Sea of Poppies

Ok just finished reading Amitav Ghosh 'Sea of Poppies', the first in the Ibis trilogy. What really stood out for me which is why I'm documenting it here is the version of 'Hindoostanee' that the English in this book speak which is a sort of transalation/bastardisation of 'Oordoo/Hindi'. Words I learnt today:

• Loll-Shrub-->Lal Sharab-->Claret
• Brandy-Pawnee-->Paani-->Water
• Kubber-->Khabar-->News
• Burrempooter-->Brahmaputra
• Rascally Roger--> Raja of Rashkalli
• Bobachee-->Bawarchee-->Cook
• Chitchky
• Dumbpoke-->Dumpukht
• Cursies-->Kursis
• Tuckiers-->Takia
• Tobbler -->Tabla
• Loocher -->Luccha/Lukha
• Tottee-connah/Cacatorium-->Tutti-->Toilet
• Chuckeroo-->
• More-Roger-->Maharaja
• Cuzzanah-->Khazana-->Treasure
• Gudda-->Donkey
• Zubben-->Zubaan-->Language
• Gubbrow-->Ghabrao-->Scare
• BeeBee-->Biwi-->Wife/Lady of the house(BurraBeeBee)
• Nil-Rotten-->Neel Rattan

The one good thing about not having cable is that one does not get distracted watching random crap on TV and thus I have managed to read Stieg Larsson's masterpieces, Sea of Poppies, Rick Riordan's Lost Hero and the Red Pyramid, Eat Pray Love - at this rate, I think I should finally buy a copy of Homer's Odyssey or at the very least the Iliad!

American History X

The dichotomy of American History fascinates me - on one hand, there was this influx of immigrant Europeans trying to retain their way of life in a new land and on the other, they denied the same right to the African slaves.

I read 'Cane River' by Lalita Tademy  which is a fictionalised account of her family's slave history and the difficult choices they face - the book ends in the early 1930's. Now halfway through 'The Help' by Kathryn Sockett, which talks about black maids in the 1960's at the time of desegregation.

 In the help, the crux so far is black women raising white children for them to become the mistresses in turn. In Cane River, the light skinned move to different towns to deny the african roots, mothers/children are sold to different areas so the owner's offence is not in the face of the family everyday - making you wonder all those generations of history which are untraceable.

Is this also what makes the US so great - the lack of history making it easy to overcome cultural taboos?

In India, with the caste system and general knowledge of where you come from makes it impossible for many people to knuckle down and embrace change - stagnating the country as a whole - we have a mindset to follow, revere people  - thus moving from royalty to dynastic politics - choosing the same name again and again as a route to familiar. 

It seems that the very things that make a culture proud are the same that can be a pitfall - which I suppose  is the root of the saying 'Pride comes before a Fall'!

Life is short....

I was discussing the books I've read, liked, hated along with authors with my friend N and I suddenly had a revelation. I used to be able to get through anything once I started - it used to be a matter of principle - if I started the book, I had to finish it. I was also experimental (in fiction) reading varied authors like Sophie Kinsella as well as Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the same time (of course, much more was read of SK - I mean, Shopaholic, come on!!). However nowadays, I really have to be captivated by the description/synopsis of a book to be bothered to attempt to read it and yes, I say attempt, coz if the book don't grab my attention by like 50 pages, it bye bye bookie!
The revelation being the reason: Before, I never had a job! College was fun, MBA even funner, and you used to get vast periods of time off so you could indulge these whims of trudging through the boring written word just so I could say - I did it! However, once you start to work and a lot of your time is spent doing things you don't necessarily enjoy or even dislike, it is much harder to spend your precious me time, suffering through something you have no interest in!
This explains why my currently read books include such illustrious titles as Chasing Daisy, Love Rosie, One Day, Twenties Girl while my half read copies of Arranged Marriages and Circle of Reason lie gathering dusts on the distant side table! not to mention the bible for all bibliophiles A Suitable Boy has never been turned beyond the 100th page!

Edited to Add: Finished Arranged Marriages last night. Also have friend who is Editor (Therefore reads for a living) and yet manages to read everything BUT pulp fiction! so clearly this is just a me phenomenon!

