Talking Talking

It is that time of the year again! Festivities, celebrations and the ever tiring charade of endless gifting! Lights, everywhere you look! An atmosphere of general revelry!

I wish you a very happy Diwali. Not just to you, but to your family, friends, friends of friends, children (if any), grandchildren (if any), great-grandchildren (if any), friends of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, neighbours (those you love), neighbours (those you hate), spouse(s) (if any), ex-spouse(s) (if any), flames and ex-flames (if any, though I’m damn sure they exist!), strangers you happen to meet everyday (or atleast frequently) and all others I may have missed. May you have a very happy Diwali indeed. 

You celebrate Diwali every year, isn’t it? And why not? It is the National Festival of India — the brightest amavasya of the year! Diwali celebrates the act of homecoming, which is why it is celebrated as the festival of lights. May the lights guide the paths of those who have lost, may the lost not succumb to darkness, may the darkness fade away into the oblivion…

That is why I request you let Diwali be the festival of lights, only. The modern tradition of bursting crackers on this auspicious day has made it a festival of noise, pollution, fires, injuries, and sadly, even deaths. Our fragile environment is already caving in with all those fumes we earthlings have a habit of spewing out. Please don’t add to the kitty. Please don’t burst crackers…

This year, celebrate Diwali in a traditional, non-toxic way, and convince others (including all those whom I’ve mentioned above!) into doing the same. Lets go Cracker-Free, and help our environment. Its never late to start.

Consider this post as a part of Blog Action Day 2009.

Radio Jhankaar is perhaps the best bollywood radio station out there! Today, it just kept playing my favorite tracks! Sample this — Pathshala from Rang De Basanti, title track of Dil Chahta Hai, Tumhi Dekho Na from KANK, Bum Bum Bole from Taare Zameen Par, Lamha Lamha from Ganster, O Re Piya from Aaja Nach Le, Khabar Nahi from Dostana… The list goes on!

Unlike some of my friends (read: Mohnish), I’ve grown up listening to bollywood music. I still have a formidable collection of audio cassettes to back this up! (Though with the advent of MP3, this collection is a little obsolete )

I’d heartily welcomed the private FM channels when they’d made an appearance in Delhi. However, these days they aren’t quite up to the mark. They provide us with mindless blabber, and have a habit of playing the same track fifteen times a day — so much so that after some days, even the little sound of that wretched track becomes a pain in the ass!

Radio Jhankaar is a different equation altogether. No Ads, No Blabber, No Chattering, and No Repitition. Their track selection is awesome… Not only do they play the latest hits, they also play the choicest songs from the byegone era (read: tracks older than a year or two). In short, listening to Jhankaar is a pleasant experience. 

Radio Jhankaar is available on Channel 46 on the WorldSpace Network, and they haven’t paid me to write this. 

After more than a month of cultivating the habit, I am proud to announce that I’ve set up a new online space where you can read my thoughts.

Rajat’s Diary

My previous attempt at starting a tumblog didn’t quite see the light of the day. I started it with much deliberation, but never really got the hang of it. So the next time I decided to start one, I made up my mind not to announce its existence as soon as it got overboard — so that I can get some time to breed a habit of frequent postings as required by such a means of expression.

Its been a month since I’ve started Rajat’s Diary, and it boasts of 40 posts already! Compare it with the 57 odd posts I’ve managed to come up after a year and a half of blogging here.

Though I’ll continue to post here once in a while, Rajat’s Diary will be my primary vehicle of self expression on the internet. I hope you enjoy it. 

Subscribe to the RSS Feed of Rajat’s Diary.

(no spoilers)

As a sequel to the 2003 bestseller The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown has given us The Lost Symbol, which is a thriller about the secret brotherhood called The Freemasons, interspersed with a family drama.

Set in Washington DC (again!), the book explores the one-night-wild-goose-chase of Robert Langdon (again!) against a dreadful lunatic (again!) and a highly powerful government agency (again!), protecting a secret that has the potency to change the world (again!), making profound discoveries by carefully observing well known pieces of art, literature and bible (again!), while trying to save all those murders that happen along the way (again!). You get the drift.

The novel is repetitive, to say the least. If you have read his earlier books, say Deception Point, Angels and Demons, and The Da Vinci Code, you will find the latest one utterly boring and monotonous. I mean, Dan Brown should move over to some new theme, rather than reusing this art-science-religion crap over and over again. We know that there are secrets in the world out there waiting to be discovered, but we would like to read something refreshing, thank you very much.

If you’ve read The Da Vinci Code carefully, you will find so many parallels with it in The Lost Symbol that the plot will become almost believable. Trust me, if you are paying attention while reading, you will be able to predict the final outcome some halfway through the book. Yes, it is that predictable -  more predictable than a B-grade bollywood flick! 

And please, don’t talk about the finale. It is as excruciating as anything to read! A literal pain in the a**!! Even after everything is over, after the supposed National Security Crisis is averted, and the lunatic’s identity revealed, the author brags on and on about the symbol that was lost. Peter Solomon manages to extract another meaning from the Pyramid, which is bland. At this point, all the reader wishes is that the book should end, which doesn’t happen. 

However, if I keep the monotonous plot aside, I must confess that Brown has really evolved as a writer. The grammatical errors in the book have greatly reduced [ ], the number of shorter sentences has considerably decreased [ ], and some of the chapters aren’t too bad. Especially Chapter #77, in which the antagonist relives his past. Pure genius!

Dan Brown also seems to have grown technologically [ ], for you find references to iPhone, Google, Wikipedia and Twitter (yes!) strewn all over the book.

What’s the verdict then? The Lost Symbol is sapless, run-of-the-mill, unimaginative, and wearisome. You can add more adjectives if you want, in the comments.

P.S.: If you want some adventure, you can try the SymbolQuest at the book’s website. Quite an interesting game. Here’s a screenshot:

A very happy Ganesha Utsav to all my readers! On this occasion, I would like to share a very interesting article in Hindustan Times by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Without much ado, here is the link — http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=24_08_2009_011_007&kword=&mode=1

Food for thought!

[As far as my longer posts are concerned, I’m in process of writing a magnum-opus. So it will be a while before you see something posted in here. Stay tuned, though! ]