Am I insane ???

Taken by My Film SLR


 

Its been a long time since I had a Wow moment in my life and I perhaps feel that I do need something in my life which will make me feel how beautiful this life is :)

And the closest thing that I can think of at this moment which can take me to the level of ecstasy is Photography.

I simply love that at this moment and although I already have two cameras, one point and shoot and one Film SLR but in order to pursue my interest further I need to buy a Digital SLR. And the DSLR on which I have set me eyes is Canon EOS 60D. Although I have been planning to buy a DSLR since long but ever since my Didibhai moved to South Korea for her Post Doc, I kind of have a little more financial freedom :)

So the camera alongwith two lenses , one 18-55mm and another 55-250mm will cost me little around ....sigh..... 60K (US and Japan price , where it suppose to be cheapest) :D

And the first person with whom I shared this and who I thought will be the only person to appreciate it, had this to say when I asked him ,"am I stupid to spend 60K on a camera?", "Dude , stupid will be too small a word to describe it." At that very moment , it stuck me," Oh God, is it insane ?".

But since I am not going to buy it right now and still have time till December (price will be less around christmas :)) and also hopefully Rupee will get strong by then, so I have somehow convinced myself to go ahead with it. ( I am also evaluating just to buy the camera body and not the lenses which will cost 15-20 K less and use the Film SLR lens I have for the time being).

Ok I know people say that its not the equipment but the person handling the equipment who captures great picture but I am defintely not a believer of that statement, as right now I know I am only bounded with the hardware.

But the major problem still lies in convincing my folks to let me make this and probably my first and last extravagant purchase.

I still remember when I went to buy my first camera and set my sight on a low end DSLR costing 20K, they very easily discarded that and I had to settle for basic point and shoot.

Don't get me wrong I am not comparing quality with price but lets accept it , more you shell out better machine you get. And for sure you cannot do all stuffs like night photography, potrait, sports and for sure wildlife  photography with a point and shoot. Yes its no doubt good for basic family photograph or travel photograph but to capture the real essence of the scene you need better control which you can only get from a SLR. And most people say that why straight away go for a 40K machine for start, you can first try out with 25-30K one and then upgrade (something I remember my Dad said when I was buying the P&S, "The model changes every month"). Yes I totally agree, but I don't want to shell out 25-30K on something and then after 1 year so feel "Oh I cannot do everything with this " and start looking for another one. No I atleast want to make 2-3 years investment. Also the thing with DSLR is that hardware doesn't change with over the years and you have to make investments on lenses, which anyway I will have to do irrespective of the body I buy.

Taken by my P&S

Convincing my parents will be a big task. Although I have asked Didibhai to get me one from Japan as one of her Korean labmates frequently goes there and in that case it will be little easy for me to first purchase and then completely share with my parents but still I want to first  create the ambience where they already have an idea that I am going to make an expensive purchase rather than getting the shock later. Thats why I have also asked Didibhai that whenever they discuss anything regarding me just turn it towards he wants to purchase a camera :D

The thought of talking to them about it is just like telling them that I have fallen in love with a girl and I want to marry her . And somehow that topic seems to be much simpler and easy to talk than camera :)

Well at present I can just pray for Rupee to get stronger by December and my parents letting me buy it .

May be I will also have to think making money from it , probably as suggested by my Friend , do photo shoots at wedding (anyway I did that at my two friends wedding this year). Photo shoots at Indian wedding sounds quite initimdating :)

:-( :-| :-)

Its stupidly strange that I still identify someone even from the sound of their sneeze :-(

Even after experiencing so many yekkkk moment after watching it, I still make myself watch Dil Chahta hai. And now I will have to bear the consequences :-|

BTW I am reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Story of guy who time travels. So far so good :)

I too deserve to live life I wish...

I am scared, quite scared because I too have an elder sister and maybe I will have a wife someday. I am scared because of people’s ideologue.

