TRY

Reading Agatha Christie

Reading detective fiction has been one of my favourite pastimes since childhood. Many of these still remain my favourites because of the fact that they are so readable and at times so forgettable. Among such books, Agatha Christie’s works stand first and foremost. 

Her detective fiction gives a kind of “aha” feeling, which can be compared to the exhilaration that one feels on putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Now wonder, the historian Romila Thapar advises her research students to read Agatha Christie to enhance gestalt thinking or the ability to see the whole picture. As these books belong to the category of popular fiction, they are easy to read and intellectually stimulating at the same time. 

Her most famous detective is Hercule Poirot who has been immortalised on the small screen by David Suchet. Poirot is a retired police officer from Belgium who is known for his penchant for detecting crime. He is described as short, with his head the shape of an egg, moustache always well-trimmed and shining, and with good manners. He is shown as obsessed about neatness and order, be it solving the case or his attire. The most famous among Hercule Poirot novels are Hallowe’en Party, Five Little Pigs, Elephants Can Remember, The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Appointment With Death and Murder in Mesopotamia. 

Miss Jane Marple is one of Christie’s detectives who views human life everywhere the same as in her village of St. Mary Mead. She is an elderly spinster who is very observant and manages to ask the right questions at the right time. Some of the books with Miss Jane Marple as the detective are The Murder at the Vicarage, The Body in the Library, A Murder is Announced, They Do It with Mirrors, A Pocket Full of Rye, 4.50 from Paddington, At Bertram's Hotel, Nemesis  and Sleeping Murder. My favourite is At Bertram’s Hotel, which is about a nightmarish world where some very innocent people are framed for crimes they have not committed and the police recognizes a gang of lookalikes who manage to get away with it.

Though not so numerous as the Hercule Poirot mysteries or the Jane Marple stories, there is the couple Tommy and Tuppence. Her true names are Thomas Beresford and Prudence Beresford and they appear in stories such as Partners in Crime, The Secret Adversary, N or M?, By the Pricking of My Thumbs and Postern of Fate. Tuppence is shown as a charismatic young lady who manages to keep her head in cases involving mafia or espionage. 

Though there are chances of reading an earlier read Agatha Christie by mistake, most of the time, it goes completely unnoticed. 

Pic: www.telegraph.co.uk

friends forever

time for everything

Timing

positive affirmations

New Woman

 

This soul was once like a huge flame leaping to the skies,

Then it withered, dried and drooped to the very earth;

Sometimes, like Icarus, it leapt out of its many mazes,

But burnt out in the heady dash for total freedom.

Then she brought forth a new-born, a swaddled baby

She sang her magnificat of newly found motherhood;

The soul forgot its troubles for a joyous interval

And learnt how to escape the many mazes again.

Yet mostly this soul was a single-celled organism,

Cowardly and crawling in this huge universe,

Too silent, too shut out and too withdrawn,

Incapable of learning or making its way around,

Sometimes, it longs for the crazy days of yesterday,

When the sun of total freedom had burnt its wings.

Pic Courtesy: Icarus and the Sun by Serena-Moretti

growing up

wuthering heights

“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”

“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” 

“Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more then I am always a pleasure to myself - but, as my own being.” 

~ Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

A perfect life

If life was perfect, I would never have lost you to silence,
Or you thought over what an innocent smile really meant,
It would have been a celebration of our mutual silences
With a huge degree of understanding, not hide-and-seek.

If life was perfect, it would have smelt of fresh coffee,
Your perfume, glowed with your glaring new blue shirt,
Your movie-star good looks and impeccable manners,
Along with those caring ways, never with another.

If life was perfect, to laugh would have been easy,
To cry easier and to trust and confide the easiest,
It would have given freely, not full of tragedies,
Which were between the cup and the lip always.

If life was perfect, I’d be what I am in my dreams,
Putting words into perfect little sheets, bound to books,
Or teaching children to sing rhymes and poems,
Or loving my little voices that mingle with mine.

Still if life was perfect, I would sit at night on the seashore,
With you gazing surprised at how beautiful I’m in black,
Talking of sweet nothings to remember and treasure,
That would be a perfect moment, for years to come.

Garden of Eden

Let's hold hands and walk in the garden
Search around for the four-leafed clover,
Walk around till we find the true mystique
Of a clover much-searched for and found.

One leaf for faith, hope, love and good luck,
Good luck, the most needed of them all,
From morning till night, we could pluck
And learn from the leaves of a four-leaf,

When the magic of the purple riot falls off life,
In a sunless garden where the flowers are dead,
A four-leaf clover might bring in a warm smile
Memories of bright sunshine and summer rain;

An Eve in the Garden of Eden plucked a clover
To know if Adam is her one true faithful lover.

Togetherness

After the days of humdrum, you and I have met,
Savourings days of togetherness and promises;
After the sleepless nights of sad separation,
You and I have made recompense with our lives.

When the others have chosen the easy crossroads,
We have been foolish in not seeing the obvious;
The lessons that our elders gave every single day
Much to our dismay and feeling of righteousness.

We have not been lucky at the crossroads again;
You and I parted ways more than once in life;
While time ravages youth and leaves us feeble,
Broken, old, lonely, sad and too tired to talk.

We have been fools who missed the obvious lessons,
But when we come together, it is like spring again.

heathcliff

                If all else perished, and he 

               remained, I should still continue to               

               be; and if all else remained, and he 

               were annihilated, the universe w

                would turn to a mighty stranger.”

                He's more myself than I am.    

                 Whatever our souls are made of,      

                  his and mine are the same.” 

                   Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's

                    slways, always in my mind - not   

                   as a pleasure, any more then I                            am  always a  pleasure to myself -                   but, as my own being...

Wuthering Heights 

loveless world

Samhain

solitude

endure

yellow rose

what I have always wanted to write is of you, 

the many unsaid words that are left between us, 

when your thoughts gather on sleepless nights, 

and I do not have any way left to talk to you. 

for the old wound of our love was never gone, 

when life punched some more on the very spot, 

for I was left to spin yarns that spoke of us

after the day when you decided to leave me. 

for this heart was naive in those bygone times, 

never knew what it was that ate my soul always, 

for we were close to each other in our hearts

and were not strangers as we pretend to be now. 

For all this naivete that I showed in love

You showed me how I was your yellow rose. 

love

From Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet

Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you to write, find out whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write.