Say no to Air France

This is the second incident now. Continuing my theory of there can be no smoke without fire, this is purely unacceptable. And so, as I do not buy Tommy Hilfiger garments after reading the e-mail chain, I will no longer travel by Air France.

Frankly speaking, though the Tommy Hilfiger story may even seem to be unreal, this Air France story is pretty real. I have seen a certain apathy of the European staff for the Indian customers in the flight. I have seen this in Lufthansa as well but as it was an all Indian flight, I would like to give them the advantage of "curt by nature/birth" and not due to any racism.

People may argue I have no right to be angry against racist as I myself care for fair skin. But I would like to remind that I differentiate only Indians with skin color as skin color in India can be changed by exposure to sun, makeup materials and general skin care habits unlike the rest of the world and so I think being fair in India is more a matter of self care than a genetic property. There are also a lot of gorgeous dark skin people including the great Biapsha Basu, Madhu Sapre, Kajol to name a few.

Short Note on India Elections 09

Election 09 for me was only two people. Varun Gandhi and his mom Maneka Gandhi. In 80's Rekha had shown us Biwi ho to aisi and in 2009, Maneka shows Maa ho to aisi. BJP had almost disowned him, Congress was against him but one person who was always wit him was his mom, she visited him every day when he was wrongly put in the jail. She tried so hard for him that she had almost lost in her own constituency. But all's well that ends well. Both mother and son duo has won. I do not care if they are with BJP or any other party of their choice but the sweetness of their victory can not be ignored. Imagine Varun and Maneka sitting together at one end and Rahul and Sonia on the other. Both the mothers beaming at their son as they speak and as soon as they finish, hurry up to give them a warm glass of milk, that too malai marke.

BTW, I had pulled off the post below but now re-posting it. Originally posted even before Varun was caught under NSA.

My Views on Varun Gandhi

There are 2 ways you can really have strong views about a person. When you have done all your research and when you haven’t done any. For me, the analysis below is mainly because I did not read much about it and I think I just read the facts. I do not want to read what each and every person is saying to form an opinion. But yes, this is not a hard and fast opinion (With more proofs, things may change, and come on, he’s just 29)

I feel Varun Gandhi is just a puppet in a big game that is being played by BJP or even the sinister BJP-Congress alliance which I have a feeling is always cooking under the hood. Ok, not to sound too absurd with my argument made above, but even if it is anybody’s plan, it is certainly not Varun’s own. Hate speeches like these are being made every day by RSS workers and have been made in the past by all the BJP stalwarts except perhaps Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Sikander Bakht. To make this a political issue is a part of a bigger conspiracy which I am really eager to find out. It might even be political ambitions of the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt etc.

Second startling fact is the comparative low tone of condemnation by Priyanka and Rahul. As star people of opposite parties I had expected harsher criticisms but their statements are more like “We are ashamed of our little brother but after all he is still a kid, he will learn”. Whether these things point to the BJP-Congress under the hood pact that I speculated earlier or a case where blood is more important than political rivalry, both are good for the country as a whole. We need sensible next gen leaders who are not like present Advaniji’s BJP which had decided to oppose each and every word that Congress says in the parliament and vice versa. By showing their solidarity, Priyanka and Rahul prove that even if the become political opponents, they won’t be as insensitive as the 80+ lots.

Third reason I would like to defend Varun is his mom. She is an outcast of the great Gandhi family but she still managed to stay in picture. There are numerous people who are now nameless because of their non allegiance to Gandhi Family. But she still survives. Also, for a politician, she looks really cool( much better than Mayawati, Mamata, Jayalalitha and even Jaya Bachchan. She is in the league of Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje who themselves are collectively below the league of Jayaprada, Smriti Irani, Hema Malini). Thirdly she does this really hep and cool green and animal care thing. I do feel with most of her issues like keeping birds in cages and killing stray dogs and all such animal right things. I even try very hard to get out of Non Veg, but I promise Ms Gandhi, that the day the taste ratio of Non veg to veg based on availability even falls below 200%, I will turn a vegetarian (right now, from what I cook and what I get in restaurants, the ratio is far more than even 500%). So, I think the son of such a great mother does deserve a bit more respect and probably forgiveness because I would like to believe that he at least didn’t mean the words that we think he said.

