The dream win

So, finally we have a World Cup (after 1983). Yohoooooooo :grin: I do like Twenty20 , much against my initial apprehension about it. It’s entertaining no doubt. It’s almost as if cricket’s reborn. It definitely has a huge fan following already (like anything about cricket in India needed an incentive!). The dream final: India vs arch rivals Pakistan. I think India won purely due to luck in the final ‘coz both teams were terrific. Pakistan was one shot away from the elusive win against India (they’ve never won against us in a World Cup match), one bad shot from Misbah and he handed us the victory. That’s what counts, you say. Victory, we won. That’s what matters. Who cares how it came about? Of course we played some great games to reach the final (including the final). Let me not take anything away from the team. We did deserve to win, surely.

  With a super bunch of youngsters in the team, all fired up, and hopefully this is just what they need to keep the momentum going. Except that it might not remain that way too long due to the crazy hype being created by the Board of Cricket and the Indian media.

Celebrating 60 years of Indian independence

I know it’s more than a month since we celebrated Independence day, but I’m bringing it up now. The Hindustan Times carried some nice articles to mark the 60 years of Indian Independence. (Read them here) What sprang to me from there was the list of 60 best books by Indian authors. Obviously I cannot vouch for the selection of this list (even if I did vouch for it, like any of you would care? Ha!), nor do I completely agree to the selection. Nonetheless,  it’s a good place to start picking the books you’d like to read. Some of them are translated works, owing to the diverse language culture of India. I somehow feel regional writers (barring a few) are neglected. Importance seems to be given only to the main stream English writers which is a pity ‘coz in the process we lose out on enjoying some terrific writing due to the lack of translation.  Anyway, here’s the list. (I’m also putting the list at the end of this post, I don’t want to open this and another page to check which book I want to read next)

There is also a delightful list of 60 dishes that sets India apart in terms of cuisine.

Crime and Punishment

One of Dostoevsky’s  masterpieces. I finished reading it a couple of days back. Yes, I liked it. It starts off well, then I thought it got boring, then it picked it up so well and that’s how it was until the end. Well, I don’t want to review this book, it has too much in it to write about!

So many questions, nuances of each character, the psychological effects of all are captured to the minutest detail. The crime happens in the very beginning and the punishment happens in the very end. The book is about what the perpetrator goes through in the meanwhile and the effect it has on the people around him (the book is about 650 pages, normal print!). Of course, this book also reminded me of Capote’s In Cold Blood, which I haven’t yet read (seen the movie though). I want to read Brothers Karamazov to enjoy Dostoevsky more.

How will a road block help in not demolishing a bridge?

This is absurd. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) staged a public demostration yesterday to protest against the demolition of the Ram Sethu in the Indian Ocean. This bridge apparently connected India and Sri Lanka during the epic Ramayan days. 

I was in our office bus reading my novel when I realised we weren’t moving. And we remained in that state of inertia of about 1 hour. Reason being the VHP activists had blocked an important junction on this road. It’s beyond my reasoning capabilities to figure out why on earth on a Wednesday morning at around 9.00 AM (which is the peak office hour), they would wish to block a main junction? For what purpose? Half the people hadn’t heard of this demolition of a submerged bridge. Now, don’t get me wrong. It might not be a good thing to demolish this bridge, but pray tell me how does it help if you make thousands of office goers stall in mid way in blistering heat? (yes, to our bad luck, it was quite hot last morning).  Is this the only way to create awareness? Or to gather support? Or protest? So, does democracy mean you can do what you want to inconvenience others and get away with it? Pathetic. Talk about having a bad morning.

Looking for a house, anyone?

Ok, so finding a house within a modest budget in Bangalore is impossible. Nope, not happening. Not in the area you want (which is old Bangalore, where you can still hear Kannada being spoken often and where your neighbous are not high-flyers). I don’t get this. Anyway the people with pots of money wouldn’t want to stay in such areas (these areas are not posh you see). We’ve been wanting to buy either a flat or an independent house for a while now. And where ever we go, we’re just baffled by how much Bangalore has grown and how expensive it has become.

New Beginning!

After hibernating for a long time from blogging and being frustrated with the limitations of my before-hibernation blog (which is this one), I’ve moved here. Hopefully this should continue well…

Also, all my travelogues will be here.