If I talk of a girl being asked to do things as per her in-laws wish which no matter how illogical they are, I hear people say “She is a girl, she will have to bend.” “She is the one who has to adjust.”

And I am not scared because these lines are uttered by some male chauvinist guy but rather conveyed by someone from her own gender.

I always found that more than authoritarian male it’s the female head of the family who is more hell bent on making life hell for her daughter in law. And I simply can’t understand that how at that time she forgets that when she was at her place these were the same things that she didn’t like but rather than making sure that the same is not repeated when she has the power she is more or less determined to make sure that the girl goes through the same discomfort as she went through. The customs, traditions and so called culture of which she is now the enforcer are something she herself whole heartedly didn’t like when she was first asked to follow.

I feel disgusted when people say that a girl has to be kept within limits at her in-laws place then only she will accept or respect us, our tradition. It’s just like saying that when an animal baby is born its tied with a rope to a post and it tries to get free in the beginning but slowly slowly it gets used to its limitation and thus when later you remove the rope, it never goes beyond that because in its mind it still believes that its beyond its limits.

If I talk in general then we all know customs, traditions etc are something that were created for our own comfort but now we have just become slave of them and no matter how educated we become we are still naïve enough to blindly follow them no matter how much discomfort they cause.

I am sorry but I am really really disappointed with our education system, with our culture, with our traditions. No matter how literate we become we still don’t develop the logical ideologue required to purify the society. And even if we do, we cannot muster the courage and strength to stand for them.

And when people who are brought up in a well to do family , who are sufficiently educated, have to go through all this then we cannot even imagine what illiterate and lower class female folks have to go through.

No I can’t let this happen to me or my sister or to my female friends. They are not brought up to live their life as per others wish. They are not educated to live against their wish. Yes family is very much important and a daughter-in-law deserves to live with her in laws but in a cordial and happy environment, not in one where her every wish and want is squashed, where she is asked to bend or compromise at everything. A female as human doesn’t deserve this.

And more than anyone else a woman needs a woman to support her.

Have a little Faith....

God is one..

I had a doctor once who was an atheist. This doctor like to jab me and my beliefs. He used to schedule my appointments deliberately on Saturdays, so I would have to call the receptionist and explain why, because of my religion that wouldn't work. Anyhow, one day, I read in the paper that his brother had died. So I make a condolence call.

After the way he treated you?. "In this job," the Reb said,"you don't retaliate."

So I go to his house, and he sees me. I can tell he is upset. I tell him I am sorry for his loss. And he says, with an angry face, "I envy you."

Why do you envy me ?

"Because when you lose someone you love, you can curse God. You can tell. You can blame him. You can demand to know why. But I don't believe in God. I'm a doctor. And I couldn't help my brother."

He was near tears. "Who do I blame?" he kept asking me. " There is no God. I can only blame myself."

That , he said , softly,is a terrible self-indictment."

Worse than an unanswered prayer?

"Oh yes. It is far more comforting to think God listens and said no, than to think that nobody's out there."

 

Forgive me for writing about "Have a little Faith " by Mitch Albom before talking about "City of Djinns" by William Darymple, which I read first. Its just that I am little lazy and writing about City of Djinns would take more effort :)

 

Mitch Albom, another of my favorite writer whose novels I simply adore, has come up with yet another thought provoking, soul stirring non fiction book which helps you rekindle your belief, hope that something supreme is there who is guiding you forever.

 

Ok not being spiritual :) I will just touch the main points that he highlighted which makes it another of his must read books.

 

Mitch, like in Tuesdays with Morrie, is asked by his ailing 82-year old hometown Rabbi(Jew priest) to deliver his eulogy. Eulogy is the speech that you give at ones funeral , talking about his good character, achievements and how he will be missed.

 

Mitch is stunned when the person whom he describes as the Man next to God, from whom he used to run away at every instance possible. asks him to do his eulogy. Thus starts a series of close meeting , interviews where they discuss about various aspects of lives.

