The Immortals of Meluha

The part 1 of Siva trilogy. The No 1 National best seller of the year 2010. Most of all my favorite genre Mythology. When the recent super hero films delve with the psyche of the normal human behavior, why not gods also. Thinking about it I looked back as to who started this revolution. I guess Sam Raimi and Christoper Nolan gets the credit.

Its very hard to believe fiction wrapped with mythology. Maintaining integrity with the myths is the key thing. It reflects the amount of research done by the author. In the first chapter, Amish Tripathi says Siva is a Tibetian. Now how and why does he say that ? I have never heard of that myth. Might be a strong reason to do so. As you read you forget the myths surrounding it and you get immersed into the story. Sometimes I got a feeling that I am reading a script of a Bollywood story.

In the real mythology, Daksha hates Shiva. But here Daksha worships Shiva. Overall it matches with the real mythology here and there. The dialogues seem to be management buzzwords proving Amish Tripathi is an IIM passout.

The one thing that I liked about this book was the scientific perspective. Really awesome. And the love between Siva and Sati. Brilliant

Irandavadhu Kadhal kadhai

It has been quite some time since I posted. Not that I did not read any novels but I found myself repeating my lines for every book.

But today after reading this, I find it compulsive to write about this book. A perfect novel on feminism by Sujatha. I love this writer. Every man she comes across in her life starting from her dad, lover, husband everybody cheats her. She is highly innocent and mildly arrogant in the beginning. Just read this novel and see how these traits interchange as she is deceived more and more. Even after reaching the sky, when she finally identifies a perfect match for her, she is again disappointed.

After deeply analyzing this novel I identified two things.

One: Though a feminist novel the protagonist reaches success with the help of two men. Of which one helps her for purely selfish reasons. May be Sujatha wanted to make this point. That makes this novel a pseudo feminist novel

Two: Is it right to gain success without any moral values ? Thats what the protagonist according to me does in this novel. She uses the shares given to her by her father. She uses these to gain majority and throws her father out of the company. Maybe that is what reality is all about. A fruit for thought.

Does it sound like Kate Blackwell in "Master of the Game" by Sidney Sheldon ?

Kadahla ? Ithu kadhala

Suggested by mom I read this short promising story by Inthira Soundarajan. During my child hood days I have seen Marma Desam, Vidathu Karuppu - a mystery / thriller television serial, and I have seen his name during the opening song. I saw his wiki page. Nowhere it was specified he was a romantic writer. But I gave it a try. As expected it was a mystery story.

From the beginning it surprised me with unexpected twists. Parallel Narrative has helped, to make it more faster. In the beginning of the story I thought it was about Red Light Area / Prostitution. But the story takes an U-turn when Anjali and Sankaran meets. There are still some outstanding questions when the book is over.

Neuromancer

My first cyberpunk novel. It is difficult to read because of complex usage of words and slang. The story was not gripping considering that most of the cyberpunk movies are.

"So what's the score ? How are things ? You god ?"

"Things are things. Things aren't any different"

I guess I wont go for the other two in sprawl trilogy.

Thappithal Thapillai

This comes along with "Illamayil Kol" novel. So its easy to miss. A man finds that his wife has illicit relationship. Draws a plan to kill her. But the story is because he is a good and shy guy and doesn't protest. The conclusion is very daring. After completing it I was like WTF. Does he really mean the title ?

The narrative is third person narrative by author. The novel is thrilling in occasions when the protagonist often gets a chance of killing. Sujatha also brings in the concept of Soap murderer (சோப்பு கொலைகாரன்).

The conclusion makes you think. But that depends on who reads the book

Illamayil Kol

Actor Vijay's dialogue of "வாழ்கை ஒரு வட்டம் டா" in Thirumalai conjured up when writing about this Sujatha novel. The story is about the consequences of a false witness. The case fails. And slowly he finds himself in the same situation.

Not so pacing when compared to other Sujatha novels. I cant avoid laughing in Landmark after seeing the title and I cant avoid buying it. But the touches are there but not enough to make it interesting and pacing.

"என்ன விடுதல பண்ணிட்டாங்க. இதுனால நீதி ஜெய்சுதுனு சொல்ல வரல"

Well the relationship between brothers, psychic love are well handled. Narrative is in the first person point of view. Just a past-time.

Ttyl

Warning: May contain spoilers

How I came to know about this book ? Once I was chatting with a HR, and when she was intending to sign off she typed ttyl. I did a google definitions search and the first result was this book. This is the first novel to be written wholly in instant-messaging format.

