My own comic book

I love comics especially the ones that are retro. I saw a cover of the comic called Plastic Man and was inspired to do this:

Saturday surprise again

It's like a conspiracy! All my surprises conspire to appear on Saturdays! Well, this Saturday I went with AquaM for some work and ended up getting our ears pierced!

It was a bright sunny morning when we entered the building and when we came out the sky was cloudy but the heat was still there. It was like being inside a warm live cocoon. I wanted to shop for some silver rings. I can never have enough of them. I was eyeing a particular kind of ring. (Btw, I wear 4 rings on my left hand. And it looks nice not like some fat bania with rings who usually plays the villain in the movies.) So we went the Old Curiosity Shop. (This is a good place to link to this, my other post about the Old Curiosity Shop.) The only problem was that the place was ridden with foreign tourists. And apart from a cursory hello the owner didn't think we were important enough to be shown stuff. He usually keeps the rings inside a cigar box tucked away under the counter. When he took it out, I thought it was slightly weird why he was offering us girls cigars!

So to help us see, he told his assistant, which I suspect was a poor relative to show us the rings while he attends to the foreign tourists. But his assistant was of no help. If I liked a ring, the guy wouldn't know the price. And to know the price he will wait politely till the owner stopped his explanation to the tourist and then ask. But it was a very long drawn process and I waited for nearly half an hour for nothing because I would like many rings but the process of politely waiting was getting on our nerves. So we paid just for one ring and left the shop. AquaM was seething with anger at being ignored like this just because we were not foreign tourists. I kind of expected it. But was worried more about the time we had lost.

We got out of there and crossed the road to Spencer's plaza ostensibly for AquaM to get her second set of ear piercings. By the time we had spotted the shop and entered, she had convinced me to try some earrings out. I had no plans to getting any piercing done. In the middle of me deciding whether I wanted this pain or not, a few young guys had walked in.

AquaM was a thorough professional. She turned one ear and then the ear and got it done in like 5 minutes. Not a squeak from her. I watched her face with a lot of attention. Not a muscle moved. As though this was a part of her daily routine. Then the shopkeeper started to egg me on. Obviously, he stood to gain from it. I thought, okay, I'm not ready for this but what the heck. The moment the guy finished with my right ear, I almost screamed out loud. It certainly was not ONE pin prick, the way it was described to me. It was a million pin pricks in one second condensed to make to feel the pain more. I screamed, "Aaaaaaooooo!" By now I was convinced that this was a BIG mistake. But I can't walk around with 3 earrings so I had to grit my teeth and bear the pain of the second one.

All this while, the bunch of guys were looking at me. Now, I didn't know that. After the shop guy was done with my piercing he turned to them and asked, "Who's next?" The whole bunch of 6 or 7 of them with rockstar T-shirts and supposedly macho walk chickened out. They said, "We will come back later!" I couldn't help laughing. I felt very bad of having deprived the shopkeeper of his customers.

AquaM said later that she hadn't seen so much drama for such a small thing since the movies. I was quite hurt. It was not a small thing for me. The earring functioned like a drill and the whole process was called "gunshot" tore through my ears. We effect such voilence on ourselves. And sometimes have become so desensitised towards pain. It's astounding.

So after that we came back home to our individual lives.

Say no to dowry and female foeticide

Creative effort: Soumyadip


I was going to write about books until reality knocked. I did see Soumyadip's post a few days back but it was after I saw San's post today that I thought I should chip in.

Let's all do our bit. It's one post for us. It's someone's life out there.

10 best reads I have ever come across - I

Jorge Louis Borges once said “I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.” Here's my list of the 10 best books that I have read in the recent past. Of course, this would need a disclaimer. Note: This list is in no particular order. It is a personal list, which means that it is not a comprehensive one. And do feel free to disagree with it!

1. Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Beg, borrow, or steal these books and read them. It's a once in a lifetime experience! The story is great and stretches the human imagination to the limit. Pullman has borrowed from mythology, Milton and spiced it with pure magic.

