Sanjay Blog!

This discovery made my day today! And he’s on facebook too!

Fiction Fantasy

Somewhat inspired post about the top 10 literary characters who I will totally make out with if they were real!

1. Amit Chaterjee (A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth): I did this post so I can profess my love for Amit Chaterjee!A witty, sarcastic,intellectual, cynical poet. (If you haven’t read the book please don’t read ahead…) I had to resist severe urges to smack Lata when she rejected him. I would have married him just for the proposal. Surprisingly everybody I know who’s read the book thought she should marry Kabir!

2. Mr.Beaumaris (Arabella - Georgette Heyer) : My favorite from all of Georgette Heyer’s lovable heroes. I adore him for his indulgent, nonchalant , witty attitude!

3. Luke Brandon (Shopaholic Series - Sophie Kinshella) : There’s something about him that sends tingly feelings to my finger tips when I read the books! Again a very indulgent hero often willing to laugh at Becky’s escapades!

4. Sirius Black (Cmon! Must I say!) : Again the self assurance, wit and easy going nature! After Dumbledore, Sirius is the character I love the most!

5. Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mocking Bird- Harper Lee): The sensitive intellectual with the spectacles to boot!

6. Scott Bradley (Honour Among Thieves - Jeffrey Archer)- The dashing, erudite, valiant hero!

7. Gilbert Blythe ( Anne Series - L M Montgomery) - Smart, sensitive, funny. For old time’s sake since I had the biggest schoolgirl crush on him when I was growing up!

8. “Daddy” from (Daddy Long Legs- Jean Webster) - The mysterious, benevolent lover!

9. Mr.Aladdin (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm - Kate Wiggin) - Wickedly funny, kind and absolutely adorable! There seems to be a trend here with Children fiction heroes! Hmmm! But thats the genre I have read and re-read most voraciously!

10. The Narrator in the Series of Unfortunate events who I think is Lemony Snicket himself! Weird fantasy this one!

Some popular ones I don’t necessarily love and why :

1.Holden Caufield - I love the book but the guy’s a little over the top crazy for my tastes

2. Rhett Butler - My favorite male characters in the book were Gerald O Hara and Will Benteen. I loved Scarlett more then Rhett!

3.Mr.Darcy - He was a big sulky wimp!

4. Howard Roark - I hate Ayn Rand!

Now that I started, I can’t stop. So going to make this a Tag of sorts!

Top ten Fictional Characters :

1. Scarlett O Hara - Gone With the Wind

2. Albus Dumbledore - Harry Potter

3. Anne Shirley - Anne of Green Gables

4. Florentyna Abel - Kane and Abel

5. Amit Chatterjee - A Suitable Boy

6. Yossarian - Catch 22

7. Scout - To Kill a Mocking Bird

8. Jeeves - From P.G.Wodehouse

9. Jennifer Cavilleri - Love Story

10.Ulysses - Homer

And now Some of my favorite novelists (I am not listing them as top ten as I might regret missing out someone) :

Jeffrey Archer

Vikram Seth

Mark Haddon

Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni

Khaled Hosseini

J K Rowling

Lemony Snicket

Saki

L M Montgomery

Francis Hodgens Burnett

Georgette Heyer

F. Scott Fitzgerald

I had a lot of fun writing this post! I tag Mahathi and anyone else who wishes to take this up

Blog Abuse

Unless you were buried under a rock I’m sure you all know about the Big B’s blog. And Ram Gopal Varma has one too! Put the two together and they’re making sure there isn’t a single criticism against Sarkar Raj! The concept of “my blog-my opinion” serves as a very thin line between the permitted and the unethical! Earlier AB Sr. had trashed a number of newspaper columnists for their comments about his blog. Khalid Mohammad was at the receiving end of some really below the waist comments because he had dismissed Bachan’s performance in Bhoothnath! What exactly do they think a movie critic’s job is?? I find it extremely amusing that AB and RGV are naive enough to make film reviews so personal by attacking the reviewer! You make a movie, and express and exploit your creative license. The reviewer similarly has the license to bring to print exactly what he feels about the movie! How difficult is it to understand that? And when your blog is read by thousands of fans and others, you automatically shoulder a huge social responsibility of not abusing your widespread readership and the adoration of your fans! AB writes brilliantly and has a wonderful knack of telling a tale, making his blog interesting to read. But when he decides to wash his dirty laundry on his blog things get a little out of hand and leave a very bad taste!

In another episode, a saga of email exchanges between a blogger and a portal called keral.com brings in disgust of really scary proportions!!! Cyber stalking, hacking,threats and abuse…really what is this world coming to??? The poor blogger has been undergoing tremendous trauma.There have been several cases of plagiarism, with even popular newspapers stealing content from peoples’ blogs. All this exposes the dire need for serious regulation of copyright protection to blogs in India.

Where do we draw the line? Can celebrity bloggers use their blogs for their personal vendetta? Does a blogger have any moral/social responsibilities toward his/her audience? When does it change from being a medium of personal expression to a bitter abuse of freedom of speech??

p.s : On a totally unrelated note, check out J.K Rowling’s brilliant speech at the Harvard Commencement.

Foot-in-mouth!

I take back my words about JTYJN I love that album too! Just didn’t give the songs a chance.. The Jaane tu mera kya hai by Sukhwinder Singh is such a gut wrenching piece! And Pappu has ishtyle!

Moral of the story : Don’t jump the gun with an ARR album!

The voice behind the words

Chanced upon this treasure trove of audio links. Got goosebumps listening to Vikram Seth reading from A Suitable Boy!!

Why I like Ada better

Contrary to popular opinion I’m hooked onto Ada more than Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na..Ishq Ada hai with it’s lovely flourishes and swing touches has been on loop almost continously in my head. I love the style with which Rashid Ali pulls this song off. The female version is really nice too with Parul Mishra adding lovely alaaps and making it sound more classical. I like the “march” like rhythm arrangement and the lovely accordion accompaniments in the song. The song is fantastic and fresh and simply brilliant. It reminded me a lot of the under appreciated title track from Sillendru oru Kaadal.

The music is organic and fertile. Contrast this to the IMHO over hyped Kabhi Kabhi song from JTYJN (what a mouthful as apposed to the poetic Ada)..The same Rashid Ali in a very stylish and neat composition which is trendy and groovy but very contrived! The song is hummable and lovable but thats about it. It sounds like a generic hindi movie “college” song with the hero running behind a crying heroine!

Moving on to Mehereban! Man! This song takes the music to a new height! And the lyrics!!!When someone reaches a level of spiritual enlightenment you can hear it in their voice! There’s definitely music in heaven (i won’t believe in a heaven sans music!!) and I bet this is on the playlist there..

These three songs define the album for me! In JTYJN Nazarein Milana caught my attention almost instantly.. But really Ada certainly has more “ada”!

How life rushed past with me watching

If any of you kind souls out there wondered whatever happened to Dandilsa - I didn’t die..was just swamped by this tsunami of work . I as usual have “kotavittufied” several blogabble events and issues that I did consider writing about, but never found the time to do! I still have an update about the TM Krishna concert to do (somehow i always leave my notes from it at home!”). And ofcourse my raga a week update.. I did Sahana and then the plan died a sad death.. Will definitely revive it in the summer when things get quieter! …This is a mini “excuse” post ha ha..Pun completely intended! Hopefully I will revive the resolve to blog..