Of Reviews and Goals... and a Tag!

Happy New Year! 

It’s that time of the year when our gaze turns inwards, backwards and forwards all at the same time. Basically, it’s when we all go a little cock-eyed. I did too.

2015 is gone. Long live 2015. Or not. Really. 2015 was not a very memorable year for me. It was as if I spent the year in limbo. Professionally, I did’t start anything new, I didn’t finish anything that I had previously started, and no milestones were achieved. Intangible progress was made, yes, but only the kind that will be visible, if at all, in 2016. And there does not seem to be anything concrete to point to and say - ‘I did that in 2015’. Personally too it was a quiet year and nothing major happened in or to my family. Everybody started and ended the year in good health and spirits and for that I am grateful. 

I guess my 2015 was the sort of year most people have regularly. Just a quiet year of settled life with strong health and relationships and the sort of plodding work where you begin the digging to lay the foundations of a future career, and there is nothing wrong with a year like that. It’s just that my life has been in such constant flux for the past seven years that I haven’t even had the chance to begin and end a year in the same house or even in the same city in all that time. So, to suddenly settle down in one place (and one house!) for that long has come to seem abnormal to me. Hah!

But there is much to look forward to in 2016. Professionally, I hope to begin (and finish) pouring the concrete for the foundation of a career and that may mean a move. So it remains to be seen whether January 2017 will see me in the same house that January 2016 saw me in. In the blog space, I have resolved (yes - that dreaded word) to do a better job of reviving this space and write at least a post a week. I have also set myself the challenge of reading 48 books this year at the rough pace of a book a week and if nothing else, that should give the ‘currently reading’ and ‘recently read’ section of a the site a regular workout. So keep tuned. 

I have also decided to be more social in the blog world and as a result, find myself with a self-imposed obligation to accept a blog tag. Prithvi tagged me and apparently the rules of the tag require that I exhibit a logo, state 7 random facts about myself and tag others. Now, while I am very thankful to Prithvi for trying so hard to coax me out of this shell, I think I will cheat a little. I will state the 7 random facts but will not display the logo or tag anyone else. Ok? So here goes…

7 random facts about me:

1. I am not as indecisive as my blog avatar may lead people to believe, though in recent times my indecision has, worryingly, increased.
2. But I do procrastinate. A lot. 
3. I am quite excited about the 48 books challenge. Given the flux my life has been in, I haven’t had a chance to read as many books in one year in a very long time. 
4. I haven’t read more than a couple of fiction books per year in a very very long time. I hope to change that this year and make at least 24 of my 48 books fiction.
5. I have recently discovered the world of podcasts and I am hooked! Hooked I say, hooked! ‘Reading Lives’ and Book Riot’s ‘The Podcast’ are my new absolute favourites and have been largely responsible for me resolving to plunge back into the world of fiction in a major way. I also love- ‘Limetown’. Oh my my my - what a show. I can't wait for season 2.
6. One day I hope to become a professional writer. I can’t believe I said that out loud. 
7. I also paint. Sometimes.

That’s it for now, but I have a few book reviews coming up - so stay tuned for more!

Onset of Winter: Canada Edition

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s the hap…happiest season of all.”

You would expect that to be the soundtrack in my head this time of year, especially since I gushingly declared my love for winter a few years ago. “I love winter” , I said, “the colder it is - the more I like it”, I said, “winter is my favourite season”, I said. 

Well, I’m now facing the prospect of my fourth winter in a country that has one of the harshest winters in the inhabited world. Maybe I should reevaluate. 

Now, it is true that Montreal is by no means the coldest city in Canada and of my three winters here, I have spent one in balmy British Columbia. To give you an inkling of how balmy, consider this: so proud are the people in BC of their mild winters that even the universities there label their January to May term - the "Spring" term - while the rest of the country doesn’t even begin to see the snow abating until early May. They go from the "fall" term to the "spring" term and completely bypass winter - both literally and figuratively. So, by all accounts I have had it easy so far. 

