booyaka!

Trojan Women - Euripides

2010-11-11T01:42:00.000-08:00

Euripides’ Trojan Women depicts a complex social structure along with distinct cultural practices using the traditional techniques of lament and debate.

Trojan Women, by Euripides, was produced in 415 BCE during the Peloponnesian war. It is a poetic expression of the horror, futility and consequences of war. The play also throws light on the fate of those defeated by war. The play is presented from the point of view of the conquered.

Trojan Women is a tragedy that is set in the smoking ruins of the city of Troy after it has been sacked by the Greeks. Although Euripides follows the structure of a tragedy, the play lacks the kind of symmetry one would see in the plays of Sophocles or Aeschylus. The play follows the fate of Hecuba who was once the Queen of Troy but is now a slave waiting to be taken away in a Greek ship.

The play can be broadly divided into three sections: the first and the third sections consisting of Hecuba’s lament and the second section breaking the lament with a debate. The play Trojan Women begins with a prologue. The prologue in a Greek play serves a dramatic purpose. It is in the prologue that the topic of the tragedy is presented and the setting established. It is usually in the form of a monologue. In the prologue of the Trojan Women, Poseidon, surveys the ruins and desolation of the Trojan plains and mourns the death of his city. He tells us that all the heroes of Troy are dead and the Greek ships will set sail once the spoils of the war have been divided. They are leaving behind nothing but a desolate city where no one is left to worship the gods. When Poseidon tells the audience that he too is about to leave the city, we understand that a god cannot be present in a place where no one exists to worship him. This brings out a sharp difference between the gods of ancient Greece and the God of Western civilization. For the former, a god survives only if man continues to honour and worship him, thus when ‘the sacred groves are abandoned’ there is no longer any place in Troy for Poseidon. For the latter, god is omnipresent and whether man continues to worship him or not in any place he continues to exist. The conversation between Athena, who is the protector of Greece, and Poseidon, in which Athena seeks Poseidon’s help in inflicting upon the Greeks a ‘sorrowful homecoming’ because they have disregarded the temples of her father, indicates that the gods were temperamental. As we read the play, however, we become aware that though the gods are the movers of actions, they cannot dictate the end of the action. Thus action, though commissioned by gods is controlled by humans.

The prologue is followed by Hecuba’s lament about Troy. It must be noted that Hecuba’s laments are specific. The tone is one of grievous loss and great sorrow. She uses the image of ships to characterize the attitude she wishes to have. She tells herself to sail with the winds of fate just as the ships sails with the stream. She is no longer queen of Troy, merely a slave who must obey the commands of her masters. The chorus joins in her cry each wondering what fate waits her. Some of the Trojan women hope to be taken away as slaves to some of Greece’s beautiful lands. Some hope to go to Theseus’ land which is glorious and blessed and others to the wealthy land of Peneus. Their hope, however, is merely an illusion, for we know that many will not even set foot on Greek shores, perishing en route with their masters.

Hecuba’s lament is interrupted by the arrival of Talthybius who informs the Trojan women that they have been assigned to different masters. Hecuba’s foremost concern is that of the fate of her daughters Cassandra and Polyxena. Cassandra, who was dedicated to the temple of Apollo, is to become Agamemnon’s concubine. Agamemnon’s decision to make the virgin bride of Apollo his concubine is an insult to the gods. By doing this he violates religious norms. As a woman dedicated to the shrine of Apollo, Cassandra had the gift of prophecy, however, no one ever believed her prophecies because of a curse that Apollo placed upon her. So although she had foreseen the destruction of Troy and warned the Trojans about the Trojan horse, no one believed her. Polyxena, Talthybius informs Hecuba, ‘has been appointed to serve at the tomb of Achilles’. So although, Hecuba learns of the fate of Polyxena later through Andromache, we know that she has been sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles.

Some versions of the myth claim that Polyxena committed suicide after Achilles death out of guilt for revealing his weakness to her brothers. But according to other versions, Polyxena was sacrificed at the foot of Achilles’ grave because his ghost has come back to the Greeks demanding that they sacrifice Polyxena so that they could get the wind needed to set sail back to Greece.

When we look at the fates of the two sisters through the lens of the cultural practices of the time, it is Polyxena who has suffered the worse fate. She has been brutally murdered just so that the Greek armies could sail back to their lands. As Hecuba says, only in ‘life there is hope’ so the murder of Polyxena is a snuffing out of any hope of a bearable life, even if it is as that of a slave. Cassandra’s fate, though horrible, offers a glimmer of hope. Although she has been raped by Ajax and is going to be taken away as Agamemnon’s concubine and her predicament in an insult to the existing social structures of the time, it is still a fate that is better than death because Hecuba hopes that Cassandra will somehow prevail against her horrific situation.

