On and on and on...

I think I probably think about writing a new post once every week... at least. Just havent got around to it lately. I guess most of April and May went in working out the details of Li'l S's birthday party. My son turned 5 in May, and we had a blast of a party. Thanks to brothers and friends who travelled distances to come down and make the day special. My parents, my grandmom, they all came down to Bangalore. Its a rich feeling to have people you love around you, and it made my boy's 5th birthday truly special.


Other than that, work as usual kept my all wrapped up. There were a couple of good books i read though. Finished Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel, last years Booker prize winner. It was a really good book, and also kindof challenging. Its densely populated with characters, full of the atmosphere of 16th century England, there isnt as much happening as you would expect from a book this size.. its close to 700 pages. But what it provides, is a wonderful character study of Thomas Cromwell, who grows from being the son of a blacksmith, to the king's right hand man, the most powerful man in England.

One section of the book is called Arrange Your Face, in which Cromwell realizes the importance of never showing his internal emotions on his face. Whether it is fury or sorrow, triumph or defeat, arrange your face to only show the emotion which is apt for the occasion, which will not allow anyone to truly judge what you are thinking. It is the one key point i took away from this magnificent book. Beautifully written and captivating.

Read Josh Bazell's "Beat the Reaper", excellent fast paced thriller about a former hitman trying to avoid being caught by the mob men he has been trying to avoid through the witness protection program. Its very funny and full of shocking details, most of them about the medical profession as our hero goes about his day as a doctor. A patient recognizes him from his past life and threatens to let his pursuers know about his location unless he can ensure that the patient doesnt die! But this would require a miracle since he has stomach cancer, all our hero can do is try to make him live a little longer than the 6 hours of life left for him!

Re-read "The Green Mile", Stephen King's wonderful novel about the happenings in a prison during depression-era America. Stephen King has a wonderful talent for making his stories believable, making you empathize for the characters and here he builds such a wonderful portrait of the guards who work at the prison, whose job is not just to guard the prisoners, but also ensure their last few days on earth arent any worse than they need to be. And in the middle of this, comes a new prisoner convicted of the most hideous of crimes, but who seems strangely unlikely to have really done something so awful.




Right now, I am re-reading another wonderful novel - "To kill a mockingbird" by Harper Lee, courtesy of a friend who loaned it out to me. Had read this book ages ago, probably in my teens, and always remembered its wonderful characters and the precocious naration by the little Scout Finch. But now that I have a child of my own, i can truly feel wonder at how perfectly Harper Lee captured the essence of childhood - the games which the kids make up together, the bravado of the older Jem Finch, the tiny Dill being forced to play character roles, Scout's complaints about her nanny Calpurnia and her teachers who always seem to misunderstand her. More than anything, I can understand the difficulty children have in expressing their opinions or feelings to adults, who arent all as bright and clear-headed as Atticus Finch. And this difficulty is also captured so beautifully by Ms. Lee. I truly feel its one of the greatest books ever written from the perspective of a child.




On to music then! My brother brought a few albums down for me, recommendations included Slash's new album, Kasabian, Chickenfoot and Chicane!


I have to say, I think Slash is just brilliant. The album consists of collaborations between Slash and a bunch of mostly comparatively newer musicians - including Adam Levine of Maroon5 on "Gotten", Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother on the brilliant "By the sword", Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge on the excellent "Back from Cali" and "Starlight". My favourites from this album are "By the sword", "Back from Cali", "Promise" with Chris Cornell providing the vocals, and a brilliant number called "Saint is a sinner too" which features indie-rocker Rocco De Luca. Brilliant album, check it out!

I have been listening to a lot more music too, and just want to add a song which I am completely possessed by at the moment. Its by the strangely, but fantastically named band Death Cab for Cutie and the song is "I will possess your heart"! Did you ever hear "Every breath you take" by Police back in the 80's and get the feeling that this has got to be the anthem for all stalkers?? Well, here is the new anthem for stalkers, circa 2010! At one level, i guess the lyrics could be thought of as relating to never dying love! But at another level, it sure seems a bit creepy! But as Brian Tellis, one of the first RJ's playing rock music on India's FM channel once said, enjoy the music but dont take the message to heart!

Here's the brilliant song by Death Cab For Cutie, with the fantastic moody intro. This intro has to be the longest ever, the vocals only start around 4.40 into the song! But love this song!

	Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

All work and no blogging...

...Makes me feel real dull!

Its interesting though. There's been some general craziness going on in life, but I guess thats pretty much normal. Isn't it?

