An Open Secret

I have talked to a few of you about it, some have loved it, some have been cynical, and some have written it off without even knowing. To each his/her own . . . . . but I believe in BELIEVING.

We - most of us - believe in God don't we, so why is it harder to believe in ourselves. I would at least recommend a read, digest as much as your system may allow.

Stories and Illusions

Just finished reading The Palace of Illussions - by Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni.
I was just walking thought the bookstore, and randomly picked it up. I like to read, but its not often I buy hardbacks. Lately Ive started to indulge myself in the luxury - first with Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth and now this one.
I am not the one for writing reviews, for me a book, a story if a far more personal experience. So I will just put down a few words : my personal take on the book.
What I liked about the book was the facet it gave to the whole story, being from a woman's perspective . . . . .the subtleties and details that matter to them, far different from those that are quoted and appeal to a traditional perspective - usually male.
I haven't before heard women empathise with the female characters of Mahabharata, not that I have been delving into the study of scriptures and heavy books hence. But when we talk about it at homes, refer to incidents and stories told by elders, the underline is only on the moral, the message, who did what right and who did what wrong. Nobody delves into the motives, the histories and other fineries of human nature. Agreed, they are too complicated , lengthy and tedious to be taken up in the course of a day or a few minutes. Yet women are never shown much sympathy, even by other women. (And that's another discussion for another day)
After my school days it was often that I had wanted to go back to reading those big books, because I was sure at some level that there is much more to them that had caught my eye as a child in the abridged course book, and glossy epic Sunday TV must watch.
Coming back to the book I enjoyed simple things in the narrative . . . . . starting from how Krishan's one simple comment changed Draupadi's entire perspective towards her own self , when she grows up she begins to learn that despite all the drums of equality men and women wield power differently - with which she realises her powers and learns to use them to suite herself. She also learns some hard lessons, that despite having five husbands (like any other woman with just one) she too cannot depend on them to avenge her honour who seek fame and dharma beyond emotions of love and devotion that drive women, and have driven them in all ages and times.
She learns to be manipulative as a survival instinct and does a great job of it. Her character is not built out as perfect, nor does she hold any qualms for not being one.
Am not sure if the story of Karna's affections are true, or correct as per the original text, but at some places I thought it was a card little overplayed. Besides it was not a very comfortable angles for me.
I enjoyed the reading the book for being a little more honest account as that of an active participant's rather than that of a passive judgmental narrator’s, less strained in the seeps of good-bad, right-wrong, as scriptures traditionally are, and because even after innumerable number of years, the story of Mahabharata is so fascinatingly gripping.

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And since we are at it, I ll take it a tad too far. . .
Unaccustomed Earth, was fascinating in its own way, dark, more heart wrenching though. I would have preferred the shorter stories of Interpreter of Maladies any day better with a little more sunlight, but if such is life, lets face it in all its dark and saddening form - for once doing away with the blanket of joviality we always pull over.
Maybe not every cloud has a silver lining, some are just doomed, gloomy dark clouds full of rain. It left me a little depressed, a little less excited, disappointed too maybe - because fiction is not supposed to be so faithfully gloomy, dejected and hopeless.
Life serves more that enough portions of it any day.

Magic for Muggles 101

Another round of Harry Potter, another reinforcement to my beliefs that they are only the simple things in life that count.

The Voldemort(s) and wannabes almost kill themselves getting "it" all . . . only to be laughed at by a petty Potter boy, who says I have all the love and friendship in the world, and those are things good enough fighting for.

And I wish I had a broomstick of my own . . . not only would it be a perfectly cost effective way to beat Bangalore’s traffic, it can give me the feeling of being alight in the air.

But, can an airlift beat the heaviness of the heart? It is easy to believe so - no wonder The Dark Lord has so many followers in the muggle world too.

We fight, and often lose, and you don’t even need big sells to make it happen, a "Goodbye" can kill enough. Yet there are those who choose to stay, and bring an army of Death Eaters down.

Towards the end of this book, (and now movie) Harry is bewildered as to what are those powers that he has and Voldemort does not, and that he fears.

Dumbledore tried to explain, yet name it not . . . . (lemme quote the author now)

It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and whichVoldemort has not at all.That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.

"It was your heart that saved you."
And that's what you need to remember. And thats all in today's lecture for the course Magic for Muggles 101.

