A Thousand Splendid Suns

This was probably the book which was on my To-Read list for the longest period of time. Finally I ended up reading it and it was worth every bit of praise showered upon it. So instead of giving away the plot (not that it's a whodunnit), I would like to thank Khalid Hosseini (hope i got the spelling right) for being able to write from a woman's perspective though being from the weaker sex himself. You heard me right! For all that we know, physical strength is highly overrated!

Words flow like human emotions in this amazing book. The thing that impressed me the most was that the book manages to emulate the human mind so well. Most of the times, the characters are in a conversation and their mind is playing some different track on them. And you as a reader are drawn to the thoughts more than the conversation. As with Kite Runner, you can almost guess what is on the horizon in terms of the story line. Still you read and anxiously wait for it to unfold. Unlike the Kite Runner, there is a silver lining to the cloud. So those who get depressed by the way it goes, stay tuned coz this one does have a 'happily ever after'.

Shantaram....

The name 'Shantaram' would put off a person of maharashtrian descent (no offense intended to the Shantarams of the world) due to its old world 'charm' (or the lack of new world charm...if you know what I mean) Having said that, I had been reading up on reviews of a book by the same name by an unknown author "Gregory David Roberts" (Coming to think about it...I like to go for unknown authors rather than the David Dhawan's of the book world...gives my bookshelf a more eclectic blend...and a stack of half read books....coz some of em are booooring) for quite some time....Finally I decided to take the plunge...(For those of you who don't know my reading habits...it takes me lot of thinking and maybe a bout of spontaneous impulse to pick up or order a book) and order this book.

So I got 'Shantaram' by UPS and the first thing that I noticed was "Man is this heavy or What?"..(suitably punished for not paying attention to the world hardcover)..Whats the second thing?...well "Holy Cow this is so Thickkk!!!"....It took me a while to finally pick it up from my shelf at 11 pm....and Guess what?...I still had it in my hands at 2 am.....(For those of you who can finish a book in a night....I don't sail in the same boat as u...bite me!!!...and besides this is the longest book that I have read in my career - barring the Engineering books I supposedly read of course)

Getting back on the saddle of the horse (cool phrase huh?)....Personally I prefer books which can paint the scene in front of the reader and the characters are enlivened into speaking the written word...As guessed from the fact that I am writing a blog about it, this book not only satisfies this requirement, but goes way beyond......rarely does one come across a book which has a good story which is well written and has words which are music to the ears...(whats that?)...phrases that compel the reader to backtrack them and say "Wow!!! Thats so cool or hot or groovy or whatever your buzz word is"...(I have read books wherein I have had to backtrack and say "Huh! whats that supposed to mean?"...Fury - Salman Rushdie being one of them...now you know I am a literary bumpkin)...My favorite would be the theory of evolution of the Universe...Don't wanna give it away...The book also poses a few introspective questions about human existence...It really puts you in the mind of the protagonist...(those imagining about games like Doom when u read this line...get outta hear!!!)...The one that I loved the most is "Whats better? Doing the right things for the wrong reasons? Or doing the wrong things for the right reasons?"...It takes you through the changes that the protagonist goes through and his psyche as it changes...the way he retrospects his own actions...comes up with some amazing comparisons when someone else makes a choice which is similar to his own in a completely disparate situation...I am short on words to say more....(and yet I have consumed so many words)

To write a review of Shantaram and not mention its main character would be criminal...I don't mean the protagonist which in this case is the author himself...I mean the city of Bombay or Mumbai...Being my hometown, I have not come across a better portrayal of the city in any other book as yet...(comments welcome if you have)...The author has quite literally captured the soul of the city...The reader would want to catch the next flight out to experience it in the flesh...(And for the record, I almost went to Leopolds some years ago and my next trip is gonna fulfill that...Go check out Cafe Mondegar as well...nice place)...The story of a foreigner who comes to Mumbai and makes it his home...well almost is biographical in a way...The different parts of this epic are amusing...thought-provoking and realistic...well realistic enough to keep the reader pondering as to what part of the book was fact and what part was fiction?

