Books long have been the best companions of man. From the ancient times, they have influenced his mind to shape the very foundation of the society. In fact books are the things which separate the wheat from the chaff in the movement of redemption in the social order!

However, like almost everything else, books have become audacious and nifty, especially fiction. A good story line is one which has clever detailing of imagination and fact, beautiful construction with realistic plots and highly dramatic and bold characters. This is because a new genre of authors has cropped up, which aims to change the whole scene.

One such author who has been tagged by the T.O.I. to have “Changed the very deplorable reading habits of Youngster” is Chetan Bhagat. (The author of Five Point Someone (2004), One Night at the Call Center (2005) and The Three Mistakes of My life (2008). All the three books have been bestsellers and have inspired major Bollywood films. In fact The New York Times called Chetan the ‘the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history.’

On 8^th October ’09 marked the release of his new book titled, 2 States: the story of my marriage. It’s a story of inter-state marriage in India. Love story of paranthas with idlis and chicken with coconut. The narrative of the book is fairly humdrum which is perceptible from the feel-good title itself.

Two protagonists – Krish Malhotra (a punjabi) and Ananya Swaminathan ( Tamilian Brahmin) are classmates at IIM Ahmedabad. After the initial rendezvous at the college canteen they are drawn towards each other irresistibly. In a matter of days the duo are physically intimate in hostel rooms. Love blossoms, and by the time the pair pass out of college, they’re resolute to get married to each other. The obstacles seem insuperable in the beginning – bone jarring differences between their parents, their traditions and the language barrier being the reasons for the disparity. Krish gets himself posted in Citibank Chennai, where Ananya is working with HLL. Their cleverly-crafted plans suffer sporadic setbacks and at one point in time, the entire affair goes topsy turvy but things supernaturally get sorted out with the typical, happily-ever-after climax.

Though the book is claimed to be inspired by his own family and experiences, the book must be viewed as a work of fiction.

The lingo is outlandishly rude at times, showing very stark differences between the cultures and boorish generalization in the so called Matrimonial Market where the boy and the girl are treated mainly as commodities on sale. The book seems to be meant for an entirely different layout, quite different from the usual crop. It is a book that’s written like the script for a drama or even a teleplay, for that matter. Yes, the chapters are divided into Acts I, II, III, IV and V!

However, the most spectacular feature of the book is the autobiographical element.

C. Bhagat himself has confessed that the story has been taken from his own life. Yes, he’s a Punjabi and his wife Anusha  is from Tamil Nadu, and they did study together at IIM Ahmedabad. Krish and Ananya have twin kids just like Mr. Bhagat and his wife do. Plus, the book seems to be a straight part 2 of ‘Five Point Someone’. ‘Hari’ has apparently become ‘Krish’. There are mentions of ‘lost semesters’, ‘affairs with the prof’s daughter’, ‘traveling in car with the professor’, and there’s even a detailed chapter regarding how the old affair didn’t materialize. And to top it all, we have Krish’s repeated assertions about his aspiration to be ‘a full time author’. The parallels with real-life are too many.

Sadly not everything about the book is rosy, though. The looks of his cover-pages are peccadilloes. The raucous -red outer-cover with a egalitarian graphic is enough to jolt many a of potential readers, I’d suppose! But the book may help people to think positively about inter-cultural alliances.  Despite its non-realism I would recommend the book for the chemistry between the protagonists, the charming mushy scenes , the tongue-in-cheek humor, the simple-yet- heartrending ‘C. Bhagat-logic’, and last but not the least, the central theme – LOVE!

The biggest treasure hunt in history.

There is always a difference between history and fact. And this can be vividly experienced by the readers of this book.  Matthew Reilly, the New York Times bestselling author, structures a headlong race in his new book, Seven Ancient Wonders. The book is full of colorful, audacious characters that may find an uncanny resemblance to Indiana Jones.

The book circumnavigates around the biggest historical conquest the world can ever perceive. The past has always presented an endless source of inspiration for anyone equipped with imagination and a pencil! After all history is little more than, as Napolean once put it, “A fable, agreed upon.” This seems to be the exact theme of this book as well.

