As if I Didn't Love the Sixties Enough Already.

 "This is the New York Times Best Seller List, from October, 1961. A depressing reminder that we have slid several rungs down the evolutionary/intellectual ladder –– as it stands, today’s NY Times list features a “telepathic waitress” called “Sookie Stackhouse” who solves crimes; no end of mob lawyers; an ex-government operative called “Cotton Malone”; yet another Star Wars novel; two Emily Griffin joints (both, predictably, about weddings); no less than seven works featuring would-be detectives. Sobering.

1 THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY, by Irving Stone.
2 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, by Harper Lee.
3 THE CARPETBAGGERS, by Harold Robbins.
4 MILA 18, by Leon Uris.
5 THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT, by John Steinbeck.
6 THE EDGE OF SADNESS, by Edwin O’Connor.
7 TROPIC OF CANCER, by Henry Miller.
8 FRANNY AND ZOOEY, by J.D. Salinger.
9 REMBRANDT, by Gladys Schmitt.
10 CLOCK WITHOUT HANDS, by Carson McCullers.
11 THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY, by Sheila Burnford.
12 A MAN IN A MIRROR, by Richard Llewellyn.
13 A JOURNEY TO MATECUMBE, by Robert Lewis Taylor.
14 THE SMALL ROOM, by May Sarton.
15 THE HOUSE AT OLD VINE, by Norah Lofts.
16 MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS, by Evan Hunter."

Via (The Essayist)

Time it was, oh what a time it was.
*sigh*

A Must Read: In Norway, The Past is a Foreign Country

I happened to read bestselling Norwegian author Jo Nesbo's piece for the New York Times in light of the recent tragedy in his country. It is so painfully honest and beautifully written, that I had to share it here. There are sentences here that will stick in my mind for some time to come.

A few days ago, before the bombing here and the shootings on Utoya Island, a friend and I were talking about how the joy of being alive always seems to go hand in hand with the sorrow that things change. Not even the brightest future can make up for the fact that no roads lead back to what came before - to the innocence of childhood or the first time we fell in love.

There is no road back to the scent of the Julys when I was young and leapt from a boulder into the ice-cold meltwater of a Norwegian fjord. No road back to when I stood, 17 years old with 10 francs in my pocket, by the harbor in Cannes, France, and watched two grown men in idiotic white uniforms row a woman and her poodle ashore from a yacht. I realized then for the first time that the egalitarian society I came from was the exception and not the rule.

No road back to the first time I looked, wide-eyed, at the guards with automatic weapons surrounding another country's parliament building - a sight that made me shake my head with a mixture of resignation and self-satisfaction, thinking, we don't need that sort of thing where I come from.

For many years, it seemed as if nothing changed in Norway. You could leave the country for three months, travel the world, through coups d'état, assassinations, famines, massacres and tsunamis, and come home to find that the only new thing in the newspapers was the crossword puzzle. It was a country where everyone's material needs were provided for. Political consensus was overwhelming, the debates focused primarily on how to achieve the goals that everyone had already agreed on. Ideological disagreements arose only when the reality of the rest of the world began to encroach, when a nation that until the 1970s had consisted largely of people of the same ethnic and cultural background had to decide whether its new citizens should be allowed to wear the hijab and build mosques.

Still, until Friday, we thought of our country as a virgin - unsullied by the ills of society. An exaggeration, of course. And yet.......

....................... So if there is no road back to how things used to be, to the naïve fearlessness of what was untouched, there is a road forward. To be brave. To keep on as before. To turn the other cheek as we ask: "Is that all you've got?" To refuse to let fear change the way we build our society.


Read the entire article here if you please:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=4F042F615D6B354D9FB4C1CA4AE6451E.w5?a=821292&single=1&f=28&sub=Contributor

Sunlight in a Rain-Drenched World.

Important Note: Surprising as it might be, I clicked these.

