Lost in translation

MG Road, Bangalore City

A damp, rainy, traffic-clogged Saturday evening

A youth jaywalks across the road, quite an expert at it by now, and heads for Brigade - to meet a friend, to have a party, to shop a bit if time permits; another typical IT-bachelor evening beckons.

A woman, penniless and pitiful, her child wailing in her arms, approaches. She extends her arm - for a thought to spare, a rupee to share.

He avoids the eye and moves on without a sigh; scratches the flab at the side of his tummy, scratches it that has grown over the last couple of months.

A thought is lost somewhere.

PS: The youth suddenly realises that what has passed, a good journal entry he could be proud of.

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time

Two things attracted me to this book. One I got curious with the name and the cover. Two, I saw a comment in amazon.com from an autistic claiming that the author has been able to capture, rather fantastically, the way the mind of an autistic worked.

About the story, you couldn't be further off the mark if you thought the book was a whodunit involving a dead-dog and a kid with a photographic memory. The way you feel when you read about "The curious incident of the dog in the night-time" is the way John Malkovich would've felt in 'Being John Malkovich' - the writing gets into your head. Mark Haddon should have named it 'Being Christopher Boone' (the protagonist).

It is a quick read, took me just a few hours. Its all the more enjoyable if you are nestled in a couch on your veranda on a sleepy Sunday afternoon with the rain pouring outside.

Customer Rating: Five Red Cars!!!

Books it is

Kraz tagged me. Books it is then,

Books I own

Two cupboards full.

Last few books I bought

Dance Dance Dance - Haruki Murakami
The curious incident of a dog in the night - Mark Haddon
1984 - George Orwell
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The complete novels of Franz Kafka
Pudd'nhead Wilson - Mark Twain

Last book that was gifted to me

Calvin and Hobbes: Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink'
..... Never a dull moment

Last few books that I have read

The curious incident of a dog in the night - Mark Haddon
..... The writing gets into your head. World through the eyes of an autistic.

Hardboiled wonderland and the end of the world - Haruki Murakami
..... Fresh, Enjoyable, Weird, Great translation

Bhuj: After the quake - Rishi Sanwal (This one is yet to hit the stands. My collegue)
..... About the people who fought the disaster

Chain Reaction - Eliyahu Goldratt
..... Great read to follow-up "The Goal"

Books that mean something to me

PAI&CO Classics (1st one - Robinson Crusoe) and The complete Amarchitrakatha series
..... Priced possession.

Hardy Boys series
..... Growing up

Kane & Abel - Jeffrey Archer
..... Next level

Short stories by Vaikkom Mhd. Basheer (Malayalam)
..... Intro to the fascinating world of Malayalam literature

Fountainhead

Roots - Alex Haley
..... A Life's quest captured beautifully in 1000 pages

Randamuzham - M.T. Vasudevan Nair (Malayalam)
..... One of my top 3. Takes an amazing view on 'Mahabharata'

Freedom at Midnight - Dominique Lapierre & Larry Collins
..... Great book about Partition. Too dramatic and glorified though.

Cuckold - Kiran Nagarkar
..... Fantastic imagery, better perspective on a spec of Indian History

Hardboiled wonderland and the end of the world - Haruki Murakami
..... Out of this world

Books I plan to read soon

1984 - George Orwell (Reading at the moment)
Amritsar - Mark Tully
Dance Dance Dance - Haruki Murakami
Seven Sixes are Forty-Three (Saat Sakkam Trechalis) - Kiran Nagarkar
Khazhakinte Ithihasam - O.V. Vijayan

Thatz it then. Tag on,

1. Mridul
2. NY
3. Shreyas
4. Nakul
5. Gopakumar

So long