The Shiva Trilogy : Parts 1 and 2

The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Written in a simple language, this story had the potential to create controversy, to be tagged as a religious glorification-propaganda, among other uncoveted possibilities. But thanks to the author’s witty way of presentation and depiction, it comes across as an incredibly logical storyline (though possibly fictitious). Yet, it doesn’t undermine any religious belief.

Mind you! This is not a religious book at all. It is more on the lines of a gothic/celtic fantasy like LOTR, Shannara,etc.,…only this one is set in Ancient India.

There are no Gods here. No magic no miracles. Just the power of beliefs of various characters mixed with intelligent scenario-depiction makes the whole tale get a magical aura inspite of the fact that events within the storyline go no where near impossible realms. Wonderful book!
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The Secret of the Nagas by Amish Tripathi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book’s predecessor,’Immortals of Meluha’ is like an epoch in INdia’s answer to Lord of the Rings.

But somehow, the Secret of the Nagas , though good in its own right, falters incoherently in relative perspective to its predecessor

According to me, it is inclined more semi-politically to cover all ancient regions of India than to a storyline trying to incept a natural correlation to ancient Indian history. The introductions and twists and the revealing of identities of certain characters (who are namesakes of religious/cultural/mythological persons) looks contrived and artificially enforced. All in all, it lacks the naturally convincing flow of Part 1

But the wars and the subtle romances in between are well depicted, though still found wanting when compared to its predecessor , ‘Immortals of Meluha’

Even though I consider myself an objective critic of books, I found myself on the verge of tears at the beautiful gradiloquence presented in the first part, compared to which the second part reads like a carefully formula-driven soap and nothing more …
View all my reviews——

leaves to be seen what the concluding part , Oath of the Vayuputras  has to offer …

 

 

Living the Interregnum

Sullen thoughts , sudden thoughts and the flashy ones come and go by. I sit in the garb of a mere whimsical dilletante  wondering at the thoughts which matter as they come like tachyons and then fly away just as fast …

Well these are the words this very author has been telling himself of late, about the ideas he keeps getting about writing his next post.

Unlike at college or B school, where I would in a stroke of pure ‘I do not care a rodent’s oesophagus about anything else’  thought process , would not let the thought go away.I would gladly open up this very wordpress account and start writing away in ill informed or mis informed or uninformed daze, (much to the chargin of the real informed ones … lol) about anything from simple bull**** to jingoistic controversy.

So now I think why do I let one of my greatest solaces (for the confused, its writing/blogging) in this mediocre existence :p dilute away just because I am now part of a working and emerging-nation-characteristic rat race….

I do understand that the visibilities in facebook or twitter (God bless their creators!!!) make up for easier interaction and shorter slack filled blurts and spurts of thoughts. But even then, I somehow believe that in a dying industry (the enthusiasm I put into my blog) , consolidation (blog posts and not fb statii) is the key.

So at least when I have these tachyon like glimpses of ideas which I again believe should be discussed at well deserved length, I should try to open this blog more often. And so …

Sullen thoughts , sudden thoughts and the flashy ones come and go by. I sit in the garb of a mere whimsical dilletante  trying to catch the ones which matter as they come like tachyons and then fly away just as fast … but then…. I want to wake again, tie laces again and run again after them; like a ghost 😀

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ps: Phew! Ok , self inpsiring shit done ! Lets get to some bad-ass blogging frequency, shall we …

The theory of everything (and vice versa )

A song the author came across  by a humorist band called Les Inconnus…. a song which can rightly be called the lord of all spoofs 😛 on so called philosophical shit!

The original is in French … an English translation of the video and the video (also with English subs) are given below  … enjoy!  🙂

The verse
The hemorrhage of your wishes
Makes off under the miserable blue azure
Of the time which takes place
Double of what they can do nothing

Be or not be
Such is the question
That is Sinusoidal
That is anchorite
And Hypochondriaque

But you say….
But you say….
That happiness is irreducible
And I say
And he says
That your hope is not so hopeless
On the condition of analyzing
That the absolute should not be
Annihilated
By delusions that are precariousness
Like Our love affairs
Getting Displaced
And vice versa

And it will be necessary that you will arrive
To roll your dialectical rancor
Even if I am bloody stupid…
… Agreed that it is very difficult

But since I … say to you
That it is better so much more
To eradicate
The tentacles of the dereliction!
And everything will become clear

But you say… But you say…
That happiness is irreducible
And I say
And he says
That your hope is not so hopeless
On the condition of analysis
That the absolute should not be
Annihilated
By delusive precariousness
Of Our love affairs
Or Displaced
And vice versa