In My Good Books

So I've had a bit of a reading renaissance - I have successfully finished

• Georgette Heyer - Friday's Child - she is self explantory, one of my favourite authors
• Lalita Tademy - Cane River: Highly recommend this book...it's about slaves in Southern States of American from the late 1700's or so till it ends in 1936 - fictionalized account of the author's family - it really resonates!
• Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson series: I finished 2.5 books in one night - that should tell you how addictive the story is - the style of writing is ok but the story is fabulous - It basically takes Greek mythology, tells you it exists today and whoopie! you're off!
• P.G Wodehouse - Laughing Gas: Not his best  Novel-not-in-a-series but still a good read, predictable but good!
• Lynee Truss - Tennyson's Gift: Not fantastic but at least I can now name one work by Tennyson. Interesting to see how the author links up famous authors and artists from that time - Lewis Carroll, Tennyson, artist G.F Watts - It also introduced me to the art of Phrenology - one learns new things everyday!
• Kathy Reichs - Devil Bones: The main character in this series is Dr.Temperance Brennan - yes! That's right of the famous TV serial 'Bones' (I love that show and not just because David Boreanaz(a.k.a Angel from Buffy the VampireSlayer') is in it). I found it a little too technical for my liking but also learnt something new from the book about different religions like Voodoo and Santeria - always nice to know Roman Catholicism is not the answer to everything!
• Kathryn Fox - Skin and Bones: The best way to get hooked onto reading again is to read a crime novel -the gruesome and grisly ensure that you finish what you start so the habit begins! This was a onetime read but if I see a book by the author at an airport, would definitely pick up the copy!
• Malcolm Gladwell - Outliers: This was actually recommended to me by my cousin and though it's a fun read, I would not say it pointed out something that I had never heard of before - community is important, family support, etc etc
• Matthew Reilly - Seven Ancient Wonders: The book would be a one time read but for the amazing descriptions of the wonders espescially the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the fortress - These are fictional but still fabulous!. There are pictorial representations of the wonders as well which I thoroughly enjoyed.

What I also need to mention are the books that I have not finished in the course of the year:

• Joanne Harris - Rune Marks: the book seems interesting enough but cannot hold my attention to actually finish it
• Kim Edwards - The Memory Keeper's Daughter: Again, stuck at the quarter way point
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - That Thing Around Your Neck: Luckily, these are short stories so I completed 4 but still have 5-6 to make my way through - Gaaah!
• Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy: I started this book thrice over teh course of 2 yrs - one time even making it to a 100 pages but cannot cannot bring myself to do it! by the time, I sort out the characters, I'm like Gimme an MB!

I'm not fat - i'm just thought-full!

Over this weekend, I read the latest Dan Brown novel 'The Lost Symbol' - I found the book strictly ok but you gotta love the man for constantly expanding your frame of reference for so many things. In this one, he introduced me to Noetic sciences - I'm still a little bit unclear as to what it exactly means but the experiment to weigh your thoughts/soul....Wow! Basically, when I'm lighthearted, it's pretty much a literal feeling!

Other random things I've learnt from Dan Brown novels:

• Water pressure in the Mariana trench is 18,000 pounds per inch compared to a mere 14 pounds on the surface
• Chrondules
• Divine number
• The medallions demarcating the Roseline in paris
• Holy Blood, Holy Grail was a book

So many things - so little time!

I'm finally motivated to blog....couple of things have happened in life - went on holiday, got engaged, parents met etc etc but let's focus on my favourite subject - travel.

The bride is planning a 10 day vacay in Italy - making me incredibly jealous - very excited for her but still incredibly jealous and we got to discussing our top travel destinations that we want to visit. All of The Bride's currently seem to be in Europe. (1. paris 2. rome/ venice (though now florence also) 3. london 4. dublin 5. scotland. 6. moscow. 7 prague. 8. berlin).

I have a travel agenda for the next 3 yrs where I plan to strike off 1.New York 2. Istanbul (Turkey) 3. Angkor Wat/South East Asian island preferably Koh Samui. Post which, I will be looking at South America - Inca and Mayan civilizations{Machu Pichu- here I come!!] and also torn between the Eastern European countries like Prague etc. This list does not even include a trip to New Zealand where I will spend more than 6 days this time and explore the South Island.

There are so many places in the world that I will never get to see and this really causes me pain!

I will get down to making a comprehensive list of where all I need to go in the world and post it so I can have the pleasure of ticking it off/striking it through when I'm done!

Also, I have discovered new music after quite a while - In addition to the love of my life Robert Pattinson, 'Twilight' film also introduced me to a band called Muse whose track 'Super Massive Black Hole' is in the soundtrack. I really like the sound and realised how much I missed knowing good music or just hearing different things. In the middle of these discussions, I learnt about Damien Rice and also the sound of Gomez both of which I'm currently enamoured and listening to on loop on youtube. It's music like this which makes me realise why I need a Mp3 music player and why just radio on the phone is not enough!

I also appear to have given up reading - the last books I read were on holiday - Curtis Sittenfeld's Man of my dreams - eminently skippable and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go which I found very interesting - I also remember watching a movie on the same thoughts - 'The Island' starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johannsen. Since then I have started a Joanne Harris 'Rune Marks' and the last in the Thursday Next series 'First Among Sequels' - both of which are still pending completion.