But I’ve still seen middle of the day lows of -35C (with wind chill), I know now that a clear sunny day in winter is bitingly cold while an overcast day is actually bearable, I know now why freezing rain is so dangerous, I have experienced the breathlessness that comes with doing something so simple as walking 750 meters against the wind on an exposed street with freezing wind blowing in your face and I know what it feels like to have your toes and fingers frozen so completely that they hurt and continue to tingle for long after they’ve been warmed. Infact, it sometimes hurts more while warming up than when it was cold. 

After living through Montreal winters, I know enough to know that the balmy -1 to -3C that it usually was in my part of BC was actually ‘Canadian spring’. So the question remains - do I still love winter?

Yes, I do. I still do. Really. And let me show you why:

1. A strange calm seems to envelop the city and makes everything more beautiful

View of Montreal from across the frozen St. Lawrence river

The steps leading down from Mont-Royal - Montreal's central park.

2. Even the view outside your window defies you to be blasé about it

3. And the countryside is just magical.

A horse drawn carriage used by traditional cabana sucrès - sugar shacks - to collect maple sap

This is actually inside a protected park where animals choose to live but may come and go as they please. Deer do not roam the streets of Montreal. Yet.

 How can I not love this season that turns everything into this pretty, frozen wonderland.

Now excuse me while I go crank up the heat.

Blog 2.0

Yesterday I decided to revive my blog. I had been toying around with the idea of reviving this space for sometime now and the blog has not been very far from my thoughts for very long. But even though I have never been a regular or prolific blogger, it still surprised me to log in and find that I had actually let this space drift for five years!

Five years is a long time and apart from bringing home the realisation that I am quite definitively marching out of a phase of my life where I may be called 'young',  it got me thinking about what I have been up to all this while. I have become a graduate student - twice over and got married. Each year, as if on clockwork, I have moved cities, countries and continents and with each move have embarked upon a new, exciting phase of life. So I suppose, unsurprisingly, blogging has fallen by the wayside though I do wish I had kept blogging as it would have been an interesting window into a period of much change and excitement. But now that for the first time in five years I have the prospect of stability, it feels like a good time to come back to this space.

But the next question was whether to revive this blog or to start a new one. After all, presumably I have changed in these five years and a changed outlook requires a changed blog address. No? Well, not necessarily.

Though it is tempting to wipe the slate clean and start afresh, I do wish to retain my blogging focus on.. well... 'Poetry, Books and Other Things'. Also, I think it might be fun to take a look back after a while of coming back to blogging to see if I really have changed much and having a single space in which to make the comparison seems easier. But most importantly, retaining this space feels like coming back to an old friend and there is some comfort in that. I don't want to make a new friend just because I have lost touch a little bit. I just want to pick up the strings of an old friendship, say hello, know that I am welcome and pick up from where we'd left off.

So, shall we...

On Poetry

As regards poetry, I have always believed,

That I could’nt write, but could well read,

For to write words that would rhyme,

Was as alien to me as dance or mime.

Then I chanced upon Ogden Nash,

He, with his rhymes, nouns n verbs all mish mash,

And yet there always was a fine poem,

Child, adult or beast, it had some’fin for all of ‘em.

Here at last was simple poetry,

That had done so well. Yippee!!

So did that mean, there was a chance?

For poetry even from me, a simple dunce?

But then, I began to wonder,

If I hadn’t made a blunder,

What if, and not vise-verse,

But ‘Ogden Nash’ had made the verse?

And then, for me there was no hope,

And all I could do was sit and mope.

The Wombat

The wombat lives across the seas,

Among the far Antipodes.

He may exist on nuts and berries,

Or then again, on missionaries;

His distant habitat precludes

Conclusive knowledge of his moods,

But I would not engage the wombat

In any form of mortal combat.

