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! :-)

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.

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. :-)

Of My recent doings or Of Boredom!

As most of you know, Blogger has this new feature that displays your blogroll in order of the most recent postings. It also apparently displays the name of the latest post! Well, I have not yet figured out how to make my own blogroll do such things... but I am tired of seeing my name near the end of other people's blogrolls. Also, a few people also asked me why it was that I had not posted for a long time. Well, I took both of these to be a compliment (since they show that I have more than one reader) and hence, decided to post. But then there was the small question of what to post. I have been doing next to NOTHING these days and spend most of my time fighting boredom. The situation is so bad that I recently realised that I no longer find sundays restful since I never end up working during the week (~sigh what a waste of a sunday~) and also, very shockingly discovered that I actually enjoyed sitting through four mind-numbing classes today. (It has just become such a rarity to have classes these days). So anyway.. for lack of a better topic, I decided to blog about my recent doings (or the lack thereof).

So as I said, classes are random and sporadic at best and we are usually let loose by around 11:15 am everyday! Therefore, in the recent past, I have: watched two movies 'in the hall' - Thoda Pyaar..Thoda Magic (best avoided) and Jaane tu.. ya Jaane Na (excellent movie - universally recommended), watched countless other movies and episodes of other sitcoms on my comp, perfected the art of being able to go into deeep sleep at any time of the day and yet feel sleepy at sharp 10:30 pm every night, read lots and lots of blogs, discovered exactly what internet addiction means, learned new abbrevations, shirked genuine responsibility etc.

I have also, followed in the footsteps of many of my other batchmates in taking up my very own 'activity-for-the-semester' and have found for myself a very patient teacher to teach me Table Tennis - just like others have taken up swimming, strumming, dancing, gymming, running, blogging etc. (refer also here). Here I have proudly discovered that I have this ability to pick myself up and present myself at the TT table day after day inspite of losing all but two games in the past two or three weeks. It must be because I have such a strong urge to learn, No? Or is it maybe because I have a thick skin?? *scratches head and wonders*.... So anyway...coming back to the point, while all of this is a lot of fun... this is not what I consider to be the highlight of my semester so far.

The highlight is - (drumrolls) I have regained my erstwhile reading speed and have a renewed interest in fiction - Yaaaay!!!!! See.. recently I was getting worried since four years of law school had slowly but steadily eaten into my reading speed and had somehow made me prefer non-fiction over fiction! (~shudders~) Now non-fiction is important and has its own place etc etc but to me fiction always comes first. right? So you can imagine how worried I was starting to get when my mind refused to obey my convictions and had started preferring non-fiction! So now that things are back to 'Normal' - I must tell you that I have 'consumed' four books in the recent past (all really really good): -
1. Life of Pi (for the second time round and I loved it better this time)
2. To Kill a Mocking Bird (No - I hadn't read it till recently - so sue me!)
3. The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Don't Laugh - it's a really good, well-written, non-children's book)
4. Tears of The Giraffe (2nd part of No.1 Ladies' Decetive Agency - equally well written).

I won't tell you about the first two books since I do not want a repeat of what happenned when I went into raptures about the Life of Pi (on it's 2nd reading) and tried to tell people how great the book is and all I got for my efforts were cold stares which said - "Is this some sort of an insult? I already know... see.. I have READ it!" So... I will only tell you (some other time) about the other two books - which I don't think are half as well known as they should be.

So till then - ciao! while I go think of something else to do for the rest of the day.

