Story 1- How Seethathali creeper got it's name

This is the story that Parvathy's grandfather told her about how a creeper, Seethathali got it's name.
Parvathy's ancestral home is in Cheppad, Kerala. This was the first story that came to her mind after I asked her to narrate one for me.

Sita or Seetha was the wife of Rama, king of Ayodha in the epic Ramayana.
A thali is a chain that married women wear. It's worn in various parts of the country in different forms, and has different names.

The first audio is in Malayalam, the second is the translated version.
Do give it a minute to load :)



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Story Telling

Greetings!

A couple of years ago, I started wondering about story telling traditions. Specifically oral story telling traditions. As a child, my mom would tell me stories every night, my favorites being tales of Akbar and Birbal and Shivaji Maharaj. There was also stories that she used to make up for me. What I then decided to do was find out how many of my friends from Kerala, South India had their parents or grandparents tell them stories when they were little. Also, from those who did say that they heard stories I requested them each to narrate the tale in the language they heard it. This is going to be my new project and I will upload the stories in their voice (once I figure out how exactly to), along with the translated versions (both audio and text).

A surprise that awaited me was that quite a few of my friends had never heard stories when they were younger. What I plan to do later on is collect more information and stories and figure out if this is the same case all across India, and if there is a trend in age groups which have positive and negative replies.

But before that, look out for the next post, the first story! :)

Majuli IN the Brahmaputra

Our guest writer is back, this time with an experience from her trip to Assam :)

The ride to Nematighat near Jorhat was uneventful. The birds were just waking up and a few clearing their throats in the freezing cold. We reached the jetty at around 7 am to discover that our passage was not booked as promised and we had to wait for an hour for the next ferry.

The double decker ferry piles people on the lower deck and cars, jeeps, cycles, goats and cows on the upper deck. There are no barricades on the upper deck and the vehicles are held in place with big stones. Since we were advised to take our rented cab across to the island I kept asking the driver if he was sure ours wouldn’t roll off.

The lower deck was crammed with loads of people and had only one inflated tyre to serve as a life boat. The ride takes about 50 minutes and all along one sees various water birds swooping on the water and fishing. While the birds are busy finding fish the people on the boat are trying their best to draw personal information out of you.

On the banks of the Brahmaputra where we touched Majuli was a makeshift toilet and a tea house.

As soon as we docked many of the people who had gathered on the banks ululated loudly and were joined by some of the ladies from the boat. I was sure it was some ‘Made it to Majuli safe’ ritual but No! As I discovered later they were a marriage party and sounds were a part of the ceremony.

The island of Majuli is referred to as the seat of Vaishnavite culture and there are different Vasihnavite monasteries on the island. We visited one where the monks were reading the scriptures in the faint light that entered the vast halls. Oil lamps were burning here and there. There was no idol in what looked like the sanctum sanctorum but there was a temple of goddess Saraswati outside. The architecture was completely unique and the whole structure with massive pillars was built from local wood.

I was repeatedly told that there were bigger and better monasteries and also a museum but due to lack of time made my way to the ‘Misin’ village. All the houses in this village are on stilts and villagers house their hand-loom, boat, cycle, fishing nets etc. under the house. The houses were made of what looked like mats. Most houses had a balcony of sorts and in some of these one could see pots with fermenting and frothing rice beer.

As I understand it, during the rains the Brahmaputra is in spate and then Majuli is under water. The villagers have to camp on the streets which are elevated as compared to the rest of the island. After the rains they rebuild their homes in the original locations.

As all this had made us hungry we walked to the island restaurant. The wash-
room hadn’t been washed for ages and we took it upon ourselves to clean it up. In the process we lost our appetites. On the way back to the jetty we saw some magnificent birds which were too far away to identify but I suppose were some form of storks. We rushed to catch the last ferry out.

A few days later I woke up to newspaper headlines about a four-wheeler slipping off the ferry to Majuli and sinking to the depths of the Brahmaputra. The driver escaped and swam to the surface. So not all of my concern was misplaced.