 

Parallely he threads the story of his current town's Christian pastor , Henry,who had a dark past. The man was a criminal ,drug peddler and had served jail term for man - slaughter which he incidentally din't do. He narrates how Henry was given numerous chances to be a good person and everytime he faltered until the day came when he was about to be killed and he beg God to save and in return offered his life in his service. Thus on being saved , he devoted rest of his life in service of fellow human beings. He helped the homeless stay in a broken church where he preached them, served what little food he could manage, provide them what meagre facilities he could afford to fight the terrible cold of America. But despite all this he never lost hope and always motivated and helped others irrespective of their caste, creed or background.

 

When people including Mitch had apprehensions about him because of his terrible past , he said these lines which were so beautiful "You knew me , you knew that person I was but you don't know the person I want to become.", which tells us that sometimes we judge people because of their past when we just need to respect them for their present.

 

With due respect to Christianity and Judaism, I always had an impression that Christianity and Judaism is all about making communities i.e. belonging to a particular church or temple, following customs of a particular group and thats why I am always apprehensive of visiting a church as once a Pastor on seeing me there starting preaching me and dragging me to join their church. So I always thought with this tendency they can be no good. But in this book the Rabbi mentions certain instances when because if these closely knit communities people are provided the much needed financial and more so over moral support when they needed it the most. They were more of an extended family.

 

They talk about many topics like rituals. Rabbi says that rituals followed from generation to generation is what keeps one connected. Gives one the feeling of belonging to some thing.

 

He mentions that being happy is all about being contented and the you die a second death when you are forgotten thats why we all want to do something in our life so that people remember us , years after we have died.

 

When being asked about why marriage or in other words commitment is necessary, he tells that without being on the other side you cannot experience the beautiful things the other side has to offer.

 

The best part about the Reb (Mitch's name to the Rabbi) was that he din't try to give false logic or unconvincing motivation. When being asked why bad things happen to good people , without trying to unduly convince the other person ,he simply says he doesn't know.

When his daughter died at the age of 4, he like a normal person cursed God and got angry with him.

 

He talks about how necessary it is to say the things while you have time even if it is saying sorry to someone.

 

A man buried his wife, he was standing at her gravesite with the Reb. "I loved her", he whispered. "I mean I really loved her". The man broke down. "And I almost told her that once". Nothing haunts like the things we always don't say.

 

The best part was when he talks about various faiths and how a faith that teaches that its the only faith thats true is the most wrong faith in the whole world.

The following story , I don't remember if it was from this same book or I read somewhere else at the same time while I was reading this book, but this is one story that truly describes how all faith are true and they are complementary to each other.

 

Once in a city inhabited by all blind people, a news spread that an elephant is going to pass nearby the city the next day. So the people selected three people to go and find out how does he look like. So next day three blind people reached the spot and soon the elephant arrived . The first one touched his ear and found it to be like a big fan, always swinging, the second one touched his leg and found it like pillar , strong and cylindrical. and the last one touched his trunk and found it like a huge pipe. So each of them went back and reported their version of elephant. Each din't believe others version and were quite adamant that the description they gave was the correct one. Thats true of each religion. Each one of them are true in what they say but neither expect that what they have seen is just a part of it nor they are open to accept what the other person is saying.

 

Although this book talks of faith and Judaism and Christianity in particular but in no way it is making a statement rather like Mitch's previous work this one too makes you think , makes you question the things happening in your life and help you find answer to those.

Haridwar....

This last weekend we did something we never did before (Also continuing with my trysts with the photgraphy weekends ). Me and my parents went to Meerut on a day trip for some personal work and on finding Haridwar only 135 Km far from there, we decided to go there for weekend. And apart from our car, wallets and my beloved camera, we din't have anything else with us.  But still we went there and decided we will buy everything including toothbrush over there.

Luckily I carried my camera with me , although I din't carry the charger so I had to use it judiciously, but still it was quite a memorable trip.

