Little Black Book

There is something to be said about black and white photographs. The monochromatic color scheme is very much like a haunting melody. A melody, is one of those magical instruments forged in unison with the cooperation of nature and man, which is both capable of transporting you to your nostalgic past or give you a new perspective on your current reality. Indian cinema has, is and always will be the surreal black and white photograph, a haunting melody.           This is a story of how I met Indian Cinema and fell in love with it. I have been in enough relationships to realize, one doesn’t bitch/gossip about the person you are in a relationship with. You just tell and retell the story of how you met. And if you play your cards right, you don’t get to sleep. (*wink**wink**nudge**nudge*) My very first memories of moving images and Indian cinema are ‘ filmy ’ in nature. I was little more than two years old. My first memory of Indian cin...

Batting in cricket is instinctual. Good batsmen are reflexively responsive to their instincts and great batsmen learn to discipline these reflexes. Fielding is lot like batting. The sharper the reflexes, greater is the resultant adrenaline rush among the men who challenge you. Both of these skills have been executed, action replayed and written about for them to be elevated to an individual art form in a team game. Good and great batsmen and fielders keep getting replaced on the field. The skill is mastered, disciplined and the art form continues to flourish. Much like art post the renaissance era, there is an art form which is languishing. Much like the art world, there are few occasional names which cause an enthusiastic flutter of nostalgic name dropping. But it soon passes off like a fad rather than a prolonged legacy. Bowling, six balls an over.   Batting is like playing chess, you play the situation. Fielding is like playing Scotland Yard. Bowling is like p...

Hello you-male-incumbent-potential-future-ignorant-regressive-khap-policy-makers, Before I begin, let me first clarify as to why I intend this letter to be both open and specific to Chennai Male Engineering college students. It is open because you lot are, as they say in English, idiots! I am also slightly inebriated at the moment, as they say in Tamil, I am in full mabbu. The only reason, I am making this post specific to Chennai Male Engineering students, because unfortunately I did my engineering in the city of Chennai. This maybe largely generalized in content and scathingly rhetoric in nature. I don’t expect you to comprehend most of things I embark on saying. Consider this to be a very Aamir Khan starring Mangal Pandey where a lone warrior foolishly wages war when the rest of his unit is smart enough to CYA* (Cover Your Ass). I am well aware of this survival instinct which is prevalent in you lot, I have been at the receiving end of it on many an occasion with my own batch...

The Bankster by Ravi Subramanian is a story about bank fraud, people mysteriously dying and somebody piecing together the puzzle, connecting the dots and unveiling the big picture. The Bankster took me by surprise. Given my despicable knowledge and attitude towards banks and its inner machinations, the book threaded me along gently and carefully like a surgeon pulling along a newborn by umbilical cord. So, the story starts off with the brief thing about blood diamonds before quickly jumping into the office politics and double crossing of Greater Boston something Bank. It is nicknamed as a more easy to remember GB2. The story progresses with a galloping pace like gossip spreading through unofficial communication channels. And you are soon beginning to develop the feeling that something is not being done right. In the meantime, you are also told this story of a boy who finds his father wrongly arrested for suspected ivory smuggling. And this father, Krishna Menon, is later engag...

"What happens if the faction of Indians who do not believe in democracy (naxals) join hands with our neighbors who don't want democracy in India?" This in a sentence is the basic premise of the Red Jihad. "Interesting" and "intriguing" are two words which immediately pop in your consciousness like bubble wrap.  And Sami Ahmad does an almost decent job at executing the premise. It is very evident that Sami has spent a LOT of time researching things and all the time and effort comes through in the text when you are reading about the detailed weaponry which the characters use. And I say this because it is no mean feat for anybody to go through scores of online and offline resources to get your facts right. And this is where the good bit stops. Red Jihad opens up with a young boy sneaking out of the house to play cricket, only to have his cricket pitch bombed by the Americans. The book then quickly and rapidly presents a story which is unnerv...

** SPOILER ALERT **   For starters, I am not sure what the blurb writer found funny in this story. The story wasn't funny. At least I didn't find the humor in it. Not even smile inducing kinds. The ending, however, was proper Keigo Higashino styled punch to the guts. Though not sure why this book is listed under mystery genre. I am not sure what genre it should be listed under but mystery doesn't quite cut it. It is sheerly through Keigo's penmanship that you get thrown on this roller coaster ride of emotions as you empathize, hate, pity and get repulsed by the protagonist Heisuke and his 3rd person narrated stream of consciousness. And like the blurb advertises, the ending is soul shattering. The emotion which the protagonist feels leaps from the pages and clenches your heart and takes a life of its own. The ending is very 'Usual Suspects' meets 'Et tu Brutus' moment. And that emotion creeps up on you and blindsides you with the most visceral gut w...

So let me split this up into two bits. Things I liked about this book and the things I didn't fancy.  Things I liked: I have always said that Indian writers who write for Indians should not give out explanations about samosas and vada pavs like they are talking to imbeciles. And this book doesn't. The story is peppered with hindi words, especially in the dialogues and it is quite refreshing. The three stories are firmly enmeshed in the often neglected genre of pulp noir. The stories are short, fast paced and focused on the setting/environment. All the three stories end with a nice twisty cherry stick. The pacing of the first story and the latter ones are much like a steam locomotive. Chugs lazily along before throttling down the tracks.  Thinks I didn't fancy: I am not sure if it is just me or if the stories themselves seem a tad misogynistic. The fact that the stories themselves present Mumbai (Bombay is what I still call it and will continue to call it) as a omnipresen...