Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Real Fantasy World


ESCAPE FROM DRAGONSTINE


It was a hot and sunny day. Tara was relaxing in the cool water when she saw the devil of the sea, the sea dragon, Dragonstine. With a spiky skin and a smell worse than the Bombil fish strung out to dry in Bandra, he was a creature that could live on land and water. Making snorting sounds Dragonstine moved swiftly towards Tara. She tried to escape but he was just faster than her. Very quickly, he sprayed a liquid on Tara that smelt worse than rotten eggs. Tara fainted.

When she woke up she found herself on the floor of the sea. It was dark and lonely place. There was big seaweed growing everywhere. At a distance she saw a bright white light. She squinted. As the light came closer she realized it was a scuba diver. She knew this was her chance to save herself and her home. She vigorously wagged her rainbow colored tail. The tail acted like a reflector and soon got the attention of the scuba diver. She let out a tiny yelp.

“Hey, What are you doing here? Who are you?”, asked the man.

“I am Tara, and am caught in the dragons lair”, replied Tara.
“But who are you?”

“I am Jack, a marine life photographer. I work with the National Geographic”, replied the man.

“Great!, Can you please help?”, said Tara.

“Why, what happened?”, asked Jack.

“My home, way on the other side of the ocean has oil, lots of oil. You know, what you call petrol and diesel and that runs your vehicles. Nasty Dragonstine works for an oil company called OILGET. Since he can live on land and water, they hired him to lead them to the oil in the sea. And whenever he finds the oil, he makes us all who live there vacate our homes”, explained Tara.

“Oh My God!, Let me see what I can do. Hmmm, Can I take pictures of you so that I can share with my team? We will talk to this company and sort it out. Don’t worry.”, assured Jack.

“Yes, you can take pictures,” said Tara enthusiastically. I love this plan!

After taking a few pictures Jack swam to the shore waving a goodbye to Tara.

Back home, Jack showed the photos to his team. They went and talked to OILGET. At first no one agreed. But once Jack and his team threatened to publish the story in the magazine with the photos as proof, OILGET gave in. The punishment was to return everything that OILGET had ever taken from the sea and never to do such a thing again. Also Dragonstine had to be fired and Tara had to be freed.

Next day, they all set out to find and free Tara. Once out of the lair, Tara decided to thank Jack by taking him to the best places for taking photos of marine life. Thereafter, she lived a happy marine life!

by Ira

Saturday, December 1, 2012

The Real Fantasy World

Our prompt for this blog post was to write a fantasy story keeping in mind the following statement, "There was once a bewildered mermaid who escapes from a dragon’s lair. This was our home assignment and we hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it!




Annie and Jack stayed in a village next to a sparkling river and dense forest. One day, they were playing hide and seek and wandered deep into the forest. Suddenly, they found themselves sliding down some soft mud and fell in the river. They were swept away by a strong current and landed on hard ground with a thud. They found themselves staring into ferocious eyes. They jumped back in horror and realized that they were staring at a “DRAGON”!! They rubbed their eyes and looked around and saw that they were in some kind of an underwater lair.
The dragon snorted, “I have two slaves now who will do all my work”. He tied a chain around their legs so that they could only shuffle. He gave them a long list of tasks to do and went out. Poor Annie and Jack…. They had never worked so hard all their life. They scrubbed and cleaned and washed and swept and cooked but the work did not seem to end.
In the midst of this, they saw a light and went towards it timidly. They saw a beautiful fairy tied to a pillar. The fairy told them that the dragon wanted her to make him very powerful through her magic but when she refused, he tied her there. Annie and Jack asked the fairy how they could escape. She said, “The dragon’s life is in a small doll. As soon as you destroy that doll, the dragon will also get vanquished”. Annie shouted excitedly, “Where is that doll?”. The fairy said, “It is in this lair, but I do not know where”. They said, “How can we search for it? We are tied and it is difficult to move.” The fairy smiled and recited a chant and they felt their legs getting squeezed and found that they had turned into a mermaid and merman !!
The chains slipped off their bodies and they could easily float. Annie asked the fairy, “Why don’t you also turn into a mermaid and escape?”. The fairy sadly replied, “I cannot change my form till I am captive”. The kids promised to free her.
They started searching and found the doll in a chest under the giant’s bed. Annie was about to destroy the doll when she heard the dragon’s roar. She dropped the doll in fright and fled, with the dragon in hot pursuit. The bewildered mermaid did not know what to do. The dragon caught her and was about to breathe fire on her when there was a cloud of smoke and poof…. the dragon disappeared. Jack swam to Annie and told her that he had destroyed the doll and thus, the dragon had vanished.
The fairy became free and she granted a boon to Annie and Jack that they could use the chants to turn themselves into a mermaid and merman whenever they wanted. The kids were overjoyed and thanked the fairy. The next day, Annie and Jack set out to …...

By Varenya
***** 

Monday, November 12, 2012

Snowballs and Diamonds



Imagine if Math was taught as Poetry! For this session our facilitator led us through the process of understanding different forms of poetry incorporating our knowledge of Math. We discussed the various forms and rules of poetry writing and the uses of following these rules.  After looking at various examples of diamante and snowball poem we thought of math concepts which can be employed to create form in poetry. 

Here is a shape poem by one of our classmate 


Poem- Snowball


I
Am
The
Item
Which
Starts
So small
Gets so big
White, cold
Dangerous too
Guess who I am?
… A big snow ball!!
~ By Ira
*****
 

Thursday, November 8, 2012

See Like You Never Saw!


Our individual personalities and memories shape the way we perceive the world. For this session our facilitator read and discussed a diverse selection of poems that explore the Point of View element in creative writing by encouraging us to develop new personae through cues and exercises, and record those memories and feelings that are closest to us.



My day at the sweet shop

I wandered of into the sweet shop
And there, right on the top
Was the yummiest sweet I saw-
They looked like bears
Yellow, green, red and blue
On big shelves set up by the sweet shop crew!
Right next to me
Was something that would last me a century!
A long big red rope
With colourful dots on it
Avoiding people’s feet- Oh what a task!
I got ready
For my long journey
To reach to the colourful bears
An hour or two later
I was standing right there!
I dived into the jar
Oh now please don’t disturb me,
I’m trying to have a feast!

  ~ By Ira
*****