Done all Wrong

The first storm of this year in Bengal.

It starts with a gentle wind, which gradually gets fiercer and then menacing, throwing dust at earth’s face, while the lightning looks on cackling with spite.

It’s a depressing night today. Or so i feel as i sit on my terrace, facing the storm, the wrongs, the injustice, the failures. There was a time when I believed that nothing ever could go wrong with me, that i was the luckiest person on earth, that i was a part of God’s great big plan. There was a time when i had faith. Was. Had.

It’s not that my personal disappointments qualify as any major tragedy. The world is faring much worse. I try to reason with myself (half heartedly) and fail at that too. My eyes keep welling up with my selfishness, and shedding it doesn’t unburden my heart. It’s dark now...and the sky is falling, its pieces sharp, soaking everything.

The Valley Of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: A book review

Spoiler Warning: Contains Spoilers. Proceed at your own peril.

Sherlock Holmes intrigues and impresses. He demands a reverence which i would never offer any other detective fictional or otherwise. So when I was made aware of the fact that there existed a Holmes novel which i hadn't read, my soul became restless. I hunted the book down and immediately started wading through the valley of fear. The first few lines and it takes only one word from Holmes to think that i had missed a very important novel.. Moriarty. So i brace myself for a spine thrilling adventure of deductions and danger. But Holmes disappears after a fairly easy case and the remaining book is spent in forming the backdrop of the ridiculously easy case(set in a beautiful castle though, all with moats and drawbridges) and ends without Moriarty making an appearance. This was so much like Study in Scarlet, yet not as heart tugging.

I didn't like it much and this fact alone disturbs my conscience. But oh, what could I do? There's so little of Holmes and Watson is absent too, as i am forced to wander alone in the murky valley of the Scrowers, who revel in organized crime. They have a secret brotherhood, requiring a mysterious branding on the arm too.But where is the fun in that? No deductions. No logic. No big revelations. The brotherhood, with all the fancy rituals is simply a gang of criminals murdering mine owners. The best thing about Holmes' stories is the bright warm glory of realization. The feeling never came, even when I had reached the last line of the novel. I couldn't be convinced that the novel had ended(i had to cross check to be sure that my copy didn't have pages missing). Immensely dissatisfying

Home Alone

[Image courtesy: notcot.com]

I sort of have a tendency to draw myself into a shell when people are around, but not having them around me doesn’t go too well with me either. I don’t know what this post is going to be about. I am writing only to distract myself. Six months have passed since I relinquished my hostel room for the comfort of full meals and a vast bed. And now that I am not maniacally preparing for MBA entrance exams, the loneliness pangs are sort of getting to me specially, on days when college is off. With Mom gone, it’s worse. I wonder how bad it is for her-staying indoors day in and day out. How does she bear these lazy, enervating, empty afternoons? Practice, perhaps.

