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Showing posts from March, 2010

Play Around

Today I wrote my first play! It is a short one act play.

Peg n Play

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For all those of you who follow via feed rather than visit the site, I have added a google app on my site. pegs is a nice game to play. I used to play it as a kid, except the arrangement was a plus sign on a circular board with marbles for pegs and the center marble was always missing. We used to call it 'Bournvita'. I have no idea why.

Shadows or Dust or Dark Matter

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Whatever it is called! Philip Pullman ’s His Dark Materials trilogy is extremely fantastic! I don’t mean fantastic as in brilliant. I mean exactly what the word means. It’s fantasy. It’s nothing to connect with. May be John Milton’s paradise lost has been retold I do not know. But I do feel that it was a child’s version of Lord of the Ring, with the subtle knife being the ring. Do all fantasies have a world of the dead/land of the dead/river of the dead? Anyway it was a neat story. It was neatly set and nicely written. It had all the characters required : Lord Asriel with all this power and pride, Mrs. Coulter with all her beauty and cunningness, Irogek the huge bear, etc. Of course not to mention the righteous Will Parry and his wise father Shaman John Parry, and I could go on. A few things that caught my attention (apart from all the worlds described): Mrs. Coulter needs a better name. Anyone named Mrs. Coulter can’t both be charming and cunning. She needs to choose one.

Unsettling

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It’s a weird feeling when you know that particular blog posts would get particular responses from particular people and you do not get them. It’s a bit disappointing and a bit unsettling. And after that if you find that the particular people have not been up in their own blog as well, it becomes increasing unsettling till it takes to a scare. Unsettling is the perfect word for it. Update: One of them is back on the blog; after a month's gap

Nostrangia

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I think ‘nostalgia’ came about people tried to name the strange nausea that arises out of memories that stay. Hmmm, in that case it should have been nostrangia. Now this just sounds like anger coming through nostrils. Oh well! Nostalgia it is then. A stale stagnant nausea caused by memories. I call it stale because the memories are old (obviously), and stagnant because the memory (the fact) doesn’t change. Or at least we think it doesn’t. Only God should know how gracefully we bent and polish and smoothen and manipulate each fact in our memory to suit our whims and fancies. I have some memories of my very early childhood. When I say very early it is about that of 2 years. Now that is not possible isn’t it? Well it isn’t. I realized as I grew up that I have a brilliant imagination and that I can draw a picture of almost every word I say or hear 1 . Hence, I created my own memories. But there are some memories I have that are clear and accurate. And they are so real sometimes it hu

About Love

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I read yesterday a book called “To Sir, With Love” by E. R. Braithwaite (autobiographical). I have heard of the book before but without much notice. I liked it. It was good. It taught a great deal. It wasn’t as moving as claimed on the book but that was probably because it is 2010 and a good 50 years since the book was written. On the first page of the book there is a description of ‘the class’ and ‘the teacher’. It was obviously written to attract any reader. But I found the description somewhat misleading. The description of ‘the class’ can be stated as grossly wrong. And if I were the author, I would feel hurt about such descriptions. The publisher should have taken care of that. However much one would like to spice it up it must not be ‘wrong’.

The Curious Little Book

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I call it ‘curious’ because the dictionary defines the word curious as being strange or unexpected and the book is both strange and unexpected. I call it ‘little’ because it is short and in big print and in easy language and from a boy’s point of view. I call it ‘book’ because it was after printed in a book form even though it is a book like no other with chapters numbered with prime numbers instead of consecutive. I articulate it with ‘the’ since it is a particular book that I m referring to and not any random book. This particular book I m referring to is titled “ The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time ”, written by Mark Haddon. It is written in a weird style from the point of view of a fifteen year old boy, Christopher who suffers from Asperger’s. I should probably not say ‘suffers’ because he doesn’t. He is happy with himself understanding numbers and dogs (since they have only four emotions), and not understanding human beings, disliking yellow and brown and c

One God and the Others

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I think after “The Alchemist” and “The Zahir” I would vote for “ The Fifth Mountain ” (though my mother would go about it in the reverse order). It was a grown up fairytale, beautifully written and inspiring. At first I thought it was a retelling of a story so old. But Paulo Coelho’s style of writing is unique. The emphasis is on the truths of life rather than on the story. The can be really seen in the final chapter of the book where he describes the story quickly and finishes it off when I expected any other writer to describe it in detail. But for Coelho it is not required since he already conveyed the message he intended to when he started with this book. But I believe this is the only book which is not really autobiographical (of course Veronika was not himself but yet it was a real woman called Veronika). But now I must find “The Manual of the Warrior of Light” which is mentioned in this book.

Want of Books

I feel sad for leaving behind in Calcutta a few good books that I could do with right now. Having undergone a surgery last Saturday (for correction of myopia; usually referred to as laser surgery; for all concerned, I m fine now) I was to stay away from TV and computer as much as I can and of course not go out too much to avoid dust for a few days. This led me to read books. I have read three books and am reading my fourth. Hence I have 3 reviews (my sorta reviews I mean) pending. But the books I have left with me now are not that attractive to me and I wish I brought India After Gandhi with me to Hyd because I can’t think of a better time to read it than now since it is very long and boring but worth the read and I would probably never get this kind of time to sit down and read. Or maybe I should have brought with me “The Case of the Exploding Mangoes”. It’s just that I m reading “The Subtle Knife” by Philip Pullman. It is the 2 nd book in a trilogy. I have the 3 rd book b

A Journey worth watching

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A young man, who resents being stuck to selling hair oil made by his father with no hope of success, takes on a journey for the thirst of doing something new and going somewhere new. Following a road on a truck which is an antique moving cinema he picks up on his way an irritating boy who used to work at a teashop and knows more about life than the man does, an elderly mechanic who has learnt to takes the hardships in life with a smile and an attractive gypsy woman. Together they encounter the police, the dacoits, a mela and finally, ‘finality’. All of them, the people and the incidents, teach him about life, to live and let live. He returns just as he left, alone, but much wiser and happier. Just like any other road movie (a genre of film). It was a thoroughly enjoyable film. The part I liked the best is the title: Road, Movie