~~~

"Where's the party tonight - it's on down the road , where's the party tonight - on the Dance floor"...

You can't miss this song if you tune into Mtv , Channel V and Zoom (in that exact order) these days. By Jatin-Lalit (or is it Shankar -Ehsaan Loy? ) , you will definitely not miss the sight of 'chota B' grooving to the Hinglish lyrics along with a really old looking Preity Zinta. The movie , by the way , is Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.
Now , i am not going to spend the remaining white (or yellow in my blog) space , grumbling how Johar managed to get a really horrible red/orange/none of these , coloured blazer/rain coat for Abhishek to wear and never focussed on his face for a proper five seconds , but the fact that Karan Johar and Hindi songs have changed.
Karan Johar doing a movie on an extramarital affair is an already exhausted topic and i won't go over it all over again (if you are really interested , then read Shobaa De's article in one of the issues of the Week). I do not really care about the subject of this Johar-Khan venture , but i am impressed by the way it has been brought out , the trailers , song picturisation is totally unlike a Karan Joharventure. I never really enjoyed Kal Ho Na Ho , despite its pretty endearing music , and thought it was pretty lame , but there is a marked change in this movie. It does attract , i'll admit it , and i'll definitely try to watch it , even though there is a possibility of the it-is-all-about-loving-you-family saga repeating again!

Another thing is the music. It sure is attractive especially the above (Where's the Party Tonight?) and Mitwa . Haven't heard all the songs , but the ones so far are great and a much-needed diversion from the usual Himesh Reshammiya churn-outs.
Talking of Himesh Reshammiya (or Himesh Reshammiyan as Zee Muzic wishes to honour him) , he invades not only all the music channels today but also in NDTV where he proclaims to the totally-inept-and-catching-for-breath reporter of how God helped him in his musical venture (*smirk*) and helped him in holding on to his job (*SMIRK*). And if you are not satisfied with this , tune into Zee channel where the IIFA awards are played to death and where Himesh screams about how Amitabh Bachchan and God helped him in his success pathway . I did not know how Bachchan helped him , and Himesh would have done better to mention Salman Khan , but i know this for sure that both Amitabh and Abhishek were smirking when he said that. So much for Himesh!
Anyway his 'standard of music' is detoriating these days. Aksar , Aashiq Banaya Aapne and even the recent Dil Diya Hai is good , but the shortest cut to the graveyard is by listening to Aap Ka Suroor and Ahista Ahista. And i am fully confident about the powers of the latter.

'The God of Small Things' - Arundhati Roy

Yeah , i have finally finished Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. Actually no , i finished it the night i posted about me being in the 13th chapter , but lethargy prevented me from writing about it immediately than a week later...It is always better to be late than to never do it.
Anyway , i read this book for no other reason than this book won the Booker Prize and i currently possess this freaky habit of reading all the 'in-news' books (DVC , HOMGKGWAGAL , Angels and Demons , Bangalored...). And as i expected , this book is not exactly wonderful or even the best written book , even though it won prizes and Roy a million dollars. It is just simply OK. OK , nothing more , nothing less.
This is a book which is literally a 'tourist guide of Kerala' as one reviewer described it at MouthShut. Roy utilises all the opportunites to describe Ayemenem , Kerala's climate , caste system , Marxist ideas , Keralite Christianity (hope that makes sense!) , divorce.......and does a pretty good job of it too , but other than these , there is nothing really to this book. It is interesting if you are interested in how Kerala and Keralites are , but story or substance wise , it fails to make a point.
Essentially this is about two egg-twins Esthappen and Rahel ( It is rumoured that Rahel's character was inspired by Roy's life , but she vehemently opposed this idea) . Their mom is a divorcee who lives with her parents , and the story revolves around them and their cousin Sophie. This is not the accurate summary of the story , but the whole book is rather a string of incidents , it becomes difficult to summarise all of them.
Roy is definitely apart from the class of Shoba De and the like. The narration is a little difficult to get used to , but it does hold interest to some extent. And Roy is perhaps a kind of writer who believes more in the narration and language , than the content. Which is interesting at times , but here it becomes monotonous and boring.
Overall , an OK book , but not exactly a timepass one , it does take some amount of patience to read it completely!
The God of Small Things - 5/10
---
---
---
Where is the next book?

1. http://www.abhishekbachchan.org

2. http://www.abhishekonline.net/

Two Abhishek Bachchan fansites I came up with while doing some vetti browsing. Yeah , the abhi pictures are really- so- cute , but the whole idea...hmph!
And what is this rumour (?) about Abhishek getting married to Aishwarya Rai? Ithu Romba over thaan!


Reading Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. In the 13th chapter or something. Quite a boring book , not too well written. Anyway , I will give it a chance! Who knows , the book might become better towards the end!

Tonight I am watching Bluffmaster!! Star Gold , 9 PM! Ofcourse , i have already seen it , but it is a rare treat to see it again! :)))))

And by the way , do read this - Sagarikha Ghose's blog and this review on Corporate by Rajeev masand . Pretty interesting , they are...

~untitled~

Sunday afternoon , bad weather in Bangalore(can you imagine that it actually rains here during the afternoons?) and four victimised books in front of me. Finished reading all four , all by Indian authors and all , strictly mediocre. Tragic reality - good-looking writers , but badly written books. Yet another example to show how not to read a book by the face of writer!
Anyway , the first book is Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat (not bad-looking) , 'The monk who had sold his Ferrari' by Robin Sharma (quite good looking!) , The Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mathur (Have not seen Mathur , not yet) and a new book - Bangalored by Eshwar Suderasan (Don't ask me how he looks!).
One thing is common in all (or most) these terrible 'masterpieces' (courtesy - Time , Outlook , Hindustan Times). All these writers try to infuse humour in the books (Robin Sharma not included , the only humourous part is how i stupidly , actually bought this book for 200 bucks) , especially Anurag Mathur. Humour , my foot. If Mr.Mathur thinks that how he (or how his protoganist) manages to make a fool of himself in the US is actually funny (which i think is the bottom line of this book) , then , better luck next time.
'Inscrutable Americans' is perhaps a little like 'Catcher in the Rye'. Both protoganists explore a place with disastrous results...(yawn) . I am not a fan of CITR , but it was definitely better than IA.
CITR - 4.25 / 10 , IA - 3.25/10

The Monk who sold his Ferrari is another disaster. Robin is totally convinced that the readers are too gullible to accept any crap (huts made of rose petals and women wearing only pink sarees). This guy should learn the art of perfect -reel -uttufying-with-religion-and-sentiments-creeping-in.
TMWSHF - 2/10

Bangalored by Eshwar Sundaresan. Totally 'unreadable'. Makes books like DVC seem like materpieces (no comments if you really thought it was one!). Extremely boring and full of 'he thinks so' and 'she thinks so' , this is not definitely worth reading , unless you want to die of boredom after reading it (you will , unless you are as strong as me :) )
Bangalored - 1 / 10

By the way , this is what the International Herald Tribune ( no links ) had to say about the Inscrutable Americans

"Anurag Mathur...is the toast of India's capital...(His) tale of a subcontinental bumpkin at sea in the American heartland has struck a chord with Indian intellectuals..."

Subcontinental bumpkin alright , but 'toast of India's capital' and 'Indian intellectuals'? As Holden Caulfield would say - strictly for the dumbos.