Vegas & Niagara Falls

Today with lot of free time on hand I started going through all my old snaps, of my once upon a time US trip. Putting up few of those pictures here.

I have seen many stories done on Vegas on the Travel and Living channel [TLC now], and mostly it revolves around the wild life in Vegas and how the city never sleeps. That all is so true and once you enter Vegas you can clearly see yourself enter an artificial bigger than life world complete with the glitterati and the razzmatazz.

Subtle Knife & Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman

Before I plunge into expressing my views about these books it’s just fair to give a small summary regarding the story [for the sake of continuity to the previous post if not anything else].

So in the previous book a doorway had opened into another world [Cittagazee] and Lyra had gone through it. Will, a 12 year intrepid boy is on the run and through a window between his world and another, finds refuge in the latter. Cittagazee is full of specters, some transparent creatures visible only to adults and which suck life out of adults rendering them alive but still lifeless. So anyway, Lyra and Will become best of friends, get hold of Subtle knife, which is a very unique knife that can cut anything, even windows between different worlds. They are in search of Will’s father, in course of which they meet some witches, who are keeping them safe and helping them reach Lord Asriel. Lord Asriel meanwhile is assembling the biggest army to fight Almighty or Creator. Whatever!!

The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman

Wow My last post was in December beginning!! Days going busy busy with house shifting and setting up…phew..

Haven’t been reading much these days. Did pick up “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Philip Pullman, and have been reading that on and off. Finished the first part – Golden Compass and have begun with the second part – Subtle knife.

Lyra, a 11 year old girl who is the protagonist of this story is supposedly a blessed child, destined to bring about huge powerful changes in the world. She is shown to be curious, bold, with great intuitive powers. This story is set in an universe parallel to ours. And here the human beings have a inseparable part of themselves called daemon, which generally is in a form of an animal. This daemon is actually a part of the person, so if it is separated from the person by some power, it kinda means a death like life for the person or even death. Phew. Also this world has witches and talking bears. Anyway, so the story has a plot in which few bad goons led by Mrs Coulter, who is utmost charming and cunning at the same time, are conducting some experiments on kids to separate their daemons. All this because it is somehow related to “Dust”, which is never fully explain in the book [and that is why the second and third parts exist ;-) ]. All that I could gather was that “Dust”  is somehow related to “Original Sin”.

Rozabel Line - Ashwin Sanghi

This was a highly recommended book and so I went about reading it. But somehow it has impressed upon me as a very boring book. The initial few chapters were fine, interestingly building up the plot. But then as the book progressed, it became very repetitive, both in the content and style.

Story is based on religion and history, on various cults, on controversies and secretes. On how Jesus Christ was a normal human being, got married, had kids. On how the genealogy continues even till this date. [Not a new theme after Da Vinci Code] This book repeats this Jesus Christ angle till adnaseum. Plus it also has a mix of concepts from Islam and a huge stress on Hinduism’s rebirth belief. Overall it glorifies Indian history and Hinduism and also speaks of oneness of all religions. And intermingled in all this is terrorism, politics and nuclear bomb blast. All that is fine, but the repetitiveness kind of makes the plot lame.

Wonder If I have become too old for such books or the book itself wasn’t all that good.

The Wall (and other short stories) - Jean Paul Sartre

Nobody recommended me this book, nor had I heard about it. Somehow came across this author and subsequently this book while surfing, thought will give it a shot. And a good one it was.

“The Wall” is an eponymous collection of short stories. Each of these short stories delves on grey shades of human mind and emotion.

“The Wall” was one of my favorite short stories amongst these and I actually re read it couple of times more. It is based on the time of Spanish Civil war, and is narrated from the point of view of one of the prisoners, Pablo Ibbieta. Pablo and couple of more prisoners are put into a dark small cold cell and are sentenced to be executed at dawn. The execution will take place by shooting bullets at the prisoners lined up against the Wall. The whole story is about how the human mind and body conflict with each other while awaiting death, about how different people perceive the looming death. How once the illusion of eternity disappears, life and everything in it loses all meaning.