-- Ogden Nash
For the uninitiated, Wombat means, "Waste of Money, Brains and Time". This poem reminds me of this post I read recently. :)

Changes

I was just revisiting my blog today.. you know, getting familiar with what I should already have been familiar with. And I discovered this old post of mine. Made me sigh to think that there used to be a time when I used to have readers…:) The post also made me want to make some changes to my blog.. try out the new ‘template designer’ by blogger and generally play around with my blog. So I have spent a pleasant hour and a half painstakingly customising a template and just when it was about perfect, changing it into this off-the-shelf minimalistic version. Somehow I think I like this better now. I have also updated my ‘currently reading’ and ‘recently read’ columns, and have trimmed my blogroll too. Hah!! I have also removed a few redundant features and have basically cleaned out my blog. So, please, oh please dear imaginary reader mine, do stroll around this new version of my blog, and murmur appreciatively to yourself…

Reminiscence

Five years of college – fun, frolic and friends. One year of work – office, Mumbai madness and friends. Notice the commonality? After college, life changed sure…but some aspects were still reassuringly the same. Everyday, I had the luxury of being able to come back home to the same faces I had grown to know so well and love over the past so many years. It was like coming home to family. There was stability in that change. Then suddenly, I quit and moved out, and life has changed again. Only this time more definitely, finally and irrevocably. Of course, new places remain to be seen, new experiences to be had and additional friends to be made. But before I run off to begin the rest of my life, I thought I’d take a while to recall the best moments of this last one year. A countdown of sorts of the 5 most enduring memories of my year at Mumbai:

Domestic Life: Though hostel was communal, we had the luxury of single rooms and thus, the ability to shut out the world at will. So I had always wondered whether five years of life like that had spoiled me completely and rendered me incapable of sharing living quarters. That question was definitely answered when Bombay real estate prices being the way they were meant that three of us had to share a two bedroom flat. Sharing a house, setting it up, putting ‘systems’ in place which would work ‘automatically’ without daily mental and physical effort on our part, and maintaining them with all their myriad problems proved surprisingly difficult and also just as much fun. So living with the family is my Mumbai Memory # 5.

Mumbai monsoons: Last year, we din’t experience the Mumbai monsoons so much outside as we did inside. So coming home one rainy Saturday, (coincidentally, in the very day we had gotten our flat registered) to find our flat flooded, then spending the next hour/hour and a half trying to rid ourselves of the inch deep water all around, and then laughing over all the hassle, makes up my Mumbai Memory #4.

Tea and Toast: Well, the point of my Mumbai sojourn was to join the Banyan Tree Community, and I did spend a lot of time there. So inevitably one of my memories is of the BTC. For a while, a colleague and I had this ritual of ‘early morning’ tea at the office. We would begin our day with a walk to the pantry to get ourselves some tea and then chat with all fellow first years on our way back. Unfortunately, we both soon got too busy to spend even those first fifteen minutes fooling around and the tradition ended. But right about then, my cubie mate introduced me and a bunch of us to the heaven that was Zunka-Bhakar’s cheese toast. And suddenly we had ourselves a brand new morning ritual. So everyday, whoever amongst us got into office first, would order us these white bread, dripping with cheese and butter, wholly unhealthy but sinfully tasty cheese toasts. Even blue blooded founding partners and health conscious equity partners were in on the secret and though they berated us daily and told us how we would all die within the next week for what we were doing to our bodies, their hearts too were in those cheese toasts. So the perfect beginning to so many of my BTC mornings is my Mumbai Memory #3.

House: The medical series. My roommate introduced me to it and from the first episode on, I was hooked! So much so that for a while even in office, I would catch myself thinking of the last case we saw and wonder how the inimitable, irritating, yet wonderful Dr. House would deal with the newest conspiracy against him in the hospital! Those were still the times when all of us would get back home in time for dinner and thus we would have the time for atleast one episode before we closed shop for the night. I watched just the one season – the first one and loved every moment of it – as much the company as the series itself. Then, as usual, we got too busy for Dr. House and this tradition ended. This is however one series, which in my mind is linked inextricably with the company I had while watching it. Without that company, am pretty sure will never again watch the remainder of the series. So watching House with my roommate is my Mumbai Memory #2.