The story revolves around three girls in tenth grade - zoegirl, madmaddie and SnowAngel.

zoegirl is caught up with a flirty teacher Mr.H. She likes him in the beginning. As the novel winds up to an end, she hates him for some reason. She is fine with Mr.H flirting with her but doesn't want to date at the end. Well there is something wrong with the characterization there.

madmaddie is the character I like the most. She befriends jana but jana calls her to a party and illtreats her in front of everyone. And she sends her nude pics to everyone in the school. She hates her friends zoegirl and SnowAngel for backbiting about her.

The autoresponse from madmaddie after a quarrel with zoegirl and SnowAngel is hilarious:

"Everybody were kung fu fighting
But those jerks were fast as lightning"

And SnowAngel leaves her a message to change her autoresponse. And the next time she pings,

"Shove it up your ass"

SnowAngel is a bit romantic, sometimes jealous and sometimes selfish character. She loses her boy friends as fast as she befriends them. And all she does is cry over the spilt milk.

Thats it. These winsome threesome talk about these issues daily over IM. End of story.

Having said all these one token of appreciation to lauren myracle - the IM lingo is precisely adapted in the novel. That made me order the sequel - ttfn.

The Purloined Letter

Undeniably it is the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes - first person narration by close friend (an anonymous person), intelligent detective who is constantly smoking using pipe (meerschaum) - Augustine Dupin.

This novel has three steps:

1. problem,
   
2. solution,
   
3. reason
   

- a typical detective novel.

The reasoning is awesome just as a mathematician would do. The analogies are brilliant - "Even and Odd", "Game of puzzles in a map".

But the astuteness of the detective is unacceptable sometimes. For instance Dupin's reasoning about the minister is as follows:

"As a poet and a mathematician he would reason well. But as a mere mathematician he could not have reasoned at all"

And there is again a reasoning for this statement too.

"The odds are that every popular idea, every accepted convention is a nonsense because it has suited the majority" - Chamfort

And from the novel, I feel that Edgar Allen Poe seems to have grudge on the Parisian Police. The statement "Even a school boy is a better reasoner than he" proves it. The story is about Dupin's knowledge of the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber.

Through the looking glass

I read this book because it is one of the best example of literary nonsense. The book has scope for many interpretations. It is a children's classic yet an intellectual one. Honestly the interpretations seems to be a good read. To a child it will seem like Alice has fallen into a glass and meets various creatures in wonderland. But to an intellect it is rather different. It is evident in dialogues.

The prose is filled with poems / rhymes. Lewis Carroll mocks the english literature more often.

When told Alice that she should speak only when spoken too, she replies:

"But if everybody obeyed the rule and if you only speak only if spoken too and if the other person waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything"

Lewis Carroll is a logician. That is also evident in such dialogues.

Alice is true about Jabberwocky poem. It is really hard to understand. I have to google it to understand it. But later Humpty Dumpty seems to explain it.

The book is anthropomorphic except Alice, red queen and white queen. There is also a suspense in the story as to why all the poems, one way or the other are related to fishes.

Having said all this it was rather boring to me. Maybe because I didn't read too much between the lines. Maybe because I didn't read Alice in Wonderland to start with. Maybe because I am not an intelluctual.

Yudham Sei

Warning: May contain spoilers.

Mysskin, Cheran. These are the names that I knew before going to this movie. Some where in a one-way road in Villivaakam is a theatre called AGS cinemas. This was the first time I went there and I was already 10 minutes late to the movie.

The story is bit complicated. A CID officer when in solving a case comes to know another case (to which he is personally attached) is related to it. And in the midst of solving a case, opens up many number of cases. And everything seems to be related to one huge scandal.

Narrative is linear. Often filled with witness perception which are shown in flash-backs.

Cinematography is awesome particularly the night scenes. About 80% of the scenes happen at night. But it is really irritating when the camera angles become redundant (one example is often showing legs and bottom angle shots. I wanted to shout "Legs don't show emotion").

BGM is great and music director has used silence to his advantage.

Another thing I noticed is dialogues. Often it seems like only one character is talking to me. The dialogues are monotonous(not in dialogue delivery but in the quotient) and doesn't show any difference.

Editing is great. It is quintessential in the movie because scenes switch between current and flashback version often that too in the same location. An example is when the inspector narrates about the case that happened in the station. Camera moves forward and the scenes are in flashback mode.

This movie is very well thought but according to me, not executed to its 100%.

"Observer is observed" by Jiddu Krishnamurthy.

