Showing posts with label Photos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Photos. Show all posts
0
"She gave me what I wanted.
I left."
Writing these lines the young poet like millions before him, realises, truth is not his business.
(Google could not tell me who wrote this. So till someone enlightens me, it's by Anon.)
"She gave me what I wanted.
I left."
Writing these lines the young poet like millions before him, realises, truth is not his business.
(Google could not tell me who wrote this. So till someone enlightens me, it's by Anon.)
3
Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
The book starts with an ending; Eddie, the protagonist is going to die and the reader is taken along Eddie’s last hour as he goes on doing what he did for the last significant portion of his life, working maintenance in the Ruby Pier amusement park. It is also his 83rd birthday. Eddie is popular amongst the children, they like his non assuming self, while he evidently dislikes the ones who’d crossed the threshold of teenage, they gave him headaches. It is when a cart comes loose from a ride and is about to crash into a little girl, does Eddie’s end seem immediate. He tries pushing the girl away from the coming end and gets killed himself. And here ends the first chapter.
Eddie, as is evident from the title, goes to heaven and then meets five people, in five very different places, whose lives intersect with his in ways different from eachother. To reveal the persons and the different settings would be taking away of a lot of the joy of reading the book. Now, a lot of people've found happiness in annoying the heaven out of me by planning landmines of spoilers in the past (yes, I meant you. And you. And you.). But I'd be the better man and let it be. The book excels in what it seeks to do, which is tugging at the heart strings and making you cry. It is not of the tribe of Nickolas Sparks but something more bittersweet. Almost makes you wish that heaven were real, along with Santa Claus and angels and God... I digress.
What I loved the most was the part non-linear narrative. The independent accounts of his other, significant birthdays from the past and the memories awakened by the different people he meets in heaven. To sum up the book in two words, the book was 'heartfelt-ly pleasant'. It's a book which one could finish in one sitting, thanks to its size and content, but still would go back every now and then for some, let me say it, corny sweetness. My copy was bought from a second hand bookshop and it's previous owner left a lot of scribbling and underlining in the book. Now, I'm not the one for abuse to books, but it's always nice to find some humanising relics of previous owners in a thrifted book. The book's filled with thoughts inspired by the book. I don't get why someone'd sell a book so personal, but I'm happy he did (yes, I'm sure it was a he). The author employs no over dramatication, which'd've been very easy to fall into. The book tells you how everything is related and how all the different stories in the world're really just one long story. How one affects the other. I always wanted to read 'Tuesdays With Morrie', the writer's other book, and now I want to read it even more.
Maybe someday I'd find it in another secondhand bookshop with similar notes in the same handwriting and then, I can pretend to be in a Mitch Albom book myself.
***
I had this saved up for long and thought I'd publish this and get it over with. This is the official end of the 'Books of Exile' series. So many books were not reviewed and only my own lazy-assed-ness is to be blamed. The 'Books of Exile' series was also supposed to record my introduction to two of the greatest writers ever; Albert Camus and George Orwell. But A-L-A-S.
Expect random reviews from time to time though.
Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
The book starts with an ending; Eddie, the protagonist is going to die and the reader is taken along Eddie’s last hour as he goes on doing what he did for the last significant portion of his life, working maintenance in the Ruby Pier amusement park. It is also his 83rd birthday. Eddie is popular amongst the children, they like his non assuming self, while he evidently dislikes the ones who’d crossed the threshold of teenage, they gave him headaches. It is when a cart comes loose from a ride and is about to crash into a little girl, does Eddie’s end seem immediate. He tries pushing the girl away from the coming end and gets killed himself. And here ends the first chapter.
Eddie, as is evident from the title, goes to heaven and then meets five people, in five very different places, whose lives intersect with his in ways different from eachother. To reveal the persons and the different settings would be taking away of a lot of the joy of reading the book. Now, a lot of people've found happiness in annoying the heaven out of me by planning landmines of spoilers in the past (yes, I meant you. And you. And you.). But I'd be the better man and let it be. The book excels in what it seeks to do, which is tugging at the heart strings and making you cry. It is not of the tribe of Nickolas Sparks but something more bittersweet. Almost makes you wish that heaven were real, along with Santa Claus and angels and God... I digress.
