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http://www.indianexpress.com/news/lankan-army-releases-image-of-prabhakarans-corpse/462412/

12:01 PM me: http://bancomicsans.com/statistics.html
12:07 PM bedabrata.das: pffft bloody americans !
12:08 PM have you noticed they arent good at any sport other than the ones invented by themselves?
12:22 PM me: :)
12:25 PM bedabrata.das: and i also get the feeling Prabhakaran was killed a week ago
but they held the news back just because of the elections
me: in India ?
bedabrata.das: yeh
me: dont think so but possible
12:26 PM bedabrata.das: its actually a good thing DMK won.
me: the Sri lankan govt would do anything to claim THAT
bedabrata.das: they wouldnt have taken the news too well had they lost
me: why later
after all it finally vindicates 26 years of fighting
bedabrata.das: well once they've achieved it few days wouldn't hurt
12:27 PM i wonder how
me: at least this onslaught
bedabrata.das: today their president says the war is against the LTTE and not Tamils
me: yeah sure
the history behind the LTTE somehow doesnt agree
12:28 PM bedabrata.das: i think Muralitharan is the only Tamilian having it a little easy in Sri Lanka at the moment
me: the sinhalese are to tamils there what the Paki's were to Bangladesh, are to us
bedabrata.das: yeah
me: they cant but opress them
12:29 PM but then that certainly doesnt justify the means used
bedabrata.das: yeah
the ideology is never the problem
me: its like a punjab only it'll be internalised sooner
bedabrata.das: the method is
me: cos the fights been on for 25 odd years
12:30 PM bedabrata.das: except for maybe Jihad
me: most ppl just want it to end
bedabrata.das: all bias apart
yeah
come to think of it the LTTE has exploited the Tamils far more than the Sinhalese in the last 2 decades at least
12:31 PM me: true
but again its like jihad, the ideology is so drilled in that the pain inflicted is looked at as sacrifice or heroism
bedabrata.das: yeah
12:32 PM but Lankan Tamils are very different to the ones in our country
they're far more fierce and gutsy too actually
i had one in my class
Rajiv his name was
12:33 PM and he considered himself a first among equals
back in Chennai
me: yeah i guess u can say that of those muslims who fled to pakisatn
or remined
remained
bedabrata.das: nah with Muslims
you see
its their country in Pakistan
so obviously they'll act smart
12:34 PM here they do anything like that they have a Bombay or a Godhra
me: yeah but that the hindu's start :)
12:35 PM in any case if the way hindus in pak are treated is a benchmark
we are more than a democratic country
bedabrata.das: of course
i think 'tolerant' and not 'secular' should be the word!
12:36 PM Diya-Doel's dad once told us this story about a Hindu woman who lives in Bangladesh
12:37 PM she is a relative of a friend of his
me: fundamentalism in any form is no way forward
bedabrata.das: its difficult to draw the line with fundamentalism
12:38 PM i think its an inappropriate word to connote such a meaning
me: unfortunately for us indoctrination is always easier to fall prey to
12:39 PM than being liberal humanists or "tolerant" as u said
bedabrata.das: yeah
12:40 PM so as I was saying
this woman's son has Muslim friends
they get beef from the market and ask the woman to cook it...
12:41 PM saying that she is a really good cook and her beef preparations taste very good
and she does it out of fear
12:42 PM me: thats the way it is
bedabrata.das: and thats the way it shall be
:P
12:45 PM me: yeah as long as we (read I) sit in AC cubicles and discuss world politics and its dynamics minutes before i go to a swank cafeteria and have lunch :-|
12:46 PM bedabrata.das: and before i realize i've spent a perfectly good hour being a Bong taking into account how much I have to study
so ok!
i shall run along
me: :) ATB
12:47 PM bedabrata.das: and try to memorise the Companies Act
because thats what they give you marks for
your memory
me: keep at it, thats the way to go
bedabrata.das: and its ability to store exceedingly mundane material
12:48 PM me: no wonder then the % of ppl who clear it :)
:P
bedabrata.das: yeah
12:49 PM only reason i'm going to pass is because i cant bring myself to do this again
haha
me: keep taxing your grey cells
bedabrata.das: okk
12:50 PM me: its the ONLY time so say bom bhole and just do the frind
grind
bedabrata.das: yeh
good day!
me: yeah tc

A discussion i had with my cousin who grew up in Chennai and has pretty strong opinions on things.
Amongst other things he was preparing for his CA finals when we had this chat and i was just finding my feet in my new job ...
Talk about Bongs liking a good "adda"....

