Author: manuscrypts

  • Biere Societee

    I had seen the signboard opposite Prestige Shantiniketan on the way to Arirang. We had planned to go to one of the trusted local hangouts, but this was just 10 minutes from home, and the photos of the place promised a rooftop with a view. That’s something we have historically been suckers for! We got there early in the evening, and early in general, it seemed. They were still putting some finishing touches, but the place was pretty and the view was quite good too. Most of the seating area is alfresco, but they have a few tables in a covered section as well. I think the entire 4th floor is available as well, though it wasn’t open when we got there.

    We perched on the bar stools along the edge with a view of the Sheraton, Shantiniketan and beyond. When we began ordering cocktails, we were told that it might be delayed because they were getting ice from outside (first few days’ teething troubles).  But we got them soon enough – no delays – an Old Fashioned for me and The Brandy Crusta for D. They look liked twins in different glasses, but thankfully didn’t taste the same. My drink was not the best I have had, but not bad, and certainly better than many other places which massacre the drink! D’s drink had jalapeños and caramel syrup which got her a nice blend of flavours. We also got to know that there was a microbrewery happening in a couple of months! (we visited in mid August)

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  • The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

    Arundhati Roy

    I didn’t read the reviews of this book, but I did sense disappointment on my various newsfeeds. Irrespective of that, this was a book that I had to read, because Arundhati Roy is one of my favourite writers. Not for The God of Small Things, which I don’t remember having a well formed opinion on, but for The Algebra of Infinite Justice, which she uses as a phrase in this book (pg 310). And I’m glad I did – the fire still burns!

    The clues to this book’s agenda, if it does have one, can be read even before one begins really reading it. It is on the jacket in the form of a seemingly rhetorical question that actually gets answered – “How to tell a shattered story? By slowly becoming everybody. No. By slowly becoming everything.”. It is also documented in the book’s dedication – To, The Unconsoled.
    The shattered story does indeed seem to have everyone and everything. It definitely has those elements which have been a part of all the non-fiction that the author has been writing – the people of Kashmir, Hindu nationalists, adivasis and Maoists. It also has the anti-corruption wave led by Anna Hazare (tubby Gandhian), the rise of Arvind Kejriwal (Mr.Aggarwal, who was an accountant), the omnipotence of Modi (“Gujarat ka Lalla”) and the saffron brigade, Maoist movements, and most definitely the mess that is Kashmir.  (more…)

  • Arirang

    Korean has been a favourite cuisine for a while now, especially after the Apgujeong experience in Hong Kong. Kammanahalli’s cuisine range has been proven to us these last few months thanks to a couple of visits, which include a lot of “Oh, we should try this one” on our way to our destination! Therefore Korean in Kammanahalli was only a matter of time. Arirang won over Thran this time, and off we went on a balmy Saturday evening. We reached there by 6, but it was already nearly full. We could only get the normal tables and not the floor seating. 🙁

    Banchan arrived even before we placed the order, and we munched on those. We asked whether they had makgeolli but they didn’t, so Soju it was. (does anyone know where one can get the former in Bangalore?)

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  • Daemon

    Daniel Suarez

    OMFG! That was one fantastic ride!

    An obituary of a genius gaming tycoon gets published, a program, or rather a complex logic tree system, is activated, and it begins its not-so-slow journey of taking over the world! The concept of a person infiltrating and controlling (and even micromanaging) people, events and corporations, after his death, doesn’t seem as far fetched once you get on this roller-coaster of a book.

    The immense tech knowledge that the author clearly possesses, meshes with a worldview that I definitely could relate to, and is nuanced with some very humane moments. It is as much a commentary of technology’s impact on society and individuals as it is an absolutely racy thriller that paces itself superbly. Pretty much an MMORPG set in the real world! What’s interesting is that at a certain point, it becomes very difficult to decide what the villain is – the Daemon or the government-military-industrial-corporation nexus that it seeks to destroy. The characters that fight for and against the Daemon are also an interesting bunch, with their own complex backstories, and sense of loyalty.
    I thought this would be classified as cyberpunk, but apparently there is a thing called post-cyberpunk. Whatever it is, I can’t wait to read the second part of this amazing story!

    P.S. Somewhere in between, the author also manages to explain the reason for evolution deciding on sex as a means of reproduction! Fantastic stuff there too!

    Daemon

  • Finn, Tolstoy, and happy families

    “You’ve heard that line about all happy families being the same?”

    “War and Peace”, I said.

    “Anna Karenina, but that’s not the point. The point is, it’s untrue. No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other.”

    I read this in The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn recently. I use the Anna Karenina principle quite a bit in many contexts and discussions. In fact, recently, while reading Guns, Germs & Steel, I realised he had used this framing too. To put it simply, there are x number of conditions that definitely need to be met for something to succeed. The ‘something’ could be anything from origin of life to economical supremacy, and the ‘x’ conditions would change with that context. But in a given context, only those who fulfill all the x conditions will succeed.

    Naturally, as a believer, I was miffed by Finn’s (character’s) statement. But, could he be right?

    As I write this, D and I are a day away from celebrating 21 years of being together, 15 of them in a married state. Speaking of state, Kerala in the late 90s and early noughties, much like other non-metros in India, wasn’t friendly to intimacy or dating. In fact, the reaction to our relationship was actually a combination of the two – intimidating! Especially since a couple of religions were involved. Anyhow, here we are, 21 years later – happy.

    The stage was set for a thought experiment. Are we happy in the same way other couples are? I’d think not. I don’t really have data, so I will use  a simple non social-media-posturing observation. There are a lot of happy families with kids.* We chose not to succumb to that genetic pressure. So we’re different from other happy families. Does that mean Finn is right, and Tolstoy was wrong?

    I think it just isn’t as binary as that. Tolstoy was right because if one figured out the conditions that need to be met for a happy marriage, I have a feeling the successful couples would be meeting them (children most likely will not feature in that list). Finn is right too, because the way in which the couples met them would be drastically different from each other.

    In any case, I don’t think we have found an objective framing of happiness to begin with!

    *There is interesting data (Google searches and experiments) to show how “kids bring happiness” is just belief transmission for evolution’s needs and not the truth it is portrayed to be. But people have their own narratives of what happiness is, so I’ll leave it at that.