From Zorba the Greek

The narrative voice is that of someone who has spent his life buried amongst his books. Then his life with Zorba shows him what he has missed. Zorba is someone who has gone places and done everything that one always wants to but cannot make time for. And Zorba is so alive that along with the author, you, envy him.
Zorba tells the author about the crow:
The crow was walking straight. He had a gait of its own. Basically he walked like crows do. And then he saw the pigeon, so he tries to strut around like the pigeon. He ends up unhappy, not able to walk properly and not able to go back to his old style.
Then Zorba looks at the author and says, you are like the crow, you are all mixed up, boss.
That line stung the author.
And me.
I felt he was telling me that, because I am guilty. Of being mixed up.

Maximum Filmy: Lost in Bombay

When you read Suketu Mehta's Maximum City, you get the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder. As you meet the well penned out, and interesting characters, you can't shake off the obligation to the person who has introduced you to them. That is because this person makes sure that he is in every page, in every experience that you have through his book.
So you have to acknowledge: Ah! Suketu: Must be one ideal Gujju boy. He does not drink more than necessary, feels the necessary pangs for his country, will not make love to anyone but his wife and is a family man. Maybe most writers cannot separate themselves from their work. Fair enough, but when you have such powerful characters and the skill to potray them in the most vivid manner, then probably you could take the back seat.
But no, in the middle of all that is happening within the pages of his books, Suketu tells us the most inane things such as the gangsters/slum dweller used his phone to make their calls. He puts all the people he met into this one sweeping sentence of `the whores, the murderers, the criminals'. And at all given points, the division is clearly Suketu and the rest of the world. So as a reader, the derogatory sentences put me off track. ``Is he talking about me?'' you think. Or maybe not.
The Bombay in this book is as filmy as our films are and thats what makes it a good read. You cannot put the book down. Every city has interesting stories. But as pace is the quality that appeals to most, when it comes to stories, Bombay has the best stories. One good thing that comes out of it is that, this proves that anything that visuals capture well, words capture equally well.
And then there is the vague Naipaulesque style, though it is not as effortless.

What the youth wants

I have been writing for City Express for just over a year now. From the day I joined to today my brief has been simple, ``Write what would appeal to the youth.''
People want to live forever. The demand for something as flimsy as wrinke removing cream, to something as surgical as cosmetic surgery, tells me that people do want to stay young.
If most people are it or aspiring to be it, then how come it evades my stories?
I am confused:
Just when you think that the youngsters of today do not believe in non-violent forms of protests and consider Medha Patkar's style laughable, they throw you off track by resorting to exactly the same means. Though the fasting may be `in batches' and the protest, only when the problem is more imagined than real. It is nevertheless the same.
Just when you think they have come to terms with all kinds of sexualities that there are , you have someone who tells you ``There are enough females in the world for the males.''
If media stops deciding what categories of people want, maybe they can actually get good stories.

lets see if this works
it might, considering miss manasi herself has created this,
tata