Top 10 books that come to my mind ...

I got tagged on Facebook to put down a list of top 10 books. Without thinking too much ... in random order ... here goes ...

The Mysterious Mr. Quin (Agatha Christie)

I've read practically all the murder mysteries by Agatha Christie featuring Hercule Poirot. But the book that takes the cake according to me is this collection of short stories which don't feature any of her popular protagonists. Each of the mysteries are solved by the eponymous Mr Quin simply by analyzing the facts of the case and prodding his constant companion / audience Mr. Satterthwaite in the right direction. What's special is that some of the mysteries are solved several decades after the crime is committed.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (J. K. Rowling)

This book is the turning point of the series. With several crucial moments and the tragic twist at the end it sets up the stage for the finale. I read this book in pdf format the day it was released in one shot while stuck alone in a lab (due to lack of cubicles) at my internship in Samsung. Yes I can say that openly now :)

Mahabharata (Veda Vyasa)

No I didn't steal this one from Shruti's list. It's impossible to not have this one on a top 10 list. The epic is so vast that I still have loads to learn and absorb besides what has been televised or discussed in the abridged editions that are usually found on book shelves. I don't think there are many people in the world who have read all the volumes from the original Sanskrit text or a translation.

The Adventure of the Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I consider this as the best Sherlock Holmes short story! A great introduction to code breaking and analytical puzzles for the novice reader. When I read this in grade school I was completely bowled over and truly fascinated.

Catch 22 (Joseph Heller)

The book was a tad longer than it should have been but Yossarian's antics and the dry humor ensures that it holds the reader's attention. I was in splits several times. Haven't seen the movie but I've heard it doesn't do justice to the novel.

Animal Farm (George Orwell)

This story in metaphors starts off in a lighter vein but leaves you with such a hard hitting statement that you can't help think and ponder over the current state of affairs in the world and draw parallels. I read this book well after graduate school. I don't think I would have appreciated it, had I read it as a teenager.

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)

This book is so brilliantly written that the author hasn't been able to live up to his own standards in any of his following works. The clever fusion of fact and fiction, the thrill, the questions and the end leaves you spellbound. This book will probably never make it to a top 100 list, but it was an out-and-out entertainer.

India after Gandhi (Ramachandra Guha)

Regardless of political beliefs and the author's so-called bias, we can't ignore the fact that we simply don't know much about India's recent history. Our text books conveniently stop at Independence and a lot has happened since 1947 that every Indian should know about. This book filled in that void and I'm better off having read it than not.

Lord of the Rings : Return of the King (J. R. R. Tolkien)

The third book of the series is the best one, so much so that there was very little that Peter Jackson could skip when he made the movie. It has all the ingredients of an epic and in some ways the movie makes you want to go read the book again just to see if there are any other interesting tidbits that were left out of the extended edition. I tried really hard to keep this book out of my list and see if I could nominate some other book here, but that wouldn't do it any justice.

Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)

My sixth grade school teacher (to whom I attribute my love for reading and writing), used to read out chapters from this book for us. Those who grew interested were absolutely enthralled to hear the story and although the humor had to be explained to us at times, it was so awesome. One of the regrets I have is we had to switch back the state board English curriculum eventually and definitely suffered as far as language was concerned. I no longer remember enough of this story ... It's almost time to read this book again :)

I'm sure there are more and if I really sat down and thought about this for a long time I could come up with more interesting names ... but in the spirit of the challenge I think this is a pretty decent list!

The Reflection

"Cut!!! It's a wrap!", shrieked the director, bringing to an end the last day of the final schedule of the movie. The entire unit of 30 odd people had been shooting tirelessly for the last 30 days in a remote location at the outskirts of a village 50 kilometers outside Jodhpur.

"Finally, its over!", thought Madhavi as she stared at herself in the mirror. The relief was visible.

She had lost count of the number of people who had advised her against this movie.

"Too many variables", they had warned her - absence of a influential production house, tight budget, a brand new crew, relatively new actors, sync sound and the 3D camera. "The director is a nutcase. His penchant for perfection will give you a nervous breakdown!", they cried. "No decent financier is going to back this project ... don't you know what sheer duds his last two movies turned out to be at the box office?", they reasoned. "A Horror movie so early in your career is a one-way ticket to failure!", they almost pleaded with her to not sign across the dotted line.

