The last page of my first issue of the school Newsletter as Editor. Seeing my name in bold in the little box on the bottom right corner made me immensely happy! :)
Thursday, October 28, 2010
1st Prize, Write Stuff
Aftereffect-ed
The Time of Our Lives
This was an article that I wrote for the Adventure Camp issue of the School Newsletter. Every class from Grade 3 upwards goes on a 3 to 6 day camping trip to various locations. It's one of the high points of the school calendar for every student in Vasant Valley. I wrote this article after my last camp - Grade 12, 2010.
Review
This was a review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that I wrote in my first year on the Editorial Board of the school Newsletter, in 2007.
Newspaper Cutting
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
The Story of a Knight
This poem was written in the Portmanteau style popularised by Lewis Carol. This style combines two or more words for the neologism of a new one, usually an adjective.
The Story of a Knight
The Story of a Knight
An age past,
A ship’s mast
The Dragicorn did slumbive.
A beautair maiden
Her castle pretongous and laden
Did sigh out her towersill.
A branoursome knight
Armor true and strite
Roamed the citreets for adventure.
In starvation did the Dragicorn search
For scrumdiddlydumptious to devour
Then spied the maiden, fair and nimble
And knew just what to eat.
So took he the lanksome lady
Into his sinistorose den
Out came the shining knight
Sworn to protect his quaint damsel.
His pearly blade, light aquimber
Did never leave his hand
Gallopted he on faithful steed
And won his bride back.
The Dragicorn slain
And peace outlain
They lived in felicity
Till eternity pass’d.
- Ayesha Malik, 2007
Freedom
This is a poem I wrote that reflects the Indian mindset towards politics and towards our leaders on Independence Day (August 15th) 2008. It was published in my school's Newsletter (the Vasant Valley Today) of whose Editorial Board I was a member then, and am Chief Editor now.
Freedom
They say that I can choose
The ones that will
Lead me.
They say that I may
Speak, preach, write, feel
Anything that compels me
They tell me that I have the right
To exist.
To dare.
The freedom is mine
To use how I will, they say.
To bear the guilt
Of unfinished ventures,
Of illegal liaisons;
To accept the responsibility
Of spreading lies,
Of preaching divine hatred;
To shoulder the burden
Of the grime that fills us-
Our streets, our homes, our minds
And our hearts
Without a second thought.
They tell me my freedom is precious
So burn, pilfer and terrorize.
Exercise that right.
They have the freedom to. They can.
Stop.
I am free.
Free to correct their wrongs.
Free to reject
That which they force on to me.
Free to question.
Widespread opinion is not always the truth.
They gave me the freedom
To be like them.
I’m giving myself the freedom
To prove them wrong.
- Ayesha Malik
Brabantio's Plea
This is my interpretation of what was going through Brabantio's mind when his daughter, Desdemona, ran off with The Moor in Shakespeare's 'Othello'.
- Ayesha Malik
Brabantio’s Plea
To God’s loveliest creation,
To the product of
My love
For my wife,
My duty
To my ancestors,
And my gift
To company’s eyes and heart
This is my plea to you,
Fair Desdemona.
Do not follow in this erroneous path
Set by your emotions.
Do not get distracted by a novelty,
Like a shiny bauble.
Do not leave behind the entire world
For a barbarian
Whose profession is to murder
As told by the Senate.
And one who can kill without compunction,
Without knowing why,
Is a cold, heartless knave.
Beware of losing your heart
To one who lost his own long ago
In the cradle of some far away battle.
I ask you to retreat from a road
That will lead you to your ruin
The death of your father
(Killed by heartbreak)
The death of your beauty
(Killed by the passage of time wasted while waiting for his return)
The death of your spirit
(Killed by the accusations, discriminations and malevolencies of society)
The death of your love
(Killed by the loss of your spirit)
Your death, sweet lass.
I do not doubt your love for me
Despite the betrayal of my trust.
To you, I pray
Do not doubt my love for you
Despite recommending a course of action you dislike
For I do not hate
The one you claim to love
For his colour.
I am better than that.
I hate him for bringing you down with him.
His status as a general
Confirms his worth for the moment,
But stay,
His legs start to slow, his eyesight fails.
Age steals his position, his glory, his status
And your life.
