking that Robert Langdon practiced, this time it becomes a little bit tedious with the population problem that is part of the discourse of the novel. He makes use of the character of a slightly eccentric scientist Bertrand Zobrist to offer a solution to the overpopulation problem and this is by creating a virus named Inferno that has got serious consequences to the entire humanity.

The apocalypse is near and the scientist being a fan of Dante has written all the codes in poetry. The allusions and history reveal a lot about the culture and heritage of art work as usual, the fun element is replaced by a seriousness quite unlike Brown. Like all Brown heroines, Sienna Brooks is also quite smart and independent but she turns mushy and cries on Langdon’s shoulder. 

A True Gift in Green

To know the mind of woman, he has to know first, the mind of the land.

Sarah Joseph is one of the celebrated women novelists of Malayalam literature and she has he has received numerous awards and honours such as Kendra Sahitya Academy Award, Kerala Sahitya Academy Award, Vayalar Award, Cherukad Award and O.V. Vijayan Sahitya Puraskaram. Her Malayalam novel Aathi was published simultaneously with its English translation Gift in Green by Valson Thampu in 2011. In her interview with Valson Thampu, Joseph speaks about how she modelled the land of Aathi on a island Valanthakkadu in Ernakulam district of Kerala. She was amazed by the lives of the people who subsisted in fishing, picking mussels and farming Pokkali rice. They earned as much as Rs. 300 a day picking mussels but never fished for more than that as they count on the fish and mussels as their fixed deposits. The author praises the subsistence perspective of the people of Valanthakkadu by basing a novel on their simple life.

The land of Aathi is pristine covered with water on all sides. The people lived the water-life, drawing sustenance from the water and the fields. Their water-life meant that their daily immediate needs were met from earth and water as they could collect enough food to feed the whole family just by working till noon everyday. The mangroves that surrounded the land of Aathi contained plenty of fish, which the people used to catch with their bare hands. During high tide, these fish and prawns were carried across to the rice fields, from where the people caught them. They also knew the secret of growing rice in salty waters. In Aathi, people from the ancient times lived the water-life, harvesting only what they need from nature.

The destruction of the pristine, land, water and its people starts with the advent of Kumaran, a business tycoon who sees in Aathi, the means of making money. With his coming, the modes of living such as the water-life and farming are replaced by construction of buildings resulting in pollution, creation of toxic waste and destruction of natural habitat. The novel also shows the environmentalist concerns of the writer as she describes the present-day issues of Kerala such as water contamination, lack of proper waste disposal systems, dumping of biomedical waste in rivers and waterbodies, the use of endosulfan to ensure profit in farming, the problems of landfilling, destruction of marshes disposal of plastic and biomedical waste and so on. However, nature cannot be exploited and contaminated forever and the waters of Aathi rise in a flood and purify the whole land.

The Maddadam Trilogy

Margaret Atwood’s The Maddaddam trilogy that consists of the simultanuels Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood and Maddaddam (2013) explore an extremely common device in popular science fiction- an apocalypse triggered by biotechnological and chemical experiments that destroys the rhythm of nature and produces unforeseen disasters and epidemics such as the Waterless Flood. These novels are called simultanuels (as opposed to sequels) as they co-exist and enhance our understanding of the state of life before and after the apocalypse through the eyes of the narrators Snowman, Ren and Toby.

The strides made in biotechnology such as genesplicing help scientists create new species such as wolvogs, liobams and pigeons with human brain tissue added for intelligence. But the product that starts the epidemic known as the Waterless Flood is an over-the-counter medicine known as BlyssPlus Pills, supposed to provide increased sexual satisfaction, protection from sexually transmitted diseases and to prolong youth. Hidden in the BlyssPlus Pills, is a killer virus that will spread like the plague and wipe out entire continents altogether.

When the attacks begin, radio and television stations from across the world report news of the spreading pandemic. But gradually the stations go dead and cities cease to exist. Gradually, a handful of people survive along with the bioengineered Crakers, who are a gentle humanoid species whose skins have natural insect repellants and whose need for animal protein is minimum. Among the survivors are Toby, Ren, Amands, Zeb, Jimmy and other Maddaddamites who are a group of bioterrorists who were bought by Crake in exchange for the protection of their identities.