The story revolves around the Great Pyramid at Giza that had a golden capstone with remarkable powers at the beginning. This Golden Capstone was placed atop the Great Pyramid at Giza during a rare solar event called the Tartarus Rotation. Once every 4,500 years, a superhot sunspot — the Tartarus Sunspot — aligned itself with Earth and caused immense worldwide flooding and sun-scorching. It is said that when the Capstone sat atop the Great Pyramid, no such flooding or solar damage occurred. And, according to legend, whoever places the Capstone on the pyramid at the next Tartarus Rotation will gain absolute power over Earth for the next 1,000 years. After its first use in 323BC, Alexander the Great had it broken down into seven pieces and hidden them all over the world. Each of the pieces is located with one of the lost seven ancient wonders of the world.

As the Earth heads towards what could be the most monumentally important day in its history, nations are involved in a scramble to locate the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Hidden within each of these wonders is one of the seven pieces of the capstone to the Great Pyramid. And this capstone holds the key to world domination – if only it can be assembled in time. The only clues are some ancient documents written in an almost untranslatable language (The so called word of Thoth), which only a child or children of the oracle can read. These hiding places are booby trapped, created by one of Egypt’s cleverest builders and pharaohs (Imhoteph I, II, IV).

Every nation that knows the significance of the looming solar event is keen for a shot at the power. Two big forces look to be in the running – a European coalition led by the Vatican and the mighty US. But an unlikely council of eight small nations is determined to make sure that no one nation should possess ultimate power. Led by Captain Jr. Jack West, former Australian SAS, the team of nine races through the wonders, avoiding booby traps, unlocking secret messages, and dodging the valor of the opposing teams.

Seven Ancient Wonders has a lot of riveting twists and turns forming a whirlwind action-packed quest through the Wonders, which author Reilly unrelentingly delivers. The real magic of this book is proved by the spell it casts on the reader. Albeit, some of the details of pathways, booby traps and secret chambers can be a little difficult to follow, this can be forgiven by the action, which is really what drives the story.

On 14 October 2008, the Booker Committee announced in London that Aravind Adiga will get the Man Booker Prize for his debut novel, ‘The White Tiger’. The writer, Aravind Adiga claims in an interview:

“At a time, when India is going through great changes and with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society.” He added that criticism by writers like Flaubert, Balzac and Dickens in the 19th century helped England and France become better societies [1]

In a single breath, Adiga takes upon his young self the huge responsibility of highlighting all the ‘brutal injustices’ of India, while feeling proud enough to compare himself with Flaubert, Balzac and Dickens.

One should be cautious while making self-comparisons with great personalities. Dickens wrote about London and English society as it was. Almost all his characters from David Copperfield to Oliver Twist have an autobiographical ring.

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दीपावली के शुभ अवसर पर भेजखोल डॉट कॉम की तरफ से आप सबको हार्दिक बधाई.

“लक्ष्मी आयेगी इतनी की सब जगह नाम होगा, दिन रात व्यापार बढे इतना अधिक काम होगा”
 

 ॐ जय लक्ष्मी माता,

भेजखोल एडमिनिस्ट्रेटर.

Thanx to the print and televsion media, we all are well aware that Julia roberts is shooting in india for her next film titled – “eat,pray,love” . The film is based on a best selling novel having the same title and has been authored by Elizabeth Gilbert who shot to international fame with this book. For the uninitiated, the journey of elizabeth gilbert’s life would seem quite fascinating and intriguing. She began her journey around the world  in a quest to understand the meaning of life, in search of “personal restoration” after a difficult divorce. She studied and practiced yoga at an ashram in india and understood the significance of meditation here. Read more »

The story of a small boy whose life was changed by a sparrow

“ Bird-watching is one of the greatest excuses for removing myself to a place where every prospect pleases- whether up in the mountains or deep in the jungles. In  future it shall become  a form of  escapism, but one that hardly needs justification” by S. Ali