Friday Movies: But my best Mumbai memory is of the Friday Movie Routine. No so much the movies themselves as the process of planning for it. Nearly every single week, we would come up with a shortlist of movies that were to be released / currently running that we wanted to watch. Then would begin the debate about which one to actually watch. Diligent research of newspaper, internet, speculative and word of mouth reviews for almost each film and spirited debate would precede the actual decision. Then would come the ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘with who all’ questions and research on what option would best take into account all permutations and combinations. Were we going to include others or was it just to be a ‘family affair’? And ofcourse wither dinner? Had we informed Anita before hand? Would we be wasting good dinner at home or was the home cooked dinner of the expendable kind? Many such complex questions later, we would actually land at the movie (usually PVR, Phoenix, night show). This tradition continued till the very end. Despite office pressures (at worst the movie plan would get shifted to Saturday), through the rush of LLM applications, and all other myriad household chores. Thus, for being the one thing that we looked forward to almost every week, for being the one thing all of us would always make time for, and for being so very much fun (both in the planning and in the execution), the Friday Movie Ritual is my Mumbai Memory #1.

Honourable mentions: Bun maska, Kulfi, and the five mins of nightly chatting sessions we used to have after the TV was switched off and the computers shut down, just before we headed to our respective beds, did not make the top five, but they definitely deserve an honourable mention. I enjoyed them as much as my top five and will miss them just as much.

Happy New Year !

Bombay / Mumbai really is a tale of two cities. One that lives on the central line and one that lives on the western line. The city on the central line is nasty, brutish, rude and forever in a hurry and cares two hoots about stepping on other people's toes, elbowing people in their faces, or shoving them off the train entirely if it suits their purpose. The city on the western line is slightly more soft, has more than a few manners, and even though it too is in a rush is a wee bit slower and more orderly. If it by chance steps on toes, there is always an immediate apology and a genuine effort to not repeat the toe-stepping. And as of my experience, there is almost no elbowing in faces and shoving off trains etc.

Of course this analysis is confined to the fact of my experiences in the women's compartments on the two lines...men I am told are the same species everywhere.

I have discovered that I quite like my own company - for extended periods too. So now I know for sure what I had always wondered.. T.V / books / laptop are all the companions I need for an idyllic weekend. :-)

Experienced winter a wee bit. Just a wee bit.. in the process discovered that the temperature difference between Mumbai and Thane on any given day is at least 5 degrees - easily. My first (and probably only) experience with non-AC induced cold this season.

Now that holiday season is over - was wondering what to look forward to - turns out... am going to Kolkata soon. Yipppeee!!!

Ooohh.. for the first time ever - bought myself a gift. :-) A lovely, super expensive, never-again-will-I-spend-so-much-on-a-pen kind of pen!! + got so many gifts from so many people. Loved it this year!

Read "The Little Prince" recently... really liked it... a profound children's book. If you don't understand what I mean, you will have to go read it. Will be worth it. Promise.

Also, heard the new LG Ad on radio - They ask us to pledge to make Mumbai and Thane 'Green cities' - by tying a leaf at any of the specified outlets in Mumbai. I wonder how many trees will have to die if every single person in Mumbai and Thane decides to make this pledge in this exact way!!

The onset of Winter

Winter is my favourite season. Always has been. The colder it is - the more I love it. Yes, I am also very susceptible to the cold, and the nails on my hands and feet regularly keep going blue, I continuously live with cotton wads in my ears so as to protect my throat from a throat infection etc etc. But I still love the season. [Dare anyone ask about or make fun of the cotton-in-ears thing. If you've never heard of the connection b/w ENT - go read up!!!]

So... getting back to the point...every year I waaaaiiit for the first signs of winter. Usually, a definitte chill in the air just before Diwali and the sun not making too much of a difference to the crackers that you despareately try and get nice and dry before diwali night - is the first indication. Then in places like Ranchi and Bokaro, there's the annual tradition of getting the warm clothes out of storage and putting them out in the sun to air them and make them wearable for the season. Then next to our house in Ranchi.. there is this tree which flowers just before winter starts and the flower has a sickeningly sweet smell. The smell in many ways heralds our winter. Then ofcourse is the fact that all the monsoon insects start dying out slowly and your home becomes yours again.

