A step forward in time..

What if you had a glimpse of a day, say 10 years into future? Or maybe you could travel in time to the future and you see what happens to you then? What if you find out its not what you expect it to be today? I guess there is no question necessary if you find out that everything is exactly as you wanted it to be. Would you think its fate and resign yourself to what you saw? Or would you try to change whats to come? I'm sure you must be thinking what brought this on. Three things actually :).

First was a book I read called "FlashForward" by Robert J Sawyer. Its about a huge experiment resulting in most people in the world having a "flashforward" for a few moments where they see a glimpse of what they are doing 20 years in the future. There are 2 main protagonists - one of whom is engaged to one girl, but sees himself married to another woman, while the other doesn't see anything, which they later discover to mean that the person is dead. The former guy thinks that the future cannot be changed, so he starts thinking about breaking up with his fiancee, since he thinks thats what is going to happen anyways (indirectly causing the thing himself). The latter guy becomes obsessed with his death and determines he shouldn't die, so he tries to find people who know something about his death! I won't tell you what the outcome is, in case you are interested in reading the book (I'd suggest you don't look at the Wikipedia link either) ;-). Its two opposing attitudes which result in very unexpected results..

Second was another book called "The Time Traveler's wife" by Audrey Niffenegger . Its about a guy time-traveling all over the different times and finding out stuff long before he would normally find out. Its a beautiful book about the relationship between the guy and his wife, while the guy is jumping all over time. Some of the time travel concepts are not really "logical" (as if time travel itself is logical :-D), but its a book worth reading. In the book, the logic is that you can't change what's going to happen. But then again would you be able to go on if you knew things would end badly?

Lastly I saw a movie on the same concept, "Premonition" starring Sandra Bullock. The movie itself wasn't anything great, but again on the same concept that I'm talking about. We always hope that things are as good or better for us in the future. What would you do if you knew they weren't? Its a very scary thought. More scary is death (there, I said it). I don't fear death for myself but I'm very scared about my loved ones. I pray that no harm come to them and whatever harm may go through me first (on a different track, there is a saying that we are selfish in the matter of death too. We never think that others will suffer if we die, but just pray that we don't suffer ourselves!). Still its scary. So the best thing to do is to stop thinking about what will/won't happen in the future and to live in the moment as much as possible.

On the same note, 10 years ago, if you had asked me what I expected 10 years from then, it'd be pretty much as it is today. I'd certainly have thought that I'd be managing a career as well, but I'm glad that it is what it is. And I'd probably have imagined my life with my-then-current-infatuation, but this life with Sri is wayyyy better ;-). Well, I have some of my past infatuations on social networking sites as friends and lets just say that now I know whatever happens, happens for the good :-D. I am so so glad to have met Sri when I did and to have what I have with him. And no matter what happens tomorrow, I'll always have this :).

Just putting a song which tallies with the situation, Pink singing "Who Knew?" (the video isn't anything great, but the lyrics somehow are)..

Thanks to GAMBITGODDESS for the video.

As the song says, count your blessings now :).

Buh-bye Potter!

Well, not really an actual good-bye. I mean there are still movies to come, a huge Harry Potter park to be built and I'm sure many more generations will enjoy the series. But still, its kinda weird knowing that there is no new "Harry Potter" book coming from Joanne K Rowling (or Jo as fans call her) again. Just to lay the ground rules, I'm not going to be disclosing any spoilers from the latest and the last in the series - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and will try not to reveal anything of the other books just in case. Its just going to be about how I feel now that the series is over and I have read them all :).




Believe me when I say, I am not one of the insane Harry Potter fans. I have to admit that I have been quite addicted since I read the first book "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone". And I didn't read it until 2 years ago! It was only after the release of the 6th book in the series "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", that I wanted to know what the fuss was all about. In fact, I also knew of the major spoiler of the 6th book before I read the 1st one :-D. The worse thing was that I had already watched the 1st movie. Obviously the book is much much more than the movie. You can't really expect them to fit the whole book inside a 1.5 to 2 hour movie anyways :-p.

