My Bookshelf Challenge

So My favorite comic artist Grant Snider From Incidental Comics uploaded this marvellous work recently. The thing about his comic strips are that they are so detailed and the words have as much power as the images. I thought I'll do my annual book update via this structure. So Here goes..

2017 has been a disappointing year reading wise. I read only 13 books of my target 30. I also read out of my comfort zone. Sci Fi , Tamil fantasy , Rural based books and classics are really not my cup of tea and cold the cup remained till I gulped it like a medicine. 

Don't worry I also hate it when they make the movie poster the book cover

The Sci Fi book was Ender's Game. Not bad actually got sucked into the dystopian alien fighting kids fighting monsters schtick in the end. Apparently it is a whole big franchise. Read it if you are into that kinda thing. 

The two tamil books I tried this year were Ponniyin Selvan and Moondram Ulaga Por. 

Must Read

Ponniyin Selvan was every bit the epic it promised to be and I can't wait to read the next books in the series! Kalki is really an artist of mythical proportions. However , since I was reading Tamil after a very long time it took me time to read this book. 

Moodram Ulaga Por was quite honestly Moondram Ulaga Bore. While Tamil flows like poetry to our author Vairamuthu , the subject matter is handled very didactically. But lots of mann vasanai and muyal kari. I can understand why people would relate to this book. However , I didn't think we needed a literal white savior to fix our agrarian scenario. 

I read Gulliver's Travels finally. While it was fascinating at first , some of the adventures like meeting the floating island people and science hating people got boring real fast. Still a fascinating satire which makes us question the nature of Human Civilisation. 

Moving on to the challenge : - 

1) The Book I couldn't put down - Every Jefferey Archer book. Every Damn one. That man knows how to write a story. If I had to pick one , it will be Kane and Abel probably. 

<3

2) The book I couldn't pick up - My law textbooks are heavy af 

3) The book you gave me / which I haven't read - Oops. Quite a lot unfortunately. First on the line will be Jackdaws by Ken Follett gifted by Naveena which I will read ASAP. 

4) The book I brought to the beach - Who does that to books? :O Although when I was a kid I used to sneak Famous Five books into the bathroom so that I can read in between my bath. Yes , I was that kid. 

5) The book I tried so hard to like - More like the book I am trying so hard to like. War of the Worlds by HG Wells. My my I never knew end of the world can be this boring! Another book that I just couldn't sit through was Shame By Taslima Nasreen. How can someone cut paste stuff from wikipedia and call that a book?

6) Book I have multiple copies of - Only Time will Tell By Jefferey Archer. It came out in 2010 right around my birthday and suddenly everyone was gifting me the same thing! This made me lay down a rule that No more Jefferey Archer books as gifts on my b'day ( my brother was assigned to buy me them every year ^_^ somehow every Clifton Chronicle book released around by Birth date :D ) 

7) The Book that saved my life - Well a lot of books have shaped me as a person. Secret Seven Series by Enid Blyton opened the magical pathways to books for me. This saved me from becoming a Tamil Serial addict at the tender age of 8 :P 

8) The Book I lent you - I have a strict no lending policy and catalogue all my books. They are my treasure , how can I risk losing them? 

9) The book I fall asleep to every night - I never re read , there are too many books to be read out there! 

10) The book I mistook for a hat - Blasphemy!

11) The book I am desperately trying to write - History written as fun short stories for kids. 

12) All the books that changed my life - Oh boy. Five Find outers Series by Enid Blyton , Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling , Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer , Perry Mason Series by Erle Stanley Gardner , Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth and Paths of Glory By Jefferey Archer. 

You can also respond to these questions in the comments! Will be fun trust me. 

Alphabet Song

Image from the internet

We’re all at the Anonymous Café

Basking in each other’s misery

Cotton over our bleeding hearts

Defying Death and all her friends

Ever ready to give it another go

Fossiled memories motivating rather than defeating

Grape sized heart can carry

Such humongous weight

Ignominious defeats

Justifying its strength

Kudos to us all for still trying hard.

Lavish meals and meringue pies

Can only take you so far

Novice Romantics chuckle at us silently

Our orchestra of sadness drown them quiet easily.

Be proud of all the battle scars

Queer we are not for choosing this

Rocky path

Songs getting written by of us at this very moment

Taste of victory after testing times is the best after all.

Right? 

