Every once in a while my mom's overtaken by the "cleaning bug" and she raids my cupboards and drawers to clean them out. And everytime that happens I gather bits and pieces of the "garbage" tht she finds to be put away as memories!!
When this occasion came up yesterday, I chanced upon a copy of Marian Notes, the school magazine on whose editorial team I was. The picture of us, the editorial team smiling at the camera reminded me of tht day when it was taken. We were unable to decide where exactly to take the pic...indoors in the library or outdoors 'underneath the mango tree' (only Marians of my batch will understand this pun)! So...getting back to the pic...we were the first editorial team that ended up with 3-4 pics of ourselves in different moods i.e. serious in the library...giggly in the garden and straightfaced on the school ground!!
Then I also happened upon a copy of Aavishkar...the magazine I edited for CSI's regional convention, Innovate'06. It was fun to read through it all over again. And surprisingly I couldn't solve the crossword I set in it...tho i'd made it myself!! (Some would say 'kya idiot hai' to this!) But it felt nice and satisfying to know that I still liked the articles I chose for it! And relief perhaps at knowing my taste hadnt changed drastically over the year!!
Apart from these I found a bunch of Rhythm brochures, my first sheet of Engineering Drawing and other odds and ends. What did i do with these u'll ask? No, I didnt stuff them back in the cupboard. Its here that I shud mention my 'memory album'. An idea that hit me in 10th std when I realised that everything about milestones in my life cannot be captured in photos. Sometimes u dont even have a camera to do tht!!
So i started collecting and storing other stuff like restaurant bills autographed by frends with whom I went there, bus and train tickets, birthday candles, movie tickets, entry tickets of places like Esselworld and Planetarium, i-cards of various conventions, friendship day ribbons, brochures of festivals, magazines like Marian Notes & Aavishkar and lots of other bits and pieces of different ocassions. There's even a friend's assignment I tore in a fit of rage and a broken plastic knife...a remnant of a friendly 'battle' at a friend's place [:D]
It sometimes makes me feel like a clairvoyant, who puts her hand on those things whenever she wants to remember that time, and can clearly recall the event in her mind then!! Like the title says...a picture may speak 1000 words...but my memory album speaks 1000*1000 words!!
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Hyperlinks
It was a very engrossing reading of Jhumpa Lahiri's 'The Namesake' (the book and not the movie!!) that prompted me to write this. Oh no, it doesn't refer to those blue coloured links you click on webpages to take you to some other pages. Long before Mr. Tim Berners Lee brought in the concept of hyperlinks on the WWW, they already existed in the real world. This I realised from the book I just read.
Perhaps this phenomenon is common to all avid readers. After a reading of a particularly enthralling book that incorporates another book in its plotline; you feel the itch to read that too. Its happened with me. After completing The Namesake, I immediately googled for "The short stories of Nikolai Gogol" and am still beset with the desire to browse through "The Overcoat". Same happened with Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. I cant wait to get my hands on the Shahnamah and know more about Rostam and Sohrab!
Always all the works mentioned in novels don't turn out to be true. For example I searched for Fermeculi Formula for many fruitless hours disappointed to know that it existed only in Opal's universe. It was too much to expect that Harry Potter's "Quiddich through the ages" and "The Standard Book of Spells" would be found in a Muggle bookshop like ours. JKR fortunately catered partly to this whim by bringing out a copy of "Quiddich through the ages".
The hyperlink connection doesn't stretch only to books. Sherlock Holmes's 221-B Baker Street has been sought by many and again HP fans will find themselves wishing they could also roam through Diagon Alley or visit Hogwarts. Dan Brown's picturesque description of the Louvre in Angels & Demons led me to find more about it online.
On a more serious note this is present in research papers and journals as well where we jump to references to find more information. This, I'm referring to the paper version! And oh while we are at mentioning Dan Brown, his book hyperlinked me to ambigrams and their creations; something I never knew existed or was possible!!
Come to think of it, hyperlinks exist in people's conversations, in newspapers and in letters, greetings or postcards as well. You only have to notice them. Perhaps this is a case of reverse history and hyperlinks were invented as a WWW analogy to the situations I just mentioned. I guess my blog's given you a hyperlink - to find out hw they were invented - hope to pursue it and tell me if anyone does find the answer. Till then happy treasure hunt!!!
Perhaps this phenomenon is common to all avid readers. After a reading of a particularly enthralling book that incorporates another book in its plotline; you feel the itch to read that too. Its happened with me. After completing The Namesake, I immediately googled for "The short stories of Nikolai Gogol" and am still beset with the desire to browse through "The Overcoat". Same happened with Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. I cant wait to get my hands on the Shahnamah and know more about Rostam and Sohrab!
Always all the works mentioned in novels don't turn out to be true. For example I searched for Fermeculi Formula for many fruitless hours disappointed to know that it existed only in Opal's universe. It was too much to expect that Harry Potter's "Quiddich through the ages" and "The Standard Book of Spells" would be found in a Muggle bookshop like ours. JKR fortunately catered partly to this whim by bringing out a copy of "Quiddich through the ages".
The hyperlink connection doesn't stretch only to books. Sherlock Holmes's 221-B Baker Street has been sought by many and again HP fans will find themselves wishing they could also roam through Diagon Alley or visit Hogwarts. Dan Brown's picturesque description of the Louvre in Angels & Demons led me to find more about it online.
On a more serious note this is present in research papers and journals as well where we jump to references to find more information. This, I'm referring to the paper version! And oh while we are at mentioning Dan Brown, his book hyperlinked me to ambigrams and their creations; something I never knew existed or was possible!!
Come to think of it, hyperlinks exist in people's conversations, in newspapers and in letters, greetings or postcards as well. You only have to notice them. Perhaps this is a case of reverse history and hyperlinks were invented as a WWW analogy to the situations I just mentioned. I guess my blog's given you a hyperlink - to find out hw they were invented - hope to pursue it and tell me if anyone does find the answer. Till then happy treasure hunt!!!
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