The dried out rose petals in the dictionary.
The tube of ‘Ring guard’ in the corner of my table.
Both remind me of the cured, yet long forgotten diseases.

The unused thesaurus adorning my bookshelves.
The beaming eyes from the bygone days.
A layer of dust on both of them.

The didactic self-help books.
The verbal tussle of ‘should’ and ‘should not’.
None of them bothers me anymore.

Untold stories and unrecited poems.
Unreciprocated affection and unrequited love.
Beginning of eternity, end of a saga.

#babblingofaboredboy

The tea 'drinkard'

How is an ideal evening spent?

An ideal evening is spent usually over a cup of tea and occasionally over coffee.
One round of the beverage followed by another, with endless chit chat, randomly jumping from one topic to another are considered to be part of an usual, yet ideal evening for us.

Why and how this hot beverage is an instant hit with people like us is still a mystery. One cannot help wondering what sort of pleasure one derives when sips the hot beverage and when it goes down the throat.

Now over the years we have realised that our lives center around tea stalls. These tea stalls are exclusively meant for boys and are mostly located in boys only zones. However, an ideal tea stall should satisfy two conditions:
Firstly, it should offer good tea. Secondly, it should be accessible to all the tea ‘drinkards’ of the group.

The best part of the tea stalls is that they don’t have an artificial air to them. One just picks a cup (hang on! Isn’t it offered in glass they call single?) and finds out a comfortable space to stand and talk.

With years after years, people , mostly single status attached to them , enjoy the hot beverage coupled with sensical, commonsensical and nonsensical chit chat. The flavour of the tea and the warmth of being with people whom you care and vice versa never fade away with each tea single binding them together making the bond all the more strong.

Appreciating art, the sensible way.

I witnessed something spectacular last evening.

I was riding down through a little deserted road, which is usually considered to be a short cut to my place. The more I went ahead, more desolate the road turned out to be . Then this happened.

I came across a lonely old temple decorated with Diyas on the side of the road and a cross dresser (clad inDhoti, Gamcha and a tilak on the forehead) dancing to the tune of Bhikari Bala music coming out of the temple. The classical dance moves along with the ecstatically pleased expressions were pure ‘poetry’.

The pure and unadulterated pleasure that it was savouring out of the dance, music and devotion was something divine. There was no expectation for applaud, standing ovation, felicitation or any other form of attention from the world outside. It was something like art for art’s sake, complete in itself .

I am not sure whether it was a moment of epiphany for me or not, but It was definitely a wow moment for me when I realised a cross dresser probably working in an adjacent dhaba, savouring pure pleasure out of the dance, music and unconditional devotion can teach the world ‘how to appreciate aesthetics ’ at a point of time when poets earn lakhs of rupees reading poems in poetry festival, dancers compete to win shows for a lucrative amount and singers kill each other to win the rate race.

Koodiyattam in the KMBB Campus

KMBB College of Engineering and Technology located at Daleiput Khurda showcased a unique Koodiyattam performance by Margi Madhu, which was organized by SPICMACAY on December 13,2011  Koodiyattam is the Sanskrit theatre tradition of Kerala and has been declared as a "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO. Notably it is for the first time that UNESCO has selected art forms from across the world to bestow recognition as part of its effort to safeguard expressions of oral heritage and traditional culture. Koodiyattam deals with the plays of eminent Sanskrit dramatists such as Bhasa, Harsha, Kalidasa, Mahendravikrama and Saktibhadra. Firmly rooted in the culture of Kerala, it has the toughest and the most detailed training in facial expression, especially of the eye. 
 

Margi Madhu made a grand entrance onto stage behind a screen held to the accompanying beats of the 'mizhavu' ably played by Kalamandalam Ratheesh and Anoop and 'Edakka' by Kalanilayam Rajan. The mastery over their instruments enhanced an already powerful performance. Dr. Indu gave a brief introduction to the hand gestures which greatly helped the audience follow the highly theatrical and complex performance.

The involvement and talent of the dancer was evident when the audience was transported with him to the abode of Sugreeva, the character from great Indian epic Ramayana. The makeup man, Kalamandalam Satheesan, and the accompanying percussion artists deserve a mention for making the programme successful. The performer literally thrilled the audience by putting of a good show of an art form  from God's own country.

Celebrating International day of Service

30 odd numbers of children, in all shape, size and look  all around us, cheering up at the top of their voice following an oriya song. Once they are done with the singing session , a drawing competition and hand painting session was held where they learn to use their palm dipped in water colours and making their impression on the cardboard creating wonderful pictures like trees and peacocks.

On the International Day of Service on Friday, volunteers including corporate employees, professionals and college students decided to take out some time from their busy schedule and spread happiness among the unprivileged.   The event initiated by Bakul Foundation, a voluntary organisation in Bhubaneswar was observed in 25 cities across India.