Madhavi had fought hard to suppress these voices. The director was half-mad yes, but he was a genius. She knew that if the movie worked, there was nothing stopping her from signing films with the big banners.  She had decided to take the risk and give her 200% to the movie.

And so she had tolerated the whims of the director, agreed to the numerous re-takes with a smiling face, rehearsed her lines like crazy, and even cooked for the crew on the sets! The summer heat made her dizzy. She had passed out on a couple of occasions right here on the set. The doctors attributed it to dehydration and she found it very embarrassing. What had really been pushing her close to the edge of sanity though was the string of eerie "disappearances".

The events of the last four weeks had nearly threatened to shelve the movie. Her hairdresser, her language coach and her choreographer's assistant had all disappeared mysteriously. Local police were not of much help given the rural nature of the "realistic" location and the so-called experts from Mumbai hadn't fared much better. They had questioned everyone. And if the heat hadn't been enough, their questions drained whatever little energy was left within her. Rumor was that they suspected the gypsy tribes in the area but the extra layer of security they added around the set had proved to be futile.

The filmmakers couldn't have found a worse location for shooting! A dilapidated mansion of a feudal lord long since forgotten. The caretakers of the estate were overjoyed when the crew approached them for renting out the premises for their film. The building had fallen to ruin over the last few decades when most people living around it had moved to the city in search for "lucrative employment", they said. The art director and his team had salvaged a lot of furniture from the ruins which they had used in the film. The grandfather clock, the timber chest, the full length wide mirror, several pictures and a carpet miraculously untouched by rats.

The one thing that kept her sane was her co-star Sanjay. He too. like her, was a newcomer and they had hit it off from day one. In fact, she was quite sure that their chemistry was not just artificial.  She was glad the shooting was done. All she wanted now was to get out of this godforsaken place and onto the plane with him. Back home, away from this miserable heat!

Most of the crew was out packing and there he was now, calling out to her. She could feel the energy sapping out of her once more. Her head felt light and she knew she was passing out again. Was it mere coincidence that these "disappearances" always happened after pack up and at the same time when she had lost consciousness before?

As Sanjay walked in, the last thing she remembered thinking was, "What a bizarre movie plot this was! A cursed mirror ... home to a vengeful spirit ... that possessed a person to commit murder if he or she stared at it for too long!"

Shower of Mercy

One of the most frustrating aspects of traveling to and staying over at unfamiliar places for me is figuring out the settings of the shower. The shower puts us all in a vulnerable position. Sure, we can't cry out for help without getting thoroughly embarrassed, can we? But for a vision challenged person like me it is a classic case of "Markatasya Surapanam ... ". 

It always starts with the assumption that maybe this attempt will be easier than the miserable ones I've gone through before. The first few minutes tackling the knobs quickly shatters that assumption. I have to fiddle around with the controls, constantly conscious of the fact that the audience outside the bathroom door can hear my struggle. Every minute feels like an hour.

Inevitably, I either get drenched with cold water or scalded with hot water, hurl a few silent expletives, fetch my glasses which I'd confidentially left behind on the counter (this act alone makes me feel more handicapped than anything else) continue tinkering until there is a Eureka moment (not literally) and a steady stream of tepid warm water finally showers mercy on me.

A Forgotten Genius

I feel that Kader Khan is a forgotten genius.

This talented individual who was omnipresent during the late 70s, 80s and 90s primarily as a script / dialogue writer and additionally as a character actor has sadly passed into oblivion.

Wikipedia tells you how this professor of civil engineering got noticed by Dilip Kumar in the 70s and went on to write dialogues for numerous superhit films specifically starring Amitabh Bachchan (Coolie, Muqaddar Ka Sikander, Laawaris to name a few). The flair, drama, wit and poetry in those lines when backed by Bachchan's baritone stayed with the audience long after they had left the cinema hall.

He then transitioned to arguably the most versatile character actor in the mainstream Hindi film industry (save perhaps Amrish Puri and Anupam Kher), appearing in negative roles at first and supporting / comic roles later in his career. The epitome of his success was the association with Govinda and David Dhawan. Together, they were literally unstoppable in the 90s.

And then, it all just imploded in no time. Dhawan ran out of luck with his tried and tested formula, Govinda grew heavy in weight and manner and found it difficult to work with other filmmakers who in turn avoided him due to his indisciplined ways, and the film industry discovered the multi-faceted Paresh Rawal ...

