Prevention is better than cure

Courtesy: spiderkerala.net

We, Indians, always complain about how dirty our country is compared to the developed nations like USA, Japan, etc but when it comes to doing our bit, we do nothing. We throw wastes anywhere and everywhere we feel like-be it bus-stops or on our neighbor’s doorsteps. And when somebody complains about our wrongdoings, we ignore them by saying that they are just trying to be righteous, instead we could ponder upon our actions.

Prey by the Ganges

Like every other Indian, I have watched the movie, Sholay, more than once. Not that I liked the movie so much that I wanted to watch it repeatedly but when we were still stuck in Doordarshan era, you wanted it or not, you had to watch the movies that they played during weekends on television because everyone watched it. I watched it too. It was a funny movie; the Thakur, the Gabbar and his Samba-everything about Sholay was funny.

The book “Prey by the Ganges” written by Hemant Kumar got two Thakur- one, who plays the Gabbar & another, his victim-in it. It also got a Thankurain, glamour, gore, men driven by emotions, lust and power.

Dear, I love you

Who doesn’t want to love and be loved? If you say that you don’t then you are just lying, not just to others but to yourself too. Have you read Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series? Initially, I found Edward to be very charming. I didn’t mind having a powerful boyfriend who had eyes only for me but Bella and Edward’s love overdose sickened me and my liking for him ended up as abhorrence. Alright, let’s talk about Arun Sabtharishi’s book named “Dear, I love you” now. To be honest, the protogonist Goutham and his love left even twilight series behind. The book had nothing but Goutham, his girlfriend Anu and their love.

The Ancient Book

I don’t remember my mother reading me to sleep but I read my niece to sleep sometimes. She likes stories of dragon, witches, monsters and what not. And “The Ancient Book” is one such book that I can read to her. The story of King Zius and his daughter Sara narrated by Parikshit Rane narrates the victory of good over evil. The pace of the book is good too. You remember the flashbacks in the movies where everything goes black and white or too colorful and the narrator starts sharing his story of the past? The writing style adopted by the Parikshit Rane is somewhat similar. At least, that is what I felt. Apart from few editorial and proofreading errors here and there, I should appreciate author’s narrative skills.

Making of a fantasy author

Dear readers & bloggers,

I won’t say that I always wanted to be an author. To be honest, I was dragged into this whole write-a-novel thing. Well, it’s a long story and I don’t intend to pen down another book explaining how I became an author and Blah! Blah! Blah! So, I shall keep it short and try to explain the entire journey in a few simple words.

I was a crazy blogger (but I hardly blog nowadays) and I’m an avid reader too. I love reading fantasy fictions and paranormals, and I also daydream a lot. Entrapped is just a product of those daydreams. I imagined a girl haunted by a dream and every-time she dreams, someone calls for her help, “We are trapped. Please, free us…” The idea intrigued me and I decided to spin a story around the same. I named the girl Myra Bose and penned down the prologue of Entrapped in no time. Few of my friends, who read it, encouraged me to continue. It took five months to finish the initial draft. After my exams, when I was waiting for the results, I got enough time to polish the initial draft. I prioritized Entrapped over other things and to be frank, at that moment, I didn’t have getting it published on my mind.

The Storyteller of Marrakesh

I did it again. I read another Indian author and I will never again tell anyone that I prefer reading only foreign authors because the author Joydeep Roy-Bhattachraya changed my perception about Indian authors and their writings. Well, I must accept that I was prejudiced but thanks to Joydeep, I am a changed person now. He had my attention from the first to the last page of the book “The Storyteller of Marrakesh”. And when it ended, I was left wanting more-so was the thirst that the story evoked in me. It was an open ended story. The story has an ending alright but I'm not sure whether I got what the author had in his mind when he wrote those last two pages or was it meant for the readers to interpret it the way that suited them. Whatever it was, however it ended, I wished it hadn’t ended so soon. I wished that the night at Marrakesh had never ended so that the storyteller of Marrakesh, Hassan, would continue narrating his brother’s story that he recounted every year at the square of Jemaa el fna on the day the two foreigners had disappeared.

Of Dreams

Have you ever read or heard a story that makes you feel that you have read it before but still want to go on and know what happens next? I have read so many such stories. With around 7 billion people across the planet, we are losing uniqueness. Yesterday, I bought roses for my mom, dined at KFC with dad, took my dog out for a really long walk and also played with my little brother. I wonder how many of you would have followed the same schedule. You or people around you might have done at least one of the above things if not all. Coincidences happen all the time and such coincidences bind people together under the tag of interests, tastes and other things. However, such small familiar stories are what connect us with the book “Of Dreams” written by Aditi Talwar Sodhi-another Indian author I never imagined I would read one day. It’s not that I think lowly of them. It’s just my friends who also got a habit of reading mostly read foreign authors hence even I end up reading only foreign authors. It got another reason too; that is, I usually read fantasy fictions and when it comes to this genre, Indians have contributed very less or might be I’m ignorant so please pardon my ignorance.