Daughter of mine,
If he truly loved you
Even half as much as I do,
He would see the truth of my words
And let you go.
I have loved you since you lived
And I shall love you till the end of days,
And for the sake of my love
If not for your own life
I plead with you
To come back home.
My heart longs for your loving face.
- Ayesha Malik
Last
This is the story that won first place at the Tata World 'Write Stuff' Competition, which had over 8000 participants from countries across the globe.
Prompts:
1. Story should begin with ‘As I get into the cab’
2. 1000 words maximum
Last
As I get into the cab, I find a wallet stuffed with cash on the seat. Surreptitiously making sure that the driver isn’t paying any undue attention to the happenings in his back seat, I open it to find the details of my next assignment; the cash is there to tide over any expenses concerning the mission before I get my pay-off.
My job is not something for which there may be a course found in any college. Nor is it something that brings fame. In fact, fame in my profession meant that you were dead. Literally.
I am a bounty hunter for the United Nations. A peacekeeping body? Not really. Putting down revolutionary leaders before they turn into martyrs is my job description. And tonight is my last mission. The shelf life for such a lucrative vocation is bound by the risks that can be taken. Conscience has a very limited part in my life. If the broad objective is just, then any and all means may be and are taken to save as many human lives as possible.
**
Romania. The latest crop of neo-Nazis had sprung up from this area. The once free inhabitants of Bucharest were now under the tyrannical parallel ruling of Sergei Lukyanenko, the influential and charming leader of Blood and Honor, a known Neo-Nazi organization. The government is doing what it can to negate his authority but he spreads his word through rogues and assassins, through underground routes never even dreamt about by the ineffectual government. It is time for the professionals to come in. And I am the best.
**
The night is dark and quiet, quite unlike what is expected from a metropolitan. I see the withdrawn, scared faces of the infants and the young mothers. I tell myself that they do not affect me. They do not affect me. I see the haggard looks of old people who have seen tortures unimaginable. I see the resigned eyes of children who know that their loved ones are not coming back from the murky pits of the Mafia’s grip. They do not affect me. I see the Examples that Sergei has put up, to deter more from opposing him. I see the dead men whose ghosts wander the streets. They do not affect me. They do not affect me.
I unwrap my sniper from the violin case that I have long been carrying around. I set up my watch post: a room in the top most floor of a long abandoned hotel. It gives me the perfect view of the headquarters of Blood and Honor, so brazenly left open for the government and the people to see yet be unable to breach. Sergei will come in the morning, as he does everyday. Unafraid. Nobody knows who he is. Nobody knows what he looks like.
Except me.
**
Sergei Lukyanenko, when I knew him in Moscow University, was Dmitri Voskov. Our friendship was the only saving grace in the winters of that cold city. We shared a dream, to rid the world of those undesirables who were controlling the nations of our world. Corrupt politicians and cruel bureaucrats were our bête noir. We both dreamt of joining the United Nations as diplomats in an effort to root out the cause of the world’s decay. Needless to say, Dmitri did not go through with this. Today I am a part of the UN, but hold quite the polar opposite designation of the one that I coveted then.
Yet, even then, there were telltale signs of something amiss in Dmitri’s grand vision, as if he had but shared the surface with me. He was a man of many faces yet I was too naïve to spy it, taken in as I was by the grandiose plans to change the world.
Sergei Lukyanenko. He was the Russian author whose works both of us were so fond of. The pseudonym was my first clue. His methods of retribution were my second. He was fond of the ideas of the KGB of old; the Gestapo had it right, according to him. People had to be forced to do what was good for them was his ideology.
And thus I knew. My last assignment is to assassinate my old friend. The one because of whom the state of the Romanians was unable to affect me. They cannot affect me. They do not affect me.
**
The crowds milling past the Blood and Honor building make sure that they do not linger. Too much fear has been sown by this building. The passers-by duck their heads, hunch their shoulders and hurry past, careful not to stand out. It makes my task that much harder – how do I spot one face in hundreds if none of their faces may be seen?
And then I see him.
Sergei Lukyanenko. Dmitri Voskov. Standing tall amongst the masses, an unshakeable force amidst those who have been forced to get used to being bullied. Arrogance has clouded his judgment, I observe. He does not make any effort to blend in. He remains the same.