Solitary musings are not a very great idea; the temptation to reminisce is utterly strong. We used to make a lot of crazy plans in our hostel rooms, snuggled together. Sometimes we even went as far as carrying them out. None too wild of course! We are all very well behaved, guardians of propriety, umm almost. I say that because at this very instance I can see myself and Fodoo walking over the hostel boundary wall to avoid wading in rain water and jumping over the gate. Fodoo went first while i stood hesitating. I was thinking of the time when i had done a similar thing but the gate had not been very kind to my clothes. But, with friends, you cannot but take the jump right? So i took my chances. The hostel owner saw this. She rebuked us for giving ideas to guys. We were er... compromising security. As if the guys wouldn’t have figured out that the wall was low without our help, duh! So we stood fighting back laughter and looking rather sheepish. But once we escaped from KAKIMA’s basilisk eyes, we were rather pleased. But I knew that our paths would cross again. She was so Dolores Umbridge¹ . The second Dolores Umbridge, I had happened to encounter. The first one was my biology teacher in higher secondary. We were jubilant when she left. Biology in our school was as cursed as Defense against the Dark Arts. The teachers never stayed for more than a couple months. We were not complaining though. Biology classes used to be boring. No, boring doesn’t quite cover it. They were soporific. The teacher used to read from the text book. It was the best lullaby, i had ever heard, almost magical. Infact the class had only looked lively once, when we were covering the reproduction system. I swear I wouldn’t have laughed or found it amusing but then she had to go ahead and explain how this was “all very normal” and then I couldn’t stop it. None of us could and we all exploded at the same time guffawing. But I am digressing. It’s funny how all these memories are coming to me from all corners. So coming back to Dolores Umbridge II, the lady with the basilisk eyes. So as i was saying, I crossed her again. Or I made her cross. Whichever is appropriate. It was raining, not just drizzling. Raining, beautifully. Large drops, consistent shower and my roommate chatni managed to drag me to the terrace for a rain dance. We were joined by a few more but the others refrained and were they wise to do so. A girl came up running, “SHE IS COMING FOR YOU”. Immediate Panic, we couldn’t go down to our room, she stayed on our floor. We took refuge, but she came for us wild eyed, enraged, hurling absurd accusations. She even said we were trying to kill her daughter’s baby. [Try to work out the logic here...rain dance => wet floor =>wet stairs => slippery stairs. Slippery stairs + pregnant daughter => the perfect murder] . The roof was banned for an entire year after that and we were labelled as the prodigals. I was not really comfortable being so tagged, but chatni helped me get a perspective. She said “Matiaao! No one can make me feel guilty for having fun”. That alien word worked like a balm and so we just chucked the thing off. Though I do thing “Matiaao” implied burying the thing. But who had time for funerals?

Twilight and the rest: A book review

Warning:

· SPOILERS AHEAD! Turn back while you can

· The following book review is highly opinionated and unfair. It may offend twilight fans, who will be better off ogling at Edward Cullen/Bella Swan images online.

Imagine going on a date with the butter chicken, an absolutely delicious, mouth watering butter chicken exuding the most appetizing aroma ever. Will you have the restraint to stay with that chicken, not eat it but stay with it and protect it from the other salivating monsters? I am not being absurd. This is what happens in Twilight. A vampire falls in love with his food, a pale skinned accident prone chick and struggles to keep her alive. In new moon, the vampire decides he is too dangerous for the chick and leaves her moping only to return. But in this short gap the chick finds that she has options now- a wolf. In Eclipse, the wolf tries for the same chick and the chick loves the wolf too but chooses the vampire over him. Finally dawn breaks. The vampire and chick marry, the vampire converts the chick. Oh they also have a child who hooks up with the sad sad wolf. Hapees endings.

Ah! I know I am spitting venom. But that’s because as a fan of fantasy fiction, I feel cheated. Taken in by the hype and embarrassed at having read it. Aren’t vampire stories supposed to be darker, mysterious, gripping? Edward, who fancies himself as a monster, basking in the glories of first love, is neither dark nor brooding. Bella is foolishly, blindly trusting and Jacob is irritating. The other vampires just fail to impress. Everything seems so contrived, pieces conveniently falling in place. The climaxes are comical, absolutely predictable. The language is kind of trite and the narrative is forced. Through the course of the four books, Edward’s over protectiveness and Bella’s clinginess just get progressively annoying. Their love never touches a chord. The romance is nothing like the romances portrayed in Bronte novels. Edward never becomes Edward Rochester. Bella never becomes Jane Eyre. The subplots fail to excite. Things just drag on page by page by page. The lyrical titles of the books are never fully justified. Me not likes.

Fairly Bookish, Bookishly Dull

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I am infamously addicted to books. My roommate used to be very upset with me being engrossed in some book, ignoring her presence entirely. She connived with the other girls and they tried ganging up on me to get me to stop. Then they just gave up, she got used to it and i was free to go zombie on them for hours again. So just like any other self professed lover of books i make it a point to visit the annual book fair in my city. It's almost a ritual. I visited this year's on Sunday. Much of it was deja vu. Same smells, same sights, same crowd. I