While lamenting the fate of her daughters, Hecuba learns that she is to be Odysseus’ slave. She deems this an awful fate because to her, as to all Trojans, Odysseus is ‘an enemy of justice, a lawless beast, whose double tongue twists all things up and down and down and up, who turns every friendship into hate.’ While Hecuba laments, Cassandra comes out dressed as Apollo's priestess, waving a nuptial torch. The torch can be seen as an archaic symbol of justice. Cassandra brings with her knowledge of the future. She has foreseen the death of Agamemnon and then calls herself ‘a more fatal bride’ than Helen ever was. She tells her mother not to feel sorry for her as ‘this wedlock of mine is the means by which I will destroy our worst enemies, mine and yours. Under normal circumstances her words would have cost her her life but since she is crazy her words are overlooked.

Cassandra in her monologue demonstrates how the Trojans were more fortunate than the Greeks. She points out that for the sake of one woman and he passion, the Greeks left behind their homes and families and perished in great numbers. Agamemnon even sacrificed his much loved daughter for the sake of his brother. Proper burial and funeral rites were of great importance in ancient Greece. The omission of burial rites was seen as an insult to human dignity. The burial rites were elaborate and conducted primarily by the women of the family. Cassandra in her monologue points out that the Greeks who dies during the Trojan war, ‘never saw their children, no wives’ hands wrapped them in their cerements; they lie in a foreign land… no one to visit their graves and make them blood offerings.” The Trojans who fell in battle had their bodies ‘brought home by comrades; they were dressed for the grave by proper hands and the soil of the native land wrapped them about. She offers Hecuba words of comfort when she tells her that Hector ‘lived long enough to win a hero’s fame. She believes that ‘if a man is wise he will shun war’ but if war must come, it is a crown of honour for a city to perish in a good cause.”

In the lament that follows Cassandra’ departure, Hecuba and the Trojan women lament their lost fortunes. Hecuba’s speech to the chorus epitomises the sense of absolute hopelessness brought on by extreme loss. “Never hold any man happy,” she says, “even the favourites of fortune, this side of death.” Andromache enters with her infant son Astyanax when the chorus laments the capture of troy through the device of the Trojan horse.

Andromache’s lament has a tone of analysis. This is so that the tone of the play can shift smoothly into that of the debate in the next section. In light of the fates of Polyxena and Cassandra, Andromache's fate seems to be the most favourable one. Unlike Cassandra, Andromache isn’t being taken away from Troy as a slave or a concubine; she is going as the wife of Neoptolemus. To Andromache, who loved Hector dearly, death would have been preferable, but Hecuba advices her to respect her present master; ply her husband ‘with the allurements’ of her ways. If she does that she will have a happiness in which all her friends will share and she can bring up Astyanax ‘to be a mighty aid to Troy.’ Andromache’s reputation of being a good wife preceded her. Through her words we are shown what qualities ancient Greek society expected a good or virtuous wife to have. Andromache says that she ‘toiled to master all the accomplishments of a virtuous wife’. She ‘kept to the house and had no longing for those places where her mere presence is enough to earn a woman who does not stay at home an evil name, whether she is that sort of woman or not.’ She did not admit inside her doors the smart talk of women. Most importantly she ‘knew when to insist with her husband and when to allow him to overrule her.’ It was this reputation that reached the ears of Neoptolemus who decided he wanted her as his wife and not his concubine. If she goes to Greece has his wife, she would have an oikos of her own. She would have slaves and not be without power or influence. However, it is because she is going as a wife that her infant son Astyanax is put to death. The combined positive traits of both Andromache and Hector threaten the life of their beloved son.

If Andromache was taken away as a slave or concubine, her son, too, would have been a slave, a boy with no prospect of gaining any power. Since Andromache is being taken as Neoptolemus’ wife, her son will grow up as a privileged citizen and will have power. The possibility of him inheriting Hector’s heroic qualities of being a brave and courageous warrior or soldier is a threat to the Greeks, for they fear that he will avenge the death of his family and destruction of his city. Thus Odysseus thinks it best to eliminate the possibility of his revenge by killing him. Thus, from this perspective we can see that it is Andromache who suffers the worst fate of all. She leaves the ruins of Troy as a bride on the blood of her only son.

The first section of the play ends with Andromache lamenting the imminent death of her son and then handing over the child to Talthybius who leads him away to the highest tower of the city to be thrown down to his death. The second section of the play is the debate. This is the rational centre of the play. This break from the lament is required so that the audience does not reach the crescendo of grief before the end of the play. This section focuses on the debate between Helen, Menelaus and Hecuba. While this part arouses the audience’s indignance, the grief of what has occurred so far still remains. The dialogue is rational and engages the mind while holding on to the sense of tragedy.

