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A Little More Magical

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For as long as I can remember, some part of me knew I was destined to be a writer. You might wonder why a small child would think that. The answer is pretty simple. My name means writing. As a child who grew up hearing that, I realized that it was something important and that it was something that kind of belonged to me. My first memory of writing was back in the first grade. I had an activity in class to write a very short story, with illustrations. It was supposed to be a retelling of any classic well-known story. We were given simple white board books, blank canvases that we could turn into anything we wanted. I decided to rewrite the story of the three little pigs. I called it, The Three Little Fish. It was set underwater. I don’t remember much about it, but that was the first time I saw my name on the cover of a book, proudly lining the bottom of the front cover. I remember feeling a sense of fierce pride. This was something I had created and no one could take it away from me. I g...
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An Era of Our Own

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Taylor Swift didn’t bring the Eras Tour to India, but the Swifties brought it into the theatres in Chennai. I knew I was in the right theatre before I even reached the screen. There were girls in sequined dresses, friendship bracelets stacked around their wrists, and flashes of glitter wherever I looked. Some had dressed for specific Taylor Swift eras; others had simply arrived wearing whatever made them feel like a Swiftie. People were greeting friends, comparing bracelets, taking photographs and talking excitedly about the songs they were about to hear. It was November 3, 2023, and I had come to the theatre to watch Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, the concert film documenting Swift’s record-breaking tour. I had expected a cinema. What I walked into felt much closer to a concert venue. When the concert film arrived in Indian theatres, it brought with it more than two hours of Taylor Swift performing songs from almost two decades of her career. It also brought friendship bracelets, glitte...
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Metaphors for Translation

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So other professions find it kind of easy to describe their professions. Like a doctor, engineer, or teacher can sum it up in one or two sentences. However, a translator finds it hard to do the same. In today’s translation workshop, we looked at a few metaphors to explain the art of translating, and I wanted to talk about my favorites. The first one is about a bridge connecting two places. Both places are well populated and have dozens of little houses. There are lots of people on the bridge. So here, the bridge is the connector between two languages, doing the job of a translator. Additionally, all the people in the houses speak different languages, which represent the languages a translator often juggles with. The second one is an orchestra. Okay, so there are multiple different ways of interpreting this one. Firstly, the musicians are the ones interpreting the text - the sheet music. They all see the same things (their source language), and they interpret or translate it in their ow...
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Why Riordan?

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For my college project, the author I chose to study is Rick Riordan. (You probably guessed that from my posts.) Today, I was asked why I chose this author. Riordan was someone my brother gave me. When I came to India for a vacation, I wanted something to read when I was at his house. He gave me The Son of Neptune . I was around eight years old, and I tried to read the book. I couldn’t get past the first few chapters, and it made no sense to me. I tried it again a few days later and had the same result. I put the book away, and for the next two years, I claimed I didn’t like Percy Jackson. That’s a strange thing to think for someone who’s now writing multiple assignments on this author. A couple of years later, my brother handed me another book. This was The Lightning Thief. I told him that I didn’t really get Riordan and wasn’t interested in reading. He told me to try it again, and because I respected my brother, I did as I was told. I picked it up, settled into the couch, and haven’t ...
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The Gods Have A Coffee Shop

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My shift was finally over. Another long day of sitting at the same drab desk in the lobby of the Empire State Building, watching people come and go. You’re probably wondering what was so hard about that. My main job was keeping people away from Zeus. He had threatened to blast me out of the building for letting people up to the ‘six hundredth floor’ without an appointment. Yes. THAT Zeus. The one who often grew 100 feet tall and had a gigantic lightning bolt packed with enough nuclear energy to level a mountain and still have some to spare. Mortals didn’t know the six hundredth floor existed, but demigods did. The last time I let one of them up, he summoned me to his throne room. “If one more demigod enters Olympus without my permission, I’ll blast you off the top of the Empire State myself.” He had said it while holding a lightning bolt, so I believed him. I dusted off my dark blue suit and matching trousers, stood up, and stretched until something in my back made a noise that probabl...
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The World Won’t End if you Trust your Readers

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In an age where people are constantly at war with each other and there is very little trust among people in charge what’s the point of continuing to write? This is, of course, assuming that one primary purpose of writing is to create some kind of change in the world. So, this is in the context of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Here, the characters do nothing but wait for this man who never shows up. When we thought about why, we figured that it was the hope that Godot might show up that kept them waiting day after day. This is similar to what people these days are doing. They seem to have some kind of belief and trust in the people in this world - the ones who have the power to create mass destruction. This reminds me of something I heard in Jurassic World: Rebirth. One of the characters mentioned that humans are the only creatures in the world who have managed to create weapons that can lead to their own destruction. We can destroy humanity hundreds of times over. This is a scary...
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I Brought Damon Salvatore Into Class

