message in a bottle (02.2003 - 09.2008)

When I had picked up his first book, I appreciated its simple words and very relatable descriptions. I could see that Chetan Bhagat does not write fantastically but he could entertain for a short while. In hindsight, we may call his book average, which it may be, but when it had first come out many enjoyed a few hours of Five Point Someone. Sadly, I cannot say this for his second book and the reason of its success eludes me just like that of the movie Raja Hindustani. Seriously, that movie perplexes me even after 12 years of its release.

All said and done, I remain a fan of Indian fiction and if a book comes for mere Rs. 95, I tend to pick it up, even if to only satisfy my curiosity. So on one such curious May afternoon, I picked up The 3 Mistakes of My Life. I finished reading it today. If that does not say enough about the book, nothing else can.

Although nine volumes of teenage romance-drama, three fantasy graphic novels, a classic, a fantasy novel, and a few Manga comics punctuated my reading, I did manage to finish this book at last. I started reading Bhagat’s third book right after I had finished a couple of Agatha Christies. His bad luck that his ordinary writing got compared to an enriching piece. However, as I finished this book, I realized that in this very ordinary writing and in the choice of events, situations, and characters lies the secret of success of his not-so-great books.

I know many voracious readers who have to think for a moment before they can place Chetan Bhagat but I also know many more people who usually do not read but have read Bhagat’s books. They have also invariably read The Da Vinci Code.

Bhagat writes about India as it is right now and thus strikes a cord with the busy gen-y (is it still gen-y or have we reached gen-z?) He writes for the teenagers and twenty-somethings who do not care about books in general but flip through the newspapers twice a week and pick up their favorite sports/fashion magazine every other month. He speaks their language, he talks about what they have seen and not about what they heard from their parents or read in the history books.

So despite the ordinary writing, wafer-thin story line, and a repeat performance of the storyteller stunt, I can see that this book is going to do fairly well. The book (are you worried about spoilers?) gets into the Bhuj earthquake, Twin Towers, and Godhra riots; a brilliant period to pick up for a masala book, if you ask me. Anyone who is a little generous with ones emotions will feel strongly at one point or the other. For me the moment was when I heard about the Ahmedabad blasts while I was in midst of this book on Saturday.

So although you can write off Chetan Bhagat as quality writer, he possesses a definite knack for writing books that will sell. Raja Hindustani, however, still remains a mystery.

So if you have been giving even a cursory glance to the posts that I have made in the past one month, you would agree that I have not been reading much. I game a lot these days, and when I am not gaming (or cooking!), I watch movies. All of this is simply fabulous but I do not want to become a person who does not read, or worse still a person who only reads the best sellers!

So help me help myself by telling me two things:

1. Name of your one favorite book
2. Link to your favorite blog
   

Just one of each, thank you.

If a book is tiresome, does it deserve to be left in the middle?

"He spent the day shopping and making risotto in the time-honored male way, removing all the utensils from the drawers and laying them out like surgical instruments, then decanting all the ingredients into small bowls to maximize the washing up."

A snippet from Mark Haddon's A Spot of Bother that made me smile wide yesterday. The husband had cooked a delicious Italian meal for me just a day before.

One of the many reasons you should pick up Haddon's books. :)

It was almost like being back to school – three days of the week that just went by. Great part was that I was enjoying the training. Maybe if I pick up a subject that I really enjoy, I could go back to school for a while. It would be nice. And I think I can afford it, especially now that I have a husband who can pay the bills. Okay, that was a cheap shot but so what?!

So, do you know of Victor Frankl? I did not until I attended last week’s training. I still do not know a lot about him but I know a small something which is enough for me to think of him as a hero. While Frankl was in Nazi concentration camp, he discovered that the choice is always yours to make. When Nazi made him undergo humiliating and inhuman experiments, he decided to choose his reaction to those actions. He survived them and maintained his sanity all through. This made me thing if those moments when I feel awful because getting tickets to a certain movie is not in my control or when I am unable to plan a vacation due to circumstances out of my control. I have been living with the belief that I am a product of my circumstances, which is untrue. I am a product of my choices.