Then, as winter proceeds, I wait for the water to become so cold that it physically hurts to touch it, I wake up early to catch the early morning fog and then waking early is no longer necessary - the fog continues into mid-day, I wait for the fog that my breath creates every time I open my mouth, and I wait for the warm, bright colours that comes out of everybody's wardrobes in winter. Winter seems a laidback time. The world is sleepy, nobody really wants to do anythign except drink hots cups of chai and eat pakoras and bhutta. :-)

None of this is true in Bombay (or Mumbai for those very particular). And I knew to expect it. I fully expected to hate my fiirst winter here. But apart from the fact that my office seeks to recreate winter everyday...I have discovered to my intense surprise, that winter has it's own charm here. The air loses it's overpowering humidity, the merciless sun almost becomes a friend and you begin to enjoy the warm glow of the pre noon and late afternoon sun, and because you don't expect it, the cool early morning air and the smell of winter that it carries with it, seems extra wonderful...The beginning seems promising. Will have to wait and see if the 'bright colours and the lazy winters' bit follows...

High hopes did I hear you say? Ah but I am an eternal optimist...

Read this.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-10-best-comebacks-of-all-time/

At long last...

Here is a simple, light, easy read which neither taxes nor assaults the reader's intelligence. The book is all about this uber-successful associate-on-the-verge-of-making-partner at the best law firm in London and her life or the lack thereof, and what happens, when suddenly circumstances force her to quit her job and take up housekeeping!!!!! Apart from the the fact that the book is relatively well written and is able to hold reader-attention for the most part, why this book felt so nice to read is that it describes almost perfectly, the life in a law firm. :-)

The ending has been dragged a fair bit longer than was strictly necessary and is a predictable cliche. But the book does not claim to be a literary gem. It aims only at making you smile and any book which leaves you with a smile as you turn over the last page should be worth a read. What say?

This is the other book I have been reading recently. This, I was put up to by one of my friends who got infected with the 'twilight' buzz just before the much delayed release of the movie in India. I did not expect to enjoy this book. here was a book aimed at the early teenagers and knowing how far behind I have left my teens, let alone 'early teens', I fully expected to find the book and the movie childish. Not so! I enjoyed the book thoroughly. Looking forward to reading the rest of the series. Turns out vampires and werewolves can be almost as interesting as wizards! Go figure! :-)

A squirrel is chillin' in a tree when a cow climbs up and sits next to him. "Whatcha doin' here?" asks the squirrel. "I'm here to eat some apples." "But this is a pine tree!" "I know. I brought my own apples."

 

Strangely..I loved this. Maybe because it seems to be trying so hard to be a joke. :-)

Numbers

10 visarjan processions,

10 separate fireworks' displays

1 marriage procession

countless lighting displays

3 detours

3 fights

4 angry policemen

endless lines of vehicles,

2 hours,

185 rupees,

18 kms.

One Long Taxi Ride.

The 'Lost' Symbol...

Yesterday, I finished reading Dan Brown's (hereinafter "DB") latest - "The Lost Symbol". (No, I do not suddenly have more time on my hands in B'bay. I am at home now.)

SPOILER WARNING: - This piece contains information about the storyline of the book. If you have not read the book and are the kinds who prefer to read the book with a 'clean' slate, then do not proceed further.

If I were to ask myself to choose one word with which to describe the book - I sadly, would choose - 'Disappointing'.

I wonder what DB was attempting with this book. My initiation to DB was with the hoopla surrounding "The Da Vinci Code". Brilliant. It was after this that I read "Angels and Demons". Almost unbelievably, this book was even better. The suspense, the fast storyline, the obvious brilliance with which the book had been edited, the brilliance and the central role of the hero and the way in which symbology and all the secrets of Rome and Venice had been weaved into the storyline, so that the reader would not have to compromise on the main story, while being awed with all the additional, sensational information - these were the reasons that I loved those books. Thus, the day I heard that "the Lost Symbol" had been released, I escaped from office to go buy the book. Then, I waited patiently till I had the time and the opportunity to read the book at one stretch, and then did.

Sadly, all that I had anticipated, the very reasons why I loved the other two books, were absent in this one. DB seems to have tried too hard with this book. The book and the story seem forced rather than spontaneous. Of course, the brilliance and the minuteness of the research remains unaffected. What has changed is the way the research has been woven into the storyline. The story begins crisply, and very promisingly. Soon however, the story begins to lag in favour of long-winding lectures about the significance and the symbolism of Washington. entire pages are devoted to these lectures, without any bearing to the story. For example, Langdon spends two entire pages, 'lost in thought'. While he fruitlessly, 'thinks' the story does not move an inch. In fact, after he has broken out of his reminiscent reverie, it takes another three pages before he has composed himself and understood his surroundings enough for the story to even begin moving.

