Les Noces Barbares - The Wedding

Hey guys :)

I've decided to write a blog about a book which we’re reading in our French class at the moment. It is called “Les Noces Barbares” (“The Wedding” in English) and was written by Yann Queffelec, a French author.

The story takes place near the sea somewhere in France and is written in a narrative perspective. Queffelec describes everything in a very objective way even though the plot is very sad and should include lots of emotions.

The plot

It all begins when Nicole, a young French teenage girl, falls in love with Will, an American, who is many years older than her. He promises to marry her and even talks to her parents about it. One day, he asks Nicole to spend a night with him and as she is deeply in love with him, she comes to the place as agreed upon. When she meets Will, the young girl realizes that he is drunk. The following part in the book is described in extremely appalling detail. Will had invited two friends of him and they variantly rape Nicole. This is probably the most important part of the book because the subsequent story line is based upon it.

Nicole gets pregnant and has a baby, Ludovic (called Ludo). She hates him more than anything else because every time she sees him she is reminded of that nightmare of when she was raped. Ludo is treated very badly. In the first few years, he is kept in the garret and has almost no access to the world outside of it. Nicole’s parents unwillingnessly look a bit after him but they don’t like the child either as he is a dishonor for the family. The only person who is nice to Ludo is his aunt but unfortunately she dies in the course of the story.

After some years, Nicole decides to get married to Micho, a mechanic, who has already a son called Tatav. After the marriage, Ludo and Nicole move to Micho’s house even though Nicole is strongly against the decision to take Ludo with her. In all the recent years that have passed she has never ever given Ludo the feeling of love or affection. Her son suffers extremely from his heartless mother and is always in hope that one day she would accept him as her child.

Time passes and nothing changes between their relationship. On the contrary, Nicole suffers more and more from the recurring nightmares and finally decides to send Ludo to an asylum. The only persons who come to see him are Micho and Tatav. Nicole never shows her face there which makes Ludo even sadder as he already is…

This is not the end of the story but I won’t reveal it as someone maybe wants to read it on his or her own.

Now that you have read the beginning of the plot, I think that you all realized that this book is not for the faint-hearted. I would recommend it only to those of you who don’t weep easily because the story is extremely sad and I won’t promise a happy end either… 

Food blog

In our last English lesson we had to look for an interesting food blog on the internet. After having found one, it was our task to write a blog about it. So, here we go.

I came across a mouth-watering recipe for Indian curry chicken. As I have Indian background, it was obvious for me to choose a blog that dealt with Indian food. It is my favourite cuisine and especially the non-vegetarian dishes are simply outstanding! This is the first reason why I chose “Monica's Spice Diary-Indian Food Blog”.

The second one is that I really liked the way how the author, Monica, starts her recipes. She adds a personal thought that makes you really understand what she is trying to say. This probably sounds a bit strange, I know, but maybe I can explain it. In the introduction of the Curry Chicken recipe, for instance, Monica describes her childhood in India and what she relates with this specific dish. It made me think of all the holidays my family and I spent in India, what dishes I enjoyed most eating there and how much I actually miss that time. 

But enough of all that sentimental stuff now! I founded that the recipe itself did not sound that much difficult and I decided to try it out with three friends of mine. My mum had often cooked this dish at home so I knew theoretically, how it was to be prepared. The only problem was that I had watched my mum cooking it but never tried it out on my own.

Before starting to cook Curry Chicken with my friends, I called my mum to ask her about two ingredients that I remember she had never added to this dish. After having talked to her, I decided to stick to my mum’s recipe.

All in all, we enjoyed preparing the dish a lot. The only (small) problem we had to struggle with was that one my friends did not like eating spicy food at all but the rest of us did. After quite a long time of consideration we finally decided that we had to use two pans and cook the Curry Chicken twice: once with and once without hotness. Fortunately, both dishes were delicious in the end.

Rape case, New Delhi

Hey guys,

I know that by now, most people have already frogotten this incident which happened several weeks ago in New Delhi, India. However, it brought some changes to the country and that's why I'm sharing this blog with you.

The 23 years old Indian girl and medical student  was raped in a bus in Delhi on December 16 in the evening. Her boyfriend was accompanying her when this cruel incident happened. She wasn't "only" gang-raped by all in all six men but badly wounded too. Her boyfriend also suffered from severe injuries but he survived. After the occurance, she had been brought to a special hospital in Singapur but she nevertheless died on December 29th. 

The girl's family received 1.5 million rupees from the government. What I asked myself is that how it must feel in such a situation when you get money in exchange for somebody you loved and who isn't there anymore. Somehow I can empathise with the victim's family about wanting death penalty for the committers. The six men are seriously threatened by that desicion at the moment.