After the rains

I used to think my favorite time was when it rained. Today proved me wrong. I realized it is just after it stops raining. The mist clears, but the clouds are still there. Omniscient, dark, forbidding. The sun wages a constant battle with them, winning one minute, losing the next. It’s quiet…till the birds come out. Then the air fills with their songs and caws. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear the river rushing past too. She’s filled today, and no longer lazily crawls. A flock of migratory birds fly to the distant hill, a stark white against the dull grey and blue. You can see the puddles on the half flooded road. Past it, there are various shades of green. Grass, coconut trees, trees I cannot identify, they’re all there. Every now and then a building pops up, in garish colors disturbing the greenery. The hills are covered in green too, but they don’t seem warm. They’re much like the clouds. Forbidding. Every time the sun wins, and pops out of the clouds to stare over nature’s creations majestically, the greens become brighter, welcoming their friend. It’s a short victory. The clouds engulf it again, and the rain begins once again. By the time it stops, it’s early evening. My river, like I call her seems to be rising by the minute. She’s having a small battle of her own with the cement embankments that try to curb her. The sun seems to have wearily gone off, calling off the battle for the day. There seems to be an uneasy truce.
And I sit there, with a book, waiting for the next battle to begin.

Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets

I'm just about done with this wonderful course on archaeology on Coursera, and as one of my assignments I was asked to be creative around the title. In a panic induced state caused because till about half an hour before the assignment was due I had no idea what to do, I created the poem below. And it turned out quite good, even if I say so myself :D

Archaeology is my passion
Yet I'm struggling with this submission
To put these past weeks into words
Is something that can be done well by nerds

Secrets to the uninformed mind
One needs to join this course
To find others of the same kind
I did so, and now these secrets are mine

Big terms like archaeological reconnaissance
Made no sense once upon a time
But now I know these and many more
It's very difficult to find a rhyme

I watched videos
And learnt about techniques 
To dig, to study the past
Many of them left me aghast

I made chapatis for an assignment
And visited Mahabalipuram
About Pattanam I wrote
And about the voyage of a boat

About archaeology 
I'll learn much more soon
Thinking of it I'm over the moon
Finding out these secrets with Sue Alcock
Was a wonderful boon.

Mother Earth’s premonition

Hello! Yes it's been a long time. Apologies. Exams and such. But I have something very special. We have a post from a guest blogger, who goes by the name of Shuffles. This poem is an Earth Day special.
Also check out Shuffles's blog- http://foodologue.blogspot.in/
Aaand here comes the poem!!

Sita, the daughter of the Earth says,
“Happy Birthday dear Mamma
Its Earth Day today,
And to celebrate,
You need to go
To a holistic spa
Or degenerate!
You seem to have some rash
And stench- caused sniffles
And alongside the mountainous folds and vales
You are so proud of,
Some man made hill ranges
Baffle!”

Mother Earth says,
“I know, I know, I am hurting!
Tyres and plastics,
Clothes and nasty- icks,
Effluents released so caustic
I really fail to understand
how a race so intelligent
can create more trash than
than the rest of animal population!”

“Massages and therapies,
Soaps and spas,
won’t do me any good,
as long as people
throw away food!
Trash is not segregated
Vile elements not eliminated

The demons of Waste
They need to be slain!
Before the noir haze
victims on Earth claims!”

“As for my bruises:
No spa can clean them,
No doctor can heal them.
Go Sita, go
Go and tell them,
If they value the ground they walk on
Then think twice before they throw;
For what is mercilessly discarded
Is what turns around to bite them!”

The Harry Potter Conspiracy

In the morning on the bus my junior told us that Prince Charles is the 8th cousin of Ralph Fiennes, the actor who played Lord Voldemort. What follows is an example of how my brain works. Charles was married to Diana. Diana was said to be killed in a car crash. The Dursleys told Harry that so were Lily and James Potter. Diana's son-Prince Harry. His brother, Prince William married Kate Middleton who is not of royal blood hence a "muggleborn". Yes,she is Hermione!!! Oh and what's her son's name? Prince George!

MIND=BLOWN

 This continued for some time. We also came up with the theory that Diana's sister, not having married into a royal family would be Petunia. The discussion ended with us deciding that Buckingham Palace was actually No 12 Grimmauld Place, and J.K. Rowling is actually professorSybil Trelawney, because she predicted the future. That explains what she was doing at the cafe when writing Harry Potter, she was trying to figure out what the tea leaves were saying!

Hope you enjoyed reading this :D
Have a fun weekend!