Review: 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell

Well, I just finished reading 'Blink' and what a FANTASTIC book it is! 'Trust my snap judgment, buy this book: you'll be delighted' says The New York Times, and I totally endorse them. I was a MG fan from the time I read 'Tipping Point' (his first book) which I loved, but with 'Blink', he's gone one better, and has (unbelievably) delivered an even better book to officially become my favourite non-fiction writer!
For those uninitiated, in 'Blink' MG tries to convince us of the power of our intuitions. How sometimes, our 'snap judgments' are far more reliable than decisions arrived at after analysing a whole lot of material. He delves deep into the human mind and it's functioning and proves, as much with scientific as with anecdotal illustrations, that a lot of times, extra information is not only unhelpful, it is also harmful!
So does that make this book some sort of an elongated medical article about the innards of the human brain, that only medial fraternity can understand? Not at all! The very fact that I (who last read biology in class 10 and that too only because I wanted to pass the damned subject) read it, understood it and relished every page of it shows that it is not. His inimitably, witty style of writing makes for an enormously interesting read while at the same time, evidence of the amount of research and analysis that has gone into this book leaves the reader floored. (Btw the 'Notes' section of the book is the MG version of a bibliography and only he could have turned a mundane listing of sources into a few more interesting pages worth reading!)
At the end of it all, you may agree with the author or you may not. But irrespective of your final conclusion, you will have loved the book. As the 'New Statesman' said, "...this wonderful book should be compulsory reading."

"Entry From The Backside Only: hazaar fundas of indian english" - Binoo K. John.

I got this book as a Birthday present from one of my friends in college. The title seemed interesting and I thought, the book would be humorous, and so I immediately settled down to reading the book. Wellllllll........ the only thing that turned out to be interesting about the book was it's title. Humorous - the book was not!!! not from any angle whatsoever!!!!!!!!

Mr. Binoo. K. John is apparently a journalist who has apparently written two other books which have been well received by society in general. Both are travelogues - one about Cheerapunji and the other about the Malabar Coast. Praises for these books find their place on the cover of 'hazaar fundas...'. Well, if that is true, then Mr. John should stick to writing travelogues and not venture to attempt either satire, humour or even sarcasm.

The overwhelming feeling that a reader gets on reading this book is:

firstly that Mr. John has tried a li'l too hard to be funny and in the process has lost out on whatever li'l laughs he could have otherwise hoped to generate,

secondly that he has been unable to decide whom he is addressing the book to: the foreigners to whom he seeks to explain India's obsession with English or to the Indian's themselves for whom he is attempting to hold a mirror and get them to laugh at themselves.

I believe that had he been trying to do the latter, the book would have been far friendlier and made for more interesting reading.

Thirdly that he has written this book at a time in his life when he has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do and so he has stretched what could have been an entertaining essay into a torture spanning 212 pages.

Fourthly the book leaves you wondering whose sense of logic is at fault: yours or Mr John's? He takes one or two illustrations of 'Indian-English' and proceeds to make generalisations about the country as a whole and all it's people. Sweeping statements like: ".... the cleanliness and civic sense which no Indian can be credited with...", "...he forsakes Hindi with the unquestioned and guiltless ease of all Indians, giving yet another example of how tenuous an Indian's link with his mother tongue is", find their way onto almost each and every page of this book.

In attempting to explain why people take to 'Indian English' he lambasts the users of such English as those who are desperately trying to climb the social ladder. The tone of his writing suggests that what he really wants to say is that such people who have the temerity to vilify the most sacred of languages should know their place and should not aspire above their rank and 'capabilities'. He clearly draws the distinction between the 'aspiring-Indian-English-using THEM' and 'the-well-read-socially mobile-correct English using US'. And he makes it very clear which side of the fence HE belongs to. He says that the major reason why Indians want to learn English is because they want to go to foren country. A read through this book, gives one the impression that he is the one targeting social acceptance among the pool of internationally renowned authors and thinks that distancing himself from his ill-bred and ill-mannered countrymen is the best way to do so.

However, to be fair to Mr. John, the book also has a few merits. The anecdotes and the quotes that he has chosen to show case Indian English are extremely funny and raise quite a few laughs. But as a critic in 'The Hindu' said: Had Mr Binoo John not attempted to explain humour that is self evident and pat himself on the back, the book would have made for some interesting afternoon read with 'some chai wai for company'.

Another appreciable fact which cannot escape any reader's notice is how well researched the book is. Mr. John has dug up anecdotes of usage of Indian English from as far back as the early colonial era and has researched and gone through obscure books found only in the dusty corners of libraries such as the 'Nehru Memorial Library' in New Delhi. All, with the sole intention of bringing out the various ways in which English has been used in this country.

