Splashes of Ink

  You sit in the crowd, one face amongst many in the air-conditioned hall. Your uniform is impeccable and your dark brown locks are well combed and tamed to perfection for once. Yet, neither will last long if you continue to shift uncomfortably in the unfamiliar skirt or keep tugging nervously at your hair. Your bag is heavy with the unusual weight of your laptop. Your butterfly-like, fluttering hands are still, a greater sign of nerves than any trembling may be. You feel anxious. You feel small. Many would say that the latter is not a big deal. You are almost always the shortest person in every room you enter (assuming that there is no one there who is more than 3 or 4 years younger than you, that is). But you know to overcome that, to use it to your advantage even. You know to impress when necessary with only your intelligence and sheer force of personality, to let people think you are younger, and then underestimate you. You even enjoy it sometimes. This, however, is quite dif...

I Language: a phenomenon that is, to the best of our current knowledge, unique to humans in its usage and complexity, if not existence. It is in fact believed to be one of the major contributing factors to our evolution. Our ability to communicate virtually unlimited ideas, to pass on a wide array of knowledge, to discuss and share imagined realities has been vital to our cultural revolution. As such, language is a large part of our society. It is also an important aspect of our personal lives. Homo sapiens are one of the, if not the, most widespread animals on the planet. We have crossed oceans, traversed deserts and even braved the tundra many thousands of years before the advent of any form of civilisation. This has resulted in astounding diversity, not genetically but culturally. And languages can be considered the roadmap to these cultures. Estimates suggest that there are over 7000 languages in the world right now, not even considering the many dialects in each of them. Rap...

  My first brush with literature, as I was told much later, was courtesy of an illustrated copy of Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”. It had certainly not been the only story I had heard and enjoyed as a child but it had unquestionably been my favourite. According to my mother, I had her read it to me so often that I managed to memorise it entirely, word for word. Even before I had learnt how to read, I would sit with the book and recite the story from memory, turning the pages at all the right times. This of course I have no memory of, but I do remember that I have always adored stories. However, it was not until second grade that I fell well and truly in love with literature. At school we had just been introduced to the concept of a novel by means of “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” by Roald Dhal. I had certainly liked it but I cannot say I was hooked. Then a friend recommended “Matilda”. The tale of a brilliant child who overcame the numerous challenges that were put to her and remained kind...

  It is somewhere near late afternoon I think, though one wouldn’t be able to deduce that from the view outside the window. It has always been shaded, the sunlight blocked by buildings and trees, but today it is dismal. The sun is completely hidden behind clouds, not even a single beam of light making it through. The sky is dull and grey. Already people are finding it necessary to turn on artificial lighting to attempt to dispel some of the gloom. They don’t seem to have been very successful against the oppressive darkness. Rain is falling in torrents, so fast and heavy and thick that it is hard to see more than a few metres in any direction. The wind is howling, like a lone wolf in search of hapless prey, moaning through the trees and causing the somewhat unstable shade over the “Green Ark” to groan under its strain. The trees creak and sway with it. I idly ponder the odds of one of them falling before the end of this storm. Occasional flashes of forked lightning are the only ...

  As the ticket collector asked for the ticket, I dug my hand into my pocket only to discover that my brown leather wallet, which is housed my train ticket was missing. I gave the ticket collector, a rather tall man, whose face seemed to be perpetually fixed in a scowl, a sheepish smile and moved to check my other pocket. My heart beat sped up at the lack of the familiar texture of my wallet, but I prided myself on being a level headed individual, reasonable even in a crisis, so I swallowed my mounting panic and checked my back pack. I opened every zip, checked every crevice with growing desperation. Unsurprisingly, my back pack did not miraculously conjure up my wallet. I took a fortifying breath and mentally ran over my day. I knew I had my wallet until I reached the platform as I purchased a children’s book for my cousin there. I had distinctly remembered placing it in my right pant pocket. After that I had braved the crowd to check train schedule. Then I waited for the train. I...

“Is there any water left?” Silvia asked her elder brother Adrian who had taken change of their meagre supplies. Her brother shook his head despondently at the familiar question, one which he had been hearing variations of for quite some time, telling her that they would find some soon. He tried very hard not to think of the fact that he had no clue as to how they would do so. The two of them had been crossing the Sahara Desert with their family when a sand storm had started. Their camel, Sarah, had lagged behind the rest and so they almost did not hear their father's warning in time. It was a stroke of sheer luck that they had managed to find cover against the sudden onslaught of sand and had thus been largely unharmed. However, Sarah had not been so fortunate. She had been cut by the sharp edge of a boulder, leaving a deep and rather painful looking gash on her left forelimb that the children had bound in some rags. To add to their misfortunes, their family was nowhere to be found...