Nests!

 The summer season is indeed special. For many reasons, as we noted yesterday. Today a little note on the cute little birdies and their simply superb nests that make the summer a unique season. 

We have a small little garden in the backyard and the front yard of  our home. Every year, birds build their nests in the trees. Unique they are. Yesterday I found one which is as beautiful as that by the weaver bird. 

It is roundish, not conical. It hence cannot be that by the weaver bird. It is equally artistic though. This birdie, too, has actually managed to stitch, yes, you read it right, the edges to give it a round shape.

To cushion the sticks that make the base between two drying leaves, the brilliant bird has actually made a comfy, fluffy bed of cotton for the eggs and the female who would hatch them. 

Each year I find such wonderful artifacts. I keep them on the side wall, and the economically efficient beings that birds are, they re-cycle whichever elements they need while (re-)building the nests each summer! 

The nests are neat, moreover, and functionally most effective rather than merely attractive. If you were to see these tiny birds, they would be smaller than my fist, tops, the spread palm. What marvels though their nests are! And mankind chooses to call itself intelligent, evolved, and superior! 

Pratima@ Once an unusually beautiful blue bird had built a nest in our garden. The nest had unbelievably blue eggs. The nest was not particularly well hidden. The three of us used to literally stand guard as a big bad bird was hell bent on attacking it. One very early morning, it did manage to destroy the eggs. I still remember the genuine grief I then felt. I was yet to know then the casual cruelty many enjoy in de-structuring, de-centering innocent lives. And such call themselves human! 

Quote of the day:                                                            Leonardo da Vinci says of a nest, "bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang". 

Word of the day: craftsmanship                               Craftsmanship is the skill used by somebody to make something of high quality with his/her hands, or the small, little beak!!!

Summer

 How is the summer? Much awaited for sure. Yes, from the days of childhood onwards, this season is special. Yes, it is the season of holidays. It is a different story altogether that within a fortnight or so, the holidays of not doing anything much start getting on your nerves, and you start hankering after that dull routine you wanted to escape from in the first place! 

These days, the summer season may not mean going to your grandma's place. Life has changed much too much for that. To begin with, modern grannies, as they choose to call themselves, are much too much in love with themselves, especially with proving how they are still 'young'. Busy dressing up, 'they have their own life' in which the 'grand'child (mostly one per their own one child) is more like the side dish, yum but 'better don't come'! 

Instead  for the modern threesome/foursome ( in the "l, me, myself" wor(l)ds, everybody else, especially from the husband's side, is the most avoided intruder) go for foreign tour(s). They have their own some club, or the other, membership for the domestic tour where they chill!

In brief, even in the times today, the summer is travel time, which is comfy, moreover. Have you noticed it? Despite the forever threatening Trump and the awful AI, not to forget the dicey waters of the defamed strait, not much seems to have changed with most lives, thanks be to credit cards! May be, topmost the tour plans might be more domestic this time!

Personally I prefer the summer because it is the season of colours and fragrances and sounds and tastes. Honestly, no other season satiates our senses like the summer, right? Just look around at the trees in full bloom, the multi coloured boguainvilles, the flaming red 'flame of the forest', the purple jacaranda, the golden yellow 'golden shower', our very own white mogra, the summer is just a visual treat. 

Fragrances of the mogra n champak n rangoon creeper/madhumalti, even of the budding neem tree, and, yes, of the ripening alfonso and payari mangoes are absolutely heavenly. My personal top favourite is the petrichor, the sudden summer shower drenching the hot earth, prefarably with a drizzle of a  light hailstorm. 

So sweet are the sounds of the nesting, and hence forever chirping and warbling birds, who make you forget the dreary urban scene around, right? No, I have not forgotten the tactile sense. Remember, getting drenched in the sudden summer shower? Or the first tumbler full of cold water, while bathing? Or the swim like a tadpole in the tank?

Nothing can match the taste of the "amrus", that is, the mango pulp, of the "amba dal", that is, the raw mango special dish, or of the 'cool cool, thanda thanda' home-made 'panhe' or of the fresh mango pickle, right? Why, I love the jamuns and the karawande, the Indian version of the blueberries, not to forget, the "jaam" fruit, that is , the rose apple. Who can miss the watermelon or the jackfruit? Or the cold coffe, just set in the fridge, and forever!

The summer sure satiates senses! No wonder, even far away in time and space, Shakespeare said in Sonnet Number XVIII, "shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" 

Pratima@ During our childhood summer vacations, Papa used to get the school textbooks which I would have all read up by May end, not to forget, heaps and heaps of story books! Aai used to make 'papad', 'sabudana/sago papdi', the 'batatyacha kis', that is, the grated potato savoury, 'kurdai', 'sandage', the mango pickle, and all the other savouries that would make the entire year a treat for the taste buds. I used to adore the home-made ice-cream in that special ice-cream pot. Lovely days indeed!

Quote of the day:                                                            "Everything Good, everything magical," everything 'cool' happens during the summer. Jenny Han would sure not mind my minor changes to her fun quote.

