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!

Biliya Chadara-Review

I should say its a master piece. Very beautiful carving of Kannada words.
There are two lead roles in the book. One the Male and the other- his elder sister.
The Male lead role is a doctor and the Woman lead role is the engineer. The kannada words used to explain their profile of work is too hilarious.

The engineer leaves for America in search of job and the little brother joins her as an intern in a hospital for free. In the meanwhile the father of the two dies and there is a very neat description of how the children have been lost in their own worlds and never bothered about the dead father and surviving mother. There is a bit of the love story between the woman engineer and her neighbour which again shows the hardships of living in America and how engineer is lost in search of recognition for herself and her thoughts. The whole book depicts the battle of the two lives and the world full of uncertainity and criticism.

The book is quite relating to our lives- Me- an Engineer and My brother who is a doctor.

At the end there is a piece of storyline which is not at all required- The woman engineer dies in a hit and run accident.

The 3 Mistakes of my life-Critic

Hmmm,

Of all the odds, I would suggest to read this book. The news is that it is a flop and Chethan Bhagat didn't live up the expectation.

I still say its a great stort story. The writer has only dragged the page numbers to make it a novel. This book describes how an Atheist becomes a spirutual and religious man. This transformation is thing to watch out for.

The three things that would happen in the same year and when somebody is having direct involvemnet in all the three, it's not surprising to expect him to lose hope and think of dying.

The book is full of events and at the end when there will be communal clash, the story gets more exceting only to find that one of the three friends being killed. The sad part is that the hero doesn't even mind the incident of his dead friend and tries to cover himself for the affair he had had with his another friend's sister. The love story part of the book looks crap and nobody would want to buy it but ironically at the end the same love story saves the hero from dying...

Chethan bhagath should stop being an utimate life saviour in his future books!

White Tiger- Review

Well,

You must read this novel only in the view that it is Aravind Adiga's first book.
Great job for a first timer. But if you are prejiduced that this book has won booker, you'll definitely feel deceited after reading the book.
The narration is sick and one would wonder why he wants to tell his wretched story to the Chinese president.
There isn't a real description of India and the story line doesn't promise any excitment. You can very well predict what would happen and keep anticipating it but it would happen much much later than the anticipated timeline which brings a boredom and eventually you'll flip pages without reading them.
There is a lot of latency from the time the hero(Balram) decides to kill Ashok and the time he actually kills him. This makes you morbid and you'll die out of exhaustion.

And at the end why does Balram wants to save Dharam as if he has all the conscience in the world?? The writer is definately confused.

The part that Balram is scared of the lizards doesn't make the story funny. It only makes us understand that reading this book is pointless.