So the Toads had an interesting prompt where you take a letter-word and run with it. I ran with the letters from A-T then ignored UVWXYZ because I already made my point. 

Sense of an Ending

Once I was the new girl

quietly inhabiting my corner 

Inhibitions galore 

Tongues tied with awkwardness 

wrapping me up, producing no comfort. 

It took a fair amount of time,

some nice humans and 

a good deal of ass kicking and coffee smelling 

to be me in front of them. 

Then school got over and college got me

starting all over again. 

College took a fair bit longer 

with relocation , Hindi and whatnot

I had resigned myself to my fate 

of becoming the crazy cat lady or

the pigeon lady from Home alone. 

All it took was one kind human 

to introduce me to her friends 

With them I could finally 

Stand in the sun. 

A big family of friends we became 

a noisy bunch , food bonded us 

to extraordinary measures

We ate more than we spoke

maybe the only reason restaurants

didn't kick us out! 

We handled failures and successes 

makeovers and breakdowns 

with much elan 

and stuck with each other through it all. 

Intimidating other individuals with our 

sheer numbers

we had a ball! 

Now the days are vanishing rapidly 

and the sun might set on us after all. 

The time to restart is looming around the corner 

I  wish this time that 

I can put them in my pockets 

and carry them wherever I want! 

Unbroken Again

So post number #175 it is  

Unbroken Again

A cracked glass can’t be stuck again

That grandma of a person croaked.

We are in the age of Fevikwik and ready smiles.

So what if it is a plastered one

For the cameras?

They are better than fake candids atleast

The other day I realized

That my heart  got unbroken

I could feel only the feeling

That I couldn’t feel anything

And a twinge of sadness

 That I’m not a wailing idiot

His star crossed lover.

My smile used to be a band aid over a bullet hole

Now the hole is no more

And my smile is whole again

But then

Why do I still mourn the hole? 

Little lessons

So I have been thinking of linking up to this blog party for a while now and finally came around to doing it.  

When I think of 'Little things Thursday' the first idea that pops to my head is to share the little nuggets of wisdom I have gathered in my internship .Oh btw I intern at this Tax Law firm. Don't worry I won't bore you with tax...too much :P

1) No field is boring if you have the passion for it.

me when high on life.

...........Says the girl who loved History in school <3

 It is not always love at first sight with all the subjects.It is in fact hate at first sight with some, in the face of horrifying technicalities. But a love borne out of understanding will always be more meaningful than mere infatuation. I guess this rule applies for almost all matters in our lives. 

When Randall in This is us said he was really passionate about weather commodities I laughed. Surely people did such professions only for the dough? But being surrounded by people who live eat and breathe for Input Tax Credit and SEZs and WCO ruling and Exemption Notifications I realize every field is lovely in its own way..

2) You just gotta hang in there

................says the person who has quit more things than she likes to admit. 

When the going gets tough , the tough gets going is the kind of lame proverb which ignites me to quit things.Honestly, I just love to just  get rid of it all the nonsense and snuggle up on my bed most days. However , after facing a week of amazing highs and horrible lows and still floating around I feel enriched. Things are never as bad as we imagine it to be . So face your situations head on no matter what. At best you get what you want. At worst you get stronger from the experience. Why do we quit things again? Oh right because we are scared of what will happen. Just be scared throughout . Next time you will get used to it! 

3) Input Tax Credit 

.............Since I promised some tax :P 

Input tax is the tax you pay on the raw materials and preparatory stuff you put in to make your final good. If the government taxed a person for the Egg and the omelette he sells , he would go broke. So they have this system where you can get credit (like store credit) for the inputs you paid and cut it on from the amount you have to pay finally to the government.  

And in India under the new tax regime of GST they have reduced the rates of taxes to restaurants but they have also removed this ITC system for them. So that is why the costs might change only a little.

4) I type in a very systematic , organised way nowadays. 

Bold , underline and very justified ;)

Ta ta! you're free to share your big lil lesson of the week in the comments section! :)

What is the up

Hi guys. I have been trying to write a poem for the last half hour and have ended up deleting innumerable drafts already. That side of my brain hasn’t really been put to work in a good while and let’s give it some time to catch up.

So what are you all up to?

What Is the up

I am currently interning at a Tax law firm and I have to admit I am struggling with all the technicalities. But I believe learning is a long arduous and painful process and one day like the karate kid or Akshay Kumar from Chandni Chowk to China , I’ll be all ready and pro to face the world… or at least get a job.

