Variety is the spice of life

This is not a typical book review post, but more of an emotion. I can't tag this book as yet another favorite of mine. It carries lots of happy and positive memories for me and if at all i've to tag someone for a teacher's day post, that would Jeffrey Archer for improving my english and in fact for having taught me most of the words i use and familiar with at present. His books were my distance learning course which gave me confidence about the language that Rapidex couldn't. My dad was anxious and at times more worried at my language skills, especially English and his insistence and the efforts he took to improve it only made me more scared and insecure about the language. So much so that while my school mates played shuttle on the day before tenth public exam for English, i was slogging till late in the night mugging up lessons as if it was science. Archer's books made me relax and enjoy the language and his easy use of sentences made me understand and realize wha...

An interesting premise which sounds illogical not just on paper but on every sense, despite which the series managed to survive seven seasons means, it sheerly on the strength of casting.  The story is about a 40 year old woman, who fakes her profile as a 26 year old to get a job. What starts as a genuine attempt to make ends meet, by getting into a job, spirals into several situations, each of which almost results in her secret getting revealed, but manages to save herself just in the nick of time. By the final season, almost every one in her circle, one after another, gets to know about her secret and real age, but not surprisingly, keeps her secret and even supports her. Idha first seasonlaye panniruntha renday episodela kadha mudinjirukum is a different story. The casting, as i mentioned saves the story and makes it watchable. The lady who fakes herself as a millenial despite being couple of decades older, was actually in her 40's when the show began, so goes for rest of the ca...

One last book in the Blake Crouch series of novels :) Ithoda stopping it for now. Too much of dystopia and even normal mirror looks like "Black mirror" after reading all these books. Now, to the story. I am not sure of the sequence or the order in which his books were written, leave alone getting published. But Recursion seems to be an extended version of Dark matter. In both the books, love and the quest to re-unite with your loved one across multiple timelines or universes seems to be the theme.  In Recursion, the heroine invents a chair, which takes back people in time. She wants to help her mother suffering from Alzheimer, to restore her memories. As expected, the chair falls into other peoples hands and what happens forms the rest of the story. As an one liner, this may sound more sci-fi than emotional. But the way the chair transforms her life and the lives of everyone else in the world, forms the whole of the story. The hero happens to be an alcoholic (surprise! surpri...

At some stage, every one of us would have, will be, using this phrase - "andha kaalathula". That is your graduation ceremony into geriatry , password for being labelled perusu , valedictory speech of being vayasaaidchu, kinder way towards being/becoming kezham. Ardha raathrila edhuku indha post? What was the trigger?? Well.  I saw a speech by late Mr.Nellai kannan about Kannadasan. He was speaking about the depth of philosophy on his thathuva songs and how his command over his language helped him churn out so many immortal creations. One such song, he just mentioned a para that stayed with me.. haunted me to be precise. "Iravin kanneer panithuli enbaar Mugilin kanner mazhaiyena solvaar Iyarkkai azhudhaal ulagam sirikkum Manidhan azhudhaal iyarkkai sirikkum" Even while reading the lines you can't resist hearing Chandrababu's voice and the immense sadness it leaves in your heart from the movie "kavalai illaadha manidhan". I've never seen the movi...

Intha padatha disturb pannama release panna vitruntha, result automatically maari irukkum. Idea illatha arasiyalvaathis!!

As the final part of the trilogy, Last town answers many questions that arise after and while reading the previous two parts. Gathering the remaining population of the town, how Ethan manages to save them from the marauding abbies forms the crux of this story. He breaches the lab where Pilcher, the person responsible for creating the town and all the mess associated with it, resides along with his team. He wins over the support team of Pilcher by showing his evil side where he goes to the extent of murdering his own daughter just to ensure his way of getting things done succeeds. Eventually, Ethan manages to re-electrify the fence, keeping the rest of the remaining population bit safer. In between, there is a K.Balachander movie like love triangle involving his wife and his ex-boss from 2000 years back. After a minor scuffle and some soap opera moments, the ex-boss unites with Ethan's ex-lover while Ethan wins back his family. Not having enough food or rations to sustain them beyon...