Nevertheless...Before proceeding to share the pictures and some stories let me first share the significance of Haridwar.

River Ganga at Haridwar

Haridwar or Hardwar is city in Uttarakhand state of India. Its one of the most religious place in India and is the first city in plains where river Ganga or Ganges touches on its descent from its birth place of Gangotri, till it travels the breadth of India and enters the Bay of Bengal.
It is around 205 Kms from New Delhi and there are numerous trains that connect it with the Capital of India. Apart from that there are many bus services that ply too but honestly the roads are quite narrow for the last 80 odd Kms.

Haridwar and Hardwar, both name has different significance. Hari means Vishnu and Dwar means gate, so Haridwar stands for Gateway to Lord Vishnu and thus also considered to be the point from where one starts the ascent to Badrinath, one of the Char Dhams,which has a temple of Lord Vishnu. Similarly Har means Shiva, so Hardwar stands for the Gateway of Lord Shiva, as similar to Badrinath, the ascent to Kedarnath, one of the Chota Char Dhams which contains a temple of Lord Shiva ,also starts from this place.

River Ganga

Haridwar is one of the four places in India where according to Hindu Mythology , the drops of Amrit or Immortal Nectar were dropped while being transferred by celestial bird Garuda , who is also the vehicle of Lord Vishnu. The other three places are Allahabad, Nasik and Ujjain.

Bathing Ghat on the bank of River Ganga @ Haridwar

So at one of these four places Khumb Mela is celebrated after every three years thus after every 12 years at Haridwar. According to Hindu beliefs, taking a bath in river Ganges , relieves you of all the sins that you have done. Thus almost every day you can find people visiting here to take bath in the holy Ganges. At the time of Khumb , millions of people come to Haridwar to have a bath in Ganges and that spectacle is one of the biggest cultural festival celebrated anywhere in this world.

We reached Haridwar by evening and most of the evening was spent sitting at river bank followed by shopping for one day's stay.

Next day when we got up it was raining, so we had to wait for a while in the hotel room and then we proceeded to one of the Bathing ghats near the hotel. After bath ,we had breakfast at one of the Bengali restaurant. Apart from the holiness , another thing that attracts my parents to this place is the herd of Bengali restaurants which serve authetic Bengali cuisine at quite a nominal price.

After breakfast, since it had stopped raining, the weather was remarkably pleasant. So we three started walking on the river bank and it provided me with ample opportunities to click.

Kids asking to be clicked

While my folks found a tea shop on the bank and sat there , I started exploring the area , all the time clicking. So while I was busy clicking around, two beggar kids , most probably brother and sister approached me. Initially I thought they were just like numerous other beggars, who were pestering me for alms, but they just asked me to take one pic, to which I very happily obliged.

Mansa Devi at the hill top.

Apart from holy river Ganges, Haridwar also has two temples situated on the surrounding hilltops, one on the west side named Mansa Devi and other on the east side named Chandi Devi. Both are accessed through ropeways and apart from the holy temples they provide a bird's eye view of Haridwar city and river Ganga. Since I have been there many times we decided to give it a skip.

Wandering Sadhu

The place where the Amrit drops fell is called Har ki Pauri and every evening a wonderful Aarti is conducted on bank of river. More than thousands reach that place in the evening so we had to start quite early so that we can get good place to sit and watch the Aarti. Since the aarti was on the top of my list of moments to click, I was saving my camera battery for the same throughout the day.

Har Ki Pauri

At Har Ki Pauri apart from many other temples , of course there is the temple of Goddess Ganga.

Silver Palki of Goddess Ganga

The above silver palki was gifted by a businessman from Mumbai who was childless for years and soon after praying at Haridwar he was blessed by child.

One of the best things is the numerous Diya surrounded by flowers , which are floated by various devotees as an offering to Goddess Ganga.

Har Ki Pauri

While we were waiting for 2 hours for Aarti to start, it started raining and since we din't have any arrangements to counter the rain , we had enjoy getting drenched :). The rain pouring on the ghat provided a beautiful picture. I clicked some rainbows to but they are not worth sharing :(.

