The Indian mythological character of Shiva has always intrigued me in a completely different way than it does for most people. I used to find the whole "tandav" dance, the leopard skin costume and his "third eye" scary and mysterious, and though I knew he was one of the Gods, I couldn't ever entirely accept it. I still decided to go ahead and request to review the books from the Shiva trilogy, when Blogadda gave me a chance to. So here's what I think of the book so far:
The story is set against the backdrop of Meluha, a place in the Indus Valley. The plot is cleverly written, with Shiva shown as the leader of the Gunas tribe that migrates to Meluha, it being a well planned & safer place. Meluha is the land of Suryavanshis, the descendants of the Hindu Sun God- people with strong principles, morals and who live with honour. So, when Shiva and his tribe migrate to Meluha, they are awestruck by the infrastructure of the city, the efficient management, the people, the law and order. On their first night in Meluha, as Shiva drinks Somras (the immortal drink) given to him along with his tribe, his bruises and aches get cured and he acquires a cold, blue throat while the rest of his tribe falls ill. He doesn't know what he is in for, till the doctors & people around him suddenly put him on a pedestal and start addressing him as 'The Lord'. Legend has it, that the Suryavanshis are going to face a lot of trouble, and it is at that time that the "Neelkanth" would arrive and prove to be a saviour to them. The Neelkanth would be identified by a blue throat. The Chandravanshis from Swadeep, on the other hand, are people with no morals or rules, and are jealous of the progress of the Suryavanshis. Time and again, they plan surprise attacks on the Suryavanshis with the help of the Naga tribe. The Nagas finally discover Mount Mandar, the manufacturing centre of the Somras powder, from which the immortal drink of Somras is prepared. At this Shiva is enraged. Will he be able to ward off evil? Will he be able to save the Meluhans? It is left for you to discover.
Amongst all this, Shiva is shown to be just like any other human. He falls in love with Sati, the daughter of the emperor of the Suryavanshis. Like any love story, this one has complications too with Sati being a vikarma- someone carrying with her sins of the past and hence forbidden to marry or love another person. Inspite of these odds, Shiva gets married to her.
Though the story will keep you hooked, the language of the book is just about okay. The author has acknowledged this in the beginning though, so one must not expect much from the quality of the language. The concept is rather nice and tells how a simple, mortal human being Shiva rose to become a God due to his actions or his karma.
Now waiting to read the second book of this trilogy!
It is funny how life takes you by surprise! Things you never thought you would think of, or never thought you would become- you start considering.. The way you perceive things keeps changing as days pass. I had a lot of assumptions attached to everything. I still do. But over time, I realised you cannot keep assuming or judging before knowing.. So get your facts right before you start giving opinions or blindly believe in something. It is a lot easy to say but a lot more difficult to follow..
Also, I've been noticing there are 2 ways to live your life.. you can either live to be good in the eyes of others or live for yourself. The latter is better because, I've realised, if you live for yourself & are okay with it, others are okay with it too. If you're happy internally, nobody can stop you from feeling so. If you feel you're beautiful, you are beautiful in the eyes of everyone!
In other news, today is one of those days I'm glad I am at home with people around who care about me. I am sick today with an upset stomach and an aching head. It's making me stop craving for food and eating only when I'm hungry (which is good if you want to lose weight though). Feeling good emotionally. Maybe because I was up early today. Early mornings give you hope just as late nights bring you peace.
Signing off with this lovely song that I've been listening to..
This isn't the original video.. For some reason, YouTube tells me the original one is not available in my country .. which is weird! Anyway, nice music, lovely lyrics! :) Bye bye!
TBBT (The Big Bang Theory) seems to be the only good thing that's going on in my life right now.. I figured that out this morning when I woke up depressed only to smile seeing TBBT listed at12pm on Tata Sky! I want to download all the episodes.. and I always keep putting that off. Maybe I like waiting for it to air on Zee Cafe everyday. Gives me something to look forward to. Now I get the point of delayed gratification. But I don't think I have it in me yet, meaning I won't put off watching an episode if I know I have it all on my hard drive. I still have to achieve that kind of self control.
If I had it all, there wouldn't be anything to wish for. That answers the Facebook status update I had for about a week: "If life could be a fairy tale..." - There would be nothing to wait for! After all, isn't it always about waiting? Waiting for a new car, waiting to finish your exams, waiting to start working, waiting to go on vacation.. When your present is screwed up, you wait for a better future! The longer the wait, the more promising your future will be. Pretty convincing considering what my current state of mind is like.
