To kill a Mockingbird

I know what the book is about since I had already seen the movie starring Gregory Peck but for some reason I always thought that I would probably not like the book itself if I ever got to read it.
I am happy to declare that I was completely wrong.

Another book which I have always felt that I would not like is “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. Again, I have seen movies and dramas based on it so I know what that one is about as well.

Why did i think like that?

Maybe because both books deal with issues specific to American History and not being an American myself, I did not feel connected to them or drawn to them in anyway. But then again reading about cultures and traditions totally unrelated and separate from my own has never posed any problems for me before.

Or maybe it was because I generally do not favour books that are inclined portray the tragic or depressive side of life. Regardless, I have read a few of those as well and also liked some.

So what was it that kept me from reading them all these year? I am not sure I know.

All I know is that having been proven wrong about one, I am willing to be pleasantly proven wrong about the other as well. 

The desecration of a book

The problem with readers like myself is that in our eagerness to share our reading experiences with others we readily lend our books to them. I have learnt through experience, painful ones, I might add, not to lend books to teenagers. They have a tendency to treat them pretty much the same way they treat everything else in life: with extreme carelessness.

If my comment has come across as if I am stereotyping all teenagers, then I apologize for it but refuse to take it back. Like I said I have had some pretty painful experiences in this area. One classic, “Great Expectations” was borrowed by a much younger cousin for his English class in school. That was the last I saw of it. Since it has been nearly fifteen years since the date of borrowing, I can safely say that the chances of it ever being returned are next to nil.   My only consolation is that it was a mere paper back, though I do wish that someone in my cousin’s English class along with discussing the eccentricities of Miss Havisham would also have taught him the difference between “borrowing” and “Keeping”.
Well, I guess that is water under the bridge now.

A more recent “borrowing” was of the Elif Shafaq Novel, “Forty Rules of Love”. Determined not to wait another 15 years to lament the loss of my book, I asked for this one back somewhere within a one year period. After some reluctance the book was handed back to me and I was happy to have it back. It wasn’t until a few days later as I flipped through the pages of the book did I realize what kind of torture it had been put under.

About nearly one third of the book (I am guessing that is about as much as my young reader managed to read in that one year period) was underlined with markers. Apparently the book had been used as an English learning tool by underlining the difficult words.

I am not in the habit of turning the corner of the page when I put a book down. I always remember where I had left off, no matter after however many days I get a chance to go back to whatever I was reading. To someone like me, even turning the corner to mark the page in a book is a sign of disrespect. To have a book of mine violated in such a way nearly made me want to weep. Admittedly this was another paper back but that is no reason to subject it to such brutal treatment.

Though nowhere in the same league as Elif Shafaq’s Forty Rules of Love, I too have developed a couple of my own rules for lending books.

• ·         If possible never lend books to teenagers. if it cannot be avoided out of courtesy then the lending should be accompanied by full set of instructions on how to treat the book. (wouldn’t be a bad idea to give the instructions to anyone who borrows and not just teenagers)
• ·         No book should be lent beyond a two month period. Anyone who has not managed to finish the borrowed material in the aforementioned period is unlikely to do so ever so one might as well ask for it back.

That reminds me.
My assistant borrowed a hard back copy of William Dalrymple’s “The last Moghul Emperor” and his two month period has already expired. Time to get that one back from him.

A Splash of Colour

I occasionally come across a clip on social media showing colour blind people trying on colour correction glasses and seeing their visual world transform from hues of greys into an explosion of brilliant colours. Considering that seeing the world as it truly is, for the first time, their reactions are pretty overwhelming.

But how do we know what the world actually looks like?

What if the actual world is nothing but different shades of grey and it is the defect in our visual abilities that make us see it in all these different colours?

What if the colour blind people are the visually correct people and the rest are the ones with defect?

We have based our assumption on the fact that since MOST of the population can see colour than most of us must be right.

But are we right?

I long ago realized that the visual ability of human beings is very limited. It probably dawned on me during a game I used to play with myself when I was younger, where I would try to think up of a colour that no one had ever seen.

I could never do it.

Whatever shade or hue that I managed to conjure up in my mind would always be a combination of an existing colour that we already know of. That is when I realized that our vision is confined inside the Rainbow nicknamed VIBGYOR (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red): the optical spectrum visible to the human eye.

The ultra and infra colours that exist beyond this spectrum are invisible to us, yet certain species other than humans can see them.

That would probably mean that certain animals, birds and insects that can see colours beyond the range that we can see them are the ones with correct vision and we, the human race are collectively the colour blind ones?

Somehow, I don’t think that is how it is.

Just because somebody is not able to see things the way the rest see it does not mean that that somebody has a defect in their vision. It just means that they have a different way of seeing things than the rest.

If one is unable to see or even visualize something that is visible to another doesn’t mean that that something is not there or that it does not exit. It just means that either one has not been given the ability to see it or more likely, one is not opening up his or her mind enough to be able to see it.

Needless to say, I am no longer talking about seeing colours only.

It is good to have your own point of view but it is even better to be able to see things from another’s.

Those who cannot do this are the truly blind ones.

Movenpick Petra

I have always been fond of those novels that take place in exotic locations. Novels like Agatha Christie's “Murder in Mesopotemia” and “They came to Baghdad” or M.M.Kaye's whodunits set in equally colorful locations. For me the backdrop is as exciting as the story itself possibly because such surroundings do not exist anymore. How routine and ordinary life sometimes feels when compared to the fantastic world found inside of books.

That is why I loved staying at Movenpick Petra so much. Form the moment I walked into that beautiful hotel I felt like had wandered back in history right into the setting of one of my ever favourite novels. Admittedly the hotel staff was also one of the better trained ones that make you feel welcome from the moment you set your foot inside the building but it was the overall environment that completely won me over.

