How many have you read?

I've been seeing this on too many blogs, and now that I've been tagged in one particular list, I have no choice but to put this up myself. The BBC booklist. BBC is under the impression that most people have read only 6 of the 100 books on this list.

As per instructions, I have marked in bold the ones I've read and shall italicize the ones I've at least started.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Divine Comedy - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Final count: I've read 40 of the above. 

What about you? :)

There's a Sucker Born Every Minute.

People whine and vent all too often. And that's okay most of the time.

But this past week, the internet was just brimming with people dealing with some identity crisis.

Over a changed Zodiac sign.

/complete and utter fail

My Facebook home page had at least 30 people with updates such as, "Mr.I-Don't Have a Life refuses to be a Virgo,' and 'Ms.La Dee Da cries that she is now an Ophiuchus'.

I mean, seriously? :O

In my opinion, this (new?) zodiac sign just sounds like the name of some cough syrup that a doctor scribbles down hurriedly which only the chemist can read.

Anyway, if you're still crying over it. I have some news. Nothing's changed. I'm still Capricorn and I'm still short. Here's what I read on the CNN blog.

"That's worth rephrasing: If you considered yourself a Cancer under the tropical zodiac last week, you're still a Cancer under the same zodiac this week.

That's because the tropical zodiac – which is fixed to seasons, and which Western astrology adheres to – differs from the sidereal zodiac – which is fixed to constellations and is followed more in the East, and is the type of zodiac to which the Star Tribune article ultimately refers."

Happy? :)
But I was still fascinated by how seriously people took their horoscope. So I decided to read up a little on this. And look what I found.
The Forer Effect. It explained a lot.

Basically, the Forer Effect is a term used to describe the tendency of people to interpret general statements as being accurate for them personally, even when they are not.

This American psychologist Bertram Forer conducted a personality test in 1941, and asked the students to rate how well the test results described unique aspects of their personality. They received these statements.


You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.


Students rated their results on average at 85.2% accurate. 


Here's the kick.
They had all received identical personality assessments.:D

Obviously, the description applies broadly to every living soul who has ever existed on this planet. Which is why I find this experiment so self-deceptively awesome. :P

I guess it all comes down to belief. When you want to believe something, when you want something to be true, then even a general sweeping statement about your love life becomes specific. Suddenly, it all makes sense. You see order in things. You see patterns. 

And admit it. Who doesn't find comfort in the predictability of life?

Got to go now.

I have a Information Technology exam tomorrow.

Dead meat. 

Later. :)

Urban Nothingness

A printer without cartridge.
A car without petrol.
A bikini in winter.
A mobile phone whose battery is dead.
A dozen wasted cans of Coke.
A chicken burger to a vegetarian.
A slice of pizza that slipped out of your hands and sat pretty on the road.
A millionaire you've never heard of before.
A genre of music undiscovered.
A man without a mission.
A movie lacking any semblance of a plot.
A slacker who convinces himself of his 'potential'.
A lot of untouched study material.
A thousand empty Microsoft Word documents.
Writer's block.

All Things Vivid In A World Of Grey

Happy '11, everyone! :)
The date was 1.1.11 yesterday. A numeric knock-out, don't you think?

It's a new year, and tradition begs a few resolutions be passionately made and avidly forgotten about.

Just for the record, here are mine:

• Resolution No.1- Read less but read what you want to. Not necessarily what the Booker Prize winning book is. Maybe I haven't matured enough to comprehend the book. Give the book time. Let it grow on you. In the meanwhile, read good stuff. :)

The year was 2008, and the Excel spreadsheet I had maintained of all the books I'd read that year tallied up to 72. Seventy-two! My friends still remember that number and burst into laughter. But it was a number I used to be proud of, no matter how sheepishly I admitted it. Reading isn't 'cool', right?
Last year, I purchased a lot of books that I wanted to read desperately, or had heard a lot of amazing things about, but never managed to finish. Too heavy on philosophy, too verbose, boring in the middle etc. I love words, and I love books, and I can't live without reading. So, this year, I'll read what I want to, at my grand old pace.

• Resolution No.2-Do not download music. (Now this is going to be a REALLY tough one to keep, almost impossible, I think, but still, I write it here because the new year starts with hope for a better tomorrow.)But then how will I ever listen to Sigur Ros?And Simon & Garfunkel? And Smokey Robinson?

Okay, I have NOT thought this through.