At some point in time, after reality shows started airing on television & especially after they took over the "saas-bahu" soaps of late, we have all wondered what they must be actually like, meaning, how much of what we see on television is real and how much is scripted. Even the news for that matter! "The 6pm Slot" by Naomi Datta pretty much answers all our queries through a story of an entertainment channel, and its goof-ups with a new show that they come up with to raise their ratings in the 6pm slot.
The story begins at an office in YTV (Youth TV), an entertainment channel, with Rahul- the PPT obsessed managing director of YTV breaking his head with Harish- his ass licking deputy, to find a way of increasing viewership on the almost dead 6pm slot. Together, they come up with an idea of starting a Love show at 6pm with a sexy, scantily clad model as the host assuming a lot of Indian men would atleast tune in to lech. Meanwhile, the protagonist Tania Shah is having a tough time taking appointments from pets for her celebrity pet show. She heaves a sigh of relief when she is assigned this new Love show by Rahul instead and is made the supervising producer. This is a big break in her career of two years and she decides to give it her all. A show called Love Calls is finally born with upcoming model Vrushali Salve as the anchor. She's portrayed to be the ideal sex goddess for the Indian males owing to her "thunder thighs". The show is about solving love problems from callers all over India. This actually took me back to those MTV Love-Line days with Malaika Arora as the host. Along with the callers and the advice she would dish out to them, the increased viewership was also largely due to her long legs. Anyway, so, with Vrushali's funny grammar, a Maharashtrian accent and the need to include "yeah" wherever punctuations are required, Tania has a tough time with her on the show.
A few blocks away, Rajneesh Tiwari, managing editor & primetime anchor of YNN, a top English news channel is nervous & all heated up because he can't find an exciting story. He throws paroxysms of rage at his "thinking tank" asking them to come up with something that would drive the ratings of the news channel.
At YTV, the calls start coming in on Love Calls, the TRPs increase and the channel's greed for better ratings leads them to air one call that Tania repeatedly disapproves of. It's that of a dying girl called Jassi, who calls on the show from Chandigarh saying she has cancer & two months to live. So here's Jassi with dead parents, cancer and an ex boyfriend who leaves her to marry her first cousin in a month's time. Vrushali goofs up with this call by handling it in a rather insensitive and dumb manner. Rajneesh Tiwari accidentally views this call and jumps with joy at having found his story! He starts a segment on his show called "Justice for Jassi", which plays at the end of every newscast as a bulletin.
What follows later is a havoc at YTV, a search for Jassi by YNN in all of Chandigarh, verbal blows by YNN at YTV for their "negligence & insensitivity" for Jassi, a candlelight march for Jassi at Delhi and a third magazine "Conscience Calls" intervening to put both the channels to shame!
Naomi Datta has very well portrayed the things entertainment channels do for their ratings, and the things that news channels do for a story!
'Welcome to the world of television, where nothing is ever what it appears.'
For her debut novel, I must say Naomi has aced it! This book is so gripping you will have a hard time laying it down until you've reached the end. It has the right amount of humor, twists and detail. She has etched each character well, and the surprise elements in this book (especially towards the climax) make it all the more interesting to read. The only downside of the book (not sure if I'd call it a downside) is that it contains a lot of "Indianisms" and Hindi words/expletives that restricts it to an Indian readership alone. But considering it has been written against the backdrop of Indian television & viewers, it is a job done very well. It was worth the time and I'd definitely recommend it.
Just the other day, I saw a deal on SoSasta that let you have unlimited scoops of ice-cream at Hokey Pokey (a franchise ice-cream parlour). They have an outlet at Bandra West, and since my friend Alisha & I were there after our self defense class, I suggested we buy the deal and get the vouchers during our next session, so we can have some ice-cream after sweating ourselves out in class. She told me the deal was for a couple and we couldn't avail of it. I said we were a couple already- "Two" of us made a couple. She went on to say it has to be 2 members of the opposite sex. I thought that was pretty biased. What if we were a lesbian couple wanting to avail of the deal? So on our way back, we rehearsed what we would say if we happen to go to Hokey Pokey and claim for our unlimited scoops. We spoke of suing them, fighting for our rights, stressing on section 377 and everything else that could get us those scoops. But I noticed one thing. No matter how educated we are, how much ever modernised or broadminded we call ourselves, we couldn't help but giggle after rehearsing every one of those acts. Like the idea humoured us somehow.
