"Unaccustomed Earth"

This is the latest collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri.

I have fallen in love with it, if I can exaggerate. Jhumpa Lahiri always captures my attention 100%. Such intricate delicate emotions handled with such enormous strength and style. Phew! And I like her style of narrating. Its slightly placid and in passive voice but it draws you into the story as you read it. Her stories take my breath away, almost because they are just so realistic. Namesake did it to me. This time, its this one. Unputdownable.

I am zipping through it with nothing else to do during the weekend. The second short story was touching now. The first one was itself just so natural and free-flowing that I was already swimming in those mixed emotions for the father and daughter, not to forget the grandson Akash!

I can relate to those people so easily in her stories. I wonder why. Is it because her writings have a feminine touch and sentiment to her? Maybe. I can so easily feel what the girl's character goes through in the second story - as much as I've read it until now. The mother confesses the pain and tumultuous turmoil to the daughter wherein both have been through similar grief of losing out on a guy whom they each banked for love (though quite out of turn).

Now I know about four families - all of them Bengali (coz the writer is herself one). I wish she would write about other regional families too. One family is struggling to deal with a drunkard. Another family is about a couple who think love is out of their married life after spending 10 years together. They realise in the end that it has not actually vanished but was taken for granted so long, in very complicated ways and after getting hurt. :)

Kudos to J.L. :)

White Flag!

DIDO LYRICS

"White Flag"

I know you think that I shouldn't still love you,
Or tell you that.
But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it
where's the sense in that?

I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder
Or return to where we were

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

I know I left too much mess and
destruction to come back again
And I caused nothing but trouble
I understand if you can't talk to me again
And if you live by the rules of "it's over"
then I'm sure that that makes sense

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

And when we meet
Which I'm sure we will
All that was there
Will be there still
I'll let it pass
And hold my tongue
And you will think
That I've moved on....

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of my favorite numbers!!!!!!!!!!!!! This whole song has its own reasons and is justified because love is different for every person. Dido has captured the nuance of this delicate line perfectly! :)

Seed of doubt

When a seed of doubt enters your head, what do you do? Jump to conclusions? Wait and see? The former indicates lack of patience and latter the contrary. The middle humanly approach would then be to exhaust all logical polite options of finding out if the doubt is worth it. Last but not the least and the best approach is, depending on the person's maturity level and sensitivity of the situation, to talk it out frankly.

I am yet to see if this middle approach works for me this time. I hate suspense, if it brings disappointing news with it. Sigh.

Simpsons Jr.

Well, episode continued...

PY - The place to be in when am almost done with rat-race --> My dream 5 years ago. Now, I have to rethink about it because of all this commercialization and unexpected ridiculous atrocities - eve teasing, hooligans, bad customer service, firangi worship, horrible traffic followers. It was such a beautiful, different and purely French-Tamil balanced picturesque place 5 years back. Sigh, there are just remnants of that elegance now which set it apart previously. Civilization and evolution - Bah! :(

Anyways, thats the sad part of the visit. Happening part - Me walking aimlessly, being unreachable, enjoying the landscape wherein I am feeling so lost but safe, sitting and gaping at the ever-lashing waves on the rocky seashore at sunset, experiencing few sudden pleasant short-lived but memorable unexpected incidents, getting to see weird but passionate and affectionate family bonding, the best one - getting completely into the sea where the waves are almost drowning me and I become icky, sticky and salty - Most amazing experience, thanks to them! :)

To complete the list, managing to get an almost sound sleep in the middle-seat of a Qualis! :) I managed to do that coz I had blinded my eyes with a kerchief to avoid the head-lights of vehicles coming in front! Ha ha. Feels so funny. Oh, how can I forget? A generous soul shared her blanket with me and a moral support was next to me.

One of my most memorable trips. Somehow, now I am left with mixed emotions - Am I anywhere there to where I want to be or was this whole thing just a timing and place thing? When will I know the answers? :)

Waiting again with bated breath!

