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.