Sunday, October 18, 2009

DIWALI- festival of disappointments


Happy Diwali to everybody. This being my final year I was awaiting this years’ Diwali with the kind of enthusiasm that a child usually displays.in a candy store But things started going downhill from the week leading into it.



First my roommate,Samir, got afflicted with flu and to his credit spread it to 20
odd students in the hostel. Being his room mate I got affected with this new stream of virus I would like to refer to as SAM-FLU. So sniffs and cough ruled the roost and even a suspected swine-flu outbreak kept us humoured for the week. Just when I thought things could not get any worse Mr.X(identity kept hidden in case he stumbles upon this blog by gross single clicking), an attention seeking and power wielding freak of a teacher, brought out a notice which banned fire crackers . As bad as it sounded we still hoped some semblance of joy would be spared for us and we still went forward and got ourselves our favourite crackers. Come the day the sounds( isn't it ironic) weren't very promising . A visit by Mr.X and his favourite sidekicks at 4 p.m. warning us of the obvious punishments were right on cue. Still the crackers went off. Before I go forward I want to tell you of this supervisor guard who was an almighty grudge against me my room mates and friends for some kind of misunderstanding that I care not to comment on. He is a lousy son of a gun, in my opinion though. So at 8 pm this guard finds two of my friends trying to sneak off to drink of cuppa tea at our fave. Shop. He absolutely refuses to let them go through the gate. In the ensuing hullabaloo that followed the only thing that made sense in a twisted way was that the guard called Mr.X . He arrived with his trademark sniff of disgrace and started to blast off at one of my friends for going out. Aye even promising on god to rusticate him( the melodramatic little…..). Things turned from bad to worse when the faithful sidekicks of Mr.X started to fire left right and center in search of the so-called culprits.The melee was slightly defused in the end when we took upon us to downright slaughter the credentials of the guard. We still await the dis-co and the aftermaths that always eventually are hellish.
So went the Worst Diwali of my lyf.


Thank You my teachers for ruining my last year at my favourite place. I owe you a big one…

Thursday, October 1, 2009

LOST SYMBOL,,, urghhh

So this is my third attempt at writing a blog. I have failed monumentally in keeping up with the world of blogdom due to reasons apparent and inherent. Perhaps I envisioned it to be some kind of expression of mind and maybe I thought I could dedicate to it time that I spent on trivial things. I really did not expect to be so far south of the real world of blogdom, so perhaps after months of research ( God, I am using huge words here!!) I hope to be third time lucky. So having finally decided to re-enter blog-world again, I really was under some duress(There I go again) to think about something interesting to write about. And then there was light…

I have always been keen on writing reviews, I am quite a tough critic and mostly never find a book, movie , TV series completely flawless so I have always been egged on by my never satisfied(others call it difficult) brain to write pages about how things could have been right about a certain thing. But the book I am about to review, no amount of editing or re-editing can make it right for readers.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Dan Brown appeals to all the guilty pleasure that a human mind indulges in like solving crime-scenes, puzzles, whodunnits , engrossing chases and what nots. The Lost Symbol provides you all that . Robert Langdon is back with his 3rd adventure after batting the Illuminati in Angels and Demons and the Churches in the oft mentioned Da-Vinci Code. And back with him is his irritable nature to find symbols and mysteries hidden in every walk of life. I can bet my bottom rupee that if he walks into any of our colleges he will find tons of symbols of Illuminati, Freemasons and heaven knows what other God-awful secret socities.

The novel start off promisingly enough with Mr.Langdon discovering the hand of friend-philosopher-guide(I always loved that phrase) Peter Solomon at the Capitol, Washington D.C. and after a whirlwind 330 pages later he is still stuck at the same place just the hand is missing and the person is alive. I kid you not this is such an absurd write that Dan Brown novel, 187 Men to Avoid: A Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pen name Danielle Brown sound an amusing read. The prepice of the novel is flawed with the great secret on which the book hinged upon very general and not ground breaking. The Da-Vinci Code was similarily badly written but at least the climax brought upon a surprising and dare I say Book-burning theme. With this one it seems Dan really wants to hide from all the attention that a “path breaking fiction” can produce.

The characters are all encylopaedias of information who dechiper codes and solve puzzles without blinking an eye-lid. Plot errors are continual and unending to the point you ask yourself “wasn’t going out a better option”. And all the so called twists are so predictable that you can tell what happens on the next page without leafing through the book( Sorry to burst your bubble all ye Nostradamus wannabes, but predicting Dan Brown’s novel isnt quite as shocking as you hoped). So why does such a bad book sell? This is just Dan Brown revelling in success generated from all the controversies created by the Da-Vinci Code. I mean at this point Dan Brown can write “5 ways to pee better” and even that will sell half a million copies.

So I commiserate the loss of all you people whose hard earned bucks went down an elegantly crafted drain. And for those who are waiting for the paperback my sincere advice is “Don’t”.

TTFN.