Game of Life - Round 1 [Book Review]

This is probably the first time I am writing a review for a book, outside of Goodreads. And man, while I thought peer-reviewing research journal articles was hard, reviewing a 200+ page book definitely seems harder.

As a self-confessed fan of Mahabharatha, literally the great epic, I have always found the Ramayana a little too underwhelming in terms of character portrayal. The reason may be because of the epoch (yuga) that it is set in, where the characters are portrayed as either all white or all black, seldom with shades of gray as in the Mahabharatha. It could also be attributed to the type of books I have read previously on the Ramayana (the Rajagopalachari version, Sita by Devdutt Pattanaik and Asura by Anand Neelkantan). But, I was proven (mostly) wrong by the first book in the series, Ramayana - The Game of Life called The Rise of the Sun Prince.

The Game of Life. For a title, this is a pretty ambitious choice, I felt. After getting to somewhere around 50 pages in the book, I realized why the author named the book that way. A few obvious, a few not-so-obvious, a lot of not-at-all-obvious pearls of wisdom on life, correlating to the happenings in the epic are thrown at us. Most of these are in the form of footnotes which are plenty in number, and can get quite distracting too till you get used to them. (Jaya and Sita by Devdutt Pattanaik have similar treatment with respect to trivia, however all of them appear at once at the end of one chapter.)

The main protagonist of this Bala kaanda is actually Vishwamitra, the sage king who has a wonderful chapter on his transition from a king to brahmarishi. A lot of the trivia about the brothers and sister of Ravana, the 350 wives of Dasaratha, the story of the bow that Rama breaks at Janaka’s palace, the ancestors of Janaka are something that I was unaware of. The whole premise is something that is known to any Indian kid who has seen or heard of Ramayana stories in one form or another. But it is this trivia that makes a lot of these epic interpretations interesting and the book definitely delivered a lot more than I expected.

The language is pretty simple and perhaps aimed at multiple markets. One - as a story for someone reading the Ramayana for the first time. Two - as a book to correlate life’s happenings with what the Sun prince faced.

The beauty of the book lies in the overall feel where that it gives. Yes, the book can get philosophical, but it does manage to get so without getting too preachy. Another attribute is that the author is aware that he is dealing with material that has had multiple interpretations, but he still manages to not get influenced by the base material he has (Valmiki Ramayana and Kamba Ramayana) and manages to get his points across with little effort.

A few things that I look forward to in the forthcoming books in the series:

- hopefully better placed footnotes,
- a little deeper analysis into the psyche of the person called Rama, and not the Vishnu avathaar,
- a more conversational narrative than a biographical narrative, and
- no preview to the next book in the series. It is best to end the book at a particular point/juncture which is very significant.

As thanks to this blogadda book review program, I have been able to write a blogpost after really long. I hope this is just a start!

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

Eight years. It has been that long since I first tool the flight to the US. This very day. A cautious, apprehensive, yet happy (& excited) me left to the US for graduate school. A great start to many greater things.

Reading the Palace of Illusions, Jaya and the Great Indian Novel simultaneously (or rather back to back) has its own side effects. You may end of dreaming that you are Karna. And (probably) a twist, you being woken up by Kunti who decides to take you to a distant place to avert the Mahabharatha war. If only!

PS: Palace of Illusions is a book by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni on Mahabharatha from Draupadi’s perspective. Cheesy it sure can get, but it does portray a different picture of Karna. Jaya is an illustrated retelling of Mahabharatha by Devdutt Patnaik. The Great Indian Novel is by Shashi Tharoor and is a recast of Mahabharatha in the Indian political scenario.

He wanted to hear the sound of their heart beats resonating.
All he got was the sound of her anklets walking away from him.

My 0k-10k – TCS run

The rant: 

Overcoming writer’s block is hard. Even if you have a million things to say, it is indeed hard to put them in sentences with more than 140 characters in it. That’s how Twitter has spoilt me. I indeed have had a lot of life-changing developments in the last few months, but we’ll visit that another day. (No, I haven’t gotten married yet!)

The pre-release trailer:

It was in March 2012 that I took up running a little seriously, thanks to the various forms of boredom that had set in during my stay in Atlanta. I did run on a regular basis for 6 months and then stopped running. After my move back to India, while I was still in the process of settling down and forming a routine for my activities, I chanced upon the TCS 10k run.

The registration:

Taking this as the right chance to get back to running, I signed up for the run on the last day of registration. And I pushed myself a little more by signing up for the open 10k, instead of the majaa run (5.7k). I had two weeks in hand to get back to running and ensure that I finish the run in an hour and 35 minutes.