The narrator of -awaited conclusion to the Maddaddam trilogy is Toby, who belonged to a green cult called God’s Gardeners. She wonders if there is any future for the human generation:

She’s slipping: she ought to write such things down. Keep a daily journal, as she did when she was alone…for generations yet unborn as politicians used to say when they were fishing for extra votes. If there is anyone in the future that is; and if they’ll be able to read; which, come to think of it are two big ifs (Atwood, 136).

The Crakers and the human survivors together create a new set of babies- Kannon, Rhizomes, Jimadam, Pilaren, Medulla and Oblongata, whose characteristics are yet to develop. But the wonder of all wonders is that Blackbeard, a Craker youth learns how to write and records the history of life after the Waterless Flood and the formation of the new hybrid species from humans and Crakers in the form of history.

Atwood uses the trilogy to express her concerns about the environment, the use of artificially created animal protein, the dangers of biotechnological experimentation, the hidden dangers of medical corporations and the relations between the sexes. She concludes on a note of hope through the creation of hybrid babies who will definitely lead life on earth forward in spite of the Waterless Flood. 

A Spring without voices

On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring published in 1962 was about the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation on the environment . It is a fable on the environmental apocalypse of the modern age. The title denotes the silence that comes over nature as the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird species have become extinct.It was a spring without voices.

Carson, a marine biologist pointed out that the reason for this destruction of the environment in the United States was the uncontrolled use of organic pesticides such as DDT, aldrin and dieldrin used to control pest insects in agriculture. Though these compounds led to agricultural benefits, they posed serious threats to animal and human life as Carson proves by giving scientific evidence.

This book was a clarion call for greater awareness about the great destruction that human beings were causing to the Earth.

A True Gift in Green

To know the mind of woman, he has to know first, the mind of the land.

Sarah Joseph is one of the celebrated women novelists of Malayalam literature and she has he has received numerous awards and honours such as Kendra Sahitya Academy Award, Kerala Sahitya Academy Award, Vayalar Award, Cherukad Award and O.V. Vijayan Sahitya Puraskaram. Her Malayalam novel Aathi was published simultaneously with its English translation Gift in Green by Valson Thampu in 2011. In her interview with Valson Thampu, Joseph speaks about how she modelled the land of Aathi on a island Valanthakkadu in Ernakulam district of Kerala. She was amazed by the lives of the people who subsisted in fishing, picking mussels and farming Pokkali rice. They earned as much as Rs. 300 a day picking mussels but never fished for more than that as they count on the fish and mussels as their fixed deposits. The author praises the subsistence perspective of the people of Valanthakkadu by basing a novel on their simple life.

The land of Aathi is pristine covered with water on all sides. The people lived the water-life, drawing sustenance from the water and the fields. Their water-life meant that their daily immediate needs were met from earth and water as they could collect enough food to feed the whole family just by working till noon everyday. The mangroves that surrounded the land of Aathi contained plenty of fish, which the people used to catch with their bare hands. During high tide, these fish and prawns were carried across to the rice fields, from where the people caught them. They also knew the secret of growing rice in salty waters. In Aathi, people from the ancient times lived the water-life, harvesting only what they need from nature.

The destruction of the pristine, land, water and its people starts with the advent of Kumaran, a business tycoon who sees in Aathi, the means of making money. With his coming, the modes of living such as the water-life and farming are replaced by construction of buildings resulting in pollution, creation of toxic waste and destruction of natural habitat. The novel also shows the environmentalist concerns of the writer as she describes the present-day issues of Kerala such as water contamination, lack of proper waste disposal systems, dumping of biomedical waste in rivers and waterbodies, the use of endosulfan to ensure profit in farming, the problems of landfilling, destruction of marshes disposal of plastic and biomedical waste and so on. However, nature cannot be exploited and contaminated forever and the waters of Aathi rise in a flood and purify the whole land.

The Name of the Rose

The good of a book lies in its being read. A book made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb. This library was perhaps born to save the books it houses, but now it lives to bury them (Eco, 396).

Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose is a historical murder mystery set in a medieval monastery in fourteenth century Italy. What moves the story forward is the attempt of a medieval Benedictine monastery to preserve the aura of knowledge within its boundaries. Such an attempt to keep a work of art hidden, in this case, the second book of Aristotle’s Poetics, is not just for preserving the aura of arcane knowledge but not to destroy the order of the Benedictines. The book, which is believed never to have written or lost is in the library of the monastery but its existence is a secret as the library is not open to outsiders and functions by strange customs of secrecy. There are many secrets related to the library, which nobody know mainly because only the librarian knows about the contents of the library. The monks can only ask for titles but are not allowed in the place where books are kept. The library makes copies of the rare books with the help of illuminators and scribes but then the books are given only for that purpose. Murders happen because of this secret book of the ancients on laughter is lusted after by the scholarly monks. To investigate the murders, a Franciscan monk William of Baskerville arrives at the monastery along with his novice Adso of Melk. This monk, in a very Sherlock Holmes- like fashion deduces the truth of the matter from accidental incidents.

Teaching

Once upon a time, for a short while,

Teaching meant trying to scream above

The aeroplanes taking off nearby

 And the trains that screeched past,

While in this noise girls chatted

On the much prohibited mobile phones;

It also meant counting own mistakes

And losing your voice by Wednesday.

Now it means being silent when it rains

More because it is impossible to talk,

And may be it disturbs the lovelorn dreams

That flit across so many dreamy eyes.

The rain takes them away somewhere

An my voice drags them here back again. 

THE WARRIOR OF LIGHT: PAULO COELHO AND HIS BOOKS

A warrior of light values a child’s eyes because they are able to look at the world without bitterness. When he wants to find out if the person beside him is worthy of his trust, he tries to see him as a child would.  (The Manual of the Warrior of Light).

Paulo Coelho, the literary alchemist, was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in August 1947. He was a highly successful songwriter for the rock star Raul Seixas until he met with his mentor who advised him to go on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. This walk changed his life and he converted to Christianity. This life-defining journey forms the theme of his first novel The Pilgrimage, published in 1987. He advocates through this book that “the extraordinary is always found in the way of the common people."

Coelho’s second book The Alchemist has become a universally admired modern classic because of its allegorical nature. It describes the journey of a young Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago to the pyramids of Egypt in search of a treasure and the philosophy of the book is lies in these lines: “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

Brida is Coelho's third novel and narrates the story of young woman who experiments with sorcery and other magical traditions. In this novel, he dealt with the theme of the feminine face of God, which was a strange idea to most people.

The Valkyries is about the exorcism of personal demons and discovering one's strength. This autobiographical novel narrates how Paulo and his wife Chris go on a spiritual quest to the arid Mojave Desert to meet the Valkyries, a group of warrior women who travel the desert on motorcycles.

By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, Veronika Decides to Die and  The Devil and Miss Prym are part of a trilogy called "On the Seventh Day". This trilogy is a week in the life of someone ordinary to whom something extraordinary happens.

The Fifth Mountain is based on the story of Elijah from the Bible and explores the prophetic questioning of authority, rebellion and liberation. At the same time the novel is a powerful metaphor of human self-confidence and strong desire for self-fulfillment by helping other humans.

The Manual of the Warrior of Light is a collection of Paulo Coelho's teachings summed up into one volume. It includes proverbs, extracts from the Tao Te Ching, the Bible, the book of Chuang Tzu, the Talmud and various other sources, and is written in the form of short philosophical passages.

Eleven Minutes narrates the story of Maria, a young girl from a remote village of Brazil, who goes to seek her fortune in Switzerland, only to find that reality is lot harder than she expected. But when she least expects it, she experiences love.

The Zahir is about a bestselling novelist who enjoys his luxurious and peaceful life, until the inexplicable disappearance of his wife from their Paris home. Coelho compares a marriage with a set of railway tracks which always stay together but cease to come any closer. This novel is journey from a stagnant marriage and love to the realization of unseen but ever increasing gravity between the two souls.

In Like the Flowing River, Coelho offers his personal reflections on a wide range of subjects from archery and music to elegance, travelling and the nature of good and evil. He shows us how life has lessons for us in the greatest, smallest and most unusual of experiences.

The Witch of Portobello starts with the death of the main character Athena and is narrated from the perspectives of many people who knew her. They each provide a different view of her, describing not only what they saw and experienced but adding their own impressions, interpreting her through their own beliefs and fears.

The Winner Stands Alone is set at Cannes during the Film Festival and narrates the epic drama and tension between the three main characters- Igor, Hamid and Gabriela in a 24 hour period. He offers a novel full of suspense, a mirror image of the world we live in, where our commitment to luxury and the success of any cost often prevents us from hearing what the heart actually whispers. He points out that money, power and fame are what drives most people.