• Resolution No.3- Pick up an instrument, goddammit! A violin or a guitar, preferably. :)

• Resolution No.4- I must learn not to wince when confronted with something that does not fit within the frayed edges of 'my correct'. Never forget that curiosity can kill cats, not young pint-sized girls.I feel I'm brimming with opinions and judgments about a variety of things.  I must keep my mind open to all views and opinions on every subject. 

• Resolution No.5- Save money. 

P.S. My sister, Sana is such a sweetheart, she put in 2 months of her pocket-money and treated me to the perfect lunch at Red Box this afternoon. Eighteenth birthday treat, and all.
Aaaaaaaah, she is so adorable and I love her so much! :)
It's so cool, this year I become an adult and she becomes a teenager. :P

P.P.S. Meeting a friend you haven't met since 7th grade is just the most fun experience. :D

Tonight, I'll stay up till twelve. :)

                                      "What can be said in New Year rhymes,
                                       That's not been said a thousand times?
                                       The new years come, the old years go,
                                       We know we dream, we dream we know.
                                       We rise up laughing with the light,
                                       We lie down weeping with the night.
                                       We hug the world until it stings,
                                       We curse it then and sigh for wings.
                                       We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
                                       We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.
                                       We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
                                       And that's the burden of a year."

                                                                    Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Today is a 'last day'. Strange, isn't it? Today I'm living in 2010, I'll wake up tomorrow in the year 2011.

It's the time of the year to be pensive, to make resolutions, to be excited out of your mind, to be hopeful and to go absolutely insane.

I'm feeling a certain calm. I'm staying at home, watching whatever movie is on TV with family, will wait for the clock to strike twelve, and cuddle up and go to sleep.

I only hope 2011 is a nice happy year. As rose-tinted and simple as that. :)

You know what is really exciting? My 18th birthday is in 6 days. I am approaching the age of majority at a frighteningly fast rate. That makes me so happy! :)

Here's wishing you, your family, your best friends and your cute little puppy a very happy new year.

Stay happy, stay awesome. :)

On Beauty

You are so beautiful, to me. :)

We live in a world of stereotypes, opinions, judgments and assumptions, which we may not have been party to creating but are influenced by, nonetheless. There is no denying that influential beauty stereotypes exist that fill the pages of fashion magazines and brim over in cinematic endeavors. A desire for perfection- the perfect skin, the perfect hair, the perfect nose... has crept into the mind of every girl.

Beauty beliefs start early in life, I think. When my parents gifted me a Barbie doll with a flowing pink gown and a plastic dress, she was my first definition on beauty. The definition has changed dramatically over the years; from a Bollywood actress to a Hollywood actress, from a pop singer to a woman in a corporate suit, from a friend to an aesthetic.


I was in the auto-rickshaw on my way back home from office the other day, battling the usual traffic and eunuchs at traffic signals. As I waited anxiously for the signal to turn green, I saw something. An image that has remained in my memory ever since. A poor old beggar woman was sitting on the pavement. She had deep wrinkles on her face, and the way her sari hung on her gave away her malnutrition.Ordinarily, I wouldn't have been moved by this sight, except probably, sparing a second ruminating on the neglected India. But, then I saw her extend her right hand in front of her and smile. I couldn't help but stare. It was only after a few seconds that I realized there was a broken fragment of a mirror in her hands. She adjusted a few strands of her hair, opened her eyes wide and smiled. 
And in that moment, she was the most beautiful woman I'd seen.


And I realized that beauty can never have a base value. It is such a fragile commodity, subjective by its very definition, that there is no generalized basis for what one may consider a thing of beauty. With Photoshop, touch-ups and cosmetic surgery being the talk of the day, this may come across as being a superficial argument. But it truly is a wake-up call to me, for every day I wake up feeling fat, zit-prone or having a static-propelled hairstyle, I think of her happily. :)


"Socrates called beauty a short-lived tyranny; Plato, a privilege of nature; Theophrastus, a silent cheat; Theocritus, a delightful prejudice; Carneades, a solitary kingdom; Aristotle, that it was better than all the letters of recommendation in the world; Homer, that it was a glorious gift of nature; and Ovid, that it was favor bestowed by the gods."
Francis Quarles

Ho Ho Ho!

              I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.
                                                                                       - Harlan Miller


Merry Christmas, everyone! And here's to an amazing new year. :)

Dwarfed...

...By the Beauty

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

(The world's largest salt flat, stretching over 12,000 square feet and is so clear that the water reflects the sky with mind-boggling clarity.)

...By the Courage

Indian soldiers after winning the Kargil War

...By The Emotion, "Saudade"

A Portuguese word, one of the most beautiful words in the world, refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone who is loved but is lost.