Since I was already in US by this time, getting the books was pretty easy and I pretty much gobbled them all up. I am one of those people who grew up on Enid Blyton books. Even though my favourite series of hers will always be the Five Find-outers and Famous Five, I loved the boarding school stories of the Malory Towers series and the St. Claire's series. To my delight, the Harry Potter was somewhat of a boarding school story with lots and lots more. No wonder I was hooked :).

I consider myself quite a voracious reader. I have read lots of books as a child as well as an adult. But I hadn't seen anything like Jo's imagination in the Harry Potter books. Its a whole new magical world, if you know what I mean ;-). Though the adult in me scoffed at the idea of wizards and witches, the child in me was absolutely fascinated. Though the adult in me was not surprised at the dark side of the book, the child in me was scared. It was the ultimate in imagination to me. From magical books to magical creatures, from the widely etched characters to the weird curses/jinxes/charms, it is a whole new world. A book for both kids and adults to enjoy, all thanks to Jo :).

Well, as I said I finished the first 6 books ("Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone", "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", "Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and "Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince") in probably 2 weeks. I was excited about reading the final book. When it was announced that the 7th book would be published on July 21st 2007, it was certainly a thing to look forward to. But as I mentioned, since I'm not "insane" enough a fan, I never pre-ordered it. I placed it on hold in the library and was in the 36th position for recieving the book. I knew it'd take time, so I thought that I'd probably run to Barnes and Nobles bookstore on 21st, settle there for 4 hours and finish the book :-D. I'd have the library hold for the re-read anyways ;-). And if I couldn't go to the book store for some reason, then I had even planned to avoid the net for a period of time until I could read the book. Man, the spoilers are like ants crawling everywhere!

But life has a thing of springing surprises when you least expect it. Someday about one week before the release date of the 7th book, I got a letter from the library saying since I was one of the first 150 people to place the book on hold, they'll be giving it to me (giving as in lending :-D) on July 21st at 12 AM itself!! Looks like the library is full of Harry Potter fans too ;-). They even had a get-together organized at 10 PM with some Harry Potter activities :-D. Just look at my luck!! I called and confirmed the next day itself that I'd be there. I also placed all the previous books in the series on hold and borrowed them, so I could re-read them once before reading the final book :-D.

And so on the release day, we had dinner and went to the library (They had food, but we vegetarians have to be careful ;-) :-D). We still had 2 hours to go to collect the book, but I had a very nice time playing a Harry Potter scavenging hunt (its like a treasure hunt where there are clues) for the time. They also had a costume contest, trivia quiz, some games like chess and cards, some crafts etc. At about 11:45 PM, they distributed prizes. Well, I didn't get any as I couldn't even complete the scavenging hunt :-p. Then it was 12 AM and those who attended were lent books. And so I had/have the "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in my hand :).

I read the first 200 pages that night itself (it was about 2 AM when I slept that night :-\). I finished the book within 11:30 AM next morning. So within about 12 hours of getting the book, I was done :). Now this is where my feelings come into picture. The story is wonderfully written, I felt no part was incomplete. Yet I was a bit disappointed. I don't know whether this is because of the fact that this is the final Harry Potter book or whether my expectations were too high. Maybe it wasn't as grand and tragic as I expected it to be or maybe I had read too many theories to be satisfied with the way it went. There were some parts which went the way I expected them to and others totally unexpected. There were some parts which stood out and which I really loved, but there were quite others where I was bored and wondered where the heck it was all going. Generally, I liked the way it went and ended. It felt like a good closure. But somehow it all seemed too convenient, too easy. Well, those who have read the book will know what I mean. And as somebody else said, I liked the book, but I didn't love it :). Again doesn't mean I hated it. To be short it was a 3.5 stars out of a 5 rather than a 5 out of 5 from me..

But all this doesn't mean that I haven't enjoyed the series. It was the best I have ever read and as a whole constitutes some of the best books I have ever read. And it is an experience worth repeating. Well, which is why I am reading the whole series once again as of now {smiles sheepishly} and hence the Harry Potter books are the only ones right now on my shelf :-D.




It feels nice to have the whole series in my hand :-D.

