C finds Meenakshi Madhavan Reddy’s (owner of compulsive confessions) You Are Here and says “Wow its that book, its her book”. J raises an eyebrow uninterestingly and says “Mm yeah”
C says “I am taking it”. J now raises all eyebrows and limbs “Stop right there!”. Red alert. “Do not buy that book, I say, do not buy that book!”
C asks “Why not?”
J: “Why do you want to?”
C: “Because I want to promote a fellow blogger. Some day when I write a book, I want people to read mine. It’s a wanna-be-writer thing I guess”
J: (smiles) “But I can tell you what is in there”
C: “No. I am buying this. I have made up my mind” (which of course means I haven’t)
J (understanding the uncertainty symptoms prompts not to): “I wont ever buy it, I may read it but I wont buy it.”

Pause.
J: “So if you are buying lend it to read ok?”
C (finds a point to her benefit): “Aha, what’s the point in saying you won’t buy but will read? If you can read it, then you can certainly buy it!”
J (tosses head, understands uncertainty was moving steadfast towards stubborn logic): Ok

C, after a lot more debate with self, weighing which books she chose cost less, which had more pages, better font (normal people would look for content, writer, language, but we are talking of C here), decided Meenakshi was going in.
And in she went.

Chapter 1. Oh oh. Chapter 2. Oh oh oh. Why was there so many details given about, emm, err insignificant pieces of clothing! C finds it totally hard to read. No she was not a baby! But like she repeats at every possible place, it doesn’t matter to her what the story is as long as she likes how its written. But the how part was proving to be quite difficult here. She expected a bit of (ahem) Sidney Sheldon or Mills and Boons stuff, but then this was of a different league. Maybe stuff that went into the secret-most diary of a girl, no not even that. C would never dream to write or even let these thoughts go through her mind – how can you waste time thinking on such stuff?! How can anyone?

Now C has nothing against Meenakshi, though she is not her blog-reader. C went on, deciding she should not judge a book so soon (but it usually works that way for her- first few pages doesn’t please means, rest will be a gigantically-wild-horse-drag!). Hmm actually, it felt a little better. There was more stuff than, err, clothing. There was stuff C could relate to, people she saw in her life. Good. And it was quite an easy read. It was easy to sit and finish the book at one stretch, without needing a break in between. But each chapter was often a different story, I mean not where you left your previous chapter. Only Arshi remained throughout – Arshi by the way is the central character, its her story and her narration. That was done pretty neatly. Pretty naturally. I don’t know if she took a lot from her life into Arshi’s, if Meenakshi did, I mean. I have heard it said that way. (And now I have finally saved myself from 3rd person C-narrative to 1st person I – whew!)

But there are quite a few places you feel you lose the thread of connection to what is real. A little bit too carried away at places. And wow did people really live like that in Delhi? I mean New York yes, but good old Delhi? Was I still living in the same country? I felt one part of India was a couple of generations behind another, specifically Delhi, if things happen there the way she’s written it. Dating, smoking, drinking, single women inviting men home, everything being talked about like an everyday common affair among youngsters made it seem like a distant world.

A bit of Indian-ness comes in when Arshi talks about her friend Topsy and her family. And maybe a bit about the celebrated marriage of her friend Deeksha. But then the same girl talks about attending her Father’s marriage to an American as a bride’s maid, or a friend marrying an Australian – I hope things were that easy – this intermix of culture and countries!

What I liked and could connect to – Arshi drifts to fantasizing or to old memories a lot too often, which is something I do all the time. The way she talks about her old friendships, some of them are real oh-I-wish-I had-that kinda stuff. But one wonders how many years Arshi had in her 25 years of life- if you took count of the events and the people, the friendships and the crushes and the men, it seemed to make enough for a good 100 years!

I was comfortable with a lot of the book, except bits and pages here and there I could tell without a second thought, could have been scrapped off! And towards the end, I was finding it frustrating, but that could be my way of seeing things, and I felt Arshi, despite all her bold lifestyle, was a silly old naïve fool who should be thrown back to the 17th century. But she didn’t totally blow it in the last chapter, as I feared she might have ended everything to give the typical fairytale happy ending. Not that there was anything tragic, but she ends on a positive note and I appreciate that.