Word of the day: vacation times.                              Needs no explanation, right? "Nam to suna hi hoga!"  Kafi hai!

Soupçon I. vi

 Let me explain the title a little. "Soupçon" is a French term, the favourite of the chef community. It refers to that special pinch (eh, 'punch', too) which adds a unique flavour to the concoction 

Our column, which extends that metaphor, is going to be a cornucopia of 'wise saws' about literature (more the varieties, the better), related fields, humanities and the arts. It would be an immense help for those preparing for the NET/SET/JRF kind of competitive examinations. May be, the aspirants might want me to do much more along these lines. Let us see! Yet, for sure, the not-so-literary, non-specialist reader, too, would enjoy these details!

                      Soupçon I. vi                                         Plague Disadvantage: A Career Advantage

If the 1593 "Venus and Adonis" depicted female desire, exactly opposite is the theme of the other long poem that Shakespeare wrote during the plague years. Incidentally, this 1594 poem entitled "The Rape of Lucrece" is absolutely contemporary.

To begin with, it deals with a husband, Collatine, bragging about a beautiful wife's virtue at the Ardea war camp. It triggers the typical male jealousy in Tarquin, the prince cum officer. In other words, the woman's, Lucretia's, reputation for being good, honest, ideal, becomes a class issue.

When Tarquin, who sneaks out of the war just to tempt her so that his ego is satisfied, cannot manage to woo her with her husband's praise, he threatens her that he would kill a slave, set up the dead body next to her in such a way as if she is embracing the slave, and then murder her stating that he killed her because she was lustful and dishonourable. Talk of the Photoshop and the AI generated images in the post-truth era!

The most interesting part of the poem, which uses the 'rhyme royale' stanza that earlier Chaucer, and later Milton loved, is that it proves that 'the personal is political'! Lucrece commits suicide, and her dead body is taken through the streets of Rome. As a result, the Tarquin royal family is banished, and Rome becomes a republic.  Are not there very many contemporary echoes in these unfortunate proceedings? Hence the argument that this comparatively lesser known poem is relevant today!

In other words, the plague infested years indicate a huge 'break' in Shakespeare's career, his growth as an author. He managed to make the calamity in to a gain. The Lucrece theme echoes in many of his later works. In addition to direct allusions, remember, Lady Macbeth tried the Tarquin trick with King Duncan's  assassination? 

It has been argued that "King Lear", too, was penned during yet another plague outbreak. In fact, historians note that when Shakespeare was at his creative best, theaters, which then were considered vicious and vile, often closed. This week, we have tried to establish that Shakespeare, the genius, used the plague predicament, which had been chasing him since his childhood, to become better as an author!

Pratima Agnihotri                                                      Pune

                                                          

The Earth Day

 The Earth! It is the very base of our existence. What we eat, grows there. What we drink, the earth holds in its arms. That is to say, be it food or be it water, the earth donates them to us. 

In addition to these primal gifts, the earth has been paying the cost of man's modernity. Be it most of the metals or the petrol, the earth has been dug by the ever greedy humans, hardly worth being so called!

Yes, in its excessive greed which has surpassed any needs, mankind has wounded the earth the most. To make the 'giddy in its greed' mankind aware, days such as the 'earth day' become the need of the hour! 

Mankind may thus be reminded that the earth is not its sole property. The Earth is the 'equity' mankind must share with the flora and the fauna. In the annihilation of the earth, mankind is literally digging its own grave! Long live the earth so that mankind may lead an enlightened life! The UN deserves everybody's huge thanks for this annual awareness, at least for a day!

Pratima@ Just as the earth has everything to be aware of at least for a day, readers must be sensitised to April 23 as a day of remembrance for Miguel Cervantès, the progenitor of the greatest Don ever, Don Quixote!

Quote of the day:                                                           Every day has to be the Earth Day! We must treat and respect the earth that way! Glory be to the earth, the very base of our existence!

Word of the day: terrestrial                                       The adjective terrestrial means related to the earth.

P.S.: My brother, Pinaki alias Sanju, is in a big way in to the green cause, plantation, seed collection, et al. He has donated in Aai's name a park dedicated to herbal plants for an Ayurvedic college. 

Soupçon I. v

 Let me explain the title a little. "Soupçon" is a French term, the favourite of the chef community. It refers to that special pinch (eh, 'punch', too) which adds a unique flavour to the concoction 

Our column, which extends that metaphor, is going to be a cornucopia of 'wise saws' about literature (more the varieties, the better), related fields, humanities and the arts. It would be an immense help for those preparing for the NET/SET/JRF kind of competitive examinations. May be, the aspirants might want me to do much more along these lines. Let us see! Yet, for sure, the not-so-literary, non-specialist reader, too, would enjoy these details!