• In The Golden Compass, young Lyra Belacqua journeys to the far North to save her best friend and other kidnapped children from terrible experiments by evil scientists.
• In The Subtle Knife, Lyra journeys to the shimmering, haunted otherworld called Cittágazze, where she meets Will Parry. Together they travel from world to world and discover an object of extraordinary power, and uncover the truth of their own destiny.
• In The Amber Spyglass, Lyra and Will are in unspeakable danger. With help from Iorek Byrnison the armored bear and two tiny Gallivespian spies, they must journey to a dank and gray-lit world where no living soul has ever gone. The Amber Spyglass brings Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials to an astonishing conclusion.
  
  

2. Gabriel García Márquez's books. I would ordinarily suggest ALL of Márquez's books but if you can't get your hands on all of them, the crown jewel of them all- One Hundred Years of Solitude should be on your list of must reads. It was written in Spanish in 1967 and first translated into English three years later. If I had a say, I would have given Márquez the Lit Nobel just for this novel alone. The story of the Buendías in the far away imaginary land of Macondo is a pyrotechnical narrative joined by several smaller stories of the characters involved. What is considered the highlight of the book is the fact that this book introduced the world to magic realism.

3. Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra. A literary tour de force that is unforgettable because of both its characters and the plot. It spans a mind-boggling length of time starting from the 18th century till the 20th century all told from the eye for of a character who lives first as a poet and then as a monkey. It's from the typewriting monkey's perspective that we see the action. There are many strings of narratives running parallely. One is the present where the monkey uses the typewriter to convey his eventful past life. The second is the events of the 18th century till the partition of India. The third parallel narrative of the America-returned angst-ridden Abhay. While the narratives dance around each other going into contortions that bewilder as well as drive the reader to ecstasy.

4. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. I still remember when I finished reading this book. The feeling was one of complete awe. Even when I read it again, I can still find some thing or the other to discover. You could say that this book is India's answer to Márquez. But of course, they are of completely different styles. Rushdie rewrites the history of India from the perspective of Saleem Sinai who is coincidently born along with India on midnight of 14th August 1947. Rushdie uses the man Sinai as a metaphor for the nation and shows how the nation/man travels from hope and life to death and disintegration, quite literally. If you want the history of India in a nutshell, this is it. But it is a subjective nutshell.

5. Satyajit Ray's Feluda stories. I read the first Adventures of Feluda on a train from Calcutta (not Kolkata) to Madras sitting amidst good looking chinky boys who were playing the guitar. And have been hooked on it ever since. The book that is, not the boys. It twisted my world upside down. Till then, I never knew that Indian writers (I think Ray was the first Indian writer I read and loved) could write good racy intelligent crime fiction at all. I loved everything about the book. The translation was flawless. And even today I go back to the 6 or 7 of the stories. They make me feel good that I'm a Bengali (Yes, I'm honest). The plot is not simple. That's such a relief. Ray's characters are funny and real at the same time. Feluda is of course apparelled in the history of detective fiction in India. Tapesh is the Indian Watson. They are joined by the writer of cheap thrillers who is a complete foil to Feluda, Lalmohun Ganguly.

Watch out for the next 5 best reads in the next post!

Being a writer is a messy business

Some days back, Kaavya Vishwanathan made the rounds of fame hall with her chick-lit book “How Opal Mehta got kissed, got wild, and a life” chronicling the life of a fictional Opal Mehta’s attempts to become a wholesome person by getting out of her all-too-rigid life geared towards getting into Harvard.

Two days later she gets into controversy, about plagiarizing paragraphs, which she then claims to have been “inspired” to borrow a term from Bollywood and apologized for the same. Her reason? She had internalized many of the sentences that another writer had written in an almost similar plot from another writer’s work.

The legal eagles are working the nitty gritty out. I am torn between taking sides. Some of the passages are indeed very alike and it will be silly to say that she had just “internalized” them. After apologizing, she has as good as admitted that she has mugged them up, which is what incidentally will get her loads of marks has she been in an Indian University. But that’s not issue. The issue at hand is plagiarism.

