Suresh’s Random Ramblog

It been a while since I’ve been able to make a post. Travel, travel & more travel is the culprit. I’ve been on three trips to South Ease Asia in the last 5 months along with several trips within India. The silver lining, apart from the fact I’m a travelholic - I love to travel, is I’ve had ample opportunity to catch up with my reading - so here comes my second installment of new authors.

Prayers for the Assassin

The basic premis is a bit far fetched - imagine that by 2040 the Northern part of USA becomes an Islamic Republic at civil war with the Bible belt south! Once you can get over that with a long stretch of imagination the book becomes a good read. Islam as a religion is treated in a balanced manner. The text is well written and written from the alternate point of view. If you like conspiracy theories then you’ll like this book although the plot and story line is easily guessable. There’s a sequel in the works.

Bangkok Eight & Bangkok Tattoo

I picked up these books on a whim because the blurb on the back sounded interesting. It’s also just coincidental that after buying these I’ve made several trips to Thailand this year. Imagine a detective who, once he hits a dead end, meditates and in his meditation sees his dead partner provide him with some fresh avenues to look into. Meet Sonchai Jitpleecheep, Thai Buddhist detective extraodinaire. To me the mark of a good read is one which leaves me wanting more. Let’s just say, I’m looking forward to the paperback release of the third installment Bangkok Haunts. The books also do a lot to educate the reader about Thai & Buddhist culture. Definitely worth a read but be warned - it’s not for the faint hearted or squemish.

While on the topic of books I see Navin’s been shopping on the pavement of Abids in Hyderabad again. Abids on a Sunday is a book lover’s candy shop. Imagine a deserted section of the town with the pavements full of second hand book stalls. I had a chance to shop there last month with Navin and picked up close to 20 books - mostly established authors that I haven’t read much or have been meaning to. I’ve already read two books from that collection - James Patterson’s Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls - Both of them were good reads - the kind that keep me up till all night trying to finish it. I just finished Kiss the Girls yesterday morning at 5 am.

I’ve just started to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I picked up the book last week but avoided starting it because I didn’t want to be hit by the feeling of loss that there’d be no more Harry Potters to read. However if I delay it any further, I might come across a spoiler on line or during a conversation. Last week’s Sunday paper had already declared the fate of Harry Potter in bold headlines - I wasn’t even reading the paper - someone next to me had it open on that page. Grrrr!

Vijay’s dug up some old rangoli pictures of what we did back in medical college. I was the third guy in the team of 12 - I did some of the filling in work. My responsibilities included making sure there were enough supplies (colour power, glitter, etc) on that crucial morning. Second year I remember going to the main wholesaler in Coimbatore and buying out his entire stock on the previous day - so much so that the third years, against we were competing, couldn’t get their hands on enough and had to come to us and ask if we could spare some for them. Revenge is a dish best served cold . Our team won the Rangoli competition all the three years we competed.

I came across this new Wordpress theme called iTheme. It had the magic words in it’s description “Mac like”. Once I’d read those words I had to try it out. It also supports Widgets a customisable side bar. Still playing around with it.

In other news it good to know Navin & Vidya finally have broadband in their house. Navin’s started blogging again - he’s been off line since moving to Hyderabad. Now all that’s remaining is for Vidya to start again

*I’ve always wondered about the saying “Old wine in a new bottle”. Personally I’d choose this over “New wine in an old bottle!”.

If you haven’t heard the news, the so called “Guardians of our Culture” are at it again claiming to have been offended by Richard Gere giving Shilpa Shetty a kiss at an AIDS awareness rally. What I’d like to know is who appointed them as the cultural police. Why does my culture need defending by these guys? I’m aware of my culture and I don’t need such idiots to defend it. It reminds me of the hysteria when Tamil actress Kushboo made some comments about premarital sex and it was blown out of proportion.

There are far more pressing problems in India. Why don’t crimes against women such as dowry, rape, murder, female infanticide, corruption, etc. evoke this kind of reaction. Aren’t they more of an insult to our culture than two consenting adults kissing in public?

One of the benefits of travel is it allows me to catch up with reading.

Of late I’ve felt that my old regular authors were becoming stale and were re-hashing their plots. Jeffery Archer, Tom Clancy, Robin Cook, Micheal Crichton are a few names that come to mind. Robert Ludlum continues to haunt from his grave with ghost authors writing in his name. I still read their new books out of loyalty but I no longer get the thrill of a good read.

