Month: January 2006

  • Broken record

    Come to think of it, i think there might have been a reason behind the ‘dumb post’… after a period of regular writing, the posts start getting a bit monotonous… like getting stuck in a certain groove.. to the extent that i know broadly what all i could possibly write here, and expect to write exactly that when i sit down to write the post…remember the time when i used to write only stories.. just about the time that phase ended,i had contemplated quitting the blog for sometime, because a twist in each tale is quite a task to accomplish, especially if you are doing only that… but it isnt that easy to let go, and so,after a bit of thought, i decided i wouldnt restrict myself with any constraints…
    but after a lil look at the last few posts, i have realised that maybe it is not something i do consciously, getting into the groove, that is, but the problem is that sooner or later, i will sound like a broken record, and that definitely isnt good news…but guess what the twist in this is..
    if i do decide not to write according to a pattern, then i have to consciously write posts that do not fall into a pattern, and knowing me, THAT would then become the pattern… yes, i also realise that i have written a post almost as dumb as the last one, and that wasn’t exactly conscious..uh oh, do you think i am already in the groove?

    until next time, this one is just for the record 🙂

  • Dumb Post

    If the state of being bored is boredom,
    and the state of being free is freedom,
    and the state of being a star is stardom,
    and (coincidentally) the state of a king is kingdom,
    what would the state of being conned be??

    until next time, not to worry, this post is just random 🙂

  • Point Being…

    Have finished both of Chetan Bhagat’s books – the hugely popular ‘Five point someone’, and the heavily trashed ‘One night at the Call center’, and that doesnt mean i can write book reviews..:) because like i have repeatedy said, i am really bad at them, but that doesnt stop me from commenting on books anyway…
    I happened to read ONATCC first, and i felt it was a fairly good book.. i doubt if it is meant to provoke a deep analysis of self and the cosmos.. but it does give a peek into the working of the industry that employs a large percentage of today’s youth, and the lives of these guys..its a racy book and more importantly excellent value for money.. to all the literary critics, i would say that we sit and laugh at the ‘No Entry’s and the ‘Meet the Parents’ fully understanding that theres hardly any cinematic value to it.. in the nation’s lingo its called timepass, and theres no harm if an author caters to that need at all.. and so, in essence, the book wont change your life, unless you took a day off from work to read it or something…
    Five point someone also has a good pace, and while there are occasions which are too ‘filmi’ (like x thing happening to the exact x person at exact x time, which is too convenient for random coincidence), it is still a good read…i think the difference between the two books is that while FPS is a first person experience (for mr.bhagat), ONATCC is perhaps in a setting about which he only has another person’s view of…and while the prologue in ONATCC says that the book is written primarily to accomodate the larger sections of youth untouched by the IIT (which is the setting in FPS), i feel that FPS also applies to most of the residential colleges because all have grading systems, weird profs, love lives, canteens, and stereotype characters.. i think that made the book successful, because most of everyone could identify it with the (arguably) golden era of their lives – college days..So, point being, i am really bad at reviews, but you should read the books 🙂
    until next time, we pass time, and time passes us 🙂

  • Time…..

    Finished reading a book a while back, titled ‘Emperors of the Peacock Throne’.. it is a chronicle of the mughal empire, starting from Babur to a little beyond Aurangazeb’s reign.. While the book did give a lot of interesting tidbits that were contrary to popular knowledge (like the fact that anarkali was actually part of akbar’s harem, and was at least 13 years older to salim) a more interesting thought crept into my mind, as i read the last few pages of the book…
    the entire mughal era, spanning over 300 years has been condensed into 500 odd pages of well written history (well written because it is more like a story than history).. but while i read about the conquests of babur, the administrative policies of akbar, and the feuds ofaurangazeb, these are, in my eyes, only characters in history.. what i later realise, on more thought, is that these are also humans, who had their own thoughts… and while these characters are at least represented in the books, there are millionsand millions of characters who were part of the background – ministers, soldiers, common people.each of them had a life, some boring, some interesting, some routine, some filled with adventure,but each with a story to tell… but perhaps never told by anyone..
    the point i am trying to make – while we run around doing things that are seemingly vital at that point of time and place and our lives, perhaps we do not realise that in the absolute vastness of time and space, it is maybe of no significance.. or maybe it is, in some way we cant fathom -through children and grandchildren and so on… we would like to think so…not that we should stop what we do, but somewhere, sometimes also remember that we are but tiny cogs in His vast machinery, and realise our humble role…
    until next time, how ever is forever??

  • Memories

    …of the relatively ignorant bliss of childhood… of the roller coaster ride of adolescence, the exhilrating times of youth… so far.. and perhaps as we grow older, the realisation of middle age, and the inevitability of old age… by the time we reach the twilight of ourlives, perhaps these memories become one of the pillars of our lives…
    something that we never work towards, and assume that our minds would automatically record and catalog it – by person, by time, by taste, smell and hordes of other things that cant be described..
    I saw a malayalam movie recently, a movie i was looking forward to seeing, featuring my fave actor and directed by a one movie old director, who had set an extremely high benchmark with his debut movie.. and thankfully, it delivered, and how!! it reinstored my faith in actor whose performance screamed out that all he needed were good scripts and he would do the rest.
    that was a necessary digression, because even the trigger for a post has to be acknowledged, specially one as deserving as this movie…the story of a man who, while having never accomplished his dream, retains his faith in his intellectual abilities, and hopes that he can live his dream through his son. a man who has to balance his duty towards his father with that towards his son.. and while he focuses all his energies on all these happenings in his life, gets struck with alzheimers…. i cant remember a malayalam movie in years which can come remotely close to this one .. and no, thats not because of any ailment, its because there hasnt been a movie like this in years…:)
    its a movie that made me think.. day after day after day, we go around focusing ourselves on the short term and long term things we aspire to do.. some get a joy out of a night with friends, some get it with the knowledge that their investments are safe and sound, some get a joy out of having achieved something..but all of us get a joy out of remembering the good times we have had in our lives… what if we cant remember those.. in His infinite wisdom, perhaps he has answered this too, for if we dont know that we cant remember, theres no pain… we will live small lives, with joys and sorrows we would never remember later…
    until next time, remember to drop in again 🙂