Gujrat Road Trip – 28th – 31st July 2010

Fig 1: Trip Route

This plan was kinda made suddenly and the whole credit for planning it up goes to my parents. They made the entire bookings for lodging and transport and all that was left for us to do was enjoy it!

So on Tuesday (27^th) evening after a regular day at work I left for Pune station and boarded the train to Ahmedabad. Due to short noticed train booking, we had sleeper berths and as usual it was all very crowded, with waiting list people trying to sleep where ever they could find any space. Ahmedabad being just 12 hours away from Pune, it wasn’t much of a hassle and before we knew, we were at home having sumptuous breakfast.

After breakfast we were on road by around 10 am, heading towards Balachadi. We decided to take de route and visit Lothal, which is about 80 kms from Ahmedabad. Lothal is an excavation site for Harappan Civilization dating back to 2500 – 1900 B.C. So you can actually see some ruins here, and also the various artifacts unearthed here, displayed in the museum.

Trip to Mahabaleshwar (25 - 27th June'10)

Monsoons in Pune and in the Western Ghats in general are a very rejuvenating experience. Everything seems so freshly washed and the greenery around is a treat to the eyes. The drop in temperature is a much needed respite from the blazing hot summers. And mist in the air gives a surreal touch to existence.

If you ever ask me where I would like to go, I’d have to fumble amongst so many places in my mind that I might not end up coming with a place. After initial fumbling however I am able to consider the practicality of weather, schedule, budget, convenience etc and make up my mind. Same thing happened this time. Considering the short 2 days we had and also the dependence on the public/local transport we decided on going to Mahabaleshwar. Only hitch was I didn’t fancy going to a much commercialized place thronged with people. However I took my chances and didn’t regret it.

Surely you’re joking Mr Feynman!

Amazing read! Concise, witty, random memoirs of Nobel laureate Richard Feynman told in a very engaging manner.

I am so impressed by Mr. Feynman, who seems to have such a wonderful approach to life! Mundane stuff which might not even provoke any interest in most of the humans, are actually source of fun to his persona. Ever willing to learn and try out new things, enjoying whatever venture he takes up.

He seemed to have picked up so many things not to ace in them, but just to have fun learning them. Like when he had to visit Brazil or Japan for some work, he took up learning Portuguese and Japanese respectively, just because he was going there and wanted to mix up with the local people. Then when he was in Brazil since he was interested in Samba music, he picked up an instrument called frigideira and became a part of some local carnival band. He also played drums and kept experimenting with various rhythms. Not that he could read music or anything, just that he enjoyed playing drums, could make out different rhythms, and was decent enough to give music to some ballet performances.

Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

This book by Salman Rushdie is my first book by this author. Obviously having heard so much about the author n the book, I had to give it a try out of curiosity. However a bestseller need not be the “best read” for everybody. This one wasn’t for me.

The book is told in first person by the protagonist Saleem Sinai who happens to have born at the stroke of midnight the moment India got its independence. So the moment India and Pakistan were born, Saleem was also born. And his growth & destiny is entangled with that of the newly born nations.

Now having born at such a momentous moment, he was empowered with special powers, and so were all those kids who were born during the first hour after midnight. Hence forming the Midnight’s children group. Saleem possessed the power to read people’s mind, to talk to them through their minds. Later on in the story he lost that power, and instead gained the power of immensely sensitive olfactory sense. So he could smell not only the regular smells or fruits and flowers, but also the smell of human nature, the deceit, truth, hatred etc.

In Xanadu - William Dalrymple

Its been some time since I finished this book but couldn't find time to write about it earlier. This is another travelogue [and last one for the time being] in which the author has started his journey from Jerusalem and travelled all the way to Xanadu [summer palace of Kubla Khan] in Mongolia. He tried to follow the path taken by Marco Polo sometime in 1271. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_polo]

I wasn't really glued to this book. Author has explained the architecture and various monuments en route in minute details. And my limited comprehension about architecture couldn't appreciate all these details. Another aspect of the book, was the history regarding various places as an when author traversed them. It seemed very sporadic to me with limited coherence. Many a times I had to reread sections of history or architecture to grasp even an iota bit of it.

Am sure this journey must have been really thrilling and one hell of an experience, but I didn't enjoy much reading about it.