Aleph is an autobiographical novel that depicts his search for spiritual renewal and growth. Coelho decides to travel, to experiment, to reconnect with people and the world. This journey helps him to open up to friendship, love, faith and forgiveness and be stronger in the challenges of life.

Coelho has written more than twenty novels and his recent work Manuscript found in Accra deals with the story of an Englishman who discovers a manuscript that figures an ancient alchemist named Copt, who answers questions of a crowd who are gathered inside the city gates of Jerusalem in 1099. What is success?” poses the Copt: “It's being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.” His works focus on the discovery of the self as means of spiritual fulfillment.

Dreams in Prussian Blue

Dreams in Prussian Blue (2010) by Paritosh Uttam captures the life of some Fine Arts students in Mumbai. It was recently in the news because Shyam Prasad’s new movie Artist is based on it.

Naina Trivedi, a fresher at Fine Arts College meets Michael Agnelo and his friends Abhinav and Ruchi. Michael’s passion for painting and his charisma sweep her off her feet and she realizes that she has fallen in love with him. To the dismay of her conservative Brahmin family, she leaves home to have a live-in relationship with Michael. The initial plan is that she will write and he will paint. But when they start living together, the responsibility of running the household falls on Naina as Michael does only what he is promised to do- to paint and nothing else.

Caught up in a situation from which there is no turning back, she creates a website for his paintings and calls prospective buyers and art galleries. Michael refuses to turn up for one such meeting with the owner of an art gallery and Naina calls and threatens him with a break-up. Unfortunately, Nicheal meets with an accident on the way and loses his eyesight. It is Abhinav who helps her with the bills and with Michael.

Abhinav and Ruchi live the middle class dream of a secure job, a posh apartment, plans for starting a family and having a car. Naina is distraught that Michael who used to be the best of all has come to nothing while the others are thriving. Inspite of his blindness, Michael continues to paint and she has to work hard to pay the rent and buy new canvases and paints. Abhinav advises her to give Michael used canvases and gives her a box of Prussian Blue that was there at his house.

Michael finishes 24 pictures that depict the history of painting and his exhibition draws people because of the publicity that is given to his blindness. However, Abhinav’s deceit does not stop with the Prussian Blue and Naina is caught up in a fix because of her love for Michael and gratitude for Abhinav. Will she be able to fix her strained relationship with Michael?

Dreams in Prussian Blue

Dreams in Prussian Blue (2010) by Paritosh Uttam captures the life of some Fine Arts students in Mumbai. It was recently in the news because Shyam Prasad’s new movie Artist is based on it.

Naina Trivedi, a fresher at Fine Arts College meets Michael Agnelo and his friends Abhinav and Ruchi. Michael’s passion for painting and his charisma sweep her off her feet and she realizes that she has fallen in love with him. To the dismay of her conservative Brahmin family, she leaves home to have a live-in relationship with Michael. The initial plan is that she will write and he will paint. But when they start living together, the responsibility of running the household falls on Naina as Michael does only what he is promised to do- to paint and nothing else.

Caught up in a situation from which there is no turning back, she creates a website for his paintings and calls prospective buyers and art galleries. Michael refuses to turn up for one such meeting with the owner of an art gallery and Naina calls and threatens him with a break-up. Unfortunately, Nicheal meets with an accident on the way and loses his eyesight. It is Abhinav who helps her with the bills and with Michael.

Abhinav and Ruchi live the middle class dream of a secure job, a posh apartment, plans for starting a family and having a car. Naina is distraught that Michael who used to be the best of all has come to nothing while the others are thriving. Inspite of his blindness, Michael continues to paint and she has to work hard to pay the rent and buy new canvases and paints. Abhinav advises her to give Michael used canvases and gives her a box of Prussian Blue that was there at his house.

Michael finishes 24 pictures that depict the history of painting and his exhibition draws people because of the publicity that is given to his blindness. However, Abhinav’s deceit does not stop with the Prussian Blue and Naina is caught up in a fix because of her love for Michael and gratitude for Abhinav. Will she be able to fix her strained relationship with Michael?