My college diary

If you are a student too then you definitely know that no matter how hard you try, you just cannot pay attention to few lectures. You either sleep or entertain yourself by doing things that you’re not suppose to be doing sitting inside the class during lectures. Well, it’s perfectly alright to play on your phones or draw caricature of your professors during such lectures. I do it all the time but for a change, I wanted to try something else and ended up chatting with an elephant that was sitting beside me. I must add that it found the lecture equally boring. Anyway, just read our following conversation- 

“I would rather hear a frog crook”, it said. 

“Pardon me!” I asked.

The Elephant and the Rising Sun

Weird or not, my college wanted me to do an organizational structure study in a manufacturing company even before the classes started, hence I went to Toyota Kirloskar Motors Pvt LTD to learn something about the organization and everything else that the assignment demanded. People who know me, personally or not, also knows how much I’m obsessed with Animes, and Japanese and Korean dramas. I’m sure that you, whoever you are, is wondering what’s the link between my obsession and the college assignment. Well, if you didn’t know already, Toyota is a Japanese company and it merged with Kirloskar groups in the year 1998 and formed Toyota Kirloskar Motors. 

No, I’m not going to write about either my college assignment or Toyota. I just wanted to share my opinion about the Japanese people whom I encountered during my 30 days internship at Toyota and also about the misconceptions that we have about them.

Chanakya's Chant

Chanakya; I assume that there isn’t an Indian who wouldn’t recognize the name. After all, he’s the mastermind behind the glory of Chandragupta, who fought Alexander, the great. 

What comes to your mind when you hear the words “Indian Politics” rather who comes to your mind? Oh, no! I’m not talking about modern politics or politicians. I wasn’t hinting about Sonia Gandhi or her Amul-baby Rahul at all. I’m talking about politics as a big picture. According to me, Sri Krishna, Shakuni and Chanakya are the three people who were good at politics, and also exploiting opportunities and other’s weaknesses as well. They were the greatest strategist of all times in my opinion and I’m sure most of you would agree with me. However, I love reading books or watching animes, where the protagonists are extremely intelligent. For example: Code Geass is one of my favorite animes and whoever has watched it knows how good a strategist Lelouch vi Britannia was. Hence, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ashwin Sanghi’s Chanakya’s Chant.

A dream and a lost cause

Stocks, budgets, accounts, strategies, economy and what not-I have been hearing these kind of words since two months. To someone like me, who studied Computer Science and Engineering during graduation, all these words sounded jargon in the beginning but not anymore; I’m used to them already. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about what happened or what’s happening at my college in this post but about a particular class-very sleep inducing class it was. It’s not the lecturer’s fault but the subject’s, probably, not sure though.

Love on the rocks

I haven’t read many Indian authors though I’m a voracious reader. It’s not like I don’t like reading books written by Indian authors but I am more into fantasy fictions and Indians haven’t contributed much to the genre but I hope I will get to read many fantasy fictions written by Indians, soon. Now, when I started reading “love on the rocks”, to be honest, I didn’t expect much. The title made me think that it would be another love story with a girl and a boy running around trees, playing mind games. Well, that’s how Indian love stories will be, right? Pardon my prejudice…

I’m not familiar with either the life on the sea or the Malayalis’ life which seems so different from the life at Bangalore. Anyway, that’s not the point here. What I wanted to tell is that the plot of the book surrounds a ship named Sea Hyena and a Malayali protagonist, Sancha.

K's and J's

Choi Si Won-oppa

I have been very active on twitter these days and whoever follows me there knows because I always spam their time-lines with my tweets about animes, Korean and Japanese dramas, movies, books and my rants about other mundane things. I didn’t even spare my Facebook wall. I wonder how many people have blocked my feeds, though they were polite enough not to unfriend me or ask me to stop spamming their walls with mushy status updates and pictures of anime characters and Korean celebrities.

The other day

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 21; the twenty-first edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

The other day, I walked by the sea, admiring its vastness and wondering how many secrets it could be hiding behind its mask of calmness. After walking for what seemed miles, I looked back and saw my footprints. I had walked a lot yet I wanted to go on.

The sun sank into the sea. The birds flew away. The sky swallowed everything-the sea, the land and the faraway mountains, yet I wanted to go on.

An eternal quest

I’m not sure whether my post will be even considered as good, forget about winning; nevertheless, I wanted to participate in the Yahoo! Dove Real Beauty contest, not because of the lucrative prize but it got me thinking about what beauty means to me.

The first sunray that hits the earth, the twinkling stars, the moon in the dark sky, the first rain, the morning dew, the blooming flower, the fireflies, a baby’s smile, the butterflies, the mountains, the snow and the running stream-they all are beautiful. I even find a mother’s lullaby to be beautiful. There’s beauty in everything; you just need the eyes and heart to appreciate it. I truly believe in the saying, “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”.

Promise not

Wind blows,
And away it flows.
The sun rises everyday.
And sets, leaving the sky gray.
Great Kings ruled our lands,
And finally went down the sands.
Promise not you will stay.
After all, death gets its way.

Home! Sweet Home!

