Late Goodbye

This cold is amazing. Mumbai for a change is actually freezing. I know the reason is something to do with environmental imbalance but I am too happy and can use some overlooking of facts for sometime.

The weather is especially chilly in the last part of the night. 4-5 in the night. The lowest it has gone down to is 10 degress C. I dont like calling this part as morning cause it is NOT morning for me. Well, anyways... as I was saying.... people find heaven in the strangest of places... I found one on the roads of Mumbai at 4 in the night.

My work (these days) is something I would have never known if I hadnt decided to take this detour. Human Factory is what I call my workplace. I love the place. I am able to survive there only because I know it will not last long. Yet I am having a time of my life. Difficult to explain...

But my heaven is not the workplace... its the time I spend travelling back home. At 4 in the night with the chill air all around and the car speeding at 90-100 kmph or is it at the speed of light? I dunno...

The only time before that I have travelled on the Mumbai roads this late and at such high speeds is when I have been intoxicated. Today when I see the street lights streaming above like a sparkling gold chain... and me actually sane enough to see it, I wonder why didnt I do this before. What a dizzy high it is to see a thumping corporation come to a grinding halt.

They say that Mumbai never sleeps. Agreed. Even at that time you will find people & vehicles on the road. But I say Mumbai stands still at this hour of time. I feel this time is created just for me. This time of nothingness is just for me. This time is stolen from somewhere inbetween the past and future, just for me...

The head is buzzing with the inhuman work being subjected for hours. The eyes are stubborn and will not budge to sleep. They want to see. They want to see nothing. Around there are bodies just like mine and thankfully they make no attempt to make small conversations (though there are exceptions of your friendly lech, angry young man, confused lost damsel in distress, talky good friend, dumb workmate.... and a few more). And then the journey begins...

Ears blocked to any interference with headfones and the world just sweeps by like it is the blowing wind itself. The buildings that are meant to be buzzing with activity are somehow as quiet as ghost mansions. Vacant parked cars, silent atmosphere, huge empty roads, occasional sleeping dogs in small lanes (initially they are the ones that follow cars at late nights, but i guess this time they also go and rest). This is pretty much what you will see on the journey. I can never get enough of it.

I close my eyes and breathe the cold air and my hands shiver. Damn even a shawl isnt enough for this cold? Can you imagine this is Mumbai?

Poets of the Fall croon in my head.

It's all a game, avoiding failure, when true colors will bleed

All in the name of misbehavior and the things we don't need

I lust for after no disaster can touch, touch us anymore

And more than ever, I hope to never fall, where enough is not the same it was before

Where do i go from here, i wonder. I do not wish this car to stop ever. I do not wish to go home. Do not wish to tear myself apart from the canvas I now feel a part of. The canvas on which is drawn this long pause in time. The music, the road, the cold and me all are one part, flying somewhere. And everything around is just blur.

Poets of the Fall sing again

Do you breathe the name of your saviour in your hour of need,

And taste the blame if the flavor should remind you of greed?

Of implication, insinuation and ill will, 'til you cannot lie still,

In all this turmoil, before red cape and foil come closing in for a kill

And before I know I am back home, from where I started off today evening. Suddenly the body gives way and all i can think of is sleep. I wonder whether all these feelings were a play of my tired mind? Whether this 'soaring high' feeling is just a ramble of an exhausted brain. Probably. But even if it is so, i can say that I am the happiest when I am on my way back home, listening to Poets of the Fall and enjoying the climate and the speed. I just love this new found time in heaven that I have found that forms an everyday part of my life.

Goodnight!

Book Review: The Wind-up bird chronicles - Haruki Murakami

Well now this is one book i have never read before. It puts everything that you have ever read to shame. But at this point i should warn you that you will enjoy this book in its true sense if you are ready to just shut-up and read, ask no questions, flow with the descriptions and plainly visualise each and every word written on those pages (that wont be difficult given murakamis ability to put visualisations in words)

I was suggested this book by a friend and he just told me one thing... the characters of this book will stick with you... i second that now. The characters are so well etched that if asked a question i can tell you how the protagonist would look at it and also the various other characters. However dont be fooled by it. The story will baffle you as it will move ahead. According to me there is no 'unfolding' of the story that we generally come across in other books. this book is a drifter and you drift with it.

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese author and his original works are in Japanese. The Wind-up bird Chronicles is the story of a man named Toru Okada who has recently quit his job and is staying at home trying to figure out what to do next. He stays with his wife Kumiko. This story starts off as a search for their lost cat and ends up as the search for Kumiko.