I along with some of my friends had been to four Anganwadis and undertook few activities and was enthralled by the response of the children , some of them have just started perceiving what  a mango or tree is.

Here are few pictures of the joyous moments we had on the  day.

Really had a great time and looking forward to have some more such precious moments with my closest buddies and doing something meaningful.

On meeting Chandrahas

I am really happy to be back in my blogging action for it has been long since I posted something. Blogging really gives one a kind of pseudo psychological satisfaction that one is contributing to the domain called writing. The idea of getting back to blogging came after meeting Chandrahas Chodhury, a noted writer of Odia origin settled in Mumbai. He was there in Utkal university to address an intellectual gathering on a topic 'Staying in literature'. As a matter of fact , I was absolutely ecstatic to see somebody who is young and successful and people like us can always relate to.

Though I am yet to explore the taste of his book Arzee the dwarf, I am quite confident that I will definitely be able to appreciate the aesthetic attached with the work.

In a response to a question on the connection between communicative English and English literature he expressed his worries by giving utmost importance to grammatically correct sentences and use of appropriate phrase. That was an absolutely honest and sincere suggestion one can implement in one's writing.

In fact, I found his blog very interesting which is a great treasure of literary material and a platform to share ideas to promote and live in literature.

I am looking forward to procure and read his book Arzee the Dwarf at the earliest since I don't want to deny myself the pleasure of reading such a wonderful book.

Jayaprakash

Attending a workshop in ITER: An eye opener for prospective scholars

I participated in a National workshop on research methodology organised by Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), Bhubaneswar in collaboration with PG dept. of English, Utkal University. Attending the two days long workshop was like an eye opener from many respects.The four plenary sessions were presided over by many distinguished Professors of English in and around orissa.
Right after the inaugural session Prof. Kalidas Mishra from Sambalpur University initiated the new research scholars in to the realm of research by delivering a beautiful presentation entitled "Research Methodology: Theoretical approaches ". By means of explaining the fundamental of research through A, B, C and D (where A- author, B-book, C-Critic, and D- Dismantling the established notions), he very beautifully elaborated the very essence of research theories.
The session was followed by Prof. Himansu S. Mohapatra from Utkal University who spoke on how to pen down the information and material in to a structured disciplined and organised scholarly write up. His approach of dividing the whole writing in to small chunks and working to meet the short term goal was very promising. He also spoke about how to draft a thesis statement and how to go about the whole writing, step by step, in a very disciplined way.
Prof. Amulya k purohit, The Ex Director of American Center, presented a paper on "American Literature, key concepts". Prof Purohit, in fact, is mockingly referred as a CIA agent by his fellow professors for his long association with and wide contribution to American Literature
The third presentation was made by Dr. Swayamprabha Satpathy from ITER whose presentation entitled "Key Concepts of Communication", though little digressed from the topic of the workshop, was really useful for many participants who teach Communicative English in many technical institutes. Some research tools she came up with, used mostly in the field of communication are Observations, case study analysis, interviews and questionnaire.
The second day began with Prof. Ramshankar Nanda delivering a talk "Resources on the web", which was full of facts ,hitherto unknown to many. Apart from giving a very informative talk on how to avail resources on internet, he also gave a list of e- journals whose importance for a research scholar can not really be denied.
After so many illuminating talks on research in Literature and communication, Prof. Kalyani Samantray, who was earlier associated with ELTI,Bhubaneswar and currently a Reader of English, Utkal University shed some light on research methodology in Language. Though little different from that of the methodology used in literature , research methodology used in the field of language should be appropriate to the objective to the study. By a beautiful Powerpoint presentation and a quiz activity, she elicit the very core of methodology used in Lanuage research.

It was followed by a talk "Miscommunication" made by Dr. Sthita Pragyan, Professor of English, Siksha 'O' Anusandhan University which discussed issues in the domain of communication and dealt very beautifully with the entire barriers of communication.

Prof. Dipti R Pattanaik's insightful talk on "Indian Literature in English: Major issues" was curtain raiser in figuring out the problems in that area of research . prof. pattanaik, at his best, suggested the research scholar to read few canonical texts and to go for the unconventional research topics which are hitherto untried ventures.
So the two days workshop, with lots of input, was absolutely useful for scholars who are just initiated in to the domain of research and struggling hard to find out where to start. For me in particular it resolved many of my confusion though again leading to creating many. Apart from the intellectual dose from a seminar like this , meeting many literary scholars, eminent professors and writers under a single roof is the most beautiful part of it. Chat over a cup of coffee with Prof Mohapatra whose unconditional love to mentor the students was something we enjoyed the most. So the work shop opened up a whole array of prospects in literary research for all aspirants who are all set to fly high.


Jayaprakash