Kiterunner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This blog is dedicated to the book and the movie Kiterunner by Khaled Hosseini.

I am still reading the book and its taking me time to finish only because its so simply complex and written with such rich intricate emotions. (P.S: Simply complex - paradox?!)

I was so impressed with Khaled Hosseini's second book - "A thousand splendid suns". So, as expected, I went on to read his first book and in the midst of reading it, I could not resist the temptation to watch the movie. Obviously, the movie is not as harsh and turbulent as the book but has definitely managed to capture some of the turbulence and is quite power-packed. Sigh, I even recognized the writer who does a small cameo appearance in the last scene. The actors are debutants and definitely do justice to quite an extent.

My favorite twist of the book: siblings aspect and my favorite line: For you, a thousand times over. :)

These books are an eye-opener about Afghans and Afghanistan. The flow in the first book is quite not so continuous but I guess its understandable, given its the first book. Khaled is a physician. He is a good story-teller too. :)

I am definitely going to complete the book. :) Lets see how I feel by the time I finish reading it.

Khaled Hosseini - One more story-teller in my list of favorites. Sigh, I wish I had inherited some of his genius. :)

Indian Simpsons family!

Our worlds are as big as our minds. This can be further explained as follows:

Narrow / broad - due to our mindsets

Traditional alias conservative / modern alias westernized - due to upbringing

One happened to meet one such family wherein it was from the former sort of upbringing (80%) and the family was of the latter sort. Initially, it was quite a shocker for one to even see such a family in such close quarters. It was so apprehensive and lost when it was given the opportunity to meet them. Destiny took its sweet toll and put it in such weird interesting situations with this family. One admits it put itself in those situations voluntarily but Destiny has its hand. Overall, one would say that it finds that family completely adorable and yet totally unpredictable.

One met them first - they looked so distant and unapproachable. Then one met them second time wherein one spent more time and saw the madness, closeness, weirdness, frankness. :) Felt definitely interesting but lost. For this, one told self to join as it would serve as a break. :D What a break that was! In the heart of nature and in such interesting company. Now one is to meet the bunch with their etcetera again. One has put up a huge clash of emotions and confusions and guilt to embark on the third meet. Sigh, time has the key to all the doubts.

I realized lately that every single second that passed by, only pushes you further and further to your answers. Yet, we fret and nag and waste energy and effort in it. Its true that the answer awaited could be a nightmare and thats why we fret. :) Nothing is lost in hoping that the answer could be a dream/wish come true or just a simple solution.

Waiting with bated breath! :)

New name and its reasons

Well, today was one just lazy day. I reckon thats the way I wanted to celebrate Labour Day. I am quite happy it went that way though I was left out with boredom in the end of it.

Somehow, today, I just so much wanted something to happen but I was surprisingly ready to accept if it did not happen. I wonder how I cud be in two minds and still fine. Am I growing old and boring? All in all, it happened but not exactly as I expected. I am quite clueless as to if I am right in expecting more from it. I want so much from it but am scared to wish coz I would be disappointed if it dint happen. I am scared of getting hurt, you see. But then, how dumb and boring to let things happen and blame fate or destiny.

Shit, I am so confused and unsure and hence I chose the name Confucius. Its not in the least anywhere near to the famous philosopher. :) I chose it coz the sound of the name is more like the way I am. He he. "Mystic" gets prefixed coz I swear my life does have its teeny-weeny bit of mystery and I really want to sound interesting. :P

I aint a depressed soul - I am just waiting for my life to get interesting and that really shows I am lazy bum. :) Since I am lazy, I wait for good things to happen and complain that life is depressing. Also, I am quite scared to take risks to make it interesting fearing the hurt. One delicate darling. :D

Calvin and Hobbes:

Calvin: Do you believe in stars?
Hobbes: Honestly, no.
Calvin: I do.
Hobbes: What?! (Surprised)
Calvin: Thats coz its easy to blame someone else if things get bad.

I so love Bill Waterman who created Calvin and Hobbes.

Sigh!