In this section we finally see Helen who has constantly been spoken of so far but not seen. The section begins with Menelaus explaining that his reason for starting the war was not to get back his wife but to meet the man who deceived him and carried of his wife. His tone is formal and decisive when he says that he has come to take away the ‘Woman of Sparta’. He has decided to postpone her fate and take her back to Greece and hand her over to the vengeance of those whose friends have died at Troy, for they will kill her. Hecuba hearing this, tells him to ‘flee at the sight of her’ because Helen is a seductress who is capable of captivating him with longing. When Helen is brought in, she comes beautifully dressed and aware of the fate that Menelaus has decided for her. Hoping to sway Menelaus’ decision, she pleads with him to allow her to opportunity to justify her actions. Hecuba supports her plea and asks Menelaus to listen to Helen, but also asks to allow, her, Hecuba, to speak as prosecution once Helen has explained her actions.

What follows is the debate where Helen claims that she is not responsible for what has happened. She first places responsibility on Hecuba and Priam – Hecuba for giving birth to Paris and Priam for not killing him though he knew of the dream of the firebrand. Next she blames the goddess Aphrodite for it was she who promised Paris the most beautiful woman in the world. Falling back on the various promises made to Paris by Athena and Hera, Helen tells Menelaus that it is because of her that Greece is free and victorious. Had Paris chosen Athena or Hera then Paris with his Trojan army would have conquered Greece. She rightfully asks Menelaus what she could do when Paris brought Aphrodite along with him. A mortal is not stronger than a god and thus stands no chance when the goddess decides to make her fall in love with Paris. She explains how she often tried to leave Troy after the death of Paris but all her attempts were thwarted. Hecuba in her rebuttal counters every point that Helen has put forth and warns Menelaus of the dangers of not killing Helen. Menelaus heeds Hecuba’s advice and sentences Helen to immediate death. This is when Helen uses the formal entreaty of supplication. She supplicates Menelaus when she asks him to forgive her and Menelaus gives in. He allows her to go to Greece where he believes justice will be meted out to her. This ends the debate section of the play and leads up to the last section – Hecuba's final lament.

This final section begins with the chorus singing of the beautiful temples of Zeus which have been desecrated by the Achaeans. They also lament their imminent from their beloved city and Talthybius arrives with the body of Astyanax, it is from this point that the tragedy begins to reach its crescendo. Talthybius hands the lifeless body of Astyanax to Hecuba along with Hector’s bronze sword, instructing her to bury the child as soon as possible because the Greek ships are about to sail.

Astyanax, the last son of Trojan royalty, is dead. His mother has had to leave to face her fate as Neoptolemus’ wide and is unable to perform the burial rites for her son. Hecuba, whose children are dead, now has the sad task of burying her grandson. She has no coffin to lay his body in, but the shield of Hector serves as a coffin for his tiny corpse. The death of Astyanax is the pinnacle of the tragedy for he was killed because the Greeks were afraid of what he might do when he grows up. Hecuba laments his death for he ha not died defending his city. He has not enjoyed youth or marriage or ‘the royal power than makes men god.’ She laments that he never experienced those joys and she mourns the loss of his heritage, that of someday being the King of Troy. She recalls the sweet words he would say to her. The image of Astyanax’s tiny body placed in the bronze shield that protected his father in battle is a heartbreaking one. Hecuba’s long funeral lamentation over Astyanax brings home the cruelty of war. Entire families have been wiped out. The image of Hecuba, the oldest woman of the family burying the youngest, who is supposed to be the future, heightens the tragedy of the situation. Instead of the young laying to rest the old, it is Hecuba ‘the old crone, landless and childless who buries his young corpse.

All through the play Hecuba was the dominant figure, yet she neither initiated nor determined the course of action. Euripides used the traditional techniques of lament and debate to heighten the tragedy of the play and through the laments of Hecuba, Cassandra, Andromache and the Chorus of the Trojan women subtly portrayed the complex social structures and distinct cultural practices of the time.

Can the Subaltern Speak

2010-11-11T01:33:00.000-08:00

This is what I have understood of her extremely complex essay. It's also what I have submitted as my assignment.

Can the Subaltern Speak?

- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (b.1942) was born in India and educated at both Indian and American universities. She is well-known for her translation of and preface to Derrida's/ Of Grammatology and her influential essay, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" In the essay, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" she is primarily concerned with the issue of whether people who have been historically dispossessed or exploited by European colonialism are able to achieve a voice.