Elegance - A guide

To quote from the Amazon review of the book I am going to discuss "Tessaro writes a lighthearted contemporary version of Pygmalion." The protagonist changes her life around by following the style guidelines in a 40 yr old manual ' the Guide to Elegance'. The book made for an interesting read since each chapter is based on a rule from this guide book.

Examples:

• Retire alligator skin after 5 pm - they are strictly sports and travel wear
• Always own suits
• Decollete increases as the night passes
• Comfort is unimportant in the larger scheme of things

Anyhoo, the list goes on and really in a lot of ways, what the style guide teaches you is a lesson in self worth - starting with self awareness. When you look good, automatically you are more confident since we live in a society that is governed by shallowness! By insisting a woman always look her best, she is insisting on being who she is. The book also states how every woman is not born beautiful and beauty fades but charm is something everyone can aspire to and it will last you a lifetime since it is an acquired skill.

I disagree in some cases tho - As you know I live in Mumbai which tho being a wonderful city prides itself on it's ability to showcase all kinds of people. Therefore it is not a crime to wander the streets in pyjamas or torn jeans or any statement making article of your choice or in some cases sheer laziness to change clothes. In Hong Kong on the other hand, all the girls are very well dressed in accordance with the latest fashion - here it's not just about style its about the style of the minute. Which is lovely however, I find that people who live in it also end up bowing to the pressure of being so perfect.

On the flip side, I really think I ought to do more on my daily elegance - I think I have it cracked for the gala occasion but as the book points out - why don't we look our best for the ones at home or the ones we love? Those people are subjected to holey trackpants and face masks at worse times. The flip side of this is that there are people who find natural wholesomeness much more appealing than any artifice.

I always want to be the sort of girl that has the perfectly manicured nails and prettily pedicured feet - always has fine eyeliner and pouting pink lips. In actuality, I have a halo around my head since my hair stands on end, my finger nails are always chipped and sometimes I cannot bear to look at my own feet. I'm not even going to get started on the hair situation since due to my many allergies, I may not visit the parlour for months at a time leading to me losing in a comparison with the juggler with regards to hirsuteness. I have never been able to stand lipstick and since lipgloss gets eaten within 30 seconds of application and I tend to rub my eyes leading to my kajal running and me sporting the not so latest Raccoon look, make up on a daily basis is not meant for the likes of me. I definitely dress for comfort not for fashion and tho I think I wear stylised outfits, salwar kameez 3 days out of 4 does not really make for high fashion statements. Since I have constipation issues, on the days I don't - jeans/pants are definitely not an option and only loose flowing tops save the day.

I do go through these phases where I do the make up everyday since a little bit goes a long way but I never keep to it. I am now deciding to carry around a little black liner and pinky brown lipstick so at least one swipe at work and one is presentable which always helps in dealing with boys which the lords knows, one has enough of at work. Also insisting on throwing out grubby clothes has helped as well since I'm forced to wear decent things to work! Here's hope the guide to elegance is not lost on me!

P.S. An Interesting article relevant to both the book and this post

How you doing?

I seem to have had a very busy life recently but I really could not tell you what I have been doing - not watched any movies, or any plays. Did manage to read 4 books tho - some of them quite interesting.

One was an Agatha Christie - 'Easy to Kill' - nice enough story about crime, drama etc. The really good one though was the Clive Cussler one - Trojan Odyssey - very interesting read because it introduced me to this thought that the Trojan war was not between the Greeks etc over Helen of Troy but was fought on the coasts of England for Tin. Apparently Homer wrote the Iliad a 1000 years later so it's a tale that was passed down from generation to generation and we all know how much can get lost in transalation. I always like books that open your mind to new perspectives - which is why I think the Da Vinci code is such a runaway success - the whole concept was so novel that it was eaten up immediately. I have not read Clive Cussler before but he seems to me to be on the lines of Alistair Maclean et all with the adventure story telling and the recurring protagonists much like Jack Higgins for that matter as well.

The other one of note was 'Leaving Eden' - about a girl's search for herself growing up without a mother to guide her - the hits and misses in her life and how painful the struggle is without someone to guide you.

The last book was 'Blood in the sky' which I think was a bit overdone. It was one of those I live in the country and I make friends with the natives and I help solve murder mysteries and I was an ex policemen and I think I ruined lives and I.. I..I..I.. so yeah you get the point!

I have also gone crazy trying to get a 3 column template for this blog. I like to put up pictures, lyrics, photo walls etc on the sides and one column on the left is not cutting it. The alignment of the posts and the side bar just dont match. So I trawled all these websites and found all these templates with the code and changed the code about a hundred times and de nada! nothing has changed - in one case the post column itself disappeared. So I'm thinking will stick with this format only coz minima stretch does not seem like an option anymore on blogger leaving me with minima where it becomes a 4 column blog with the columns on either side being like single colored pillars! If anyone can hand me a solution I would be eternally grateful!

These are a few of my favourite things!!

