Sea of Poppies - Book Review (9/10)

The Sea of Poppies had a hype surrounding it, when it was released, obviously because it was the work of Amitav Ghosh, one of the most acclaimed writers of Indian English Literature. His other books that I read were simply superb. And I knew that I could trust Ghosh to deliver this time too. The Sea of Poppies was nominated for the Man Booker, but sadly it lost out to the White Tiger. The White Tiger is an equally captivating book, but the vastness of the Sea of Poppies, its language, the research that has gone into the book, the wide variety of characters, the story, the exciting moments all scream and shout that the Sea of Poppies deserved this award more.

The book, the first of the trilogy that Ghosh is working on, is set in India, in the first half of the 19th century, just around before the opium wars. It has an immensely interesting amalgam of extremely diverse characters from diverse backgrounds. Deeti: the runaway sati candidate and murderer of her mother-in-law, Zachary: the son of a freed slave, then a carpenter, now a sailor, Raja Neel Haldar: A rich linguist of a zameendar, now convicted of forgery, Bhairon singh: A primary evil antagonist and a bodyshopper, Captian Chillingworth: A controlled opium addict and Captain of the Ibis, Mr. Burnham, . These characters lay the foundation of the book. The story is fiercely interconnected, more than some of his earlier books, and can be said to be slightly complex. But yet, it does not fail to enthrall.

The story is divided into three books. Land, River, Sea. The divisions make sense, though they are primarily based on just a couple of characters, Kalua and Deeti (my opinion). The story, largely, is about a journey that many of the above mentioned characters take across the black waters (on the Ibis), something that was considered taboo and forbidden for the Indians in those days. Some because they want to, some because they are forced to, some because they have to. The amount of research that Ghosh has put into this book is astounding. Ships, sailors, the Laskar language & lingo, history, etc. etc.Phenomenol. It is very difficult to imagine how one person could write a book like this. Initially, I found the Laskar lingo very irritating, and there were many lines I chose to pass through, just because I couldn't decipher the language. It is a strange combination of English and Hindi. I know both languages, yet I found it tough. I wonder how people who do not know Hindi would manage. But then there are just a couple of characters who speak that way in the book. So not much of an issue. On the contrary it just adds to the spice.

The book is more like a story in progress and has no end. I guess it would be more like a three part novel than a trilogy. Something like the LOTR. Ghosh hasn't fixed the no. of volumes that he would write to complete the story. As of now it is 3. But this may turn out to be one of the biggest epics of modern Indian literature. Truly brilliant, this book deserves a 9/10.

Bone - The Graphic Novel Review - (7/10)

I first read about Bone in the newspaper, and was pretty impressed with the character that Jeff Smith had created. Fone bone was cute, and well drawn. The reviews for the book were good, and I decided that I would want to buy at least one of the books from the series. My online search for the book began within few hours, and soon I had some price quotes in front of me. But what caught my attention was a 1300 page full epic volume, that had all the 9 Bone books in one. I ordered, and it cost me Rs.1800.

The book is a story about three loony tunes type characters, who are out from boneville, a town where bonelike-creatures live. All three are of them are cousins, and resemble bones. They are thrown out of their town, because Phonevile Bone , a serial bungling cunning opportunist, messes up in town, and causes the people of Bonveville a lot of pain. Anyways, now they are on a journey in a valley filled with rat-creatures that are monsters that eat anything that moves. The story is has been inspired from the Lord of the Rings, for the adventure that then unfolds has all elements that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy had. But Jeff Smith has managed to infuse a lot of comic element into the series, for there are parts where I split my sides laughing. Jeff Smith himself said that his motive was to combine Bugs Bunny & the LOTR, and come up with something that is 'Bone'.

It took me a couple of days to go through 1300 pages and this itself is a testimony to the quality of the Graphic Novel. The adventure has many ups and downs, wonderful characters, supernatural tones, dollops of humour and some crappy fantasy concepts that put me off for a while. I soon downloaded the pirated color version on torrents, and am planning to buy the color version too. Overall, it was a very interesting book, something I would recommend you to go read. Ill give it a 7/10

Following are some random pages from Bone.

The White Tiger - Book Review (8/10)

I picked up "The White Tiger" at crosswords randomly off the shelf, months before it won, or even was nominated for the Booker. Honestly, the title of the book and the cover attracted me more than the plot summary at the back of it. I had no biases, as this was a debut novel of an unknown novelist, and no reviews. I usually search for the name of the author I am reading on the net, and try to learn some stuff about him. But Adiga had hardly any net presence. No pictures of him on the net too. Was I right in picking up this book, I asked myself diffidently.

As I started reading it, I found it to be awkward. The letters to the Chinese president seemed stupid, and the book was starkly different from other books I read, at least in the beginning. I never expected this book to be about a poor poor man from a rural rural village. It took me by surprise. But the story certainly did not disappoint me. It was indeed enjoyable. Especially for an Indian reader, who understands this country from living within its bowels, this book is a joyride. Adiga wonderfully manages to help the reader fall in love with a character, who has evident villainous traits and indulges in despicable doings. The cold steel-like calmness that Balram demonstrates, the insensate way in which he murders, without flinching even a flyspeck muscle, the lack of conscience that makes him immune to regret, are some of the few characteristics in the protagonist that Adiga has woven with great skill, considering this being his first novel. The book also manages to touch some really strong themes, especially that of the vast disparity that exists in the lifestyles of the Indians. The same India, where there are millionaires rolling in money on one side and debt ridden farmers committing suicide by the dozens on the other. Some of the metaphors that Adiga uses are brilliant. Overall I loved this book, and this would be one of the books I would look forward to reading again.

About the Booker that TWT won, after reading "the Sea of Poppies" , I felt it easily deserved the Booker more than "the White Tiger". Actually there was almost no comparison. I haven't read the other nominations, so I cant comment about them. But still, for a gripping tale, a theme usually avoided and a book well written, ill give "The White Tiger" an 8/10.

You are here - Book Review (5.5/10)

You are here, by Meenakshi reddy Madhvan is another book I completed alongside with "Sea of Poppies". (I guess I should be done with SOP by next weekend. I'm taking my time and relishing it ). This book, I think should be classified as modern chick-lit. Before telling you more about the book, let me tell you more about the author. Meenakshi Reddy Madhvan is a 25 something journalist, and also the author of the famous blog, "The Compulsive Confessor" (http://thecompulsiveconfessor.blogspot.com/) Well, if you have read her blog, you will know what to expect of this book. I rarely drop books, specially the ones I have purchased. The only book that I have dropped till date is ignited minds, by Dr.Abdul Kalam. The book was an absolute pain. Though YAH started strongly with the wordclot fundas and stuff, I almost gave it a drop after reading through a few more pages. I felt like I was reading the Compulsive confessor blog at the beggining.

The story took too long to take off, and the protagonist kept spewing out thoughts of her own, thoughts that read good only on blogs. It got awfully boring after some time. But once the story started to pick up, there was something in it. Still at intervals, the author starts blabbering about her own thoughts on a subject. Sometimes it is nice, but many a times I was just put off.

But this was one book that was quite different from the others. It showed me the existence of a completely different world, a society, where girls behave like sluts and smoke and drink like they were adjusting their bra strap. The kind of life that the protagonist has, was completely immoral, derogatory and something conservatives like me would abhor. The language is ekdum 'aaj-ka-teen-gal-english' types in some conversations and few parts. This again put me off completely. Ofcourse, I couldnt expect less from a 'Chick-lit' novel. The overall writing style was good though.

I personally think that the author has written a heavily autobiographical story, with very shallow research (If any). I dont think she can write on varied themes and the chik-lit feel that her book gave, put me off enough to give her next book (if there is any) a miss. Im waiting to see whether she can write something completely different from her first book.

The bad part was the ending. I didnt personally like it. Found it flat. Overall the story was OK. There were some humorous moments though, that tickled my funny bone enough, to let me give this book a 5.5/10.