What I loved the most was the part non-linear narrative. The independent accounts of his other, significant birthdays from the past and the memories awakened by the different people he meets in heaven. To sum up the book in two words, the book was 'heartfelt-ly pleasant'. It's a book which one could finish in one sitting, thanks to its size and content, but still would go back every now and then for some, let me say it, corny sweetness. My copy was bought from a second hand bookshop and it's previous owner left a lot of scribbling and underlining in the book. Now, I'm not the one for abuse to books, but it's always nice to find some humanising relics of previous owners in a thrifted book. The book's filled with thoughts inspired by the book. I don't get why someone'd sell a book so personal, but I'm happy he did (yes, I'm sure it was a he). The author employs no over dramatication, which'd've been very easy to fall into. The book tells you how everything is related and how all the different stories in the world're really just one long story. How one affects the other. I always wanted to read 'Tuesdays With Morrie', the writer's other book, and now I want to read it even more.
Maybe someday I'd find it in another secondhand bookshop with similar notes in the same handwriting and then, I can pretend to be in a Mitch Albom book myself.
***
I had this saved up for long and thought I'd publish this and get it over with. This is the official end of the 'Books of Exile' series. So many books were not reviewed and only my own lazy-assed-ness is to be blamed. The 'Books of Exile' series was also supposed to record my introduction to two of the greatest writers ever; Albert Camus and George Orwell. But A-L-A-S.
Expect random reviews from time to time though.
4
Silchar:
An early morning text from a fuckingawesomebitch. I
qualified the Delhi University entrance test for B.A. English Honours. Yay.
“Respected parents, as much as
I love Architecture, I want to do this instead.”
Drama.
Drama.
Tickets booked for New
Delhi.
Bye bye, pleasant summer
sky.
New Delhi:
The sun burns patterns onto my skin.
Midnight strikes. First cut off. Delhi College of Arts and
Commerce, otherwise known as the college with the depressing, ugly buildings.
And inefficient, rude office staff.
Traveling from one table to another with more papers, forms,
certificates and photocopies of those certificates than two mortal hands can
carry. Frustrated people. Slowly moving fans. After going around for two days for a simple
admission procedure: Aaj aur nahin, kal aye. A girl tears off her forms in
teary anger. Somewhere a parent threatens to go to his old friend, the
principal – or was it the chairperson?
Yours truly is now a DCAC student.
Three days, the second cutoff and a few more annoying hours
at DCAC later, yours truly is a student at Kirori Mal College.
*insert happy theme music*
Red Fort. Jama Masjid. Humayun Tomb. Dargah Nizammudin Auliya. Qutub Minar.
No rain here. People dying because of floods back in Assam.
Haridwar:
4 am wakeup call. Sleepwalk to the car. Short
weekend-in-the-middle-of-the-week weekend. Plug in the earphone. Fiona Apple.
Sleep. Wake up. Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. Breakfast at fancy resort. Shekar
Kapur’s The Sadhu. Sleep again. Wake up. Pine trees and milder weather. UK.
Uttarakhand, not United Kingdom. Kilometres long traffic jam. Haridwar. Humanity at its
worst. Humanity at its best. Bhajans set to the tunes of item numbers. Bells
ringing. “Uttarakhand police aapko Devbhoomi mein swagat karti hain.” Gushing
Ganga. Dirty Ganga. People drinking Ganga, bathing in Ganga, washing in Ganga.
Guru poornima. Crowd on crowd. Lodge room opening out to terrace looming over
the ghat. Monkeys on the roof. Monkeys on the terrace. Monkeys on the light
posts. Monkeys on the temple shires, above the gods. Evening aarti.
Synchronised fireworks. An reddish tinge over the scene. Devotees crying and chanting.
