Meraki 2019: English Literary Fest 

The annual English Literary Fest, Meraki, hosted by the Department of English was held on January 6, 2019 and January 7, 2019 as a part of the programmes hosted to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of the college. The various events include literary quiz, spell bee, stand up comedy, soliloquy, micro-story, haiku etc. 

Dan Thottakara Memorial Seminar

                            

           The Dan Thottakara Memorial Seminar was conducted on December 12 -3, 2018.  The National Seminar focused on the theme: Locations of Power: Cultural Memory and the Negotiations of Identities. It was organised by the Department of English in collaboration with School of Letters, MG University Kottayam. A galore of speakers from various university across India attended and presented their papers revolving around the theme. Students were also invited to share their research during the paper presentation sessions that followed the main sessions with college faculty as moderators. In conclusion to the first day, a tableau vivant 'Emperor Jones' was staged at the amphitheater under the direction and leadership of the H.O.D of the department followed by a entrancing musical venture by the students of the department. 

Literary Quiz 

The Literary Quiz was held on November 19, 2018. With a general theme of novels six teams with ardent spirit to win the title of champions. The quiz master was Minna Andrews, a teaching faculty. The competitors participated in seven rounds of quiz, each with six questions to win points that would eventually supplement their grand total. Athul and Annette, bagged the first position followed by the team representing the students of post graduation.

Dad

Dad, 

I need your help.

Please hate me.

Push me into the unknown. 

You have always been there for me.

Someone to fall back on. 

A loving hand to hold. 

But your love drains me

of my love for the unknown.

I want to stand on my own feet;

I wish to control the ground I stand on.

But now, I want to run away,

from every gust that comes my way.

Even when my heart pleads so hard,

its curiosity is killing me,

eating me up from the inside.

This war leaves scars inside me.

My heart wishes to fly away, to unknown lands,

facing any stream that comes my way.

But habit holds me back.

Force me out, father.

I do not want to live this battle.

-Shantipriya Shennoy

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS BY JOHN BOYNE

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne is a holocaust novel. It is about a heart-robbing  friendship  between Bruno and Shmuel .Bruno is the son of a Nazi commandant whose family shifted from their home in Berlin to a house  near a concentration camp .Deprived of his new life without school and friends, Bruno sneaks out of his house to explore his neighborhood. During this venture by the iron fences near his home, he meets a Jewish  boy named Shmuel  on the other side of fence. In the midst of this cruel world they found resemblance in each other .Their friendship grew  beyond the iron fences that not even the deadly mist could separate them.

   Annette Sebastian

                                                              

Yellow Lights of Death by Benny Benyamin

YLOD. In a café by the seaside, 2 friends, Christy Andrapper and Jesintha , witness the murder of a young man. When Christy discovers that it was Senthil, his classmate from school, who had been shot, he tries to follow up on investigation.
28 year old Andrapper is just another author under the weight of familial expectation and writer's block, until he witnesses the bizzare accident of his friend being shot dead.The events that follows after are full of suspense and creepiness.  In YLOD , forgotten chapters of history are fleshed out, geography tweaked around Diego Garcia becomes a branch of Kerala almost. An amount of romance is added to the correct measure. The plot often feels disingenuous, like a pre-solved exam paper. The book leaves you with trails that you cannot but go and search for it. A thriller and a must read.

-Sangamithra Ashokan

Poem..by sruthi

I sat with an old-
distorted copper plate
with gruel upto its brim.
My mother
lean,pale and tired
came beside me and lit the lantern.

I found my Dada
- a fragile Being -
parting little stones from the gruel in the light of lantern
as we had stones rather than rice in it.

It was then I heard
an exploding sound.
Bullets started piercing through my
thatched hut.

Anxiously,
I stepped out of my house.
The rifles were roaming there in 'Khaki' uniforms,
bullets were running down
boring into bodies
and were drinking souls.

                                       
-Sruthi Sara Moses