So, when I read about this blogging contest on Gaylaxy Magazine, I was tempted to write about what I thought of homosexuality in India.
When I was a kid, I didn't even know gays exist. I didn't know that it was possible for two members of the same sex to fall in love or engage in sexual intercourse. These things were always kept hidden from us just because the society felt homosexuals weren't normal human beings, and that homosexuality was a taboo. For some, a sin! Frankly, I got exposed to this concept in the sixth grade from watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. (when Ross gets divorced for the first time because his wife Carol is a lesbian). I went to an all girls' school and as I grew up, I learnt of bisexuals too. There were girls in my school who other students & teachers said were lesbians, and they were made fun of, or avoided. During our sex education sessions, this area was never touched/discussed. Also, it was embarrassing to stand up and ask a question about homosexuality considering it was looked down upon. And we dare not ask such questions to our parents or other respectable elders of the family due to fear of getting scolded or punished. Even after seven years now, after the High court struck down the Section 377 provision two years back, after homosexuality was portrayed in movies (although after a lot of struggle with the censor board), homosexuality is still not accepted wholly in India.
Parents still expect their kids to find a match for themselves from the opposite sex, so that they can start a family and lead a 'normal' life. We see such an example in the Bollywood movie Fashion where Rahul Arora (played by Samir Soni), a gay fashion designer gets married to his female best friend to keep his mother happy, but continues to date his boyfriend post marriage. A lot of homosexuals are pressurised by their families this way but they don't realise what they are doing to the person and consequently to his/her partner. Of course, reproduction is impossible without two heterosexual individuals of the opposite sex, and that's the only way the blood line can be kept alive, but these people can't change the way they feel. They just aren't built that way. Trying to change them will destroy them. It already takes a lot of courage for them to admit their sexuality to themselves and to their near ones. Forcing them to change or live differently will hamper their growth, and the depression caused might lead them to even take their lives.
Even as I write this, I admit I feel a little different around gay people. I'd probably be okay with a gay friend but I might tell the world I have a gay friend just to see how they react or just to prove I am okay with having a gay friend even though internally I feel different around him/her. I guess time and experience will help me accept it. The rest of India? That might probably take a century!
This image has been googled for, and the flag is the official flag of the gay community.
It's that time of the year again when we stop telling the world to "Save water" , "Save trees", "Stop Smoking" to save the environment! We instead do what *we* can do - plant a sapling and contribute to the environment ourselves! What better way to save the planet? The Sapling Project is back for the fourth time in the city.. Be there!
Mumbai 9 AM - Opp Barista, Shivaji Park 11.00 am - Vile Parle (e), Opp Parleshwar Temple 1.30 pm - Near Infinity, Andheri (w) 3.00 pm - Inorbit Mall, Malad (w) 5.00 pm - Near IC church , IC Colony, Borivali(w) Contact : Ranjeet - 9322131514 , Satish - 9833443545
Pune 7:30 AM - Kalyani Nagar ( Jogger's Park) 8:45 AM - University campus/ University Circle 9:30 AM - F.C Road 10:30 AM - Law college Road Contact : Libu - 9881460654, Pradaxina - 9881093149
Delhi : Venue: Rose Garden, (Inside Lodhi Gardens), Delhi
Time: 8:00 AM Contact : Garima - 9810807082
You can come to any of these locations and : take a sapling for free & plant it or choose to sponsor a sapling for just Rs. 20!
Came back from a 7-day stay in Kerala on the 18th of May (and from Goa yesterday :D), and I must say I had an amazing time!! This time I'll try to narrate it a little differently by telling you what I think of the place and the city we stayed in.
We (my parents & myself) had googled for a hotel that was at a small distance from Trivandrum Central station, and as soon as we reached (11th May), we didn't know where to go. After asking around a little bit, this man told us to get out of the station and look for a prepaid auto counter. "Cheappp and besttta" in his words. The people there are very friendly. They may not know your language or may speak with a strong accent but they try very hard to help you & convey their message to you by way of signs or broken English. Hindi is less spoken & understood than English. Anyway, so, as soon as we got out of the station near platform 1, we found the counter and just like he had said, we were charged the minimum auto fare (Rs. 12) as it was very closeby. We also didn't have to wait for an auto at all. "Cheap and best" !!