Appendage to Bacon's great aphorism from "Of Studies"

Reading maketh a full man; Conference a ready man; Writing an exact man and Raymonds a complete man

Mentor

When I looked at the Christmas lights that year

It’s your special message that I remembered,

Then I thought of choosing a right gift for you

And couldn’t find anything good enough,

Then on advice from someone I thought wise

I gave you a diary with so many paintings…

Don’t know how you felt about it; free gift

It was but my friend admonished me so much

But I guess it had nothing to do with my gift

That you who were so dear went so far away

So far that you are more like a mirage than real

More like the taste of dreams from childhood.

I called you my mentor when you were around

Now eons later I still wonder if you liked my gift. 

Night Fears

A dark curtain of a night fell from across the river green

With huge trees that looked like demons to a five year old.

Then almost twenty years later they came back as crossroads

And having to face the worst possible mistake in life.

The nights that followed were all full of fears of future,

Till you came with your music and took them all away;

But now that you are also gone, the fears are back

The intense loneliness and the few words once again.

You with your music could sweep all those fears away,

You with your love could erase the fears from the years

Yet you have made the night bleaker and darker,

Wringing away the life that throbbed in these bone cavities.

The nights of unknown fears of future were much better

Than these nights of fearful knowledge of separation. 

The Maddadam Trilogy

Margaret Atwood’s The Maddaddam trilogy that consists of the simultanuels Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood and Maddaddam (2013) explore an extremely common device in popular science fiction- an apocalypse triggered by biotechnological and chemical experiments that destroys the rhythm of nature and produces unforeseen disasters and epidemics such as the Waterless Flood. These novels are called simultanuels (as opposed to sequels) as they co-exist and enhance our understanding of the state of life before and after the apocalypse through the eyes of the narrators Snowman, Ren and Toby.

The strides made in biotechnology such as genesplicing help scientists create new species such as wolvogs, liobams and pigeons with human brain tissue added for intelligence. But the product that starts the epidemic known as the Waterless Flood is an over-the-counter medicine known as BlyssPlus Pills, supposed to provide increased sexual satisfaction, protection from sexually transmitted diseases and to prolong youth. Hidden in the BlyssPlus Pills, is a killer virus that will spread like the plague and wipe out entire continents altogether.

When the attacks begin, radio and television stations from across the world report news of the spreading pandemic. But gradually the stations go dead and cities cease to exist. Gradually, a handful of people survive along with the bioengineered Crakers, who are a gentle humanoid species whose skins have natural insect repellants and whose need for animal protein is minimum. Among the survivors are Toby, Ren, Amands, Zeb, Jimmy and other Maddaddamites who are a group of bioterrorists who were bought by Crake in exchange for the protection of their identities.

The narrator of -awaited conclusion to the Maddaddam trilogy is Toby, who belonged to a green cult called God’s Gardeners. She wonders if there is any future for the human generation:

She’s slipping: she ought to write such things down. Keep a daily journal, as she did when she was alone…for generations yet unborn as politicians used to say when they were fishing for extra votes. If there is anyone in the future that is; and if they’ll be able to read; which, come to think of it are two big ifs (Atwood, 136).

The Crakers and the human survivors together create a new set of babies- Kannon, Rhizomes, Jimadam, Pilaren, Medulla and Oblongata, whose characteristics are yet to develop. But the wonder of all wonders is that Blackbeard, a Craker youth learns how to write and records the history of life after the Waterless Flood and the formation of the new hybrid species from humans and Crakers in the form of history.

Atwood uses the trilogy to express her concerns about the environment, the use of artificially created animal protein, the dangers of biotechnological experimentation, the hidden dangers of medical corporations and the relations between the sexes. She concludes on a note of hope through the creation of hybrid babies who will definitely lead life on earth forward in spite of the Waterless Flood. 

Dying Young

It was always there in me, this thought of dying young.

The tales of talented youth dying much before

They found no use for  their eager dreams,

Kindled a desire of blazing out like a forest fire.

The ones who had done so were many to count:

Long before they reached the age of thirty-three,

Jesus, Shelley, Keats and my own writerly father

Who left so many manuscripts and diaries.

Now, in my thirties, I wonder what made them tick,

What went in their bodies or minds to make them sick

And no longer afraid of lightning or busy roads,

Fresh cylinders or changing a light bulb all myself.

Sometimes I think I might die of laughter or heart-attack

From reading twisted truths on my students’ answer sheets.

Future

The life of hopes and ambitions is not the life you live,

From the cradle the baby is taught to dream and hope

But when the dark and light of youth decide to fight,

It is often darkness which wins and leaves one lost.