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The Indian nation-state turned 62 last week. However, the Indian nation is thousands of years old. It has been there ever since innumerable men and women who considered this ancient land their home sang of the glory and majesty of the Himalayas and marveled at the life-giving properties of the great rivers that traversed across the northern plains of our country. They were moved to poetry when they encountered the lush green forests of the peninsula blooming with flora and fauna during the rains. For those who dwelt near the coast, the oceans were to be worshipped for they brought forth riches and if one were to conquer them through the force of one’s will, opportunity presented itself to the conqueror to not only add to the wealth of this country but also to enrich one’s own cultural heritage through contacts with other nations. This cultural exchange was indeed mutual as the lives of the peoples of the far as well as the near East were enriched by this contact. It is erroneous to assume that India was no more than a geographical entity. For thousands of years, it was a deity that millions of people  sanctified close to their hearts. These emotions were articulated beautifully by many great poets throughout the course of history.Valmiki, Kalidasa, Bhushan, Subramaniyam Bharathi, Tagore-the list goes on and on.

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Henry David Theureau, had once proclaimed, that “This World is but a canvass, what we shall paint, shall be seen and felt by others for ages”.

The Global Climate change today treated primarily as a chewing gum ,to be simply used and discarded. But its actual value and worth remains unstated in more than one measure.

Climate change is more relevant to contemporary socio-political concerns, of the Earth as a whole over an appropriately significant period of time. It reflects abnormal variations to the expected climate within the Earth’s atmosphere and subsequent effects on other parts of the Earth, such as in the ice caps over durations ranging from decades to millions of years. It is the result of a great many factors including the dynamic processes of the Earth itself, external forces including variations in sunlight intensity, and more recently by human activities, which might in future be deliberate geoengineering.

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Money, we all can agree, is an important part of modern life. More than just a medium of trade, money has been used through time immemorial to gain and wield power and influence. Many people and societies, of the past and in the present, have been motivated by the quest of this elusive “resource”.
Strangely enough, our history books are filled with facts and figures but rarely find mention of the significant role that money and finance have played since the stone age. “The Ascent of Money” by Harvard historian Niall Ferguson is an attempt to present a financial history of the world. The author traces the origin of money and the impact of the increasingly complex and sophisticated financial structures on society and human progress, both positive and negative.

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 I first heard about this novel in my 7th grade when we were told to read it as part of our holiday homework (which I never bothered to do). The name somehow never left my memory and that was the reason I bought a copy for myself about a week back on my last visit to the nearby book store.
As I relaxed on my couch to begin what was going to be an enlightening journey, I had no idea that this would be the first book I was going to read at a stretch.
(I am not in a habit of reading books at one stretch because I tend to fall asleep midway when the author becomes obsessed with describing a particular character or a place in great detail.)
I sat enthralled for the next 4 hours during which I was transported into the world of Sir E.R.BRAITHWAITE and his classroom.

Set in the East end of London in the 1940’s, it traces the journey of a black man named Mr.Edward Ricardo Braithwaite from being another socially unacceptable negro to becoming the most popular school teacher of a British school. The story begins with the hardships he has to endure while looking for a job as an electronics engineer, an occupation he rightly deserves but is invariably denied to pursue owing to the colour of his skin. He succinctly describes the absurdities of prejudice in the line: “I realized I was British, but evidently not a Briton and that fine differentiation was now very important to be kept in mind.” When he is eventually offered a job as a school teacher in Greenslade School, he feels it is the beginning of a new life. What awaits him however is a classroom of uncouth students whom any teacher could promptly call as a blot on human civilization.
But as they say,”When the going gets tough, the tough get going”
Will E.R.Braithwaite be able to reform a gang of thieves and a bunch of prostitutes ?
How will he even manage to capture the attention of a lot which the book eloquently describes as “ callous, hostile, and firmly resistant towards anything that the school attempted to teach” ?
Will his courage and intelligence be enough to enlighten the ill-mannered students?

Read the book to find answers to each of the above questions and to learn many invaluable lessons about life that the book attempts to teach.

The language will be slightly tough to follow given that Braithwaite used words like Cockney, which is a British dialect of East End Londoners, glibness, and cheek by jowl but you’ll gradually get the hang of it. I discovered that glibness was used to describe the shallowness of Gillian’s parents, and cheek by jowl is an expression, meaning tightly packed.

IN SUM, ‘TO SIR WITH LOVE’ IS A BOOK YOU ARE LIKELY TO ALWAYS PRESERVE IN YOUR BOOKSHELF.