And that's another thing. One of the best features of the previous books is the brilliance of Robert Langdon. Here, he is almost an unnecessary appendage. I was patient. I waited and waited for Langdon to get the plot, to understand what was going on and take charge. Except, he never does!!! The story would probably have progressed faster without him!! At the end of the book, everybody is congratulating him, hugging him and thanking him for the brilliant work done. He, 'modestly' says, "You know I dint do anything, right?" No one else could have hit the nail straighter on the head. He has in fact, done NOTHING throughout the book.

Now to the plot itself. Remember Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys? Or even the Enid Blyton Mystery series? Remember how all their chapters ended with some sort of a suspense? A truck barrelling straight on into Nancy's car, or the gun-toting villain spotting the unarmed Frank in his blue sweater behind that wooden cupboard... the kid reading would then anxiously hold his breath, send a silent prayer for the well being of his / her hero and turn the page to learn what happens next... and the truck, at the last possible moment swerves to avoid Nancy, and the villain lunges, only to crash painfully into the cupboard and discover that Frank had left his sweater there only as a red herring... or something like that? Well believe it or not, this book is exactly like that! The false alarm chapter endings are seriously hilarious after a while.

DB also tries two twists in the plot. One: - At the end of one chapter you learn that Robert Langdon is dead. He has drowned. The effect is supposed to be disastrous on the reader. The reader is supposed to lay aside the book and howl and mourn the ultimate end of the hero. Only, the reader by now is so used to and fed up of the false alarm endings and the generally slow plot and the loose editing, that this shattering piece of news has no effect on him. He almost has expected it. Similarly, he expects at this point, that Langdon will make a 'miraculous' come back and that he is not 'truly' dead. A short while, and ample broad hints later, the reader is proved right.

Two: The villain turns out at the end, in what is supposed to be another startling revelation, to be one of the main character's previously thought to be dead, son. I mean, how corny. And apart from the idea, in itself being less than intelligent, the reader has been getting broad hints about this twist for a while now. Again, the reader has almost expected it. At any rate, 'surprise' would not be an apt description of the readers' state of mind at the moment.

A friend who had read the book mailed me the other day. She thought that the climax had been stretched for far too long. She's right. Again it is a case of loose editing. The book / story, for all intents and purposes ends at the 3/4th mark. The rest of the 1/4 of the book is devoted to stretching out the climax. When at long last the climax ends and the story is officially over, DB realises that he has forgotten to tie up the numerous loose ends in the book. He then proceeds to use up another 50 - 75 pages giving us now irrelevant bits of information about things that happened waaay back in the book. Katherine learns that her research is safe after all, we learn, once again, that the CIA Director is not the bad guy, and Langdon finally discovers the 'lost word' which will save all mankind.' But we never do discover why the CIA was involved in the first place. The 'national security' line does not quite manage to convince. And we never figure out what the danger to the 'world' at large was. what is it that was so 'successfully averted'. The plot overall is more reminiscent of 'Digital Fortress' and a hash of mediocre Hollywood movies than the stuff Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code were made of.

Read the book, if you will, for the information you will glean about Symbology and Washington DC in particular. The book, as I said, is well researched. Read it as a non-fiction and you will probably end up a happier reader than if you expect it to be first rate fiction.

Under the Shade of the Banyan Tree

I have, as of yesterday, entered the shade of the banyan tree.

I would have thought that after five years of staying in hostel, and doing summer internships for four of those years, I would be used to the idea of staying 'alone' and working. Turns out I am not. I have shocked myself. Never expected myself to get homesick. But, am so so homesick, after just one day of work and going home to an empty flat. Every time I think of home, I choke up ... it's frustruating really... never thought of myself as an emotional, sentimental fool.

I will return when I am myself again. Ciao.

To New Beginnings...