wandered quite purposelessly, wasn't hunting for anything particular. I followed my parents just like an obedient toddler, seeing what they wanted me to see. But it wasn't all dull. Mortification awaited me when my father led me to the NCERT bookstall, showing me the books i "hadn't read". He made a few loud observations as well...someone in the other end of the city might not have heard if they were showering at that time with their music system on full blast. The drive back home was long and urghh bumpy. My brother had got his headphones on and i resorted to exchanging smses with my friend. She wouldn't believe that i hadnt found a book to buy. Atypical, she wrote. That annoyed me so i spent rest of the journey, concentrating on not bumping my head and drowning myself in thoughts. The only thing that stops me from wearing a helmet when Papa drives, is that he might not take it too well. I was much amused by a recent newspap

er report about this supposedly dead man in one of the villages in Bengal. En route to the burning ghats, he sat up, asking the pallbearers for water. He was much angry at his son for all the fuss. It cracked me up as i played numerous versions of it in my mind. I was really tired when we finally reached home, and then Papa informed us that we would have to go with him on the doctor's club picnic with family(I say informed, well he actually had posed it as a question creating the illusion of a choice, but there was no opting out )

Ah PICNIC- such a silly, funny little word. Lunch baskets, mats, badminton rackets, a mild Jan afternoon, an idyllic setting, and people.Picnics are much too contrived to be any fun. So we reach there(after another bumpy ride and my father nudging me to concentrate on the route) and Papa introduces and i hear my brother and myself mumbling shy namasteys and stuff. When i was younger, i used to find it difficult to namaste people i hardly knew, with age hypocrisy becomes easier to

adapt to. The place was a splendid village, a beautiful afternoon straight out of a Jane Austen novel. There also was a Snake House,the "vishesh akorshon(special attraction)". After the namasteys and fake smiles, we entered their abode, more like invaded their listless afternoon. They all looked stoned, perhaps they had a

rave at night.Some hissed at the guide, who was picking them up with a large rod, forcing the otherwise uninterested reptiles to show some sign of movement. I was thinking of course of Harry Potter and the Philsopher's Stone, but the Brazilian Boa Constrictor was not in the house and the other snakes were not well versed in Parseltongue.I didn't miss the irony- the inmates of the "house" caged while the "intruders" moved about leisurely. The funny thing was that the Snakes were sharing their apartments with birds. They had separate rooms of course. It was the first time that I had seen love birds.

They were pretty. But i liked the blue finch better. I also saw a Turkey(pic on the left) for the first time. He was a show off through and through. My brother wondered aloud how people could eat the bird. I was pretty clueless myself. As we took their leave, i had little inkling that the best part of the day was over. The spot that had been chosen for the picnic was a lovely garden. Not very ostentatious or exotic, kinda just right. I would have loved to just lie there with headphones in my ears and a P G Wodehouse infront of my nose but there wasn''t much chance of that happening. So instead i found myself miserably trying to hit a plastic cock, against the wind while my brother kept smashing it mercilessly at the other end. There also was an exclusive ladies special round of musical chairs, unique in that, at times everyone stopped moving altogether. The "gents" had a football match. The duration in commensurate with their stamina was decided to be of fifteen minutes. Uncoordinated was the buzz word. Most members of the "gents" teams looked like they had a football tucked under their tee shirts(it was hard to tell whether they were playing in two teams, cause everybody was aiming for the same goal post) but i hadn't seen such energy in my father. He looked so alien in a football field, his face flushed with energy. It's funny how we can't see our parents to be anything other than our parents. After the match one of the kids sneaked off the microphone and started singing songs from behind a tree. That sort of inspired the other kids as well and they all took turns to singing. The sort of thing we were supposed to go all awww and ooooh and aaaaah and hahaha about. Only i couldn't. Croaky children with microphone is a bad idea. After that, we had run out of things to amuse ourselves with. The we being the "family". The doctors had a booze party going on side by side. No boredom there. The remaining hours were excruciatingly long and slow. The aunties were having the same oft repeated conversation i have grown up hearing. My brother, my sole source of entertainment failed me too. It took too long for the thing to come to an end, too long to reach home and too long for me to write about. The good thing about the Sunday- Federer won the Australian Open in straight sets. Yay!