I read somewhere this book was written on the lines of an Indian Bridget Jones. Possibly, only it didn’t look anything Indian to me. Might make a junior Bridget, with a lot more men than Mark and Daniel. Arshi’s men are uncountable. From her memories, to her present life, there are too many. So naming them, I shall not try! For the main names, there is a Cheeto, a Kabir, a Michael. Then there are the boy friends of her girl friends. And oh I forgot her job. She hates it.

But I don’t have to tell everything. That’s what the book is for, not its review. I would say one thing, about the book – it’s the result of some hard work and effort. For I can tell, because I have been trying to write a novel and its simply one of the toughest jobs ever. You maybe a good writer, you may have a good imagination, but writing novel was no one-day task. It takes time and sincere effort. And talent! Connecting every person and every little detail from page 1 to page last was something you could raise your hat to! So Meenakshi, though I wouldn’t advertise your book, I wont go campaigning against it. But then, I bought it.

I have just read her latest post which easily became my favorite -
On Rainbows,Fairies and being a Mom

The ones that first caught my attention were Happy Birthday Satish and My special friend
Preeti has a gift to write things that touch your heart.

What more to say? Click here, reach her blog and do all the finding out yourself.

Mathias B Freese and his Down to a Sunless Sea. That’s the latest I have read. And it is special to me because this was the first time an author had asked me to review his book, after seeing my blog. I was even more enthralled when he took the pains of sending me the book thousands of miles away to India, to me.

It is a collection of short stories and at 135 pages it shouldn’t take more than a few hours to read. Yet I toyed with it for so long because I was afraid I might not do justice with my review. I am still apprehensive because Matt is way above my league! To come out clean, I had to read some strips twice to follow his line of thought! He was really good with his words and his psychological analysis.

Surprisingly all his stories had to be read and understood from a psychological point of view. But it is not so surprising, I forgot, he is a psychotherapist! He must have been interacting with the likes of his characters for so many years. But I somehow felt many are from personal life as well, cause they seemed that real, that deep, many stories coming out in the first-person narrative.

‘I’ll make it, I think’ ends thus.

“What I’m left feeling is that it always has been this way, and it’s always going to be this way. I know it. Except this time, I don’t mind that there’s no changing it”

And ‘Nicholas’, when I started reading I wondered if something was amiss, Freese wasn’t the kind who would get his spellings wrong. So after disregarding “asignment”, as some printing error I realized what was happening here, Nicholas was writing the story and he was a child just starting school. He didn’t know his spellings, and he wrote like he talked. Here again, I had visualized without trouble a small child talking, his voice and tone all clear in my mind.

“They give us social studies teachers – what is that? Whats social about it? Its goddam history and thats my point. Teachers and schools say one thing, but the real world says another. On my honeymoon I’m not goin to ask her whats the capital of Turkey”

“Even Jesus coulnt write and he never went much from home, never really anywheres and has no degree either”

A child’s perspective also comes in ‘Alabaster’, but there we hear the story more from an older woman who talks to the child. ‘Herbie’ brings out the story of another child, abused by his Father and a totally indifferent Mother.

Most stories were of troubled people, but each throwing a completely different picture. And yet you can recognize Freese’s hand in all of them, his way of working on another mind, making it talk and reveal what was going on, and sometimes not reveal too much so that the reader is left to figure it out.

Some kind of sadness peeps in the stories, yet ones like ‘The Chatham Bear’ brings out a positive note, a touch of hilarity in an odd way. So does ‘Little Errands’.

“On the morrow I will write him a letter clearly expressing my motives. Certainly, surely, it will be mailed”

– ends Little Errands, and to know why these words are worth a laugh, the whole story had to be read.

It was amazing how in a few pages, Freese could provide a complete characterization, a complete picture of a whole life, and end it so thoroughly. The last liners of the stories – that’s what appealed most to me. Freese knew how to end his stories.

This is how ‘Echo’ ends.

“What a lethally fascinating if not insular experience it must be to value one’s self above all others and not fully realize that narcissistic attraction for most of one’s adult life”

And Nicholas ends thus

“After all, if you have a purpose, you know where your goin in life, you know who you are. I’m Nicholas, but Skalen’s not sure of herself, and shes a teacher”.

Well, here again, if you should know why this ending was so good, you should read the whole story.

Other stories were more analytical and concluding, possibly from a psychotherapist’s understanding of the problem.