Making the experience even better, there was the daily chocolate hour at the hotel.

Delicately and beautifully crafted chocolate delights were placed in the main lobby between 4 to 5 pm every day. Any one passing through the lobby could help oneself to however many chocolates as one wished to have. Also in the lobby and unlike the chocolates, not confined to a mere one hour, but present throughout the day was the coffee guy. At least that is what I called him. He had an entire table laden with all sorts of coffee beans from which he prepared his fresh brew for anyone who cared to have it. The coffee was served as shots in tiny paper cups accompanied by dates larger in size then the coffee shot itself. Though not a particular fan of coffee shots myself, I must confess that the combination of the soft moist dates along with coffee was one of the best I have ever had.

The perks and delight offered by the hotel aside, like I said before, it was the overall ambience of the place that got me. For two days I lived inside what I felt like was a place right out of novel in some early twentieth century Arabian setting. 

Off to College

The day after is always the hardest.
When you go into their rooms to pick up the clutter they have left behind in a hurry, when you take the battery out of the AC remote because you know it is not going to be used for some time.
Every time you walk past their rooms, you expect them to be inside and for a second, just a brief significant second something grips at your heart to know that they are not. Slowly you acclimatise yourself to the pain and learn to ignore the empty rooms as you walk past them.
The best part is finding their stuff in the clean laundry pile days after they have left. Discovery of each piece of clothing neatly pressed and folded brings a joy of its own and putting it back into its respective closet and cupboard is a sign that they may not be here now but they will be back soon enough.
But the day after is always the hardest.

A superhero for all times

The other day my kids asked me that if I had the choice to become one of the "Avengers", which one would I be ?
My Answer, " Captain America" didn't really go well with my youngest one. 
"All the Superheroes with all those Superpowers and you chose that one?" 
My logic was simple.
I truly believe that of all the Superpowers in the world, Righteousness is the most difficult to attain and maintain.
Thor, Iron man, Hulk and the others may have their own (fatal) attractions ( especially Thor ;-) but they all belong to a world of fantasy and their powers are mostly mythical and unrealistic. Entertaining, but unrealistic. 
Captain America is one who truly exits in our world or can exist in our world, should we strive for it. 
So the fantasy world is welcome to have its range of fantastic Avengers with all their fantastic Superpowers, but in the real world I prefer to have Captain Americas, as many as possible.
For even the presence of one righteous person can counter the venomous effects of a hundred unrighteous.

Jerash

The ancient city of Jerash is located in the North of Jordan's capital Amman.
Throughout different periods of history, Jerash has been occupied by the Greeks, Persian, Romans, Byzantine Christians and finally Muslims, but the most significantly visible influence on the city is that of the Roman occupation. And that is evident from the moment you enter the city through Hadrian's gate which was especially constructed for the Roman Emperor Hadrian's visit to this city sometime in the second century AD.

After passing through the gate, the first structure one comes across is the massive Hippodrome. All Roman cities had hippodromes for chariot races and other kinds of sports. Chariot racing was an essential part of Roman life and they took this sport with them pretty much everywhere they went and Jerash is no exception.
Like all Roman cities, Jerash was also constructed according to Roman standards and has several common features with other Roman cities. Some of these features were:
Central Plaza
The oval plaza with a sacrificial alter in the centre.  It was probably the Greeks who initially built the original plaza but it was much smaller than the current one. When the Romans came they moved the circle outwards and added more columns. Why? because Romans liked things bigger and better.
Colonnaded street
The colonnaded street is called the Cardo Maximus. The Romans were not just conquerors, they were also master builders of the ancient world. From roads to aqueducts, from bridges to baths, from arenas to temples, everything was built to perfection. The drains of Jerash run under the Cardo Maximus. So if you pour water over the road it goes down discreet little holes and disappears, leaving the area dry. It is a shame that many of our roads in this time and age turn into canals if it happens to rain a bit too heavily. Our road builders need to learn some things from these ancient Romans.
The Souq
The old market area had a central fountain and shops were build around this area in circular fashion. Shops ranged from those of cloth merchants, butchers and others selling items of daily requirement.
Last but not least the "Temples". Romans were nothing if not religious.
Although Zeus is the principal deity but the main goddess of Jerash was Artemis. Women from all over came to the temple of Artemis to pray. Why? because in addition to being the goddess of hunting and wildlife Artemis is also the goddess of fertility and childbirth.
The stairs that lead to the Temple of Artemis are the original 1800 year old ones and  appear to be leading towards the heaven. They were purposely built that way to impress upon people the heavenly status of Artemis. They are built in sets of seven. After every seven steps there is a bit of flat area and then another set of seven steps and so on. There a a total of seven sets of seven steps each, leading to the temple. Since the temple is built not directly at the top but a little way way back , it does not come into view until you have reached at least the fifth set of steps.
Roman cities are usually built to impress and this one fits the bill perfectly. Even in its semi ruined state its grandeur,  architecture and design leaves one in awe. Mind you, the city was for Romans who were occupying this land. All non Romans, including the local population lived outside the walls of the city in their humble abodes. Bet that didn't go well with the local populace but as the Romans were the conquerors / rulers , there was little that the locals could do about it.
The entrance ticket to Jerash costs about 10 JOD and a guided tour in English another 30 JOD. If one is familiar with the layout of ancient Roman cities, one can skip the guided tour.  Free Visitor's guides are also available in the museum located just out side the entrance of the ancient city. Those and a bit of pre-visit internet research should be enough to set one up for a day's casual visit to the ancient city of Jerash.