Feluda

Feluda Somogro, Volume 1 and Volume 2, Bengali, Ananda Publishers

Feluda is a character created by Kurosawa of the East, Satyajit Ray.
There is a distinct influence of the Conan Doyle Stories as Feluda is a lot like Sherlock Holmes. There are three Central characters in the book – Prodosh C. Mitter (Feluda) , his assistant Tapesh Ranjan Mitter (Topshe) (his fourteen year old cousin) and Lalmohan Ganguli ( Jatayu – A writer of cheap and popular thrillers).

The novellas in this collection are the author’s own favorites from among the numerous Feluda stories he has written. Feluda, urbane, intellectually-inclined, trademark Charminar in mouth, sets out to solve a series of particularly baffling crimes ranging from a kidnapping in Rajasthan to a locked-room murder in an old Calcutta house.

Each story starts with Feluda and Topshe at home, a client arrives and frames the mystery, and the trio set off on their adventures. Feluda is a combination of mental and physical skills -- tall, agile, sharp and in fine shape due to his early-morning yoga -- and all his skills are called upon during the course of the stories. All stories are set in different cities so the local touch of that city is there that shows Ray was a well travelled man.

Feluda’s world is strange in one notable respect -- there are no women!!!. He is entirely surrounded by men. He has no aunts or female cousins which is common in large extended families. Every person he comes across is male, as is every character on the roadside or in a train. There are little boys, but no little girls. Was satayjit ray uncomfortable with women characters??, but isn’t he the same person who created Charulata, Durga and Arati in his movies.

Twilight

The book begins with seventeen year-old Bella Swan moving from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington, so she can live with her father, Charlie. Her mother, meanwhile, is traveling with her boyfriend Phil, a minor league baseball player. A too-typical teenage girl, Bella is convinced she is an ugly duckling when in reality she is a swan (the inspiration for her last name, perhaps?). Where in Phoenix she had been a social outcast, in Forks she is immediately popular and she catches the eye of several boys.
I’ll continue this plot summary by (lazily) quoting from Wikipedia: “When Bella sits next to Edward Cullen in class on her first day of school, Edward seems utterly repulsed by her. He even attempts to change his schedule to avoid her, leaving Bella completely puzzled about his attitude towards her. After tricking a family friend, Jacob Black, into telling her the local tribal legends, Bella concludes that Edward and his family are vampires. Although she was inexplicably attracted to him even when she thought Edward drank human blood, she is much relieved to learn that the Cullens choose to abstain from drinking human blood, and drink animal blood instead. Edward reveals that he initially avoided Bella because the scent of her blood was so desirable. Over time, Edward and Bella fall in love.” Without spoiling the plot, the book concludes with some page-turning action involving a vampire tracker (which, for those who are as ignorant as myself, is a vampire who tracks humans, not a human who tracks vampires) who seeks to hunt Bella as a sick kind of sport.