Keep of the Grass - Book review (4/10)

Lately, I have been picking up Indian fast reads, primarily because I can relate to them more (they are more like the life I live, the life that I have seen), and I can wrap them off in a day. So I try and slip in one quick book alongside with my regular novel, which takes more than a few weeks (considering I read just 25 pages a day). My Mdiv exams are on my head, and that’s really left me cramped with respect to hobby reading. Anyways, "Keep of the Grass" by Karan Bajaj, was one such quick read. This book got my attention, as it was compared to the other IIT & IIM novels in an article online.

Id call it a book of Joints, Grass, Sloshed students, marijuana, Soul Searching, IIM pressures, alchohol, confusion and a bit of India. Throughout the book, the protagonist (Ratan) & his close buddy are just pot-smoking themselves to their IIM graves. This story is about a young NRI bloke from Wall street, who is affected to such an extent by a remark by a one-night-stand-companion, that he decides to go back to India & do his MBA at the IIM. Actually, the remark just unplugs the deep pressure already existing within. Thus starts the tale of a IIM student. Nothing mentionable about the story. Its basically OK. Too much of grass actually spoilt it all. Decent writing style, considering the genre. The protagonist was way to confused and I was almost frustrated with this aspect of his character. The ending was OK again, and the storyline overall was again OK. There were some nice moments in the book, and the parts where Ratan & co. travel to parts of India are probably the Highs of the book for me. Also the title of the book becomes clear at the end of the book. Thats one part I liked. Overall the book didnt work for me that great. One of the books that I would not remember for too long. I'll give it a 4/10.

City on fire

Wheneveer terrorism strikes India, I usually want to blog about it. Though I haven't blogged every time it did, the number of posts on terror seems to be on the increase. Now Terrorists invade Mumbai! Even in my wildest of dreams would I never have thought that what happened could actuall be done. What the terrorists did was something beyond my imagination, and I know that I have a wild imagination. What if I was at CST that rueful day? What if I was shot on the back of my head, and my face was blown out on the other side, and my family had to come find this faceless corpse of mine lying on a CST platform, next to 57 other corpses, faceless for them. How would my family take it? Worse, what if one of my near and dear ones would have received a bullet as a gift from those brainwashed diabolic radicals? How my blood would boil then. How my spirit would fume. Yet, however much I am infuriated by this attack, it is goober peas compared to the sorrow that the victims and their families go through. We, the unaffected would never understand, unless we are the affected.

I fold my hands in humble prayer, close my eyes and thank God for keeping me and my family safe on this vile day, the day that the devil danced a jig in front of the Taj. And I pray that the families of the victims would be comforted; their losses are too immense for comprehension. I pray that the politicians would stop waltzing with medusa, and pullup their slimy pants. That the scales would fall off the eyes of our blind leaders, and that the corruption that is eating to our country like an african-flesh-rot-bug would be axed at its neck. I pray that God would have mercy on all of us, because if there is someone who can save us now, it is him.

What poverty is in India...

Today, the Times of India carried an article titled "How poor is poor in city?" on the first page. On reading the article I discovered that a person earning above Rs.540 (i.e. approx 11 to $12) a month is tagged as not poor in Mumbai, and for rural India, it is just Rs.328 (approx $7). Can you even believe that! For $7,in America, you will only be able to buy a burger with fries and coke. That is one meal. And you expect someone to be considered above the poverty line because they are just earning this flimsy amount. If you aren't an Indian, then don't consider this to be a disparity in cost of living across the globe. This just shows how dumb the Indian government is, or maybe how low it can stoop, to manipulate number of poor persons in the country. I spend 500 bucks every time re-fuel my bike. I spend 500 bucks when I visit the mall/theatre etc. I spend much more than 500 bucks when I'm at a bookshop. And they call these people "Not poor"!! Like Captain Haddock would have said .. A bunch of Macrocephalic Two-Timing Tartar twsted baboons!!!

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Book Review (10/10)

After reading the Kite runner, I was impressed with Khaled Hosseini. His ability to churn out a tale of such depth and passion, driven by his love for his country enchanted me. Obviously, after every first novel, readers expectantly & impatiently wait for the second novel from the author with expectations that are high (obviously, if his first one is a good one). Many novelists fail to deliver the same quality in their second book for obvious reasons, one being that the first book was a story they wanted to tell, and the second one was a story the chose to tell. Chetan bhagat for example went hurtling down in the quality of his books. 'One night at the call center' miserably failed in comparision to his first book (not in terms of book sales, but in terms of book quality. His book sales were driven due to the success of his first book). I dont understand how his books manage to sell faster than hot pancakes. Coming back to Hosseini, I expected him to be a one book author. A doctor, writing part time, and writing about a subject close to his heart, Afghanistan. He already had told a tale about his home country in the first book. What more could he tell now. I thought to myself, if he chose to write a book on any other subject other than Afghanistan, the chances that his book would fail would be big.

But all of these doubts were put to rest when the book was out. "A Thousand Splendid Suns". I can easily say that this is one of the most emotionally moving stories I have ever read. I have never shed a tear over a book, but shed dozens over this one. Hosseini manages to pierce your heart with a thousand swords, and keeps twisting and yanking them throughout the story, and inflicts pain equivalent to what a lady would experience when giving birth to a thousand splendid sons ;). In case you don't feel the pain that the protagonists of the story feel, you certainly are a person with a heart as hard as a rock.

This is a story of two afghan women across generations who are from different backgrounds, but suffer a similar fate. The story of their pains, their sorrows, their friendship, their struggles, their country and their hope (or lack of it). Hosseini wonderfully starts with two separate stories, and then goes on to merge the stories together. It is a love story, between two lovers, and between two friends. The ability that Hosseini possesses to bring to life images in the readers mind is astounding. The resplendent image of old Afghanistan to the intimidating character of Rasheed ,the nuances of his mannerisms to fear he projects, the turmoil in Mariam to the determination in Laila. Everything is wonderfully woven, considering that the writing style of Hosseini is comparatively simpler. You almost feel that you yourself are present in the rooms in which the characters interact, and unfold the tale. The backdrop for the story is the History of Afghanistan. it flaunts itself like a large velvet curtain of vivid colours hanging behind an incredible performance on stage. When you are made aware of the horrors that the people of Afghanistan had to go through, you will certainly shudder. It is like a lesson in the History of Afghanistan, camouflaged with a story of profound strength.

The last part of the story, or BOOK IV, is a part that moves without the turmoil present throughout the book. But this is the part that made me cry the most. Read it, and you will know why.

There many areas about the book that I would like to write about, but that would spoil the fun for you, in case you haven't read the book. This is one of those books that you cant even think of not missing. A book that will help you love your near and dear ones better. A book that will essentially teach you or show you how fortunate you are to be living in a place with almost no turmoil or sorrow. For the brilliance of Hosseini's story telling, for his ability to create a storm of emotions in the reader, for his projection of the History of his country so well and for many other reasons that has made this book a best seller, I give it a score of 10/10.

Letter to Ravi Subramanium, author -If God was a Banker

I just read the book "If God was a Banker" on Sunday. It was one of the few 250 page + books that I completed in one day. Today, I visited Ravi Subramaniums website, and posted him a message. Surprisingly, I got response from him today itself. Below is the letter I wrote to him, and under that is his reply.

Hi Ravi,

I just finished reading your book 'If God was a Banker' yesterday, and couldn't put it down till I finished the whole thing. Congratulations to you on a well written book. I picked up the book in the morning and was through by the end of the day. You have managed to weave a very interesting story and one refreshingly different. Since the previous books I read were "The Calcutta Chromosome" & "A thousand splendid Suns", I initially felt that the book had no writing style, and was too plain Jane. That was a bit difficult to adjust to at first. But once I was into the book, I got used to the style. And the story made up for that area that it lacked in.

In addition, I wished that the cover design for the book would have been better. The cover design was far by the worst I had seen yet. There is a great improvement in the cover design of your new book. I feel an attractive cover design can attract potential readers.