Instead I’ve been trying out new authors and it’s been rewarding so far. The books that I’ve read in the last few months are

Adept by Robert Finn

Although this book is compared with the DaVinci Code and The Rule of Four, the book is nothing like either of them. However it ’s different and a good read if you don’t mind reading about supernatural powers and mysticism.

Bareback by Kit Whitfield

This book is about werewolves but with a twist: 99.6% of the population turn into werewolves once a month. The remaining 0.4% who don’t are called Barebacks. Barebacks are tolerated since they are needed to run the planet and police werewolf activity during that one day. Warewolves are supposed to lock themselves in a secure room (which every house has) since they loose all normal behavioural controls and are a threat to society.

Barebacks are, however discriminated against. They do not have a choice of professions. Once the reach their teens they are forced to work for the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity (thanks Vijay for correcting it) which policies Warewolves and investigates any crimes that take place on such nights.

At the core, the book is just a detective novel set is a strange world. It’s well written and an enjoyable read.

I haven’t forgotten my New Year’s resolution. However travel has kept me from blogging. End of January had me in New Delhi for a wedding. That was the first time I’d attended a North Indian wedding in North India - the hospitality and arrangements were amazing. The wedding function was for 3 days - I got to attend it only for a day though.

February saw me in Bombay, Nashik and Hyderabad. In Nashik I got a chance to test drive the new Mahindra Renault Logan - The car’s great, BTW. Hyderabad gave me a chance to visit Navin & Vidya in their new house. Navin also took me on a visit to his office. While it might not be the Googleplex it’s still a Goolge office with all the legendary benefits (free snacks and drinks). There were a couple of visits to Bangalore and Madras in February.

March saw me off on a vacation for 11 days visiting Pattaya & Bangkok in Thailand and Langkawi & Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. It was a great break. I espically enjoyed drinking till 5 am in a beach bar in Pattaya

Oh, I’ve also started to exercise daily. I started in the middle of February and have managed to keep it up even during my vacation. I go for a brisk walk in the morning followed by a swim. A bunch of us are in the exercise group including Vijay. The target is 32×32, i.e. to have a waist size of 32.

I’ve been playing with two new toys for the last ten days. First is a new laptop. Raghu brought me an Apple MacBook Pro. I’ve been setting it up - with 2GB ram and a Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz processor it beats my previous Apple PowerBook G4 / 512MB ram hands down.

Next is a new cellphone. I’d been planning on a Nokia E60 for a long time but Pratheep convinced me at the last moment to spring for a Nokia E70 because of the better battery life. It’s got WiFi, GPRS and a QWERTY keyboard so should keep up my New Year resolution of blogging more frequently. (Yeah right!)

There’s good news and bad news for my fellow alcoholics.

Good news that will gladden the hearts of many and help many more justify breaking new year resolutions: Researchers have found that alcohol in moderation may extend life span. Yes, you heard it right scientific proof that drinking is good for you.

According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Read the full article for details.

Bad news: all that alcohol has calories in it.

That’s because the average serving of one ounce of 80-proof alcohol contains about 90 calories. And that’s before mixers are added. . . A Pina Colada, for example, has more calories than a Big Mac.

Not only do spirits, such as vodka, gin, rum and whiskey, contain a higher percentage of calories than beer and wine, but if you add fruit juice, syrups and sodas to the mix — for example, orange juice has 56 calories per serving and Coca-Cola has 105 calories per eight fluid ounces — the calorie count keeps growing. . . More here.

So the choice is yours - do you want to die early because you’re a teetotaler or you drank alcohol in the hopes that it’s expand your life span but put on so much weight that you still die! I choose the latter - life (and death) will be much more enjoyable that way.

New year resolution - be a more frequent blogger. I’ve been really bad at it. Oh, and Happy New Year everyone.

The BBC has an article called It’s Hinglish, innit? which serves as a great follow-up to an earlier article of mine, English in India, along with the discussion I had with Borneo Breezes. To quote the article:

Hinglish - a hybrid of English and south Asian languages, used both in Asia and the UK - now has its own dictionary. Is it really a pukka way to speak?

It also hits on a point people don’t often realise:

It’s also the language of globalisation. There are more English-speakers in India than anywhere else in the world . . .