Time for Some Leisurely Perusal

The last time I read a novel was maybe when I was in Chennai. It has been so long back now. Reading was fun then, Landmark was the most frequented shop, in fact the first place visited after every salary got credited. And sometimes there was this overwhelming greed to read, that we often indulged in the long abandoned barter system, exchange any book for any other. Thanks to those others who were equally crazy, they too were ready to read anything that they could lay their hands on. 

Thanks to Dad who lead me into the amazing world of books. He made sure that I read every important book, the Ramayana, the Panchathantra, the speeches of Vivekanda, My Experiments with Truth and many more. Vikramaditya was an all time favourite. The "Vetal" always took me into the world of fantasy, I always wished I too had one to myself, not on my back, but me on his back, and then he could probably take me into unknown lands of yore. Since I had finished going through the books in Dad's library, he got me this one on Russian revolution from a close friend's. It was a book by Mikhail Aleksandrovich Shokolov called " And Quiet Flows the Don". I literally had to put in a whole lot of effort in reading this one, but then I did finish it off successfully. I was just in my eight standard or so then, so the level of understanding was pretty low, but I still remember the pictures that it formed in my mind and every time I think of the book, those pictures come rushing back. Probably I had given in too much time into understanding the book, that I ended up forming such ever non-fading pictures of it in my mind. Dad kept getting me more and more books whenever he could. One another book I remember is Arundhati Roy's, "God of Small Things". Critics gave conflicting reviews on the book, but the little girl that I was, it was something in the lines of the Sholokov book for me. It somehow connected up everything. Revolutions, no matter where they happen, are revolutions and they do bring about strong transformations. A lot many thoughts were evoked by this one. I still feel I could not understand them well enough then. Every another time I try to revisit them, they make new revelations. These are games that these magicians play, the books, they are so slow revealing, even better than the Dark Knight viral marketing strategy sometimes. They can keep you pinned down to them like never ever and then do the same again, every time you go back to them. Thanks to Dad, he kept me busy with books. 

Dad's elder brother was another inspiration. His library always kept luring me every time I visited his place. It was in school that the spark of reading was probably struck. The first books were Charles Dickens classics, Tom Sawyer, Black Beauty, The Wizard of Oz, and slowly onward to W.B. Dixen, Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Perry Mason and so on. Whatever I could  not lay hands on in school, I used to grab them at my uncle's place. The sight of Charles Dickens classics there made me read them all over again when I went there once, in the ninth or so. Shakespeare was another favorite.Then it was the Sherlock Holmes series. I read all of them, just to make sure that I stayed updated on Holmes and Watson, in case anyone bothered to ask. ;) Got a chance to delve deeper into Shakespeare, in school. Those were the original verse versions which we had to learn as a part of the curriculum. We were all so taken backward in History by the obsolete version of English, that we made it a habit to converse in the Elizabathen style. Words like thy, thee, thou, ere, yore, the -eth suffixed words and the likes were the most used on the list. The books in the curriculum always lead to do more of their kind, and similarly some of the poetries and some of those catchy quotes. 

Once in college, a huge wave swept me away into the land of Science fictions. My little brother Abhishek, used to get me books by Robert Cook from the school library, only until he was once asked the summary of one of them and he failed to even mumble the title of the book and that was it. I had to look for other sources and again back to Dad. He got me a whole lot of books on Stephen Hawking and his works. The black holes looked the most enchanting thing at that point of time and there was this shift in ambition, the sudden urge to become a scientist or sometimes, even a space scientist. Well, after college I knew there was no space for space scientists in the company that I got recruited into. So I decided to become more open minded and expanded my horizon for variety books.

Once in Chennai, the choosiness had almost completely disappeared. I was once again all happy to read anything that I came across, though there was still this left over liking for Stephen Hawking. So I read some more of him before getting into more variety. Sidney Sheldon was the most easily available one, since our neighbors had a whole collection. Then at some point sprung up this new nosiness for love stories. The first one in line was well, Erich Segal's, "Love Story". It felt boring in the beginning, something so mushy and not so like those detective and science fictions types. But then I liked it as it caught on. Then I gave in for more of such kind, one was "Sundays at Tiffany's" by James Patterson, almost like the Twilight sagas, too unreal, but then engaging enough. The worst part was this curiosity to know what "Mills and Boons" was actually all about. Every time we landed up at Landmark, we spotted those large offers put up on this one. The curiosity was rising with every visit and finally we bought one. We ended up wondering how anyone could write just for the sake of making people drool. One read was more than enough to figure out why they were on attractive offers and always marketed so grandly. That was probably the last time I read a novel. 

After coming to IIML, I had almost forgotten my way into that land of books. But today is a special day, I am back on my path and now I am hoping to get lost in the world of books all over again. :) This is the most beautiful world that anyone could ever visit, the safest sojourn, so engaging and least demanding. They simply are the best of friends that anyone could ever make and the most faithful too. So I am all ready to sign in again for this rendezvous with books and hope I get to stay long enough this time. 

Just Chill !