For the ones who have won and moved ahead of others,

Who do not share the burden of your past sorrows,

Who measure you by their own measures of success,

Your dreams are a reason to poke fun and laugh at you.

While you plod against life gathering the missing pieces,

Often having to start again after losing so many times,

The victory that would have tasted sweet in dreams,

Being like a mirage that eludes only you every time.

Yet some day the dark would give way to the dawn,

And if God wills, it will be an everlasting sunshine.

Natural

May be we learnt this silence from nature,

From dormant volcanoes that do not show

Any signs of life; but explode into rages

And passions, creating new terrains,

Blending with the waters of the ocean.

This love hides itself behind a wave of silence,

That sweeps away everything in its path,

But is natural like the merge of streams,

Like the blossoming of flowers in arid deserts,

And the sight of birds in the morning.

It springs natural, magical, dream-like

On the food of silence and nothing else.

For words have no meaning in this love,

And take away the magic of its silence. 

Female Quixote

You are in your twenties. You do not know what to do- whether to get married or pursue a promising career that exists in your dreams. You are brilliant; at college known for punctuality and studious hardworking nature. You have clear cut opinions on almost everything under the sun, including your future husband.

Secretly inside you live a person who believes in finding love somewhere quite unexpectedly but you don’t want that person to take control. For some strange reason love eludes you when it hits everyone everywhere: in buses, trains, offices, colleges, libraries, churches, hospitals, everywhere. No, its not that you do not go out but you are very serious about whatever you do. You go for work and keep cordial relationships with your male colleagues, who have a hard time understanding you. You go to church and either pray or sleep. You travel in buses full of guys but keep reading the boards everywhere. You visit the library crowded with handsome guys thrice a week but nothing interests you more than what’s new inside the well-vacuumed and orderly kept library.

Finally, when some guy is interested you are not and you don’t want to be either. You become conscious of all this stuff only when you decide to be good-looking on your cousin’s wedding day. You are no beauty but suddenly people take note of you clad in this strange costume and say: “Oh my God! You look beautiful. We’ll be attending your marriage next. May be I will talk to your mother. There are a few guys that I know.” There is laughter and you cannot help blushing. From uneducated relatives there are questions and sneers meant to make you understand that their hardly educated daughters had two kids and a handsome husband during the same period of time that you were working hard to earn a university degree.

Here you go. Suddenly you feel confused. You have dreams about your life though you do not know which route to pursue. These wise old women prescribe marriage for you as if you have become an old maid, as if marriage is the end of all these problems while you try to think about the whole lot of people who have trouble keeping their marriages intact.

Worse than the old women are your friends: school, college and workplace. They wonder when they can attend your marriage as if that was something they have looking forward to their whole life. Unbelievable. The haughty ones turn docile after marriage and speak in a sweet voice to their hubbies in a voice that makes you want to puke. In front of you they act that their life is so perfect and to have a perfect life what they advise you is to get married to someone they know: Do you know that my hubby has a friend named A, who is very good? He’s not that educated as you but he’ll keep you happy!” “Et tu Brute was not written without a reason.

If you are not a female Quixote, may be you are unbelievably blessed, lucky or born out of time in this strange age!

Nissim Ezekiel's "Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S"

Friends,

our dear sister

is departing for foreign

in two three days,

and

we are meeting today

to wish her bon voyage.


You are all knowing, friends,

What sweetness is in Miss Pushpa.

I don't mean only external sweetness

but internal sweetness.

Miss Pushpa is smiling and smiling

even for no reason but simply because

she is feeling.


Miss Pushpa is coming

from very high family.

Her father was renowned advocate

in Bulsar or Surat,

I am not remembering now which place.


Surat? Ah, yes,

once only I stayed in Surat

with family members

of my uncle's very old friend-

his wife was cooking nicely…

that was long time ago.


Coming back to Miss Pushpa

she is most popular lady

with men also and ladies also.


Whenever I asked her to do anything,

she was saying, 'Just now only

I will do it.' That is showing

good spirit. I am always

appreciating the good spirit.


Pushpa Miss is never saying no.

Whatever I or anybody is asking

she is always saying yes,

and today she is going

to improve her prospect

and we are wishing her bon voyage.

Now I ask other speakers to speak

and afterwards Miss Pushpa

will do summing up.


By Nissim Ezekiel

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