That Rawal is a brilliant actor goes without saying, but in my mind I felt Kader Khan got a raw deal. Yes actors do age out, but it is quite astounding as to how quickly filmmakers moved past him! Fortunately, he appears to have had invested wisely and didn't end up destitute like others in his generation. 

Khan is quite old now, and I doubt he has the strength left to actually perform in feature films, but as a dialogue writer he could still play a role. I hope he gets his swan song before the Inevitable gets him too.

10 years!

It's 10 years to the date I landed in the States for the first time!

In the third year of engineering, there was a panic that set in when ETS announced that they were changing the pattern of the GRE and replacing the analytical section with two essays. "We're obviously at a disadvantage if they drop a scoring section and replace it with two essays", declared some of our batch-mates emphatically while others nodded in agreement.

"What is this GRE?" ... That's the question that popped into my mind. That's how clueless I was. After asking around sheepishly, and getting looks that betrayed condescension from some of the more aware folks, I was finally educated about what this was all about.

But did I really want to go abroad for studies? My father had mentioned it to me a couple of times in passing that I should consider it, but I always thought I had more time to figure it out. But the panic to secure a date prior to September 30, ensured that I could no longer focus on the 5th semester. Soon the only topic being discussed in class was "Which wordlist are you on? ... Anand has already finished going through all of them once ... Did you buy flash cards?".

The herd effect was powerful. I made the first dollar transaction of my life and booked my exam slot. Slogged through the word lists, skimmed through the quantitative and analytical sections. This wasn't enough. ETS allowed you to send your scores free to 4 universities. Even though everyone knew this exercise was pointless as we were submitting scores more than a year in advance of Fall 2004, everyone was busy researching universities. I picked 4 lucky ones out of what everybody else was selecting. There was this strategy of trying to distribute the "good" universities between us so that we didn't send all the topper applications to the same school and end up fighting each other ... again pointless as we'd have to submit the scores again next year.

The result was a mixed one. My nemesis ... English which has publicly caused me enough humiliation in big exams before and after the GRE again made my scores modest at best even though I aced the sections that should matter. Even so, it was over, for then at least.

The frenzy rekindled in the final year, when the on-campus interviews were to be held. There were two very obvious camps within our very own group. Some were very clear that they had to go abroad for studies and were looking at the placements just as a formality. Others had either fared badly in the GRE or were genuinely interested in getting into the work force as soon as possible and were taking the placements really seriously.

Once again, I was underwhelmed. I have this tendency where big events - excitement, good news, bad news - all, don't really have a big impact on me and my response is visibly underwhelming. Was joining the work force so bad? Once again my father pointed out that it wasn't. I could work for a few years he said before deciding to study further.

But the policies in practice at VJTI said that once you got an offer from a company, you could no longer appear for another placement interview. Infosys, the Indian IT giant was the first company to visit us and if you had good grades and did reasonably well in their entrance test, you could get their offer without much effort. But it was unthinkable that the batch topper of an engineering branch would join an IT firm and not take up an admit from a well-ranked US university!

I had absolutely no idea what I wanted. Is this even a choice I thought? Maryland vs Bangalore? For someone who has lived his life in Bombay without any reason or intention to leave it, this is a lose-lose situation. There was no dream, no goal, no 5 year plan and for the first time in my life I felt utterly incompetent. How come other folks had such a clear vision when I didn't even have a glimpse?

The final few days in engineering college make you brave. You lose inhibition and a now or never attitude sets in. You gain enough courage to pose the question. But when destiny has other plans, the default case takes over. I realized that it was time to move on. I've been fortunate to have been trained in one of the best grade schools in the country where all of us know that if we put in enough effort, there are no dead-ends in life. I had just enough confidence to believe in myself that I had a chance in a far off unknown land.

And so on August 12, 2004, I landed at Dulles International Airport backed by no particular dream or goal in mind, but rather by the default case which often rescues us, and makes decisions for us. 10 years on, I have no idea whether that decision was the right one. Life has compensated by giving me a lot, in turn. When I retrospect, I realize that I have no regrets so as to speak. When life gives you a lemon, you make lemonade ... and I'm good at making lemonade from the default lemon :)