Regarding the plot, there are a couple of points that already have been mentioned in your blog. For eg. Sundeep did not force any woman into an illicit relationship. Nor did he indulge in any kind of sexual harassment. Thus he should not have been held responsible for those acts (though they were morally wrong) as the female partner was equally at fault here. She choose to sacrifice character for material gains.

Also I didn't understand why Aditya helped Swami in establishment of BOCA in the BPO business. It would be obvious that BOCA would be a competitor of Adityas enterprise. You have mentioned that Aditya helped Swami generate business by using senior contacts at NYB etc. It was like aditya is taking a pie out of his own share and giving it to Swami. Would anyone really do that. You also mentioned that BOCA comes out as on of the top BPO firms. And then at the end of the book, even adityas firm comes out as one of the top. I found it slightly hard to digest how aditya could bring both his and Swamis firm to the top, when they were competing entities.

Just small areas that I found not clicking. But that doesn't take away any credit from the storyline or from the book. Good job on your first novel! Looking forward to reading your next one. And all the best for your third one!

Cheers,
Alistair

Following is the response that I received from him. It only shows on his timeliness, and how he values his fans. Hats off to him. He just won a fan for life.

Hi Alistair

Thanks for writing in with your thoughts. I am really glad that you liked the book. Yes you indeed have raised some valid thoughts. Do read my next one and write in with your thoughts.

My third book, Devil in Pinstripes should be hitting the stands in Q2 2009.

cheers

Ravi

I will soon be putting up a review on this. But if you plan to visit a bookstore before that, don't forget to catch your copy of "If God was a Banker".

Trojans from Hell

Damn it! Im rewriting this post again because of the reason I am writing this post in the first place. What an irony! My damned PC seems to restart on its own without warning me, and the stupid blogger autosave feature did not kick in! Writing 2 paragraphs, and having to rewrite that again immediately is irritating, and that would still be an understatement. Is it a virus? Is it a hardware malfunction? is it a phantom playing tricks or is it one of my split personalities who kicks in for a second, hits the restart button and vanishes.

Around a year ago, my lappy was plagued with an army disgusting demented viruses and trojan horses (If I ever lay my hand on a virus writer...), all of different shapes, sizes, functions and names. They did not attack all together, but eventually. How they sneaked upon me, even I cant say, but they sure took me by surprise. It started off with little annoying problems like my cursor suddenly running about the screen uncontrollably, a couple of IE windows opening etc. Then the symptoms slowly started growing in magnitude. OS hanging, sudden restarts, not saving files when I save them, disabling certain softwares, making me, the admin user a guest user without any authority. All the other attacks, I bore silently. But taking away my admin rights was just too much. I had to fight back. But the trojan army was always one step ahead.

For starters they disabled all my anti virus software. They left me like an AIDS patient, without any immune system. My WBCs had been hijacked. I decided I wont give up, and gave up my PC to an expert. He started using his special anti-virus programs, his special tools etc. Some of them were terminated, but others still lurked. Some bold and defiant got detected, but could not be removed. Others craft and sly, lurked undetected (we realized this later). After my friend Richie toiled over my lappy, after hours of formatting and reformatting, he managed to clean up my laptop of all its crap. But in the bargain, I lost my genuine windows installation.

Now the ugly head of this black army seems to be slowly rising again. I did some virus scans, and updated my anti-virus. But the restarting problem still exists. Sometimes I wonder whether it is a hardware problem I'm dealing with here. Initially I absolutely had no clue about why may laptop used to go kapoot. But a couple of weeks ago, I found the trigger. Or at least I think I found it.

Whenever I press the arrow keys or the backspace keys in rapid succession, my lappy just goes out cold. Strange. I noticed this while playing Dink Smallwood (a postworthy game thats gonna get a post of its own soon). Whenever Dink had to slay a bonca or a slayer (considered to be dangerous enemies atleast early on in the game), he had to run about and make quick turns. That meant hitting the arrow keys in rapid alternating succession. Plonk! Out cold. This happened so many times that I stopped playing Dink for now. But the problem still persists. And as long as it does, I cannot play Dink! Damn!!

Anyways, Keep checking back to see what happened in the war between me & this unknown enemy of mine.

Subconcious Plagiarism - Cryptomnesia

A few months ago, my sis Annette & and her friend Jennifer, were working on a pop-up greeting card. Both of them were doing a course in Early Childhood care (& now are Kindergarten {sounds better than K.G. ;) } teachers at schools), and this card was part of their assignment. Ann & Jen showed me the semi-complete card, and asked me how it was. The card had a drawing of a small chick hatching out of an egg, with pieces of eggshell flying all over. Something like the hatching of a superchick shot using a split-second-camera. I liked the idea, but technically, the drawing was wrong. The chick was standing in the shards of the hatched egg, one leg in one half and the other one in the other half. And above the chick were some more fragments of the cracked egg. If one tried a logical reconstruction, one would come up with an egg and a half. I pointed this out to them, to which they said, the drawing was copied from a book. I criticized the quality of the books they were referring. But this wasn't enough, I had to give them some advise on how they could improve the drawing. I personally love cartooning, and by habit pay attention to the little nuances of cartooning. I would let myself down, if I wouldn't be able to come up with some original ideas to better the drawing.

After a minute of thought, I was lecturing both of them about how the drawing would look much better, if a piece of the eggshell would rest on the head of the chick, like a cap. It would give it the appearance of an Anne Geddes baby. I knew it was a small suggestion, nonetheless I was proud of it. My sis smiled at me, and then said, "Well I know where you got this from". I was surprised. I told her it was a completely original idea. She insisted that she knew where I got this from. I told her that I probably would have come across something of this sort in a cartoon show or something along the way. She still said, she knew exactly where I had got this idea from. Then she pulled out one of her journals (the kind she shows all of her family after completion). She flipped the pages, and turned the journal to show me one page. It was exactly the image I suggested a few minutes ago. I was shocked. It was the exact image I had picturised in mind a few minutes ago.

I could bet my life on the fact that I thought my idea was kinda original. Atleast not the carbon copy of something that I had seen a few months ago. But the evidence was against me here. This was the first time I realized how powerful the subconscious is.

My point is that this happens, and it doesnt take an expert to know that it does. Along the way, as we keep picking up ideas and concepts developed by other, snowballing down the hill of information, we lose quite a bit of what comes at us, but a lot of it gets tightly packed into that huge snowball of data. Somewhere deep inside in that vast sea of experiences, it gets hidden under some more important concepts/ideas/skills that the brain has to remember. But it still is there waiting for its time. When a trigger of some sort goes off, this thought is pulled out by the subconscious, now hazier than before, it easily gets thrown out by the brain, which deceives itself into making the person believe that the idea is original.

As I was googling for "Subconcious Plagarism", I came across the following-

Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory is too good.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

Friedrich had been accused of plagiarism, when the book that he wrote,
I couldn't agree less that this is obviously more than true. But the above statement in isolation may not be complete, especially when discussing SP. If your memory is too good, it would be conscious plagiarism. For it to be subconscious, the memory needs to pass out from the conscious zone into the subconscious zone.

The first time the term "Subconscious Plagiarism" came to me, It came to me in thought, as an original idea. I had never ever before read the word anywhere, anytime. But I know that to have an original Idea today is extremely difficult. Somewhere, somebody has already thought about it. And something as obvious as Subconscious plagiarism could never go unnoticed. So I decided to find out using Google. When I Googled it, there were some vague mentions of Subconscious Plagiarism, but no concrete definition of the same was found. In highest probability, In fact I was almost sure that this phenomenon/habbit/behaviour/whatever it is, must be documented somewhere in some Psychology book of some kind. Then I came across Cryptomnesia.