So much for my happy ending

I am upset, really really upset . . . had I been buying books from a street peddled, I might have expected or made peace with it all, but I had bought this book from a good bookstore (The Corner Bookstore inside St.Mark's Road Barista/Lavazza, Bangalore), for a good price, and it had seven whole pages missing in the end . . .

One flips through the book to ensure if the print is okie, if no pages are torn, but I dont jump to the last page to read how the story ends! And I credit myself for the patience that I have there.

It was even more torturing, coz I was awake till wee hours of the morning, tyring to finish off this book, and at somewhere around 4 AM I realise my book is way short of the closing lines!!!

Dunno who to blame, coz there is no way to ensure life wld be fair and square...even if you give it your best shot.

Damn, "The Inscrutable Americans", it just had to live upto its name . . .

The month that was...

Last month saw me once again united with my age old flame, my first love, and the most sincere ,loyal and dependable...... of all that have come along later down the years.....

Here, take a look...

......

Music for the Soul

Some people have simple and happy lifes.
Others are blessed with more interesting feats.

'Coz....
In this life, my darling, there is no mercy.


With that Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi joins the list on my favourite authors and THE LAST SONG OF DUSK joins the groups of books I know I will re-read.

Queer Lives

Spamming over three months, with my attention span rising from three hours to three minutes a day, I finally drew a close to Two Lives by Vikram Seth today; a book in itself traversing a century and many generations of people across all the globe. (Catch the Rediff review here.)

He is definitely one of the most acclaimed Indian authors around, and deservingly so. The sheer size of "A Suitable Boy" has always made me carefully navigate away from it, every time I encountered it on a bookshelf. I see in myself a new found courage to pick it up sometime now (after my current list is done that is) and read more of the world he paints.

The mere lengths and breadths of landscape involved in Two Lives, in terms of both geography and philosophy, is mesmerizing. I haven't been reading it too continuously, yet I feel I ve lived across the lives of Shanti and Henny along with the author.
It is so much like a life in itself, dull at points, yet to be lived, more interesting at other times, and one hopes it stays that way all along.

There is something so peculiar about the ways families are and will always be. Indian, German, or British, does not matter one bit. At so many junctions across the book, I felt like I was reading about somebody I know, or could vaguely connect to in flesh and blood. Maybe that's one of the aspects, which makes readers feel connected to the author's world.

And the spaces one goes through in the course of a life.....nobody knows where this life will take us, how events will turn out, what will happen in one's personal life or in the world around them, that will alter it's course forever.
Yet we fight, struggle, and fret day in and day out, coz we think we have it all charted out, planned and ready to execute.

"Where do you see yourself ten years from now?" ; and I ve had to check myself laughing out aloud. Yet that's something we need to do - just to make more sense of this present, that funny past, and that obscure future.

I feel we can only live through each day, as if it were the last, and if lucky to be alive - look back at them over the years and find some of them to inspire confidence, and others bequeath regret. None of which makes much sense anyways.
So, I will end it with the author's words...

"May we, in short, believe in humane logic, and perhaps in due course, in love."

CLASSICS

They have always had a queer charm for me. Its easy to read present day books, they r gripping. But with classics one has to work a way around. One has to put an effort to stick around initially, but once u do pass the initial test...mostly a 60 odd pages, they suck you in. And then there is no getting away.

Books of today are like a blast. They happen so fast but later all that remains is the impact, a sense of being jolted in or out of consciousness. One remembers no details. Only a moment.

But classics are like a fire growing, u have to stir it when it is young, but once it takes hold there is no putting it off. And even after one have finished reading them, they stay on like burning pieces of coal... glowing red in your heart, in your memories and a constant source of warmth.

And maybe they suit me more. They are never too rash in-your-face kinds. But they convey their message nevertheless. Call me a dreamer if you choose, but I never have to worry about reading a classic. I know I will like it.

I don't say I don't like the modern authors. They are great too. Am just talking about the style. To me the romanticism of eighteenth century is more intriguing than fiery passions of today. Though sometimes one needs those jolts too.

Maybe these classics are the basis of my many beliefs. The way I live my life. Or maybe they represent to me all that is found no more. Passions need not be fiery. That which is disciplined should not be assumed to lack depths of emotions. And all that glitters is not gold. But we are living in an age of show-biz. So who can be blamed. Besides one always learns to learn.

To me love is discipline. And I prefer forever.

p.s am re-reading Wuthering Heights right now........