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My professor was talking about Aristotle's elements of tragedy in today's class. During the discussion, he asked us who our favorite character was.  Without a moment of hesitation, I said Damon Salvatore. If I had had time to think about it in detail, I might have come up with someone else, but when put on the spot without being given time to think, he was the only one I could think of. We were asked to talk about our character in 2 minutes. Again, another time crunch. I started talking like a bullet train because I had a lot to say about the big bad vampire, Damon Salvatore.  After this, there was an interesting line my professor said. He said that the flaws we see in the characters we love are overshadowed by the fact that the characters are essentially good people.  I wanted to follow that thread just a little bit. When you think of Damon, you wouldn't immediately think that he's a good person. You'd think about his love for Elena. You'd think about how he pr...
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Stages of Editing

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Editing is one of the most important parts of writing a book - almost as important as the act of writing itself. There are four important things to remember when you’re working on your edits. (All this content is from a writing workshop I had today. I thought this information could help anyone else who wants to write.) First of all is structural editing. By that, I mean thinking about whether the story flow makes sense. Do the scenes make sense? Are the scenes actually doing something important for the story, or are they just there because you want them to be there? Are the scenes arranged in order? You need to think about how the plot works and what purpose the scenes have. For example, is the paragraph or scene you write exposition or exposition? Does it move the story forward or offer readers a little relief? Second, you need to look at your characters. You need to look at whether the characters match who you intended them to be. All your characters can’t sound the same, so it’s imp...
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Where can ideas come from?

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I’m sure so many of you want to write, but when you open up your notebook or laptop or whatever you use to write, you might wonder what to write about. I have a few pointers that might help you out here. I have some places you can get your ideas from. Firstly, you can get ideas from things you observe. Imagine you’re travelling on the bus on your way to work. You’re sitting opposite a young couple arguing with each other. You only catch snippets of the conversation, but your mind spins out of control when you hear whatever you hear. Of course, what you think might not be true, but I think you get what I’m trying to say. What you see and hear, and what your mind makes of it, is inspiration for something that could become a short story or maybe even a novel. It could be any genre, but all you had to do was listen. Anything you encounter could become an idea. Second, you can get ideas from things that you remember. Life is the best story. Life has ups and downs and is interesting. You mig...
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Kings Used to Pay People to Insult Them

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What’s a licensed fool? Is it someone who is paid to be funny and make jokes? Or is it someone who has a driver's licence and drives foolishly?  While the image of a reckless driver is funny, this is actually a really fancy name for someone who has permission to point out the foolishness or follies of a powerful person. In eras when criticizing a ruler meant losing your head, this fool was the only person in the palace who could speak the pure truth. It’s a technique used by Shakespeare and in Indian stories like Tenali Raman and Akbar and Birbal.  In King Lear by Shakespeare, the Fool is a tragicomic figure and loyal companion to the mad king. He uses riddles and sharp truths to highlight Lear’s poor choices. He's the only one who can brutally criticize the king without being executed or banished. He is also fiercely loyal to the king when his daughters abandon him.  If we look at the Indian stories, the fool – or court jester here – is often referred to as one of ...
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The poem without a name

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My professor told me that not every poem needs a name. I couldn’t find a name for this visual poem I wrote, so I’m just going to show you, and you can figure out what you want to call it. I think that suits it even better because the experience (or tragedy) I’m talking about is different for everyone, and you can call it what you want to. Without further ado, here’s my first visual poem.
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It Just Has to be A Sonnet

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When you try to express love, there is no form to do so greater than the sonnet. It’s been that way for ages. In today’s class, we looked at an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. It was the scene when Romeo meets Juliet for the first time. They talk about loving each other through a sonnet. Let me explain a bit… the play is written in verse, and Shakespeare is pretty much a master sonneteer. The exchange is in the form of a sonnet. It has interlocking lines (The rhyme scheme pattern) that show how the characters connect with each other. I’m not going to go into too much detail about the play here, but let’s shift focus to the sonnet. The sonnet was popularized by Petrarch and then later by Shakespeare too. Here’s the thing, though: sonnets are mostly written about unrequited love. Petrarch wrote the Canzoniere to his Laura. Shakespeare wrote to his Dark Lady and Fair Youth. Sidney wrote his Astrophil and Stella to Lady Penelope Devereux. Spenser wrote his Amoretti to his wif...
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Poems Aren’t Always Meant to Sit Still