                      Soupçon I. v                                                        Of love n longing                                

Shakespeare's answer to the constraining dis-ease and the resultant total closure of the public space was his first ever publication, a pastoral poem of seduction, entitled "Venus and Adonis." It was so widely/wildly circulated, literally 'went viral'  even in a period of private circulation, that a lesser known playwright became a sensation absolutely overnight! Given the patronage system prevalent then, the Earl of Southampton to whom it was dedicated, had every reason to feel special. 

Actually, this narrative poem, full of pastoral images and symbols, is quite steamy. It sure has its moments of high comedy (such as Adonis'  'horse running after a jennet') and it ends tragically (the lovelorn Venus 'weary of the world, away she hies' as Adonis is gored by a boar). Shakespeare may choose to call it "my unpolisht lines", but the six-line-long iambic pentameter stanza with a quartet (rhyming abab) followed by a couplet (cc) thereafter came to be known as the 'Venus and Adonis' stanza, tried by the 'poet's poet', Spenser. 

In Soupçon I. vi, let us explore such tidbits about the other poem Shakespeare attempted around the same time, "The Rape of Lucrece." Suffice it may for the time being to assert that both these long poems echo the structural and thematic patterns of the 'sonnet cycle',  much adored across the world.      

Pratima Agnihotri                                                        Pune

Worlds @ words

 April 23 celebrates books which open for us worlds through words. The occasion deserves this ceremonious celebration. April 23 marks both the birth (given the baptism certificate on April 26) and the death anniversary of  Shakespeare, the ultimate wordsmith in English who, in addition to his great creative output, coined any number of English words still very much in use. No wonder, April 23 is also celebrated as the English language day. 

Actually currently both, books and the publication industry, are facing tough times. Apparently, book exhibitions overflow with countless customers, and books are sold not by dozens, but by tons and quintals. Are these 'real', that is, authentic books though? Most often not. They are the DIY stuff in very many fields. 

May be, in our times invaded by emojis and by reels of all sorts, even such a read, whatever be the platform, hard-bound to Kindle, needs to be tom-tom-ed! Yet do such books energise either the intellect, the heart or the soul of the reader? Hardly! Instead, such DIY books of all sorts encourage the reader to be a passive, nay, brainless consumer of goods that fatten capitalism.

What do true, good, committed books do? Without any overt propaganda/agenda, instead through their own word and narrative powers, they sensitise the reader, they awaken the reader, their words create worlds that expose all the injustices, inequities, imbalances of our ever incomplete existences hankering after possible perfections. 

In today's post-truth(s) era of paid publication of an instant book the AI 'writes', anybody and everybody pretends to be an author so much so that there are many many more writers than there are readers! Hence on this world book day, yet again the need of a conscientious reader in search of a genuine author! Long live authors whose words make worlds! 

Pratima@ Given all such realities, my daily blog and now the "soupçon" are my small little affirmations of words making/un-making/re-making worlds. Believe me though, I read a lot, too. Even the reels I may watch are deeply intellectual. They are never for "entertainment, entertainment, entertainment" alone! 

Quote of the day:                                                          "Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived," asserts Matt Haig. 

Word of the day: bibliophile                                       A bibliophile is an individual who deeply loves, admires, and frequently collects books. The word is made of two units, biblio (books) and phile (love-r). Often referred to as a "book lover" or "bookworm," a bibliophile may focus, explains Cambridge Dictionary, on collecting rare, antique, or beautifully bound editions, though the term generally applies to anyone with a strong passion for reading (and owning) books.

Soupçon I. iv

 Let me explain the title a little. "Soupçon" is a French term, the favourite of the chef community. It refers to that special pinch (eh, 'punch', too) which adds a unique flavour to the concoction 

Our column, which extends that metaphor, is going to be a cornucopia of 'wise saws' about literature (more the varieties, the better), related fields, humanities and the arts. It would be an immense help for those preparing for the NET/SET/JRF kind of competitive examinations. May be, the aspirants might want me to do much more along these lines. Let us see! Yet, for sure, the not-so-literary, non-specialist reader, too, would enjoy these details!

                      Soupçon I. iv                                                 The Dis-ease and the Public Space   

The pandemic that could have almost ruined a nascent career began in August, 1592; peaked circa December, 1592, and was officially declared under control in December, 1593 , though sporadic cases continued till end, 1595!

There was a method in the mad spread of the epidemic. The dominion of death drear moved from the outer parishes to the center of London. As those days, the theatres, such as 'The Rose' and 'The Curtain', were in the Shoreditch area just outside London, when the authorities decided to close public spaces, the theatre world suffered hugely. 

The bubonic plague had claimed some fifteen thousand lives by December, 1592. Something was indeed rotten in the state of England! The bacterium Yersinia pestis which caused the notorious "ring of roses" thrived in the fleas on rats. Given the  terrible stink, it was thought that herbs could heal it. 

The fault was not in the stars, though the planetary alignment of Saturn passing through Cancer and Leo was blamed. With the theatres closed ad infinitum, how to survive, that was the question. In Soupçon I. v, let us find out how Shakespeare rose to the awful occasion 

Pratima Agnihotri                                                       Pune