Cryptomnesia is the actual scientific word for Subconcious Plagarism. Following is the Wiki definition of Cryptomnesia:

Cryptomnesia, or inadvertent plagiarism, is a memory bias whereby a person falsely recalls generating a thought, an idea, a song, or a joke, when the thought was actually generated by someone else. In these cases, the person is not deliberately engaging in plagiarism, but is rather experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration.

Read the whole article on wiki. Worth reading!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptomnesia

To sum it up, everybody sometime, somewhere may experience bouts of Cryptiomnesia. Human beings are wired up that way, to use past experience to better future experience. But if we are aware of this behavior that the Human brain exhibits, we will be more cautious the next time that "Original" idea pops up in our mind.

The Calcutta Chromosome - A novel of Fevers, Delirium & Discovery - Book Review

As I keep reading more of Amitav Ghosh, the more I am in awe of his intelligence and ability to weave a story so intricately, yet with such gargantuan coverage of the chosen subject. Yes, ghosh always selects a particular subject, mostly in (colonial) history, and his novel ends up with half the history ever known about it. The kind of research that he puts into his books is flabbergasting. The Calcutta Chromosome is one of his older books, and probably one that isn't so popular, in the sense that he wasn't as famous as he was when the "Sea Of Poppies" was released. So the chances that you will see this book at Crossword or some other bookstore is comparatively less.

I was on my usual book-stroll (in the Lamour book store.I usually book-stroll with the intention of finding a steal of a deal in second hand book shops.) one evening, when my eyes caught the words "The Calcutta Chromosome", well camouflaged in a messy pile of vibrant faded paperbacks. I latched upon it, yanked it out of the pile with glee, and found a Hardcover version of the book staring back at me with a blank expression. My fingers, without awaiting pulse signals from my mind, flipped open the cover and my eyes working in tandem, searched for the price marked with graphite on the Title page. (Second hand books usually have their prices written on the title page in pencil.) Rs.180! A steal of a deal!! In moments I was away, with the book tucked safely into a polythene bag, my heart bobbing and my lips singing, as I biked my way home.

You would wonder why I chose to rave about how I purchased this book. But for a chronic bibliophile (like me), everything from the sperm to the germ in the life cycle of the relationship one has with the book is of utter importance. If you are one, you would infer my reasoning.

Getting to the review, the book starts somewhere in the unmentioned future (probably 2020), from where the core of the story is (1995). Antar, an aging programmer, put on a no-consequence job, to get him through to his retirement seems like a drab protagonist to have for a book with an intriguing name like this. No, he isnt a false protagonist either. He is just one of the many who would bear a lot of importance to the tale. Antars deals with a futuristic computer called 'Ava', who flashes him with images of objects, which Antar has to identify, and teach Ava how to identify in the future. It is when he comes across an I-card of an old acquaintance (Murugan a.k.a. Morgan), who has been missing for the past couple of decades, that he is tempted into digging more into the matter and finding out what happened to him. And then the fun begins.

The story starts unfolding in parallel threads, in different time zones, with a range of over a century. The history of malarial research, life of Ronald Ross, strange Laveran rods (in context of the time), supposedly false conjectures on malaria, path-breaking discoveries, dodgy indian bearer-boys, undercover secret groups, haunting cerebral syphilis, parallel intelligence, its all in there. The research that Ghosh has put into the book is exquisite and extensive, like always. He has dissolved the borders that exist between real history and the fiction of his tale, at least in my mind. Sometimes there are pages of unconventional history woven into the tale, and rather than making the book boring, for me it made it wildly interesting. I did a bit of my own research on Ronald Ross (after I completed the book), searching for similar views as that Ghosh has expressed on Ross, but was unable to find any (on the net). The negative hoick that he has given to the otherwise untarnished image of Ronnie Ross, had my mind in knots and to some extent still does.

The title cover says "A novel of Fevers, delirium & Discovery". And the book surely lives upto the title. Indeed, the fevers and the delirium will really give you the spooks. Some places it almost runs through like a horror story. This book had me scared. It has something ancient, something of the past, something like a ghost, totally unknown, strong, without form moving behind the curtains of the story line and making a strange and haunting signals at the reader. Even as I write this blog entry late in the night, thinking about certain parts of the book gives me the shivers.

To talk about some dicey areas in the book, the book may not qualify as pure science fiction. The science explained is somewhat stretched and fictional in parts. But entertaining enough. Also the story is like a rubik cube. Almost everybody is connected to everybody. Its like a small world with people bumping into the same people everywhere. This may appear somewhat filmy, but then thats what the whole book is about. If you read through the whole thing, you will know just why everybody knows almost everybody.

All in all, I am a die-hard AG fan now, and that will surely bias the way I rate this book. I would love to rate this book higher than I have, but I guess ill have to settle with a 8/10. So if you haven't read it, go get a copy now.

The book-mongering ways of a bibliophile - Systematic Book Purchase

I have this habit of walking into Crosswords(the book store) , the moment the yellow signboard catches my eyes. I just cant seem to resist. The soft amber light that emanates from within, the silent music from between the pages, the smell of new paper and prints, the illustrious flood of colors that surrounds me when I walk between the shelves, the smooth feel of a new paperback and the weight of the credit cards in my wallet, that establish in me a capacity to own almost whatever title I want, (ignoring the bills that will follow later) all hypnotize me beyond the realms of my will and suck me into that shop of well-woven tales.

I agree that the books out here are pretty expensive. Initially, I never thought twice before purchasing a book from here. But lately, I have developed a systematic method of getting to my books. Read on for some subjectively worthful gyan on Bibliophilegiri.

Step 1: Decide what book you want to read
The first step is deciding what book to buy. Rather than impulsively picking up books from the shelf after judging it buy its cover (something I still occasionally indulge in), I prefer to research and close in on books that are worth reading. I try to search for books across genres, rather than sticking to one popular genre. You obviously will find lists made up by people on blogs and elsewhere on the net, suggesting the top 10/100/1000/ etc. books one must read. I prefer avoiding following such lists, though I don't avoid glancing through them. If I see a book popping up time and again on multiple lists, I give heed to it. First, I research it on Wikipedia etc., read about the book, (not the Plot), about the author, about other books the author has written, reviews, so on and so forth. And in the process, I learn about similar/related authors, with similar/related books, and then I research them and enter a never ending cycle of literary information. While i am reading through all this stuff, I pick up books that I would want to read. And then its time to move on to Step 2.

Step 2: Get price quotes
Getting price quotes can sometimes be tricky, if you aren't using the right sources. I have a specific process that I follow to get my prices. If you know of someplace where I could get my books cheaper, please comment. Anyway, I start out with getting a quote from Indiaplaza.in. Next I get a quote from Landmarkonthenet.com. Usually, the prices in both of these sites are matched evenly, the difference not being much. But landmark is slightly more expensive, when it comes to shipping. The clubbing-of-multiple-orders feature kinda sucks on this site. But you have a wider range to choose from on Landmark. Landmark is a site that specializes only in books. Indiaplaza is a general shopping site, with a strong section on books.

I usually know how much to expect a book to be priced (developed from years of buying). So I know whether the book is overpriced on any/both of the sites. I say this because some of the books out there are priced right through the roof. For eg. a book that costing for Rs.400 in crossword, may cost Rs.700 online. Now why, I don't know. But this is something I have experienced in the past. If I find the online cost cheap (dfyob -{go figure}) , i buy right away, else I visit crossword. At crossword, if I find the book, I mostly find it costlier than it was online. But there are times when the books may turn out cheaper (Plus you get to indulge in on-the-spot-random-buying) .

If I find the book expensive at crossword too, its time to hop to the Lamour Library. Well, Lamour is a Library (as already mentioned before) that doubles up as a second-hand book store. So if I find a book too expensive to purchase from my primary sources, this is where I go.
The downside is that I may not get the book immediately or may not get it at all. This library will usually have all the popular books, but not the rarer ones, that you may find considerably easily online or in crossword. The upside is, you will get books almost as good as new at sometimes rip-away prices and othertimes quite decent prices.