I am sure that the subject matter will immediately convince some parents that the book is unsuitable for their girls. This was my initial reaction—why would I allow my daughter to read a book about vampires? But I know there are some, perhaps myself included, who may allow an older teenager to read it. It is primarily to assist such parents that I write this review.
The book is relatively clean. That is to say that there is little explicit violence and no overt sexual activity. However, I think this bears some further discussion. While there is no sexual activity portrayed in the book, it really does ooze with a kind of teen or tween sexuality. The book is, at its heart, the story of a young girl’s sexual awakening. It may be that the tween reader will be sufficiently young and innocent that this is lost on her, but I’m convinced the older teenage girl will find it in the story. The most explicit sexuality is found in a brief discussion between Edward and Bella where they talk about whether they desire one another in that way and whether Bella has ever been with another boy. Edward declares that he may be a vampire, but he is still a man. The quiet sensuality is far more pervasive and, I would suggest, far more powerful. There is scene after scene where Edward and Bella gently stroke one another, softly and slowly running their hands over each other’s bodies, exploring, pressing their heads against each other’s chests to hear their hearts pounding, feeling electric shocks as their fingers touch flesh, twisting and cavorting with their lips on one another’s faces and necks. Bella is inflamed by Edward and, while there may be no explicit mention of sexuality, it is clear that she desires Edward—all of Edward.
Edward, meanwhile, has a creepy kind of love for Bella. As a vampire he cannot sleep, so he spends his nights sneaking into Bella’s room to watch her sleep (as if this is sweet, not perverse) and often follows her unnoticed as she goes about her business. He reveals that her scent—the scent of her blood—drives him wild. His overwhelming love for her is sometimes nearly indistinguishable from revulsion or hatred. There is part of him that wishes to hold her, to make love to her, and another part that wants to attack her and to drink her blood. In one scene she has been bitten and Edward needs to suck some poison from her if he is to save her life. After he does so he discusses both her taste and her smell and how enchanting it is to him. Is this love or is this perverse obsession?
While the love between the two of them is meant to be real, it also has a strange, unearthly quality to it. It also has an obsessive, idolatrous quality. Perhaps this is true of any love story, but I wonder whether girls are well-served by reading of a young woman who is so utterly consumed with her boyfriend that she seeks and desires and thinks of nothing else. She lies, she disobeys her parents, she does whatever is necessary to be with him. She is convinced that in this boy she will find her all-in-all. All she desires—to the point of wanting him to drink her blood so she, too, can be a vampire—is to be with him forever. She would rather be undead eternally than live without him.
I just don’t know that young girls will derive any benefit from spending hours reading and thinking about such an unrealistic, unobtainable, perverse kind of love. It glories in love that is forbidden, dangerous and just plain weird. The fact that the story involves vampires may be beside the point. My primary concern with Twilight, as I consider handing it to a girl of thirteen or fifteen or seventeen, is its sensuous quality. The lack of overt sexuality means that it is not an erotic book, but it is very nearly so. It oozes sensuality even without an act of consummation.
It is not insignificant that on the cover of Twilight is the simple image of hands—female hands—holding out an apple. This clearly evokes the forbidden fruit of Genesis 2:17, verses that are quoted at the beginning of the book. This represents not only the forbidden love between a human and a vampire, but Edward himself as Bella considers partaking of him. My suggestion to parents would be to leave this book on the shelf instead of handing it to your teenage girl (and especially your young teenage girl). At the very least, read it yourself and see if your conscience is clear before you hand it to her.

Blackberry Wine-Joanne Harris

In spite of its similarities to Chocolat in character and themes, Blackberry Wine stands alone. Readers need not read Harris's books in any particular order to appreciate them.

Jay is a writer in his late 30s, living in London with his much younger and much more successful chic girlfriend, Kerry. Once upon a time, Jay wrote an amazing book called Jackapple Joe , his hugely successful one-hit wonder. He is never able to reproduce the energy or acclaim, and so he writes fantasy and sci-fi under a pen name to make a few bucks. Jackapple Joe was a heightened and nostalgic retelling of Jay's childhood summers spent with his grandparents at Kirby Monckton and the older man on Pog Hill Lane with whom he forged a unique but nurturing relationship. Blackberry Wine acquaints readers with its characters through a series of flashbacks interspersed in the narrative of the present. Joe's folk wisdom and gardening tips endeared him to me as they helped bond him to a young and lonely Jay; Jay's teenage struggles with a neighborhood thug help to shape the adult he becomes.

One morning, after Jay has slept in and makes a very small attempt at working, he notices the mail being delivered and sees, illuminated in golden sunlight, an advertisement for real estate; specifically, a picture of a French chateaux, or "chatto" as Joe called his dream house. The picture is exactly what Joe described as his life's ambition. The advertisement is so enticing that Jay spontaneously buys the estate and moves to Lansquenet on the spot, somehow feeling that Joe is there.

The estate, Joe's bottles of homemade liqueur called "The Specials," and the not-so-unreal memories of Joe inspire Jay to write again. He begins writing about Lansquenet and its inhabitants, quizzing Josephine in the café about an especially interesting villager, Marise d'Api, whose land borders his own. After weeks of inspired writing, rewarding hard labor in his gardens, and getting beyond the surface pleasantries of the townspeople, Jay quickly comes to feel that the truth about the villagers and the life he is building for himself are more important than writing the great follow-up novel, that self-fulfillment and contentment in one's life are more alluring to him now than fame and notoriety once were. Life is the true inspiration for art, but, in the end, life is more important to Jay than the art that once helped forge his identity and success.

