Two states: Critic

It is a short and sweet book written by Chetan Bhagat. The book is about a Punjabi boy in love with the tamil- Brahmin-Iyer girl and their struggle to convince elders to get married. The hero Krish (Chetan) meets Ananya (Anusha) in IIMA canteen. They will start studying together in Ananya’s dorm and they fall in love. With high grades in IIMA, Krish gets his placement at City bank and Ananya at HLL at the end of their final year.

They plan to tell their parents about the love on the day of convocation. The two families meet with intense resistance to accept the love fostered by the younger ones. There will be plenty of fuss and the parents do not agree. Krish arranges to get his city bank posting at Chennai where Ananya lives. He’ll have tough time getting to know the city and its people. He’ll help with Ananya’s brother first for IIT entrance exams, then with her dad with a power point presentation which will bring him accolades. In one of the Citibank’s concert, he’ll have ananya’s mother sing along with SPB and Hariharan. By this he wins everyone’s heart at Ananya’s home.

Next he gets Ananya to his house to convince his mother. Ananya does a gimmick at Krish’s cousin’s wedding and she is also welcomed at Krish’s house. They think that their parents should get along with each other too and so they go to Goa. Again Krish and Ananya face conflicts with each other’s family members and between themselves. Ananya refuses to love Krish and he gets a nervous breakdown.

He goes to Chennai from Delhi to talk to Ananya but she refuses him. The next day, Krish’s father whom Krish never liked or respected, goes to Ananya’s house and talks to her parents and arranges for the wedding. The wedding will happen in Tamilain style with a lot of compromise from Krish’s family. In the epilogue after a couple of years Ananya delivers twin boys.

Like all the standard books of Chetan Bhagat, this doesn’t have a death scene or even the suicide attempt. When I read the book, I felt it is purely copied from “Abhiyum Naanum” a tamil movie. But long ago when I had watched that movie, I felt it’s the remake of “Father of the bride” movie. Incidentally “Abhiyum naanum” movie is remade in telugu as “Akashamatha” . Now I am wondering who copied from whom…. But two states is claimed to be chetan’s real story.

One Night at Call Center

It’s the good old book of Chetan Bhagat. All the earlier times when I tried to read this book, I could never go beyond 30 pages as it was very boring. I have a rule that when I start reading a book, I can self drivingly read 50 pages (or for the first half an hour—whichever is earlier) and after that it’s the author’s ability to create interest in the reader to read further. In the case of ‘One night at call center’ either of the things happened and I never succeeded in reading the book.

But this time one of my close friends joined a call center and he persuaded me to read book to get the feel of the call center world. I gave the extra effort in reading beyond the 50 pages and later I realized that it’s a great book.

It’s a story of 6 silly people doomed in a call center trying to save their jobs at the times the call center is calling for a shut down. Also it is the story of what typically happens in a call center in one night (which sometimes makes you feel that the story is moving nowhereL). There is one diffident Shyam who is the narrator and he is badly in love with Priyanka who also works in the same process as him and the shares the same cab with him. Priyanka is indoctrinated by her mother that she has to marry someone well settled, who has ample money, big job, cozy house, swanky car etc etc.. So she ditches the lover boy Shyam after 4 years of resilient love relationship. This further minifies the confidence of Shyam.

Shyam and his friend Vroom develop a website to assist the customers which they think will bring brownie points to them. But unfortunately it turns out to be a blunder screwing up the call volumes for the call center and the boss of the two- Bakshi takes the credit for developing the web manual. Annoyed by Bakshi’s foxy acts, the two decide resign their jobs.

The other characters in the book are of Radhika who marries her lover and struggles with the orthodox in laws. Later she finds out that her husband is having affair with another woman and she tries to get divorce from him. Esha is an aspiring model who is regretful about sleeping with a man to get a modeling assignment. Vroom loves Esha and when he finds this out, he feels bitter about Esha. The last is the Military uncle retired from the Army and looking out for money for the living. He has a son living in a far off place who’s airheaded about the father’s living conditions.

At one point, all the characters get fatigued by the ill fortunes of their lives and break out for a long drive in the middle of the night to a bar and when they are getting back to the call center their cab happens to fall in to a ditch. There the unexpected happens. God calls Shyam on his mobile and enlightens them as to how one should follow the inner calling and that’s the key to the success.

Later they head back to the call center and teach a lesson to Bakshi, save the call center from shutting down and Priyanka returns to Shyam.