Step 3: Buy the book
This is the kinda easier step for me :) . Credit/debit card, zindabaad. (Dont take me for a rich brat who can lavishly spend on his reading addictions. This is hard earned money we are talking about here.)

Step 4: Read the book
The most exciting part! The best part! Read it! This part can get tough sometimes, considering the rate of arrival being greater than the rate of reading. But I take it as a challenge to finish reading all the books I can read.

For those who want to read, but don't want to spend:
For those who have a reading budget of a church mouse, and dont have a desire to own a library themselves, join a library and ignore this post.

I guess this post makes it cockclear that I belong to the 'other' group of individuals.

The Diwali Blast...

13 more blasts in Assam! Seems like Diwali will never end. The fireworks have been on throughout the year. The Muslims have this perennial problem with religion-bred-terrorism. There are a majority who are peace loving muslims. But because of a certain section of demented extremists, it is diwali for India every day. You dont know where the next blast is, maybe just around the corner. You don't know whether you will make it back home in your office clothes, or in a polythene bag, with your clothes.

The other day when returning home, I stopped at the red light of the Inorbit signal at malad. Just in front of me stood a bike, with its bearded rider. The back of the bike had a sticker of the trademark Shiv Sena tiger, all growling and wild. Suddenly, this guy in front of me yanked out the side-stand, left the bike leaning on it, and walked away. Just imagine leaving a bike just like that in a busy junction. He walked towards a few bhel-puri stalls on the pavement and disappeared into the crowd. I was bewildered. In many of the blasts that had happened all over India, the bombs were planted on bikes and cycles that could be easily abandoned in a busy place, without anybody even getting a whiff of what was conspiring in the shadows. The engine serial nos/registration nos. can be easily filed off to prevent detection and tracking. I looked at the bike and the small carrier box that it had fixed below the pillion seat, and considered possibilities of what all it could carry. Bomb kept coming back to my mind, like I was stuck in a loop! Bomb. Bomb. Bomb. Bomb. The Shive Sena sticker on the bike and the beard on the man made me even more uncomfortable. Maybe it was a muslim extremist who was out to frame Shiv sainiks in what would be known as the Inorbit Signal blasts. Maybe the Shivsainiks had finally decided to retaliate by entering the blasts business themselves. Whatever it was, it kinda scared me.

After a few anxious moments of craning my neck to see whether I could spot the alleged bomber, I saw the man re-appear, emerging from the crowd like a water in a Sahara desert tap. I was relieved. He probably had gone to the loo for a leak, and had inadvertently scared the crap out of a genuine alert citizen ;) of this country.

Jokes apart, many people today would have reacted to this situation in the same manner. This just goes to show the subtly developing fear psychosis in our people. In a country where we could just go about anywhere, without even thinking twice, we now live in constant fear of the next blast. When would it happen, where would it happen, who would die etc.

What are the rulers of this country doing? Where is the security? After the 7/11 tragedy in the US, could anyone even burst a single Lavangi within the country? If they could do it, then so can we. If not immediately, eventually. But there has to be some positive movement toward that eventuality. That positive movement, my friend, is what I never get to see in this country of mine. I may sound like a synic, but believe me, this is optimism.

Beat the Bhaiya movement - Dirty Politics

The hottest news that you find the so called News channels airing these days is pretty obvious. There is no news as hot as 'Beat the bhaiya' news. I dont blame the news channels for focusing on the Raj v/s Bihar altercation. The whole issue is absolutely ridiculous. How in the world could not the Marathi Manoos see the selfish politics that Raj is playing out here.

Just the other day I read about a group of maharashtrians beating up a group of North Indians. One of the North-indians died. The whole episode was absolutely shocking. The same local trains, where everybody travels like Jalapeños pickled in a Jar of Sweat, without thinking twice about the native state of the person standing right in front of you, stepping on your feet. You 'adjust' and carry on. That is what the Spirit of Mumbai is all about. Reminds me of that underwear VIP underwear ad, ('adjust maadi' on youtube, which perfectly captures not only the Spirit of Mumbai, but the Spirit of India. Tolerance has been one of the outstanding factors of Indian Society, and one of the fast deteriorating factors too. Where is Gandhian philosophy (actually a lot of which is borrowed from the Bible) vanishing? People were raving about Gandhigiri some time ago, when the Munnabhai series of movies were being screened. We must ask the same people, where is the Gandhigiri now? Is this all a facade?

Raj Thackeray when arrested, refused to defecate in an Indian Style latrine. He said he was not used to it. He preferred to constipate himself and pollute the court air, with political gaseous emissions and his hard headedness. Why doesn't he squat like his fellow Marathi manoos does. He would if he really cared. But he doesn't give a damn. Id rather call him a smart politician. He knows best what he is doing out here. If anyone would know better, it would be Raj Thackeray who knows that he is in the wrong. But this is all a game, this is politics. Do you think that the Cheif minister does not know what is happening? He surely does. Don't you think that congress, the ruling party in the state is actually allowing this to happen. Yes, they want Shivsena to be split into two equal halves, not one big party, and another small band of losers. They want Raj to get popular, so that guys from Shiv Sena cross over to MNS. How else could they stop the otherwise formidable-in-maharashtra Shiv Sena.

This tactic works in a reverse way also. It keeps Mayawati and Laloo Prasad out of Maharashtra. And who suffers in the bargain. The poor north Indian Bhaiya, who is here just to make a buck and feed his family back home.

There is this issue of overcrowding in Mumbai, but then that is the incompetence of the government that is the root problem. I wont rave about what the Government should do, as I am in no position to. But there have been other countries who have handled the situation much better, and have been able to actually get their countries/cities out of a mess.

The solution lies much deeper. At the roots of our system. In our hearts. We need to improve at an individual level and change our attitude towards what we call our Nation. We need to spread the message of love, and work hard together to get solutions to the problems. Our protests must be against corruption and the decay in society, rather than the release of Raj from jail. Our protest must be against the corrupt politicians, rather than against poor bhaiyas.

Give the North Indians a Break, stop the "beat the bhaiya movement" for God's sake!!

Four Damn Days!

Four days! Four damn days! And I almost did nothing... those four damn days! Diwali, falling just after a Sunday means a long weekend. And this time Merrill Lynch was generous enough to give us 2 holidays. So the 2 day weekend became Four days long. Four Damn Days!

More than 40% of which I just slept through (obviously, including the nights). There were a bevy of pending things that were plaguing me (and still continue to), and these 4 days were supposed to help me attain Nirvana. But now they're gone and I didn't even feel it.

Four damn days... gone!

Scooting Around

Just a couple of weeks ago, as Harvest approached, the much awaited outdoor-trip-plan was being discussed again by none other than the ex-syntelite buddies (group of friends from my old company, Syntel) . Our group is now scattered across IT companies. Infosys, Syntel, Accenture, Capgemini and Merrill Lynch. We keep in touch through daily e-mails. And through emails, we were discussing about having an outing. In the good old days, when we all were on the same payroll, we were known as the ABS globe trotters, because of our travel-mongering ways. It had been a real long time since we hung out together again. We knew that we wouldn’t have all the old guys along with us. But even if we had three to four, it would be fun.

Sometime back in august, we had planned for a trip to Thailand. But when Sunil realized that his passport was to expire in 3 months, we had to abandon those plans (you need to have a 6 month valid passport when you are entering Thailand). Now the destination being discussed was Goa. Goa is a place where I would always go, without thinking twice. In the last 4 years, I have been there 4 times, and this trip would take my average to more than once a year. Finally after a lot of persuasion, dropping out, excuses etc. four of us managed to commit ourselves to the trip. Out of the 4, I was the one who was the most reluctant. The reason being that we were planning to go out on a Harvest Sunday. Initially, I disposed the option of going, but some persuasive calls later, I changed my mind. It was after a real long time that I would get to hang out with old buddies, and I thought it would probably be worth it.

We started off the journey in Konduskar Volvo. The journey was pleasant enough, because the Volvo was really a volvo. On my return journey,

Collective Blogging

I am a collective blogger. Yes, I am. Confused? Well, let me tell you what collective blogging is. I don't know if this term actually exists, but the following is my meaning of what collective blogging is. Blogging multiple post on the same days, or blogging with greater intensity over short periods of time, followed by long arid patches of no-blogging. If you take a look at my blog or better, if you plot a trend line of the no. of posts v/s time, you will see something that looks like the mouth of an old shark with a few remnant teeth. Spikes followed by large flat plains.

The primary reason for this kind of behavior is that I usually write my stuff offline, and am very irregular at sitting and writing my ideas out. There are a million in my head, and a million things I want to say. But then the outlet of these ideas into the electronic world of the internet is very small. Most of them die or wilt away just waiting to be written. That is sad. Very sad, both for me and my poor ideas/thoughts.

Most of them come when im riding my way to work and back. So many of them. But when I reach work/home, I enter a new world, where most of my ideas go find a small dark corner to sleep. I am working on strategies to keep them alive, and convert them into blog-entries. So hopefully, there will be many more blog entries in the future, and not collectively, but consistently.

The Psycho Canine Gang

For the past few days I have been seeing the sun much lower in the east that I ever get to. My MDiv examinations are scheduled way up in the morning at around 7:00 am. I am a perennial slugabed, since my office starts later than other offices, and this time change in my schedule was really unwelcome. But fate had is such that I would need to get out from under those cozy sheets much earlier than I should have otherwise had to.

My exam timings are from 7:00 am to 10:00 am, after which I get some time to come home & have my mor-noon brunch. I can then leave for work. My examination hall is my local church, just 5 minutes as the wolf runs. The early morning bike ride helps me get rid off a bit of my slumber. But what really wakes me up is the Psycho Canine Gang.

As I ride into the compound of my Church building, (my church is located on the second floor of a commercial-residential building with other workshops & shops.) a gang of around 8 dogs attack me. I go to church on Sundays, & other days, but never so early. These dogs usually are silent & leave me alone. If one of them starts barking, I start whistling profusely, and this seems to pacify the mongrel. It then usually shuts up.

But this was different. Early in the morning these dogs seemed to go Mad. They surrounded me, gnarled and barked at me obstreperously. The first attack was when I was attending the first paper. The attack was led by a white bitch, (the other dogs were probably her kids) and these dogs knew no fear. I know that I am not an intimidating person, and friends would call me a teddy bear rather than a grizzly, but all said and done, I am six plus and almost weigh a quintal. No dog would take any ‘Panga’ with a person of this size, or at least that is what I thought. But these dogs were crazy (as I have said before). I had to stop my bike even before I got to the parking area and get off it, lest I find, stinky canines buried into my calf muscles. Initially I started whistling profusely. (I always whistle to pacify dogs that bark at me, and most of the time this tactic works). Most of the dogs went quiet, but one of the crazy dogs along with the white bitch seemed unaffected. The barking continued, and the dogs closed on me, one of them just behind me. I knew I had to get my hand to a stone, or atleast act as if I had found one. I did, and whack, I flung the stone at one the white bitch. I missed, and managed to scare off the other dogs. They kept barking and I kept looking for stones to fling. That is when the watchman of the building arrived with a stick & drove away the dogs. They seemed to recognize him and obliged with half-silence. There were muffled growls that still showed some defiance. But I wasn’t harmed by those dogs that day.

Later when I left after giving my exams, I observed that the dogs were all sleeping. None of them even turned to look at me. I wasn’t surprised. Because in the past, I always have seen the dogs sleeping, least bothered about me. Then what in the world stirred them up this morning, I though to myself. As I cautiously left the compound, trying to make as less noise as possible, the watchman waved at me, with a smile on his face.

“Darneka nahi, kattha nahi hai. (Don’t be scared, they don’t bite)” He said cheerfully. “These dogs are harmless”. I stopped the bike and paused to talk to him. I asked him why nobody drove these dogs out of the compound? He said, that the madrasi who owns a workshop in the basement of the compound regularly feeds these dogs. He has done this to put in place some kind of a security system. This, so that people don’t dare to venture into building compound. Now what kind of security system in the world was this? A bunch of mongrels?

Then I asked him about why these dogs attacked me in early in the morning, and let me go later on when I was on my way back. He told me that early in the morning, these dogs are un-fed. That is when they start behaving rabid. Anyone who enters their area is barked at. But later after the madrasi has fed the dogs, they cool down. They go to sleep. They aren’t bothered who comes or who goes. Cause they are full.

I thought of complaining to the municipality, but then after my exams were done, and after my altercations with the Psycho Canine Gang became a thing of the past, the desire to do so slowly went away. But one day I will get them. I will get the PCG, for what they did to me.

Journey to Sword Warriors 08

The last few weeks, in fact months of my life have been extremely busy. Not that I was strained out or under tremendous pressure, but just plain occupied. On the 2nd of October, we had a program in church called Sword Warriors 08. And in the weeks preceding this day, most of my time was spent in preparation (thankfully not last-minute as always).

If you have been a part of this program, you would know what I am talking about. If you haven't, let me introduce you to Sword Warriors.

Sword Warriors is a Youth Event, in which the primary focus is on intellect and the knowledge of the word of God. In SW 07, the event had teams working on presentation on the Theme: Science and the Bible. Teams were given topics like 'Age of the Earth', 'Creation v/s Evolution', 'Archeology and the Bible' etc. They had to make presentations on their topics, and also submit some documentation that supported or had a detail study on the topic they would present. The teams submitted the documentation a couple of weeks before the event and were studied by the judges and marked accordingly. Then on the day of the event, the teams presented their topics with the aid of PowerPoint slides. The event was largely successful, and everybody liked this innovative format of Sword Warriors. UBMC Chembur was the winner of Sword Warriors 07.

After the success of SW07, we decided to have SW08. It was but natural that we thought of having the program in the same format as we had the previous year. But there was a hitch here. The topics in 2007, being about the Science & the Bible, were extremely interesting. How could we find topics for SW08 that would match up to the previous year? Most of the topics that we could come up with in our brainstorming sessions would be perceived as boring by a young audience. We could not organize a program that would come out as outright boring to the youth.
Thus we thought of changing the format of Sword Warriors 08 this year. This year, Sword Warriors would be a quiz competition instead of an Information search & presentation competition.

Every body approved of having the game in such a format. But now, we had to think about how we could bring in variety to the game. After some brainstorming sessions, and contributions of ideas from some guys, we had a few games in front of us. We divided the games amongst ourselves, and started developing and working on them. There were some classic general knowledge & GK rounds that we planned for. Three of the games were visual games, and one was a surprise game called Shapeshifters.

But there was one game that I had in mind, and wanted to have in SW08. The game did not have a name then, but it was based somewhat on Klueless3, a game developed by IIM Indore. This game eventually was named 20 chambers, (we even thought of naming it Swords & Secrets, Cloak & Dagger or The Quest). 20 Chambers is a game that has 20 levels. Each level has a puzzle/riddle that a team must solve in order to get to the next level. Along with each level puzzle, the team gets 3 bonus questions that they can solve to gain some extra points. There were numerous rules, power cards, and other bonuses that teams could play around with, to maximize their scoring. We started working on the rules of this game, and once we were done with it, the result was very satisfying. Evey body who read the rules, appreciated the game.

We were overjoyed that God was continually leading us through all the conception and event definition phase so wonderfully. We were sure that he would take us through the event in the same way, though we weren't praying as much as we should have been. But we always saw him in control of everything and anything related with SW08.

I had to work vehemently on 20 Chambers, as making the level riddles, and collecting the bonus questions was a brobdingnagian task in itself. After weeks of toiling, we saw most of the riddles being completed much before time. I don't know if it was a mistake, but we took a dangerous decision of increasing the number of levels for the game to 30 chambers from the initial 20 Chambers. The last 10 chambers were more difficult to make and demanded more questions. The bonus questions had to be tougher. Our total work for 20 Chambers increased by more than 50%. The cost of 20 Chambers increased by 50%. And the best part was on the day of the event, the maximum no. of levels/chambers that the teams crossed, was just 15. The other 15 chambers went untouched. The effort used for the last 10 chambers could have been used to work and develop the other games/sections for the event. But we believed that things were happening as per Gods plan, and the 30 chambers attempt also was allowed by God. Probably so that we aren't too confident of ourselves and our strength, and depend on him more.

The final 4 days before the event was a complete slog. We were around 4 to 6 people who were working consistently over a period of 2 months. But now we needed every person at our disposal. It always has been the YES story, that at the end, when the pressure has reached mounting heights, everybody rushes in to help. This is just what happened even this time. Everybody rushed in to bail us out. The weekend before the event, we were up all night always. Organizing and making quiz questions, browsing the internet, designing stuff etc. It was tough and challenging, but extremely exciting.

Also, we had to make electrical buzzer systems for 2 playing arenas. The 3rd one would be the arena for 20 Chambers. Ivan uncle bailed us out here. In spite of his busy schedule, and the delay in giving him the raw materials/hardware, he made the buzzer by sitting up late into the night one day before.

The event was on a Thursday, a public holiday (Gandhi jayanti). The final onslaught began on tuesday evening. Many others and myself had decided to take the day off on Wednesday. We knew that there would be a lot of stuff to do a day before. We started out with shopping on Tuesday evening. Looking out for large boxes for 20 chambers. We wanted boxes that would look like old medieval chests. We were planning to settle for puny shoe boxes, as we had no idea about how we could get boxes that looked like treasure chests. And we needed 9 such boxes. From where in the world could we get 9 such boxes? But God is great! Annette and Bonny ventured into shoe shops, but were unsuccessful in getting shoe boxes. While trudging back defeated to base (church), they thought of asking the guy at Kiran Printers (just below our church hall) whether he had any spare boxes. He pulled out large boxes for A4 paper (which if decorated aptly would surely look like miniature medieval chests). We couldn't believe that we actually got such boxes. And later on the girls did a brilliant job of decorating the boxes. Painted them black with black blackboard paint, (which gives a matte finish). And then they gave it a metallic finish with brazen bronze powder mixed into this paint. The effect was so awesome that there were people fighting over the boxes even after the event was over. The adjoining picture shows the piled up boxes. Trust me, they look much better in real life.

My house the night before was filled with members of the YES team, all working on various tasks. Every inch of the house was occupied. The kitchen floor, the bedroom, living room, balcony etc. Only the toilet was spared. Following are some pics of the preparation in full flow one night before:

Ann & Shimona working on the Quiz questions in the bedroom. They were really under a lot of pressure to get this done ASAP.




Serena and Sarojini sorting out 'bonus question sheets', with complete concentration and focus.


Me working on the bonus questions for the last levels. The last burst...


Suraj came in late, after a long day at college, but worked like hell to get shape shifters done with his excellent talent with shapes and dimensions. He uses the only floorspace left, the balcony floor.


Elroy looks sloshed after working on GK questions all night, and now on shape shifters. He had to rush to the venue at 6:00 am the next day to set up the buzzer system with Bonz.

John entertains and provides food, before he sat down to slog on level sorting


Chrislyn and My mom use the kitchen floor, as they break their backs on the tough job of segregating level clues.


Sairith, Edi and Myself (L-R) discuss Reveal it, before Sairith & Edi took off

Other than the boxes, there were a million other things to be done, like getting prints for 30 chambers, cutting out the extra clues, printing the cards, sorting stuff into envelopes, finalizing the bonus questions. One would be able to grasp the magnitude of 30 chambers only if he/she was actually present when we were preparing for the game. There were around 2000 cards, that had to be sorted out for each team. There were around 25 different card classes. More than 10 different variety of cards, Hundreds of Level puzzles and hundreds of extra clues, all in high color laser prints. And then there was the great scorekeeping excel sheet. Filled with a bevy of formulae, this excel was completely automated, to enable the score keeper to keep extremely complex scores, built on a complex set of rules without entering a single number. Making this score sheet was a gargantuan task in itself. The sheet was 50 mb in size without the entry of scores. I have in my professional life, never ever seen an excel that is 50 mb! Getting all this done truly needed extreme forms of perseverance by the whole YES team. By the time it was the morning of the event, my body was burning with the lack of sleep. In the past 3 days, I had just slept for a total of 8 hours, averaging around 2.5 hours of sleep a day. And we had a whole day in front of us, where we had to execute all we had prepared. We hadn't even visited the venue the previous day as planned. The buzzer systems would be wired at 6:00 am. Our team was low on sleep and high on stress, as well as high on excitement and faith. The days of working hard for so long, would now be tested, would now be tried. Our efforts and prayers would pass through fire.

How would we come out? How would the event come out? What happened on the all important day? Was SW08 a success? Would 20 Chambers be criticized, or would it be loved? How would people react to reveal it? So many questions... Read all about it on the post ' The day, SW08', coming soon.

70 : 30 , the ratio of foolishness to sanity in our education System

The education board came out with an extremely absurd rule (in the context of our city) over the weekend. That 70% of the seats in a college would be reserved just for the people staying in the zone of the college (i.e. in and around the college) and 30% would be reserved for the students from out of the Zone. This is the most absurd and ridiculous rule that I have seen made by any institution/board for a long time. It surely shows how adept and smart the people running our education system are.

First of all I cannot comprehend why these guys came up with this rule? Isnt the existing reservation for the schedule casts & tribes enough that a new dimension to reservation is trying to be put in place. There doesn't seem any visible advantage for doing this in a place like India. For eg. a zone in the central suburbs of mumbai stretches from Mulund to Sion. Now there are top class colleges like MCC & Kelkar college in Mulund, and other colleges like DAV, Menon, National in Bhandup, Vikas in Vikhroli, Somaya & RJ college in ghatkopar/vidyavihar & SIES in Sion. This covers almost all the major colleges in the central suburbs. But these have been the main colleges for the students from Thane & beyond also. A student from Thane who lives a stones throw distance from MCC in mulund will be at a disadvantage to a student from Sion who lives miles away. And beyond the border of thane, there are hardly any colleges of repute.

What does a student from Thane do in this case. The first list at MCC for commerce closed at 581. The second list closed at 580 for the 30% and at 573 for the remaining 70%. In this highly competitive era, a mark here or there can make or break a students college aspirations.

If the board wants to ape the west and come up with such rules, then there should be an even distribution of colleges across the city & zones. A parity should be maintained in the quality of the colleges across zones. Only then does it make sense to introduce such a rule in a setting like ours. Let us hope that the people in control would understand this soon & act upon the same quickly.

living Green

Have you ever felt the freshness of vivid Green, through a thin curtain of translucent white?

The drizzle made the fresh green play ground look even more refreshing. The cold spray on my face washed away my weariness. The Godrej Colony truly is beautiful. I should be grateful to God, that I have had an opportunity to stay here.

The same 24 hours

Right now there are a million things on my mind and my to-do list. So many things/people to catch up with, pending stuff to be done, self-set standards to scale up to, things to learn, posts to blog, exams to study for! How I wish every day had more than the standard 24 hours there are today. How I wish I could use the 24 hours that I already have better.

Even the most successful people on earth had only 24 hrs in a day. If Mother Tereza, Mandela, Gandhi, Gates, Federer, Tendulkar, Archer, Tolkein could achieve what they have in just sets of 24 hour days, there is no reason why I should not be able to get something even worth 1/10th of what they got done.

When I met Why

Why are the worst the rulers?
Do we choose them?
Or maybe we never ruled,
and got called worst instead.

Why is the other lane always faster?
Or did I never notice?
Maybe because when my lane is faster,
I lay lost in stupid bliss.

Why is poverty every where?
Am I also poor?
If no, why cant I give,
Is my heart really pure?

