Book review: “The Kite Runner” & “A Thousand Splendid Suns”

I discovered the wonder of Khaled Hosseini late. After his books had achieved critical acclaim and he even had a movie made out of one.

There’s little left to be said about his engaging narrative which draws in the reader. He creates a world which begins with the first word and stays with you beyond the last. He involves you in the lives which unfold across the pages and despite having his stories set against a bold cultural backdrop the challenges, failures and triumphs he details are ones which every reader can identify with and most importantly feel for.

A critic may sit and examine prose, grammar, sentence structures, the use of allegories etc but for me the acid test is but one. The moment I pick up a book and begin to read the world outside should melt away. For both these books the world melted away and at times to such a degree that what I read aroused in me such emotion I was forced to disengage, stop and just think on what I had read and felt.

My sister made a comment once I finished “ATSS”. She said that she felt more for the characters in this book as opposed to “TKR” because “ATSS” revolved around women and their pains. I must confess to not having that same reaction. For me what impacted me was the absolute way he had managed to capture the evil within nature’s worst animal..MAN. The obvious flaws in each character made them identifiable and perhaps a mirror of what was within to some degree or other.

The movie….well….I’m not a fan of any movie adaptation. I like the full-length, full-colour version I see in my mind much more than the invariably abbreviated one that makes it to the big screen. The one big problem I had with the movie was the casting of ‘Baba’. The larger than life man who could wrestle a bear and take up the fight for others was done, in my opinion, little justice by the actor selected. Though charismatic he failed to capture the joie-de-vivre that I had come to expect from my reading of the book. An interesting watch none the less.

One catch-up post down…a million more to go.

Enjoy the rest of your week

Paintball/Pain-ball?!

Spring showers etc were drowned out by a healthy (read hectic) work schedule and my sister falling so sick she was made to rest at home for a week by the doctors!

In the midst of all that excitement the folks at GetIT decided we needed another one of our quirky group activities where we don’t care about building team-spirit etc but instead focus on fun. I don’t have all the pictures but I did manage to copy (read steal) these from AB’s post on the same for our corporate blog.

Some of us sported bumps on the head and very bruised bottoms from being shot at in odd spots!

For anyone who is interested please head to www.weplaypaintball.com and check with the staff there on how to get a package for yourselves. The guys there were funny, very safety-conscious and were kind enough to not laugh too hard at us novices

Enjoy the pics!

The crew arrives - we had to hire one of the mini-van cabs to get all of us there.

The undisputed better team!

Peace is restored

My souvenir of the event. I got hit on my right bicep twice in 2 minutes. Major Ouchie!

Movie Review: Taare Zameen Par

Aamir Khan’s directorial debut has had much written about it. I put off watching it for quite a while having heard it was a “sad” movie and i didn’t much feel in the mood for a cry.

I did get around to watching it and i can truly saying it deserves all the laurels heaped upon it and its young star, Darsheel Safry. The little boy made me feel for the young child struggling with a learning disability and a society and parents who are too overly concerned with being the best to consider the best for the child might not be the most economically sound options.

This movie at the heart of it addresses differences and uses in its narrrative the example of a learning disability. The inherent inability of people to accept the differences of our fellow man be it in the form of colour, creed, sexual orientation, religious beliefs etc is at the crux of many of life’s avoidable problems. The need we have to force a square peg into a circle just because we are circles and are uncomfortable with expanding our boundaries makes us the ones with the problem and not the so-called different folk.

I sincerely hope this will be a movie that stays with people and the next time we judge someone harshly for being different we stop, pause and think about the so-called problem and quesiton if there really is one.

A return to blogging

After a quiet 2 weeks its back to blogging for moi. Some major developments with work have caused my usually well-balanced train to be a little derailed and hence I hadn’t been able to muster the energies to post.

What’s new…well my Samsung G800 is Am enjoying this super cool phone though its a massive pain in the behind to get used to another new OS. I love that its a chunky phone, it can never be mistaken for a slim model, and it has an amazing camera and most importantly I managed to get a $100 off voucher on demand to subsidize the purchase!

I have numerous things to blog about and not enough time to get to most of them today. As I’ve brought in my camera with me here’s a few pictures of the last bit of mehendi I did. Enjoy!

Do you want to subscribe to me?

Yes you read it right. My virtual life has grown to the point where you can see what I think as per the opinions and views I express on my blog, see what books I read, and now what music I listen to.

I must confess that each step of the way was a painful undertaking. When I first started my blog I was unsure what I could possibly offer to compel readers to stop by, whether certain things I was saying/believing had a sound foundation or was I merely being illogical…I got over that hang-up by concentrating on writing on what was important to me and that ranges from the philosophical to the trivial but it encapsulates the true essence of me.