The Odessa file-Frederick Forsyth

Odessa is an acronym for “Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen” which translates to “Organization of Former Members of the SS”. Odessa is a group of former SS men who served Hitler in his innumerous brutal mass killing operations of Jews in the West Germany during 1940 to 1945. When the Americans and the Russians conquered Germany at the end of the Second World War in 1945, these so called patriots of Germany fled to South American countries to shelter themselves against prosecution for war crimes.

The Odessa file is a very famous book which describes the butcher-ism of Hitler and the Nazi rule in Germany and the western European countries. One Jew by name Solomon Tauber commits suicide leaving a diary behind containing the documentations of the Jew concentration camp at Riga. The diary claims that a war criminal- Eduard Roschmann who is alive under a false name and should be held and prosecuted and that is the only hope of Tauber to keep him alive. The dairy also documents killing of an army officer in particular.

A reporter by name Miller challenges himself to find Roschmann and gets in to a lot of trouble on his chase to find Roschmann. He will be approached by a group of concentration camp survivors and will be led to infiltrate in to the Odessa. When he finally finds Roschmann and gets it confirmed that the army officer who was killed by him was in fact Miller’s father, he tells Roschmann that he isn't there to avenge Roschmann's Jewish victims and doesn't care how Roschmann tries to justify what he did to them and that he is there to kill Roschmann for killing his father. By the time Miller gets hold of Roschmann, he will be hit by Roschmann’s guard and Roschmann flies away to South America and gets a new identity.

While all this is happening, Miller brings to light that the country’s top radio manufacturing company’s head is Roschmann(under the name Vulkan) and in his factory, he is secretly developing the rocket guidance system for the Egyptian army. This way Roschmann and his SS men are trying to obliterate Israel by combining the German and the Egyptian forces. Later the factory will be shut down by the German authorities upon the compulsion from the Israelis.

The Paths Of Glory

It is a novel by Jeffrey Archer based on the life of George Mallory, a mountaineer who vanished on Mount Everest back in 1924, and who was last seen “going strongly for the summit”. Thus this is a story where the only things uncertain about the ending are whether Mallory reached the top or not, and what happened to him.


Born in 1886, George Mallory was a brilliant student who became part of the Bloomsbury Group at Cambridge in the early twentieth century and served in the Royal Garrison Artillery during World War I. After the war, he married, and had three children. His passion was mountain climbing. Mallory once told a reporter that he wanted to climb Mt. Everest, “because it is there.” He tried two times and failed. In the book it takes us all the way from George Mallory’s childhood, living in his father’s house, to the summit of Everest.

On his third try, in 1924, thirty-seven years old, he was last seen four hundred feet from the top. His body was eventually found in 1999. It is still a mystery whether he and his climbing partner, Andrew Irvine, ever reached the summit.

Paths of Glory is an excellent historical novel. How much of the story is fact and how much is fiction no one is able to tell as no one knows whether Mallory reached the peak or not. It is fascinating, persuasive, and extremely enjoyable to read. Great entertainment!

My first painting!

Thanks to my little cousin sister who helped me to do this painting. No one would believe if I say I did it. I couldn’t believe myself when it was completed.

Some time back in office I attended a workshop on water color painting and from there I picked up an abundant interest in painting. Over the weekend this is what seems to be the outcome of it.

My little sister was overwhelmed when I told her I wanted to make a painting. She is been trying to induce the interest in me about painting since we were kids. I always showed disinterest and lazed around when she assigned me any work with the colors and brush.

So when I asked her to guide me, she was ever ready and was there at my house right in the morning with her tools and colors. She brought a trace of the painting and black cloth along with her.

She first asked me to write the sketch of it with the chalk over the cloth and outline the figure which I did obediently. When the picture was clearly brought on the cloth she asked me to paint it with the colors I liked. While doing so she made sure that I don’t do any mistakes and gave me confidence that even if there any mistakes, they can well be patched. After almost two days of effort, the painting was ready and I took it to her house a little scared about the inaccuracies in it but at the same time confident that she will oblige as it’s my first painting.
After analyzing the intricacies of it, she told me that I have not committed any blunders in it and appreciated enormously just to boast my confidence and make me further interested.

The one thing I learnt after this new experience was to be patient until the bigger picture becomes visible.