The other day, we went to my son's school. One thing's been worrying me a bit, its that he seems scared of slides. I see other kids going on the slides all the time, and I kept wondering how to make my boy lose his fear. Finally managed it this time! :)

I think it helped that there werent too many other kids on the playground at the time. The little guy finally agreed to try the shorter slide first. Of course, initially he wanted me to hold his hand all the way up and then on the slide down too. But I could see him losing his fear and enjoying it soon enough! In fact, he went ahead and tried the taller spiral slide too, and soon it was a chore for me and S to drag him away from the playground! :)

Watching children play is a lovely feeling. The pure joy of just running around screaming your heads off, jumping around for no reason at all, every little thing becomes a game. You fall down, you check if daddy saw you, if he did - bawl a little bit while dad soothes the hurt; if he didnt, just dust yourself off and get back to it!

The image is of a painting by a child, part of a lovely collection of paintings called Art for World Friendship. Couldnt think of any better way to embellish this post.

As the days get shorter, and it gets tougher to get out of bed in the cold winter mornings, nostalgia seems to be the order of the day.

Winter has always been associated in the colder countries as an end to the beautiful season of summer. The cold winds drive away the warmth of the summer.

In India, predominantly tropical, winter has always been a solace from the heat of summer, the dampness of the monsoon. But this winter somehow finds me in a much more nostalgic mood than usual. I have always loved winter. Mumbai kids usually do. In Mumbai, winter brings with it a refreshing change from the year-round humidity. For about a month or month-and-a-half stretching across December and January, you enjoy the coolness of the breeze, and the very slight chill of the late nights. In Bangalore, of course, winters are a bit more severe and the weather all round the year can get a bit chilly everytime it rains.

Last weekend I went down to the supermarket with my son, my little helper :), to pick up the groceries from a list already provided. When buying soap, I looked down the aisle and picked up one of the soaps which used to be a symbol of the winters of my childhood! Pears transparent soaps ! Living in Mumbai, you tend to perhaps not use any of the moisturizing kind of soaps, unless its winter! And Pears used to really come into my house only in the winters. In the early 80's, I dont think there were that many options anyway, and perhaps Pears was the only available "moisturizing" soap of the time. Wikipedia tells me that Pears soaps have been in production since 1789! Thats one amazing business model!

So anyway, I picked it up again this time. And I realized again after using it, what a gorgeous fragrance this soap has! I mean, I never imagined I will ever wax eloquent about soap, but it really is worth mentioning! And everytime that fragrance hits me, it just seems to remind me of home, of those carefree days as a child. When everything was worked out by someone else, everything was made available without having to struggle for it. When life was simpler, perhaps.

Whenever I am reminded of my own childhood, I also wish that I had been a much better kid than I was, especially in the teens! I also hope fervently that my son takes more on his mom than me in that department! Parents truly are marvellous creations!

I have been reading a lot lately. Well, a 'lot' is probably over-playing it a bit. Probably, giving it a little more time than I could earlier.

The experience of a long commute to work wasnt very helpful. A lot of time was taken away by the travel, and now that I dont have to do that anymore, I am enjoying the little things in life a lot more. One of those is reading. But the biggest positive is of course, that I can spend more time at home, with my son.

Its amazing how fast kids grow up. He's already taller than my waist now, and it seems just a few months ago that he was about knee-high! But now he's a big boy, as he himself would put it!

I am reading a Dennis Lehane novel currently, a dark, troubling mystery/thriller as he usually writes. There was a passage in it, where Pat Kenzie (of the Kenzie & Gennaro investigative duo), is watching his girlfriend's little daughter play. The author describes how every time the child stumbles, takes a bigger jump than you would expect her to, does the little things that kids do, Pat feels a sense of parental anxiety that makes him worry that she would get hurt. This struck so true with me. There are so many occasions when I tell my wife to not be so over-protective towards our son, but then there are also so many times when I too find my heart in my mouth! Just this morning, he took a too-big bite off the cookie he was eating as we waited for his school bus and just then his bus comes along. I made him spit the cookie out, and he went on and got into the bus, leaving me worrying about whether I should go after him to check if he is definitely ok! Little things, sounds even littler when I put it down here, but.. I couldnt help worrying! Didnt stop thinking about it till I went and checked on him at lunch time!

So I started off thinking I will write about the books I read, but I guess I am well off track by now. Anyway, this blog is reader-free enough that I can go ahead and indulge in whatever I want to! So, book reviews will just have to wait!

Where have I been???

So February 2008 goes down as one long, weird month. Doesnt time just take its own sweet time going by? Its been a month of two parts - one small totally fun time when we went down to Hyderabad for my cousins wedding. One week of complete fun. Lotsa drinks, lotsa time with my son, watching him at his wonderful, funny, sometimes maddening, but always adorable antics. The rest of the month was just a long lonely time as my wife and son had to go to Mumbai due to an emergency with my ma-in-law.

