Postcard

Shalini is my best friend. We’ve been together for years on end, school, uni and the same neighbouhood. People often mistake us for twins. We used to laugh at them but felt really cool inside.

When I was sick, Shalini nursed me day and night, pushing my mom away saying, ‘Auntiji leave it to me. I’ll take care of Salma. She’ll get better once I start looking after her. I’ve got the magic she needs.’

When Salma’s mother died and she couldn’t cope with her grieving father and the demands of her younger brothers, I pushed her aside and told her, ‘Salma you take it easy, leave it to my magical hands.’

Charmed by each other, we passed through the roller coaster rides of life in tranquility of our eternal friendship bonded by the glue of love.

Until one day Shalini told me she was going to visit her Aunt that summer. I was as excited as her for this foreign trip with a provisional husband-to-be on the horizon. Promises were made to keep in touch through out the trip so that things could be analysed, dissected, looked through various angles before reaching to a conclusion. That was our style anyway. We had done it all the time.

She went to her Aunt but she was more with me as we still chatted on the phone almost every day. Then there was few days gap, I knew that she was going to to meet the husband-to-be somewhere. I was waiting eagerly to hear all about it. A postcard arrived on our doorstep bringing with the latest news of Shalini.

She said that she was now engaged with the husband-to-be. Engaged! Oh how I abhore that word. Anyway, she said she liked the city and the people. It was as beautiful as we had imagined it to be. She said she loved the green grass there, they were greener somehow, loved the onions, they were bigger, loved the guy, who was better than she had imagined.

She said I would love it all too, if I was there.

I read the postcard a thousand times. Reread it. My heart clenched. It did things that hurt. I read the postcard again. I looked for something that wasn’t there. I was short of breath. I flung the window open to get some fresh air in my depraved lungs. That didn’t help. I was loosing the battle. I was loosing, full stop. Re read the postcard. Tore it up and let the little shards of paper cut through the air and mix in the dust.

Am I growing old or what?

I wondered what is this thing that makes us all old. Is gravity enough to take us all down one day?

Why do we think that its going down when it could be just our perception of how earth is. If the earth is round then how do you know what is up and what’s down and what’s on the sides?

I also wonder sometimes that if we look forward to being born then why can’t we look forward to being dead?

Its only a state of mind, both an enigma, the state before birth and after death.

May be we come from one womb to go to another?

And if that’s the case then we actually grow younger to be born again!

I heard of a story once, some mythological tit bits that there was a place called In Between.

May be that’s where we are all stuck in between.

And if that’s the case then there’s no growing old or growing young or growing anything. Just being.

A Short History of Tractors in UKRAINIAN

I know its been a long time since I last did a book review. You might wonder (or you would scoff at me) why I’ve suddenly decided to do one on A short history…a name too long for me to even spell it twice in one post is proving too much.

Well without much ado I’ll tell you the story. It so happened that one day a few of my friends were sitting together and having a round of gossips. The gossips as you are aware always involves tainting someone who is not present. So it went on,  who was having affair with who behind who’s back as affairs if done straight forward cannot be counted as affairs. Who bad mouthed whom in front of who unaware that it was going to back fire, as is the custom of all bad mouthing it shouldn’t be done in front of anyone anyway unless you are ready to face the band wagon.

And so it went on until finally we started talking about the books that read like a gossip. Ah…I’m sure now you see the light. Marina Lewycka has gossiped her way through the novel talking about two sisters Vera and Nadezhda and their eighty four year father. Now you would think what was there to talk about these simpletons where the main hero was eighty four years old! You could hardly imagine him doing James Bond type antics or the sisters the Bond Girls. But hey not only the young and the furious could be the sexy gossip material. The most ticklish of all gossip is the one which makes us gape but at the same time deep down gives us hope of everlasting youth.

So the author here takes full advantage of this soft corner that we all have about an old man falling in love and lusting after a young woman and talks about them and tractors! This is the uniqueness of this novel. These two completely unrelated topics seem to merge themselves and we get more than we bought for and in the process she makes us laugh out loud and also a bit knowledeble about tractors.

I prescribe it to all gossip mongers and to those who pretend they don’t like gossiping. Its a secret pleasure so read it and enjoy.

Shapes of clouds

I wonder why I’ve come here in the first place? What was the reason behind God’s decision to sow the seed of me in my mother’s womb? The futility of life looms like a towering dark scary mountain in front of my eyes. I close them both in horror. But alas! there’s no peace even here in the dark. Darkness makes me want to leave everything and go back in time; go back to the place of no return. and that’s for sure not a solution says Dr Welby.

Dr. Welby is good in her own way. She thinks everyone’s here for a purpose. I don’t agree. People like me are just to fill in the gaps. Otherwise why do I not know what to do with my life?