A bedtime Story

There was a little boy who lived in a big house in the suburbs of a very small metropolis. The house had a wonderful view of mountains on one side and the sea on the other side. One day, the little boy decided that he will make a lighthouse. The lighthouse will be so beautiful that when people see it, they will feel so much peace at heart that the little boy will eventually get the Nobel Peace Prize.

The little boy sets out to find the right material for the lighthouse. As soon as he gets out of the house, his friend Artim asks him, “Dood, where are you going so early in the morning?” The little boy replies-“Hey dood, I want to build a lighthouse. I am off to get the material for the base.” Artim says that he wishes to join him and the little boy readily agrees. Artim asks: “Where do we go?” The little boy says “Let’s make this out of marble stone. Let’s go to India and get the marbles from Bheda Ghat”. They fly in Air India and reach New Delhi. From New Delhi they take the train to Jabalpur. On the way they see the Taj Mahal and its Minarets. Artim asks, “Do you want your lighthouse like those Minarets?” The little boy replies, “No, much more beautiful.” Finally they reach Jabalpur and then they take the ferry to Bheda Ghat. After 7 days of intense search, they find the right marble and then make arrangements to send it to home. They take the Air India flight where they were served wonderful Kaju Barfis for dinner and come back. The little boy says, “Artim, tomorrow I am going to select the colors tomorrow. Will you come with me?” Artim replies “No dood, I have had enough fun here and have to play cricket tomorrow.” Artim thanks him for coming and goes back to his magnificent house with sea on one side and mountains on the other.

Next day the little boy sets of again for the colors. This time he meets his friend Idnas. Idnas asks: “Dude, where do you go?” The little boy replies “ Hi dudette, I am making a Lighthouse. I am going to find the colors today. Will you come with me?” Idnas shakes her head vigorously and says “Yes, I would love to but do you have any color in mind?” The little boy says “Yes dudette, I want to get the red with white polka dots just like the Mushroom on which Caterpillar was sitting when Alice met him. I need to get his copyright permissions. I think we have to go to Amazon.” Dumb as she is, Idnas says “Wow, I would love to go to Seattle” to which the little boy replies “Dumbo dudette, it’s not Amazon.com headquarters but the jungles of Amazon”. So they fly to Rio de Janeiro in TAM airlines. On reaching Rio, they saw everybody was playing soccer. Lazy as she was, Idnas found a red and white football and told the little boy “Hey, why don’t we get permission from Pele and use this pattern?” The little boy said “Oh lazy dudette, it’s not half as good as the mushroom. We have to go to Amazon forests.” They set off on a boat to the deep jungles of Amazon. After encountering the great anacondas and the piranhas, they finally reach near the gates of El-dorado. And guess what, the gate keeper was the old caterpillar himself. The little boy asked his permission and the caterpillar was glad to oblige and also accepted the invite to the opening of the lighthouse. Happily Idnas and the little boy come back home in TAM airlines eating Banana fritas. The little boy asks Idnas “Hi dudette, tomorrow I am going in search for a reflector for my lighthouse. Will you come with me?” Idnas says “Hey dude, thanks for the trip, it was really awesome but I have to do my MBA preparations tomorrow”. The little boy thanks her for coming and goes to his big house in the small metropolis.