On the right side of the temple there was a crowd of people who were taking bath and the way they were enjoying, it looked more like Goa than a Holy place of worship .

Then came the moment which I wanted to click i.e. the Aarti but may be because of my camera's focal capability I couldn't get a better close up of the Aartis. But I liked what I clicked.

After having bath on Sunday Morning, we started on the trip back to our home.

The return trip was quite frustrating as first the car broke down and we had to wait 4 hours for it to be repaired , then a truck backed into our car with us almost getting hurt badly but luckily nothing happened and then we had a tyre puncture.

Despite of everything the trip was one of the best I ever had and more so because of the numerous photos that I could click. Although most of them were OK but still I enjoyed clicking them and hope some day when I will be better photographer I will revisit Hardwar and click some good pictures :)

Birdwatching Saturday....



Sun in my fist..



Out of all the ways that I have planned my weekends , I never ever thought I will spend it like this. This Saturday for close to 4 hours from late afternoon to late evening, was spent watching birds from the balcony of my flat.

Although it also involved futile efforts to capture them on camera but at the end of it I could only manage some handful images.

The plot in front of my flat is empty and recent rains has created an artificial pond in it. So one fine morning I got up and started clicking it. Soon I went to get ready for office but then my dad called me saying look at the beautiful white birds that have come to that pond . Unfortunately I couldn't come as I was taking bath but yes I noticed there were many . So ever since I thought I will shoot them (with camera :) ) someday, hoping that the pond will remain for at least few weeks as monsoons have arrived but to our hard luck it has not rained yet here after that one heavy downpour.

So yesterday since it started getting little cloudy I sat at the balcony with cameras intact but neither it rained nor I could capture any. And it even became hotter at times with sun blazing in full glory.

But one thing I noticed which may or may not be because of that pond, my locality has variety of birds. I could spot birds of different size and color. In fact I did spot a white stoke like bird which even flew in front of my balcony and I did click my Analog SLR when it flew past but I will know the results only when I will develop the roll.

It was so much fun to see them glide, take of , perch and flutter their wings so rapidly while landing.

It was so difficult to click them when they glide or fly past you as they are so fast. I really need to learn how to do that as it really looks quite beautiful.

Sharing the few I could click. Incidentally these are of the birds who came and sat on my balcony rather the one which flew past which I intended to click.

The first up is crow which perched on the tree in front of my house. It sat there so lazily that it made me wish I was crow :) . He even noticed that I was clicking him but with full attitude he lazily ignored.






This Sparrow came and sat on my balcony. According to facts about sparrows, Male sparrows have reddish back and black bib while female sparrows have brown back with eye stripes. So since it had brown back so it must be female.





Next came a Mynah which had a leave caught in her beaks. Common Myna or Mynah is an insect eating bird which was introduced into Australia, New Zealand etc from its native place India for controlling the pests which were destroying the crops over there.

As the evening set, the sun became less bright and hence a beautiful subject for photography.

As it was little cloudy so the sun was playing hide n seek and thus presented various different situations for capturing.

The topmost pick "Sun in my fist" was a silhouette , i.e. a picture where the bright background darkens the subject in front.

When the sun went behind the clouds , the rays presented a beautiful background illuminations for the clouds.

One interesting thing about capturing sun which I experimented with is that you have to underexpose the picture otherwise the sun is so bright that all you will get is big bright patch of yellow and the circular outline of sun will never be captured. 



Another interesting thing that happened this Saturday was after a long time I slept at 10:30 in the night. Ever since college , Saturday always used to be staying up till late night and dozing off only when you felt like sleeping but this Saturday I just felt sleepy while reading and just fell asleep.

Humayun's tomb

Humayun's tomb

Continuing on my lucky trend of visiting historical monuments , this weekend I went to Humayun's tomb with my folks.