Yesterday was different, after a long while. In spite of being a Tuesday, I woke up only by 11am and it felt so good (hope my Mom does not get to see this one, else I am done for). As any other holiday usually has been, this one too was unwritten, unplanned and undefined. So the usual spark ignition kinda system seemed to have gone out of fuel for a while. After a bath, I felt a bit better, but in no real mood to work. So followed the next default step, a visit to the doctor, my friend. Do not, by any chance mistake the visit for anything medical, because she is a vet (now i bet you must have vindicated your doubts of it being a medical visit). Anyways she is one great holiday planner. So there we set out all of a sudden for a lunch at a nearby restaurant. 


The empty stomach was in great expectations, but Alas! the food failed miserably in tickling any of our taste buds. I really wanted to leave the plate clean, but then the situation would have gone out of control if I tried any harder. Hence, the final choice, give up. It always hurts to do that. It reminds me of those childhood days when Mom used to make me eat neatly, not even letting me leave behind a morsel in the plate. She always told me about those poor, emaciated kids around the world who were even ready to have from waste bins because they had no choice unlike me. The first picture it always brought to my mind was glimpses of the Somalian kids in the title song of this program called "Living on the Edge" which used to be telecast on DD every week. And then the food would just make its way in easily, making no more complaints. Anyways after coming here, I have made  it a bad habit to waste at least twice a week. If the aura of the mess prognosticates of the chances of food wastage, I make it straight to the milk counter, again the peremptoriness that develops due to having a chance to choose. But that sure is at least better than wasting food. Still there do come times when I forcefully make myself forget those emaciated figures and end up dumping food. There is nothing on this earth that I ever kept from my Mom, but this one thing I never ever dared to tell her. Wish I could some day become a more responsible being. 


Well that was just an hour of the whole day. After coming back, we listened to some music, tried watching some movies, but nothing looked any interesting because the rightful activity to have followed the lunch was a nap. So we parted ways for the time being. Since afternoon naps have always been an issue for me when not at home, even that somehow looked uninteresting. So got back to this life saver to figure out some new time pass. All efforts seemed to be going futile, and back to square one, chatting, the perpetual love. There, it was evening before I could even make out. Chatting is this one seductive thingy, keeps me bound to it, that I always lose track of time. Precautionary measures that only work are putting the system to deep sleep, or forcefully signing out of all those hyper-networking apps and thinking of the CG system. That works wonders, trust me. Right now there seemed to be no reasons to use any of those, so I just carried on gleefully. 


Another favorite activity on the list has always been going for a stroll and so accompanied another friend on one, and killed another half an hour there. This one was fruitful though, got some gyan on how to choose electives and also some info that was about me, but so much not in my knowledge. That was one session which helped me do some rectification and clarifications. 


All this was followed by the most looked forward event of the day, some time with another set of friends here. The doc was there too. She is one best friend, so it is almost like a twin effect, wherever we go, we mostly make it together. This one was an altogether different experience after coming to college. Got to help with some cooking after a long while. Our rock band singer was the chef and she cooked us some delicious Kerala delicacies. Did someone tell me that good singers make great cooks? PJs apart, lets get back to the job. She was too inclined in doing all the cooking herself. So our duties narrowed down to just dicing and cleaning, the backend stuff (the word reminds me of those software projects that I ever got to lay my hands on). That does not take much time so we got to playing some dumb charades, for me it was after two whole years maybe. The last time I played the game was probably at the Talentine competitions at HCL. It felt good getting to do the acting and the interpreting all over again. This is one fun game, it can work like laughing gas when played in the lightest of moods. And one more fact to be noted, that we were in the company of a fourth person who utters something funny every another second she opes her mouth. So that made way for a lot of laughter, at the FPM hostel for a change. 


Then we were all busy locating our houses on Google Earth. I was stupid enough not to make out mine. These places look so different in the plan view. I probably had to be shown an elevation to make my brains work. Anyways that endeavor was deserted halfway through and we turned our concentration to the sumptuous food. The singer proved an impressive cook and thanks to her, I had no reasons to think of  "Living on the Edge" show at the dinner table ( not exactly table, we dined on the bed). As the saying goes, dinner with friends can never ever be hampered by hurdles like table manners. So there we were, talking away and laughing our way to satisfaction. Our hostess and the chatterbox took turns to keep us involved with their share of experiences and stories. The doc and me were entrusted with the laughing part. The chatterbox had so many stories to share, she had a story lined up behind every single word that she uttered. That slid the clock needle a bit too fast and it was time to let our dear hostess get some sleep after a long day. So the three of us set off for our respective rooms. That was just another day of my life, but one special day indeed, because it is rarely that we get any idle time here. That reminds me of a poem that was taught in the smaller classes.


What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
                                                     -William Henry Davies

Two Sides of the Same Coin

One side is dark, the other bright,
which one to choose, the noose is closing
The prices too close and the time too short,
the air is rushing out as if in a snort,
the noise is deafening, like a thunder bolt,
Oh! What could these auguries mean?
Are they hinting at an impending storm,
or of the silence that could anytime close in?
Sometimes life takes us to edges so sharp
and leave there to ponder over nothing at all,
Moments slip out of hands and life feels,
as though drowning helplessly in deep waters.
Only if those recondite facts could be
superficial or at least translucent,
choosing would have been easy and
life a lot more facile, complacent;
but then, how much would thou have,
put thy life at stake for - how many pennies less?
The shallowness would have fast crept in,
but that would still have been deep enough,
to stifle the value that thou today hold for thy life.
These portents are just manifestations,
they exculpate the claim of the coin, that,
it is a worthless one unless it has two sides to it.