The term subaltern conventionally refers to a junior ranking officer in the British army. The Italian Marxist thinker, Antonio Gramsci, used the term interchangeably to mean subordinate or non-hegemonic groups or classes, specifically the unorganized groups of rural peasants based in Southern Italy. The Subaltern Studies Collective developed the term further to include the subordinates in South Asian society. Their use of the tern 'subaltern' encompassed the continued oppression of rural peasantry, working class and the untouchables in post-independence India. Spivak, however, felt that the Subaltern Studies Group privileged the male as the primary agent of change and she believed that the word should have a more flexible definition so as to include the lives of women and their histories.

Spivak, using nuanced arguments, moves the essay from a critique of current Western efforts to problematize the subject to the question of the representation of the third world subject within the Western discourse. She begins by stating that some of the most radical criticism coming from the West is a result of the West conserving itself as the Subject by talking about, narrativising or othering the East. She refers to critics like Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze who emphasize that a. it is counterproductive to reduce the networks of power/desire/interest because they are so heterogeneous and b. intellectuals must attempt to disclose and know the discourse of the Other. Both these critics, Spivak points out, 'ignore the question of ideology and their own implication in intellectual and economic history.' She then proceeds to question their use of two master terms, namely, ‘A Maoist' and ' the worker's struggle'. The use of essentialist terms such as the ones mentioned above assumes a cultural solidarity for a group that is heterogeneous in nature and the use of these terms by intellectuals such as Foucault and Deleuze casts the intellectual in the role of a medium who represents the voice of the oppressed. However, it is only possible to represent another through one's own value system.

Constituting the colonial subject as the other is an example of what Foucault terms ‘epistemic violence’, which is the imposition of a given set of beliefs over another. Foucault locates an epistemic overhaul in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century and Spivak proposes that the epistemic violence carried out in the nations that were colonized by Europe was a consequence of this epistemic overhaul. Spivak explains the notion of epistemic violence with the example of the British reformulation of the Hindu legal system and reveals that such epistemic violence is kept alive by the establishment of one explanation and narrative of reality as the normative one. Spivak goes on to indicate that on ‘the margins of the circuit marked out by epistemic violence are men and women among the illiterate peasantry, the tribals’. According the Foucault and Deleuze, the oppressed if given a chance can speak out or revolt, in other words, Spivak, while pointing out that in the discourse of the First World or Europe the subaltern can ‘speak and know their conditions’ asks ‘can the subaltern on the other side, the third world, speak?’

Gayatri Spivak also considers the works of The Subaltern Studies Collective which studies the colonized subject. While she understands and supports the aims of the group, she expresses concern over the fact that the voice of the subaltern is being heard through them – a group of intellectuals. She likens this to what Foucault and Deleuze do when they speak about oppressed groups like the workers or Maoists. Additionally, she points out that The Subaltern Studies Collective, like Foucault and Deleuze, suppressed the heterogeneity of the subaltern itself when they attempted to describe ‘subaltern consciousness’ by talking about it as one single homogenous entity.

She begins the final part of her essay by asking what the elite must do in order to avoid continuing to construct the subaltern. As mentioned earlier, Spivak broadens the definition of the subaltern to include women and their histories. Spivak uses the example of sati in colonial India and the story of Bhubaneshwari Bhaduri to affirm that the woman is assigned no position of articulation. Everyone else speaks for her. Spivak formulates the sentence ‘White men are saving brown women from brown men’ and states that the sentence discloses her politics. Applying this sentence to the example of the practice and subsequent abolishment of the practice of sati, Spivak shows us that it is either the white man explaining why Sati is a barbaric custom and must be abolished or the brown man insisting that it is a ritual that renders the woman sacred. At no point is the voice of the ‘brown woman’ heard. It is the woman who becomes sati, yet no one comes across the ‘testimony of the women’s voice consciousness’. She is continuously written as the object of either patriarchy or of imperialism.

Spivak also narrates the story of Bhubaneshwari Bhaduri, a young girl who committed suicide in 1926 because she was unable to go through with a political assassination that was assigned to her. Spivak observes that the girl committed suicide at the time of her menstruation to discourage people from assuming that she killed herself because of an illicit pregnancy. She sees the girl’s suicide as an ‘unemphatic, ad hoc subaltern rewriting of the social test of sati-suicide. However, when Spivak herself spoke to the girl’s nieces they seemed to believe it to be a case of “illicit love” thus continuing the process of silencing her voice. She also reveals that another Bengali woman, a philosopher and Sanskritist also responded to her question about Bhubaneshwari’s suicide by asking her why she wished to dwell on the “hapless Bhubaneshwari” when her two sisters led such full and wonderful lives. Thus even intellectuals are complicit in silencing the voice of the subaltern. She concludes her essay by emphatically stating that the subaltern cannot speak as long as the subaltern continues to be represented.