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 20; the twentieth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Home; though he has been married for almost ten years now, the first thing that crosses his mind when someone mentions “home” is his childhood home, where his parents still live. His wife was a wonderful person; she tried really hard to keep him happy but she couldn’t stop him from missing his parents and his craving for the life that he had left behind for her. No, he never blamed her for anything because he was the one who had chosen her over his parents and even she had left behind everything so that she could with him; however, she never complained or displayed her despair, so even he never mentioned his parents in front of her. Neither he nor she ever spoke about it because they understood that it was already hard enough for them, even without knowing how unhappy their partners are about the coldness that their parents have maintained since many years; ten years was a very long time, really long.

The crowd is "not" my shepherd

Image courtesy: jasonlove.com

No, I haven’t given up writing fictions. It’s just that, nowadays, I feel like writing about everything and anything; mostly about the things that inspires (or influences) me greatly. Recently, I haven’t been doing anything productive though there are few things that I would like to do like exhausting the must-watch animes’ list, updating my bookshelf, finishing the half read Cecelia Ahren’s “If you could see me now” and study accounts; however, I choose to continue doing nothing. Trust me, it’s no fun and now, even the word boredom bores me to no extent but I know that it won’t last forever. Soon, I would be forced to run behind something that I don’t even want to chase and all because the world is going after it.

Pottermania

Tom Marvolo Riddle to Lord Voldemort

 Image courtesy: boocherhix

Oh yea, I am another Harry Potter maniac alright and I have read the entire series at least 7 times. Everytime I read the book, it feels like I’m reading it for the first time because there’s so much to imagine; so many new and fascinating things, fantastic beasts, nerve wracking adventures and then, the magic itself. The book always keeps me interested to the very last word because of the detailed description of everything and every moment that the author has got into until the end.

Playing Love

Do you suppose that the world revolves around you? Everyone does to some extent but it's also necessary to be considerate of others' feelings. People are people; we pass by many everyday, few good and few bad, yet they are people who can feel joy and pain. A person, no matter what he or she is to us, is not disposable. It's normal to be self-centered and do things if only it benefits us however it doesn't give us rights to use another person for our welfare and then cast them away without thinking twice. We might even remorse and want to compensate for our mistakes but some wounds can never be healed.

Sometimes apologies don't yield forgiveness because such would be our mistake; we quetch that the person, who is supposed to forgive us, is overreacting but we never wonder whether we would have forgiven if we were the one to bear that wound. We might have even sought revenge.

The Shawshank Redemption

Andy Dufresne and Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding

Image Courtesy: listal

Have you ever been to an ocean? Doesn’t it look calm though we know there are millions of lives and zillions of activities happening underneath that mask of calmness. It hides countless secrets beneath it and when we learn any one of those secrets, we are left with nothing but the feeling of awe and that was exactly what happened to me when I watched “The Shawshank Redemption”. The movie wasn’t pacy but it wasn’t slow either. I quite liked both the pace and the storyline but if you decide to watch the movie after reading this review then let me warn you that the movie might not necessarily have the same effect on you, however I guarantee that it would at least not disappoint you.

An animated world

Zero and CC from Code Geass

 Image Courtesy: Hiino

“What in the world should I write about?” this question was haunting me since last few days. No, it’s not writer’s block. It’s just that I had too many things on my mind. Firstly, MBA admissions and then other otiose things. However, I was never busy when it came to watching Animes (Japanese toons) and reading Mangas (Japanese comics). I have watched almost all the anime series that my friends recommended yet the list of animes that I want to watch shows no sign of exhaustion. Though, I don’t understand Japanese and watch either English subbed or dubbed version of the anime, I still love watching them. I have also learnt few Japanese words and I do not find Japanese names hard-to-pronounce anymore.

Heard and Unsaid

Eavesdropping is fun and when you are a gossipmonger, you surely would want to listen in. On top of it, if you are the subject of the conversation, you certainly don’t want to miss it. If they are being all praises then you know it’s for real because people always talk truth behind your back and if they are cursing you, then they are being awfully honest.

Ashish knew that he had been one of the hottest topics among ladies, for all time. He couldn’t deny that he was breathtakingly handsome. He had been everybody's sweetheart back at his college and had lost count of the number of love letters that he had received, but he had remained single forever and was still one. He had always enjoyed people's attention and who wouldn’t. Let be beautiful ladies ogling at him or gentlemen envying him, he had liked playing an eye-catcher and now he was quite enjoying overhearing Bani and Maya's conversation.

Time Travel

"We can't take that risk. We don't know how her body might react to the speed, so we ought to send a test subject before we summon her", Amar explained. He hoped they would get his point. He hated this part of his work. Making a bunch of lunkheads understand science was more difficult than teaching a monkey to speak English.

"Do as you wish but we want results", John said on behalf of everyone.

Amar said, "It can't be helped. We ought to go by rules. I can't perform miracles" and walked out of the conference room.

How much he hated working for them. They weren't making him work for the welfare of mankind or anyone for that matter. It was always about them. They wanted him to finish off the project as soon as possible so that they could save their hides.