SCARLETT

Will I ever stop being a romantic? Probably not. Coz to stop believing in love is to stop hoping and to stop living. And I am as stubborn as Scarlett O’Hara. And as fervent for life and happiness. As zealous, as energetic, as optimistic.
I read that book 3 years ago………and now I got to complete its sequel – “Scarlett” by Alexandra Ripley. I twisted and turned and cried and sighed through the 750 odd pages just to strengthen that belief which took roots when I finished Gone With The Wind. I knew how this book would end, I had to, there was no other way. But I went to see the sequence of events just to come to that page I had so many times imagined and thought of. No matter matter why the means were the end was well deserved. It was worth the wait. Probably this is wht they mean when they say that end justifies the means. It recalls to my mind Fountainhead, where Dominique suffers to make herself worthy of her highest love…….Roark.
This sound silly, has anybody ever compared these two books? They r so alike!!!!
Its queer. Anybody who has read Gone With The Wind, would know that it’s a tragedy. But nobody who has read it would ever believe it. Because it leaves no place for cynicism, no place for any kind of pessimism. Their faith in Scarlett is too strong to let them insult her so. I can go on rambling about this for god knows how long. I am insufferable when it comes to books I love. Each beloved book is like a child, and no mother ever ceases talking abt her children.
This is the strangest it cld get. What am I saying all this abt child and mother. Where did this metaphor originate in my mind?
Its grt to be able to love, its still greater to be loved.
Rhett is Rhett no matter what. So is Scarlett. So is Howard Roark and Dominique Francon, So is Elizabeth Benette and Mr.Darcy. No book had affected me yet as these three have. And not just for their love stories. If I ever called Fountainhead a love story ppl wld laugh at me. No. But I love them coz they touch me. They shake me, make me feel alive, worthy of life; they give me the strength and confidence to live. They tell what life is and how it should be lived. And propel me to it, to my dreams……to happiness.
Sure there r numerous other books I ve read and loved for all different reasons, but even if someone wakes me in the midst of a deep sleep and asks abt my fav books, I wld undoubtedly name these three first before any other. And by god’s grace I own them all. I cldnt have done without them. I go back to them over and over again and again and again and again…………………..
Its touching and not just touching but respect commanding, and heartbreaking and still giving way to hope……oh so many emotions held together in that one scene…… when Scarlett sails off from Charleston and Rhett salutes her …………….. and I salute the two of them.…………….and that ll be the most vivid scene in my memory from Scarlett.

INTERPRETER OF MALADIES By – Jhumpa Lahiri

I didn’t complete it in a day. I ve been reading it slowly over a period of time.
There is something very human about this book, it felt like its been written by a human being about other human beings. Its so subtle so simple and on the oust seems so ordinary that these qualities make it so extraordinary. No wonder it deserved the Pulitzer Prize.

One more thing….. I somehow feel that is someday I write a book, it might be something like this. A collection of stories or essays…….about life, about the real life. And I don’t color things black or white…….coz that’s how life is, whats white to me may be black to you and vice versa. Shades of grey might be more appropriate to say………….but that’s also not completely safe.
Live and let live.

TO SIR, WITH LOVE - E.R.Braithwaite...............
This MBA prep is sure to get me reading a lot of good books. So wht do they say about there being something good in everything.......!!

THE GODFATHER

I finished reading “The Godfather” in less than 48 hours. Amazing by my own standards. And what truly surprised me was that I loved the book. I knew I loved it by the time I got round 100 pages, and now it seems funny that I de been weary of it at first. I has dismissed as the guyish stuff !!! I am still gaping that I have flair for such literature. But then it wasn’t guyish, it was manly. And nobody can blame me for liking it. After all I am a woman.
Funny. But I ll give all credits to the author. He deserves it. Much has been said about him and my praise would be drop in the ocean, but I think the ocean need every drop of it to survive.
Nothing unsaid was unheard. The only doubt I have is about the piece……”let friends underestimate your virtues”. Now I don’t say I don’t comprehend, but this is one place I am not sure of the meaning. And the only place. I have thought it over, but it’s not concrete. And I have to be concrete before I decide to write it down. Or maybe when I am that sure I wouldn’t need to write it down.
So that says something about my being pretty selfish. I keep the clear thoughts in my head and write down the doubts to unclutter them, or maybe in am attempt to try n solve them. Some may call that a ‘typically woman’s’ approach. But hey didn’t somebody tell them I am proud of being a woman. lol .