"Darcy's Daughters"

My passion of reading English classics started when I was studying in Grade 7. It developed a world of perfectness and elegance where reputation and well manners of young ladies thrived. Those characters and romances and adventures always had a special place in my heart.

My all time favourite was "Pride & Prejudice" a work by Jane Austin. This medieval novel tells an enchanting story about lives of a family with five young daughters from their youth to their marriages. The different personalities of each daughter and the various ways their social attachments are formed brings out a much lively story that surely kept my mind bound to it until the very end. The fascinating romance between Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy who is the most handsome and eligible bachelor in English literature, is the base of Pride & Prejudice. How this romance sustain amidst the pride of Mr. Darcy and the prejudices Miss Elizabeth is caught in, and finally how both of them  overcome all indifferences while the society turns its head in cruel and inardent ways can be dramatically felt in such strong wordings of the author, Jane Austen.

After twenty years of this romance "Darcy's Daughters" by Elizabeth Aston, has started the story about the family of Mr. Darcy and Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy, who now has five young daughters and two younger sons. "Darcy's Daughters" unfolds the story of the young Darcy daughters' visit to London from Derbyshire while their parents are in a diplomatic mission in Constantinople.

Elizabeth Aston, the author, has made an effort to combine both stories and make a continous tale of family in her book. Under the influence of Jane Austen's views of society and civilizations, the latter author has been somewhat a success in building those lives of the characters. But I should admit that when I kept reading I realized that the latter story is often similar with incidents and characteristics of each daughter with the previous generation. One thing is that Darcy family is much the same as the Bennet family in the first book. But I must say that the latter story has made significant changes in the intellectual characteristics of certain members, as the eldest Miss Darcy is a character who is vexed easily by the mere simplest things whereas Miss Bennet was a sweet natured but intelligent soul who had a very close emotional relationship with the second Miss Bennet. Both second members of the families are quite similar with their characteristics in the form of intelligence and emotional independance. Youngest members in both stories fall in trouble as to their misbehaviour and the story goes ending with all troubles overcome by the intelligence of the second daughter.

I wouldn't let myself to word the "Darcy's Daughters" as a mere copy of the "Pride & Prejudice" but I would have wished after tewnty years the society and people should have had more morality which would have affected the story more than it had. Because the Darcy parents were intellectuals and independant souls which would have brought up their children differently.

Bhel Puri

Yesterday I had the privilege of dining with a friend's family as they were leaving the area for a while. It was amazing food that gave me the idea to blog about it. They are Indian nationals which are students of Purdue University. We were really enthusiastic to try out their food as they liked our spicy Sri Lankan foods like Little Jack or Green Jack curry, String hoppers and Pol Sambol.

The food was Bhel Puri and it was the green gravy that caught my taste most. Spicy and tasty with layers of choped red onions and tomatoes, it was a real treat. The speciality of trying out different foods and drinks from different countries are the best thing when you live away from one's home. I believe food really weave together different people and cultures. At home we always really on Chinese food to give a break to the routine Sri Lankan cuisine and Indian foods and dishes have a significant role in snacks and eating out.

Even though we are so far from home, we still are previlidged to find our spices, rice and vegetables to maintain our traditional cooking for our little ones. For my belief is that we should teach our young to value all kinds of cultures and have a special place for our Sri Lankan cousine regradless of where ever they reside in the world. For this world is a vast continent where all of us should enjoy living together.