Where go we?
Why from we?
I ignore to know it
But then again I do not ignore to know it
It is because happiness
The East in two fingers of your feet
And that simplicity domiciles in the curve
Blue, yellow, mauve and unsuspected
Our daydreams
Mallows and blue and yellow and crimson
And parabolics
And vice versa

{Refrain:}
But you say
But you say
That happiness is irreducible
And I say
And he says
That your hope is not so hopeless
On the condition of analyzing
That the absolute should not be
Annihilated
By delusive precariousness
Of Our love affairs
And that you should not give support
To Unreality
Under absent asperity
And disabused
Of thoughts of iconoclasts
And de-oxydized
By our excommunicated wishes
Of the fate
Displaced
And vice versa

The video (with English subtitles)

2012: At world’s end

2012  ….end of the world! A film that was seen yesterday sitting in the 2nd row from the screen (making it a pretty loud and optically strainful experience )

Here is the crux. World is about to end due to earth crust destabilization leading to violent fissures (‘volcano‘ taken to international levels) leading to tsunamis (like a slightly more complex version of  abyss, deep impact, day after tomorrow)

The author is no mood to talk much about  apocalyptic philosophies. But film makers’ previous tryst with global disaster movies  churned out several creative solutions

1. Armageddon has Bruce ‘die hard’ Willis nuking a keen-on-hitting-earth asteroid before it hits Earth.
2. Abyss has got yankees negotiating with aliens towards the end to take it easy.
3. Deep Impact, Day after tomorrow et al, seem to just have people going to safer places on the planet.
4. Resident evil series always has survivors and the results are not globally catastrophic though there is a societal collapse.

This movie, 2012 supposedly not depicting mankind  endangerment , but mankind extinction …. is a level above t other movies as human can’t fight against the imminent disaster but have to just survive through it.

But it is still a notch below movies like 28 days later  and 28 weeks later in terms of  disturbing audience and evoking the paranoia of apocalypse . Though I would maintain that this movie was on a pretty grand scale and seemed scientifically much more accurate than the other movies.

Of course, it set the author thinking about 2012 too. Its a freaky concept, the whole world ending thing.

But ….

my main observation from the movie is this …..

“The best way to rekindle old flames,  and get your ex- back (if you are still interested) is World’s End  😉 “

(infered from the John Cusack – Amanda Peet sub plot)

The Marathe Syndrome

Foreword:

The author gives this peculiar thing this tag for he doesnt know what else to call it.

Prof. Lyn Chat of IIM-C psychoanalytical excellence fame would allude this whole state to the shadow concept. An inner subconscious state of oneself which stays away from one’s awareness.

.

Anyway … the introspective blah apart, here’s what happened …

The musings

The path from office at Prabhadevi (Mumbai) to Wadala East (Mumbai) is around 8 KM . Generally  it would be best to take a cab and get back home in a jiffy (well ..around 20-25 min actually! a relativistic “jiffy” , considering the a**-paining Mumbai traffic)

But then I chose to walk …walk back from office. Then  I wondered why I am doing it…

Fitness ?

Not at all! I do go to the gym, run et al, get my share of rationally recommended exercise.

So whats the point in dragging a tired work-beaten body across the polluted , over-crowded roads of Mumbai where every second passer-by makes it a point consciously or sub-consciously to make you think he’s going to spit his red paan on you…

Eye-candy ?

Yeah right ! The path goes via Dadar where you find super-fat aunties in super-fatter dresses wrestling away with the moving vehicles.

Mumbai streets would hardly match upto the Saturday night club areas of Europe, would they ? 😛

Observe the many slums ..social worker style?

I do feel bad for the poor. I mourn their poverty amidst cruel civil disparity. In spite of a growing economy. And Mumbai is full of them. But I am no Mahatma. I confess that I don’t fancy walking along slums. Sadly,at that moment, my instinctive annoyance at the shabbiness of slums along the road and irritation of the stench overpowers any sense of mourning for the poor.

Frugally saving some bucks ?

Hmm ! I can surely afford a cab , pretty far away from bankruptcy at present 🙂

Then why …

The old, wise and slightly twisted English genius, Prof. Marathe, who taught us English when I was 17 , once said,

“Everything seems at least close to “fine” in life. Distant Memories  and unseen paranoia apart, you have no obvious/practical reason at the moment to feel worried. Its all in place But yet, you want to think , think of nothing per se, but think in a way a gloomy worry-laden man would be lost in thoughts.”