The little boy wakes up early morning at six fifty the next day and sets of in search for the reflector. He meets the rowdy neighborhood boy Blutu. Blutu asks “Hey Dyude, ‘ssup! so early on a Saturday morning, I haven’t even slept yet . Where are you going?” The little boy replies “Hi, I am going to get some reflectors for my Lighthouse. Do you want to join?” Blutu tags along. The little boy tells him that he plans to go to Buckingham palace to ask for some diamonds. They fly in British airways and reach Heathrow airport right on time. Restless as he is, Blutu immediately wanted to go to rest of Europe especially Amsterdam. The queen had given them appointment after a few days so they set up for a Euro Trip. The little boy wanted to go to the ongoing Cannes Film festival and from there, they sailed to Amsterdam. On the way back, in Belgium, Blutu suggested getting some glass from there for the reflector but the Little boy never changes his mind and they went to the Queen. The queen, Her Majesty Hermione I, was very nice to them and showed them all her diamond collections including the Cullinan diamond and the Kohinoor. Then she offered her own selection of diamonds to the little boy for the reflector and promised to come for the opening bash. They came back in British Airways flight with Blutu enjoying his Tandoori chicken but the little boy stuck to the very English Fish n chips with Tea and muffins. After coming back, the little boy asked Blutu if he wanted to accompany him next day in search of the foghorn. Blutu replied, “Dyude, I wish I could, but you know, I have to see this girl tomorrow who is going to be my prospective wife. So, I better be there.” The little boy wished him all the best and went back to his big house with a Bonsai mango tree in the patio.

The little boy woke up a little late at seven thirty and got ready. Just when he was about to get out, Dnohs came asking for some cereal for breakfast. On seeing the little boy all dressed up, Dnohs said, “Magaa, where are you going, da?” The little boy said, “Magane, I am going to Africa to ask the Lion king for copyrights for his roar for the foghorn of my lighthouse.” Dnohs immediately came along, even without brushing his teeth. They flew in Air Tanzania. But as luck would have it, the plane did a ccrash landing in Alexandria. It was a blessing in disguise as neither Dnohs nor the little boy had visited Egypt before. They had fun roaming around Giza and Alexandria. Dnohs was a sharp buy, To reduce travel, he told the little boy, pointing towards the Spinx, “Magaa, this looks like a lion, and you will probably never see this big a lion. Why don’t you ask this one for permissions?”. But adamant and quality conscious as he is, the little boy ruled out the idea though secretly appreciated Dnohs’s idea in one of his blogs. They set off for Tanzania first on camels and then on elephants. Finally, at the edge of a cliff, with setting sun in the background, they found Simba. Simba said “Whroaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam, I will be pleased to give you the necessary rights, just bring my pen so that I can sign it.” After getting the signature and his consent to come for the opening ceremony they came back home in Air Tanzania eating Ugali. The little boy asked Dnohs if he is available tomorrow but Dnohs said, “Magaa, I have to finish my project 15 days before the deadline you see. It’s recession time.” Little boy just smiled and came back to his big house in the small state.


Now, the little boy had all the necessary things and just had to build the lighthouse. As this did not involve any fun travel, nobody was willing to accompany the little boy on his venture and hence he started building on his own. As soon as he put the first stone in place, a hand came and helped him place the next one. He turned around to see a beautiful little girl. He asked her, “Miss, what’s your name?” She said, “Hello my friend, I am Alimru. I live in the house on the hill. I saw you working alone and came along. Do you need some help?”. The little boy thanked her and both of them started working. With such a great company, they never realized when it was dark and then Alimru said, “It was nice working with you and I will come again tomorrow. I might be a bit late as I have my MBA prep classes at 6 and we then have practice for our softball finals, but I will join you by 9 for sure”. The little boy was fumbling for words and went back home. Soon this became a routine and Alimru came every day to help little boy realize his dream. Meanwhile, Alirmu scored an 800 in GMAT and her team won the softball. The little boy was cheering her from the first row. One late evening, they finally finished and Alirmu said, “Dear, what do we do for the light?” Both of them giggled and went zooming into the sky, beyond Milky Way and plucked one of the brightest stars. They came back and placed the star on the light house. It was looking fabulous and they decided to go for a walk along the beach. The phosphorescence of the water and the lighthouse beams created a mystic surrounding. Suddenly, the beam stopped right on them and both just stopped where they were.

They celebrated the opening day under the starry sky on the beach with cool breeze blowing. The menu was selected by the little boy. They had Palak Paneer, Crunchy Salmon sushi, broccoli and asparagus salad, Mapo Tofu, Coconut Shimp and many more with Chocolate Mousse and Rasgullas for dessert. The caterpillar, Her Majesty Hermione I, Simba, Artim, Idnas, Blutu, Dnohs everybody had come down for the occasion. But of course nobody could take their eyes off Alimru!!