My brother once said that there are three ways of draining out your emotions--One put them in to words and express which most people do on most occasions. The second-- Put them in swaras and make music out of it (which I am trying to learn) The third— Put them on the paper in the form of figures and colors which make a painting. I tried the last one-the first time.

Dutchman's Pipe

There were record breaking 48 bramha kamala flowers that blossomed on saturday night in our garden. The fragnant flowers brought a charm to our garden.

Earlier there were 11 Ashoka trees along with two coconut, a neem, a mango and a lemon tree in our garden and somehow my mother felt that these trees were blocking the sun's rays in to the house and so we cut them off. Now there stands a big and dominant bramha kamala plant which flowers often.

I too had a love story- Review

This book is the inspiration for all the budding writers across the world to script down total non sense and call it a novel.
The author of the book - Ravinder Singh is a software engineer in Infosys and its his true love story (Thats what is given in the prologue). Its simply a love story. One boy and one girl going round and round the trees in the park. As the author is a SEBP(Software engineer by profession) there is some usage of technology terms like the messenger, the mail etc. Book begins with the boy searching for a girl in one of the matrimony sites where he comes across a girl who interests him. The girl first messages the boy and there starts the love story. Within six months they would be full fledged lovers. One fine day they meet in Delhi after the 6 months of wait and the girl takes the boy to her house and there are some other routine things that will happen after that.

They will convince in both the houses to get married even though they are of different caste and the engagement day will come. The day before the engagement the girl meets up with a terrible accident and dies in the hospital after 4 days.

There are many things that I learnt from this book-1. The first time the girl calls the boy, while hanging up, she asks him to tell her something good/nice.
The boy thinks and thinks and say "Lahore jaanewali train ko hum kakori me lootenge aur wahi se aayenge hamari paisa". I burst in to laugh after reading that. Now if I am having a very serious conversation on the phone with anyone, at the end i'll ask the other person to tell me something good. Heheh
2. The beauty of love need not be glorified while explaining in a book as it is taken by the readers the same way the author wishes.
3. That I can also write a book

Cheers Ravinder!

Major Sandeep na hathye

The book is written by Ravi Belagere. The tragedy of this book is that it has nothing to do with major Sandeep Unnikrishnan's death. Basically it is documentary in english collected by Harilal Wadia - a journalist. Ravi belagere has translated it to kannada and published it in his own publication (Bhavana Prakashana). In the prologue the writter writes that as it is translated to Kannada and Sandeep is our own hero, he titled the book in his name. Surely we know that Ravi belagere is a emotional black mailer. Another tragedy of the book is that it is not even dedicated to Sandeep or the brave lives of the 26/11 Attack.

As told earlier the book is pure documentation of 26/11 attack on Bombay by Lashkar terrorists.
As the event itself is very aggressive, its description is also aggressive making you feel assailing in the end of the book. It starts with descriptions of three events held at nariman point, the Taj and the CST respectively. Later comes the Taj and the oberoi. The book is very informative in terms of the chronology of the events and there is no side taking in the book.

The short description of Lashkar and the Taliban is copied very neatly from "The afghan" by frederick forsyth.

It is worth reading the book if you are looking for only the bird's view of the of the 26/11 attack.

Karvalo-Review

I read this book alomst 10 years back and I still can give you line by line recitation of the whole book. Thats the impact Tejaswi has on the readers. This tale is about the naturologist who goes in search of an endangered species of lizard in the rugged mountains of the western ghats.
The comedy character that the author has brought is the best part of the book. There is such a keen description of making of country liquor from the tree bushes that one can actually follow the process for their own consumption.
Finally they do succeed and finding the rare lizard.

The song that I am currenttly humming

Hoovina baanadathe-yaarigu kanadanthe, haadina saalinalli chethanavade neenu
Like an arrow of flowers, not letting anybody to know about it, like giving life to the lines of a poem, you have become my life's driving force..
Hoovina baanadathe-yaarigu kanadanthe, haadina saalinalli chethanavadanthe neene ninu..
Nuthanavadanthe naanu naanu
Like an arrow of flowers, not letting anybody to know about it, like giving life to the lines of a poem, you have become my life's driving force and this has replenished my life.

nee banda mele baaki mathenu??
When you are here with me, what more should I ask for?

Saaladu idi dina jaroori mathige.. Kaadide e mana.. apara preethige...
The day is not enough to just talk about the very essentials, I am waiting for the precious love of yours!