Festivals ceased to charm me once I grew out of childhood. Crowds are the souls of festivals and I detest crowds. A crowd doesn’t have a mind. It is a leviathan full of passion and energy. All brawn and no brain. All too often I am driven to the conclusion that festivals are so popular precisely because they don’t require anyone to think anything worthwhile and people don’t like to think. There is one festival, however, that I have always looked forward to with good cheer. Onam. Onam is a fairly long festival. The celebrations run over weeks. Flowers and music are the souls of this festival. No pollutions. Kerala and its people celebrated Onam just a month back with all its traditional art, music and cultural richness. Pookkalam (floral rangoli) is the first thing that will come to the mind of anyone who has seen Onam celebrations. It is an intricate floral design assumed to be a colourful and gentle carpet meant to welcome Mahabali, the hero of Onam. More about him later. Boa
Sophie as imagined by Copilot Designer Going Places is a short story by A R Barton prescribed for grade 12 students of a Central Education Board in India (CBSE). Sophie, the young protagonist, is just completing her school and will soon be working in a biscuit factory near her home as most girls of her socioeconomic class usually do. Sophie doesn’t want that future, though. She has big dreams. She wants to open a boutique, or become an actress, or be a fashion designer. She is in love with Danny Casey, the national football champion, and believes that he reciprocates the love. She believes that her fantasies about her meeting Danny in the arcade are real. Her father who is very practical and realistic has only contempt for Sophie’s fantasies. “One of these days you’re going to talk yourself into a load of trouble,” he warns his dreamer-daughter. The father is a traditional patriarch who works hard to get the family moving from day to day. He can be rough and blunt. He doesn’t know a