His search leads to him meeting a variety of characters - an unknown women who calls him up for phone sex, a next door neighbour 16 year old May Kasahara. Mays questions makes him look deeper an deeper within himself. A psychic Malta Kano and her sister Creta Kano. His brother in law Noboru Wataya. A fortune teller Mr Honda. A world War II soldier Mamiya.
Eerie Nutmeg and Cinnamon.

Through out the book Murakami has covered the realities of World War II and infused it so very well in the story. Toru Okada's search can be a metaphor for a lot many things at a time.

This is one book that is bound to surprise you by the time you finish it, not because of the way the end has been written but because of the way it has been able to take you on this journey with Toru Okada.

Rating: 4/5

1 - nice read 2 - good 3 - very good 4 - simply outstanding 5 - Go down on my knees and bow down in awe


Coming up next: The perfect Man - Naeem Murr and The Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry (both Indian Writings)

Book Review - Center of Everything - Laura Moriarty

This book is about Evelyn Bucknow.. or wait a minute is it about me? Or for that matter is it about you? This book is about every girl (and even boy) who has been a teenager once. There are several characters in this book which are truely one of a kind - Evelyn's single mother, her hard-core catholic religious grandmother, her next-door neighbour first love who also happens to be a small time mall stealer.... and lot many other characters. But in this book the narrators narration is more important than anything else. Its the understanding of the situation by Evelyn that makes this book a worth.

This book personifies my belief that you do not need jazzy words and romanticizing of dreams to come up with a classic. This book is as simple as listening to your friend narrating a story to you.

The book kicks off at a time when Evelyn is 10 and ends when she is 19. the journey is really heart warming. Her flow from childhood to adolecence to adulthood is graphed through various stages of uncertainity, blind belief, numbness and realisations. This book makes you sit up and take a look at life in the most appropriate way - without pretentions, without opinions and without dreamy illusions.

There are many times while reading this book that you want to go and tell Evelyn to take heart, that everything will be all right. The character is so endearing. And sometimes you just want to hold her shoulders and tell her 'grow up!'... she is just like each and every one of us.

A very realistic book from an author who was pretty unknown to me when i picked up her book.

Rating: 2/5

1 - nice read 2 - good 3 - very good 4 - simply outstanding 5 - Go on my knees and bow down in awe

Book Review - The Hungry Tide Amitav Ghosh

Before I begin i'd like to clear that... I am no one to really review any books. all i am doing here is writing my impressioons on the books that I have landed up reading recently. If it makes you pick up that book and read, plz do comment and let me know wht u feel abt it too.

I happened to read The Hungry Tide by chance. I had just finished reading Shantaram by Gregory Roberts and had this urge to read something good again. Tried reading Richard Bransons autobiograhy but Shantaram rang really loud in my head and Losing my Virginity of Branson thus didnt stick much. Amitav Ghosh just stuck in my mind with a solidity of a huge ships anchor.

Read the synopsis behind the book and on an impulse picked up Amitav Ghosh. It was a very well decision taken. This book made me Amitav Ghosh's fan...

The book is about a lot of things. The Sundarbans of Bengal, the awaiting storm, the tigers, the history, the people and above all the relationships and how they shape the people. Ghosh has beautifully created each character and made them life like. He has put up the negatives of the character first and then their positives. This way we land up appreciating even the small goodness of each character.

The description of sunderbans is so vivid and actual i could nearly smell the wetlands. Amazing is the word. The controversy of the tigers is brought out with such sincerity and delicately, you will be amazed to find yourself thinking about this god-like tiger whos at the same time dreaded and revered.

Indian writings have something in them that rings a bell with me. You will feel the oneness when you read them. Probably because the sources are the same. Not that other writers dont succeed in touching that chord, but Indian writings have this mixture of freshness and antic quality to them. If i have to decribe them in a smell to you, it will be the smell of wet earth on an early cold morning.

This book made my conviction to see India to its fullest even stronger. I believe there is so much beauty right here which we havent yet seen. And the worst part is the ignorance of it too. Well i can assure you The hungry tide will definitely make you want to go and see this beautiful part of India.

I know i havent really done justice to the book here. But will add to it as and when i feel like.

My Rating: 3/5...

1- nice read 2 - good 3 - very good 4 - simply outstanding 5 - Go on my knees and bow down in awe