When AB first got me started on Shelfari (I am his mandatory friend on most new virtual frontiers!) I had a hesitancy there too. Was I really ready to expose my weakness for mind-numbing romance novels or did I want to stick to the facade of the intellectual who studied English literature at university? It took some time but I’ve been fairly honest and the act of going public with what I read has actually helped improve my reading habit. I try to maintain a balance between thought-provoking fiction and fluff. I can’t deny either because both are a need for me. I do like the book which makes me pause and reflect as I go through the chapters as much as I like sitting down to a no-brainer romance novel which has me firmly in its grip even as I roll my eyes over the improbability of it all.

The latest frontier was the scariest to cross. I have recently got an account at Last.fm which is a site that lets friends share music and has radio as well. The one thing I didn’t know or at least had tuned out while AB was talking about it was the fact that when you connect your iPod to the computer your playlist gets scrobbled (meaning it appears on your profile and lets everyone see what you’ve been listening to!). This might not be a problem for most folks but I have an obsessive-compulsive listening pattern…I will have songs of the moment and listen to them on repeat for 2-3 days and you guessed it some of them aren’t exactly the kind of songs I’d like to advertise. Hence for the last 2 days I’ve been selective about what I’ve listened to as well!!

Another layer of my onion is peeled now…sigh!

If you want to subscribe to me do drop me a line and I’ll hook you up

Plucky Ducky

Due to the infinite grace of the cosmos my sister and I coincidently had occasion to celebrate in the past month. As is our tradition celebration to us means duck confit and with the closing of our favourite Le Troquet we ventured to where the chef had gone: Makarios Cafe Bar located on the 3rd floor of the National Library Building at Victoria Street.

We skipped the appetisers and instead had some of the best bread I’ve ever tasted. Freshly baked bread bursting with flavour in each bite

The duck confit was par excellence and I was in gastronomic heaven when the first bite caused a burst of flavour to roll around my mouth and bathe my senses in pure delight.

The evening was rounded off with profiteroles…a fitting end to a most satisfying meal.

Throughout dinner we shared excellent conversation and the house wine…a nice white which went quite well with everything we had.

 

Till the next celebration

Nail Art: 15.03.08

A celebratory dinner was in the cards and I decided it was only fair if my tootsies were dressed up for the occasion too

 

To avoid over-exposure I had to take the pictures without flash and so compromised on the colour. Think eggplant for the base and white for the design.

Its Monday and I’m a few posts behind…will do my best for a catch-up sprint!

Mehndi: 08-03-08

The Mehndi artist who did my design in Bombay has opened up a different aspect of design for me. The flowers which are easy are still there but my focus is now on creating with simple repetitive patterns as well. I’ve also grown quite fond of the long designs as well.

Here’s some of what I did a few weeks ago…enjoy and do let me know what you think

A good week to all!

Mehndi Artistry

I’ve been putting off my post about my most recent trip to India. Where do I begin to describe a truly amazing vacation and all the insights (both good and bad) that I experienced….

Well as good a place as any i think will be the mehndi i got done at Inorbit Mall in Malad, Mumbai for a measly 100 rupees. The lady who did it for me is something I aspire to…she started at one point of my leg and with simple but incredibly fine lines gave me an intricate design which I sorely wished was permanent.

It may not be on my skin any longer but I’ll always have this picture to remind me how absolutely lovely (in my opinion) my skin looked with my mehndi

Manhunt anyone?

Well its been an interesting few days on our tiny island. Our home-grown JI terrorist cell leader had escaped from the detention centre where he was being held and is still at large. Early efforts were focused around the Stevens Rd exit off the PIE and have slowly made their way toward the causeway.

As of this evening the efforts have been focused a short 3 min walk from my home. The nations security forces have 4 buses worth of officers here and what seems to be the canine unit as well as seen from our lofty heights (we live on the topmost floor of a moderate height block of apartments that sits on elevated ground!).

Conspiracy theorists have been having a time of it though and one entertaining conversation I chanced to overhear as I was getting my foot reflexology done was that the escape of Mas Selamat was an attempt by the government to divert the focus away from the budget.

I might have given that theory some credence if I actually believed Singaporeans knew what the budget proposed beyond the cuts to personal income tax and the growth dividend bonus they’ll be eligible for. Other conversations I overhead voiced what bordered on indignation that the terrorist was short (only 1.55m tall) as though to say either terrorist are much taller and intimidating folk or its unbelieveable that such a short man could be capable of terror.

I have 3 things to say to these folk: Napoleon, Alexander the Great and Hitler

Interesting start to the week though….a good week too all!