A trip to Halibut point and Wingaersheek beach

Finally it is warm in Massachusetts. It was a Saturday and I and a few friends decided to make most of it. We decided to go to the above mentioned places.

The journey was different this time. I generally avoid driving such long distances (~55 miles). But this time I wanted to. We were 5 in my Blue Accord Sedan and 3 in my friend’s coupe of the same make. I thank my co-passengers for having faith in me. There were just 2 odd moments once where I got really scared as a music started with a big blasting sound and I imagined it as a honk. The other one was I got carried away in conversation and had to merge to the interstate very close. My lane changes were discrete and not analog, but apart from that it was fine. And most importantly I liked it. For the first time I really liked speed.

Let’s move on. So we reached this place called Halibut Point State park. Primarily it was a quarry way back in the past and now there is a small pond. On one side of the pond wall there is the sea and a World War 2 watch tower on the other side. The other car was late (thanks to my awesome driving) and we started playing Frisbee and soccer in a picnic area. Soon the others joined us. We played a unique combo of playing soccer and Frisbee together which slowly changed to a game called donkey. After around an hour we realized that there is too much non-zero mean noise in the rule and we set out for the trail.

The trail around the quarry was small and non extensive but when we reached the other side, we just went towards the sea. It was a rocky beach with the water just hitting the rocks. The water was ice cold but it was still fun to wet our feet. I monitored a 0.5 cm fish stuck in a crevice for a long time until another string wave took it away. Wonder how it would survive in the ocean.

There were curious stone structures on the way back which reminded me of a game I used to play: Pittuk. But some people thought it looks like Stonehenge. We set out to make one. We did make it but then destroyed it as well. It was fun acting like 5 year olds amongst an age group with average age of 26 :-o.

Next on our way to the beach, we stopped by at Rockport downtown for lunch. The place called “Rockport House of Pizza” though had good food but an absolute rude waitress who flustered a lot and was seemed to be angry on the fact that she has to make so many checks. Though yelp.com rates it good, I think it’s bad.

Anyway, next we went for Wingaersheek beach. There was a huge crowd. My last few visits to the beaches have always been to the ones either too small or too less occupied. This was full of people. We did our bit of people watching, sitting on rocks, playing in water and burying the feet in sand. There were a set of little girls who had long hairs. They played a game of dipping their hair in waiter and then splashing it all around. It was fun. The beach had rocks in one end which reminded me of the rocks in NITK beach and the zillions of associated memories. On te other end, there was Ipswich river bay and this entire place was in Gloucester. Sounds as if we are in the middle of England.

Amongst the songs played in the car, my favorite was Flight IC 408. Youtube Link

7th on BigB blog

Hi,

Not that I am a big fan of Big B, but yes, I do like his blog. And today I gotto be the 7th one to comment and the first time I really tried. The comment makes no sense but see for yourself.

Indienglish is phunny

A small post here. I realized that there are some funny usages in tamil, marathi and bengali. These are when someone tries to communicate in these above languages but using English alphabets. Here are soem of them:

In tamil, an extra h is used for everything. Though I have started using 'th' for the first sound in 'Taj' (Thaj Mahal sounds so funny) but I cannot just get used to 'dh' for the first sound in 'the'. Funniest is the usage in the name 'Darshan/Darshana'. In tamil, it becomes 'Dharshan/Dhaarshana' which has a very derogatory meaning in hindi/sanskrit.

Next is Marathi. For some reason marathis think z is 'jh'. And hence jhootha becomes zuta. Jharna becomes zarna which may not be that hhilarious, but somehow irritates me in the same way as the sound of metal against metal.

Equally, if not more in the usage of 'v' by bengalis. Bengalis think 'v' is 'bh'. So the very common word for good i.e. bhalo is spelled as 'valo'.

As an end note, this fondness of non bengali speaking people with the word bhalo can be quite misleading as it has such close relatives with very different meanings. Here is a list:

Bhalo Aachi are 2 words meaning I am good.
Bhalobashi as 1 word means I love.
Bhalo Bhashi 2 words actually mean " I float well" but some people think that it is same as bhalobashi which is I love again.