That is the Marathe Syndrome! A subtle episode in your cognition which is not exactly explainable by any level of determinism. But when one just prefers to walk because it increases one’s time to think, about nothing yet everything ….

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Dialogue of the day: (from the feature film, Kingdom of Heaven)

Balian of Ibelin: What is Jerusalem worth?
Saladin: Nothing.
[walks away a good deal, then turns back and rolls his slightly raised hands in fists]
Saladin: Everything!

The Zen master sez ….

Zen master:
To worry is to pay interest on damages that have never occurred.

Barney:Moron! Haven’t you ever heard of insurance ?

The B philosphy

DISCLAIMER:The author was never such a protagonist. He saw this (statement/incident) somewhere, forgot where/when he saw it, but decided to  post anyway! The true owner of this philosophy is permitted to sue the author and spice up his life a bit 🙂

The possibility of a man finding (rather,thinking  that he found) his dream girl/ soul mate occurs with pyramidal progression, in the following often-seen cases:

• When he is on a date with someone else
• When he is already married/ engaged
• When our protagonist’s soul mate is with another man who is way more desirable than the protagonist

Isn’t life tragic 😛

Clarity

” Depression doesn’t stem from Frustration but out of Confusion. A confusion created because of lack of clarity“

– Kumar Atreya, friend, philosopher,senior and guide

(dated quote: 28th April 2009)

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A quote made in a general sense. But I am pleasantly surprised that it is neither anger nor sadness leading to a person being down. But more so because of information asymmetry

So all you need to do to handle depression (empirically at least) is to either disclose or get more information. 🙂

~Period.

Of God, Black Swans and Luck

Well ! My ammamma (granma)  would call it the will of Bhavani thalli (the super-duper mother Goddess and associated religious theory .. )

My mom associates it with Sai Baba, the bearded dude in saffron who inspired my outstanding (all pun intended) name too.

I call it the Fox-park theory (originally known as Nakka Thokkudu prabanjanam — in Telugu, the language where it was first conceptualized). For this amusing/crazy/funny/ridiculous/whatever  thought-phenomenon, refer to the author’s previous post

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, one of the world’s craftiest  cynics (with an outer cover of a rationalist)  calls it the Black Swan contingency.  After having rattled my brain to understand his takes on the unexplained by pattern , I  now have a serious headache!! Here is an example to initiate mass-market mental harakiri

Anyway, the last time I came to Hyderabad, the flyover at Begumpet collapsed . This time, there was a thunderstorm. The flame of the aarti always makes it a point to get extinguished when its my turn at the temple to swipe my hands over it.

Yeah ! Fool hardy fears! But would your grandma treat me, with the same courtesy if she were to know these?? Shit ! It is scary  when unrelated co-incidence and black swan situations are correlated.

Now again, it leads to a head-ache 😐 the temple lamp going off when near me is jokingly remarked by dad as being the quality of Ravana, the demon-king.  Curse the rodent’s lost food pipe ! Now I am being called Ravana. I would never run away with an other man’s wife ! Even if he lacks the potential to attack me with a contingent of monkeys and bridge-building contractors 😉

Black swans, living and reading black swans, unwanted-Ravana-effect, random Fox park incidents, …. hmm ! Life is getting at a thinking level, quite  unpredictably adventurous!

– Ghost Runner

“Fox-park Theory” aka **Nakka Thoka Thokkudu Prabanjanam**

Foreword/ Glossary

Nakka= Fox

Thoka= Tail

Thokkudu = Stepping

Prabanjanam = That which breaks thoroughly. Wind  [in this context, a powerful occuring]

Hypothesis/Theory:

In the heart of the Telugu language, exists the concept of “nakka thokkadam“! Derived from a myth that if one steps on a fox’s tail, one shall be bestowed with lots of short term luck.Hence, the person who reached the pinnacle of success would be considered in the symbolic sense as the owner of a fox-park. Amen !

Details

When uncertainty leads to success we hardly notice it. At least to the outer world, we have to delegate the credit to the successful. Because calling the successful “lucky” and not “meritorious” would automatically throw a tag on you called “jealousy” 🙂

And so everything in the long term converges to one thing. The saying that says, luck (uncertainty leading to success) is an Universal open secret! In the world of politeness/manners, as scary to utter as J.K.Rowling’s Voldemort or Asimov’s Mother Planet Earth … In spite of the vast significance, it doesn’t harbor anywhere near political correctness or the laws of gentlemanly appreciation 🙂

But the concept does exist. For those lucky few…