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”.