‘Billy’s mirrored wall’ finishes with

“I suppose that’s one of the stories of the race – living out ancient wounds and soured existences not of our own making”

And the last lines of ‘Unanswerable’ are:

“The core puzzle, for all of us, is what ignites a human being to hate feverishly, kill wantonly in huge numbers, revel in genocide and final solutions – that is unanswerable”

Fifteen stories, all well made, well knitted and well ended. It wouldn’t hurt to grab a copy and walk through a few minds and understand the world and its people a little better, with Mathias B Freese.

Alright full name of the book is Stupid White Men …and Other Excuses For the State of the Nation!
Some books make you think about the story/content, some about certain characters while others make you think about the author. Stupid White Men is one such book, it makes you wonder what kind of a guy Michael Moore, the author of the book is. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, that someone could actually go and write a book like that in the US of A, about its white men, about its George Bush! But Moore did, and he does that – not able to think of another word - brilliantly!

Daring of course! The book tarnishes Bush like - err running out of similes – the book really tarnishes Bush! It starts off with a call to the real President Al Gore, cause Moore writes that it was Gore who actually won the election, Bush just got in there using all the dirty tricks – no he doesn’t mean he won using tricks, he never won, someone made a blunder counting them votes and then they wouldn’t let a recount happen.

‘”The counting of votes that are of questionable legality does, in my view, threaten irreparable harm to petitioner [Bush], and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he [Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of his election.” In other words, if we let all the votes be counted and they come out in Gore’s favor, and Gore wins, well, that will impair Bush’s ability to govern once we install him as “President”.’

There is a chapter called “Dear George” and “Kill Whitey” which made a lot of controversy as Moore talks about in the introduction to the book – how he had a hell of a time trying to publish it, cause the publishers changed their mind after 9/11.

It was amazing to read Moore, a white man himself, go out of his way to despise and throw shame on the way blacks were treated thus in USA.

‘White people scare the crap out of me… I have never been attacked by a black person, never been evicted by a black person, never had my security deposit ripped off by a black landlord, never had a black landlord… never been pulled over by a black cop, never been sold a lemon by a black car salesman, never seen a black car salesman, never had a black person deny me a bank loan, never had a black person bury my movie, and I’ve never heard a black person say, “We’re going to eliminate ten thousand jobs here — have a nice day!”’

He also goes out of his way, to bring out the injustice cast on women by men of all times, in a disturbingly satirical way – needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Yet Moore’s sense of human values stands out in every other line. About his principal of his school, with whom he was not always in the best terms, his becoming School Board President resulting in the resignation of the principal, he writes thus, remembering the pleasanter younger days:

‘I offer this to remind myself that all people are actually good at their core, and to remember that someone with whom I grew to have serious disputes was also someone with a free cup of hot chocolate for us shivering little brats from the neighborhood’

And the most I laughed is reading pages 166-167, titled ‘Typical Day in the Life of “President” George W Bush’. Too long I will put a snapshot of the pages.In parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 (click each for larger images)

There is a lot more to be touched up on in the book. But I am running short of time now.
One thing that may put a non-American reader off is it takes an assumption the reader is an ordinary American citizen, a common man from the country. Not a big deal that, if you ask me. But I was not in understanding of many terms, or rather instances the author talks about – but again that could be because of my lack of understanding of things in general!

Alright that’s it. Lovely book. Quite educative as I had no idea about Al Gore’s or Ralph Nader’s side of the story or for that matter, any of the other numerous facts Moore had chronicled about. Occasional display of statistics, and musings on other nations as well, makes the book a lot more informative and Moore’s handling of the subjects in a completely humorous manner makes it completely enjoyable. So grab the book, though am a little late to say that – it’s a 2001 product you see.

Here is Moore’s official website - http://michaelmoore.com

These are some of the impressive ones I have read (means there are a lot more I haven’t read).
-> On Arranged Marriages - 1 and 2
-> On Religion
-> On prositution

Those are the serious ones, there are a few in lighter vein in between like this and this

Touches current disasters, politcal areas; all informative ones - looks like the girl does a lot of research. Sometimes its an open discussion forum. And comments flood so much. Naturally. Someone thinks aloud about things that concern all of us means we all join them. Its good to see these thoughts come out in the open. Well I will just stop bragging and take you to her blog. Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting Roop Rai!

Ok enough small talk. The book I read now is Obama, A Promise Of Change by David Mendell. Under the title is written a few words which got me to taking it – “An adaptation for young readers of Obama: From Promise to Power”. Not that I was anything that young, but knowing as much about the world as a toddler, I thought this will be a good start to learn about one of the biggest leaders in the world. And boy, it was!