Ponderings

I am back in Chennai for this month and I have to admit that it is very weird to be back in a place with only the skeletons of my past remaining… the souls have moved on to their respective futures and careers of course. Ah the other side of the brain is finally starting to flow guys!

It is so scary to think of the future and where I’ll be in a year. Out of college and with a job hopefully but where? Here where it all begun once and waiting to begin again? Or there? Or someplace which my brain hasn’t even processed yet?

It doesn’t help that the helpful elders keep throwing in innuendos about marriage! Like that is even in the horizon. I know that the voices will only keep getting louder and my poor grandmom is in for a rude shock when she finds out that it is not even in the outside of the picture haha.  

Latest Read

So I have been reading Patriot Games the book ( yes which became a movie with Harrison Ford in it) The book takes it own sweet time to come to the point and spells out too many procedures to be any fun. Worst is the casual sexism and racism which is just impossible to digest in today’s context. It was quite amusing and ironical to read about an America which didn’t fear terrorism and the philosophies which shaped the pre 9/11 era.

Latest movie

I watched the Hell and the High water yesterday and was really impressed by it. Jeff Bridges , Chris Pine and Ben foster star in the movie and the screenplay really does a good job of fleshing out their characters. So much so that even though you don’t agree with their actions you can still understand their motivations for the same. The move deals with Armed Robbery in a refreshingly honest way. Also , I think Chris Pine wins the Chris war with this one.

 Latest Show

I watch like zillion shows at the same time. Still I would recommend the Aussie show ‘800 words’ , It is a perfect replacement for Packed to the Rafters. It is about George Turner a recent widower who uproots his two teenage kids from Sydney to a small town in New Zealand called Weld. Doesn’t sound like much but the show has created a beautiful fictious land called Weld with a wide battery of characters who are all authentic. Each episode manages to be fresh and strongly thematic and I insist that you give it a watch.

So what is the up with you people? C’mon you have to warrant this earnest personal post with a comment atleast! Let’s build a tiny community J

Solo

Solo

Melancholy strings madly strumming like a guitar

Carnivorous id ravishing my morality from deep within

Inverted sleep cycles make me question reality

A madwoman NOT at work

I play a multi note orchestra  

To the current people of my life

Friends and family run fast

Away or Towards

I’m not sure.

 I have sat in silence too long

To continue the arrangement

Where I move my mouth

And you sing my song.

I will sing till

my larynx tears

Your eardrum.

The blood that will fall

Is a pittance compared to the pain

You so casually caused

So listen to me

Sing my glorious solo  

With my mistakes and all

And this time

Judge me

for who I really am. 

She sang to me

From the internet 

A child of the city

The nature never sang to me

Neither did I ever listen to her

Eardrums drowned by noise

Cannot really fish for nuances you see

Then one rainy Sunday afternoon

The trees and the clouds and the concrete and the tarmac

Colluded successfully and concocted a seductive symphony

A consciousness stripped off all complications

Wanting to rewind and live it all over again.

Inspired by the prompt ' uncomplicated things' by Leonard Cohen's Moon. Thank you Toads for such a great prompt. You can find other takes on the topic here

Abducted

I happened to read about the girl in a box , Colleen Stan recently and her story really shook me. I tried to imagine myself in such a situation and find it impossible to sound optimistic , so honest I'm being. 

Dear whoever who gets this,

I hope you really do get this.

But I am pretty sure he will tear this up.

 Another one of his psychological games.

I don’t really know my name

Not anymore

Like before

Objects don’t need names

That is insane!

But I was a person once before

Used to hate my life

For being so normal.

Perfect parents

Enough income

Boring lifestyle

I wish I could get back to that life

haha

He penetrates me everyday

Tearing parts of me for himself

My flesh fully exposed

My limbs chained to the ground

I am his slave now.

He let me escape once

I think 5 years back?

Could be months too

Hell is always for eternity.

I was out in his front yard

Naked except for my cuffs

Unused to all the sunlight

And freedom of my limbs

My starved body wouldn’t move

Shivering in terror

I was almost thankful

when he came with his stun gun

And told me he always knew I couldn’t do it.

Why am I saying all this to you?

Please take my baby

And raise her well.

I can’t be a mother

From the bowels of hell.