And I'm sure after some period of time, I'll be re-reading the series a couple of more times just for the experience and recommending it to people who like to give themselves up to a highly imaginative story and believe in magical worlds like me...

Update: If you really want to know why I felt disappointed, you can visit the Mugglenet forums, The Deathly Hallows Discussion, "Deathy Hallows: A disappointment?" thread, Page 17 :-D. The longest post is mine :-D. I have not put the link directly as it'd have led to spoilers ;-).

Magic of Mandrake :)

If you are my age and you haven't heard of Indrajal comics' Phantom and Mandrake, that would be weird :-p. C'mon not even one comic book of Phantom or Mandrake? They are even featured as strips in newspapers! Well, its certainly your loss and you definitely have a chance to make up for it.

I've always been fond of comics, since I can't really remember when :). I think I probably started off with Tinkle, but am not really sure. My cousins had this collection of Phantom and Mandrake comics that I'd gorge myself on :-D. Then there was borrowing from friends and reading. Still later we were living in this rented house where the owners lived above us (they were a very sweet old couple, I am guessing they are no more now :( ), there was this old storeroom in their house and I remember discovering this huge collection of comics there :)). The mysterious Phantom with his horse Hero and wolf Devil, his wife Diana and kids, nephew Rex, wow, there was so much to read. More so Mandrake, his fascinating magic, his friend Lothar, girlfriend Narda, cook Hojo, I was very ready to get swept away by the adventures.






I was more into Mandrake than Phantom. Who could forget the magic school, Mandrake's evil twin Derek and his evil teached Lucifer, the magic cube, his encounters with a rich oil sheik (who crashes their plane and kidnaps the whole bunch), with the future people (who take 6 year old geniuses and their families from all times to control the world in the future), with the invisible scientist (whose formula can put a city to sleep in 6 seconds :-D) and so many others. Man!! Did I want more!!

And this was all before I discovered Asterix, Calvin & Hobbes and Garfield. Yes my comics-interests have widened, but doesn't mean that I can actually forget the old ones I loved. I tried searching for the old ones in the libraries here and nope, sadly none could be found. As my quest pregressed (searching nooks and corners on the internet :-D), I found this amazing place which was here in blogspot all along!

The Comic Project

A place where some like-minded kind souls are actually scanning their old comic books for desperate people like me :-D. In addition to Mandrake and Phantom, there are also Bahadur, Flash Gordon and other Indrajal comics being scanned (I don't read any of these, so I might be "weird" according to their fans :-D). I've finished about 3 months of archives for now and there are more than 15 more months to go!!

Well I for one, certainly didn't want to keep such a goody for myself. So spread the word people, you never know who will turn out to be a Indrajal fan around you :).

So what's booking?

So whats cooking? Books, books and more books :-D. In the past one and a half months, I guess I have read more than 20 books!! Have I found some kind of a treasure? Yup, of sorts :).

I've always been fond of good books. Reading has been one of my all-time hobbies. I can finish some motu motu novels in hours if I put my mind on it :-D. So since I came to US and heard there are public libraries here in Lexington, wanted to become a member and see what books I can find. But all the 5 branches of the lexington public library were somewhat far away to our previous apartment, hence never made it to them then ;-). As soon as we shifted to our now home, we found that there was one branch very near to our current home. So, finally the day of becoming a library member had arrived :).

It was a lovely surprise when actually went on to become a member. All it takes is a photo id and proof of residence. No money!! Not even a single paisa or should I say cent ;-) :-D. I still don't have a photo id except for my passport and so Sri became a member showing his driving license. I had thought we'll go the next day again and I'll become a member. But it sorta became irrelevant when we found that you could borrow, not 2, not 10, but 35 books at a time!! What the heck were we going to do with 70? :-D.

At first, I was disappointed with the library near my place. It was a bit smaller than what I had imagined to be and there didn't seem to be many books around. But soon the disappointment changed into another pleasant surprise, when we found out you could borrow books from any branch and return anywhere!! Better is the online system. You can search for the books you want and place a hold to collect them in some particular branch of library. If they are available in some other branch, they are actually transported to the one where you want to collect!! You just go to the library and collect them from the counter where they have it waiting for 7 days :). The online site is here, if you want to take a look. You can place holds, check the due dates of the books with you, renew once, all online :).