I only edited the first one because it looked like a lovely vintage postcard post-editing. :)

And this was the music accompanying the mania. 

Why I Don't Associate the Number 101 With a Disney Movie Anymore.

What an amazing day this has been! I logged into my Blogger Account and........

^^THIS number stared up at me. My blog has 101 followers! 

You could call me a selfish writer, for I write when I want to, what I want to. But I would never have written with such regularity or put in half the effort if you guys hadn't been reading. A big grizzly-bear size 'thank you' hug to all of you. :) And a free cappuccino if we ever meet. :)

The day is doubly awesome because I GOT A RAISE! I'm Blog Manager of the Librarywala.com blog, and my boss gave me a raise. Totally unexpected! :D

Now, IT'S DANCE TIME.

Of Budday Present Blues.

This is just a dream,
For I am not reality.
Distance yourself from this false epiphany,
Of redundant possibilities.
Wake up to a better tomorrow,A different yesterday.

The person who has written this eloquent 'About Me' deserves a spectacular birthday present, don't you think?

I am not one to crack under pressure easily. That's one thing I somewhat take pride in. Yet, selecting the perfect present makes me believe that I can die of a cardiac arrest at any given moment. 

Well, the presents have been bought. My internet search history and empty wallet are ample proof! 

I sure hope the presents are liked. :)

^^There. That's another form of crazy anxiety in itself.

The Stars Died For Us.

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics.

You are all stardust.

You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded. Because the elements, the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars. And the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode.


So forget Jesus. The stars died so you could be here today.

-Lawrence M. Krauss


Sometimes I wonder why people create alternate realities and selves, when science can be so romantic.
The higher being is you. Evolution proved it.
I embrace science with all my heart...
..And soul. Tee-hee. ^_^

All In A Mumbai Minute.

18 and outraged, I am definitely not one of the more credible voices in India's public policy discourse.

That does not make me blind to all the filth and competitive incompetence I see around me.

This is in light of the three coordinated bomb blasts in Mumbai on 13th July. At the time of writing this, no one has claimed responsibility for the same.

It's ironic how Mumbai is such a soft target, yet its residents are depicted as having hearts of bulletproof armor, resilient and stoic through crisis after crisis. The school kids who put on their rain-coats and write their exam the day after serial blasts? The father who takes the bustling local train to work? The fact that Dadar station is crowded the morning after an act of terrorism? 

That's not strength. It's sheer cowardice brought on by lack of an alternative. 

Mumbai is a tough city to live in. Time is money, money is power in this city of skyscrapers and slums. You have to show up to work every single day on time to ensure receipt of your cherubic pay cheque, without which you don't have money for rent or veggies. Exactly the background against which corruption becomes an unfortunate fact of life, even for the law-abiding. 

We have a porous system of governance, an inefficient infrastructure to tackle terror, a blanket of omniscient bureaucracy to shut the people up.... and not one single television channel to deliver objective informative news without resorting to sensational TRP-raising tactics.
My heart just goes out to the families that have lost someone, or even spent a moment in fear.

Most people are going about their lives today like nothing happened. They check the newspapers in the morning and news at 9 to keep abreast of the case.

Waterlogging, potholes, beggary and bomb blasts...All in a Mumbai minute.

Commemorating the Last Day of The Best Summer Holidays Yet...

The fact that I am drawing crazy graphs and pie-charts is enough to prove how badly I'm handling the tragedy of waking up at six thirty tomorrow morning for college.

These vacations have just been the best. :)

Of travelling and exploring,
Beaches, ducks and bunnies,
Working, writing and sleeping,
Friends, movies and reeeeeeeeeeading,
Eating, eating and eating.

I sincerely hope to make this year keeps me interested, curious and busy.

"So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go."

Bye bye holidays. You made me unbearably happy. :)

The Dream.

'I am a wanderer,
Confused by everything lay in front of me.
I am blind,
to the many parallel paths life chooses for me.
I am an abyss,
an unimaginable ditch filled by the depths of endless mediocrity.