I am yet to hear a speech of Obama’s, but having read bits and pieces of what he said I have decided to not miss the next chance. Heres the back page extract for instance

“Theres not a liberal America and a conservative America – theres the United States Of America. Theres not a black America and white America and latino America and Asian America – theres the United States Of America… We are one people.” – Barack Obama, giving keynote address for 2004 Democratic National Convention.

The book opens with a comment Obama made to Mendell before the keynote address. When Mendell told him that he seemed to impress many people, Obama replied “I’m LeBron, baby”. LeBron was an amazingly talented young lad playing for the National Basketball Association who attracted a lot of attention. Mendell says he wasn’t so sure then, but after seeing the speech, after seeing people from different states and races, react, with tears in eyes, he says “Yes, indeed. Tonight, Barack, you are LeBron, baby.”

The book then travels through Obama’s life, right from his childhood where his father abandons him and mother stays away, to his days growing up as a thinking young man obsessed with thoughts about race, his basketball days, to his days as a community organizer wanting to make a change in the world, his days learning law in Harvard, his meeting Michelle, and then his journey towards becoming a US Senator and a father of 2. An afterword about the presidential campaign and a few photos has been inserted later.

He is described throughout as someone who thought a lot, about race, about people, about bringing people together. Obama’s visits to Kenya, his father’s place and the reactions of people towards him, his mother’s Kansas background is all touched upon, and Obama had many a times used his background to start his speech.
Obama believes a speech he gave in 2002, is his best till date – to a group of war protestors by flatly stating he was against US invasion of Iraq.
“I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war… a war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics”.

Here are a few lines people close to him had said at different lines, as taken from the book.

“He wasn’t this all-smiling kid. He was a kid that would be going through adolescence, minus parents, feeling abandoned… He did have a lot of race issues, inner race issues, being both black and white.” – Keith Kakugawa, friend

“He had this really refreshing dream and I was like, “Barack, no, no, no. Not going to happen” – the Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright

“We had the sense… that he genuinely cared what the conservatives had to say and what they thought and that he would listen to their ideas with an open mind” – Brad Berenson, a Harvard Law School classmate

“Barack was like ‘Well, I wanna be a politician. You know, maybe I can be president of the United States.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, okay, come over and meet my Aunt Gracie – and don’t tell anybody that!’” – Craig Robinson, Barack Obama’s brother in law

“I thought that if I could help Barack Obama get to Washington, then I would have accomplished something great in my life.” – David Axelrod, political consultant

“This guy is real. The others are phony.” – A man listening to a speech by Obama

“Congratulations, Mr Senator” – Michelle Obama, wife

And finally, one of Obama’s own speech – what he delivered in Cape Town, South Africa in August 2006.

“I realize that I offer these words of hope at a time when hope seems to have gone from many parts of the world. As we speak, there is slaughter in Darfur. There is war in Iraq… And I have to admit, it makes me wonder sometimes whether men are in fact capable of learning from history… And then I thought that if a black man of African descent would return to his ancestors’ homeland as a United States senator, and would speak to a crowd of black and white South Africans who shared the same freedoms and the same rights, … things do change and history does move forward.”

Ok I realize I made a lot of quotes in the name of a review. But I think the quotes speak for themselves. The book is a child version of the original and at 163 pages, quite a short-timer. So anyone needing GK about Obama as badly as I did, this might be a first step to take.

And as for David Mendell, the veteran journalist who wrote the book, he ends the book with what he witnessed on a February when Obama had walked up to the podium where he was going to tell the world he was running for president of United States. “The senator walked up to the podium, and I couldn’t help but say to myself, ‘Here comes LeBron, indeed.’”

1. Quite brief and short posts, so you wont feel any kind of reluctance on starting them any time, cause you can finish them right away!

2. Author takes the role of current Prime Minister. So obviously it circles around the current doings of the PM. Which means with the help of humour, you can sit through current affairs and actually get some of that into your head - especially useful for people who find it hard to stuff these things into head or spend time learning them (read me)

3. Humour takes on the central role, which is what makes the whole thing different and for people like me, read-worthy :-). Here is the latest post - on Bush’s letter’s impact and the NSG, in quite a few lines

Really neat. Take a visit - here.

The simple of act of giving she does, puts all of us cribbing never-satisfied ones into a pit of shame.

This is the blog entry