But on the whole, this book is disappointing. It takes too many uncalled-for pot shots at the 'common man' in India for it to have gone down my throat at least!!!!

Travel and New Beginnings...

Well around ten days ago I returned from a short five day tour of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Quite obviously... we could not cover either state entirely. We spent around 2 1/2 days in Kerala..... and Boy did that place capture my imagination!!!!! One has to visit the place to truly realise why it is called God's Own Country...... we went only to Trivandrum and Kovalam... which are not even the most beautiful places in the state and THEY were soooo beautiful!

The very first thing that will strike you about Kerala are the coconut trees!!!! I only wish I could have captured on lens the scene outside the airplane window just before we landed at Trivandrum...... solid body of water on one side, and a solid mass of coconut trees extending for acres and acres on the other... separated only by a thin strip of white and brown sand!!!!!! Then you make your way out of the smallish airport and the next thing to strike you ... is how clean the city is! This is reflected not just outside the airport but all across the city and indeed every part of the state that we travelled. There is a beach right next to the airport and the clean soft brown sand, clear blue skies, the emerald waters of the sea and green coconut trees give you as warm a welcome as can be!!!

Even while touring around Trivandrum the cleanliness of the entire city keeps impressing itself upon you. Be it right outside the extremely busy Anatha-Padmanabha Swamy Temple or be it at the usual tourist attractions eg: The Palace, the Museum, The Zoo, The Art Galleries, 'VELI': A Tourist Village, or even the main Marketplace - and they are all maintained by the state government!!!!!! Also, the fact that they were all so obviously well looked after. I was extremely impressed. To think that a major tourist draw like Agra is not half as clean as small town Trivandrum which is not even the main tourist attraction of the state.

Kovalam.. I believe is slightly over-hyped and that the beach though very good is nothing to go sooo ga ga about! In fact there are other beaches in and around Trivandrum and Kovalam itself which are far less crowded and equally beautiful! However this is not to take away from the beauty of Kovalam or the fact that it's beach creates the perfect combination of crystal clear waters, white sand, blue skies (or the perfect sunrise or sunset - depending upon when you go) and of course the green coconut trees. Just that it was a li'l crowded when we went - blame it on the time of the year!

Even the highway out of Kerala and into Tamilnadu is lined with an unbroken line of thick coconut groves with banana trees growing in their shelter, with quaint red tiled houses with sloping roofs showing themselves here and there among the trees. The beauty is indescribable. By contrast and at the risk of hurting a few feelings.. Tamilnadu is no comparison!!! Neither cleanlinbess wise (the less said about this the better) nor Beauty wise. The coconut trees start thinning almost from the moment we enter Tamilnadu and get replaced by vast plain fields with green standing crop. We visited Kanyakumari, Madurai and Rameshwaram before flying out of Madurai and the only place that came close to matching Kerala in beauty was the highway leading upto Rameshwaram. The city itself, like Madurai and Kanyakumari is pretty dirty (and it seemed especially so after coming straight out of Kerala), but the highway leading into it makes up in beauty for what the rest of the city lacks. Just before entering Rameshwaram, you can see the Indian Ocean stretch out endlessly on either side of you.... it seems the road itself is going to end in the sea...... a li'l further and you can see the brown sand, the blue skies, the emarald-blue waters of the ocean and the green coconut trees again and I, for one, will never cease to recapture that scene everytime I close my eyes and think about it!!! As wordsworth aptly said, "and when..in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude." Unfortunately, the rest of the places that we visited in Tamilnadu are nothing to right home about... except of course that the Meenakshi Temple of Madurai is every bit as beautiful architecturally as the stories make it out to be. But apart from the highway to Rameshwaram and the Meenakshi Temple, Tamilnadu was disappointing after the heady high that Kerala had given us.