In addition to being a best seller, this book is soon going to be made into a major motion picture...with Johnny Depp playing the lead role and Helena Bonham Carter as the alluring Karla...though I would have preferred someone like Angelina Jolie to play Karla...(well I wud prefer her to play any role as long as she blazes the screen...what say?)..coz of her strength, sensuousness and again a sense of cynical heartless demeanor...well maybe not (any comments for Karla castings welcome!!!)...

Well what are you doin still reading this?...Go on pick up a copy....a paperback version of course.

Fast paced book....lack of content

Reading 'One night @ Call center' was a been there done that for me...The accomplishment was reading a complete book in a single day...Well for some this would sound absurd coz.....I know ppl who can finish a 500 page novel in a matter of hours.....But given that I have a penchant for dragging a book for months...this was quite an accomplishment. The earlier record was 3 days for 'Five point Someone' by the same author.
Lets get to the book now.....'1 nite...' has been on my shelf for a couple of months now. Finally I decided to get it over with. Given the fact that Five point someone is one of my favorite books ( I agree with ppl when they say its too amateurish...but I do like independent low budget films as much as a like a Spielberg epic)...I had a lot of expectations from this baby.....and maybe I expected Shamita Shetty to be as ravishing as Shilpa Shetty...(I suck at metaphors don't I? Couldn't think of another one if not a better one)...It was not to be though......The book has a few great things about it...The best thing is the way Chetan Bhagat creates a scene with elaborate dialogues and settings....You actually feel like you are watching a movie with the characters as real as real can be.....The next would be the message put across...which is to follow your heart always....Last but not the least the crisp editing....Editing??? A Book???...Well I have come to realize, Chetan does not write books....they are more of screenplays....coz if I made a movie out of his books...(I wish I could make a movie....) I would not change the scene placement one bit...Its a pre-edited version.....
Now onto the sad part....the perception of a call center job is completely one sided...well of course there are better jobs than a call center....But then again....a voice BPO was just the beginning for the bigger and better KPO (Knowledge process outsourcing...go look that up wikipedia...duh)...It was the same as the Indian software industry which started with fixing a '00' to a '2000' when Y2K struck.....as years went by, it climbed the value chain and are doing cutting edge stuff now.....Last but not the least....there are subtle ways of saying things and keeping points of view against a group of ppl. and these are always better than brash ways of demeaning a particular group.....the book opts for the latter on the pretext of sounding patriotic...a bit on the lines of Gadar's Sunny paaji.....All in all, it maintains the tempo set by the earlier book and is certainly a 'cantputitdowner'..(hey i actually came up with a new word)

India in Slow Motion - A Must Read

Well continuing the patriotic fervour...lets re-phrase it... the enlightening of Rang De Basanti, I just completed 'India in Slow Motion' by Mark Tully. For those of u who havent heard the name before, he is an expat BBC journalist who comes out to be more Indian than most others...maybe even myself. He has lived in India for countless years now and observed its obfuscated and self - deprecating state. In this book he has come out with short stories...well not exactly stories but instances of the various facets of the great country. He delves into the problems or phenomena of various parts of the country and dishes out the facts that undermine progress as the developed world knows it. He exposes...well that sounds dramatic..but at least focuses on the neta-babu nexus and how the bureaucracy is hampering the country's development.
In the process of reading this book, I was introduced to a whole new or may I say a better perspective of looking at problems like Child Labor, Communalism and E-governance (not a problem but a solution that one) It gave me an insight into how and why the Kashmiri people have become alienated by India or Indians. I was also able to understand a lot of post independence India which thanks to our great educational system, I was unaware. This was earlier done by books like 'All the Janata Men' and 'All Indiras Men' (well not the exact title) by authors whose name I dont recall. (Thanks Dad for preserving those)
All in all this is one book you should not miss out on. Next on my reading list is 'Seven Habits of highly effective people' Will Keep u guys posted on that......ciao