The ‘Saaree’ Clad Eve and the ‘Kurta’ Donned Adam
Have you ever considered dressing up in traditional Indian attire? The ‘Saaree’ is really only a very long rectangular piece of cloth tightly wrapped around the femme-fatale to enhance the curves. The technique of wearing it though tricky is achievable with considerable practice. It is elegant, chic and charismatic. The kurta-pyjama is a knee long shirt with flair pants for the handsome hunk. Whether you don it below the six pack or a flab, it makes you look equally irresistible. Lehenga-choli is a blouse and ankle long skirt. Team it up with a bindi – the forehead sticker, some colourful bangles and an anklet and you will epitomize the Indian beauty. And where will you easily get all this in Sydney. You will not have to go too far. Liverpool is the hub of Indian fad and fashion. Lined up with shops, it will provide you with everything Indian that you will ever want to wear to impress your beau the Bollywood style. From Salwar-Kameez to Sarees, Kurta-Pyjamas to Dhotis, beautifully hand embroidered shawls to embellished stoles or dupattas, you name it and they have it. There are even these not too expensive tailors, who will custom design your Indian wear or even fit you with ‘wear-in-seconds-saaree’ that would normally take an expert a good sweat and a good ten minutes!
The Grandiloquent Taj
Part of the World Heritage List, The Taj Mahal is considered one of the most magnificent buildings ever conceptualized. The exquisite marble beauty in Agra, India, might be a mausoleum, but all you will be haunted by is the intense love of a husband for his beloved wife. Undoubtedly, it also a legendary evidence of the artistic brilliance and scientific splendour of a prosperous regime. Some three million people visit the Taj every year. Agra is easily commutable by bus, train, and air. Access to the structure is on foot purposefully to save the building from the city’s growing pollution. The Taj is a round-the-clock attraction and always buzzing with tourists, though a new ticketing system has been somewhat successful to distribute the onslaught of visitors evenly. Visitors wanting to enjoy the splendour in serenity could try coming in early or late in the day. The Taj is closed on Fridays. A good part of any visit to the Taj must be lavished on the exterior; however the breath-taking inlay work of the interiors cannot be missed. The mausoleum’s dazzling white marble shifts colour to reflect the pensiveness of the outside world—an enthralling transformation that must be witnessed in different conditions, such as in the crimson of twilight or pristine white of the full moon.
Reading Hindi is Easier than ABC
In Hindi, what I read is the same as what you will! Cannot put your head around it? Try reading this – “PHONETIC”- and I bet nine out of ten times, what you will read it as will be very different from the next person! Why? Written English does not incorporate phonetic rules in it, i.e. there are no special symbols for sounds. Hindi, on the other hand incorporates the sound system in its written script. So if you know the vowels and alphabets, you can pretty much read eighty five percent of the Hindi Script. Don’t Believe me? Try this out:
The symbol आ pronounced as ‘aa’ of bAr and the symbol प pronounced as ‘p’ of Put combined together is read as आप = AAP which means ‘you’ and will always be read like AAP! The symbol ह pronounced as ‘hǝ’ of Hut and the symbol म pronounced as ‘mǝ’ of Map combined together is read as हम = HUM which means ‘us’ and will always be read like HUM! You have already mastered two words with the blink of an eye. Join us for more and you will vouch that it is easier than ABC!
Our Love for Cricket!
Cricket is the most popular, participated, performed and played sport in India; it is played by many people from almost all corners, in open spaces throughout the land of India. From winning the World Cup in 1983 to the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, or the 2011 Cricket World Cup, it is blindly fan-followed to the extent of worship by young and old, extremely wealthy to the poverty stricken, man, woman and child . There may be plethora of religions in this largest democracy and secular nation, but it is said that the sport of cricket unifies Indians much passionately than any faith, following or religion can ever attain. Although, surprisingly still, Hockey is the national game, it is cricket that shouts numbers in terms of fan following. With zillions of passionate worshippers of the sport, cricket is truly the ‘religion’ of this populous sub continent.
The ‘Men in Blue’ of team India are arduously followed by the fanatic cricket fans and their fan following equals the popularity of any bollywood famed hero or heroine. From a school goer to a retired citizen, the passion of this sport has entertained, enamoured and enthused every Indian. This cricket crazy nation plan their routine, their holidays and their leaves after taking into consideration the touring schedule of Team India. No matter which part of India, one can find a bunch of amateurs playing cricket in narrow alleys, crammed backyards and even the most populated road sides dreaming of becoming the next cricketing sensation. Cricket, undoubtedly, is the fastest way of winning over an Indian!