Fashion

Looks like it is becoming the most used word nowadays. We have been bombarded with fashion weeks. And they appear to occur almost every month. This year, the best actor (female) awards and best supporting actor (female) awards both went to the actors in the movie fashion. After this sudden bursts of Delhi and Mumbai fashion weeks back to back, many of the bloggers have started writing about fashion shows and they are more or less in the negative tone. I really like the fashion shows and unlike a single working professional who will be out having fun on Saturday evening, I am simply sitting at home, I thought I will pen my thoughts on this.

I will begin with hat I like in the fashion shows and later delve into what fashion means to me.

For whatever reasons, we all have either secretly or openly watched fashion TV. People like Sushma Swaraj planned to ban it, but could not stop the curiosity of the people watching it whatever may the reason. Knowingly or unknowingly, we became familiar with the terms like “fall-winter”, “spring summer”. We came to know that Milan is the fashion capital of the world. Though we always think LA will be more fashionable considering Hollywood factor, actually New York is the place of fashion. In general we started getting used to the famished looking people walking on the screen. And thus we all learnt the basics of fashion.

Needless to say, India caught up with it and the small fashion industry got more and more limelight. Few fashion icons joined the movies and then fashion shows became more important. Add to it, the burst of 24X7 news channel and the advent of color in newspapers. There had to be more flashy things to show to attract more viewers and the result is the overdose in true Indian fashion. Whenever we like something, we overdo it to an extent that we ourselves start hating it: Candle marches, social networkings are just to name a few.

But I enjoyed this overdose of Fashion weeks a lot. Every morning amongst the gloomy economic news, the mud slinging of politics and the daily terrorist attack stories, I really look forward to these skinny models walking on the ramps wearing clothes which nobody would ever wear in public. Some people object to this very fact that why show something which nobody will ever wear in public. Well take it as a form of entertainment just like IPL or EPL.

Anyway, fashion shows always remind me of the fashion show in my undergrad college. There used to be only 1 or 2 nice looking girl in every batch. The fashion shows became all about choosing which girl from the 1st year will be chosen for this coveted job and the show always happened to be 4 women (1 for each year) surrounded by 20-30 men. It was hilarious.

To me fashion can come in any form. For example, election fashion. Sarah Palin had her own fashion. Queen and her pearls are another fashion statement. Sonia Gandhi, Vasundhara Raje are the fashionable amongst Indian women politicians. Amongst the men it is Murali Manohar Joshi, P Chidambaram, Arun Jaitley and even Varun Gandhi.

The biggest fashion in India always comes from movies. I still remember the number of friendship bands we wore after kuch kuch hota hai, and how all of us in undergrad tried hard to keep small triangular stubble on our chin. Aamir khan has been the person who always starts new trends. Surprisingly, amongst women, I think it is not Aishwarya Rai as much as it is Kareena Kapoor. Whether it is her avatars with Tushaar Kapoor, or as Poo in K3G or in Jab we met, her fashion has always percolated the deepest.

As I write this big an article on fashion, I realize that I myself dress in the poorest form imaginable. This blog attests the same. More for carrying the guilt and less for people to see, here are two more How not to’s:




1) How not to dress for a wedding
2) How not to dress in a beach
3) How not to stand next to objects which make you conscious of your height.


Adios

Short Note on India Elections 09

Election 09 for me was only two people. Varun Gandhi and his mom Maneka Gandhi. In 80's Rekha had shown us Biwi ho to aisi and in 2009, Maneka shows Maa ho to aisi. BJP had almost disowned him, Congress was against him but one person who was always wit him was his mom, she visited him every day when he was wrongly put in the jail. She tried so hard for him that she had almost lost in her own constituency. But all's well that ends well. Both mother and son duo has won. I do not care if they are with BJP or any other party of their choice but the sweetness of their victory can not be ignored. Imagine Varun and Maneka sitting together at one end and Rahul and Sonia on the other. Both the mothers beaming at their son as they speak and as soon as they finish, hurry up to give them a warm glass of milk, that too malai marke.

BTW, I had pulled off the post below but now re-posting it. Originally posted even before Varun was caught under NSA.