In conclusion we can say that Spivak in her essay does not ask whether the subaltern does speak, what she asks is if it is possible for her to speak, in other words, she asks if the subaltern has the agency to speak.

UPDATE

2008-09-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

I'm working!!!!
I've finally decided to get off my ass and start earning some money. Im working at a school in Vashi, it's been slightly over a month since i started and i must say im enjoying it. I teach english to a bunch of creative, slightly mad, absolutely boisterous bunch of 4th graders. I teach the 7th grade too. Next post, i'll put up some poems written by my 4th grade students. They impress me so much :)

2008-06-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

took the cue from karen and did the disney princess quizz. turns out im most like ariel... just like karen ;)

You Are Ariel!

Headstrong and fiesty. You have a mind of your own that's full of romantic dreams about the world around you. Exploring exotic places is your ultimate dream, and although you can be a little naive you'll realize that there is something to be gained from your family's wisdom.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

yeah the wedding is over. i'm bored

2008-06-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

I’m pretty bored which is why I’m sitting here typing out this meaningless rant. It’s quite dark and gloomy outside. No, it isn’t raining right now but it constantly seems like its going to rain. It just started raining. I DO NOT like the rains. It almost depresses me. Almost. I enjoy it sometimes, especially when there is a good breeze to back up the pitter-patter of the raindrops. I like a good heavy shower, only when im sitting snug and safe at home, not having to worry about my toes getting wet and dirty thanks to the drops that spatter the mud on my feet. Speaking of feet, I need to buy some footwear that will protect my delicate feet from the harsh rains. Yeah they also should have a good grip, I fall easy. To get new rain shoes, one must brave the dirty streets and endure mud splattered toes. Sigh.

I’m bored. Did I mention that already???

I wake up in the morning wondering if I will be eating food made at home or if I will end up ordering from a nearby restaurant. Neither of the choices are very appetizing. I’m a horrible cook and the restaurants near my place suck! So I usually make do with whatever takes my fancy at around noon. (Today it was the pure unparalleled delight of home cooked food… and for once, it wasn’t too bad!)

Once that’s done I try to decide which manga I ought to read. Seeing that I’m up-to-date with the 3 that I follow religiously, I look up wikipedia for plots of the other ones, choose one or three I find interesting and read those… usually all of them simultaneously. Yeah, I end up getting the stories and characters a bit confused some of the time, but what the heck, I get the hang of it anyway. At present I’m planning to read ‘thousand years of snow’ which is a shoujo or shojo manga (aimed at girls - I think it’ll turn out to be a romance where the male characters look as pretty as or prettier than the female characters) , ‘uzumaki’ which is about a town obsessed with spirals and ‘ichigo 100%’ which I think is about a guy obsessed with finding a girl he seen wearing strawberry printed panties. Yeah, these Japanese really come up with some weird story lines.

Now that I’m slightly less bored, I’m gonna go read the manga think about the new shoes I’m gonna get myself.

2 weeks more

2007-12-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

in exactly 2 weeks from today at this time i'll be married!!!
its a little overwhelming right now. and yes i am excited, yes i am a little nervous too. been having nightmares of cards not reaching people on time, and right now seems like tht particular nightmare is materializing

decipher this

2007-11-25T09:34:00.000-08:00

My house says to me, "Do not leave me, for here dwells your past."
And the road says to me, "Come and follow me, for I am your future."
And I say to both my house and the road, "I have no past, not have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death change all things."

-from Sand and Foam byKhalil Gibran,

If I Were A Book

2007-11-13T08:36:00.000-08:00

No this isn't one of those essays we wrote in school, it is in fact the name of a site which allows you to write or upload a novel or short story you have written. If a publisher likes it enough, your book might just get recognised.

Yes I know I haven't updated my blog. Yes I know it has been very very long since I last updated the blog, but I lead a very mundane life nothing interesting to post and yeah I've also been busy and lazy.

Alright so here goes. 1 month and 8 days left for my wedding. I've been waiting for the 'wedding day' every since I started reading fairy stories with 'happily ever after' endings. I had it all planned out in my head, the details would change over time as and when I came across different scenarios, each more romantic and fantastic than the previous one. Now my real-life wedding is fast approaching and I have realized that the focus is no longer on the big day, it's actually on the rest of my life, a life I will be sharing with a man I love deeply, and his family - a family which, after the exchange of vows, will become a new but important part of my already existing family. It's all so different from what I used to imagine a wedding or a marriage was all about. It's nice, it's a little daunting, because this is something new, but it is nice.