Blackberry Wine is the sort of book that can be read in a day or two, but is also a book whose characters and setting implant themselves under your skin and don't go away. I found myself suspending disbelief in many sections of the novel, especially when Joe describes his "astral travel" abilities. The fairy tale qualities of the story make it a sweet read rather than a trivial one, and the genuineness of its inhabitants make me want to visit Lansquenet someday…

Thanks, Ira....for recommending this to me....

 

Of Friendship and Travel!!!!

I am getting married. Very soon, really soon, sooner than you think. you may ask, why am I repeating this to myself, it’s probably because I am trying to come in terms with it myself. It’s not that I am not excited about the marriage or anything; it’s just that you get a lot of usual jitters….thinking about what the marriage entails, the whole lot of changing equations….the plethora of emotions, the omnipresent uncertainties, the changing me!!!!
I have stayed with Mohan, my roommate for over a year. He is been a senior from law school and a roommate, ever since he moved to Bangalore to join the big “Jewish” Golman Sachs. For all those who don’t know, here is a fun fact. Most of the top billionaires in US and the big bosses of the really big bad investment banks have a all been Jewish. God gifted them with the fabled money mindedness. Anyway, that being an aside, let’s return to Mohan.
As I enter this new phase of life, that is getting married, I can look back and safely say, I am going to miss him, miss his company, miss the travel, and miss all the stupid and silly talks, the agreements to disagree and above all the travels.
Yes, we travelled, we travelled a lot. Most of the time just the two of us, until new found friends, Jakob, Thomas and Hilka came in to the picture. and what fun we had? What fun!!! we have wolves chasing us, nature slapping us on our face, not to be screwing around with her, having a leopard running around our tent in the middle of the night, me falling in a ditch with Mohan holding my t shirt trying to pull me out, jingling keys in the middle of the night to keep the khichkarni away, going white water rafting, trekking and the like, the list, guys is endless. I cherish every moment of it. It pains me deeply to think that these will change and soon. Mohan tells me that this would not have been possible if we didn’t have the same mindset….though I agree with him, I also think, it’s more to do with him forcing me to go the extra mile. I love travelling but then I would not have enjoyed it as much, if it was not for Mohan.
Mohan is the one who convinced me to buy a good DSLR camera; I did buy a Nikon D80 and I think that it’s a fabulous buy. I have learnt to take snaps without closing one eye, and achievement which was from ever instilled confidence from Mohan.
We joined Muay Thai (read Thai kick boxing) classes together, sweated it out, collapsed, drained out together, lay on the carpet tired beyond our wits, all screwed up.
I am quite emotional….do not think I want to write any further…..
Hope the craziness never dies out…hope the travelling never stops …..I am going to miss you dude….a lot mate….

Meet the Parents!!!!

Well, I want the reader to start by asking a very simple question to themselves, as they start reading this post. The question being, “are you married?” if the answer is “yes”, well read on, recollect and introspect. If the answer is “no”, read on and do so carefully. Take it as a “Book for Dummies” or “The Survival Book” or whatever you may like to call it. But read carefully because it might help. On second thoughts, not really though. Nothing can prepare you for what may be dished out in the process.

In India, there are two kinds of marriages that can happen, “love marriages” and “arranged marriages”. Love marriages are those where you find your own bride; that is a metamorphosis from a “boyfriend/ girl friend” to “husband/ wife” takes place. Arranged marriages, on the other hand are where you really have no clue as to what’s coming your way and the best way to describe the same is, to be “venturing into the unknown!!!!” Arranged marriages are what we are going to be talking about here.

Let’s start with how an arranged marriage works. Parents, relatives, all those people who take it upon themselves to be our self appointed well wishers (as in most cases) to find a “suitable” match for us. They employ various available means for the purpose. They talk to friends, relatives, browse through matrimonial columns, visit matrimonial sites and as in some cases these days look at every beautiful girl/ handsome guy on the road and visualize a prospective bride/ groom.

The process involves scanning through numerous photographs and  bio data (equivalent of a curriculum vitiae), in some cases astrological charts, rashis, kundalis (some believe in them while some don’t). Some even go to the extent of getting the kundalis of the prospective bride and groom matched against each other and evaluated by astrologers and professional Pandit ji.

Then of all the prospects, some are short listed, further shortlisted and then debated internally, talked about with the groom or the bride as the case may be and then communicated to the respective families.