My Views on Varun Gandhi

There are 2 ways you can really have strong views about a person. When you have done all your research and when you haven’t done any. For me, the analysis below is mainly because I did not read much about it and I think I just read the facts. I do not want to read what each and every person is saying to form an opinion. But yes, this is not a hard and fast opinion (With more proofs, things may change, and come on, he’s just 29)

I feel Varun Gandhi is just a puppet in a big game that is being played by BJP or even the sinister BJP-Congress alliance which I have a feeling is always cooking under the hood. Ok, not to sound too absurd with my argument made above, but even if it is anybody’s plan, it is certainly not Varun’s own. Hate speeches like these are being made every day by RSS workers and have been made in the past by all the BJP stalwarts except perhaps Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Sikander Bakht. To make this a political issue is a part of a bigger conspiracy which I am really eager to find out. It might even be political ambitions of the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt etc.

Second startling fact is the comparative low tone of condemnation by Priyanka and Rahul. As star people of opposite parties I had expected harsher criticisms but their statements are more like “We are ashamed of our little brother but after all he is still a kid, he will learn”. Whether these things point to the BJP-Congress under the hood pact that I speculated earlier or a case where blood is more important than political rivalry, both are good for the country as a whole. We need sensible next gen leaders who are not like present Advaniji’s BJP which had decided to oppose each and every word that Congress says in the parliament and vice versa. By showing their solidarity, Priyanka and Rahul prove that even if the become political opponents, they won’t be as insensitive as the 80+ lots.

Third reason I would like to defend Varun is his mom. She is an outcast of the great Gandhi family but she still managed to stay in picture. There are numerous people who are now nameless because of their non allegiance to Gandhi Family. But she still survives. Also, for a politician, she looks really cool( much better than Mayawati, Mamata, Jayalalitha and even Jaya Bachchan. She is in the league of Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje who themselves are collectively below the league of Jayaprada, Smriti Irani, Hema Malini). Thirdly she does this really hep and cool green and animal care thing. I do feel with most of her issues like keeping birds in cages and killing stray dogs and all such animal right things. I even try very hard to get out of Non Veg, but I promise Ms Gandhi, that the day the taste ratio of Non veg to veg based on availability even falls below 200%, I will turn a vegetarian (right now, from what I cook and what I get in restaurants, the ratio is far more than even 500%). So, I think the son of such a great mother does deserve a bit more respect and probably forgiveness because I would like to believe that he at least didn’t mean the words that we think he said.

Kuch bhi

It has been a long time. I am not sure what to write, now that I have tried so many different things. I tried to be emotional, I tried to be gossipy, I tried to be personal and I tried writing about current affairs. Today I am bored, but I still feel like writing. I am not sure if it is a good idea to clutter the blog with such posts. But then, I have seen not blogging gets into a habit and I would not want to do that. Let there be no issue based blog, but at least keep the blog alive with some written text rather than random links and pictures.

Readership has been low. Or has it increased? I do not know. But definitely, it is not the current posts that are being looked at. I think the most read ones are the Bollywood awards that I dish out and the one about “Bengali in me”, thanks to the dhono dhanye song I have put in there.

Ok let this be an update blog. I will update all of you who do read this blog and may be more for me to read later what updates I can comfortably share on this date.

I have got this craving for some good “Rani/Priety” movies now. By Rani priety I mean recent movies with a dominant heroine role. Rani has not been doing much good stuff. I saw Priety in Last Lear and Heaven on earth. I liked Last Lear.

I have also been watching this series called “The big bang theory”. It’s about 4 geeks and a dashing girl in next apartments. It’s extremely funny and I highly recommend it.

On the bad sides, I am not at all excited about the Indian general elections 2009. I do not like NDA/BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and Congress was never glamorous. The rising clout of the regional parties will just add noise to the government and no real breakthrough can ever happen. How I wish Samajwadi party was a national party. It has got glamour, it has got the backing of industrial big shots and it seems that it always means business and no nonsense party. It may be corrupt etc, but then it’s end goal is get into the government and it makes it very direct to a common man like us. On the other hand, BJP’s election issues are so baseless: attacking congress for the global recession, Afzal Guru hanging etc. How can these be election issues. Unrealistic 2 RS rice and free color TV campaigns also make more sense than this. Congress on the other hand can do such a constructive campaign, but it is so busy with it’s Rahul baba that it cannot see anything beyond. Sonia madam was an efficient backdoor puppeteer, but the problem with Rahul is that he is the puppet.

