Pictures

Shiva's Temple

Monsoon or cyclone in India

Parvati dancing through fire

Book Update: Chapters 15-21

So many different things occur towards the end of this novel. She becomes very upset when visiting home because she does not want to leave. However, she becomes increasingly either to perform at Raja's birthday celebration. One day, she receives a visit from Yuvaraja, at her mothers' house. I thought for sure that Yuvaraja had come to talk with Parvati about something. Parvati became very focused on her performance and disregarded everything else. Leading up to the performance, she stays at the palace. When she wasn't practicing, she spent time with Yuvaraja, and Parvati has learned that "Raja" has very similar powers to Parvati. They also happened to be born on the exact same day. This was ironic to me, because maybe that day had something special to do with their powers. Or something special happened on that day, causing them to have powers. Then crazy things began to happen. The night prior to the performance, Yuvaraja, Rama, and Parvati all went on a walk around the palace. Once they returned to Parvati's room, she was kissed by Rama and he asked her to run away and come with him to America. This made me become really curious about what she would do; stay or leave? Before her answer came, a knock came at her door and she realized that she had lit a fire and forgot about it, but the only thing on her mind at the time was her decision to stay with dance or leave with Rama. The next morning was the day of her performance. I was nervous for her as I read because her mind had to be focused and not elsewhere. She had been so distracted that she had lost some jewelry that she was supposed to wear for her performance. She then told Kalpana as well as the Guru, expecting them to be furious. They weren't, however. They just wanted the jewelry to be found. They began searching for the missing pieces until Rama found in an area of items that monkeys had stolen. I now realized that Parvati was very talented, and very lucky. She went along with the performance. She danced exceptionally and Shiva had said that she was "the magic of possibilities." This seemed to be a great compliment. In final words, it was great to see Parvati come above her differences as well as her strengths and weaknesses to prove many people that she had the potential to do something special.

Book Update: Chapters 8-14

Reading through chapter 14, I had quite a bit more thoughts and reactions to the story. To start off chapter 8, Shiva and her mother take a trip from Nandipuram, which is their hometown, to a placed known as the gurukulam school. This is will Parvati will be spending the next years of school. At first I was nervous for Parvati, because she may not fit in to a new place with different people who were more than likely different than she was. Once she arrived at school and her mother had left her, she realized that she wasn't alone. Parvati ends up meeting four other girls who were as gifted as she was. I thought that this was a really good thing because maybe she will make new friends and not be left out and excluded because of her special talents. Months pass, and Parvati is doing fine with understanding her new schedule. However, she has found a new talent that excludes her even more: She can understand animals. Her friend Nalini is the only person that does not laugh at her for it. To me, this seemed really hurtful because nobody seemed to accept it, but it was also very relieving that Parvati had one friend she could rely on. Parvati had also received some letters from family members thanking her for the money and that Venkat, who was her oldest brother, was going to be married soon. It was great to see her family appreciating her actions and trying to stay in touch with her as well. I had expected her family to kind of forget about her being away as school. One very tragic event happened when her closest friend, Nalini was in the bird sanctuary and was taken by Mayappan. At first it wasn't clear to me why Mayappan had taken her, but then it hit me. She had told Parvati that she had met a "handsome" man in the bazaar earlier, and Mayappan was the man. From that point and forward, Parvati dedicated herself to her education and dance skills. She found out that she would be performing for her arangetam. At first I had no clue what an "arangetam" was, but it meant that it would be her first performance. Her family would also be able to come. After her great performance (which her mother missed), she received the offer to perform at the Raja's birthday party, which was great because her hard work was finally paying off. When she got off the train at home, all she wanted to do was see her family. She spent that week with her family and tried to cherish the time she had with them.

Book Update: Chapter 1-7

So far, I have through chapter 7. This book is set in the 1980s, because it is forty years after India gained its independence in 1947. At first I was very confused by this book, because Meenakshi was going to Maharja's birthday party, and the Maharani which is Maharja's wife, is pregnant with their first male child. Meanwhile, a crow had asked Meenakshi for a seed, and Meenakshi had said no mulitple times. This confused me because crows do not talk... at least in real life. I figured that maybe she was dreaming or maybe she was hallucinating about something in her past. While this is happening, Sundar, which is Meenakshi's husband, was tending to their elephants when a monsoon hit. The elephants became terrified that they trampled Sundar "until there was little left of him but shards of bone." The author described the events during the hurricane very well, which is known as a monsoon or cyclone in India. Finally, in chapter six we get to hear more about Parvati. As a child, she was always very healthy unlike the majority of the children in her village. As she got older, none of the kids wanted to hangout with her and her family received a lot of hate, especially her mom. They thought Parvati was the cause of all of the bad things in the village. Also, she had a gift with dance. Once, her mother left her home with the fire still burning and she was able to dance through the fire without getting hurt, which truly showed that she had a gift for the art of dance. This book has been a little confusing and different from most because of the "talking" crow and stereotypes from her being healthy, but I like it.