Wabi-Sabi

The beauty in impermanence. The exquisiteness in  imperfection and asymmetry. The allure of the authentic.

To embrace the scars as they come and the wounds time gives us.

To cherish frayed edges and look for beauty waiting to be discovered.

Bared to the essence, this is what the Japanese world view of "Wabi-Sabi" is.
And what a beautiful thought at that. The mere profundity it implies renders it virtually untranslatable. And that only adds to the enigma of the concept.

As another year draws to a close, I cannot help but reflect on the events,however fleeting, that have occurred and the memories,however trivial, that have been formed.
Certain events, people and conversations made me grow in terms of developing a educated world view and to develop an understanding of the unknown.
Certain events made me realize the flaws in my opinions, and the defects in my character. I am learning how to opine, without generalizing. And I am learning how to accept, without judging. I am learning how to lead, without dominating. I am learning how to laugh, without yearning.

One of the things I am most proud of this year is this blog. Yes, this blog has been an achievement in the sense that its very existence has forced me to sit in front of my laptop and write. If this hadn't existed, I probably wouldn't have been forced to think the things I did, and however trivial my thoughts were, I am unimaginably thankful that they occurred to me. And I am hugely thankful to the 45 people who found this space worth their  few minutes of Internet-happy time. :)

2010 has been a year of surprises.
A man made a million plans(and bucks) and succeeded at most of them, until his office was raided and he was asked to quit being chairman of the IPL.
A cricketer on the other side of the border may have married the love of his life, until it was discovered he was telephonically wedded already.
The best golfer in the world, a happily married man by the looks of it, would turn out to be a tiger outside the golf course as well.
An amazing trip to Europe may have been planned down to the last detail, but an unpronounceable natural disaster somewhere in Iceland may have thrown you off track.
The most respected and venerated journalists in the country would lose face when tapes of their lobbying for a corrupt telecom minister were made public.

Who would have thought?

The natural cycle of ups and downs, growth and decay, fast and slow have been witnessed in this year more apparently than ever before.
2010 truly, has been the year of wabi-sabi.

Snowflake in An Avalanche

At the very outset, my most sincere apologies to the four and a half people (including my sister's two friends) who truly missed my blog posts. And average apologies to the rest who missed my blog posts just because they had nothing better to do than be bemused by adolescent jargon. (You know I love you guys and completely suck at being nonchalant, right? :P)


(Okay, I have something to share with you, but I'll do it later because I have to behave modestly for the sake of propriety, but please remind me if I forget!)


__________________________________________________________________________


When I was 8, it was such a big word. I couldn't imagine ever being able to spell it correctly.
When I was 11, I was blissfully ignorant about it.
16 was when I found it fashionable to shirk it.
I'm turning 18 next month, and am already bogged down by it.
I’m talking about that 14-letter word that fills every newly inducted adult with a sense of excruciating dread – responsibility.




Ah, those simpler times when responsibility meant doing your homework fast enough so you could play "Hide and Seek" with the building friends. Oh, that period of carefree abandon when being irresponsible only meant forgetting your homework at home and inventing creative excuses to cover it up. Responsible was the person who got picked Class Monitor, or School Prefect.
Responsibility has arisen from its murky depths (or glorious ashes, as might be the case), to take on its arch nemesis- the hapless young adult. From something as simple as dealing with team members during projects and warming up food for your overworked father to making pertinent life choices.


You know when the enormity of this struck me? 
When I went to SBI the other day, to fill in a scary-looking form to open a bank account. To deposit my intern-happy stipend. It's not too much, but makes me glad nonetheless. It's my first salary. (Stipend, my boss corrects me for the umpteenth time!) 
When I went for Independence Rock the same evening, and saw a nuclear mushroom hovering above the venue. The ghastly migraine-triggering smell informed me, it was just a drug-produced smoke cloud. 
( I have decided to make an effort to not be judgmental about the latter. Drugs, alcohol and the like are their personal choices, and I have no business opining and meddling. My definition of correct isn't the same as theirs, as someone very wise told me recently.)


But anyway, it made me realize that "I've become a big girl". 
And I'm happy about that. A little terrified, but happy still. :)


Oh, and for my big news!


I stood first in the Story-Writing Competition held in college. (I have a cool new pen drive and discount vouchers to prove it!) Of the many topics, I chose to write as a serial killer who has to justify his actions to the reader. Twisted, and rather interesting. 
I wasn't too happy with the way I concluded my story, but who cares? I won! I beat the second-year scribblers  and third year pedants! :P


"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."
Voltaire