Worse is the recession. Just when we think it cannot get worse, there is more shocks. We cannot predict. But I think we are at a stage where we have already expected the worst. Nowadays lay offs, shut down does not even alarm us any more unless it is us at the receiving end. Is the slowdown also slowing down?

But for me, the biggest concern is “Woh ladki hai kahan”. It is a combined effect of so many factors. Suddenly I realize that the often used line “pehle khud ko establish kar loon” has began to blur. There had been times when I could have really gone ahead but this line pulled me back and now when the line goes blur, the picture gets blurrer. Add to it the fact that almost all my friends are already ahead of me in this race. Not only lonely, I feel angry too.

And hence we should do yoga. I have started Ramdev baba yogas. The thing that I enjoy most in that is my daily choice of accompanying music. I need a clock with second update so that I can rate my kapalbhatis. Hence I play songs on you tube. I had started wit meditation music, bhajan, devotional songs, rabindra sangeet etc. But today I tried Aishwarya Rai songs, and I enjoyed it. Probably tomorrow will be jaadu hai nasha hai. Let’s see. I should probably follow the Shilpa Shetty yogas. It will be glam yoga .

Book Review: Sea of Poppies

After a long time, I am writing a book review. And I have read a few available about the book. One thing I noticed that the reviews are actual reviews, not the typical hindi movie reviews which just go on to praise the film if they like one and find every possible flaw if the do not. The reviews always give an idea off what the writer is trying to achieve and as he successful in doing that. It is difficult for me to write a review of that kind, and hence I will stick to the Indian kinds. So people, here comes the new Kazmi, Sen and Masand.

Bottom line first, I liked the book. So it will be only good things about the book. I am not new to Indie English novels but I am very new to historic novels which give you a balance of history along with a strong storyline. This book pleased me thoroughly but did not come as a surprise as I has already read “Hungry Tide”. While reading it I never realized that I know so much about Sunderban. This book just takes this feel further and this time it is not confined with a small region like Sunderban but instead covers a vast region of the world. It talks about China, Cape Town, England, Kolkata, Bhojpuri belt and of course about the life in sea which can be considered a whole new country of it’s own.

Another of the thing that I liked immensely was the language. It’s just so varied. I never enjoyed the language so much in any other novel before. There is English by the sea men, there is the African American English, there is the English English (English spoken in England), the French English, English that the English people spoke in 1830’s India and then the English that Bengalis spoke in 1830. Each is so different and the way Amitav has blended all of them leaves me mesmerized. To add to it, so many foreign words are borrowed all throughout the book: Bhojpuri, Bengali and especially the language of the seamen who are called Lascars. I know Bangla and can understand bhojpuri, but as I had no idea about the lascar tongue, it was a pleasure decoding that. Towards the end of the book, Amitav is blending cultures. I got so excited and kept thinking of all these people who then went to Mauritius and how is the present culture of Mauritius affected by it.

And of course the part that had me dumbstruck was the sex. The very fact that I am shamelessly writing about it shows its impact on me. I have always read sex with either curiosity or disgust and I think that was its purpose when it is written about or shown. But here it was a part of the story and blended so well. And it was in all forms. There is the straightforward straight and then both forms of non straight, there is sexual harassment of children, there are different types of punishments and there is even with animal. But it comes so naturally in the book in a way that I am not used to. You are never excited or disgusted about it. In most of the other reads, you either read a rape with contempt and hatred for the rapist or in normal descriptions it is something which bonds love more strongly. But in this book, it does neither. It comes in and goes wit the same flow as say a day goes and the night comes.

Unlike Rajiv, I will not go and tell you about the best moment in the story. I also won’t criticize the book like Raja Sen who thinks that a critic has to criticize. Unlike Nikhat, I would still rate the book with five star though it does not have shahrukh or amitabh or directed by K Jo.