This scheme of things is not only in Lexington, but in every city in US. So how do they maintain all this, if they aren't taking any money for membership? The money is being looted out of us in another way, but I don't have any complaints since its being put to good use. The income tax here in US is divided into something called Federal tax, State tax and County tax. The Federal tax percentage is comparitively less when compared to the State and County taxes. The county tax is used in laying roads and basically cleaning up that particular county. And it is used for that purpose!! Thats why the roads are what they are here in US. I believe the state taxes go into maintaining these public libraries.

I remember we have some public libraries in India too. The insides of most of them look like a haunted castle, with dust and cobwebs. No cleaning up, no maintenance plus ollllld ollllllld books. No latest books except for some magazines and newspapers. After all you can't keep ancient newspapers, warna they'd probably have had them and no new ones :-p. Here you can get the latest books, DVD and video casettes for borrowal. Of course there is a fee if you forget the due date. If you are within due date, then no fee, nothing. Just shows how things go if taxpayers' money is put into good use, which sadly is lacking in India. Not that there isn't any corruption here, but atleast some part of the money actually is going into good purposes!!

So far, I have ready many collections of Calvin n Hobbes and Garfield in comics and read lots of novels I've been wanting to read for sometime now - Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons", John Grisham's latest "The Broker", Frederick Forsyth's "Avenger", "The Day of the Jackal" and "The Odessa File". Already on hold are Frederick Forsyth's "No Comebacks", Dan Brown's "The Deception point" and "Digital Fortress". Should be finishing them by next week :-D. Frederick Forsyth is my all time favourite author and the best part is, all of his books, I repeat, ALL OF HIS BOOKS, are available in the library. So plan to read a couple of them again :-D. Haven't borrowed any DVD's till now, 'cause my mind's on books right now.

While I have been hogging on my favourite fiction novels, Sri's been reading up on non-fiction and we both are enjoying the library assets in our own ways :). He also made me read Stephen Hawking's non fiction "A Brief History of Time" and yeah, it felt like I was reading a physics text book after oh-so-long :). He also has "Interpretations of Dreams" by Sigmund Freud on hold for me. I have loads and loads to read and yup, I'm lovin' it :-D. And so my love affair with books continues.......... :) :).

A guide to The HitchHiker's guide to the galaxy

I came across "The HitchHiker's guide to the galaxy" by Douglas Adams sometime in December last year. The credit purely goes to Darsh for insisting that I read it (and later read it FAST as the copy was a friend's and he had to return it!!!). I read "The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide" which is a consolidation of all the 6 consequent stories that Douglas Adams wrote. I have never read such a totally crazy assortment of ideas and imagination which suddenly somehow manage to convey such a deep meaning at certain situations (wow, even I can come up with a really complicated statement :-D). Only a person who has managed to read the book can know what I mean.

So why am I talking about it now? When I read it, I was so impressed with some of the dialogues in the book that I actually made a note of three of them (believe me, I don't make a habit out of it!) and I found these notes in my drawer today :) And blog-crazy that I've become, what better way to preserve them than to put them in my blog? :-D Lets start with the first one:

"This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole, it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."

Now isn't that something? What a way to state that money is not important!! Here's the second one:

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced with something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another which states that this has already happened."

:-D. All these particular theories are purely from the brilliant imagination of the author :) Imagine! Somebody might have already come up with an explanation for the universe and the universe was replaced by what we have today! Boggles the mind, doesn't it? Ok the last one:

"In the beginning, the universe was created; This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

:))))))) Take that, thou who complain about the creation of universe and its effects :-D.

So, if anyone wants to read this book on the basis of this post, here's my disclaimer:

"The author of this post is not responsible for the giggles, frowns and headaches that might be induced in the reader who is reading the above mentioned book. If there is any cause for complaint then the comments should be sent directly to the publishers of the above-mentioned book and not to the author of this post."

Hehehee. All I can say is that, if you decide to read this book, be ready for a wild frustrating ride of 768 pages :)) Enjoy maadi :-D.