New Year Mania!

Its that time of the year again. Lists are being made, lots of reminiscing happening, resolutions are being dusted out and recycled, party plans being finalised and more than anything, renewed optimism about the year to come. I feel strangely detached.

Not that I’ve ever really made ‘New year’ plans. I’ve slept through most of them. Or at the most, woken up to reply to calls and messages at 12 and promptly gone back to sleep. But this year, the biggest bummer is that, I’m going to be working on the 1st. Something about some logistic issues or something equally bizzare that I didn’t bother to even pretend to understand. In spite of not having any party plans (no plans, actually), I feel very let down and cheated.

The peer pressure is getting to me. Just saying things like I’m going sleep through the new year and wake up to work the next morning or I don’t really care about the new year fuss, makes me feel pretty ancient. Maybe my new year resolution should be party more and feel young?

Ah, just forget it, I don’t really care and I’m going to sleep through it, yet again. Or maybe I should just accept the fact that my life is boring and watch Titanic for the umpteenth time. In Tamil, maybe, this time?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We have been awarded..

..by Maxu! I first met him on my first day at Google. One grinning aloof face amongst many tense ones and of course one of the 3 men in a predominantly female crowd. The trainer asked all of to introduce ourselves and share what we did over the weekend. Most of us said ‘politically right’ things like, getting ready for first day of work/chilling at home. He was the only one who said, ‘I was playing cricket till 4am and got ready and came to work’ very matter-of-factly at that! Jaws dropped and everyone was looking at this overgrown guy who dared to even say something like that. That’s Max for you. No one he’s a mini-celebrity amongst bloggers.

I normally don’t like to do tags. But this one came with an award and I met Maxu yesterday after almost 3 years. So, cheers to that!

The rules of the tag are: Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

Family:

I’ve never really written about my family here in all our chaos and splendour. But I wrote this one post as a tribute to my grandfather who was a brilliant person. This post talks about Diwali at home! These posts here are written by my favoritest cousin and are super funny!

Friends:

Surprisingly, I have only one post dedicated to my friends. I wrote this at the end of my first year at Hyderabad as a sort of thank you for all the people who made it special. This one is about my imaginary childhood friend. This one is about the super funnest weekend I spent with K, one of my best friends.

Myself:

This blog is filled with memes. That’s kinda why I started this blog in the first place. So my picks would be this this and this

My love:

I’ve attempted to write quite a few sappy stories here. None of them are exactly real, but that’s the closet mention to romance that’s been made here. Posts here here and here

Anything I like:

I’ve linked some of my favorite posts here for no reason at all! Here here here here here and here

Phew, so there you go Maxu, you can’t not call this a filler post ok?

Now, to pass the tag and the award on. For a change, I think I’ll actually tag people. So here’s my list

Kalpana - She was my trainer at Google. Super trainer, super mom, super person and moreover a super blogger. Her Dear Raunak series are extremely personal and moving. I’m a big fan!

Morpheus - Again an ex colleague and a brilliant writer. Quirky and witty.

Mercury – Best friend, inspiration to blog, excellent writer, full of life! Again, a big fan

Inba - I started reading her blog only recently. Super wit, sharp tongue, great observation, brilliant posts.

Afrin – We share quite a few common interests. Photography, Isha, and rambling in general. You must start putting up proper posts again, no one liner

I’m adding 2 more to the list

Nandini - Ex googler, smart, witty, super energetic, now in Amrica. Her posts are always sincere and extremely entertaining!

Dilip - Fellow photowalker, photography mad, techy, brilliant writer, great company, razor sharp tongue, hilarious in all!

My good deed for the year is done

Watchmen by Alan Moore & David Gibbons

Watchmen

Watchmen, a brilliant graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Gibbons is the story of a group of disbanded costumed heroes. Its a psychological thriller set in an imaginary America that is on the brink of destruction. It starts off with the murder investigation of Edward Blake, also known as the Comedian. The Comedian was a part of a group of costumed heroes called Minutemen whose mission is to save the world. The bunch breaks up when costumed heroism is made unlawful.

Dr. Manhattan, the only one in the bunch with actual super-powers and the Comedian join the government and are paid work with them. The others in the group are Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl), Rorschach, Captain Metropolis, Ozymandias, and Silk Spectre. Ozymandias goes on to quit and market himself to become the richest man in the world. The others just go back to their normal lives.