Indian Music
The music of India transcends various genres from pop to folk to classical. Carnatic and Hindustani music are other forms that have a long standing history spanning a millennia. Some other popular forms are Film music, Indi-pop music, Indian Hip-hop, Indian rock etc. In India, however, music is most commonly perceived as that of Bollywood music. Popular Indian cinema, Hindi, or any other regional language, is mostly characterized in the West as “musicals” because each one is brimming with songs and dances. Ghazals, poetic compositions, an ode to loss, memory, and remembrance of love are chart toppers as well. Qawaalis, also love based stanzas, though devotion of man and woman for the Divine, have also heightened in their popularity and fame. In, recent years, Qawwali singers have established a world-wide reputation because of their mystical and enchanting rendition. Historically, between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD, a Treatise on the Dramatic Arts, was created by Bharata and ever since has exercised an intrinsic influence on the progress of Indian music, dance, and the performing arts in general. The repertoire of music in India extends from soul stirring melodies, to what is one of the most advanced “systems” of classical music in the world.
Indian Cuisine in Sydney
Think of Indian cuisine and either your mouth waters as your mind conjures images of aromatic curries, naan bread, flavoursome spices or the gut wrenches as you painfully remember the oil drenched curries laden with red chilli! Well, I am no aficionado but can say with certainty that Indian food is one that can be easily customised for any palate and yet retain its rich flavour, aroma and texture.
My theory can be put to test on the streets of Sydney in a jiffy. If you are from the North of Sydney and like your Indian curries sweet – there a couple of good restaurateurs who cater to this in Crow’s Nest. If you are in the Hills and like your spices Norwest is a good place for the palate challenge. If Liverpool is the hub of authentic Indian, Homebush is the Mecca of the cuisine! And if you are up for a flavour burst – Harris Park is teaming with all kinds of Indian cuisine- North Indian, South Indian and even Indian-Chinese (believe me it’s an entire culinary experience that the Chinese are not aware of and the Indians swear by it)!
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 18
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included the practices to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, constructing and creating dialogues as well as cultural skills and knowledge upon Japan. Also, we used textbooks (our major one is Genki Book 1), pictures, ads, children’s books, magazines, CDs, videos, DVDs, songs, gestures with songs etc. At the end of each class of 10 weeks, an exam was given (if the student wishes to have it as an open exam, that was done in that way.)
As for use of flash cards to increase knowledge of vocab, sentences construction and script reading skills, for the recent few weeks, I have been using “Hantai-kotoba-kaado” (Kumon) that has many beautiful cards in Hiragana and Kanji (Chinese characters) with use of words that are commonly used nouns, adjectives and verbs. Each card has lovely, cute or funny pictures that indicate the words concerned. Each card has a word on one side and its antonym (word of the contrary meaning) on the back. The cards were very useful, interesting to use and helpful to make sentences and short dialogues.
A few times, I used exciting pictures from magazines, including MX magazine, e.g. picture of a beautiful white baby lion that is in the UK zoo. The class listened to my Japanese sentences or students said some sentences in reference to the report on the article. For example, “The baby lion’s mother is Kya.”, “The white baby lion is cute.”
At Internet, you can see many articles on Japanese newspapers. About a month ago I saw gorgeous photos of “waves” of Japanese cherry blossoms in the middle of Tokyo, in Yomiuri newspaper (shimbun). However, the season was over and couldn’t show it to classes. And I found the inspiring article(s) of Japanese newspapers, so I reported that to classes. I believer such printed media has enormously contributed to Japanese democratization, world’s highest literacy rate and people’s life span, impressive peace and order in the society in the post modern times, their cherishing good, traditional values, practice and consistency, technological sophistication, communal attitude etc.
Related to the above topic, one of the article reports (from INA Globa Press Article, “Yomiuri Shimbun – The giant of the Japanese press”: “With more than 10 million copies sold everyday, Yomiuri Shimbun is not only the largest daily newspaper in Japan, but also the largest in the world. The circulation of Yomiuri Shimbun is greater than that of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street combined. Around 50 million newspapers are sole each day in Japan, where 90% of the public reads newspapers. —– (in p. 7 of that article,) Yomiuri Shimbun was founded in 1874 (i.e. soon after the end of Edo Period and start of Meiji Period); Asahi Shimbun was in 1879; Mainichi Shimbun was in 1872 and Nikkei Shimbun was in 1876; Sankei Shimbun was in 1913.
The above first four newspapers are national newspapers and its circulation rates are all extremely high in the world’s standard. Also, there is an English newspaper, The Japan Times. All of Yomiuri, Asahi, Mainichi and Nikkei newspapers have English versions daily.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
3.5.13
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