Trivandrum was a pleasant city. Our hotel (Hotel Prathiba Heritage) was awesome. The rooms and the service was up to the mark. The owner, Mr. Krishnan Nair, helped us with directions to go to all the places we had googled for. He also helped with planning our schedule as to which places we should go to first, and how long it would take us to get there and which next place was closest to the one we had gone to.
Though Kerala is famous for sea food, we being vegetarians, didn't have much of a choice when it came to veg food. Most places usually served only the South Indian cuisine (dosa, idli, vada, sambaar, rice). The subzi would usually be liquid with a lot of coconut & hardly any vegetables. There were restaurants which had North Indian food listed in their menus but when we asked for any of those items, they would plainly say that those were not available at that time. Everything had to be ordered separately. It didn't do well to assume that biryani would come with raita. Sandwiches were not as commonly available as they are available here. This was the case in Trivandrum and a few other places. In Kanyakumari, however, the case was far different. All restaurants there had all types of food and on request, they were also willing to prepare the food without onion or garlic (as dad prefers it). Also, when you ask for water or when the waiter brings glasses of water to your table, it's always hot unless you mention that you want it cold. I didn't get why they serve hot water everywhere, mostly in Trivandrum. Dad said there must have been some epidemic going around and they're being careful now! They also have this peculiar way of serving a vada with every dish you order. Vadas are prepared with onion in them (unlike in Bombay) and dad had a hard time reminding himself to tell the waiter not to get a vada for him. Coffee is more readily available than tea, and most people don't know of or don't prepare masala tea, ginger tea or cardamom tea. The KTDC hotels are still better, and the tea I had at the Floating Hotel, KTDC, Veli lake, was the best tea I ever had. They had prepared it with cloves and dry ginger.
Red Bananas - Kerala speciality
Took some of these yellow bananas at Neyyar to feed the elephants!
Lunch on a banana leaf at Hotel Aryaa, Trivandrum
Mango juice at Kanyakumari
One strange yet common sight was that of a long queue in liquor shops. And this was the case in every part of Kerala we went to. It was funny how the queue bore resemblance to the queue we used to have here in ration or public distribution shops.
The best way to move around the city is through buses. The bus transport system in Kerala can be compared to the local train system here in Bombay. There are buses every two or five minutes going to all parts of the city. There is no fixed bus stop as such. You stand where you see a lot of people waiting for the bus. There are frequent inter-city buses from the central bus stands too. Also, exactly opposite to how it is here, you board from the front door of the bus and alight from the rear. We moved around in KSRTC (Kerala State Road Transport Corporation) buses all through our trip except for the trip to Neyyar Dam where we booked a tour which involved a KTDC (Kerala Tourism Development Corporation) bus.
Spotted a double-decker bus at Trivandrum
I didn't find any nightlife as such in Trivandrum. Shops close down too soon (8:30pm or so). Kanyakumari, being a tourist spot, is still open till about 10 or 11 but Trivandrum shuts too soon.
As for the places we went to, we visited the art & history museums, the zoo, the Padmanabhaswami temple, Veli lake, Kovalam beach, Neyyar Dam at Trivandrum. There is one more beach called the lighthouse beach at Kovalam beach which is very well-known & often mistaken for Kovalam beach itself. We missed it and then wondered why there was so much hype over Kovalam beach when there were hardly any people there, and it was so small in size. We had fun at Veli lake with speed boating, horse riding, having chai at the KTDC floating hotel and spending time on the beach. Neyyar dam was amazing. We saw lions at an arm's distance at the lion safari park, fed the elephants, took blessings from them and rode on them too! The people in our tour bus to Neyyar were very friendly and made the trip all the more enjoyable!
Horse riding at Veli
Neyyar Dam Lion Safari Park
Blessings from the elephant at Neyyar!