Seven Superstitions

  When I conducted a poll on my blog group for a suitable topic to write on, I was surprised that ‘superstitious beliefs’ emerged as a frontrunner. Of course there was the ever enticing ‘ How to flirt with girls: For men’ giving equal competition to it.Since I believe in Non obvious topics , I choose this one.

The poster girl of superstitions

You can find my How to not flirt with girls -> Here. You can find my ancient post on superstitions  Here. This post is a rehash of sorts of that post.

Before listing out some whacky superstitions let us ponder about the idea itself. Even the most unreligious and logical looking person sometimes hold pretty weird superstitions. The rationale seems to be  ‘why tempt fate?’. People used to the random uncontrollable pulls of life and nature try to bring some semblance of sanity with their own dose of insanity. Fear of the worst case scenario and the guilt which will definitely hit us if we proceed anyways and fail, also serve as pretty strong factors for holding superstitions.

I feel that superstitions or any habit for that matter are alright as long as they don’t impair our already dysfunctional lives. Like Harry duping Ron into believing he had drunk liquid luck , superstitions help us believe that all will be well and even if we failed it was not for want of effort on our part.  

That being said lets proceed with this semi listicle on Some Superstitions which I felt need to be mentioned.

     1)    

  Like the movie ‘chain kulii ki main kulii’ rightly showed, cricket is a fertile ground for superstitions to sprout from in our country. In this movie we have our protagonist who believes in his ‘magic’ bat only to know in the climax that it is he who is special. Cricket is a game of confidence and sledging and batting collapses, a little liquid courage did no one any harm. However, it is a different ball game for poor spectators who can sadly not control the cricketing proceedings. This leads to crazy situations when some people don’t watch the match they love for the sake of their team’s victory or banish others from watching it and sometimes make people stand in the exact positions when lady luck struck.

    2)     

Now imagine the rural scenario of agriculture dictated by the vagaries of nature. How can we be surprised that these people are the most superstitious? If I was a farmer in India I would probably wet the fields with my tears. It is no surprise that they tend to have the most ‘primitive’ superstitions like animal sacrifices and are the most vehement followers of faith and religion. You cannot survive without beliefs in these areas of activity.

   3)   

   That might explain why the most corrupt , cut a share to god in the name of faith. It is their own superstitious belief that they are making a deal with forces above. The tirupati coffers tell their own tales.

   4)      Talking of whacky superstitions , I read this book called ‘ When girls dare’ long back. One memory that stays clearly in my head when a girl really needs her violet color undie to win but it has gone for laundry! So what does she do? Of course wear a red and blue one and win the race :D

   5)     A surgeon's scrub cap

Only one purpose for this pic

    6)      Irksome ones which make no sense at all in this century :-

·         Wash hair at home after cutting hair even if they gave u a hair wash at the parlour ( borders on casteism if u ask me)       

·         Reach the house from the back door after coming back from a funeral. And bathe.

7 7)  

  Reserving the worst one for the last. Untouchability practiced in the name of menstruation in certain houses. Apparently a 3 day vacation for women from housework , it is actually very demeaning . You cannot touch anyone , the clothes and utensils you touch are impure and this practice silently continues to day in many households. While I do know some women who use it well to get out of social situations it is an absolutely disgusting superstition to still follow in the 21^st century. 

    What is the whackiest/ most ridiculous superstition you hold or have heard of?

                                                                                             

Before~

The comfort of the creamy curd rice

Rolling on the floor , watching TV

Using Laika as my squishy pillow

Sleeping through life

And moving in my own jolly pace

Reminiscing about a happier childhood

With the same bunch of friends ,

Dipping Fries on cheese

Unbothered about kilos and hours

Driving on my scooty ,

Wind washing away my starting jitters ,

Sitting with my special friend on the cool mud

Of  my Bessie beach ,

And trying to tell him that

The Big Things in Life are actually Very Small

The montage that passes through your eyes

Before any nerve wracking moment is

A Random rhapsody of your lived moments ,

So live your life friend

Like the waves before us

Rise and crash and touch some lives ~

Mistakes make great stories

Worry only about being true to your self.

He smiled a quiet smile

Placed his hands behind my head

Leaned forward

And shut my mouth in his style

What was I saying again?

13 questions why

Every blogger out there has that one eternal wish – to know that they are not rambling to themselves in this vast internet blog space. Pageviews and likes can only take you so far. It is all about comments and reader’s engagement. If a post elicits someone else to express a counter view it has done its primary job.