The Minutemen

When the Comedian dies, Rorschach suspects a plot to wipe out masked heroes. In the course of his investigation, he lands up in prison and Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II (the original one’s daughter) get back in action to smuggle him out of prison. Avoiding any spoilers, they discover Ozymandias to be the one behind the plot. What happens then on to the masked hero community is how the book ends.

This book is a fabulous read not just for its copy but also for its out of the world artwork. When you finish reading the book, the effect is that of having watched a movie. A very good one at that notwithstanding the slightly filmy ending. But I guess I wouldn’t have it end any other way. The narrative that keeps moving back and forth in time has quite a few recurring visuals and a comic book inside a comic book. The zoom effect (?) towards the end of chapters is simply brilliant and it gives the narrative an absolutely real feel.

Its a perfect superhero book in spite of characters that do not posses any superhuman powers. It has very strong characters, heroes who want to save the world, characters with shades of gray, glamour, a villain,  and a feel good ending.

This book is listed in 100 top novels of all time by Time magazine. Its coming out as a movie next year. You can watch the trailer here.

Lisey’s Story by Stephen King

I have to admit, this is the first novel of Stephen King I’ve read and I’m overwhelmed, in a good sort of way. It surprises me that I’ve managed to overlook King all this while.

Getting to the point, Lisey’s Story is the intense story of Lisey Debusher Landon, the widow of a successful writer Scott Landon. She’s unable to accept that he’s gone as she still senses him around her very strongly. She almost continues living with him, carrying on coversations, asking him for his opinion, engaging him in her everyday life. In an attempt to get her life in order, she goes through this study and sorts through unfinished stories, a fully finished novel, letter, journals et al that bring back more memories than she can handle including some that she’s blocked out. In all this her sister Amanda, cuts herself quite badly unable to handle the sorrow in her personal life. From that point on, she sets out on a ‘bool hunt’ deviced by Scott. Amidst all this, a crazy man who calls himself Zack McCool wants Scott’s unfinished work to be given to this professor at the university where he’s taught as a course starts to creep out Lisey. When he cuts Lisey up to get her to take him seriously, Scott’s past comes to haunt her. This past is definitely not pretty. It has an abusive father, a loving brother who dies, a fantasy world that’s beautiful albeit creepy. Finally, the tale unwinds to reveal how Lisey deals with a looney creep who won’t hestitate to even kill her and how Amanda, her sister is also a part of Scott’s bool hunt.

I don’t think I can classify this book as horror. Its a kind of horror fantasy. I loved this book in parts. Only in parts cos at places I was so creeped out that I had to take a break, read something mindless and come back to this. This was mainly Scott’s childhood. The events leading to the death of his brother were truly chilling.

But there were also places where I was totally blown away with the way the book flowed. I found the courtship of Scott and Lisey unexpectedly romantic. References to the Boo’ya Moon, the bad gunky, the bool, the long boy, the bell at Paul’s grave et al, sound so magical and straight out of a hyperactive imagination that it makes it all the more creepy. This was a li’l too much gore for me. The narrative is so intense and powerful that as much as you want to tear yourself away from it, the scenes flow in front of your eyes and sucks you in.

In all, it was some great writing interspersed with a li’l more creepiness than I wanted to encounter.

The old man

I’m in a mood to ramble. More than ever. 3rd post in a span of 5 hours? Never happened before. I was blog hopping and ended up reading this blog end to end. Some very very cool posts. This particular post reminded me something that happened to me once in Hyderabad.