And yes of course I am excited about the wedding day. Which girl wouldn't be. I get a beautiful gown, new shoes, new clothes. I get makeup put on for me by someone who actually knows how to go about doing it. My hair will be done up well and hopefully, won't, by the end of the evening, be the mess I normally find it in. I'll have all the people I love and care about with me on the big day, what more could I ask for?

I am so excited that all my cousins are going to be here. It would have been awesome if certain 2nd cousins could also be here, but one is getting married and the others are not in the country :( I'm gonna miss you guys.

So that's it for now. I have exams starting on Monday and I really must start studying!

diets and studies and gowns!! oh my!!

2007-07-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

i'm writing a post without writing the title first. the title to my posts are never significant or relevant to the post anyway, so it's cool. saj told me a while ago to write about my 'diet' (which i hadnt started when we had the conversation, but i have now) so here i am writing about my diet! i started it about 2 weeks back i think, maybe 3, not entirely sure. i havent been completely successful but i'm taking the 'something is better than nothing' route here. ive given into temptation and had rice i think twice, potatoes i haven't touched and chocolates i havent given up on much yet, tht will stop soon. i am drinking a lot more water and having more veggies. i actually had snake gourd for lunch today :S i hate it. how do people manage to stick to their diets??

anyway on to other news. i've started my B.Ed classes. so far so good. it's hectic but its not too bad, as yet :) most of the teachers are great. my english method teacher is amazing. that's what a teacher ought to be like. she's encouraging, she's lots of fun and gives us a whole lot of tips that we can give children to help them remember grammar rules and poems. just makes the idea of teaching so much fun!

ive decided to go to a new seamstress for my dress cos i've been told by a whole lot of people not to go to the one ive chosen... apparently she's not that good anymore. well so i'm scouting around for a new seamstress and ive got to still gather my courage to tell the other one i won't be getting the gown she helped me design stitched by her. yeah i'm also looking out for a new gown pattern!

ive had nightmares where nothing was ready for my wedding which was i think the very next day and i hadnt got the cards printed or the gown stitiched or anything done!!!!. alright i had that nightmare just once but im afraid it might turn out to be true!!!!!

now i got to come up with a title

ghana jungle hai!

2007-06-09T04:46:00.000-07:00

work is fun! i love work, especially the sort i'm doing right now. i'm at dad's office, dad's away and left me in charge. all i got to do is pretend nothing and no one exists but me and the computer. it's not that difficult to pretend because it actually is just me and the computer and yes there is the odd table and chair and a wine rack filled with wine, good or bad i don;t know, i;m not a wine connosieur ( i think i spelt it wrong), a telephone with rings sometimes, a fridge which is empty of things that havent already gone past their prescribed shelf life, i think they are kept there so that there is something u can throw at people just incase a food fight arises. i have been instructed not to answer the phone when it rings, all i need to do is be online and do whtever it is i do online oh and make sure i lock the door when i leave. work is fun when the work ur doing isnt ur own!

in the 10 days ive been here, ive been to a national park, gone on a canopy walk that wasn't really as scary as i thought it'd be, stayed at a really good beachside hotel, ate at a restaurant that was right in the middle of a crocodile pond, just escaped being devoured by a really monstrous 4 feet long croc. drank a lot of alcohol with parents around... with parents buying the rounds :D, didnt get drunk :( seen a lot of cute guys, didnt see too many good clothes, ate kitkat dark chocolate... yummy... also ate chocolate fingers, kitkat and chocolate fingers are my favourite chocolates. got my very first wedding present, visited a casino, didnt get drunk :(
bought random nonsense, like stationery we can get for much cheaper back home, spoken to jaison everyday, its almost as if we're in bbay :P , tried to remember bdays, dad and i downed a bottle of wine in one sitting, i think he likes having a drinking partner at home! it's getting hot here. i'm going to go see if i can find the remote for the ac. out of here

2007-05-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

i've been on my own for the better part of the day and being alone sure is boring after a couple of hours. i've watched the serials i wanted to watch, checked my mail and orkut a zillion times, even mailed some pics that id promised certain people i would mail weeks ago, bought some of the stuff i needed to buy, made attempts at cooking then gave it up cos it was too hot, i also messaged and called friends i haven't spoken to for so long that they can only be called acquaintances now! and i was forced into mopping up the kitchen because it was flooded with water dripping down from the ceiling. there is nothing more left to do. i don't even have a good book to read, except for some of my old favourites, one of which seems to have disappeared.
i miss mom. there would have been some amount of noise in the house. this silence is deafening. no i don;t want to watch tv anymore, i'm bored. nor do i feel like listening to music. i just want to have people at home.
on a slightly different note i'm wondering if i should get a gown stitched or just wear a sari for the entire wedding. i think ill look ugly and terribly pregnant in a gown. people will probably end up thinking i'm getting married because there is a baby on the way!
i'm going to go read