I don’t mean to defend her but I have experienced many instances where various writers have influenced me. (For eg: After reading Vikram Seth’s poetry I had been influenced so much that I internalized his verse structure but wrote about a different subject.) That’s the point of good reading, right? You read the masters so that you learn the best from the best. But where does one draw the line? Should what you have learnt be just a framework and you are supposed to put in the bricks? Or can you copy the structure of the bricks a wee bit? I’m trying to figure out where she has gone wrong.

She is young and probably will survive all this. But plagiarism in fiction is a huge black mark. In academia, plagiarism comes with severe penalties. Fortunately, fiction has to go to the courts for justice.

Recently, I was trying to write something but was not happy with the result at all! That’s because, not only could I recognise which author I had been influenced by, I could tell you which story and where in the story as well. Writing something original is an enormously exhausting and scary experience. It was the most frustrating time. So, I asked a friend of mine and her answer was that there are only seven original plots in the world and that the story differs not in the tale but the way it is told. Agreed.

I guess writing is a bit like cooking. You have the same ingredients but how to put them together depends on you. A bit here and a bit there will make a world of difference. I just hope I know when to stop adding the salt.

Kaavya Update: Her books have been withdrawn from the market in the U.S. So far, no one is pressing charges.

A letter for a friend

A friend has gone to pursue her dreams. This letter is for her.

Dear _____,

Don't give up! This is what you want, then go for it. I wish you all the best! There may be some obstacles on the road, but don't you dare be bogged down by them! Sometimes, the worst of things can be a blessing in disguise. We love you and we miss you a lot.

And don't forget, keep dreaming!

Love,
AFJ

Weekend

For what I was doing in the weekend, see here. This is no crosspromotion. It's just that there is no point in writing the same thing twice.

April twenty third

Two Shakespeare posts back to back is highly unusual for me. But it's April 23rd! Apart from the Bard's birthday, it's also World Book Day and Copyright Day.

I am reading Feluda's adventures again but this time in Bangla. What are you reading?

Shakespeare's sonnets

I can't help noticing that there is an apostrophe missing in this historical document! And as far as I know Shakespeare is never hyphenated.

A suitable read

I'm very into Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy right now. The 1400-odd pages were daunting to read once but I thought I have to read it. Now, after a few months, after I have dipped myself into the story, I am so happy I tried. The first time I tried to read it, I was in college. With one week as the alloted time, I couldn't finish it since I had borrowed it from the college library. I still don't have a copy. The one I'm reading is my cousin's. But I can truthfully say that I am obsessed with it. Now, in the last few pages, the plots are being wound up. And I can't wait to get back to the lives of the suitable girl Lata, maudlin Mrs. Rupa Mehra, caring Savita, professor Pran, little Uma, carefree Maan, friendly Firoz, strict Mahesh Kapoor, the regal Nawab Sahib of Baitar, volatile Dr. Kishenchand Seth, angry Arun, glamourous Meenakshi, flirty Kakoli, diplomat Hans, moody Cuddles (the dog), spiritual Dipankar, poetic Amit, smiling Haresh, charming cricketeer Kabir, sensous Saeeda Bai and oh so many more characters.

They are all walking about in my head right now.

A post in rhyme

I was reading Vikram Seth's poetry,
So it kind of hit me,
Why not for once write in rhyme, abcb and so on.
Since, it did not seem too wrong
I thought I should try. It, of course, could be supremely stupid or nice
Maybe I could try it once or twice.

My first thought was a review in rhyme,
-I was a bit hesitant since it was my first time-
of a movie, book or TV show.
Since I had read many and seen many more.
But something about it seemed a bit off.
So I settled for a blog post (Don't scoff!)

Two paragraphs or more
Nothing that would bore
My readers: an impromptu poem was what I need.
Nothing too formal, nothing that would breed
a longer poem. So, here it is -
(I sincerely hope you won't miss this.)
No frills, no high-fi vocabulary,
No reviews, no books, nothing exemplery.
Just a few words stringed together
By rhyme, meter and some excellent hot weather,
Which I admit kept me indoors through the day,
Even though it is not even May.