I've never made a right decision.


But one.


I see it with pure lucidity,
You're supposed to be the one for me.
I am to spend my life with you,
And dedicate every single breath I take in your honour.
You are mine,

and that is the one thing truly meant to be.'

For You, Badepapa.

Dear Badepapa,

I'm having trouble deciding how to write this letter to you, about you. Nonetheless, I have been planning to write this for a long time now, and here it goes.

Should I start with thanking you for all the yummy Mughlai chicken you've made for me over the years? And how you reserve the leg piece specially for me, every time? Or for the Spanish omelette you whip up?

Or the many wonderful times we have walked in the park where you shared stories of your life that are just incredible on so many levels? Or the times you walked with me to the tiny library nearby that you call a 'dungeon'? 

Of course I thank you for all the above.

But a special thanks is in order for all the stories you have told me as a child. Stories like no other; your manner of delivery made lions pounce around your bedroom. You made words come alive like no one else I've met in my short stint on this dear planet.

Like any other child, I used to love a story. I vividly remember you lying down on the big old bed at 1, C-8, Aasha Apartments for your afternoon nap. The quaint smell of old unused items from the cupboard at the entrance envelopes the room. The curtains provide much required shade from the heat of Calcutta's skies. I would crawl up beside you, and ask in an unassuming innocent manner only children can have, 'Tell me a story'. And how could you deny your very first grandchild the privilege of a good story? You would roll up the newspaper you were reading, hit me on the head with it playfully and ask in a resigned manner, 'Okay, choose two animals'. And the curious crazy child I was with no understanding of the relationship between animal population and climatic conditions, I would think for two minutes and say, 'Hmmm..Yesterday was zebra and tortoise. So today I want a polar bear and a giraffe'. I thought I was very clever for knowing these animals.

Without missing a beat, the story would begin.

 "Once upon a time, in the forest of Congo in Africa, there lived one giraffe. He was very very tall, much taller than all his friends.............  and then they lived happily ever after."

Without doubt, these stories of two random animals in the forests of Congo and Tanzania are the best stories I've heard in my life. You narrated completely new stories every single day, and that never feels to amaze me to this day. In this age of rampant plagiarism, I only need to think of your stories to believe that originality is not a myth that time forgot. You are quite the raconteur, Badepapa. :)

I credit my love for books and my little ability to write to one person: you. 

You inspired me to 'imagine', before I was even formally introduced to that word in textbooks. Thanks to you, I now love to lose myself in the world of a novel, and curl up in the silence of the dark night and dawn, enjoying the deliciousness of a novel.

While love may be subjective, respect can never be. To that extent, you are one of the few men on this planet I genuinely respect. I respect you for having the courage to leave home and set forth on a month-long voyage to London, because you didn't want to be tied down to a government job. That trailblazing attitude has found its way to me, but I sure won't be running away any time soon to prove it! I respect you for raising three amazing, dutiful, responsible sons. Badepapa, you may be short-tempered and stubborn, but you are also wise, kind, forgiving and playful. Many have not seen the playful side of you, but I have, and it sure is wonderful. You sure can take a joke, because I have called you 'Ganju-No-Dattu Patel' a million times as a kid, and you laughed every single time. Not everyone would have. 

Your love for golf and the attention I gave to your every word was proven by an incident years ago. I'm not sure you remember this, but when my kindergarten teacher asked me, 'What do you want to become when you grow up?', I'd confidently answered, 'Golfer'. :)

Of course, I haven't grown up to be a golfer, or pursued engineering or travelled to London, but 2 days ago, I did one thing. I cooked a cheese omelette all by myself, and that's as good a start as any, right? 

I just hope, in some small way, I make you proud. Because I'm more than proud to call myself your grand-daughter.

Love,

Bunny.

P.S. Please start carrying your mobile phone everywhere you go. Please please pleeeeeeease. :)