I have decided to go back to Kerala and explore the rest of that state. And this time I hope to do it slowly with atleast a week to 10 days in hand. I end this travelogue with the disclaimer that: the views expressed herein are merely the personal opinion of the author, formed mainly through the circumstances, the duration and the places covered by the author on this tour. The views expressed are reflective only of the places visited and not generalisations about the rest of the two states which the author has not had the good fortune of visiting. Still, any hurt caused to any person's sensibilities or sentiments is deeply regretted. (true law student ishtyle!!!!)

Now for the second part of this rather long post!!!!! For all those wondering where Books fit into the entire narrative - here is the answer. I bought two books on the tour - one the comparatively unremarkable "The Pilgrimage" by Paulo Coelho, and the second - "Ananda Math" by Bankimchandra. This second is slightly more momentous than the first since it is my very first Hindi book. (of course translated - from bangla). For a long time now I had been wanting to start reading some vernacular. English literature was good but I started to realise that vernacular literature too has a lot more to offer. My only two options were Hindi and Kannada (my mother tongue). I am slightly ashamed to say that though I can read and write in Kannada, I am nowhere near fluent. This is owing to the fact that I have lived all my life in Ranchi and Bokaro. Therefore Hindi was the only real option.

Starting to read in Hindi was not completely without hiccups. The translation was an extremely good one and had been able to recreate the magic of story while at the same time not letting anything get 'lost in translation'. It was also in Shudh Hindi. This meant that for a novice like me whose only other exposure to Hindi literature had been the Hindi text books at school, understanding some of the words and phrases were slightly difficult. But as the novel progressed and I got used to the language, my speed increased and so did my comprehension. I am extremely glad that I have made this beginning and hope that I continue this newly acquired taste right through.

The book of course was extremely good, the narrative tight and gripping. It offers an insight into one of the political movements in Bengal against the Muslim ruler of the time, prior to the takeover by the British. However the one thing that kept nagging me throughout was how communal and shortsighted (with respect to the British) the book was. Once when Jeevanand (the protagonist) captures a British Captain in a war, he seeks to befriend him by saying that their war is against the Muslims and not the British, whom they consider their friends. Also, the army of the Vaishnavas took great pride and pleasure in burning down all villages populated by the Muslims. But just when you seek to end with the thought that Bankimchandra was probably not as secular and patriotic as he is made out to be, comes the last two pages of the book and the monologue by a swamiji who was also a healer. He seeks to explain why the vaishnavas failed to rule Bengal in spite of all their devotion, and 'good deeds'. He tells the protagonist that their main fault lay in their bigotry and the fact that they had failed to correctly assess the British. He also takes an extremely realistic view of things and says however, that the defeat of the vaishnavas at the hands of the British was not necessarily a bad thing but was something which had been pre ordained. Their beloved Bharat Mata would be best served at the hands of the British since they would pull her out of the middle ages and put her firmly on the path to modernity.

Mills and Boon

All girls have read it at some point of time ot the other... and yet very few come out of the 'closet' as it were and admit to have read it and to some extent enjoyed it. Well I decided to join the ranks of the few(may our tribe increase) and admit to liking certain kinds of MBs (as we 'addicts' like to call them). For the uninitiated, MB's (so called because their publisher is Mills and Boon - though others have come into the market too.. e.g Harlequin etc) are short Romantic novels which invariably have a happy ending. They are the genre that first gave rise to the cliche of "tall, dark and handsome" :-) Invariably, in every book, a rich or at the very least a drop dead gorgeous guy, who has usually given up all thoughts of settlng down, meets (in varying circumstances) a good looking every-day-sort-of-girl and falls hard for her. The girls are not always gorgeous but in many instances are very like the average girl. They are aimed only at a female audience and aim at inducing a kind of a sense of well-being and happiness - a kind of a 'feel-good-factor' among the readers. :-)

This is precisely what has me going back time and again to MBs whenever I wish to read something, but have very little time to devote to it. Typically an MB takes about an hour to get through. MBs are thus meant for the 'tired girl who wants a book to read but is not recommended for the eager girl who wants to read a book.'

I suggest that everybody should try reading this genre once. This genre... with all its cliches and predictability... actually makes for some amusing reading.