I close my eyes. Can I kill my best friend? Is he the devil that my superiors have told me he is? It cannot be! But then I open them, and once again see the harangued look pasted on the people around him. And then I know that he is.
I tighten my finger around the trigger and look at Dmitri through the eyepiece. He stops and turns around, faces the abandoned hotel. He looks straight at me (though it is impossible that he can see me), and smiles. As the first of the four explosions rocket through the abandoned hotel I pull the trigger. The second explosion, but I know that my work is done. I do not miss.
The third explosion, and I see Romania restored, no ethnic bloodstains on its tapestry.
My occupation is lucrative in proportion to the risks. I see the lives I have saved. My conscience is clear. The fourth explosion, and I have what money cannot buy.
- Ayesha Malik, 2009
How to Ruin Your Daughter's Life
This is a poem I wrote in William Butler Yeats' style, on his poem 'A Prayer for My Daughter'.
How To Ruin Your Daughter's Life
How To Ruin Your Daughter's Life
Would he were Heathcliffe, brooding and dark,
Hated and chilling, but having love’s coveted mark.
Or would he were Romeo, tragic in life
But death brought him closure, closer to his loving wife.
Yet the fate of the Phantom was to be Yeats’ too
His own story helped make many-a great poetic brew.
Passion, unrequited love was to be his downfall,
A lass called Maud Gonne held him in her thrall.
In 1889 Maud Gonne he encountered,
She was passionate and fiery, he simply floundered.
Rich heiress she was, and politically headstrong
Beautiful as Helen, men followed her in throngs.
Not once nor twice but four times he proposed
Unfortunately for him, this idea she always opposed.
Drowning in sorrow, wallowing in his rejection
Yeats’ poems are an insight to this very dejection.
A poem he wrote, a prayer for his daughter
A series of blessings and attributes he wished upon her.
As polar opposite to Madame Gonne as could be
Insipid, domesticated and plain was what he wanted to see.
His daughter was to have the happiness that was never for Yeats.
For this he was willing to manipulate the Three Fates.
Beauty, opinions and Irish radical politics were his bane
His daughter’s happiness he wouldn’t let (by these) be slain.
Verse one introduces his love for the wee lass,
The times overshadowed by civil war, alas
Ireland was in the throws of a pitched battle
Yet he wished no worry upon her other than the whereabouts of her rattle.
Verse two and he’s pacing the countryside in worry
The lines between his past and her future are blurry.
Hereafter he wants her life to be of a peaceful strand,
Free of the murder and bloodshed tainting his beloved land.
Beauty is the theme of the third verse
No vice is more desired and none he finds worse.
Comparisons with Maud and her effect on him
Make his perfect daughter not stunning but prim.
To have just that beauty, enough to make her kind.
To have just that beauty, not enough to make a stranger blind.
To have just that beauty, that finds her a loyal friend
To have just that beauty, the knowledge that beauty is an ‘insufficient end’.
The fourth verse has myth and legend as reference
To why sensible over exquisite is always a preference.
Helen of Troy and Aphrodite of Greece
Couldn’t use all their beauty to buy them some mental peace.
The fifth verse and she would have to be polite to a fault
To be chosen over beauty by any man worth his salt.
Verse six would have her quiet in her abilities
So only persistence would reveal her versatility.
Verse seven espouses the horrors of hate
Her mind that shouldn’t detest is a wondrous trait.
The eighth would have her innocuous and vapid
For the chase of opinions by strife is quite rapid.
The ninth would leave her happy everywhere
Even when company and harmony is spare.
To be delighted, able to stick through it all
Even in dark times, herself she could enthrall.
The tenth is a wish for matrimonial bliss
Something that, in Yeats’ life, was obviously amiss.
He bids her marry into civility and etiquette
For they would mean that she’s never to fret
Over arrogance and hatred and other such things
And she’ll always revel in the bounty that they bring.
And thus Maud helped shape Yeats’ daughter –
What not to be like is what she has taught her.
As feminists, our opinion on the poem is rather forceful,
The poet’s hypocrisy and chauvinism is reproachful.
His heart was broken; just because he was jilted
He wants his daughter to be dull and stilted.
Agreed, his writing is quite resplendent
But his content is offensive to equality defendants.
Sorry Mr. Yeats, but get over yourself
And teach your daughter to think for herself.
- Ayesha Malik
2009
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