My Inception into the Blog

HEyy everybody!!! I am sooooo excited with this and Huge thanks to Mellanie ma'am of course :D

Well due to the annoying compelling of a certain friend of mine (Anjana Soman :P) am putting up a nonsense poem I wrote :) Hoping the bloggers enjoy this :

"Utter Nonsense" - by Amal Ashraf

There was once a man,
a not-so-thin one to be polite!
He ate and ate and ate -
whatever came his way.
All the eggs that the chickens ever lay
and all the ones that hatched.
Once, he was making a bulls-eye
And something wondrous happened.
Not only did it turn green,
it spewed blue smoke.
Bewildered yet hungry - he continued to cook
Until the blue smoke merged into the shape
of a genie - who granted him one wish.
He wished that he should
ne'er ever feel tired of eating.
The genie said, "Wish granted, thank you!"
And was about to leave,
When he found himself in the glutton's mouth!
The glutton said,
"Aah! That was tasty - I should get more
of the green bull-eyes !"

Creative Expression

Expression means distilling what is within us, giving it shape and letting it go free. We unleash the skylark and the rainbow within us, watch them chart a path across the sky. We fall in love with nature because it mirrors our true self. The nature within us is a miniature version of God's fantastic creation out there.
Mist in our mindscape adds up a dew drop and oozes out through the pen nib. They trace out poems on paper. The palette of our minds soaks up all the colours of the rainbow when we live our lives. Mix and match the colours with a brush and you have expressed yourself on canvas.
In our world, there are real people and people who are born out of our dreams, memories and desires. They are the people who take form in the womb of human imagination. They are like fictional characters of our story tellers and artists.
What happens during the process of artistic creation has a dream-like quality to it. Unconsciously we watch closely the working of the mind. We cull out the best with a passion and instinctively preserve it for prosperity. An a work of art is born.
Leaving aside humanity, Crucifixion preserved a God, the beauty of the world and heaven for generations to come. The best man ever on the earth is with us on the cross. He is with us in our adversities and afflictions and guides us through our darkest hours, much like a lodestar. So Crucifixion is an artistic process of nailing down the best in this world.

A Unique Republic Day Celebration

Yesterday, I had a very unique experience of Republic Day celebration -- I was in school together with a few faculty and staff peeling and cutting fruits and vegetables!

Peeling and cutting fruits and vegetables in Class I room.

Ms. Swapna Vinod & Ms. Rekha Valsaraj peeling carrots. Or, shall I say scraping?

 
Around 120 CMI priests and brothers were at school yesterday to celebrate their Provincial Day. At 9.00 am they started off with a Mass at the home theatre celebrated by Rev. Fr. John Panamthottathil CMI, Provincial, St. Thomas Province. 


While this was going on, Fr. John Mannarathara was going up and down the stairs and moving about to prepare for the next programme in the agenda -- the volleyball game at the Monastery playground.

Rev. Fr. John Panamthottathil CMI and other CMI priests and brothers

After the Mass, the CMI fathers and brothers were taken to the Monastery playground for a volleyball game. Can anyone guess who the referee was? Who else if not the very dynamic Fr Sibi Ponpara?

Fr. Sibi as referee.

One of the fathers jumping for a spike while the opponents were on theirs toes ready to block it.

Obviously not everyone could play the game... The others had to play the role as audience.

 By the way, I was taken to this playground in the Bolero, the school's new vehicle. Has anyone seen it? I was with Ms. Rekha and Fr. John. 


After the game, they were all brought back to the school for lunch. They were all ready for a good meal after that exciting game. The main attraction at the auditorium was not the fish or chicken curry. It was the fruits and vegetables wonderfully arranged by Ms. Megha, the crafts teacher.

The work of Ms. Megha and of course the fruits and vegetable cutters! :P At first, nobody wanted to touch a single grape!  People just stood there admiring the graceful-looking swans and the carvings on those pumpkins. Some were taking snaps of this beauty including myself!

A closer look at the fish carving on that pumpkin.