NEW POST!!!!!!!! YAY

2007-05-05T04:38:00.000-07:00

EEEEEEKKKKKKSSSSSS
who signed in with my password and changed my cool, goth looking blog to this pink girly interface. yuck. it makes me want to retch.
i'm in chennai now. staying in this house with ac, thts the coolest part of the house... literally.
tomorrow is kavith's reception.
we had loads of fun in nagercoil, especially on the eve of her wedding. i got slightly tipsy on 2 tequilas, manoj and sajjeve had 10 and after tht all sajeeve did was ask "tell me how many ppl are coming for the spiderman movie and what time show shouikd i book." he repeated this till he fell asleep and sometime in between messaged his friend telling her to book 12 tickets for the 12th of may!!!!
anyway even kavi got drunk, but all she had was one shot, poor girl was feeling so dizzy. and all the aunts and uncles were trying to get her to feel better and not let her dad know she was tipsy. that was really cute.
we went to the waterfalls, it's so commercialised, and ppl coming there look like folks who havent had a bath in years.
what else to post now.
nothing
bye

4 years

2007-03-05T10:32:00.000-08:00

Hey yesterday jais and I completed 4 years as a couple. we didnt do much yesterday since we couldnt go out. we celebrated it on saturday. it was damn nice. I had asked jais to get me flowers and he actually got me these huge flowers tht he was lugging around with him... he is normally not the romantic kind and i think he feels odd holding flowers. so anyway he got me flowers and a cake ( a small one) then took my out to a new japanese restaurant whcih was very good. we went for music and lyrics and he let me watch the movie in peace without making silly comments, and he liked the movie too tht was good, then we headed to tavern to have a couple of drinks and headed home, best anniversary ever. i love him :D

Unclaimed

2007-03-05T09:43:00.000-08:00

To make love with a stranger is the best
There is no riddle and there is not test

To lie and love, not aching to make sense
Of this night in the mesh of reference

To touch, unclaimed by fear of imminent day,
And understand, as only strangers may

To feel the beat of foreign heart to heart
Prefering neither to prolong nor part

To rest within the unknown arms and know
That this is all there is; that this is so.

- Vikram Seth

What do u guys think of this poem? It's one of my favourite poems. I always wonder if being unclaimed can sometimes actually be better than belonging forever

konnichiwa!

2007-03-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

hello all, been a while since i posted, thought i'd type out a couple of lines.
our class visited the spastic society today, i was very impressed. it's an ngo. it has about 250-260 students enrolled, most are from a low socio economic background, and 1st generation learners. the place is extremely child friendly. each child has a table and chair specially made for him or her to suit his or her need. most of the children there have cerebral palsy and some have downs and other chromosomal abnormalities. Its a place that supports inclusive education, so they try to integrate as many children as they can into normal schools and those that can't be sent to normal schools interact with regular kids who come to the spastic society once or twice a week. it's really cool. the teachers are extremely nice and so are the kids.

we've also started doing community work as part of the course, so im working with kids of construction workers. working with them is a lot of fun. we are given the opportunity to teach them whatever we wish to and in the manner that we find suitable, so it's damn cool. today i taught them to make a paper boat and they were so fascinated, they must have made atleast 15 boats in various sizes.

now for the silly irrelevant things, how many of u would cheat on ur significant other if u knew for sure they wouldnt ever find out?
what's ur favourite ice cream?
are you hungry? would u like a cheese filled pizza? would u like to lose weight and never find it ever again?

A Crowd of Guests

2007-02-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

I'm damn sleepy, was up till 3 finishing my project, but realised around this afternoon tht the journal i submitted wasnt entirely complete. anyway not much can be done now. IM sure my teacher will have some wonderful things to say to me once she has had a look at my journal.

I gave the entrance exam for the BEd course one saturday. there was this one question tht really stood out, and it went something like this :

what do you mean by ' a crowd of guests'
a. a crow flying b. a butterfly flying
c. a sparrow flying d. a bat flying

is the right answer ab, bc, cd, or bd

you guys tell me what could be the right answer, I still havent figured it out

Sanity in Insanity

2007-02-15T04:37:00.000-08:00

Ever thought about how ironic it must be to be "mad". It's a whole bunch of contradictions. Sure many mad men ( or women) are trapped in a hell hole that exists only in their head, in their imagination but to me besides the constraints of their psyche, they are absolutely free. Does anyone ever tell a mad man to stop laughing histerically? Or to stop dancing on the road or on top of a terrace? No one ever does, we make allowances for them, just as we make allowances for children. He's crazy, it's okay if he does that, is what we say. If I start laughing loudly while sitting alone or when everyone is a tad sad, people are just gonna scold me or give me accusatory looks, making me wish the ground would open up and swallow me.
Sometimes I think I should just let the world believe I am mad, I could do exactly as I wished to!