As I mentioned earlier that nowadays I am reading "The City of Djinns" by William Darymple, which is the travelogue about his stay in Delhi for a year. So anyways I was fascinated to visit what all historical places he was mentioning in his travelogue. Although he din't mention Humayun's tomb yet but still it was one place which was on my list as as far as I remember I never been to that place (My dad doesn't agree with that and strongly stats that we have been there when we came to delhi around 15 yrs back).

Interestingly I was not planning to visit Humayun's tomb at the first place and instead last weekend itself I told my folks that we will go to India gate. But in the morning my colleague called me up enquiring about that place and on finding that it was on the way to India Gate , I made up a plan to visit it too. (Its another story that we couldn't see India Gate because of the huge crowd that descended there due to the lovely weather)

So coming to Humayun's tomb. Humayun was Babar's son and Akbar's father. He was the second of the Great Mughal rulers to have ruled India. He ruled India in 1532-40 and then from 1555-1560. While coming down from stairs, on hearing the Azan (Muslim call of prayer) as it was his habit that wherever he is ,on hearing the Azan he will kneel down in reverence ,is robe got stuck in his feet and fell down from stairs. He was succeeded by his 13 year old son Akbar, who later on became the greatest Mughal emperor to have ruled India.

View from center- Humayun's tomb

Hamida Banu Begum(Akbar's mother), his grieving widow, built his Mausoleum after his death. This building is touted as precursor to Taj Mahal. It stands on a platform of 12000 sq m and reaches a height of 47m.   

Peeking at the Emperor....

The earliest example of Persian influence in Indian architecture, the tomb has within it over 100 graves, earning it the name of "Dormitory of the Mughals".

First monument built with red sandstone and white marble.

Built of rubble masonry, the structure is the first to use red sandstone and white marble in such great quantities.

Lawn in front- built in Persian style

Like all Persian buildings , this one too had the 4 block garden structure with water channels separating each block from other.

Entrance to Humayun's tomb

Quite symmetrical

One striking thing about this monument is the symmetry. No matter from where you look at the main building, the lawn, the path to the monument etc everything has a symmetry and each half is a mirror image of the other.

Humayun's tomb - The Red Taj

I was glad that unlike last time when I clicked Taj Mahal, I learned to keep the base line horizontal to the ground and also clicked most of the pics keeping in mind the proportions.




Nevertheless a lovely and serene place to visit with your family and loved ones. :)

Dad...the first SuperHero of our life :)

Tomorrow is Father's day and I have been planning to share a small memory that my dad shared with me a while ago when we two were watching French Open's semifinal between Nadal and Soderling. 

But being the lazy guy I am, I never did.

But today I received a mailer from ICICI Bank , wishing us on Father's day.

The sentence written in that Ad is as follows:

"He is a mentor, guardian, friend, role model and much more. ICICI Bank joins you in wishing the first ever SUPERHERO in your life."

More than anything it was the last line that touched me most.

Yes , he is indeed the first Superhero of our life. He is the first person who could do anything that was possible in this world. He could make us giggle or laugh by tickling us when we were sad that our toy is broken. We don't have to bother if we get tired while walking in the market because no matter how loaded he is , he will always find hands to carry us on his shoulders. We don't have to be scared of falling because we knew before we touch the ground his hand will hold us. In fact sometimes the falling was intentional just to get the caring and pampering after that.

Not only he could never do anything wrong but even if we did a grave mistake we always knew he could mend it and make it like before. No matter how much he scolds you or how much you are scared of him, he was the one guy in whose arms you had the best sleep you ever had.

Yes he is my first Idol and like everyone who wishes to be like their dad I too always wanted to be like him when I grow up. He has taught me a lot of things in life but the foremost thing I have learned from him , the conversation that I still remember little foggily was when he told me that "Nothing is impossible". I don't remember why he said that or for what context but that is one thing that has always given me the courage to do anything , to take initiatives and be confident that yes I can do it.