Hmm. How about "Every object is staring at you" by James Elkins. Potentially everyone are observers and everyone are observed.

Irul Varum Neram

Yet another Sujatha novel. In short it is about the consequences of a rape incident and the behavioral change between the affected couple.

The narrative of the story is dialogue-oriented while the description is in third person. The narrative style is linear, alternating point of view between husband-wife, inspector, witness and the accused. Although linear, very few times the author uses non-linear style to show the romance between husband and wife.

The characterization is brilliant and is portrayed through dialogues. Professor and his wife through english and tamil mixed dialogues, inspector through his sacrcastic dialogues and mixed mind of the accused. One such instance is when mother of accused says

'அன்னையும் பிதாவும்' அப்பிடின்னு என்னமோ சொல்வாங்களே அதை அவனிடம் சொல்லு

This dialogue portrays the illiterate, uneducated mother.

The story doesn't seem to lose its pace anywhere in between. Few dialogues remain in heart even after completing the book.

சட்டம்ங்கிரது சாக்கடையில வைரம் எடுக்கிற மாதிரி.

நாமெல்லாம் நல்ல டிரஸ் போட்டுண்டு இருக்கோம், இந்த சகதிலே கால் வைக்க முடியாது.

A nice read.

SukaSaptati

I ordered this book from flipkart after studying a tale from 'World Tales' by Idries Shah. The wiki page on SukaSaptati made me order this book instantly. I wanted to study this book mainly to compare it with Arabian Nights and get to know the katha literature. At first I thought both were almost the same and only the situation in which the story has been told is different. Scheherazade saving herself from the king v/s Parrot preventing master's wife (Prabhavati) from going to paramour.

But the approach that parrot follows is entirely different. It challenges the mistress in the beginning.

'Go to your love if you have the wit like some X had',

'Go if you know how to protect yourself like some X in this story had',

'Go if you know how to answer difficult questions like some X in some Y city had'.

Actually sometimes it looks like parrot is encouraging the mistress to go out. In one story the parrot states

'You should certainly go. That is my definite view, for who can prevent the mind from seeking what it wants and water from flowing downwards'.

After such statements been made, curiosity kills Prabhavati and asks the parrot for explanation. Then the parrot starts to spin the tale.

Almost all stories depict illicit liasions and clever escapades. Very few stories are from Panchatantra which depict cleverness, intelligence and moral values. (Eg:- Tiger Slayer, Wise Swan)

The parrot keeps on narrating the story and when the story reaches the climax / tipping point or when a character is in danger, the parrot stops narrating and asks Prabhavati what the character would have done in such adversity. It is also a question put to the reader. ( Some times I get it right ;) Honestly I dont want to fall into such situations) Prabhavati always says 'No' and she is so involved that she doesn't even want to guess.

At the end mistress decides that she doesn't have the skill and goes to sleep alone. I thoroughly enjoyed the parrot character, its narration and songs.

That said songs in between narration looks like cinematic dialogues.

Is there any skill
in cheating one who trusts you ?
And is it brave to kill
one who sleeps in your arms ?

Yet another example is

You should do what's done to you,
if you are hit, then hit right back;
if he plucks feathers from my wing,
the hair I'll pull out from his head

But final story doesn't seem like compromising the husband from forgiving his wife.

Finally my objective was over. Here are some of the differences I noted between Arabian Nights and Sukasaptati.

Factor	Arabian Night	Sukasaptati
Narrator	A girl named Scheherazade who is vizier’s daughter	A parrot
Reason for narration	Shahrayar, the king marries a beautiful girl every day and kills her in the morning. To save her life Scheherazade starts telling stories in the night.	Prabhavati’s thirst for love increases after being dejected by her husband. Advised by evil friends she decides to go to meet her paramour at night. Being a loyal servant, the parrot prevents her from going out by narrating stories
Story Stops	Scheherazade stops the story abruptly since dawn is breaking	Parrot stops the story at critical situations and asks Prabhavati how to solve it
Story concept	Mostly involves genie and love	Mostly involving illicit liasions
Story within in a story	Always employed (5 levels are there)	Twice
Addressing narrator	O master, O king, O lord	My beauty, My lady of lovely hips, Big eyes, Delicate one, lovely legs, slim waisted one, My lady of lotus face, O charming one, lady of majestic gait, dear madam
Literature	Persian	Sanskrit
End	Shahryar marries Scheherazade	Prabhavati leaves her evil thoughts and lives with her husband peacefully

Warning: Some stories are little erotic (Eg:- Tale 57 - Vikramditya and Chandralekha) ;)