A ‘vacation’ too lengthy

I remember that everyday I went to school, and everyday I went to college, I would look forward to the next holiday. The greater the stretch of holidays, the more eagerly I would look forward to it. A vacation would seem the most pleasant thought in those days. But now, having had a very long(read SUPER long) vacation, and knowing that I am still only halfway through it, I feel I am not going to need a vacation ever again! I have started loathing vacations so much!

And to make things worse, this isn’t technically a vacation. I am supposed to be a graduate, and a graduate is expected to work, and not take a ‘vacation’. I have lost count of the number of times I have answered the question-”So, when are you joining?”. In fact, I have answered it so many times that it now is an instinct. And i have a gut feeling the answer isn’t going to change for sometime atleast!

There is so much talk about the worst of the recession being over, of us having ’seen the bottom’, there are positive forecasts of growth, there is generally optimism all around. And we, the employed-yet-unemployed, stay put, hoping for the best, as we have been doing for months..

Amazed,moved

Well, it’s been a long time since I blogged last. Somehow, the activity hasn’t so far appealed enough to me to make it a habit. Well, this blog is a metaphorical song of praise, praise for one of the most wonderful, most lovely, most complete works of fiction I have ever read.  ‘Gone with the wind’ is the classic I am referring to. It is probably the longest book I have read yet, but the most satisfying among the books I have read of  late, and by some margin.

It is a very simple tale, uncomplicated, devoid of melodramatic twists, cold blooded murders and the like , which one often encounters in the course of reading long novels. It is plain, simple and realistic. It is a love story, but there is a lot more to it than love; a good lot more.

The depth of each character and the detail which goes into portraying each of them makes the reader get transported to another world, the magical world that accommodates the pragmatic Scarlett O’Hara, the charming and inscrutable Rhett Butler, the innocent and immensely lovable Melanie Wilkes..

The story is set in the 19th century, at the time of the American Civil War. The complexities of the American society at that time, the background of the American Civil War, the ruin it caused, the Reconstruction, are all described in such fine detail that even a person who has no idea of the Civil War and its aftermath would get a clear picture of it all.

The merriness of the protagonist at the beginning of the story, the struggles she encounters during the war, the relentless efforts she puts to uplift herself after the war, her stony determination throughout the novel, her lack of clarity, her realization of her true desire at the end; there is only one word for all that-mindblowing.

‘Gone with the wind’ is a real masterpiece. I started reading it with some reluctance, but I finished it more quickly than I have finished any other novel, and I ended up being grateful for having read it. I was amazed, I was moved.  If you are a lover of quality novels, this is one novel you would not want to miss.

Way to go, ARR!

Well I’m new to blogging, this is my first blog. I’m Hari, just another guy from Chennai. Let me start off with the most momentous event of today. Today,the night of 22nd February in Los Angeles, and early morning of 23rd February in India, one man made history. A.R.Rahman became the first Indian to win two Oscar awards, and no one deserved an achievement of this magnitude more. ‘The Mozart of Madras’ as he is called by his fans, made the entire nation be lost in frenzy and joy with his extraordinary and incredible achievement. The Oscars provide the crowning glory to what has been a most illustrious and sensational journey of music for the great man, and he is not finished yet; even after  about one and a half decades of his career in music composition , he just keeps getting better with every album he composes, with every year that passes, with every new feather that he keeps adding to his cap.

Well, you have to say that the soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire is not Rahman’s best; he surely has composed better songs, but then those weren’t composed for English movies, which is a prerequisite to qualify for an Oscar nomination. If not for that barrier, he might, for all we know, have won several Oscars already! But that’s not the case, and one has to say that a song like Jai Ho, while it is not Rahman’s best ever track, is indisputably high in quality and great to listen to.

Being one among the countless Rahman mans or  ‘Rahmaniacs’, as they are sometime referred to as, who have grown up listening to Rahman, listened to every one of his new releases with eagerness (and seldom been let down), I feel extremely happy about his Oscar achievement, and proud to be his fan. I look forward to listening to more mesmerizing numbers from him. I’m waiting for the release of his next album already!