Life as I know It

Some of the greatest novels that I have read and still recall fondly have one thing in common – memorable characters whose joys, sorrows, successes and disappointments seem very real and personal. A Suitable Boy sketches not one, but a multitude of characters, from a genius child of ten to an irascible doctor of seventy, whose contours start appearing as we are introduced to them, and who, by the time we finish the last page with a sigh, have taken an indelible shape on the canvas of our minds, and a select few of them find a way into our hearts. A Suitable Boy begins with the wedding of Pran Kapoor and Savita Mehra, the elder sister of Lata Mehra, whose mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, vows to find “a suitable boy” for her younger daughter as well. The incidents span over a period of a year and the story culminates with the wedding of Lata almost a year later. During this period, Lata falls in love with Kabir Durrani, who, among other things, is a Muslim. The setting is a little after...

8th of March was celebrated worldwide as International Women’s Day. As a woman, I received wishes from friends, colleagues and family, but the day held no special joy for me as a woman. In a country like India where crime against women is on the rise, where politicians and netas make outrageously sexist remarks with impunity, where a certain Prime Ministerial candidate flippantly attributes something as grave as malnutrition in his State to ‘figure-consciousness’ of girls (can you believe that?), where rape victims and their families are asked by the Church to ‘stay away’, where eve-teasers and acid-throwers get away with light sentences, where extremists barge into private parties and beat up and molest girls, where a young girl stepping out of a pub is molested and stripped by a crowd goaded on by a reporter, where thousands of tribal and low caste women are raped with an audacity that is shocking, where Nirbhaya faces an unspeakable ordeal but doesn’t go down without a fight… I...

I just finished reading ‘The Life of Mahatma Gandhi’ by Louis Fischer and one word that can describe my feeling at the moment is awe. We were taught in school about India’s history, about our freedom struggle, about our fearless leaders and their countless sacrifices. We studied the contributions of leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar, Lajpat Rai et al to our struggle for independence, but as we grow up and become enmeshed in the humdrum of our daily activities, these names begin to have diminishing relevance in our lives. So what brought me, a humble fiction reader, to pick up a 526 pager, non-fiction account of the life of M.K Gandhi, authored by a foreign journalist? To begin with, it was a debate with my friends about Gandhi, which started with the discussion about Nathuram Godse, the man who shot Gandhi on 30th January, 1948. Was Gandhi a saint or an evil genius? Was he a soft-hearted democrat or a dictator with a soft touch? Was he responsible for the partition of I...

If there’s one thing about Gone with the Wind that has left an indelible impression on my mind, it is the character of Scarlett O’Hara. Beautiful, fearless, ruthless, practical and materialistic in a world that is bleeding for the Cause, she epitomizes the anti-hero in the eyes of the Confederate society. Her character is so complex, layered with unyielding determination and an utter lack of morals, shouldering responsibility for those who have submitted to her care, sprinkled with self-confidence and a penchant for theatrics, cemented by an irrational, passionate, blind love for the husband of another – which eventually proves to be her undoing in a way. Gone with the Wind is the story of courage and determination, love and jealousy, persistence and hard-work, practicality and obstinacy, the selfish Scarlett O’Hara and the altruistic Melanie Hamilton, the spirited, cheeky Rhett Butler and the listless, fatalistic Ashley Wilkes. As with all the great novels, what a reader will re...

“If you really want to watch a Vampire movie, you should watch the Underworld series,” remarked my boyfriend after I forced him to sit through the latest installment from the Twilight saga. And thus, I got introduced to the dark world of Vampires and Lycans and their unending, bloody war. Several differences between the Twilight series and the Underworld series struck me. Twilight is essentially a love story, enveloped by the overlapping worlds of Vampires and Werewolves, while Underworld is primarily a Vampire-Lycan saga, with several motivations driving the main characters, love being just one of them. Of the 90 or so minutes of Underworld: Awakening, about 45 minutes is pure, unadulterated, adrenalin-pumping action. Selene (Kate Bekinsale) is the undisputed hero of not only the movie, but the entire series. I cannot think of too many successful Hollywood action movies with a female lead. It won’t be exaggeration to say that she owns the movie. Michael Corvin, ostensibly the male lea...

The mind is the most potent tool in the hands of man to steer his life in any direction of his choice. Thoughts become things. We create our lives in our minds. Imagination is the key. These are some quotes pointing to the same principle or law. There are innumerable books written about the power of subconscious mind for achieving wealth, health, happiness, love and what not. Ask and it shall be given. I have read countless quotes, shrouded in complex pattern of words, all guiding me towards one truth. We create our lives with our thoughts. What you think about today will manifest in your life in the future. What you have or don’t have today is a result of your past thoughts. Positive thoughts engender positivity in life. Negative thoughts spell our doom. I accidently came across an article on Visualization a few days before my final MBA placement. It presented a simple, but powerful technique on visualizing the end state, what you desire (in my case, excellent performance in the GDs a...

Desi Boyz is the story of two friends living in London who are hit hard by the economic recession of 2009 and face the possibility of losing their near and dear ones. When nothing else seems to work, the two friends are lured into ‘Desi Boyz’, a male escort agency run by the ‘Khalnayak’ with operations all over the world. As the people in their lives discover the truth about their new profession, Desi Boyz find themselves lonely and bereft of those for whom they had taken up the names of Rocco and Hunter in the first place. The rest of the story deals with the Desi Boyz making amends and setting things right in their lives. While some elements that make up the plot of Desi Boyz are new to Bollywood, the story is predictable. The question of whether it is possible for male escorts to live by the principle of ‘only stripping’ and ‘no sex’, and on top of that, become the most successful pair in the agency, is questionable. The lead actors Akshay, John and Deepika, while may have given an ...