So today I am going to initiate and partake in a ‘fun’ activity with all you readers. I am putting up 13 questions and my answers for the same. You guys can choose the ones which appeal to you and answer the same. The answers need not be long – let’s have some fun with this!

       1)      Coffee or tea? 

       The classic way to segregate people. Espresso or earl grey? Filter Kaapi or Chaai? Caffeine fuelled mornings or Tea enabled evenings?  Well my answer is * Drum roll *  Coffee! No surprises there for people who already know me. You can take the girl from kaapi but not kaapi out of the girl ( did I say that saying right? I always mess it up!) But I have recently started obsessing over the milder teas too.

     2)      Cats or Dogs? 

       Another question which divides people across borders. Doggo or grumpy cat? Scooby Doo or Smelly Cat? Puppy or kittie? I am a dog person. I don’t really have a choice in this matter. If I think otherwise, my Laika will disown me :P

       3)      Game of thrones or Breaking Bad? 

       For reasons I cannot fathom , the world seems to pit a historical fantasy against a crime drama. For reasons , I have already stated  -> here I do not get Breaking Bad. The broader tapestry and more twisty turvy Westeros captures my imagination. And my House in GoT : Lannisters. Hear us Roar! I love Cersei Lannister and Jaime Lannister. Not together. As individual characters :P

          4)      TV shows or Movies? That is one Vague ass question. Who comes up with these? ( Ok I do. ) I personally prefer character development over the plot itself and that is why I love TV shows over Movies. 2 hours is too less a time to leave a mark on my soul. That’s my opinion

      5)      Marvel or DC?

That is a toughie since I joined the Superhero Bandwagon only recently. While I did enjoy the Avengers movie a lot , I have stated how I love TV over Movies. Hence my love for Flash , Arrow and Supergirl ( Berlanti universe) supersedes my love for Thor and Captain America.

      6)      Classics or Thrillers? There seem to be two types of readers – those who like their Dickens and those who like their Archers. While I like to read everything , I prefer courtroom dramas and investigative thrillers and modern drama over the more slow paced yet lovely classics. It feels like blasphemy to say this out loud

      7)      Kamal or Rajini?

       

One of the hardest questions of my childhood. While I fell immediately in love with Rajini’s charisma and style , Kamal’s genius and sheer versatility and what he has brought in to Tamil Cinema has made him edge over the former. I still will go FDFS for both their movies.

     8)      Ilayaraja or A R Rahman?

 This question was harder for the previous generation and will be irrelevant for the next one. Ilayaraja takes home the melodies but A.R.R takes everything to the next level. He was the man who gave me music in my growing up years – I stick with my Arima.

    9)      Dhoni or Kohli?

Both the players have made Indians believe we can win. I go with my captain 07 MSD. P.S – CSK IS BACK NEXT YEAR YAY

    10)   Morning or night person? I am a night owl. It gives you tranquility and space to think. No tick tock.

    11)   Poetry or Prose? Right now in this point in my life , I want to flow like poetry rather than end up like prose.

    12)   Saturday or Sunday? Saturdays are overrated. Sundays I vote! Laziness > partying

    13)   Was this Fun or not? I weirdly found this fun. ( Maybe because I created this game :P I guess I’ll know the answer with the corresponding response to the post)

So that’s all my friends! Share your answers in the comments below. Let’s get to know each other!

Antoinette

So taking inspiration from the french revolution and recently put on hold farmer protests in Delhi  , I present to you my first for the A to Z challenge "Antoinette". Also submitting it for Poet's United theme News Media which has much maligned this movement.

Atrophy

Asinine splendour

Avarice which just got grander.

The sound of a million gold coins

Tunes you deaf

To lesser men and metals

Acrimony and anthrax

Poisoned the air outside

Air conditioned rooms

Chilled you from inside.

Astonishing we find

The greed of the rich folks

Even our daily fight for food

Doesn’t come close..

Running a rigged race

You still keep scores

Stamping on our shoulders

You reach up

Now you eat our cake

And sprinkle some bread crumbs

From that balcony of yours,

When that gets over

You wear back your gloves

And ask us to eat cake

With no reason or rhyme.

Hence now we revolt

By sitting in front of (Y)our King’s office

Eating rats

Drinking urine and

Running naked to highlight our plight

Your media brands us as frauds

And he won’t even come out

To meet us.

We are just thirsty for some justice

Please don’t pour acid on it.