I stare at the blue sky. My eyes sting and tears roll down. I save one drop from the bridge of my nose and put it safely on my tongue. It tastes salty, just like life.

I do not know why I’m sitting here watching the clouds play hide and seek and am trying to figure out what are they? What do they mean? What they want to say by forming shapes? When I could just enjoy them, enjoy their frivolous playfulness.

Float drone

I wake up. Blink due to the sunlight falling straight on my eyes, I shut them tight. I move slightly to change position. Something wet touches my body all over. I wonder what could it be. My mind does not have a foggiest. All I remember is last night.

Last night had left me dry, wanting. What more can you do to please a woman! I cooked the flipping chicken, I cleaned the stupid kitchen. I even turned the blanket over on the bed, just the way she liked it. Only to make her happy. HAPPY… for once without some lingering leftover anger. Alas, all efforts were wasted on her.

I pleaded with the hem of her black lace nighty,

‘It’s been ten days, darling!’

Oh, how pathetic! Only a man can stoop so low. Dog. Bow, wow, woof, woof Tommy. I could feel my tongue lolling out, saliva dribbling from the pink tip and my eyes popping out of the sockets, rolling in frenzy.

‘No, go away!’ she screamed as if I was going to attack her. No Mam’, I don’t do attacks any more. I get killed instead. The picture of ten million me running around and being mercilessly stabbed by her sharp knife, flashed through my mind. I kind of enjoyed seeing myself being tortured like that. A part of me had kind of become masochist.

I don’t know how my eyelids could finally shut down when some other parts of my body were so alive and raring to go. But they did, mercy. And … and now this. Can nothing  ever go right in a man’s life? All wrong, all the time. Wet, pouring, taking away everything. Hold on… this feels good. This water so calm, so inviting, so soft… just like her.

The Wild Sheep Chase – Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949, and is one of Japan’s most famous authors. He started writing at twenty-nine. His inspiration appeared out of nowhere at a baseball game! “A Wild Sheep Chase” is his third novel and was first published in 1982. It follows on from his two previous novels “Hear the Wind Sing” and “Pinball” to form the “Trilogy of the Rat”. Unfortunately, for those of us who don’t live in Japan, the first two parts of the trilogy are unpublished outside of the country. Murakami himself isn’t too happy with them and is against their translation.

Books are like dreams to me. I wake up inside one only to be lost in the hidden twists and turns of the story. The first time I read Murakami, I was pulled in by the novel ‘The Wild Sheep Chase’ by an unknown force. Its pull too strong for me to resist. I waded through the daily chores of the main character who is any one of us. I felt as if I was reading about someone I knew well. After a little while I almost forgot that I was reading not listening to the grim details of life of this Everyman.

A man who has been dumped by his girlfriend and his friends. He has a well paying job but its not satisfying. He is intelligent but hardly ever gets a chance to use his reserve of brain cells. An ordinary man leading an ordinary life. But suddenly one day due to some remote chance this man lands in a strange land.

“The Boss’ who is stranger than the land offers him an offer that is stranger than strangest to get the rare find sheep that’s in a photograph. An offer that he finds hard to refuse and from here starts the ‘The Wild Sheep Chase.’

Its difficult not to tell you all, to stop gushing on and on. But hold on, why don’t you go get the book and read it yourself and loose yourself in the magical world of Haruki Murakami.

On Haititian effect!

Yes I say there are lots who died


when the earth shook


and had a heart attack


when she was unheard and her tongue was tied.


Yes I say there are lots who cried


when the crack took in


their beloved


and the earth heaved and the sky grieved.

No I say the lot who never hear

when time is neigh

to get up and do

instead of drooling over the laptops near

to draw the graphs

to conjure statistics

to device charities

on the Haitian effects!

Yes I say there is lot to be done

to change the attitudes

to go back in time

while we go forward

to change the habbits

and invent new

a cream that takes the wrinkles away

a pill that takes the pain away

a time machine that makes the earth younger.

Copyright (c) Kaali

No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander Mccall Smith

No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander Mccall Smith is truly a no. 1 in its own right. While starting to write this post it suddenly dawned on me that somehow each book has a story of its own, a story of relationship between the book and the way it ends up with a reader irrespective of their likes and dislikes. Its almost like … love! This one I must tell you, followed me everywhere, any bookshop I be in, be it Borders or Waterstones or W H Smith or even the Cancer Research or Heart Foundation, it would be there. It would peek at me with its long alligator tail hanging off the shelf trying to catch my attention. I on the other hand avoided it like plague without any reason. Then one sunny day, I just gave in again without any particular reason. The long alligator tail now hung happily ever after on my shelf!

