On the parchment

***Spoiler Alert*** "The Mahabharata is an ancient epic where: A son renounces sex so that his old father can remarry: Bhishma a daughter is a prize in an archery contest: Draupadi a teacher demands half a kingdom as his tuition fee: Dronacharya a student is turned away because of his caste: Ekalavya and Karna by Drona a mother asks her sons to share a wife: Kunti a father curses his son-in-law to be old and impotent: Shukra a husband lets another man makes his wife pregnant: Pandu a wife blindfolds herself to share her husband's blindness: Gandhari a forest is destroyed for a new city: Khandava-Prastha a family is divided over inheritance: Kuru clan a king gambles away his kingdom: Yudhishtira a queen is forced to serve as a maid: Draupadi and Sarmishtha a man is stripped of his manhood for a year: Arjuna a woman is publicly disrobed: Draupadi a war is fought where all rules are broken: Kuru-kshetra war a shift in sexuality secures victory: Shikhandi the v...

Tilly succeeded in bringing back Sidney Sheldon's characters alive but the characters were dancing for Tilly's tune and not Sidney's. If you want to be famous, write a sequel to a bestseller, don't go after the legend! Sidney Sheldon was and forever will be the master storyteller. As for the characters, I'd like to start with Gabe. He is a drug addict, loser, criminal and a prisoner. When he is released and suspected for a fraudster again, the natural reaction would be to think he is guilty. But the detective who inquires the case believes in him even though he knows Gabe is an ex-con. Seriously? What was I reading? Sidney Sheldon's sequel or some self motivating crap? The characters were co-operative and lending a helping hand in every step of his. Dhai helps him in real estate business. His friend from "prison" (yeah that's right. People are very generous and kind) is financing him to start a real estate business from scratch. Tara agrees to m...

We all know that slums are very common and abundant in the third world countries. But do we know what makes a locality to be distinguished as slum? There are various factors involved in this apart from the fact that the people in those areas are really poor and uneducated. For one, it is unclean and unhygienic. One of my friends, who is doing a course on Environmental Science happened to take up a project on Slum areas in Bangalore. Now I know what everyone thinks.   Slums in Bangalore? Impossible. But that is the cold truth. And what is worse? Those slums in Bangalore are generally tagged along a posh locality. Initially, each family was given money by the Government to build their own houses. But most of them found the necessity to save the money and build a small house with no toilet. They did not feel that toilet and sewage system was an integral part of home. But we cannot stereotype slums on the whole. Every slum has its own characteristics. There ...

Prologue “Dowry is not so common in our community”, said my perima, while biting into a piece of pizza we just bought. “That is true. It is considered a shame to demand from the bride’s parents. Although there are some people who still ask according to their convenience”, my mother added. We were reminiscing their childhood days over dinner. Perima had come over to our place for the weekend and we were enjoying the occasional pizza (occasional for them, as they hardly eat junk food) for dinner. “Who asks for dowry? Is there anyone in our family who did?” I asked. “Oh I don’t know. But your grandfather had to pay a huge sum to get his sister married. You see, back then, girls used to get married in their early teenage. It was a big deal to the family if a girl is 23 and unmarried”, said my perima. “I thought granddad’s sister was married when she was eight!” I said. “Not her. She was the elder one. She got married when she was eight. She left to her in-law’s p...

***Spoiler Alert*** You have got to be kidding me! I know that Jeffery  Archer went to prison and that he is a politician, but is he capable of writing about anything else? Same old layout.. The protagonist (Danny Cartwright) goes to prison for a crime he did not commit, his fiance: whom he is supposed to marry in a few weeks, is pregnant, he gets the best of the cellmates, one of them teaches him dining etiquette because lets face it, the hero HAS to know how to use a fork and a knife.. And here  is the biggie.. He changes his identity (conveniently), inherits a big chunk of property which is not his to begin with.. sounds familiar? yes, same as Clifton Chronicles (I know Clifton Chronicles were published after this book). And this one is three books in one bloody long book! It is acceptable to copy the others' in your own (like he took the idea from Sidney Sheldon's 'The doomsday conspiracy' for his 'The Eleventh Commandment' book) but it is not cool to cop...

I was on my way to the bus stop near my house. It was 9 o'clock and I was already late. Luckily, just before I crossed the road, I saw PP19, the bus which directly goes to my project centre. I ran across the road and got on to the bus and the bus started to move. I made my way past the crowd, to the conductor and asked for a ticket to NIEPMD hospital. The conductor gave a sympathetic look and said, "this bus goes only till VGP-Injambakkam. Get down there and take the next bus to the hospital." and he handed over the ticket to me. So much for having run to catch a bus that crowded! I was already late to the lab and the fact that I had to change two buses added to my frustration. And the thought of standing there in the crowd for the next one hour, didn't help. I squeezed myself through the passengers and stood where I could at least breathe some fresh air. I had to kill time so I plugged in my earphones to listen to music. The bus reached the terminal after what...

***Spoiler Alert*** Dr. Norman Johnson and the other scientists are ushered by the Navy Commander Hal. Barnes to site of the aircraft crash. But it turns out, lying on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, is a military spacecraft of the USA from the future. It appears to be at least three hundred years old. As the crew explores the spacecraft, they find out that it has picked up an alien artifact, a sphere from the black hole outside our galaxy and has lost track of time and arrived a few hundred years prior to the launch. Ted (the astrophysicist) wants to make contact with the alien and make a breakthrough in his field of science, Beth (the zoologist) wants to assert her feminism to her peers, Barnes (the navy  commander) wants to acquire the ammunition and defense technology from the alien, Harry (the mathematician) wants to get the hell out of there before any disaster occurs and Norman ( the psychologist) is too old and scared to get himself involved in any adventure when the s...