So while we are on the subject of heroes and idols, I realize that I want to become like Celine from Before Sunset. Yes, I know she is a fictional character. Yes, I also know that she is pretty confused and slightly depressed, but hey, I never said I want to be her – I want to be like her. I get to choose what I like and what I don’t like even in my fictional idol, right?

This reminds me that it has been ages since I talked about movies and books on this journal. Strange! There was a time, not so long back, when all I talked about here used to be movies and books. And food. Food was usually accompanied by tempting pictures. Let me correct my folly and talk about my favorite reads from last few days.

I just finished reading Bone - a grand comic book with amazing art in black and white, a brilliant story and fascinating characters. Written by Jeff Smith, it is a story of adorable creature called Fone Bone, Bone being the species of cuteness with huge noses. Fone Bone and his magnificent adventure that introduces him to princess and queen of the lost city, makes him friends with huge red dragons, tiny leaf-like bugs, hairy baby monster, and makes him fight a war against locusts, huge army of veiled humans called stick eaters, big hairy rat-monsters, a humongous mountain lion, and lots of other weird fellows.

Another beautiful graphic novel I recently finished was The Absolute Sandman – Volume 1. Written by the charming Neil Gaiman, this is a collection of 20 stories about Sandman – the lord of the dreamland. This is what can be classified as dark fantasy that blends age-old myths with the modern day life. It is one of those hard-to-put-down collections with splendid art and vivacious use of colors. I found myself glued to it for weeks though because the beautiful hardcover ensures that I cannot carry it with me. You sit down on your comfy yellow beanbag and read this book, turning each page with care. It is a collector’s item – most definitely.

In between the fat comic books like Bone and Sandman, I picked a couple of issues of Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O’Malley. Scott is a twenty-something boy living in Canada with a gay roommate. Since he is between jobs and broke, he shares everything that his roommate has, including the bed. He begins with dating a high-school girl but soon moves on to a mysterious chick with seven evil ex-boyfriends. His life is crazy, Scott’s. And reading about it, awesome fun. The life story of Scott comes in four issues and sadly, I have only three. Issue one, two, and four. You nice soul living in the US, do you not feel like hunting for the third issue in your local bookstores and mailing it to me? Yes, yes? Oh, thank you so much. =)

The book

I have no idea what took me so long to pick up “Neverwhere.” Have had an e-version of the book sitting pretty in my mailbox for over a year now. But I love reading the old fashioned way; just the way I like shopping the old fashioned way. My reading material must come with a faint papery smell. Coming back to the point, I am on page 66 of the book and am already sure that I love it. This urban fantasy is set in both London and London below; you know, like Wonderland where Alice roamed? Its witty, its curious, its inventive, and all things Neil Gaiman.

The movie

Again, I have no idea why I have not heard people swearing by “The Iron Giant” every time I uttered the words - animation movies. The most endearing film I have seen in a very long time tells the tale of a little boy with a big name, Hogarth Hughes. Hogarth has a chance meeting with a massive giant, who probably is an alien, but is extremely gentle and peace-loving. But since he is a giant and eats iron, it is kind of tough for Hogarth to keep him a secret. Be it animation or emotions, the movie is so well done that I prefer it over both “The Incredibles” and “E.T,” although both these happen to be my super favorites. I sat on the floor, my eyes glued to the screen, a single tear running down my face, and my heart tearing up for the friendly iron man-type thing. T’was brilliant.

The video game

I started playing the game "Elite Beat Agents" because it was there. However, it took the Elite Agents under three minutes to have me hooked. EBA is a rhythm game, where you listen to the beats of rock numbers and use the stylus of the DS to do stuff at the right moment. Sounds simple? Think again. Or rather, pick up the game and find out for yourself. The story of the game is presented in the comic book style, which only makes it much more fun. So there are different unrelated characters that are in trouble, and the Elite Agents come to get them out of the crisis. The success of this mission depends on you and your hand-eye-ear coordination. The game includes tracks like Chicago’s “You're the Inspiration” and The Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin' Jack Flash.” Fun fun fun!