of lovebites and babies

2007-02-14T11:30:00.000-08:00

This monday a bunch of girls were sporting tiny bruises on their necks and all were trying their very best not to make it obvious, but the sharp eyes of girls who don't get any and those who have given up on their husbands ever doing anything remotely sexual with them spotted these "bruises". Well big discussion happened whcih involved a lot of teasing and then the day went on as usual.
The next day, one of the married ones in my class (she is a close friend who has 2 kids) tells me "I told my husband that the girls in my class have come back from the weekend flashing love bites, we haven't ever done anything... why can't you do something like tht?" her husband turns around and tells her "how the hell do u think u had those 2 kids? through heavy petting? "

he has a point

valentine? whine-in-time?

2007-02-14T09:14:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day has come around again with all it's window dressing display of affection and love. On the one hand you have couples deciding to become all mushy and affectionate today (even if they haven't as much as held hand the rest of the year) and on the other hand you have sainik and bajrang dal members threatening to force couples they see sitting a little too close to each other, holding hands or coochy-cooing with each other, to get married cos that's the best way to frighten them off from embracing this WESTERN culture of public displays of affection! This coming from people who probably are cheating on their wives or visiting prostitues! What hipocrisy this whole celebration of valentine's day is.
I'm just disgusted with it all

cheer me up

2007-02-11T11:29:00.001-08:00

I'm depressed. Yes i am increasing post counts but i am depressed

one line post

2007-02-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

u people should write testimonials for me on orkut, it's so empty

2007-02-10T23:59:00.000-08:00

okay time for a couple of megha jokes (now on called mjs)

why is tap dancing considered easy?
...coz u just turn on the tap and start dancing

two peepal trees are joined by a rope...what is that rope called?
... nokia... connection peepal :P

Blue Moon

2007-02-10T22:00:00.000-08:00

What awesome weather! The sky is filled with clouds and the moon is still awake, peeking through them. Really nice sight to see.
I got loads of work to do, so will post later

dance like no one's watching

2007-02-10T10:05:00.000-08:00

hey you all i had a rather uneventful day today. nothing particularly funny happened. infact rgiht now im working on a comp with no hard drive, the HDD is at jaison's place. I wanted to stay over, get tht fixed and bring it home tomorrow but mom got annoyed. anyway tht's a minor thing
i had fun at dance class today. jais and i are 2 of the worst dancers in the world, we just arent flexible, its funny to watch us dance, it's like we're doing some excercises tht requires our bodies to be absolutely rigid :P

the pussy song

2007-02-08T10:17:00.000-08:00

i finished all my puppets, tomorrows the submission
something funny happened in class today
we had to enact some stuff based on pictures we got, so our group had a story about a girl who wanted to keep a cat as her pet and her mom refuses to let her keep the cat at first but then allows her to keep the cat. at the end of the play the girl had to sing a jingle, she made it up and this is how it went :
look at my pussy, look at my pussy
isnt it pretty? isn't it pretty?
oh how i love my little pussy, oh how i love my little pussy
meow meow meow!!!!

:P

I definitely do not like puppets

2007-02-07T10:29:00.000-08:00

It's way too much work and it's boring. ive kinda completed 3, sheena says she'll make one for me and i've yet to think of what to make for the last one.
I am really lazy

2007-02-07T05:08:00.001-08:00

oh megs was here today and she's told me that i can put up her silly jokes on the blog
MUST WRITE THEM DOWN!

not first post anymore

2007-02-07T05:03:00.000-08:00

Well just got back from an academically unproductive day, but had lots of fun anyway. We're having a mini exhibition of all the creative work we've done through the year. We were supposed to get all our teaching aids and creative endeavour journals and the storybooks we made and shitloads of other stuff but most of us, I think, have lost our teaching aids so there weren't so many things to put up. I'll try and take some pics of the stuff if i can, but uploading them is a whole different story since my comp has been acting funny for the past couple of months. 40gb of stuff has disappeared! I hope they can be recovered.
Anyway i got to go make puppets now, they have to be submitted on friday!!!
byeeeee

oie!

2007-02-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

wassup people!
1st post on my very own blog... not that i've ever posted on anyone else's blogs either :P
okay so what should i write here? any ideas? maybe i ought to save all of megs and ryan's mad jokes and post them here
lemme know