Yes, it's been a long time since I wrote about books, so there are three books that I've read in the time that has passed.I remember when I started reading Dick Francis. I was amazed that a single writer could have written so many books about horses and the racing world. Longshot is one of those, but I realise, once again, how much a book strikes a chord within you when you read it at a time that's right. The narrator of Longshot is a writer. A writer who has just quit a regular job to become a full-time writer. He suffers, nearly starves. Is that a message to me from the universe? The book was gripping, with the stoicism that's typical to Dick Francis. Even though parts of it made me squirm because they hit home, I enjoyed Longshot, as I always expect to when I read a book by Dick Francis.Two more books I've read and intend to write about soon... … [Read more...]
My Grandfather – R.I.P.
On Friday, I decide to spend the night at my grandfather's place. He sleeps at 8 o' clock or so, so when I get there around 10, he is asleep. At 10:20, I hear him getting out of bed. He shuffles past my room and goes to the kitchen. I hear the balcony door creak open and close. I hear him wash his hands in the sink. Then, silence. He doesn't walk by my room again. A little concerned I get up to find my grandfather standing by the sideboard. "What happened?" I ask. My grandfather, caught in the act, confesses, "I felt like eating a banana, so got up." I chuckle and go back to bed.In the morning, he wakes me up at 6, asking me to retrieve a bottle-cap that has fallen. I do so and go back to sleep, after a rather crazy, loud conversation (because my grandfather is hard of hearing).He wakes me up again at 6:20 to ask if my father is in town. We have another loud conversation.At 7, when … [Read more...]
Musée des Beaux Arts
I've been thinking of this all morning. Loss and suffering exist in astonishingly closed cabins, shut off from the world. Here is Musée des Beaux Arts by Auden. A classic.About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman … [Read more...]
Collections
I once met a lady who collected Santa Clauses. She had over a thousand Santa Clauses, over half of which she had made using anything, from oil-cans to coconuts. She painted Santa Claus on glass bottles, or made a crochet Santa around a plastic bottle. She used the cover of a cheese-tin, a shankha, cane nets, ceramic pots, stones, rope, clay, everything, to make different kinds of Santas in different postures.My sister used to collect tissue paper. Wherever we went, she picked up a tissue paper. It became something she enjoyed so much that people started sending tissue paper from different places to her. I remember once a close friend of my father's even sent her a courier package full of tissue.As a child, I recognised it as a need to work towards a goal, a single-minded determination. I started collecting pencil-shavings. I collected one and put it in a small self-sealing bag. I … [Read more...]
Oxford Bookstore 2002
We know we belong to the previous generation when we complain about the way children waste time."How much we used to play!" A friend and I lamented about how students at school spend more time at their laptops than at anything else. They are a generation growing up with email and Facebook; they're attached to their laptops all the time."We used to be on the ground, playing in the sun.""Tree to tree, wall to wall...""Hundreds of things. Right until the time we left school."I fell silent. During my last two years of school, I really don't remember playing much. What did I do, then? I wondered.And then, I remembered.I wrote a book.On the 29th of August, 2002, just after I finished my tenth standard, I received this mail -We are delighted to let you know that you have been shortlisted for the E-Author Version 2.0 contest this year. We will be announcing the top three … [Read more...]
I love book-sales!
I never buy books. Never. I have too many books at home that I have not read.But what can I do when I find 70% (yes, SEVENTY PER CENT) off on a Michael Morpurgo collection? The Landmark sale is here! … [Read more...]
The Goldsmith’s Daughter
Yes, The Goldsmith's Daughter is the story of a girl restricted by her gender in a barbaric civilisation that is in conflict with another world with different beliefs.It is set in a moment in history when the Aztec civilisation must deal with Spanish invaders. The Aztecs need to accept that their emperor is, apparently, not the emperor of the world because there are people with peculiar features coming from across the ocean to the Aztec world.But I don't always find history fascinating. I don't typically spend hours researching and reading. And I knew next to nothing about the Aztecs when I began to read The Goldsmith's Daughter.Tanya Landman made the story come alive. There was no judgement in the voice that told me the story of the bloodshed required to feed the superstition that the sun battled with darkness each night to emerge whole the next morning. There was … [Read more...]
Baby Krishna
Finally, here are a few photographs of the baby that everyone loved so much. It's a doll, yes, a doll, made by my French mother. It's not a real baby, no. We dressed it (her) as Baby Krishna for our performance in December - here are a few pictures! … [Read more...]
Kelemen Quartet
What will I remember about this concert of the Kelemen Quartet's a few years from now?The fact that it was the first time I watched a lady in a sari play the cello ? Maybe not. The music was so beautiful that I forgot within a few moments that people are usually so conscious of the way they sit in a sari.The fact that right in the middle of a compelling Bartòk piece, the trumpet of a wedding procession outside confused us all? Somehow, I think I will remember that. Even though I don't want to.The fact that they were all so expressive that it felt as if they were dancing with their instruments? I hope so.Mozart, Bartòk, Schubert - each was magnificent. I had Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in my head all evening. Not because it was my favourite, but because it was the most familiar, and Bartòk was just so elusive. I can see their faces in my head - now so cross with the music they see, now … [Read more...]
War Horse
There's something about Michael Morpurgo that haunts me. I remember being blown away by Kensuke's Kingdom. I've read and reread so many of his books. Running Wild, The White Horse of Zennor, Adolphus Tips, and of course War Horse. They come to mind immediately.This was not the first time I read War Horse.I was not in a mood to read anything soppy. In fact, I began reading War Horse when I was in a rather cynical mood. I'm not quite sure why.Despite that, towards the end of the book I found myself smiling because I did not want to cry. I closed the book, closed my eyes and sighed that particular sigh that only a beautiful book can pull out from the depths of your being.I can't imagine how the movie would be. How can a movie capture the mind of a horse?I don't think I will ever watch the movie. I've already decided that the book is better. … [Read more...]