I read Five Point Someone authored by Chetan Bhagat. Small & simple story, WELL TOLD. It is the narration that stands out more than anything else. The lucid yet piquant style of the author succeeds in etching the characters and the plot in the reader's mind. Right through the simple narrative the writer guides an undercurrent of hilarity and sarcasm aimed at the IIT education system and self important professors. A student of any college can empathise with the characters and would have themselves had an experience of surviving amongst characters as described in the novel. It would also serve as a reminiscent of those college days where one would have grappled with the tough choice of whether to enjoy the freedom of life or labour for better academic scores.
Heard that the author has published another novel titled "One night at the call centre." I need to grab it.

To the surreal world of Gods, Men and Demons ..
I read Homer's "Odyssey" retold by Geraldine McCaughrean last night.
It is not always so easy to carry oneself around in the real world. Especially when you have to work with an application that at times shows you a wait screen while fetching the data from what seems to be a database placed outside the milky way. Click on a button and then stare into the monitor in anticipation of a "never seen before" error, a wait that makes you express all the emotions from curiosity through anxiety through agony through hopelessness. Finally the UI draws itself out, bringing tears of joy in your eyes ! Boo Hoo :-( .
If that was real, then i wanted to have a taste of the surreal, a walk through the wildest imaginations of men, through a world of demons and wild beasts. I hopped on to the ship of Odysseus, returning from Troy and was dragged into a tumultuos world inhabited by One eyed giants, a floating kingdom whose ruler had trapped the ocean winds in a bag followed by a travel through the world of the dead, screaming dragons and wrathful gods.
Aaaaha, there is no better antidote to a dry day that a fantasy.

How true is truth ?

I just finished reading Bill Clinton's MY LIFE (Early Years) . Every Autobiography claims to be a soul searching memoir in which the person gives a first hand account of the incidents in which he had been a party. And whenever the writer attempts to finally come out in an uncreased, unstained white robe, iam amused. Do people always tell the truth in their autobiographies ? :-) Or do they tell what they want others to think is the truth. Anyway, it would be my fault if i buy a biography expecting nothing but truth in it. Mr. Clinton has not mentioned about any Machiavellian tactic that he had ever used. He has not mentioned about ever intentionally harming or deceiving anyone. Such a confession coming from a person who has been immersed in the turbulence of American politics all his life, puts me in a quandary.
I have also read elsewhere that there have been claims of Mahatma Gandhi dropping several contentious issues from his autobiography. Now let me grab a copy of Mein Kampf. If everyone claims to be fair, why is history replete with stories of deceit and cruelty ?
Well, may be two rights pulling in different directions call eachother "wrong" ! If every act can be justified by some theory, there are no wrongs per se. It is an absorbing activity to read autobiographies and then regurgitate them. When a person's life that spans several decades is laid down on a few hundred sheets of paper, they should naturally thrum with wisdom. Wisdom that was passed on to him by men before him, Wisdom gained through painstaking experiences, Wisdom that would be the beacon if one ever stands at the same cross roads. And they are laid down before the readers who can reflect on them and think of wiser ways to deal with a situation or learn the wiser way from the pages.