Lets just talk about the fun week. This was my son's first long train journey, as we decided to cut costs by going to Hyd by train. It was fun to see him curious about everything. Its amazing that he doesnt feel the airport is anything special anymore, but the train station is full of wonder! And he is probably the biggest fan of the movie 'Taare Zameen Par' ! We saw the movie on the first day of its release, and usually he just goes to sleep by around the half-way mark. But this movie, with Ishaan playing an adorable but naughty kid seems to catch his fancy completely. My son has memorized practically every line from the first half of the movie - and is happy enough to repeat it for us at all times!! So in the train, when he was lying down with me on the berth, suddenly he turns to me and says - "Akela ghoom raha tha! Road pe! Look at your guts, daddy bhi nahi hai. Tujhe kuch ho jaata toh!" I couldnt stop laughing as he played out the entire scene between Ishaan and his brother Yohaan, repeating the dialogues where Ishaan begs his brother to write an absent note for him!! And he is not 3 yrs old yet! Its so funny and cute to see him try to say the dialogues and stumbling over some of the words.

Then at the wedding and the reception, he got so much space to run around that he kept everyone on their toes. One of my uncles volunteered to take him out for a little walkabout, probably seeing me and my wife frustrated with trying to keep up with our son. After a while, we looked out a window and saw my uncle running around in circles after him! Spreading the fun all around!

We Bengalis have funny marriages. I mean some of the rituals are a bit weird. Now dont go thinking Apocalypto, pulling out peoples hearts, animal sacrifice kind of weird. One of the weird rituals is that on the second night of the marriage, the groom and the bride should not even see each other from 6 in the evening till 6 AM next day. This is known as the Kaal Raatri (literally the next night).

So, my cousin - the groom - trying to get rid of his gloom, decided to come down to my hotel room for the night. My wife gave company to the bride, and of course my son stays wherever his mom is. Me and my cousin watched 'Michael Clayton" first, and then decided this is a good time to get drunk. And man, we got blown out of our minds drinking scotch all night! The two of us got through an entire litre of scotch that night. I couldnt stop laughing when, after 3-4 drinks, he says - "This Kaal Ratri is not so bad, dada"!!

All in all, a pretty cool time down in Hyderabad.

Vacation Vacation

Had a spectacular vacation.

Three weeks of free time with family, friends and just with myself. There were a couple of family occasions involved, which doesnt bother me as much as I know it does a lot of people. I guess I have a pretty cool family! Also, I loved the time I had with my son and loved watching him interact with (and gradually rule over) the entire family!


My cousins in Hyderabad are always fairly entertaining. We went out for a couple of drinks the day before one of them got engaged. And were treated to a lot of funny stories about their relationships. My younger bro seems to have picked up the idea that its real cool to ask a lot of vague, deep-sounding questions. Like - 'Dada, whats the biggest mistake you ever made?'! This, when we were sitting on the steps of a tiny shop at 11 PM, in what seemed to me a slightly disreputable part of town, smoking a couple of cigarrettes and washing it all down with cold coke's. I was sorely tempted to say 'Wishing for another brother' but avoided the temptation. I got the feeling the kid needed some advice on which of his girlfriend's he should not be dumping. I liked the one he introduced me to, and hinted as much. But kids these days, what can you say!


And I have always been very close to my grandmother. It was great to see my son enjoying her company too. Seeing her enjoying the imitations of her walking style by my two-year old and in fact making sure everyone else sees it too, was typical of her self-effacing humor. The time we spent together re-inforced my feeling that I have been blessed to have had such a warm relation with my Dida. There was also the one night she didnt feel at all well, and it worries me.


My son is fascinated with auto rickshaws! He doesnt get to ride one very often in Bangalore, and enjoyed all the auto's we took while in Mumbai. Everytime he is in an auto, he grabs on to the cross-bar behind the auto driver and acts like he is driving too. Everything the driver does, including pulling on the starter lever and waving his hands to signal a turn, is mimic'd. The funniest was when we returned from Pune at around 1 AM and caught an auto outside the bus station. Sio was asleep on the bus, but the moment he heard the auto start, he woke up and took up his post as the assistant auto driver. He actually thinks auto's are much cooler than our car!

The only thing I missed during this time were the bunch of graphic novels I left behind in Bangalore. I could have really got through a lot of them in this time, its my fascinating new obsession. Or rather I am re-discovering the love for comics which I had lost at age 10 probably. And to find the wonderful array of mature graphic novels available has been eye-opening. I wouldnt be as interested if comics still meant the grainy Phantom and Mandrake comics of my childhood - though there's nothing wrong with them, its just that I need a more mature aspect to the plot lines. There will certainly be a large number of posts in the future related to the comics I have on my reading list.

Anyway, I did have the wonderful Shashi Tharoor's novel, The Great Indian Novel with me on my vacation. And its a brilliant read. I'm still not done with it though, so more on it later.

This is probably going to be my last post this year, so wishing any stray reader a Very Happy New Year!