So coming to the memory that he shared that day. I came back from office and as always I was sitting with my Mom n Dad and watching whatever they were watching on television. And during the commercial I just surfed to the sports channel as I knew Nadal vs Soderling was being aired at that time. After checking the score I just changed back the channel but my dad changed back to the sports channel and started watching, I was surprised because although we two have always passionately watched Cricket and Hockey together and I had also forced him to see ManU's soccer matches at times but I never thought he will show any interest in any other sport. Soon he started commenting passionately about that sport and then he shared that while in college he had at times worked as a ball boy at tennis stadium. In fact he told me that he has seen Ramesh Krishnan, Joy Mukherjee etc who have been stalwarts of Indian tennis in 70's from close as he had served as the ball boy in the games they played at the tennis academy. I felt quite proud and happy to know about it.

I love him a lot. And wish him the best of health , happiness and everything :)

PS: I know the photo is not good :( . I clicked it just today and was hoping it to come good and right now this is the only pic which matches what I want to add to this post.

The Day of the Jackal

I had completed the Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. Arguably the fastest I have completed any book of substantial length.

Well I won't call it a scintillating thriller although it has an intriguing webs of twists and turns that makes you continue reading.

The book is about an attempt to assassinate the President of France , General Charles De Gaulle by the OAS which is the rebellious organisation comprising of the army rebellions who felt let down by Charles De Gaulle as he relinquished the control of Algeria and gave it its independece after he became the President of France. This act was taken as an act of betrayal by some loyal France army as they have given their blood and sweat to fight in Algeria against the rebels to whom he had now given the control.

So after 6 failed attempts themselves they plan to hire a foreigner who is a professional assasin.

The reason I was disappointed with the book was  because in the starting pages itself the author reveals that the attempt was a failure (Sorry to have revealed it but I knew anyway if you plan to read it you will get to know about it very quickly).

So the reading became more of an ordeal to find out to how such a meticulously planned attempt fails.

Well hats off to the writer for the way he depicted the planning and also the way the sleuths went about to uncover the plot. The book is like a cat and mouse struggle between the assassin and police . At one point you feel, wow how brilliantly the killer has planned his particular move and at the next the police are at his tail. Then just as you feel, oh he is going to be caught, he changes his plan and again escapes.

One thing about these writers like Frederick Forsyth , John Grisham etc is that they have a vast knowledge about the topics on which they are creating the fictitious story. They are so thorough and detailed about everything that one point you forget that its fiction and you just start beliving in whatever they are saying.

Nevertheless a nice book to read ....

Next I have picked City of Djinns from one of my favorite non-fiction/travel writer William Darymple. I know I am going to love this book as not only the writer is of my liking but even the story is also about my national capital Delhi. Its a story of his first years stay in New Delhi and what all stories he found in this city full of Djinns (Magical creatures who are invisible)

Will update how it was once I am done , which I hope is real quick :)

Dhinka Chikha...

Watched Ready this weekend with my family. It was really a Dhinka Chikha movie...

As I am an ardent fan of Salman Khan, I was really looking forward to watch it. Although in the promos Asin looked quite dull but in the movie she looked ok. In fact there is something about this girl, she doesn't fail to attract your attention just like she did earlier in Ghajini. Salman as always had the attitude but there are two things that I don't like about him.

First the silly things he do in his movie at times which downplays him as an actor and second the vulgar dialogues at times. Some people might say what else is there in his movies. But like Mom said "The way he says few things , suits only and only him".

An interesting happened at the theatre, there was a family sitting in the row behind us. The guy was younger than me . During the intermission he commented to his father that what a bogus movie but is father replied "Are mujhe to kafi achi lagi (I really liked it)"...... Surprisingly I expected it other way around but I don't know may be our elder generation tend to like more such kind of movies. As was apparent when we came out after watching Dabangg. In our family my mom was the one who liked it most that time.

But I do agree with that uncle, this movie was better than Dabangg and did have some scenes which were funny to say the least :)