This unbelieving heart quivers. Reason returns in a while. Night falls. Tiny
specks of blessed fire floating over the river. Jai Ganga Maiya. Jai Bhole
Nath. Jai – watch where you’re stepping. Beads and shawls. ‘Off season rebate,
madam!”. Studying the ghat from the terrace under the pale shadow of the full moon. Midnight walkers of the ghat. Naked bodies on show. Slowly sleep
comes.
Rishkesh:
It’s raining in Haridwar as we leave it for its cleaner,
less famous sibling, Rishikesh. A giant Shiva bids us farewell. Never see you
again. Porcupine Tree on the earbuds. Sleeps comes again. “Bhaiya, aa gaye.”
It’s raining hard. A crowded parking lot. 10 rupees worth plastic, green
raincoats. With hoods. A guide from Calcutta. We get mistaken as Calcuttans.Temples built where the Pandavas
had prayed. A suspended bridge named after the flawed god-king of Ayodhya. Temples
built for the ficklest of reasons. A government approved museum cum jewellery
shop. White stones from the icy mountains sparking fire. A ek mukhi rudraksh. "Not for sale, saar, only watching." Sriyantra to maintain the vastu of the ghar, for the surakhsha of the parivar
and sukh shanti of all. A navratna necklace. “Action with phasion, madam!”
Rains? Where's the rain? Raincoats gifted to the driver. Bye bye, Rishikesh. The giant
Shiva passes again. As does the Ganga, muddy with soil washed from the
mountains. Lunch at the yoga baba’s humble 5 star medical cum yoga cum
whateverelse centre. Shanti shanti shanti hi. Bye Uttarakhand. Bye Uttar
Pradesh. Oh hello again, burning Delhi.
0
I'm in a mood to not let all the unpublished stuff go to waste, so I'm publishing this, even though I'd written this much time back.
I see that I've completely ignored my blog. Despite the promises made to myself of not screwing up the blog the second time round, I still seem to do the very same thing. Commitment phobia much? Anyway, a lot happened in these (many) few days. A few illusions and dreams broke. And broke with a lot of noise. But let's not dwell on the melodramatically sad stuff. I finally visited the country capital and it was just as I thought and better. Well, a lot of bling under the karakti sun lead to paining eyes but the pretty, pretty, pretty monuments undid it all. Witnessed no black SUV pulling in girls. Witnessed a LOT of beggars leaving their palm prints, the ones who still had their hands, on the car window glasses. And buildings from possibly all the time periods. Okay, not all, but most. A swanky airport. And the skin burning Delhi sun. A fort, three memorials to people long dead, a colonial gate and city children reigning over a fountain the masters left behind, the blocks of national governance, two towers, Two bazaars from different eras. A step well that was even older (seven freaking hundred years!).
I see that I've completely ignored my blog. Despite the promises made to myself of not screwing up the blog the second time round, I still seem to do the very same thing. Commitment phobia much? Anyway, a lot happened in these (many) few days. A few illusions and dreams broke. And broke with a lot of noise. But let's not dwell on the melodramatically sad stuff. I finally visited the country capital and it was just as I thought and better. Well, a lot of bling under the karakti sun lead to paining eyes but the pretty, pretty, pretty monuments undid it all. Witnessed no black SUV pulling in girls. Witnessed a LOT of beggars leaving their palm prints, the ones who still had their hands, on the car window glasses. And buildings from possibly all the time periods. Okay, not all, but most. A swanky airport. And the skin burning Delhi sun. A fort, three memorials to people long dead, a colonial gate and city children reigning over a fountain the masters left behind, the blocks of national governance, two towers, Two bazaars from different eras. A step well that was even older (seven freaking hundred years!).
UPDATE: Qualified for DU!
0
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| Sometimes, a memory that you hold dear may not be yours. Mother and Brother, Darjeeling, sometime in the late 80s. |
2
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| “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” ― Pablo Neruda |
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| Spring Says Hello |
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| Wilderness, Tamed |
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| Winds of a Soviet Time |
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| Room of Thrones |
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| Doors Upon Walls |
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| A Light That Never Goes Off |
