So called Feature Writing....

LIFE IS FULL OF IRONIES.......................................................................................................

What you want is not what you always get and what you get is not always what you want, for instance, taking up journalism because I love to write but despising writing the moment I am asked to write.

    When somebody asks me to write my first instinct is to refuse and walk away. I under-estimate by writing skills by stating that I'm not a good writer. Though I love to write I lack the motivation, which I blame entirely on my current course of education.

I feel that taking commerce put an end to my imagination and confined me to a world filled with calculation and analysis of things beyond my understanding. So why did I opt for it? That's a question to which i have yet to answer myself.

    My writing can get creative or monotonous depending on my mood, anger and depression pushes my creativity to its peak, as writing gives me a ray of hope about something better in store. While happiness and excitement dulls my creativity having all my energy vented out on jumping up and down.

    My inspiration to start writing was my brother, my personal critic and my childhood best friend, Keerthi, who accompanied me in scribbling down our random thoughts, making them memorable. And a special mention to a few of my friends who constantly kept reminding me that my little grey cells were just sleeping and not dead. Who wouldn't love their own cheering squad? That's what Mira, Farhana and Thalal are to me. They hoot, wow, publicize and even offered to sponsor to publish my writings in hard bound, treating them as the works of Arundati Roy or Kiran Desai.

     I can go on writing chapters about each one of them and their influence on my life. Probably I will write a book on them in the near future. For now it's all about my assignment and my first feature written piece. So ramble and rant is what I do when somebody asks me to write.

First Interview...

INTERVIEW WITH PARVATHY MENON

- Sunanda Varma

2nd Bcom A&F shift 1

Parvathy Menon, post diploma holder from Kalakshetra, is a serious advocate of the discipline with unrelenting passion for the great art form inherited from the past. As a Guest Artist of Kalakshetra as well as partner in Dance with Shijith Nambiar, Parvathy Menon has already achieved a place in the highly challenging artistic arena in India and abroad. Her outstanding expressive skills and ability to work within the traditional framework make her performances elegant and communicating. She respectfully attributes her success to all her Gurus especially from Kalakshetra.

                     

She started learning Bharatanatyam at the tender age of 4 under the guidance of Miss Chella Shekar in Australia; she recognized her inner potential and hence took her under her wing. She was always into dancing ever since she could walk, always swaying along with tunes of each film song which stimulated her parents to send her for dance classes. Over the years she has had many gurus amongst whom she cannot pick a favorite, as she considers herself fortunate to be each of their disciples. Each one has influenced her by a great deal. All her former gurus followed the Kalakshetra style of Bharatanatyam making it easy for her to adapt to each of them.

"Dance is my passion", she quoted. She didn't have any fixed ambition of taking science or commerce as her under graduation. All she knew and cared about was learning dance. Having dance to give her company, she never felt homesick after moving to Chennai. The way of life at Kalakshetra, which involved the non-usage of mobiles phones or television, never bothered her as she thoroughly enjoyed the environment of walking about in sarees and being traditional. Her experience as a student of Kalakshetra has been truly memorable, leaving her with a wish to turn back time so that she could be a student there all over again.

Her most memorable performance would be when she performed along with her husband in Kalakshetra in 2009 as alumni. She was delighted to be called back to her to perform in front of all her former gurus and juniors.

Samradhya, their dance school, initially didn't have any name. They began by offering flexible dance classes to students who approached them, but with the passage of time, they decided to establish it properly, thanks to the grace of their well-wishers. It had been a slow process going in its flow. She enjoys teaching just as much as she enjoys dancing. Each being different with an essence of its own, it is hard to pick which she prefers better. Her family, being extremely supportive of her decisions, encouraged her to take up what she would enjoy.

Her upcoming show is a 2 month tour around North America and parts of Canada, accompanied by her husband and 7 other professional dancers showcasing their (Shijith Nambiar's and Parvathy Menon's) well known production - KRISHNA.  When asked about the response of their audience all over the world, she mentioned that each had a different attitude to the dance shows and that she enjoyed them all equally.

As far as she has observed in her students who came from abroad, she found them to be more determined and dedicated than the rest. Her comments for the next generation of dancers who would like take up dancing as their career was to 'just go for it', but did add to fix their priorities and be passionate and confident and most importantly to be hard working. The option of being in a different career path never crossed her. It has always been dance ever since she could remember. Parvathy Menon truly portrays Martha Grahams' quote 'Great dancers are great because of their passion’ 

.                  

Food for fun

MAGGIE MAGGIE MAGGIE!!!!

Easy to make and yummy to taste !
Well this was the first thing I've cooked, the recipe being short and simple or as say my cousin says 'It's nothing.' Being a hostel lite, there isn't much scope for cooking but that never stopped us from venturing into it....... Our apparatus being a tiny Geepas kettle which we managed to sneak into hostel without the knowledge of our wardens, as there is a strict rule about not having any other electronic appliances other than our laptops or mobiles. We manage to keep it well hidden from their eyes because the repercussions wouldn't be nice at all..... it involves our kettle to be seized, fine of Rs 5000, lots of scoldings from the wardens and not to mention our late night hunger, the last being the worst. 
What's interesting is the way we make Maggie, for that we make use of two things, one being the kettle and the other being a Tupperware tiffin box. So we boil the water in the kettle without the lid while adding the masala and stirring it continuously until it starts boiling. Then we break the noodles into small pieces into the Tupperware and pour the masala water into it and leaving it closed for another 5 mins....which involves frequent opening and testing whether the noodles is properly soaked or not, the frequency varying on the extent of our hunger....Once it all soaked ( or not) we dig in, without a care in the world about anything else...At that moment it's just us, our spoons and the Tupperware with our hot hot Maggie....Tummy full, beautiful! Washing the kettle becomes our next task for which we play the role of a spy.....peeping out to see if the coast is clear and then dashing to the washroom to clean it up and speeding back before we get caught.
So this is our adventure when our nights turn boring and starving.....Food for fun.....that's an interesting alliteration :-D 
Phew writing about itself is making me hunger, better go dig something to hog for now, as my partners in crime also known as my roomies/besties are occupied with other work to have an adventure right now. 
Bon appetite!!