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Showing posts from January, 2014

That little nudge

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It had been a while since I blogged. I had many drafts in the making (6 to be precise, so you can expect more soon). But I was lacking that little nudge. You know, the usual reasons: busy work life, busier personal life (for the first time probably), cold weather, holiday season, and most importantly procrastination. Then I got this email the other day  that our dear old Slisha Crazy had been shortlisted for BlogAdda Awards under the category of Creative Writing. Honestly I'm flattered. It's no big deal. And I probably stood a better chance, if it had been 3 years ago when I was contributing to the blog on a daily basis; when you write 10  posts in a week, something is bound to be good. But nevertheless, I'm really excited about this.  There is 80%weight to the content and 20%weight to the social media aspect of it where I publicise the shortlist and try to get likes and tweets for it. As I said I haven't been giving enough time to it to produce creative conten

The Krishna Key

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Long over due... A writer improves with every single string of words. The transition can be seen in such clarity with Ashwin Sanghi. I was mistaken in wondering why I liked Chanikya's Chant while I found The Rozabal Line terrible. It's important to note the sequence as well. The writing style of The Krishna Key is distinctly better than Chanikya's Chant which is leaps and bounds ahead of The Rozabal Line. All three of them have captivating plots. The Krishna Key brings to fore the interesting possibilities intertwined in our mythology. Over centuries and millennia our legends have transformed many times over, history written and rewritten. Ashwin Sanghi used that to his advantage and takes the reader on a page turning treasure hunt that spans over all the stories our grandmother told us and all the stories we read in history textbooks, and even some of the fiction reading after school. Influenced by The Da Vinci Code, adding to The Shiva Trilogy, The Krishna Ke

Half a Life

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I just finished the book Half a Life by Naipaul. It is beautifully written. And it must probably mean a lot with great detail, of character and places and stories and backdrops, which I don't know are accurate but might have been. However, I am probably not in the league of understanding it. To me it was by far the most pointless book I have read. When I picked it up, I thought it was supposed to be humorous, in a subtle manner. And it was, when the story was revolving around Willie Chandran's father. Then Willie goes to London and it is no longer even remotely funny. The story just goes around for no purpose except to prove that Willie has always been living somebody else's life. But as far as I can see, he lived his own life, the way he wanted to and was plain unhappy all the time. And it was supposed to tell a story but I have no idea what the story was. Writing style was brilliant though. It was easy to read and would keep you turning the pages even when

Busy bee and drafting

Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. Made popular by John Lennon. But for your life to happen you need to make plans too. Too much planning right now that I haven't written in such a while. But the good thing is I haven't stopped reading. While I still need to review the Krishna key, I am currently reading Half a Life. I also have in tow Sputnik Sweetheart and The Tale for the  Timebeing. Krishna key, Christmas and Kochi trip coming up.