Filling up the space

It looks like as though it is a long time since I put up anything on this blog.  Well, actually, it is a long hiatus, for no apparent reason.  The absolute lack of creativity in me couldn't find any motive in churning out those fortnightly posts, but finally found that there is no easy path out than to compose one of those ultra boring posts and get back to the blog world.  One might wonder what I have achieved in the last couple of months, but you just have to look at me, not even skim my brains (if ever I had one), and you will realize that there has been not a single value addition.

Anyway, what did I do? There are not many updates, but there have been those inspirational occasional bursts of reading (yeah, not talking about writing!), juxtaposed by deep (really deep) sleep and lazy slumber. On many days, rather on many nights, just before I get to sleep, I hold on to a book, as though I am praying for mercy, for the welfare of my kith and kin, and hang on to it as though it is the single biggest obsession in my life.  After some time, well into the morning, I get up from a dream world, see the smirk on my wife's face, Switch off the lights before you go to bed.  I had to get up in the middle of the night. You do this every time you hold that book.  Either you don't read before you go to bed or change the book.  I am thankful that she is not holding a stick or something to whip me for my idiosyncrasies.  I get up in a daze without an idea of where I left off the chapter and wishing that the next day would be better suited to my progress.  The day remains the way it was before, and my wishful thinking remains, jutting out to the next day and the day after.  But, the consequences certainly were not disastrous, as I trudged along to the finish line of Yiyun Li's The Vagrants, and felt as though I had scaled the tallest peak in the world.  I did not have a lot of expectations from The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown, and my opinion did not change after I finished the book.  A lot of friends told me that it was a very average book, and I had to agree with them, even though it has a racy plot.  I think it is time for Dan Brown to move on to other themes and save us the misery of re-reading the same things over and over.  But, my best read book in recent times has to be the autobiography of Monica Seles, Getting a grip, for you get the feeling that the contents are pouring out of her heart.  It is very well written, with very nice anecdotes of her playing career, and of course, very inspiring.

Then, coming on to India's most successful author in recent times, Chetan Bhagat, and his book, Two states, I have to admit that he fills his book with all the ingredients that would make an Indian youngster go gaga over his book.  It is not a classic, or a literary masterpiece, but has the necessary contents to finish the book in one sitting.  All his books have been that way, and I am sure, all his future books are going to be that way.  He is not the sort of guy who wants to test the reader's intelligence, and if that is his style, so be it.  With an intense emotional portrayal of all his characters, I am sure he will never get a writer's block.  My current read is about a man who is undoubtedly the face of his company, The second coming of Steve Jobs.

Oh, yes! I wanted to get into the visual world.  So, I thought it would be a good time(actually I have been waiting for years to do this) to invest in a DSLR (a Nikon D3000 to be precise) camera and begin exploring the nuances of the digital world.  But, whenever I look up a technical term to improve my picture taking prowess, a weird thought enters my mind.  Let's say, I am trying to understand what shutter speed is; my mind wanders and wanders like a cloud, and finally envisions the upcoming Martin "Sorakesi" directed movie, Shutter Island.  My skills definitely ought to go to nought! Sigh!

It's the end of the year, and it surprises me as to how fast this year has gone by.  It is as though only yesterday that I wrote this post, but then a year has gone by, as though the pages of a book have been flipped in a second.  Also, this year, the oft used I has been seamlessly replaced by We.  It is a transition that has taken some time getting used to! So, that's been my life, and I hope I get to write some more useless stuff on this space more frequently.  But, then, with so many useless things to do, I am guessing it is going to get less and less frequent.

PS: Happy Holidays!!!