The Village by The Sea

What is the first thing that you will think of when you hear this words"The Village By The Sea"? A village by the sea ? No. The Village By The Sea is actually a title of a book. A quite interesting book, a book that I read for Literature. Here is what the story is talking about:

This story takes place in Thul, a village in India. It is about a dysfunctional family's ups and downs in life. This story is also about industrialisation in the village. Why is this family dysfunctional? This is because the mother of the family is sick and is getting weaker and weaker by the day. In this case, she was bedridden. the father of the family was a drunkard and only wastes money on toddy. He spends most his time sleeping at home. Thus the children are prematurely saddled with the responsibilities of running the house.

The only son has to take up the role as the father and earn money for the family. The eldest daughter has to do the chores for the family. The family also consist of two other daughters. They are Bela and Kamal. The duo would help Lila with some chores like gathering the ingredients needed for meals and they are still schooling.

As jobs in the village are not able to provide Hari with the much needed money to run the family, he has to find a job somewhere else. So he went to Bombay, which was a city where people made fortunes. He went there mostly for the job opportunities there. At Bombay, he worked at a restaurant and learnt how to mend watches. He accumulated some wealth before coming back to reunite with his family in the village.

With Hari gone, Lila had to take care of the family alone and thus had to bear a greater responsibility. With the help of a rich family from Bombay ,Lila was able to send her mother to a nearby hospital to receive treatment.

This story has a fairytale end as things changed for the better. Hari brought home money for the family. Mother recovered from her illness and father change his habit of drinking toddy.This story is really worth reading as there are many cultural things that you can learn from it.

There is also industrialisation happening in the village as a whole city of village is going to be built there. A sleepy fishing village is going to change into a busy and bustling factory area. The villagers there are not happy of course as the arrival of the factories also meant the arrival of polution. The factories are going to produce harmful gases and dispose waste into the sea. This in turn disturbs the villagers traditional way of living. The villagers did try to prtest but it failed. Thus most of them had to change their way of life.

One of things that I learnt includes adaptating to our enviroment. Changes always happen. Running away from them does not help at all. This only allows us to hide from the problem for a short while. The problem will resurface again. So we must learn to adapt. While adapting we are actually learning new things. This is because for every thing change that happens there is always a cause. In order to adapt, we must know what are the factors that contribute to the change and adapt according to the factor.

Who Took My Cheese?

Books are essential or you can call them basic necessities for Literature. While some hate them ,some just love them.To some books can mean knowledge or stories. On the other hand, some see them as lengthy or for nerds. Well I must say that I lie in the middle. When I happen to meet a good book, I will fall in love with it. But when I meet a bad one, I just put them down. This is the time when books are a dread to me.

How about our parents?? They also go through the same process as us. Well to answer this question, I interviewed my mother . According to my mother, during her time, technology was not so advanced and people do not have as many types of activities to do while relaxing. So she read. One of the books that inspired her was "Who Moved My Cheese?".

This book is about two mice and two small human beings, as small as the mice. All of them lived in a maze and had to eat cheese to survive. It was like cheese was the only thing that they were able to eat. All of the characters had to navigate around the maze to various cheese stations to find them. However most of the cheese stations were empty.All of them finally found cheese at Cheese Station C. They started eating the cheese. As days went by, the cheese began to get smaller and smaller. The mice noticed this change and started navigating through the maze to find new cheese. After many failures, the duo came to Cheese Station N . Cheese was abundant there. They were delighted.

However , the humans did not notice the change. And panicked when they found that there was no cheese at the station. They were angry and believed that someone moved their cheese. But the cheese was not taken away but eaten by them. They did not do anything but waited and waited for that someone to put the cheese back . Days went by and they were getting weaker. Nothing happened.

One of the humans wondered what the mice were doing . Were they in the maze finding cheese? Or did they waited like them. Then one of the humans suggested that they go back to the maze and find cheese. The other however disagreed. He was afraid of getting lost in that dark dark maze. But the one who came up with the suggestion continued with his journey in the maze. He did get lost many times but never gave up. And finally he got what he was craving for ,CHEESE! The two mice were also there. The other human was still stuck at the same place, deprived of cheese.

This story is based on the theme change and adaptation. It tells people that changes are always happening around us and that we need to adapt to them in order to succeed. We also must persevere in whatever we do and learn from our mistakes. These are what my mother learnt from the story. And that was also why this book inspired her.

what happens in buses

Do you know how to read signs? If your answer is yes, are you 100% sure? It was like any ordinary Tuesday, when I have Chinese Orchestra training which ended at 6pm. The conductor, however only let us go at 6.30pm. He did not feel like stopping as the competition was coming nearer and nearer. When it ended , I would usually complain silently in my head about the work load while walking towards the bus stop. At the same time, I will guess what time I will sleep .11pm? 12midnight?

That day when the bus arrived and the door opened, a pungent smell of curry and other smell of dishes greeted me. Looking around the bus to find the source of the smell, I spotted a man eating from his styrofoam box which was wide open. He was sitting like a gangster eating 'proudly'.

Did he even notice the striking sign that says no eating??NO! Was he afraid of the fine?NO! Does he feel out of place when doing so? NO!This is one of the worst ettiquete I have seen on a bus.

Next problem, or shall I call it bad ettiquete. When the bus is crowded, people tend to be on a constant lookout for seats. That is the typical SINGAPOREAN STYLE. Nothing wrong that I can find out from. One day, when I was on a crowded bus , the person that was sitting on the seat in front of where I was standing was getting off. Yeahs ! I was going to have a seat!! Just as I was about to 'celebrate', this man squeezed his way past me to occupy the seat. I was furious. SO angry that I felt like puling him off the seat and throwing him out of the bus.( oops too violent ).

What has happened to you commuters? Why such unruly behavior? I do not understand someone please enlighten me........