The laziness:

Easy it might seem to get back into running 4-5 days a week, but my laziness took its first step. The plan of waking up at 5:45am to go for a run around Yediyur Lake daily was as successful as RCB’s bowling attack in recent times. Well, they at least tried. I stayed back in bed only to wake up a good 90 minutes later. And the weather changes ensured that I fell sick and didn’t run for another week.

The fear:

Two days before the run, I decided to test myself by running around the Yediyur Lake. Each lap around the lake is 1km. I hoped to run 5km that day and with great difficulty I finished 6km in 45 minutes. It was indeed an achievement. I decided I was going to run 6km and then walk the rest of the distance on Sunday.

The enthusiastic kozhandhai (EnthuKondhe):

The Saturday. The D-day-1 as a lot of them put it. Like a 4th standard school kid who is excited about his first day at school with new books, school uniform and the like, I indeed was excited about my first ever big run. By ensuring that I had placed all of the important things that I needed for the run (read music playlist, a fully charged iPod and my headphones), I tried to head to sleep by 9 so that I could wake up by 5. Well, as always the love of the city does different things to you. It makes you stay up until 1am to ensure that RCB beats CSK in a reduced over match  that’s affected by the rain. With the victory-over-CSK-induced enthusiasm, I head to sleep at 1:30am.

The D-day: 

The run was to start at 7:15. I was to be there by 6:45. A few delays here and there due to traffic snarls on a Sunday morning (due to a few roads being cleared for the run). I reach the venue fine.

The start: 

Now my turn to do something. Started the run at 7:34am. Music has indeed played a huge role in my running. And in my life as well, but let’s keep that for the other blog. I had to play this song at the beginning, for it made me cry during the other day when I ran to it. Thank you A.R.Rahman for evoking every possible emotion in me, via your music.

The run:

The route was a pretty straightforward one and I kept timing myself using songs. Roughly 1-1.5 songs per km was my target. I did stop here and there for a bit, to hydrate myself and the pace was pretty steady and I’d have probably walked less than half a kilometer in the entire 10k distance.

The almost-there moment:

The last kilometer brought such an adrenaline rush to me. This was solely due to the fact that I had lasted fine until then. And this track surely helped get ahead faster than what I actually could.

The finish: 

8:44am. Never did I imagine to finish the run in the time limit provided (1:35). I finished the 10k in 1 hr 12 minutes. I am totally short of words. And am high on the fact that I completed it. I completed (successfully) what I wanted to finish.

The credits:

The facilities were absolutely wonderful and a lot of volunteers ensured that each of us runners was comfortable, hydrated, and well taken care of. Kudos to the organizing team.

The inspirers:

The motivating factors behind this run are many. But I do need to mention two people here:

As cliched as it can get, the first person is A.R.Rahman. Thanks to you, I used to stay musically caffeinated on many days earlier. Now additionally, I stay musically motivated. Thank you for making a difference my life, yet again.

The second person is @blogeswari who with her Six-pack Sundari blog ensured that I get into running last year. In addition, she constantly motivated me, ensured that I get good contacts in Bangalore for my running routine, informed me of the TCS 10k and kept sharing a lot of good music for my runs. Thank you @blogeswari! This 10k is a good start to my running routine here again!

The Playlist:

1. Kun faya kun (Rockstar)
2. Olli Olli iduppe (Aadhi)
3. Dol dol (Aayitha Ezhutthu/Yuva)
4. Hey Goodbye nanba (Aayitha Ezhutthu)
5. Kama Kama (Enakku 20 Unakku 18)
6. Minsaaram en meedhu (Run)
7. Nenje nenje (Ratchagan)
8. Keda Kari (Raavanan)
9. Theepidikka (Arindhum Ariyaamalum)
10. Pani katre (Run)
11. Konjum nilavu (Thiruda Thiruda)
12. Sambo sambo (Pudhiya Mugham)
13. Neethaane en pon vasantham (title track)
14. Bombay madras Delhi (Ratchagan) 
15. Varaha nadhi (Sangamam)

The End!

EnthuKondhe word Courtesy: @sdhrshn

2012 - In a Nutshell

I usually end up having a lot of things to say about what happened during the year. I do have many things this time as well, but will limit it so that I don’t end up ranting.