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First of all, what is visual poetry? The meaning’s in the name. It pretty much combines written words with graphic design, images, and layout. Here, the poem combines the written text and the visual aesthetics to create meaning. The form and layout matter just as much as the words themselves. One of the assignments I had was to try to create a visual poem. Our poem was supposed to have a specific shape that matched what we were trying to write about. I’m just going to try to share my process, in case someone wants to try and dabble. Firstly, pick your theme. It can be anything as long as you’re passionate about it. Secondly, think of your theme and try to find a shape that represents it. For example, if your theme is love, your poem could be in the shape of a heart or two hands joining. It doesn’t have to be literal, as long as you can justify it. Third, once you have your shape, think of the words you can fit into it. Your poem’s text is only part of the poem here, but they are still ...
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Apparently there's a genre for this

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There are gods, monsters, ancient prophecies, magical weapons, and children who discover that their parents have been keeping some fairly important information from them. There are quests, battles, secret worlds and, for some reason, a surprising amount of sarcasm. It sounds like fantasy. Easy enough, right? Except that when it comes to Rick Riordan, apparently one genre is never enough. Look at the way his books are described, and the categories begin piling up: fantasy, mythology, adventure, children’s fiction, middle grade, young adult and, occasionally, urban fantasy. Goodreads gives The Lightning Thief several of these labels at once, while professional reviews tend to place it more firmly within children’s or middle-grade fiction. Riordan himself has described the book as a humorous work of fantasy. None of these descriptions are wrong. In fact, they all make sense. But put them together and another question starts to appear: what exactly makes a Rick Riordan book a Rick Riordan...
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After Sonnet 130

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This morning, I got to do an activity in class to write a very short dramatic dialogue. There were only a few conditions. Firstly, it had to be kind of ‘verse-ish.’ Second, it had to have some kind of rhyme and try to have a rhythmic pattern. The example we were given was the translated version of Misanthrope . Here’s what I wrote about. I thought about what might have happened between Shakespeare and the Dark Lady after he published Sonnet 130. Note: This is completely fictional. Enjoy, and I hope you like it! Shakespeare: Your eyes are less radiant than the sun. Dark Lady: Do you mean to say that they are not fun? Shakespeare: You look as though you have wires on your head. Dark Lady: Wires though they may be, they are not yet dead! Shakespeare: I smell your breath’s reek when you are with me. Dark Lady: You’re saying I stink! Ohh, I see, I see. Shakespeare: Love, I mean you no harm. Please do not pout. Dark Lady: Fine. Because you beg, I shall hear you out. Shakespeare: I speak fro...
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The Thumb

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Last night, my friends and I went to a play that one of our super seniors was a part of. It was called “The Thumb.” It was about Dronacharya and Ekalavya - in a way. (I don’t want to spoil the play here.) This was the first play we were watching in a place like this. I’d seen some earlier, but not in a proper theatre. We were all pretty excited to experience this new thing. The building itself was very quaint. It had a little cafe and a little bookshop that we checked out before the play. The auditorium was upstairs. As we walked in, I noticed a sign saying that the plays didn’t use microphones, but that the acoustics of the theatre itself were perfect. My friends and I noticed that we were the only students there. Everyone else was definitely above 30, if not older. During the play, everyone watched with rapt attention. They had all chosen to spend their evening watching something that other people usually wouldn’t and they were proud of it. I’m not a theatre reviewer, so I’m not goin...
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Kindness is free

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Being kind is absolutely free, but it holds the power to change someone’s whole day - for better or worse. So this is probably something everyone has heard about before, but it is still really important and relevant. In a time and age when people are unapologetic about being themselves, it is still crucial to remember that other people have feelings too. That doesn’t cover what you want to say or express, but it’s about basic courtesy and manners. Right? Picture this: there’s someone in your class, and they were completely relaxed and chatty with you and the rest of the class for the first month or so. Somewhere along the line, they turned rude. By this, I mean doing things like not looking at you when you speak or snapping at you to grab your attention. Now, imagine if this isn’t just being done to you, but this person does this to the whole class. Some of you might be telling me that this person might have something else going on, but when asked over and over again, they don’t say an...
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Read to be a Writer

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Here’s a very simple thing to remember: your connection with books will enhance your writing. The better reader you are, the better your writing will be. Let’s take me as an example. I’m a fantasy writer who loves using supernatural and mythological references as I write. Where do you think I got these ideas from? From Percy Jackson I got my mythology. From Twilight came my first introduction into supernatural. From Harry Potter I learned that magic and the real world could exist next to each other. The list goes on and on but it was only because I made it my mission to read these great books that I learned how to craft a fantasy novel. As you read, you’ll also observe the writers’ styles. As you reread a few times, you might even be able to choose certain things from the other writers that you would want to write like. Your style would evolve out of the authors you read. Reading isn’t just about collecting ideas, either. It teaches you how stories work. You start noticing why a partic...
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Plagiarism, Influence, and Tribute