This brings me to the last few lines,
At this point, I really am running out of rhymes.
If you do like it or not, there's something you can do-
How about dropping in a sentence or two?
You can even tear it apart line by line.
Anything sincere would be fine.
So I say bye for now,
With the promise to be back tomorrow.

All You Who Sleep Tonight

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above -

Know that you aren't alone
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.


Vikram Seth

Chai time

I must say I was pleasantly surprised with Soumyadip's makeover! It's amazing. I wonder if he would get me a new template too. And the cutting chai metaphor is uber cool! I am envious. (Note: not jealous, en-vi-ous) Score that out, I'm super envious! I know I'm a little late in going ga ga over his new template and all that but like I say, better late than never! :)

Great job, Soumyadip! And thanks, the first sip of that cutting chai was de-li-cious! :)

The fake-it-till-you-make-it guide to sound intelligent

Are you constantly asked for an opinion on a book and know not what to say? Then this ready to use kit will be helpful for you! All you have to do is memorize this format and substitute the words in caps with the appropriate ones.

The overall effect was like [VICTORIAN CHILDREN’S BOOK] meets [ZANY SEVENTIES T.V. SERIES] on [ILLEGAL SUBSTANCE], or listening to [ACTION FILM DIRECTOR] talk about [B-LIST DADAIST] with [GAME-SHOW HOST]. In a word: [YIDDISH EXCLAMATION]!
[ADJECTIVE] and yet [ADJECTIVE DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO PREVIOUS ADJECTIVE], this novel, against all odds (given that the author was [S&M TERM] in a [HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCE] for [NUMBER] years) combines a [FRENCH AUTHOR] ian sense of [RARE MAMMAL] power with a remarkably [GERMAN ADJECTIVE] lesson about what happens to the fate of emerging [POLITICAL UNITS], when the predominant [FINELY GRADED SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS] forgets the true meaning of [UNTRANSLATED GREEK WORD].

____
Source: Believer Mag

Fcuk sub text: The joy of reading for pleasure

I'm sure all of you would have read Sweet Valley High at some point in time or the other. I did too. Between Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. I would have been ashamed of it had I not discovered the literary joy of "studying" every "text" within reach. According to some lit crits, everything in this world can be "text." And therein lies a tale. Your neighbourhood chaiwala and his dukaan can be read from a Marxist perspective as a victim of capitalist conspiracy. In other words, everything had a sub-text. Maybe I "read" too much into things that's why. So when I came across this article which celebrates being just on the surface of things, I was shocked. It was literary blasphemy at its most extreme!

Fuck subtext. It’s all surface. And that is the pleasure. (Benfer)

And I may have started to see where she (the writer of the piece Amy Benfer) is coming from. I can't say much about the article since after paragraph 12, the website asks me to pay for it. Well, now looks like a conspiracy against free reading!

Swamped!

AquaM and Zee have swamped me with requests for portraits. It's like everybody loves AFJ! I just finished AquaM's portrait. Very cartoonish, very cool, in my humble opinion. My speciality in making portraits is that it looks nothing like the person I am drawing! Ain't that nice?

Happy New Year

It's Bengali New Year and I know I'm late. But better late than ever. Shubo Nobo Borsho to all my friends!

Also, happy new year to my Tamizh friends, happy baisakhi for my Punjabi friends as well.

Irony

Talk about irony! I posted so many posts that they can't even fit into one page! I have to click on the monthly archives to see them all in one page. Wah, kya irony hai!

Metablogging

All of us knowingly and unknowingly have been metablogging. What is metablogging? Blogging about blogs is metablogging. It's not all that boring as this definiton shows:

Definition: (verb) The act of blogging about blogging.