Ponder.

Much ado about nothing: The Literary Review

Talk about being lazy!
8 days after the muse' smiled on me, i finally start writing about what i had intended to write on.
"The edition of The Literary Review (dated 02-08-2009)". The first article i liked was titled "Age and the Fiction Writer", though i hadn't read the book Aditya had published, it was quite evident (or so i thought) that the same had been debunked by critics and he dismissed and excused for being "young", when he singles out the treatment meted out to aspiring authors..."Discouragement is cheap and easy, but what is always wanted — now more than ever for Indian writing in English — is enthusiasm. So it needs to be said, that age is a number, and literature for the young."
Quite evidently i agree with Aditya and disagree with critics who claim that youth cannot create good fiction. Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel (1989), his first published fictional work, English, August : An Indian story by Upamanyu Chatterjee, The God of Small Things. by Arundhati Roy, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri are just some of the examples of how the debut book is often the best written by an author; and these are just the "famous"ones in the genre popularised as "Indian Writing in English". Salman Rushdie wrote his first book Grimus in 1975 at the age of 28, hardly anyone i know has heard of it, however Midnight's Children (1981) at age 34 is a comparitively popular (at least well known) book. And hey, 34 by authors' standards is YOUNG!
Aditya argues his case well, and as a youngster i can understand his anguish, some of my best writings came when i wasn't schooled in the cannons of literature. Things I can never reproduce, after all my years of formal education and academic writing, an idea Bill Waterson explains well here:

My all time favorite: Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye was written at age 32 if i'm not mistaken.
No wonder then Aditya's piece woke me up on the Sunday morning, albeit i had slept @ 4AM or later.
This was followed by Navtej Sarna's piece on Maugham's The Razor's Edge, a book i had read in my first year of graduation as a part of my Maugham readings... Again, since i could relate to the book and hence the article it was an enjoyable read.
What followed next was Comic Book Capers by Pradeep Sebastian, an enthralling piece on the legend of Amar Chitra Katha and the curious relationship that Karline McLain, an american professor of religion shares with the ACK stable especially the mythology series. Though the ACK stable produced a myriad range of comics, the most memorable ones were the Mythological series as well as the one on Freedom Fighters and National Heroes. The article was a delight to read and made me retrospect and acknowledge the debt i owed to ACK, for forming my mind and beliefs on many things.

The book reviews were as usual well written and very "Hindu", notably those of Midnight's Diaspora and Hanging by a tail. Ashok Sahwny's The Sands of Time and The Mahatma and the Monkeys got nice reviews too. Likewise, Fizz goes flat, a review of Nantoo Banerjee's chronicles of the return of Coke, reasserted a belief i always had: Thumbs Up rocks!

If anyone's wondering why i havent mentioned the cover story of the magazine, just wait till the next post...

Much ado about nothing!

It took a rather nice copy of The Literary Review to rejuvenate the urge to write.
Not that a day passes when i don't think of posting something, but by the time i finally get about writing it, the interest wanes...

But these are just excuses for my laziness and unwillingness to be bound by any compulsions (albeit self imposed)or discipline in life. In fact, much to the chagrin of all and sundry around me, discipline and timeliness are two concepts that i still haven't warmed up to.
No excuses again, i'm just plain lazy and while away more time than anybody else, just walking up and down the house, wondering what i was looking for!
How else can you explain someone waking up by 7-7:30AM and struggling to leave by 8:30-8:45AM for over 3 months now. Where all i have to do is brush, drink a cup o' tea, bath and get dressed, all of which doesn't take more than 25 mins. So the all important question is what do i do in the remaining 35-45 minutes.
Well, err... i just keep thinking what i'm supposed to do next! Quite Simple that isnt it?

Well digressed a long way from the Literary Review...