I was living in Maradpally. As usual, took a cab home at around 8. Its a long drive home from office. So it was about 9ish when I got to Maradpally. I got off at the end of the lane cos I needed to pick up something from the supermarket. Hyderabad is a safe city. I’ve taken an auto back with Roomie at 2 in the morning and fought with the auto-driver over spiked auto meter, loudly at that. Its not something I’d ever dream of doing in Madras. In fact, I don’t think I’ve travelled in an auto past 9pm here. Getting back to the story, the road that led to my house from the supermarket was poorly lit as always. Under the lone streetlight on the narrow road, there was an abandoned TVS 50 and lying next to it was an old man. My first impulse was that there had been an accident. I slowly moved towards the man unsure of what to do really. But as I moved closer, I realised he was mumbling something undecipherable in a language I didn’t recognise. I stood right there for a full minute unsure of my next move. People kept going past us. A few gave me a second glance. More out of curiosity, I guess. Just as I unscrewing the cap of my water bottle to sprinkle some water on his face, another gentleman stopped. He seemed like my grandpa. Same kind eyes and laid back attire of going for a leisure evening walk. He looked at me questioningly and I shrugged saying I don’t know what happened to the old man. He moved closer and the stench of alcohol hit him. He signaled for me to move away and keep walking. ‘He just drunk,’ he said, very casually. I kept standing there cos he wasn’t exactly young and I wasn’t sure how he would lift the drunk man up. I didn’t feel right about leaving him alone.

In all this, the drunk old man woke up and tried to roll over and stand up. In this process, another bottle of alcohol rolled out of his pant pocket sounding wicked as it rolled over on the gravel. Even in his drunken stupor he felt about for his precious bottle and refused to be helped up without it. I still stood rooted to the same spot, in shock. The other gentleman kept signalling for me to leave and gave me an encouraging smile. I walked away, unable to grasp the gravity of what I just saw. People kept walking past, wrapped up in their world, refusing to help a man struggling with a stubborn drunk. Maybe this old man’s world was a small one too, just him and his bottle.

Next movie I’m looking forward to

Any idea when Abhiyum Naanum is releasing? The trailer looks pretty interesting. Trisha looks kinda old. I feel Prakash Raj will be be the biggest pull in this movie. Looking forward to this movie the horrible Kailesh Kher singing notwithstanding.

Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter

I seem to be on a bad-books cycle. Maybe I need to do a cleansing ritual and finish reading the Stephen King I took a break from cos I was creeped (?) out.

This book was read on a recommendation from a colleague, who handed out a copy to me when I told him I wanted to read something funny. This book ended up being funny where it wasn’t meant to be. Most of these chick-lit books are like Tamil movies. Every single director claims its a story with a difference and that the treatment is very fresh but they all end up being much like the few 100 love stories that were made before it. This book is no different.

Emily Albright, 29, single and manager of a bookstore is a Jane Austen freak and signs up to go on a Pride and Prejudice tour to England after a string of lousy dates in the hope of reveling in the memory of her perfect man Fitzwilliam Darcy, the protagonist of the book. Her hopes are crushed when she finds out that she’s the only one in the tour who’s under 60. Predictably so, a journalist who comes to cover this tour, Spike Hargreaves, is the only other youngster (?) there. He is a prick or so she thinks. The twist in the story is that Mr. Darcy from the book actually comes alive and meets Emily. She realises, in due course, which is the looooong narrative that she’s not in love with Mr. Darcy and just what he stands for. In the meanwhile, Spike, who can’t even stand her to begin with, professes undying love for her and she still thinks of him as a rowdy. After some long winded explanations, she realises his goodness and falls in love with him.

The book ends with Emily realising that coordinator of the tour was none other than Jane Austen (in spirit, it seems) who helped her find her true love.

In all, its a pretty ordinary storyline and a long winded narrative. You can give it a miss unless someone thrusts a copy in your hand like it happened with me!

Rozabal line by Ashwin Sanghi

Historical fiction is possibly the most abused genre of writing. This book, written on the much hyped topic of the sacred feminine, the holy grail and the divinity of Jesus Christ is overwhelming to say the least. The book starts off with the discovery of a severed head in a library by a librarian in a university library in the US. Everything that takes from that point is kinda muddled. For one, there’s every single concept you can think of in this journey starting from controversy of Christ birth to the discovery of his bloodline in 3 continents, to past life regression to Islamic terrorism to the Illuminati to the US presidency’s involvement to in the cult organisation to Skull n bones to Hatha Yoga to Buddhism to parallelism between religions to the sacred feminism to Japanese killers to Hindu astrologers to past life regression to ufff, you get the drift.
After the first 100 pages or so, I lost sight of the theme of the book and its flow that keeps travelling through various time periods. The sub-standard editing doesn’t help the digressing plot of the narration even little.
In all, unless you’re curious, I suggest to stay away from this book which is an effort to re-narrate an already sensationalised story line with a desi touch.