We went to Kanyakumari, which takes about 3 hours from Trivandrum. There are no direct buses going to Kanyakumari from Trivandrum. One has to go to Nagercoil from Trivandrum and then change buses to go to Kanyakumari. But as I mentioned before, the buses are very frequent so that is not a problem at all. We reached Kanyakumari at around 2 pm, had lunch, shopped a bit, and reached the boat jetty spot at 4pm to go to the Vivekanada memorial which is in the middle of the sea. Unfortunately, we saw that the boat jetty ticket counter closes at 4pm and the guard wouldn't let anyone in at all. So we had to stay there for one more day to be able to go to the Vivekananda memorial & the 133 feet tall Thiruvalluvar statue. But we made use of our day after 4pm by going to the Gandhi memorial, the sunset point and a wandering monk exhibition (Swami Vivekananda exhibition) that was going on. We also shopped for a lot of silk & cotton sarees at dirt cheap prices. The sunset point is where the three waters meet: the Indian ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Next morning, we went to the sunrise point which is closer to the main junction than the sunset point. Next, we finally made it to the Vivekananda memorial and the Thiruvalluvar statue. There are boats going to both the places. We were very tired, wanted to go back to Trivandrum and missed seeing the 16th century Padmanabhapuram wooden palace near Kanyakumari.
Thiruvalluvar statue
Vivekananda Rock Memorial
Sunrise at Kanyakumari
We also visited Kollam (an hour from Trivandrum) and took an 8-hr cruise boat ride to Alleppey. The DTPC office suggested this trip saying it was a very famous tour and would be worthwhile. It took my houseboat and row-boating plans for a toss when we signed up for it. The cruise was enjoyable for the first couple of hours and started to get boring later. I'd suggest anyone to take a 2 hour village canal tour at Kollam, and spend sometime on a houseboat at Kollam instead of the 8-hr cruise boat trip to Alleppey. I wanted to go row-boating at any cost so we decided to spend the night at Alleppey and go row-boating the next morning. We also visited the beach at Alleppey that night but there were no lights on the beach and we had to return soon. Row-boating was fun the next morning. We (my mom and I) were in the boat for a little over an hour and took turns rowing the boat. The row was heavy even though the boat-man exchanged his light row with our heavy one. He was rowing the boat at the rear end and was teaching us how to do it at the front side. We saw a few people getting trained for the Onam boat race and also for the olympics on the way.
Alleppey backwaters
Row boating at Alleppey
We returned to Trivandrum by bus soon after boating. It took almost 5 hours for us to come back and the day was spent resting and exploring the city some more.
Except for the food and the fact that shops close down early in Trivandrum, I found it a lovely city to stay in. I liked it better than the other places we went to, in terms of staying there & not just sight-seeing. It's spacious and has all kinds of stores & other facilities. The city, though very well-developed, has a peaceful aura about it and the people there leave you to yourself unless you want it otherwise. On the day that we were leaving, just after we had packed our bags and ordered some chai, the city bloomed in full glory with the first shower of rain ever since we had set foot in Trivandrum. I ran out of the hotel and looked around. I was already low about leaving the city, and the rains made it all the more difficult!
A lot experienced and a lot missed, despite some of its difficulties, this is one place I want to go back to..!!
So, Wednesday was officially the last day of our college life- the last lecture that we had. And oddly, I still feel indifferent. I mean, I would surely miss going to college but a part of me believes I can go whenever I want to, and I'd still always be welcome. More than the lectures or the practicals you attend, it's always the people you hang out with that you miss, but in this case, when I know that they too won't be coming to college anymore, I don't seem to miss them that much. I can always meet them otherwise too.
What I would *really* miss is the routine, the time spent at the chai corner, in and around Iranis, Classic, Family Park, Pritam, juice place, the Don Bosco church etc. I look forward not to attend a lecture or to necessarily enter the campus, but to be at the chai corner or somewhere around college discussing the previous day's events with my friends. I look forward to familiar faces and familiar places that make me feel so safe.
College gives you a place to go to everyday- gives you something to do every morning. When nothing else is going right, it is still there and it has been there for me for seven years now. That's the best part about routine. Amidst all the uncertainty that we live in, routine is the one thing that's stable. As Maithili had very nicely put, "Routine is the only thing that's there for me when nothing else is." So routine is not necessarily always a bad thing. It keeps you sane, keeps you moving, makes you believe that everything is still just the way it was.
More than bidding farewell to college and my friends there, I think it's time to say goodbye to the routine that I have been following for so many years. No more will I HAVE to get up early in the morning for a lecture, or HAVE to come home tired in the afternoon after practicals and go to bed early whining about having to go back the next day. However much boring that it sounds, I shall miss it very much.