A little color:
Metablogging is a fairly common phenomenom in the world of blogs, especially for new bloggers fascinated by their emerging medium. There is often a subtle negative connotation to the word "metablogging". You'll sometimes see someone refer to metablogging as "navel gazing" or "blogging masturbation".

Usage: "I'm going to do some metablogging now and explore how weblogs are impacting the world of journalism."

---
Source: Microcontent News

Restaurants by Patrick Neate

I haven't read any novels of Patrick Neate as yet but he seems like a cool kind of person. I especially liked this piece on restaurants. Here is an excerpt:

Restaurants

In London there are so many restaurants that it can sometimes seem like they must be reproducing. You might think that the steak house on the high street got the small Italian bistro drunk one night and she spawned the cheap vegetarian, you know?

Continue reading here.

Colour in motion

I love this site for this design and music.

April is the cruellest month

Now, you want to know why? Well, did you know that April is also:

• Chocolate Eaters' Month
• Poetry Month
• Cancer Control Month
• Marcus H. Birthday (National Holiday in Australia)
• Child Abuse Prevention Month
• Sexual Assault Awareness Month
• International Guitar Month
• Mathematics Awareness Month
• National* Humor Month
• National* Welding Month
• National* Smile Month
• National* Pecan Month
• VD Awareness Month
• Stress Awareness Month
• Alcohol Awareness Month
• Autism Awareness Month
• Occupational Therapy Month
  

Thank you T.S Elliot for the apt title!

___

*All references to "National" apply to the United States. I'm not sure if it applies to the rest of the world.

Beth update

All of you remember Beth, right? She is the librarian from Urbana, Illinois who is going to be here in India on a trip. Thanks to Fulbright, of course! Let's give her a warm welcome! :)

Btw, she is recording her days prior to her trip here. Check it out!

Here's introducing me, the trendsetter!

I seem to have started a trend inadvertantly! The "This pic is not me" trend! Check out Rita's post!

Questions in my head #44

To blog or not to blog, is that the question?

Questions in my head # 43

Should I do something that I like but pays little or something that pays a lot but I don't like it?

I like words

I really like words and nothing's better than an article that coins and celebrates new words!

George Constanza's words of wisdom

I know this has been done to death. But couldn't resist posting this:

Some infotainment

Okhil Babu's letter to the Railway Department:

"I am arrive by passenger train Ahmedpur station and my belly is toomuch swelling with jackfruit. I am therefore went to privy. Just I doingthe nuisance that guard making whistle blow for train to go off and I amrunning with 'lotah' in one hand and 'dhoti' in the next when I am fallover and expose all my shocking to man and female women on plateform. Iam got leaved at Ahmedpur station.

This too much bad, if passenger go to make dung that dam guard not waittrain five minutes for him. I am therefore pray your honour to make bigfine on that guard for public sake. Otherwise I am making big report topapers."

Okhil Chandra Sen wrote this letter to the Sahibganj divisional railwayoffice in 1909. It is on display at the Railway Museum in New ! Delhi.It Was also reproduced under the caption "Travelers' Tales" in the FarEastern Economic Review. Any guesses why this letter was of historicvalue?

It apparently led to the introduction of toilets on trains.

Sorry sorry sorry

After reading Obi Wan's comments, I have to post this. I know sorry does not make a dead man alive but I have been caught up in work work work. Can you see how bad it is? Even my written words echo! The little time that I have I try and do nothing! That's because I'm very very exhausted by the end of it. Yesterday, I went to bed way early 7:30. In the evening, not morning! And I haven't sauntered in bloggerland in ages! Sorry for this unexpected break. I think I have stashed some writings away. If I have nothing to post - which is untrue, I can think of a million things to post - I will post them. Btw, this is a backdated entry.

PS: The pic is NOT of me!!*

*I love saying this again and again! :)

Guess what I found at Aries bookstore?

An amazing box of comic and beautiful illusions to tease the eye and bemuse the mind. A stylish collection of rare visual entertainments from the 19th and early 20th centuries reproduced here for the first time since their original publication. With an introduction by Jonathan Miller.

Thanks Zee for she spotted it!