Tea & Dark Chocolate

By now, its common knowledge that I am wary of books by Indian authors. My dislike for Chetan Bhagat is well documented , I could no t finish Jhumpa Lahiri's last book , I have read only one book by Aravind Adiga and have never even read Amitav Ghosh. Vikram Seth is different, he doesn't get into this league of writers at all! So when I picked up this book, I was sceptical. I had attended the book launch and heard some great things about the book by people there, I saw the author speak, I also read the quotes behind the book cover. But the book snob in me was still a bit sceptic. Then, I read the booklet that came along with the book, something like a sort of introduction to the book and the author's style, and noticed myself getting excited.  

A super-good year for books... I touched a number that I only dreamt about touching. Reading 120 books in 12 months is a big deal, especially to me. That means an average of - 10 books per month 2.5 books per week   a book every 2 days All this combined with a very demanding job, and another demanding hobby ... well, I felt like I ran past the finish line of a marathon as I closed my 120th book earlier today. [Do check out my book list by clicking on the pic above] It was indeed like a marathon. I started off with great gusto, I grew disillusioned in the middle, I told myself that number doesn't matter(which didn't till I finished my 100th book, after which it was merely a challenge I threw to myself to see if I could touch 120!), I drew inspiration from other readers, my elbows ached with all the book/Kindle-holding I did, and when the finish line was visible there was exhilaration and excitement, and when I finally reached the magic number after some huffing and puffing...

Oh, it has been a good year. A very good year, indeed. I read a lot, enough to compensate for the very less travelling I did, cooked quite a bit, learnt a bit more about photography and learnt how to knit. Travel : There has not been a lot of travel, thanks to the very colliding holiday schedule both I and the husband kept this year. Right when I would be free from work, he would be swamped with it, and when I would be busy, he had some free time. In spite of this killing schedule, we went out twice... Delhi-Agra and a week long trip to Coorg, which was essentially a reading holiday, where we both did nothing but read in our respective corners in the charming little homestay we stayed at. And I went for a short holiday to Goa with friends where I did nothing but eat mangoes in the comfort of our hotel room, take a couple of long bike rides and squirm as usual at the thought of sitting in the beach. Blog : No, am not talking about this one. Am talking about The Meal Algorithm , which...

Yep, only when you have to make them do you realize that you are indeed a grown-up. And that life is not how it was when you were Daddy’s little girl, you’d run to Daddy and tell him the problem and expect it to be solved in the next minute. Or pick up the phone and talk it out with Mommy, and expect her to solve it for you. Well, when you grow up, more often than not, you discover you cannot even discuss many of your dilemmas with your parents. That’s the downside of being a grown-up, I feel. I will take a slight digression and mull on how much watching Gilmore Girls again made me miss my Mommy. And how many times in the middle of an episode, I would pick up the phone and talk some random stuff with Mom, not the usual, how are you doing, did you take your meds, no, I cannot visit you this weekend etc. Yeah, I realized that watching the show made me grow closer to my Mom, reminisce all the moments I spent talking to Mom when I was staying at home, and how we are still close, except th...

Nothing says summer like the arrival of mangoes and watermelons to the markets. And of course, the sweet songs of the cuckoos in the mornings, the power cuts and the hot afternoons. And yes, the reminder that I've indeed grown up, and so I do not have summer vacations anymore. No more running around grandparents' houses with cousins without a care in the world. No more sitting by the todu and squeezing the mangoes out of the last drop of their pulp. No more competitions on whose mango seed flies the longest, and who will hide from the rest of the cousins the longest. No more of those very expensive put-a-hole-through-cousins-pocket gad-bad ice-creams. None of the pelakkai gattis , mango rasayanas , tandoorlis and kukku bajjis . No more summer exhibitions where you would meet all the people you've ever known , all in the span of just one evening. No more of just-cut-me-a-mango-Mom all three meals a day. No more sleeping on the terrace till the sun tans you to the darkes...

Wandering , I was lost in the big almost-bad , never-ending world of books, YA novels and some dumb series , fluttering from book to book, wondering where in my book-journey I lost a purpose and where I had forgotten all about my favourite style of writing and the worlds I'd live to get lost in and worrying about what my next book would be like and telling myself that quantity is never better than quality but still piling on the number of books I read per month and questioning my own attention span ... And that is when Murakami happened. Almost every time he happened, he managed to fill my head with unimaginable worlds and beautiful paired sentences and aptly used words... Thus showing me what the joy of reading is all about! Like how they say that when you are in love, every step you take in your life is so that it might take you closer to your love (am refraining to use a reference from the book here, something which Aomame does towards the end of the book), every book I read th...

  Needless to say, books impact our lives a lot. I also believe that books shape us, our characters and a lot on how we think about many aspects around us. That is why being well-read was a very important trait for me. The ONE thing I was particular about my life-partner even as a young girl was that the boy I would marry would be well-read and should be able to talk and hold conversations on books. If not anything else, we’d at least never run out of topics to talk about.. :) I am a huge fan of Haruki Murakami, his books, his style of writing (with due credit to his translator)  and the world he weaves in his stories. I’ve learned a lot and read up a lot after finishing each of his books because of the many references he gives to many topics in his books, all those that he likes or he draws his inspirations from. So when his 1Q84 was due for release last year, there were a lot of articles on him, his living, his books and his inspiration for 1Q84 itself and the various thi...