This post marks quite a few new beginnings. I have now officially shifted to Bombay, for the forseeable future. Since from now on until atleast the next few months, I will have only intermittent access to the internet, I will be irregular here. And so, I have, after much research, activated email blog posting, so that atleast once in a while I might be able to post.

 

I would ideally have liked a longer post, but will content myself with merely bidding an official goodbye to student life, life without responsibilities, and to small town life and look forward to (?) beginning a life where I will learn to live life in the fast lane, where 12 hour work days will become 'normal' and where my vocabulary will now include words such as 'leave without pay', 'CL', 'EL', deadlines etc.

 

The one definite bright spot in all of this is that I have, along with two of my friends, found for myself a wonderful flat. The flat and the flatmates are what I am looking forward to, the most.

 

So till next time, ciao. :-)

A Rich Haul

I just returned from a short and hectic ten day tour of Bangalore. Of this trip, I could have chosen to tell you about the flight which got cancelled, or the flight which we missed, of the various airports that we spent a LOT of time in, of how Bangalore can now only be described as a city under construction, of the many plans made and the many more that were cancelled even before they were made, of how I almost visited Mysore, Belur, Halebid, Sringeri etc... Though these were exciting and fun in themselves, I choose to tell you instead, about what excited me the most - My overall haul of 10 books this summer.

These last two months have seen me come by 10 books at the overall cost of 1100/-. The price of these books have ranged between Rs 20/- (for a Colleen McCulough Classic) to Rs 395/- for "MyChina Diary" by K. Natwar Singh. The genre of the books encompasses everything from the super trashy ("Why Mars and Venus Collide"), to general fiction (2 Sidney Sheldons) a classic (Colleen McCullough's "The Ladies of Missalonghi") Contemporary Fiction (Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss") to Self Development (Deepak Chopra's "Power, Freedom and Grace" ) Political Non Fiction (My China Diary), Political Fiction ("A Case of Exploding Mangoes" - about General Zia Ul Haq's assassination), History ( Killing Rage - about the IRA and it's struggle), and Biography (Angela's Ashes).

Even the places from where I acquired these books are just as varied - ranging from a mail order from the India Today Book Club, Delhi, a footpath and a second hand book store, Bangalore and a Bookstore at the Kolkata airport.

What has remained constant however is my smug pleasure at each of these acquisitions. :-)

बस एक बार और...

Reproduced below is a wonderful poem I found here. It captures exactly what I was trying to say yesterday and why it is that I'm so upset that I'm flying through Bombay now and not Kolkata:

बस एक बार वापस लौटने का मन करता है
आज हर वो दिन जीने को मन करता है.
कुछ बुरी बातें जो अब अच्छी लगती हैं
कुछ बातें जो कल की ही बातें लगती हैं.
एक बार और क्लास Attend करने का मन करता है
दोपहर की क्लास में आखें बंद करने को मन करता है.
दोस्तों के रूम की वो बातें याद आती है
Exam के टाइम पे वो हसी मजाक याद आती है,
कॉलेज के पास 'काकी के ढाबे' की याद आती है
तब की बेकार लगने वाली फोटोस चेहरे पे हसी लाती है.
अपनी गलतियों पे तुमसे डाट खाना याद आता है.
पर तुम्हारी गलती देखने का अब भी मन करता है.
एक ऐसी सुबह उठने का मन करता है
बस एक बार वापस लौटने का मन करता है.
बस एक बार और
वापस लौटने का मन करता है.

A Diversion.

I was supposed to be writing this post from Bangalore. I was supposed to have reached there last night. Instead am still in Ranchi. Only because Air Deccan did not think it profitable to fly us to Kolkata from where we had our next flight. Anyway, so the plan was such that I would have had a seven hour halt at Kolkata. I was soo excited to be going back to the city 'one last time', to visit friends, go back to college for a while, (maybe even make a face or two at a particular teacher), go 'hang out' again at City Center, have an 'Amul' Mango ice cream there, and what the heck maybe even squeeze in a visit to Mani Square.
Instead I will now be flying via Mumbai tomorrow(Air Deccan willing). Darn!

From A Railway Carriage

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And here is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart runaway in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone forever!

- R.L. Stevenson