Even if this incident made the whole country feel ashamed and extremely sad, there were also some positive things that happened in consequence to it: Massive protests and an introduction of a 24-hours-hotline for woman in need, but the most important consequence is probably that sexual abuse of woman in India has been brought to light.

Hopefully there wiill be more upcoming postive consequences of this terrible rape!

"Fancy" Culture evening ;-)

So, our last progress check isn't far away anymore. Everybody gets stressed more and more as the days pass by. We, the students, now have to study the CLIs of the other groups and in order to break that down a little bit for us, our professors invited us to a culture evening.

I think that it was a really good idea. They tried to explain the culture topics but not like in too strict lessons. It was actually quite great fun listening to them and laughing with them. 

When I went to the culture evening I didn't expect it to last so long. Still, I liked it and as Fiona told us that this had been the first culture evening she and the other professors had organised, I would strongly recommend to do so again in the following years too.

What impressed me the most was probably the Appalachian guest who told us a little bit about the region where he comes from. Not only did he talk about that, he gave other interesting information (like for example about the Bible Belt in the Us) too. 

Apart from that I think that everybody was quite impressed by the "fancy" presentation ;-)

Amritsar

The most impressive place I have ever been to is Amritsar, a city located in the north-western part of India. The first time I visited this city I was totally overwhelmed. Every single area of this city was completely overcrowded. The main reason why Amritsar grabs the visitors’ attention is the “Harmandir Sahib”, informally referred to as the “Golden Temple”. It is the most important shrine of the Sikhs. What impresses me most about it is the access for everybody regardless of which religion and the breath-taking part of the temple, which is completely covered with gold. The second sight of this city that attracts the visitors’ attention is the “Jallianwala Bagh”, a public garden where the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in 1919. A memorial was built at this site. I actually did not found it really exciting until reaching a wall where the bullet holes of the shooting are still visible today. Apart from venturing out Amritsar and seeing various sights, you get a special and unique feeling as if you were experiencing a colourful Bollywood film yourself. 

Special concert in Linz

I was thinking about a topic for a new blog and I came across the idea to share with you my impressions of a concert that I visited last Thursday.

It took place in Linz in the "Brucknerhaus" and was performed by the Military Music group of Upper Austria. I went there with one of my best friends who asked me to join her. She is member of the band of our city. Her whole band and she visited the concert and I joined them too. 

The concert was actually a fond-raisor for people in need or a state of disaster. It started at 8 p.m. and lasted until half past 10. 

We listened to eight compositions which varied from classical music to modern one but what touched me the most was the piece of music called "memoriam". It was played for a recently in a car accident deceased member of the Military Music who was only 19 years old.

All in all, the concert was a great experience because it was simply amazing listening to the great music produced by about 50 people working together and doing their best!

Happy diwali! :-)

I'm not sure if anybody of our English course has heard of "Diwali" and for that reason I would like to explain it to you :)

It's a festival celebrated in India by Hindus and Sikhs ( Sikhism is a religion that is, in the first case,believed by people, the Sikhs, living in northern India. That state is called Punjab. )
The date depends on the appearance of the new moon, so it varies every year between the end of october and the beginning of november. This year, it is celebrated today, on november the 13th.

You could compare Diwali with Christmas because it is seen as the biggest festival of Sikhs, also known under "The festival of lights" Historically seen, the Sikhs celebrate the return of one of their Gurus, Guru Har Gobind, who had won against Jahangir, the forth Mughal Emperor. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahangir for further information :) )

Diwali is celebrated differentely all over the world but I can say that most people of the Punjab tend to set up special,small candles, called Diwa, in the whole house so that it's beautifully enlightened. By doing so, they wish to bring happiness, prosperity and healthiness to their homes. Families usually come together and children get presents or money. "Mithai", which are traditonal Indian sweets, is eaten and the whole house is cleaned up for "receiving" the three wished things mentioned above.

I personally really enjoy spending Diwali with my family but this year I couldn't because I wasn't at home due to my studies in Graz. That saddened me a little bit but still, I'm looking forward to next year to hopefully spend this big festival with my family. :)

Even though I know that there's hardly anybody whom I know who celebrates this festival, I still wish you all a HAPPY DIWALI! :) 

 This picture shows the "Diwas".

 Indian sweets, the so called "Mithai".

This is a photo of the biggest Sikh temple in the city Amritsar which is also the capital of the state Punjab. It is not only famous because it is covered with gold but also for the overwhelming Diwali that is celebrated there by enlightening the whole temple.