A closer look at the swan carvings on that pumpkin.

Ms. Megha, the master carver  (first left) and the vegetable cutters!

They were not only vegetable cutters they were also food servers! How admirable! (They are going to kill me for this!)

After the lunch, the CMI priests and brothers had their cultural show. I was not able to take lots of snaps of the show because I was eating at that time. I was having a good time with that apple and pineapple salad soaked in honey!

The young brothers singing a very funny Malayalam song composed by them. I don't know Malayalam but I knew it was funny because the audience was laughing! hmmm.

I didn't finish the show because I had to leave. Fr John told me that the show would be finished by 3.00 pm.

This was Mr. Valsaraj who pretended to hoist the flag.

I leave this article unfinished because Ryka is pulling my hair!

How to Save a Life

The most astounding of all the various capabilities that God has engraved in Man is Man's ability to save another's life.
But of what use is the rose when its fragrance is not appreciated by another; if with its fragrance, it cannot soothe another's nerves?
Of what use is the existence of the knowledge to save a life when one cannot use the same knowledge in a practical situation where a person is hanging onto his fading life by a fragile straw?
The Malabar Institute of Medical Science (MIMS) in collaboration with Devagiri CMI Public School, sought to imbue in students a few, simple steps that could possibly save a life. The day-long session aimed to teach students the Basic Life Support procedures - BLS. It truly came as a surprise to the students that it wasn't complicated surgeries or sophisticated machinery that the hospital staff used when a patient was first wheeled in.... but just simple ol' BLS.
When we (the students :D) walked in, we didn't see what we had expected to see - dilapidated old pillars, long rows of hunched up patients coughing and sneezing their way to the counter, nurses and doctors hustling about.. Instead, we were awed by the surprisingly classy, modern building, with squeaky clean floors and counters and an unbelievably orderly crowd. It of course soon led many of us (including me) to ponder on how convenient it would be to die here.
Upon beginning the session in the auditorium, the students were divided into four stations or groups. After learning in theory, they then practised the CPR( Cardiac Pulmonary Resuscitation) on the mannequins provided. You put a bunch of restless teenagers in a room with dummies, then of course fun and a lot of lame jokes are sure to ensue. But Dr. Augustyn and his team were extremely successful in holding the students' attention as they guided them through various life-threatening situations and how to handle them.
The students, charged up after bouts of tasty refreshments, were literally leaping off their seats with queries. The possibility that this practice would one day help them save a person's life filled them up with a contagious excitement on par with that of the MIMS team.
But what really kept them going was the amicable team that, through all the joking moments, the various anecdotes portraying the importance of BLS, and the endless queries, did not fail to fulfill their goal - to create a generation that would find itself capable of saving a life, one that was aware of how just a few compressions and head tilts could keep a heart beating.
At the end of the day, as the session came to a close, two of our students - Sachin .P and Sneha Nair - took up the opportunity to thank and appreciate the efforts of the team at MIMS.
But it wasn't the many crucial steps of BLS or the heavy mannequins that lingered in the students' minds......... it was the intriguing fact that the auditorium smelled just so good!!!!

Are you from another planet?

Yesterday, when I was walking back home after school, I felt like catching an auto so that I could reach home faster. An autowala smiled at me and showed that he was available to take me.
When I sat in the auto, slowly he started asking, “Are you a student or teacher?”
I looked at him through the front mirror and replied that I am a teacher. Then, he continued to say that I looked so young and no one would believe if I’d say that I am a teacher. He was praising me about my youth.
Soon, we reached the house and it was time for me to alight.
When I gave the money the expression on his face completely changed.
He asked, “Are you from another planet!? Don’t you know that the charges have increased?”
He demanded for Rs. 20/- instead of the usual fare of Rs. 15/-.
I said, ‘Yes, I am from Mars! I will give you only Rs. 15/-.'
He replied, “You are looking good and I thought you’d give me what I asked for.”
I asked, 'Who asked you to praise me?'
The argument continued.
Then, with much anger, he left.
I went back to Mars!

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