But tarry a little. That’s not all. There’s more. Once the “yes” has been communicated, starts a process of court ship and background checks. That’s when you dig up a snake when looking for worms.

Everybody has a past and it’s best left unattended, undisturbed, unanalyzed. Once we start doing these background checks, we invariably come  across some amount of information which disturbs us, which makes us put a question mark on the character of the individual in question.

There’s more to it. In the case of arranged marriages, I believe the expectations, these days are too high and that’s probably the reason why we get disappointed at most of the time. Come to think of it, when was the last time, you got everything that you wanted at a given point of time. Hardly right!!!   You have to compromise somewhere to be happy. Otherwise, you will just about keep on looking without ever being happy. And that would suck, and truly so.

The bottom line being, it’s a long drawn process, very subjective in nature and the more you play with it, the more it gets to you. And that’s when you had it.

Love marriages, well it’s another story….

 

 

Auto Rickshaws and Bangalore

I might be in a complaining wagon or just the cribbing type. But these auto rickshaws in Bangalore just triggered me to write. I decided not to get a car in this city due to various reasons and the only other option to commute is to take an auto ride.

I will give a couple of examples to drive home the point.

I live in Koramangala, quite a posh locality, pretty close to Forum Mall (a place which allows you to spend your money, without feeling too much of a guilt). Off and on I go back home to my parents in Vijayawada and do this journey by bus. My bus (usually a Volvo) reaches the city pretty early and I get down at this place called Tin Factory. There are two reasons for this. Let me explain. The bus usually goes through the city traffic until it reaches a place which is really close to Koramangala. However, it would delay me by an hour or so and get me to miss my office shuttle. Hence the option is to get down at Tin Factory and take an auto. Once you get off, auto drivers flock to you. They will ask for anywhere between 200 to 500 rupees and you do not have too much of a choice. Because everyone wants the same and they will stop anybody trying to charge you less. I guess these guys do not understand that we do not want to buy the auto, just take a ride.


The situation worsens if there is rain in the city. That’s it. they blankly charge high fares or simply refuse to carry you around. I remember this friend of mine telling me that she waited and asked for a lift to over twenty autos (could be an exaggerated number) and finally asked one where the auto was going (instead of asking for the lift) . He said Indiranagar (her destination too) . She told him that she wanted to go to Indiranagar as well, and the auto driver just waved his hands and said, “nehin nehin, nehin jana” and drove off. I am sure he appreciates that none of us want a free ride. Then why? Beats me.


My friend Mohan has his office at Embassy Golf Links. On getting a new job, he moved into this city only to find that after long hours at a demanding investment bank job, he does not get an auto to get back home. They just refuse. Blankly. Mohan thought better of it, did a 650 kilometers road trip on his cruiser bike to circumvent the problem. Sounds good, true….I could do the same but then there is one glitch in the whole thing, I do not know how to ride a bike. Sigh!!!In other countries the cab drivers get in conversation with you and also check if you are doing fine and often greet you with a smile. Aren’t they from the same industry? I don’t see this in this India. They are often ready to take you for a ride. They commonly goof up with the meter so you are always charged more. And take you on the longest ride ever, if you do not know the way to your destination. You can pay the auto driver more if you don’t have change but you can never give them one rupee less. They are very arrogant and also drive rashly on the roads. It’s also not safe for women to travel alone late night in an auto.


Is there a solution for this? Can I smile at them and converse with them, to change their attitude? I guess that also would be misunderstood. After all, this city never fails to surprise me.

Introduction

While I was in Law School, our Law and Literature teacher had once, asked us to write a critical appreciation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The Rubaiyat is a collection of short poems, originally written in Persian with beautiful illustrations accompanying each poem. The Rubaiyat, as FitzGerald puts it, is a “juxtaposition of the conscious, subconscious and the unconscious”. I think, it’s a potent description of the human mind. You look into yourself; you will always know that all thoughts have a meaning. To quote Polonius, “there is a method in its madness”.

Thoughts, random as they may be, always mean something to someone.

I am of the opinion that, it would be great to pen down these thoughts, these “Signs” all around, speaking out loud, only if you are willing to “hear” and see the “method” in these.

Welcome to Random Thoughts.