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These three terms are sometimes confused in academia, and I think it’s important to be able to distinguish between them. Okay. I’m going to make this pretty simple. Being influenced by something does not mean plagiarising. Let’s unpack that a little. Plagiarism is directly copying someone else’s work without giving credit to the author. It’s when someone steals someone’s intellectual property without permission or credit. An easy way around that is just to cite one’s sources. Influence, on the other hand, is when someone has been impacted by earlier writers, books, or artistic movements so much that it spills into the style, themes, and creative choices of later authors. For example, someone who writes fantasy - like me - might be influenced by Rick Riordan and JK Rowling. In addition to that, since I like supernatural stories, I’m influenced by things like Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and Teen Wolf . I draw from these works without copying from them. There might be similar themes be...
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Reading and Recitation

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Today, my professor conducted an activity where we had to read a poem out loud. Now, a little context about this poem… we were asked to write a sonnet to share in class. Anyway, we were asked to read these sonnets out loud. We didn’t have any theme that we were supposed to follow, just a fixed rhyme scheme. The first time we read them out loud, our professor fixed us with a glare. “You sound dead!” he said. (Something along those lines). He told us that we were just reading the poems and not feeling them. He told us to talk to the text, to feel it, and interact with it. He told us to speak to the poem when we read it, and that would make it sound so much better. The next time, we recited the poem rather than just reading it. That brings me to the main point here. There’s a difference between reading and reciting. Reading is just… reading. Using your eyes and forming the words with your mouth. Reciting, on the other hand, is when the words take a detour through your heart on the way fro...
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Music

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A couple of days ago, there was a flash mob in college. It was apparently to promote the college’s Onam celebration. Here’s the thing, though… I had a really bad headache, and the music was very loud, and the ground almost vibrated under my feet. It didn’t help matters. I was trying to stay as far away from it as I could, but it was right near the dining hall, which meant I had to go there anyway. I was also exhausted from all the assignments and things I’d been up to all day. As I went towards the dining hall, I could finally hear what the music was. They were dancing to the Tamil songs I hadn’t heard in so long. In that moment, it was both rejuvenating and heartbreaking. It made me feel like I was home, and like I had never been farther away at the same time. Sure, I ended up smiling and vibing to the music, but the effect it had on me lasted. Music is really powerful. Another example I have to prove it is my morning alarm. I wake up every day to a Taylor Swift song. I feel like it’s...
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Choices and Voices

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This is my first attempt at a sonnet. It is not in any particular meter, but it does have a rhyme scheme. I hope you like it!  Extending towards me is your hand You meet my eyes and let me be You pause with a smile that understands Leaving the final answer up to me An evil touch is rushing to take  But isn't asking just kind  Touching without asking is a mistake In contrast, respect my body and mind  In your arms, I feel safe enough to breathe Yes or no, the choice is mine to say  No longer am I crushed underneath  Your question pushes away my fear  Your ask was more than a question but a choice Your question recognized my voice
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A Trip to the Moon

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 Let me get one thing clear. I’m not really a girl who watches black-and-white movies. I very rarely watch movies from before 2000 (Disney is sometimes an exception). I find old movies kind of slow. I know that sounds weird. It’s not something people admit, but right now, I think it’s only right if I do. Also, I don’t analyze films. I usually stick to books. Today, however, I watched a short film called A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès. I was trying to watch it from the lens of a fantasy writer. First of all, this is a silent movie. There’s no dialogue whatsoever. It’s full of silent action. One thing I noticed is that there were no words at all. I don’t mean just dialogue, but there were no boards or signs with words on them either. The very first thing I noticed was that it looked like Harry Potter in a way. There were old men in pointy hats like Dumbledore wears. The room at the beginning of the film looked like the Great Hall. The architecture reminded me of it as well. Th...
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Is There a Text?

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So, what is a text? Is it a prose piece? Is it poetry? Is it anything that is written and can be read? According to the dictionary, text is “the main written part of a book, newspaper, etc.” or “the written form of a speech, interview, etc.” In colloquial contexts, it could mean anything written. However, let’s go a little deeper. What do you do with a text? You read and understand it. Right? If a poem or story is a text, it is meant to be read and analyzed. It can have multiple different meanings, and people understand and interpret it in different ways. There isn’t just one way to read a text. Similarly, let’s look at other things that can be interpreted. What about a painting or photograph? If your answer to that is yes, that means paintings and photographs are also texts. An image is a text. So is a piece of furniture, if it makes you feel and think. Anything that you have to think about to understand can be called a text. Since a text, in its rawest meaning, means something that c...
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