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Hindustan Times - By the River Pampa I Stood

The Hindu -By the River Pampa I stood

The Pioneer on "By the River..."

Mistletoe ( A Christmas poem)

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.


-Walter de la Mare

The Little Drummer Boy (A Christmas song)

Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A new born King to see, pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum
To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

So to honor Him, pa rum pum pum pum,
When we come.

Little Baby, pa rum pum pum pum
I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum
I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum
That's fit to give the King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum,
On my drum?

Mary nodded, pa rum pum pum pum
The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum.

****

The words and music to the Christmas song Little Drummer Boy was composed by Katherine K. Davis, Henry Onorati and Harry Simeone in 1958. The most notable rendition was created by the most unlikely combination of Bing Crosby and David Bowie. This version of Little Drummer Boy was a massive hot for the artists and was in fact Bing Crosby's most successful recording since the legendary White Christmas.

Excerpt 2 - By the River Pampa I Stood

This book is now available online from

www.indiaclub.com
or
www.dkpd.com

Gift yourself and your loved ones this Christmas, a copy of "By the River Pampa I stood"

Christmas Time

That evening had been a lovely one. And so is its memory. Like a peacock feather tucked away between the pages of a favourite book, to be retrieved occasionally; to be cherished forever. There was plenty to eat and plenty of music. She danced with the little ones and sang merry old Malayalam songs for them.

Memories, like diamonds, have a way of getting more precious with time.

For Christmas every year, she was unanimously chosen by the children to be their Santa (or Christmas Papa as he is known in Kerala). She would fish out the famous red gown with frilly edges from her kaalpetti – her mother’s wooden bridal dowry box with intricate carvings and brass knobs and edges – and press it well to remove creases, taking care to adjust the heat lest the frilly nylon edges get burned. The children loved to do her face and her patience with them was remarkable. She would sit still on a chair for hours while the children cut out beards and moustaches out of cotton rolls and pasted them on her face with glue made of flour and water. When she emerged from the chair, lo and behold, we had our Santa!

This practice had begun when I was a little girl. And this practice continues now, when Laya's cousins enjoy creating a Santa out of their great grandmother, Annammachi.

Santa and the little ones would then go carol singing from room to room inside the Gold House:

Joy to the world; the Lord is come.
Let earth receive her King.
Let ev’ry heart prepare him room
And heav’n and nature sing……

The maids in the kitchen would grumble about the missing ladles and spoons and tins. These were the musical instruments that accompanied the singing. In any case, the cacophony heralded the spirit of Christmas into the Gold House, which at other times wore a lost and forlorn look.

She made mounds of mouth-watering cookies and cakes at Christmas. The aroma of baking filled the house and the courtyard. Munching hungrily, we would gather around her, begging for a tale.

A brilliant storyteller she was, indeed. She could hold a listener with bated breath at the edge of his seat for hours, engrossed in her tale. And clamouring for more at the end of it.

Geeta Abraham Jose (By the River Pampa I stood)

Excerpt-1 By The River Pampa I stood

Daughter Dearest

Nevertheless, Mathen prayed for a little daughter whom he would treasure as the apple of his eye. His house would then reverberate with the sound of the bells on her tiny gold anklets and the ripples of her laughter. He would carry her on his shoulders and walk through the luxuriant green paddy fields where dark skinned workers toiled from dawn to dusk, singing as they toiled:

Ponnumpurackale Thampurane , thai
Ponnu manasulla Thampurane , thai….
(The Master of The Gold House, thai
With a heart made of gold, thai….)
Ponnumpurackale pennungale, thai
Ponnin niramulla pennungale thai….
(The Ladies of The Gold House, thai
With their colour of pure gold, thai…)

The singing would stop abruptly and the dark skinned workers would turn around to marvel at the fair daughter of the Master, as she rode piggyback on his back.
These dreams of Mathen seemed to have come true with the birth of Annamma on a bright, sunny morning.
It was summertime. The jasmines were in bloom in the garden and their fragrance hung in the air around the Gold House like an invisible cloak. Birds sang merrily in the garden.
- Geeta Abraham Jose (By the River Pampa I Stood)

When you open the book....

......you are greeted by the following quote:


"You cannot step twice into the same river
for the waters are continually moving on"

- Hereclitus


Food for thought....

Hey, what's this book about?

There is an ethnic Christian community with a two millennium old heritage in the southernmost part of India, where nature has endowed the land and the people with an abundance of grace and beauty. The land is popularly known as "God's Own Country". The people belonging to this particular community are known as Syrian Christians or Nasranis.

The story is set in "God's Own Country" and the backdrop is a typical Syrian Christian family - its ups and downs, its joys and sorrows, its secrets......The story spans over a century taking the family from the zenith of glory to imminent decay.

The plot is a purely fabricated one but the backdrop, lifestyle etc are original and give an insight into the life of a typical family in Kerala.

More details to follow....

By The River Pampa I Stood

To all my online friends,

You will be glad to hear that my debut novel

"By The River Pampa I Stood"

is being launched by Srishti Publishers in Delhi
on 9 Dec 2006. There will be a book reading session
at Oxford Bookstores in Delhi on the same day
and later on in Bangalore and Chennai.
The book will hit the bookshelves in Indian bookstores
in the second week of December as a gift
at Christmas for book lovers.

Hope you will buy it, read it, enjoy it
and post your comments.

Geeta Abraham Jose

Never Stop Dreaming

It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.
Never stop dreaming.
Not everyone can see his dreams come true in the same way.
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
The world's greatest lie: At a certain point in out lives we lose control of what's happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate.
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything because it's all written there.
If you can concentrate on the present, you'll be a happy man…the secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better…Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.
Everything has been written by the same hand.
All things are one.
Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the language of the world.
Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him.
Wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.
You've got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense.
There is only one way to learn. It's through action.
Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.
This natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise.
The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect.
No heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.
Most people see the world as a threatening place, and because they do, the world turns out indeed to be a threatening place.
When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.
No one fails to suffer the consequences of everything under the sun.
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Without love, dreams would have no meaning.
Love is the pure language of the world...A language without words…the one true language of the universe. It requires no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time.
Love is the force that transforms and improves the soul of the world.
No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.
A philosophy of life: I'm an adventurer, looking for treasure.
- Quotes from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho