King Stories

Well, I have become a member in one of the lending libraries here. I got attracted by their online cataloging and door delivery facilities. But already I am keeping the books beyond the due dates. Work got a bit tight [ isn't that what every tom, dick harry says? self important, ignorantly proud humans, poor species we!] .  But work is worship, yes. And it’s not like too too too busy. Just a little busy. So I couldn’t psot anything for past few days. But I somehow found time to read three novels and here are the reviews(No points for guessing who the author of these novels is ):

 

• Salem’s Lot - One of King’s older novels. As usual most of the setting is esoteric and I couldn’t relate to it. But still, it was a real scary type horror. Midway through the novel, you will definetely feel apprehensive to look behind towards the ajar door for you would irrationally believe, yes, believe and almost feel the presence of some pale, dead being coming to get you. Unlike the other novels I’ve read, there wasn’t much depth in characters which was partly the reason I did not like it. I have read the Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson which along with Dracula seems to be King’s inspirations for this novel. It is about vampires and is as scary as they can ever be. The childhood incident that the protaganist suffers is spine chilling. If you want a good scare and forget all about it, then do read this novel. There are no subtle messages or cues nor is there any great psychological import in the novel. In that sense it was too unKingly. Near the ending it got a bit boring and trite.
• Duma Key – Again, I am writing this review mostly to talk about this novel. It was awesome! Among the ones I’ve read in recent times, I can’t remember enjoying any other novel the same way as I enjoyed this. A building contractor who loses a hand in a grisly accident goes to live for a while in a seemingly calm and serene island off the coast of Florida. Following the advice of his shrink, he starts painting which was once just a childhood hobby. He starts painting so well that the local art gallery agrees to host an exhibition of his work and he paints at about one painting a day, ‘as if in an assembly line’. And thus ensue some wonderful and terrible things. I don’t want to spoil the suspense by even telling what happens after that. The characters seem too real to be fiction. The description of the accident and the post accident trauma is so well described. King suffered from an accident himself in 1999 and it was pure luck that he even survived. So the description of the suffering seems just too authentic.  The protaganist meets Wireman, who is the helper for a senile woman who is the only other occupant in that tiny island. Honestly, I don’t even know why King writes horror. Remove the horror part and this is a beautiful, delicious, enjoyable, memorable novel. Even with the horror, it is all that. And anyways he says he doesn’t have a choice.  The recovery, the psychological profiles of all the characters from the protaganist to Wireman to the old woman who was once the little girl is so well captured. Wireman is so lovable and I often remember things Wireman says throughout the novel like “We fool ourselves so well that we can do it for a living” or “God punishes us for what we cannot imagine” and so on. I did not like the ending very much, but that too was very Kingly and overall I place this alongwith The Stand and The Green Mile as the best King novels and definitely one of my all time favourites!
• Hearts in Atlantis – Well, this is a book which has many interconnected stories and novellas. It is about the US in the 60s. About characters who are all invariably involved with the Vietnam war. There is lot of character depth especially in the first novella about Bobby Garfield (“Low Men in Yellow Coats”).  But again, knowing so little about the war, so much of the book went over my head. But the characters are again memorable like Pete Riley addicted to card game, Bobby Garfield, an adolescent with a single mother who finds such a good friend in Ted Bruagtigan, his new neighbour, Carol Gerber, Bobby’s childhood sweetheart who later becomes a student terrorist fighting for ‘peace’ in Vietnam. There is too much of disconnectedness because of the different time frames across which the stories are spanned. But being an ignoramus when it comes to Vietnam, I couldn’t really get much into the story. The part I enjoyed most were the little Bobby’s correlating the incidents of Lord of the Flies to the events in his life.

 

Coorg Trip!

And so, after a week of back and forth mails planning the trip (Well, at least talking some other nonsense replying to that group mail titled Reg Coorg Trip), the trip finally took off when the guys from Chennai arrived here on 1st night (Well, the night of first of october!:)). Seven of us stayed that night in Madan’s house and predictably enough, we chatted well into the night and slept at around two thirty after talking about everything in the world from Karthik’s ‘extra curricular’ activities to well, you know the kind of stuff guys talk when they meet, yes, the techniques, philosophies, science behind………well, a lot of stuff (Madan, we will all forever remember that theory you propounded:) ). And then, we slept off, trying to steal the blanket from each other while the other slept. And I was unceremoniously, cruelly woken up at 4 00 AM by Manoj and I passed the favour to others and so we started, some of us bathed, others pretended and we reached the bus stand and caught the bus on time before seven(I guess that was the least exciting part of the trip! From then on, it was edge of seat thriller ).

The journey was mostly comfortable, with the bus stopping in a very decent high way restaurant where we munched some tasty breakfast of Idlis and Vada. We reached Madikeri (the main town in Coorg) at around 2. There was no steep raise or relief nor were there any major hairpin bends. Coorg isn’t exactly Ooty or Kodai, yet, there it sprung in front of our lives, lush and lively with the bright green spreading across the entire region, brightened further as if as for welcoming us, by the light showers. We had booked a taxi in advance and started our sight seeing spree.

The first destination was Byla Kuppe, where there is a Tibetan settlement (a Buddhist monastry). Well, I have seen Buddhist monastries in Darjeeling and it wasn’t new. But the giant golden statues of Buddha and two others whom we couldn’t identify were majestic. We spent spent our time mostly clicking away at our cameras, standing in front of the Buddha, as if we were movie stars arriving at the Cannes. The next destination was Dubare/ Nisarghadhama. It has boating and water rafting in one of the parts where the Kaveri gallops fast through the woods in a muddy, brown stream. As luck would have it, the water rafting was not available at the time and we did not care much about the ordinary boat ride which was the alternative. Moreover, there was too much crowd and we just spent the time, watching the crowd(:)) and the elephants on the other bank that seemed to be taking an evening dip in the river.

I had developed a head ache by the time we reached the next destination- Raja seat. The Raja of the place used to visit this place in the evenings and would sit there and watch the sun lower itself into the blanket of surrounding mountains. We did not have much hopes about the place as it was cloudy and more so because Karthik said it would be good. And the place was too crowded and so we thought it was a boring place. It was getting very cold and the rain was on the verge of growing from a mere drizzle to a downpour. And so casually, we looked down and there was this path. And no one was going that way. And so started the first of the memorable events of the trip, as we started walking down that path, pushing away the thorny bushes that were blocking the path. There were steps that were wet and slippery and we held each other’s hands tight, to be sure to pull the other off to in case one of us fell:). And then we were awestuck by the beauty of it as there were few isolated view points, standing bare in front of us, offering splendid view of the mountains around and the roads below us, like black snakes in the dusky darkness. The vehicles moving in the road were mere dragon flies buzzing slowly along the snakes. And the wind blew into our faces hearty kisses and we felt on top of the world. We yelled out loud, as if we had discovered the existence of the place (Though it was true in a way as the others had not bothered going down the path that evening). Many people watching us from the Raja seat, immediately rushed down the path, to enjoy the view, after we tasted it of course (He he). We kept moving from one view point to another, jumping over trees and holding on to bushes to avoid falling off the cliffy edge and of course taking those ’solo’ and ‘group’ pics! There were a large group of people who looked like college students, dancing in the park near the place. We were  all reminded of our IV and the camp fire in Munnar. It was exactly one year back (Sep 29-Oct2??).
We reached the Pompei valley resort where we had booked two rooms for the night. It was lush and green and the two adjacent cottages were comfortable and warm amidst the wet, cold trees. All the guys played five cards late into the night and I was trying to sleep a bit to cure the head ache. We had Chapthis with hot Panneer masala. I slept off early that night, missing the cards game and of course the chat!

The next day we started from Pompei valley after fighting with the haughty owner of the place over the extra ned they had kept hidden under the cots. We caught bus and came to Madikeri. It was pouring with increasing intensity and we had a row over whether to take a taxi for the whole day or to Abbey falls through taxi and then take the bus to Ramcad estate. We had gotten the bad news that the Nagarhole forest safari was cancelled due to the rains. We decided(did we?:)) to take taxi to Abbey falls. Abbey falls looks like a mini Niagara falls. Ok, that is a bit exaggeration. But, yes, It was a splendid cataract(gre effect). It was too fierce to bathe in and when we walked across the narrow bridge, taking numerous solo snaps, pushing away the rest of the crowds. The mist raising from the falls left us pleasantly bedraggled and some of us were covering our cameras with our jerkins. Nature’s beauty was abundant, romantic and seductive. One of us mumbled “Evlo naal da inthaa maari idathukku naama pasangala mattum varadhu *SIGH*”.
We had lunch at a ‘roof top’ restaurant, with most of the guys joining us, the vegetarians(it was a purattasi saturday, so no meat!), watching the others who were gulping down the chicken and prawns with ravenous eyes. A cute kid of about two provided us entertainment with its elaborate eating skills in the next table.

The bus journey from Madikeri to Kutta( the nearest bus stop to the Ramcad estate) was the most myserious part of the trip. The same paddy fields, bridge, and the slanting road towards the right kept reappearing about dozen times during the course of three hours! We all still believe the driver was taking us around the hill in circles, maybe fulfilling some special venduthal. The road was bad and we were all thankful when we got down at Kutta. A jeep was waiting to take us to Ramcad estate which was kilometres inside a large patch of thick green. It had very beautiful cottages and one of the three cottages was made of wood from top to bottom. “Ideal place for honeymoon” Most guys agreed. After a successful attempt at pushing Karthik over the slippery algae filled ground near the cottage(Kudos to Gokul), we started yet another game of 5-cards and chat. Mysteriosly, Navin kept winning all the games. Should find out his trick!

The next day we woke up at around 7 and walked in the thin drizzle to Iruppu falls, the FINAL DESTINATION of our trip. We reached a narrow stream that was disappointingly ordinary. There was a 3 foot wide metal bridge to walk over to the other side where there were steps leading to the falls. And a tree had fallen right across the bridge due to the previous day’s rains (Whole of North Karnataka was down with floods and whenever anyone got signal, we got calls enquiring about our safety!). We had to duck and crawl over to reach the other side and the icing on the cake was that a bee hive had been crushed by the fall and hundreds of bees were lying there on the floow of the bridge. We had to walk or rahter crawl through them! Though I was shit scared of the honey bees, I eventually crossed it too, motivated mostly by SAB. And then we had to cross ten feet of the tree’s wreckage on the other side which was infested with much more bees than we could count. We walked over the slippery branches and reached the steps. The steps lead to the falls and further almost to the begining of the falls. It is a gigantic, tall, three stage falls pouring ferociously from a great height. We reached the half way point which was reachable through the steps and drank the sweet, fresh water of the Kaveri, much before she came down to the plains and crawled into our polluted cities. After many solos and Aayutha ezhuthu poses (at the top there was not enough room for group pics!), we walked down, musing about the mystery family that had gone before us. They had disappeared completely and after a while we saw them behind us, watching us from below ominous umbrellas, seemingly plotting how to push us all over. They seemed so much like the movieish “Vaanga naanga romba kaalama intha edathula thaniyaa thaan irunthom, neegalum ulla kudhuchu ingayae thangidunga!” types. On the way back, the bees finally woke up and stung Nari and Sab.
We walked to the resort, deciding to skip bath as it was getting ‘late’ for the ‘1:30′ bus. We had a heavy brunch of Idlis, Kaarabath and Bread omlette. After eating, we all got into a elongated photography session and were relaxed as we had hired a jeep to take us to Madikeri bus stand. And so, we started from the place at about 11 10, with the driver assuring us that we’ll reach in two hours. He was telling us about a couple who had hired the taxi the previous day, of the places they had visited. Vyanad district of Kerala was a mere 3 KM away and we all listened to the places to visit there, me nearing the climax of the novel I had been reading, when Manoj announced “Hey! Bus is at 1!”. And the driver said it was impossible to reach that soon. Still, he managed to reach upto eighty in that god forsaken road. After an initial accusation and counter accusation session, we all sat on the edge of our seats, hoping we would reach there safe in the first place and hoping we would catch the bus. Ajay and Nari were betting on whether or not we will reach on time. One of us got the idea of calling up the bus stand and asking them to wait. They said they will wait for only ten minutes at the maximum. We reached at 1: 15 and caught the bus AFTER it rushed out of the bus stand. The driver and conductor scolded us in Kannada for a long time and we were unscathed and happy because of our not knowing the language. It was a fitting end to the trip. Cheers to Coorg:)!

The Stand – Review

I have wanted to read this novel for quite some time. I had read reviews that said this was the best novel written
by Stephen King so far. King has been one of my favourite authors and I wanted to know what his best would be like.
Moreover, this novel was rated in many top 100 novels lists(Randomhouse:http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html, Best 100 novels: http://www.thebest100lists.com/best100novels/), especially the lists where people got to vote instead of some stupid snobs who would not accept any work other than those literary 1000 page novels without plot and with
highly ornate 1000 word descriptions of how the leaves fell from the tree to the ground on one fine day. There are such literary classics that, maybe, are too good. But rejecting popular fiction merely because it is understood and appreciated by all instead of an elite group is nothing short of ignorant snobbery. Some great man said “The true test of greatness of art is its ability to be understood by the masses”. I have hated some of the novels he wrote like Gerald’s game or Cujo (I threw the former before I was half-way through). I generally don’t like his ’situational horror’ novels in which the narration seems to be in realtime as the characters get stuck in a horrific sitation (Gerald’s game- The protaganist is hand cuffed to the bed, in a room with her dead husband, killed by a reflexive blow during their foreplay. Cujo- A woman who has committed adultery gets stuck with her baby inside a car for 3 days and a rabid(haunted) dog waits for her to open the door). There is intense pyschological depth in his characters and narration. My favourites from him are ‘Riding the bullet’(a novella), The Green Mile (adapted into a beautiful movie with Tom Hanks playing the protaganist) and now ‘The Stand’. He is accused often of
being too wordy and the older version that I read had 720 pages. He released it again in 90s with the initially cut portions included which I read was around 1200 pages long. But I thought it was an enjoyable read and did not get stagnant or boring anywhere along though it definitely not the ‘thriller’ types.

Though it starts off with most of the population dying from a accidental flu virus outbreak which was being developed as a biological weapon, it is mostly about humans, especially Americans, and about human behaviour. The survivors of the apocalypse split into two groups of evil and good and the story is the the epical tale of the struggle between the two forces, sometimes both inside the same individual. Though there are too many characters in the story, each of them are so well portrayed and towards the end of the novel, it feels like we’ve lived with the characters and miss them. For me, characters are more important than even the plot and the ones in this novel are alive and human and real. They make real follies and are real heroes or real villains. I think only few master story tellers like King bring out the characters to life so perfectly and effortlessly. Next comes the descriptions which are on par with the characterization though I felt most of the references to places, people, culture, music are esoteric and could be appreciated more by Americans. But he is an American author and probably wrote for American readers alone at that time. So the descriptions of the geography and culture of the different states, though rich, were things I could not relate to.

King is infinitely insightful of human behaviour and the way the characters respond and progress through the story is realistic and serves perfectly to move the story ahead. In the final few chapters we feel the pain and the loss and more importantly the greatness that an ordinary human being can achieve. He shows that the people in the ‘evil’  group aren’t fully evil. Towards the climax, the characters ripen completely and we see them raise to glory, each in his own way(Especially the ‘evil’ group characters like Trachcan, Lloyd and the ‘good’ ones like Larry, Stu, Ralph, Glen).  We end up sympathising with all the characters which is the highest achievement for a novel. This is a novel that deserves its place up there on the top 100. Do read it. I will lend it to you if you want (though it’s a tattered second hand copy ).

Long time no see

Hi all readers! It’s been long since my last post. From now I will post much often, trust me[ As if people are dying to read You! ]. But I have decided NOT to publicize my posts with orkut/facebook or status messages. So if you are really interested in reading stuff I write [you have poor taste?], then kindly check it once in a while. This is for the simple reason that I am pouring forth more and more personal views and though I am not scared much about speaking aloud my thoughts, I want to avoid any complications coming from my views reaching people I know who are not able to appreciate the won’t be able to appreciate the content here[arrogant fool!]. Too tired to post more today. Will post tomorrow. take care!

Profanities-What the Duck

It is with considerable reluctance that I venture forth on this particular post. I have always restricted myself to writing about things that I face in every day life or questions that arise at times when I am sleeping with eyes open ( call it silent contemplation)

[So you face hunters everyday?]

Well, if we include the sadistic urges that sometimes simmer in the darker chambers of our mind, then even hunters was about something I could relate to and have experienced. So this post is about profanities, abusive or foul language, ketta vaarthaigal, ‘bad words’ etc.,

Speech is the (Ok, One of the) vehicle through which all our thoughts, ideas, emotions, fears reaches other people. And the average person (Is there really an average human being??? Aren’t we all special or weird in one way or the other? Why to label the vast humanity with the average human?) spends a substantial amount of his time talking. We talk when we’ve a valid reason to echo our ideas to the other person, or when we feel bored and lazy, when we feel apprehensive and tensed, or when we are enthusiatic and full of dreams, or when we’re too exasperated and and fed up with people around. In short we talk most of the days, most of the time since most of our lives involves interaction with other people for varied reasons. And foul language is a habit that tarnishes this important outlet we have to the external world.

When I was in school I don’t remember a single instance when I used those foul word. Most of the people I saw using profanities were disgusting creatures and I did not want to sound like them ever. And my refraining from using foul language was stemmed from a misplaced sense of attachment between foul language and darkness of heart (Why is this incessant obsession we seem to have with attaching anything good to bright, light, white and anything bad or horrific to dark, black? Did it stem from the racist feelings people had about the white men being superiors? Ok I’ll reserve that to a different post:)). After getting into college, I found so many nice people, who were just like me in most aspects, so fluently mouth all those supposedly ‘bad-words’ in such mellifluous tone that it no longer seemed like a bad thing to do. In fact beyond a point, it appeared to be a ‘cool’ thing to do. But soon I became an inveterate foul speaker and the inevitable happened. The habit gets so ingrained in my speech that soon it started appearing in all the wrong places. There is a level of decency some people expect in speech and to them such profanities mean a blemish in the character. Though I never will accept foul language as anything more than a habit born from company of people using foul language (just as smoking or drinking is a result of mixing with people who do it) and neither of these are any metrics to judge a person’s character. As long as you don’t affect any other person, what you do isn’t wrong. (Sounds like naalu paerku nalladhu nadkumna ethuvum thappu illa:)). But in case of profanities, when it becomes second nature, you do hurt other people. Maybe such foul language is part and parcel of the ‘friends-gang’ and everyone inside our friend’s circle know that you don’t mean anything when you use the words, but people who aren’t used to such language may take it seriously and get hurt. And anything when it becomes a habit isn;t really good as we’ve no control of it. So now I’ve decided not to use foul language. It takes a while to get something like that out of the system. But anything about our self can be changed (It is the one hope that fuels us to go on). But I would definitely not suggest using another word for the supposedly bad ones: like what the fish for what the fuck, or son of a gun for son of a bitch(Have you ever wondered why all bad words seem to relate to sex and infidel behavior and prostitutes? ). Instead I feel it’s better if we can gain control of our speech and maintain our nerve and not let the situation get the better of us, then we’re more likely to succeed in overcoming this bad habit. They say the more we try to suppress something, the more we get inclined to do it. So IMHO the best approach would be to, as far as possible, divert the mind and allow it to cool down and come to senses when an arguement takes a nasty turn when you’re sure it is going to disintegrate into foul tongued brawl. But that’s just my HO and also it is highly imperative that we do not judge a person based merely on the words they use, for hidden behind all those smooth words and pleasant smiles may be the cruelest of souls just as some of the most magnanimous hearts may have a window of rude tongue and unrefined language. Perhaps my best advice is NEVER to judge a person:). For any such judgements are anyways going to be mostly wrong and what the other person is seriously none of our business and we have enough things to worry about ourselves:). All these are just my HO. Hope I am

not sounding too smart-assy (Though I don’t mind sounding like that. I am a smart ass!). Though there are many more things I want to talk about, I have work today, so will post in length soon.

P.S: I am so enthralled at the sudden increase in number of site visits (ya 45-50 is so much higher than the usual 4-5 I used to have!). Thank you, one and all for reading the blog! And I would be so much happier if you can leave a comment on the post (You can use profanities if the post is too bad:) I would

accept it). Hoping you will continue to read and hoping I will get better at verbalising the obviously hazy and distorted thoughts arising in my barren mind into something comprehendible and sane( Ok Sanity is too high an aim!). Keep Reading!!

The Hunters

Is hunting wrong? By hunting, I don’t mean the onslaught of a tiger on a herd of deer. That is fully justified by the basic instinct of hunger (Yes, hunger is the basic instinct. In fact it is a incarnartion of the survival instinct and is thousands of times stronger than urge for sex. We wouldn’t know. For most of us, hunger means just the few hours delay in meal. We feel some emptiness in stomach and a little exhaustion. That is the maximum we have ever experienced. But starvation of days is a totally different story. Mind, despite its sophistications is free to think and act only when the body is intact. If the body is starved of food, all the shackles of civilisation breaks off and humans are transformed to the primitive animals we were. We have heard of such accounts of how few sailors who got stuck in sea for months started killing each other and satisfying their hunger with human flesh[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism].) That kind of killing for food seems justifiable. I am talking about the so called hunting for pleasure – to show humans or the hunters are superiors, to hear the animal howl as it breathes its last and to smell its dead flesh as the hunters tear away the horn or skin for soevinirs. Maybe all of this is a manifestation of a deep rooted sadistic desire that is present in all of us (Like Unakulla Muzhuchutrukkara athey mirugam thaan enakulla thoongikittu irukku). Maybe years of so called civilisation and conditioning that has come about, promoted by people who are themselves in constant danger from stronger people has reduced our animosity to an almost indiscernible quantity. But all of us have seen even kids less than three and four years crushing ants and smiling in joy and awe at the tremendous impact and commotion his tender fingers could cause. Is it something to be ashamed of, this inherent urge to harm? Or do we need to hide it behind layers of feigned civilisation and generosity? We have the power to suppress another being, but will we stand still and accept the just possibility that someone more stronger than us can and will harm us for pleasure? Does a part of our ‘refined’ selves still crave for the cruel and shocking pleasures of inflicting pain on other beings?

Bloody Loser Syndrome

So…. what do i write about? whatever it is i have to keep it short for both our benefit. Yesterday was a tough day. I went to college to collect few certificates. Though I haven’t been out of college for too long now (100 days isn’t very long) and did not expect to feel any nostalgia on seeing the campus and buildings, what I felt was something I never expected to feel : regret.

B.E course takes four years to complete (Even more if you get enough U grades, but passing the subjects in Computer Science dept is a very easy job ([yeah  right... I remember how easy it was to pass Multicore!]). But what is and will be a difficult task is to study well and to get good grades. There is a bloody-loser-syndrome(BLS) which most of the people like me get while in college. It is characterised by dismissal of the grading system as poor, subjects as trivial (or irrelevant), teachers as idiots and anyone who bothers to study as pandus. This syndrome is highly contagious and addictive, and people even get a feeling that it is ‘COOL’ to suffer from BLS. We (From here on we means victims of BLS. If  you were never a victim then don’t read this post!) become the cynics and critics finding fault with the system  and the rest of the crowd who seem to respect it. Our devtion to  BLS is not from a conscious decision made after immense consideration and analysis of principles. It usually stems from the chasmic void in our personality created by well-nurtured laziness and absence of focus or foresight about future.

[Phew! You think that's good English???? No bro far from it. It's bad writing!]

And so we, the people suffering from BLS, mock at people who are good at their work and relentlessly ridicule any attempt by anyone to be sincere in class. BLS also results in I-Know-it-all or smartass symptom. We start passing judgements about everything and start advising to anyone passing by. Though some of my observations about BLS may be specific and may not hold good for every BLS victim, I just want to outline few more ailments that we, the BLS victims, suffer from.  We are incapable of hard work and argue that cramming up for ten hours a day and getting a cgpa of ten isn’t big deal: I have heard this from myself and many more victims. But we the BLS people never ever get any decent CGPA, though we comment on how easy it is to get it by sheer hard work and how hard work isn’t something great and how it’s better not to slog for days for grades and instead be satisfied with what we get with a night’s preparation. Also this ridiculing of hard work and diligent guys seems to imply that we the BLS are intelligent people! We’re damn geniuses who don’t need to slog for fouteen hours a day. But the truth is we’re dumb, more dumb than those guys slogging out for hours and most of us are too scared to accept that eventuality and try to soothe ourselves with lies. We even stoop so low as to convince ourselves that we did not try hard enough or else w’d have done better in things. Maybe BLS makes us do just less than what is needed so that we can put the blame on lack of effort than to accept the failure as a lack of inherent talent. And so BLS never allows us to put in our best and even prepares us so well to face mediocrity.

  Since BLS is contagious, we find most of our friends infected too and sometimes, we try to infect those who’re focussed and so ‘NOT Cool’ types according to our own smartass definition of coolness. We’re soothe ourselves looking at people who’re more severely BLS than us. We put a mental hierarchy of BLS. Like A,X,… > me. I am > B,C… In one instance when ‘A’ who is supposed to be ‘better’ than us does bad and we do better, we rejoice. And when someone in that list who usually do poor than us, we get alarmed. It doesn’t matter to BLS people if everyone in the list is sinking down their respective seas, all that matters is the relative depths. BLS also suffer from ‘herd mentality’. We blindly follow the crowd and believe in majority opinion to be absolute truth, though we always try to contradict majority opinion to feel important and wise. Such vanities are part of BLS and are most difficult to cure. 

Though short ([thankfully so!]) I hope I have described BLS well. Apply your mind to see if you do suffer from it, and if you feel you do then start hunting for a cure! You may have expected me to come up with a cure too (Come on! BLS people are always full of advice for others, remember? And I have confessed I suffer(ed) from BLS too), but I am going to disappoint you by saying I am not going to suggest anything. You most probably got into this viscious mess on your own and my only piece of wisdom which I keep telling myself is: YOU GOTTA GET OUT OF THE MESS THAT YOU CREATE ON YOUR OWN! BLS isn’t a good thing to have. I have realised it after losing much from it. I hope you realise it sooner and check yourself in time…

The next post will be the much awaited (Awaited by just me. He he… I am looking forward to writing it!)….. About Me… Which will be an autobiography of a mediocre soul(that’s me!)… It’ll be long and would cover the entire journey of how I ended up in the current situation with respect to my physical, mental, spiritual, professional, emotional and love life ( Always feels good to pretend one exists:)!).

Panri Kaychal

I get a feeling that the name ‘Swine flu’ sounds too cheerful and elegant. I think  Panri Kaychal (Pig flu (Why do i bother translating as if I have readers who don’t know tamil?! The couple of people whom I force to read know tamil really well… Translation has beocme a force of habit. Will put a check on that!)) describes A(H1N1) influenza much better. Off late the west has been passing off all its curses to us too. First the recession (Well… that was unavoidable.. was it? The master suffers, the slave too should. It’s only just.), now the flu! And so after reading about it in papers, forwarded mails and watching footages in TV, the impact of what was happening still didn’t reach me until I saw it – Half the people in Bangalore streets wearing the ugly, disposable masks. I wanted to yell at them “Ungala maari panningalukku thaanda panri kaichal varum, naan singam da!”(Years of watching tamil cinema did this to me! Kudos to all Vijaykanth dialogue writers).  Around nine people in Bangalore have been diagnosed with the flu and we’ve had people  dying of the flu in Pune and Chennai and many other places. And so yesterday afternoon, when myself and my friend went for our usual lunch time walk,  I was disappointed to find all those beautiful faces in the road covered in those masks ( to watch them is obviously one of the chief motives of the walking habit). But I got quite intimidated when my friend bought half a dozen of those disposable masks for him and his family and warned me too since I was planning to travel by night bus to Chennai. And so I bought the masks too, which cost around ten ruppees and the shopkeeper insisted that we should use it for a day and throw it off though we were planning to keep them for much longer. They are in great demand and the stock was up in the first three shops we enquired. And so last night, when I left for the Shanthi Nagar bus stand, I wore the displosable mask, tying three knots aroung my neck as if it was a thali . I had imagined I would be stared at for wearing it, but I soon realised that more than half the people were wearing it and so it seemed natural. I got into the bus and kept the mask on, while I waited hoping for some nice good looking chick to occupy the seat next to me ( We always hope for that. Don’t We? And one of my friends even has a theory that the bus and railway booking software sees to it that young, nice girls  don’t get seats next to potential oglers like us. Don’t know how it works. But in my experience I have found it to be true all the time! We are doomed to sit next to that ugly, fat guy who’ll occupy half of our seat too:(. But this time, to my amusement, the seat next to me was vacant through out).

 I found it hard to breathe with the mask on and in some time I found myself choking in my own breath and I could even notice that it stinked. So mask served another purpose of revealing my bad breath. But I was steadfast and did not remove the mask till I reached Chennai and got down from bus, away from all crowd. I know that chances of getting swine flu is less than the chances of dying from road accident on a given day. But it is a non zero probability. So why take chances. And I found that the mask also protects from smoke and pollution and stink (external, environmental, other people’s). Anyways use your discretion to decide whether you are planning to wear one or not. Moreover I’ve been reading articles that say masks are useless (Like the one I have linked below).  Good luck with your flu precautions.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sciw-swine-masks28-2009apr28,0,4722242.story

En Uyir thozhi

Honestly,  I wanted to name this post ‘The Mating Call’. But I already have been criticized for being too cheesy (after mentioning Rahasiya in the post on religion:)) and so checked myself. For the past ten days I have been holding back this ever growing urge, to type away yet another post, pouring all the imperfections of my thought process into words, as I was supposed to be busy doing something else.

LOVE: What are the pictures that come to your mind when you hear the word? Are they images of couples making out in public providing free show to anyone passing by (You can see a lot of it in Bangalore and Kolkata(What else use do you think people put the gardens surrounding the Victoria memorial to?))? Or are they of those cute teens eyeing the other fondly, too scared to even speak to the other, whose eyes reflect their awe and admiration for the other? Or is it of those middle aged couples who walk every morning in the neibourhood park, the wife probably thinking how bad the husband’s snoring has become and the husband probably comparing his wife’s dull, sagging face to that of his gorgeous new colleague? Or for those of you who were fortunate to be blessed with a touch of love’s magic maybe you think of that one special person, and for those unlucky ones who loved and yet couldn’t end up living with that special one, maybe you gulp to swallow that constriction in throat and to the unluckiest of all who loved the wrong person and got hurt, yet who couldn’t forget or stop loving the one person, maybe you fight back the tears of disappointment and pain. And for those know-it-all smartasses who feel love is for the meek and immature([sounds like you Arjun! Especially the 'ass' part] ), for whom it is the epitome of human fallacy, the one mistake that should never be committed, the word evokes a logh sigh of pity for the ordinary mortals who fall into such ‘emotional traps’. And yes, that is the topic I’ve take n up for today’s post (I’ll anyways digress from it. I am not capable of focussing on a topic for more than thirty seconds:)).

I have always answered the question “What is love?” that appeared in a couple of ‘personality quizzes’ i took in facebook with ‘Love without condoms results in babies’. I thought the answer was cheeky and it’s in my personality to blaspheme. (But love without condoms does cause babies: Proof: Look at the abundant population all around U and anyways even condoms have a 3 % failure rate right?!){Hey Arjun!!! You have openly talked about sex! Abhacharam! You’ll be thought of as a pervert(quite rightly so) from now! Nee ivlo kettavana!!!}

So apart from the obvious physical aspect(some people feel it’s offensive to call it lust) that attracts people of opposite sex(Not necessarily. Come on! They’ve right to marry in many countries now. Why condemn them?) to each other, what is it that binds a guy to a girl(ignoring the other same-same cases for convenience)? Is it an emotional bonding created out of mutual fear of loneliness or the eternal fear about future and the possibility of sharing it with someone, or is it a mere excitement of realising that someone enjoys your company and finds you special (for some unknown reason)? Or is it the inertia of not wanting to change a habit and merely being with the same person though you one no longer feels anything special for the other? Or is it true that the male and the female hearts(and minds) were made to complete the other  just like their bodies are? Or is it after nothing more than the same urge that the street dog feels as it fights with the other males in the locality to get the one odd female dog that had strayed into the area? Or is it really a stroke of magic, the touch of God’s magic wand?

All these questions as all other questions are always subjective and I am not going to make any expert comments on any of them as obviously I am no expert in this.

[How unlike you to not make an 'expert' comment!]

Some questions aren’t meant to be answered by reasoning and logic and require a life time of living and experiencing things to understand the meaning of, leave alone attempting to answer.

But instead I want to just quote a few lines from few songs that come to my mind when I ponder about these questions and I will spare you any long commentary and end the post with these lines from my favourite songs:)

“Unnai thozhi enbatha, uyiril paathi enbatha…

Ithai Kaadhal enbatha en thedal enbatha….

Oru megam polavey manam mithanthu poguthey..

mazhai nindra pothilum mara kilaigal thooruthey…”   /*Movie:Kadhal Kondein*/

“Un kannil Neer Vazhinthaal en nenjil udhiram kottuthadi…

En kannil paavai andro kannamma en uyir nindra andro..

Kaala sumathingi polay un maarbil enai thaangi …

Veezhum kanneer thudaipai athil en mibbal thaniyumadi..

Paerukku pillai undu .. Paesum paechukku sontham undu…

En thevaiyai yaar arivaar… Unnai pol theivam ondre ariyum…”/*Movie: Vietnam Veedu Lyricist:Kannadasan*/

“Neerttum nerathil en annai aaginrai…Vaalattum nerathil en pillai aagindrai…

Naanaga thottalo mullagi pogindrai… Neeyaga thottalo poovaga aagindrai…

En thannir en kanneer yellamay nee anbe…

En inbam en thunbam ellamay nee anbe…

En Vaazhvum en saavum un kannin asaivilay…” /*Movie: Alaipayuthey*/

“Tere naam se jee loon
Tere naam se marr jaaun
Tere naam se jee loon
Tere naam se marr jaaun
Teri jaan ke sadke mein kuchh aaisa kar jaaun
Tune kya kar dala marr gayi main mitt gayi main
Ho ji ha ji ho gayi main
Teri deewani deewani
Teri deewani deewani” /*Album:Kailasa Singer:Kailash Kher (What a voice!!!)*/

“It’s amazing
How you can speak
Right to my heart
Without saying a word,
You can light up the dark
Try as I may
I could never explain
What I hear when
You don’t say a thing
The smile on your face
Lets me know
That you need me
There’s a truth
In your eyes
Saying you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says
You’ll catch me
Whenever I fall
You say it best
When you say
Nothing at all.”/*Song: When you say nothing at all     Singer:Ronan Keating*/

Books in July

I read many novels off late. Here are the reviews. I will keep them very short for the benifit of both of us:):

• Matter of Honor -Jeffery Archer- This is a thriller, with chasing and excitement. The document pertaining to the sale of Alaska to US by Russian czar falls into the hands of the innocent protaganist. And guess what, if it falls into the Russian hands, they can claim Alaska back as it was only given on a 100 year lease. The narration is fast-paced and exciting to read. But I personally prefer Archer’s novels about people who rise from nothing to become major big shots etc., like Kane and Abel, As the Crows Flies etc. I love his portrayal of character’s life and how various events shapes their personalities. Especially when he tells their story from the time they were born. Those novels are about characters. You can live with the characters and you miss them once you finish the novel. This is not that kind of a story and is for most part, just another thriller where the you forget the story the moment you finish it.
• Paths of Glory – Jefferey Archer- This is Archer at his best. What I found missing in the previous book, I got a full share in this. The real life character, Gerorge Mallory, the guy who possibly climbed Everest first and his life is painted in front of your eyes or rather directly into the screen in your mind. Archer makes us climb up the Chomolungma along with the mountaineers. For me, till I read this, Edmund Hillary climbing the Everest first was just a statistic. After reading this, I could appreciate the enormity of the exercise. We may ask, why bother sacrificing life for something like that. At one point the character answers to a question of why he climbs the mountains with ” Because it’s there.” . This is a tale of passion and how it takes control of men, when their dream becomes their purpose and how somtimes they pay the ultimate price for their dreams. Awesome novel I’d reccommend everyone to read.
• The Winner stands alone – Paulo Coelho – To be frank, I expected more from the man who wrote the Alchemist, one of the most inspiring tales I’ve read. This is an ordinary tale that well portrays the gloomy part of the fashion world, of how chasing wealth becomes an obsession, of what a person can do under falsified sense of right and wrong and of love. The protaganist is out in Cannes to kill people or ‘end their worlds’ to make his ex wife realise how much he loves her and make her come back to him. At some point the author succeeds in making us sympathise with the reasoning of the character to an extent that we feel guilty as if we’ve unconsciously accepted his killing of innocent people as justifiable. The other characters are well-etched and their psychological profiles are well brought out, exposing all the types of characters to be found in the world of fashion and cinema. It’s a good novel, no doubt about it, but lacks the symbolism and message that Alchemist carried.
• The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga- I am writing this post only to write about this novel. This is book that got the Booker prize for the year 2008. IMO the author’s description of India and its different facades and personas is as authentic as R.K.Narayanan’s and as dark and satirical as Dickens. He strips the country of the ‘India shining’ cloak and brings out the dark reality. Each sentence boils over with truth and revelation. He shows the life of people in ‘darkness’ and ‘light’. He describes the two Indias, the rich and the poor and unlike others who glorify the poor and make the rich seem like villains, the author strips them all and shows the different types of darkness that clouds the souls of both the class of people. The proganist describes in a series of letters supposedly addressed to a visiting Chinese dignitary,  the realities of India and how he got personally corrupt in the process of escaping from the ‘rooster coop’. The author’s knowledge about the conditions and people in every part of the land is very evident and the nuances of the relationship between a servant and his ‘master’ and how deep servanthood peirces into a person is astounding. This book deserves the booker it got and much more. It is a must read for anyone who likes to know the realities of present day India. To summarize the book, I will use the phrase the author uses throughout the novel, it depicts how elections, democrazy, communism, societal norms, development, and most other things in India is “a fucking joke”.