I've had a very good weekend extended to Monday - mainly coz I read the 7th and last in the series of Harry Potter - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and I saw a really funny movie! Please note from here on if you've not read the Harry Potter please discontinue reading...

So I was fairly pleased with the book on the whole with the twists and turns that occured. The ending kinda sucked in my opinion because according to me Harry won on a technicality - I mean Expelliarmus is not exactly a spell to win a battle on! I don't care if that's his trademark as mentioned in the book. I mean Draco used it on Dumbledore - Harry used it on Draco and lo and behold he is the true owner of the Elder wand!! Such a technicality!! and of course the epilogue is really well written...but I'm not sure if it was necessary??

Other than that, this whole love angle and dying for the good of the world is a straight lift from the bible!! this is Jesus incarnate - maybe coz I'm catholic and a fan of all the code in Da Vinci but this is really a copy of the sentiment in the New Testament. Da Vinci code has this bit about how all fairy tales etc tell the story of Mary Magdalene but I'm slowly coming to believe that humans like to hear the same story again and again - that one person will save them from doom.

I was super thrilled with the Snape angle and I believed I've voiced the opinion earlier about disbelief in Snape and how Neville would surely play a bigger role and he definitely lived upto his destiny.

I was also upset about the fact that J.K Rowling used the word 'Bastard' in describing people in the book - at the end of the day - it is a children's novel and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I noticed it this time - I'm not sure whether it has occured before and this is why I think she has started writing with her adult audience in mind as well.

I'm still a huge fan of the Potter series since the imagination is just fantastic - Some argue that Lord of the Rings is as big a fantasy but LOTR is much darker in a lot of way and frankly I just don't get the whole World War association everyone keeps on about though that series is definitely written for people above the age of 12.

yesterday - I saw a really funny movie after ages - Wild Hogs - of course it did help that I was a bottle of beer down and that too half bottoms up - I always find alcohol helps take a film over the line from mediocre to good but in this case - I dont think the booze had a big role to play. The movie is about 4 middle aged men wanting to be big bad bikers - and they lead really normal middle of the road american lives. The movie tries to have touching scenes but mainly lands up with hysterical situations which are just funny! and the cast is nothing to sneeze at - Tim Allen, William H. Macy, Martin Lawrence and the main man - John Travolta. Ray Liotta and Marisa Tomei also make an appearance. The star cast is big in my opinion but the noise level on the movie was real low. Maybe this is the kind of movie that does well through word of mouth alone - maybe viral marketing is what was used!!

There was an article in the Time Asia magazine recently on John Travolta and his career graph. For every hit, he has a flop and he is still a bankable star in Hollywood. I think bcoz his hit movies become cult films - Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Look Who's talking, Pulp Fiction, Face-off and now the one coming up Hair Spray - where he plays a woman. Something to look forward to!!

Khalid Mohammed....step aside!!

I saw "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" yesterday - like everyone else on the internet I'm going to share my opinion of the movie!! It was by far the most boring book of the series - nothing really happened - and the high light of the movie apparently is Dolores Umbridge so there was really nothing in the book! The book is more like a stop gap - tho if I remember correctly in the 6th one - Voldemort does not make an appearance and it's really a history lesson about Tom Riddle. Anyway was quite happy with the movie since it really kept all the essential elements - it did twist the storyline a bit e.g the person who told on Dumbledore's Army is actually Cho Chang's friend - and she has the word Sneak formed across her face in pustules i think for telling since the document they signed [which they showed in the movie by the way] was charmed!! On the whole I was quite pleased with the whole thing - I suppose was happier since had re read the book early in May so remembered quite a few of the things! but the thing is that in this movie, Daniel Radcliffe according to me is already looking older than his character and HP is going to be 18 in the final one which is a good 4 years away so DR is like going to be like ancient! Another thing is the whole Neville Longbottom twist in the tale which could have been specified since I'm hoping there is something more to that angle in the story since he really has lost a lot to Voldemort as well as HP. Can't wait for "Deathly Hallows" on Saturday coz then the suspense is over - Who/What is RAB??!
I also wanted to know if they going to make Shopaholic movies - now that would be fun!! even if they combine 2-3 books into one - it could be quite entertaining!! [Charade: any thoughts on this one??] Since they are finally making a 'Sex and the city' movie!

The day before that had been for P's birthday - we did dinner in Spice Tree and then went to drink at Vertigo. Did not realise at Spice tree that entire area was P's party so ended up ignoring quite a few people - by mistake! Anyway had nice fun time, met loads of people and made fun of half of them - always a good thing!

Looking forward to this week since cousin and baby arrive finally - going to be seeing baby after February - and the first time entire family [mostly] will be together since baby born!! however work wise.... boss is back after a week's break so will wreak havoc playing catch up since everyone knows - when the cat is away, the mice will play!!