• Learnt that hardships in life do occur. They maybe prolonged, but you’ll find a way out of it somehow. It is all about hanging in there. And I think I still am hanging only. :P
• No India trip, yet again. And this year (2013) I am making a trip, no matter what. And have pani puri daily. And also masale-dose. 
• Learnt it the hard way that people aren’t required to survive/keep myself occupied in a new city. It’s only ‘me’ that’s required. (Yes, I copy-pasted it from the 2011 post). 
• Contributed greatly to the increase in revenue of AMC theaters. This meant sitting through Ek Mein Aur Ek Tu as the only member in the audience for over 45 minutes. And watching movies like Players.
• Attended concerts by Salim-Sulaiman, Sonu Nigam and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, and realized that this town has a major Bollywood-crazy crowd. A pretty late realization, that. And I got to wish Salim Merchant on his birthday :-)

PS: 2012 was the laziest year for this blog. 3 posts?? Really? Well, I had this other ‘sicrit’ blog (that I need to revive too) that had over 60 posts. Hopefully this is a better year for this blog.

PPS: I was really hoping for the world to end on Dec 21, 2012. Well whatever that means. One of the reasons was that I did not want to write this post.

In search of myself

(Impulsive post. I am sure I'll be embarrassed when I read it after a few days/weeks/years) :-)

We change. In many ways. We change as a friend, as a son/daughter, as a significant other and in many other ways. Whether the change is for good or not, is something that’s unknown. There’s this thing, I miss the old me. How this change occurred is something that’s unknown to me. Was it me, the place, the people, or life as such? I am unable to pinpoint at one thing.

It’s interesting how you can relate to a song, especially with its lyrics, even though the meaning of the lyrics and the reason for you to relate to it needn’t necessarily have a connection or a common premise. I miss the old me, or rather an old part of me. And I don’t think I could have summarized it better than a few lines in this song. However narcissistic this might sound, considering the old me was a part of me, in fact my better half, is what I’ve come to believe. Running away from myself is something that’s probably happened.

thalaivaa sugama sugama? un thanimai sugama sugama?
How is your solitude doing?

sirumai kandu thavitthen en siragail ondrai muritthen, ottrai chiragil oona paravai etthanai dhooram parappen?
I ended up breaking one of my wings, and how far can I fly with just one wing?

anbae unnai veruththen, en arivai naane eriththen, uravin perumai pirivil kandu uyiril paadhi kuraindhen
I absolutely hated you and in the process burnt my intelligence, I realized the importance of relationships and lost half of my soul.

After all, vaazhkkai or vattam pol mudindha idatthil thodangadha, is surely what one wants, right? :-) (can life not start at an ending point like how a circle does?)

And nothing better than this to ask myself: Unn poigal ellaam sugamaa-aaa?  (Are your lies all fine?)

And does ‘Kuraigal ullathu manitha uravugal puriyadha?’ (aren’t human relationships allowed to be flawed?) answers it all. With respect to I, Me and Myself.

(These lines from Azhage Sugamaa and Anbe Sugamaa, two absolutely wonderful songs from the movie Paarthaale Paravasam. Sung by Sadhana Sargam and Srinivas and composed by A.R.Rahman)

Thoughts on Ek Mein Aur Ekk Tu

Though largely incomplete, Ek Mein Aur Ekk Tu (EMAET) was definitely enjoyable for the most part. Having gone in with a ‘is this going to be a What Happens in Vegas rehash,’ I was pleasantly surprised. And more, when it instantly struck a chord, especially in its final moments. 

Borrowing its premise from multiple movies including Wake Up Sid, Udaan, 3 Idiots, Bommarillu and the likes, it sure would have been a bad decision if it retained its original title 'Short Term Shaadi'. The shaadi is the last thing in/from the movie that you'll probably remember. Not going into the wafer-thin premise, one can just say that the debutant director Shakun Batra follows his end message 'Live every moment, don't bother about the future' throughout the movie.

Kareena's Ri act closely follows her Geet character from Jab We Met and probably borderlines Konkana's Ayesha from Wake Up Sid. And no size-zero-ness (Thank god for that!) Imran’s Rahul Kapoor character is almost a replica of Madhavan's role in 3 Idiots. And what's with the obsession of every third movie's male lead character with the camera? It's not that photography is the only hobby for the metrosexual male.

Ratna Pathak Shah is in a completely different role from what she portrayed on Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na where she played Imran's mother too. Boman Irani (Imran's father) has been in very similar roles and I so wish the filmmakers gave this immensely talented actor more diverse roles.

Amit Trivedi's tracks are quite lively, even though they closely resemble the types of tracks that Shankar Ehsaan Loy or Vishal Shekar usually provide for Karan Johar's productions. Aahatein by Shilpa Rao and Karthik, who makes his debut in an Amit Trivedi's soundtrack, is my pick.

If only Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions could get over their obsession of filming in a city in the US. Didn’t their own Wake Up Sid work very well being set in Bombay, oops Mumbai?

Image courtesy: http://media1.santabanta.com/full4/bollywood%20movies/ek%20main%20aur%20ekk%20tu/ek-main-aur-ekk-tu-2v.jpg