In his extremely engaging autobiography of early days, Roald Dahl describes the sweets shop that he passed on his way to the school. He describes each type of sweet or candy in great detail and does so in such tremendous style that I, who lost her sweet tooth in her mother's womb, have been dreaming of licorice bootlaces and sherbet suckers since yesterday. Boy, Dahl can make a child, or an adult for that matter, dream of candy shops and chocolate factories. So to forget my craving for the candy, I decided to make a post about the book, however, now I am distracted and do not feel like writing about the book anymore. You MUST read the book, "Boy," if you have not already and that is all I am going to say. Because talking about candy has made me think of my favorite kind - the ice candy. Orange flavored. As a little girl, I used to draw pictures of ice candy and color them orange, yellow, and green to make them look like orange, mango, and lime flavored candies. I kept those drawings in my fairy tale books and still have them. When I was in class VI, my uncle used to pick me up from the school busstop every afternoon and we had a routine. We had to eat a cola candy before coming back home. Granny did not like this daily routine but my uncle and I never relented. We would buy those ice candies at 3 in the afternoon, stand in the heat and enjoy them before driving back home. Every single day. I loved the taste, I loved the way it melted and colored drops dripped all over the front of my school unifrom, I loved the way it would leave my lips cold and colored. Okay, maybe I was a messy kid. Somewhere in the flurry of teenage, I outgrew ice lollies. Whenever I would mention an orange bar, friends would suggest a latest flavor of Baskin Robins, and I would end up picking the one with the fanciest name. But life comes to a full cirlce, they say. Recently, I rediscovered my love for the orange flavored iced lolly. My friends and colleagues may go up and around hunting for dark belgium chocolate or mint chocolate chip, I find a five rupee ice lolly somewhere or the other.

( Full on love for ice lollies. )

Wonder why I never thought of this before?!

While traveling to work and back, I do various things to keep myself occupied and to take comfort in the fact that these 3.5 – 4 hours are not entirely wasted. I usually read books or play games. But then there are days when I do not feel like doing either of those and that is when I listen to music or if it is a humanly hour, I call up friends. Today, however, I had an epiphany!

I can make LJ posts while on the road. Okay, this is not as tech savvy as it first sounds. I am not using any air card to connect to the Internet while on the go. Neither do I have a cool WiFi device to surf while on the ring road. (Actually, I do have a WiFi device but it is the ring road that is not WiFi enabled!) Nevertheless, I have a laptop that has word processor to enable me to type my posts and save them to be posted once I reach my destination. A simple solution to life’s complicated problems.

So no more complains about not getting enough time to post on LJ.

Regular movie/book post commences.

Chicks rock and so do chick flicks! I recently saw an interesting chick flick, The Holiday, starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black. It is a story about two girls who are going to rough patches in their lives. These strangers meet online while one is hunting for a place to holiday and swap houses, and hence life, for a couple of weeks. So the career-oriented, unmoved American woman finds herself in a cozy little cottage in a small English town, while the super-emotional English girl is in a luxurious mansion in LA. Little moments happen and happiness ensues. Not to say that this is a brilliant movie with a novel script or anything but it is a refreshing movie. Catch it if you can.

And if you are one of those people who feel sick at the thought of such mushy nonsense, go watch 300. The magnificent visuals, larger than life war sequences, the sudden unexpected wit, the whistle-worthy dialogues, and unending supply of gore is sure to give you a high. It did to me. I am told it lacks in certain areas as an adapted film but to understand that I must read the graphic novel, which has been procured and shall be read.

Talking of procuring graphic novels, I bought all parts of Samurai Executioner off people. Yes, not off a person but off people. Just having all 10 books stacked on my shelf is a wonderful feeling. It is strange how much one needs to hunt for books sometime. I read the first Samurai Executioner book around a year ago and have been looking for the rest since then. Have hunted in Delhi, Gurgaon, and Bangalore in vain and have been thinking of buying it online. Only the shipping cost keeps me from it. Recently, I have been hunting for Fragile Things by Gaiman. I am sure I saw the hardcover edition in one of the bookshops on a day when I was completely broke and waiting for paperback made complete sense then. But now that I am ready to buy the hardcover, it is nowhere to be found. When it comes to Indian market, Gaiman’s books are like Johnny Depp’s movies; here today, gone tomorrow.

And with that I shall go back to (re-)reading my book, which by the way happens to be Fellowship of the Ring and has become far more interesting after I saw the movies. Ta.