`With pleasure…’
With my friend Arjun, it is usually more pleasing to place his answer before my question:
`If I were to perform hara-kiri, will you be my kaishaku?’
I really rely on him. A few weeks back, I asked him to read one of my blogs, a seriously funny one. He read it carefully, hugged me tightly, whispered softly `Lovely…it is sad!’
Recently, on the topic of blogs once again, he surprised me with a request:
`I want to feel a book…here, in blogosphere.’
`What?’
`I mean,
• go away from frenetic on-line activities;
• stay off-line with a collection of blogs;
• lazing over the cover, the preface, the table of contents;
• using old skills without tags, labels and search engines;
• having a bird’s eye view over a sea of gathered and discarded thoughts;
• swooping in on that blog which I feel like reading.’
How can I refuse him? Anyway, with regard to time and effort, I found the task to be only as daunting as the task of writing a single blog. This is the output:
COLLECTION OF MY BLOGS
(click here to download PDF file,
size ~ 2.75 MB)
Anyway, a year has gone by since I wrote my first blog. This proved to be ideal to view and arrange with a fresh perspective before moving on.
`Hope other friends try it out too…and, let us know when their collection is ready.’
`That would be nice.’ I really think so.
Arjun said, `Byeeee.’
`Take care.’
`By the way, what does this have to do with virtual hara-kiri?’
Showing posts with label Book Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Review. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Few Movies, a Book, a deleted Blog & Blogalgia
Alexander the Great is a landmark cosmopolitan Malayalam movie without any reference to Kerala. The story is a shoddy mixture of Rain Man and something very forgettable. If you would like to see glimpses of Dubai and Mumbai (Powai, Marine Drive, etc.), please see this movie. At the end, one asks: in how many days was this movie completed?
This is not a review of the movie. The comments made above should be read like a play within a play or the frustration should be viewed in the context of what happened before.
Like most typical Kerala families, mine is divided into the Mohanlal and the Mammootty camps. Last night, at eight, the first camp won the battle and the whole family went for the second show at half past nine (the presence of actor-politician Ganesh and family in a row ahead soothed some frayed nerves). The second camp lost because Mammootty’s Pokkiri Raja “definitely looks non-Mallu”. No one wanted to be a traitor and suggest Jayaram’s Katha Thudarunnu. For the last decade, we have come to expect very little from Malayalam movies but yesterday, the bars were raised because we saw Yavanika (with the Bharat Gopi) on TV yesterday morning.
Rewinding further, there is disappointment of being let down by a crime novel, Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid. This book might be the last in the Tony Hill-Carol Jordan series (also made famous by the TV series Wire in the Blood). The book started off well (the danger of virtual social networking used as the crime plot along with McDermid’s humour and the reader is goaded to accept “non-mainstream” relationships). Why was I disappointed? My rule for crime fiction is: if you want to end the series, kill the hero but please do not domesticate. They should remain weird, or better, get weirder. Can you imagine Holmes married and with a child or two on his knees?
Then, there was the blog that I had to delete. In that blog, I made a school-boy-or-girl-ish attempt to write crime fiction. I dreamt of reviews like “spine-chilling”, “page-turner”, “creepy”, “u r a monster”. My polite and stoic friends endured bits and pieces and tried to encourage me with “luv ur umor”.
Sometime around then, I visited my psychologist. He hum-haw-ed, said that I am doing well with NaSTy (Narcissistic Self-Destruction Tendency). He also added that I should stay away from blogs to avoid blogalgia (for details, please click here).
This is not a review of the movie. The comments made above should be read like a play within a play or the frustration should be viewed in the context of what happened before.
Like most typical Kerala families, mine is divided into the Mohanlal and the Mammootty camps. Last night, at eight, the first camp won the battle and the whole family went for the second show at half past nine (the presence of actor-politician Ganesh and family in a row ahead soothed some frayed nerves). The second camp lost because Mammootty’s Pokkiri Raja “definitely looks non-Mallu”. No one wanted to be a traitor and suggest Jayaram’s Katha Thudarunnu. For the last decade, we have come to expect very little from Malayalam movies but yesterday, the bars were raised because we saw Yavanika (with the Bharat Gopi) on TV yesterday morning.
Rewinding further, there is disappointment of being let down by a crime novel, Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid. This book might be the last in the Tony Hill-Carol Jordan series (also made famous by the TV series Wire in the Blood). The book started off well (the danger of virtual social networking used as the crime plot along with McDermid’s humour and the reader is goaded to accept “non-mainstream” relationships). Why was I disappointed? My rule for crime fiction is: if you want to end the series, kill the hero but please do not domesticate. They should remain weird, or better, get weirder. Can you imagine Holmes married and with a child or two on his knees?
Then, there was the blog that I had to delete. In that blog, I made a school-boy-or-girl-ish attempt to write crime fiction. I dreamt of reviews like “spine-chilling”, “page-turner”, “creepy”, “u r a monster”. My polite and stoic friends endured bits and pieces and tried to encourage me with “luv ur umor”.
Sometime around then, I visited my psychologist. He hum-haw-ed, said that I am doing well with NaSTy (Narcissistic Self-Destruction Tendency). He also added that I should stay away from blogs to avoid blogalgia (for details, please click here).
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