Why do wars go on?
Cant the world leaders hug?
Maybe they already have,
and now together others they slug.

Why do people have to smoke?
Does it give them a kick,
Does it feel better than cancer,
or would a tumour do the trick.

Why do terrorists go spread terror?
Have their souls gone dead?
Or is it really someone else,
Or is the terror in my head?

Why do celebrities act,
even when they're off screen,
Do they always have to be good,
Arent humans sometimes mean?

Why does tea taste better hot,
well, I like iced tea,
but then if they follow what I like,
The note would not have Gandhi.

Why are policemen corrupt?
Dont they get paid enough?
Or maybe even if paid double,
even their bribes will double up.

Why do fools fall in love?
doesnt everbody else?
Well id rather be a fool,
on second thoughts, id rise in love instead.

Why are little girls made of.
sugar spice & everything nice?
Then how come when they grow up,
they show slander and malice?

Why do peoms need to have rythm?
Why do their lines need to rhyme?
Well, my poems dont have rythm.(do they?)
So when you read them you'll know they're mine.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) - Movie Review

I was out shopping today, for a windcheater, with Ann & Sheril, on a day serial shoppers would drop their shopping bags in defeat. The day was painfully wet. And shopping on a wet day wasn’t really enjoyable, considering my allergy to shopping & to the monsoons. While making rounds of various shops in the Nirmal Lifestyle malls, we decided to take a break from shopping and go catch a movie. We didn’t have too many options.

a) Sarkar Raj
b) Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Not that I disliked the earlier Sarkar movie (I am a big Godfather fan), but Indiana Jones was the unanimous choice. We got last row tickets & started the adventure ride.

The movie starts out on the plains of Nevada, in 1957, where Jones is being carried captive by some Russian soldiers. The moment I first laid my eyes on Jones, I wished he was younger. If you have seen the earlier Indiana Jones movies, you will feel the same too. The ageing Harrison Ford looks a bit old in this movie. When watching an Indiana Jones movie, one would expect quite a bit of adventure and action from the protagonist. Ford in the movie, sometimes makes you wonder "How is he gonna do it?". But then Ford wasn’t all that young in Air Force 1 & The Fugitive. This also reminded me of Rocky Balboa. I haven’t watched the movie, but watching the trailer made me wish that Stallone hadn’t made this Movie. But in the end, Ford did a decent job with the action.

The whole movie revolves around the mystery of the Crystal SKull, some artifact that is actually some kind of alien skull with supermagnetic properties, and can unlock infinite knowledge. I wont tell you anything about the story, but what I can tell you is how the movie made me feel. The initial part of the movie bored me. Jones running around, and a nuclear explosion happening, and Jones hiding in a fridge, which gets thrown out of the radioactive area. It all seemed farfetched to me. Usually most of the Hollywood action/adventure movies are farfetched, but if the visuals are convincing (unlike Mithun movies) or entertaining enough, i dont mind. In fact I enjoy such movies. But this was not at all exciting or convincing.

Things changed though with the entry of Ray Winstone, a young face for a change. The bike chase really made me smile and sit up. One of the few good Bike chases I have watched on television. After this the adventure actually begins, something like a treasure hunt. The crystal Skull must be found and then returned to its original secret place which no one knows. The action and adventure sequences didn’t make me swoon, but it was entertaining all the same. There are some sequences where the characters are fighting each other across moving jeeps and trucks. Entertaining stuff, but the whole thing has more of a video-game feel. Looks artificial. Totally against the law of physics & practicality, but then served in Hollywood style, makes reason seem obscure enough to enjoy the whole thing. Falling off cliffs into trees, and multiple falls off waterfalls without a bruise though will make you wonder what is happening.

As the move rolls on towards the end, there were certain trap-doors and secret doors that open & corridors through which Jones and the other characters of the movie pass. I expected more of such stuff, but it was good enough. The end wasn’t all that great. Again I would rate it as average.

Considering it to be a Spielberg Movie & considering the quality of movies released these days, I expected more. In comparison with his earlier films this comes out as an average Special FX entertainer. The one thing I really liked about the movie was the ambience & the feel of the old Indiana Jones movies that this film gives.

I’d give the movie a B- rating. If you really wanna throw away your money, go watch it on the big screen, for very soon you will be able to watch it on Star Movies or HBO for free.

The Chained Generation

They whizz past my eyes, with an urgency that seems unwarranted for. Some sweaty, some dark, some tall, some tired, some angry. People. Different faces, different thoughts, different aspirations, different lives. One fate. I watch.

The view from the foot-over-bridge at the thane station isn’t entertaining. Otiose luggage leaning on my knees, people scampering around me en-masse, lonesome I stand in that crowd, awaiting my uncle. He should have been back with the tickets by now. Maybe the line at the ticket counter is long. Its almost 7 in the evening, ‘rush hour’. A rush to catch that train, to meet a beloved, to escape the city agony or maybe just to get there… faster. But are they really getting anywhere? I watch.

As the trains crawl into the station, people jump out & clamber onto the FOBs like animals. They push and pull, and don’t care if they hurt anyone. I am pushed to one side and am fighting to keep my luggage with me. Opposing a torrent of agitated & frustrated flesh, it is a losing war that is being fought here. An old man falls, a woman shrieks and concern & human emotion dampen the sweaty unrest & turmoil. People try controlling themselves and make room for that feeble old man. I watch.

Yes, Love still remains. These are not machines that are rushing somewhere. Each one was is human being. From the north Indian young struggler who doesn’t know whether he would meet dinner, to the maharashtrian middle class wife, who is struggling to meet dinner on time, everyone is as human as I am. Emotions, egos, a desire to excel, failure, regret, hope, joys, passions and… a right to be saved. I watch.

I stand on the banks of this river of men. I look at the sweaty water flow by. I am watching hundreds of worlds passing by. Each person has his own, and is the king, the centre of that beautiful world. But where are they heading to? towards doom? So many! They would flow out into the dark sea! How horrible this is. I wanted to help them. I am supposed to be a ‘fisher of men’, ain’t I. I lift my hand to pull out someone from this river. But my hand refused to budge. It is numb, frozen, bound, with chains of respectability, shyness, honour and selfishness. I can see the blood of Jesus on my hands, but the chains won’t budge. They won’t let me use the power of the blood. The chains cry out to me… “Its useless, they wont believe you! Do you want to be mocked! You cant convince someone who is born in a different religion. No way!” I struggle a while and give up, look up. I watch.

And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. – Mathew 28:18-20

The crowd starts to dim, my uncle is back with the tickets. I walk towards the train, disappointed, chained. I am going back to my world. What about all those people and the dark sea. There probably is a better ‘fisher of men’ downstream, I say & try to comfort myself. After all I am a part of this chained generation, aint I?

My Crime against Time

I want to stop you so bad,
I want to turn you back,
but how do I hold you?
you slip off like cold dew.

Testing times you make me see,
just because I dont respect thee.
Have all the successful been thy slave,
Is that why my success lies in a grave?

Ticking away, ticks me so!
unstoppable ticking,I so well know,
Just a little needle, that goes tick tock,
Makes the world spin like a top.

Maybe im wrong, maybe im blind,
I try to hide, when I should find.
I wouldnt find turnips, in a field of maize,
I wouldnt find darkness, in the midst of rays.

Maybe I should look at doing things,
with passion, desire, attention and zing.
Maybe fighting time, is like burning water,
Maybe its not about the fight, but about the potter.

Klueless3

My internet connection got restored after ages, and I am making the best use of it. Playing Klueless3. Kudos to the IIM guys who made this game.

I discovered Klueless a few days back and im hooked on to it already. This is something that has tangled up my grey matter. The arteries to my head are working overtime. Time has become irrelevant, and I am up awake at 4 a.m., struggling on Level 10 b, trying to decode some crap. Did 4 levels in an hour, not bad. But I waned to go uptill Level 15 before I slept. Am blogging after a real big gap. Hoping to post some stuff up soon.