You must be wondering what am I talking about? Well, its called love. Love at first word. I started reading it and there bang! I was right inside the head of Mma Precious Ramotswe. And what a head she has!  Alexander Mccall Smith has mastered the art of writing with a character’s point of view. The point of view is sensitive yet humurous at the same time. Not just the POV but the story itself is unusual in its own right. This book is a fine example of devising a POV and developing a writing style, if for nothing else the budding writers should read this book just for that.

It is about Botswana’s no 1 Ladies detective agency which is presided by Botswana’s finest and only lady private detective. Mme Ramotswe is armed with what all detective agencies relies on, human intuition and intelligence, and she has both in abundance to deal with her bussiness professionally. On top of that she has the full support of the charming Mr J L B Matekoni, the proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Her way of dealing with the cases that she gets are not only unconventional but bizaare and so is her manner in which she conducts herself with her clients.

The readers are taken in from the first page and it becomes harder to put the book down even for once before the last one. I must not indulge myself too much into the story although its bubbling inside me ready to spill any moment. I leave it to you to read it and decide for yourself.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Wish u all a very very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I am sure many of us have taken those few seconds out of our busy life styles or may be while partying the night out on the last night of 2009 to think about the things that we want to do, to achieve in 2010.

I still remember how the whole world was in frenzy in 1999 thinking that the world was going to end the moment the clock struck twelve and the date changed to year 2000. What with computers not having any dates further than 1999, or Nostradamus’ predictions of the world ending with the end of 1999, we all waited with bated breaths for some unknown catastrophe to strike. And 2ooo came and went like a sweet breath.

Then came the prediction on 06-06-06, the world was again ready to end and then 09-09-09, and now the 2012 prediction, as if people can’t live with the fact that the world is not facing any immediate consequense. And even if it was then we will not know about it beforehand. Or may be we like to feel sorry for ourselves, may be we know that we have gone too far and the end is neigh one way or another that we are doomed or may be we are eschatologist; a Greek-derived term that combines eschatos (last) and -logy (the study of).

The fear of end has ruled many of us but lets hope in this year of 2010 we will all be fearless. End is the ultimate truth and so is the mystery of the means to that end. Lets all join hands and pledge to take care of ourselves, of each other and of nature. That’s all we are here for and no more no less.

Until next time

Happy new year!

Never let me go By Kazuo Ishiguro

Never let me go was shortlisted for Booker prize in the year 2005. It won various prizes like Arthur C Clark’s award and national Book critics award etc. The novel is now being adapted into a film by director Mark Romanek. Keira Knightly, Sally Hawkins and Andrew Garfield are said to be the leads. London, Norfolk and Clevedon are the locations where the film will be shot.

Never let me go By Kazuo Ishiguro is an odd one for me. I actually do not remember how it turned up one fine day on our book shelf last year. Sometimes I buy books randomly just by looking at the front picture, I know I sound stupid but my rationale behind it is that, knowing myself well enough, I know that I do not know many of the writers that write fantastic stories so when I pick random books from a bookstore I might end up being introduced to something amazing or otherwise. Either way its adding to the knowledge!

So forwarding the story, I started reading the above novel and after a few pages it seemed to make literally no sense to me. I assumed that may be its something beyond my brain’s capability or crap. A year went by before I again thought up of reading the novel and voilla! It made huge sense this time, more sense than most novels if you care to believe me. I couldn’t put the book down and finished it one straight go. Reading it everywhere, in the kitchen while cooking, in the lounge while eating, in the bathroom while…not gonna tell you!

Never let me go is a story narrated in a first person voice. The main character Kathy H tells her story set in England in a far off place called Hailsham. The big word for this type of setting is Dystopia. Ishiguro amazed me in this novel, it being my introduction to his works. We are taken through the gradual discovery of Kathy H of the purpose behind all the children boarded at Hailsham. A clue at a time reveals the secrets, the manipulations of the Madame and the outer world. Although Kathy H is a very unromantic, unheroic and unadventurous character, we are hooked to her because of her passive observations of the life of their kind. Its not the characters that pull you in this novel, its the story. A story that raises the issue of cloning and the dilemmas it presents to us in this day and age.

Ishiguro is a genius in first person narration. He knows how best to manipulate the data of a story and present to us the best point view. In his best selling, Bookers winning novel The remains of a day, he tells us the story of a butler in first person narrative where the the character himself was equally if not more important than the setting or the story. Here in Never let me go the setting and the story takes the centre focus so although the narrative is still first person the character takes a back seat.

I’d rather not go into the details of the story as it will then steal the reader’s enjoyment of reading the novel, the point for which I am writing the review. This is the kind of book that makes you want to read more of the writer as well as the genre. People place this as a science fiction and similar books are Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale. I’ve pasted below a list of links for you to read official reviews of the novel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/feb/26/bookerprize2005.bookerprize

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54996-2005Apr14.html