NavDharmyug

Blasts Which Killed 256 People (Courtesy: Huffpost) It has been a longish week. Every week is the same, seven days, but some weeks have more than a fair share of events which demands your attention. This week was such. These are the weeks which decide what we will emerge as on the other end of the time. This week, we learned much about Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, brother of fugitive, Tiger Memon- Key operative behind the 1993 Mumbai Serial Bomb Blasts. The media went into tizzy with the announcement of Maharashtra Government’s Announcement of death sentence to Yakub Memon, scheduled for 30 th of July, 2015, at 700 hours, post dismissal of his curative petition on June, 21 st .  As the channels planned for a walk towards gallows kind of programming, to much of their satisfaction, suddenly they had something better to debate and discuss. Nobody would have expected support to pore in from places of eminence, like retired jurists and artists for the man convicted of plann...

The Unsuspecting Casualties of War- Courtesy: Getty Images All the Light We Cannot See- Amazon Link Author: Anthony Doerr Publisher: Fourth Estate Published: 2014 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction It is a matter of sheer coincidence that I found two books written by authors from 21 st century about the worst wars in the last century. The first one was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ( My review of The Book Thief- Click Here to read ) . I was worried if it was too much of similarity for the book to be able to hold my interest, after one has read the beautiful account of the second world-war in The Book Thief . But then perspective is what any author worth his salt can bring to his version of the story. The writer sits perched on a vantage point from where he watches the events of history and interprets them for us, the readers. The place from where he looks at the events makes the book or breaks it. While Markus Zusak and Anthony Doerr both s...

"Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer the problems of spirit. There is only one question- when will I be blown up ?" Said Faulkner in his Nobel prize acceptance speech.  As the news of deads in now infamous Vyapam scam float over the unfeeling television screen, the pronouncements made by the famed author seems truer than ever. The number of deads vary between 27 and 45. Some channels have even started counting hapless people who where selected through the process of Professional Examination Board of the state of Madhya Pradesh as casualties of the scam. There, of course is no logic to it. But then sensationalism overwhelms the logic. Deads make a good story, and more the number the better the story is.  27 however is in no way less ghastly than 45, especially when most died soon after getting linked to the scam, either as a witness or victim. What is most tragic is th...

Book: The Book Thief Author: Markus Zusak Published in 2005 Awards: Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Publisher's Weekly Award Some voices have color, a distinct hay. If death were to have a voice, I presume it would be blue, with a tinge of gray on the borders. When death speaks in his solemn voice, we ought to heed well to it. That is the truest voice we hear in all our life. It is true, absolute and unmoved by those who hear it. Death is the narrator of this story. It is not a cruel voice, not even furious. If anything, it is a voice of infinite calm, almost serene, although tired at times. Death for Markus Zusak is Conrad’s Marlow . It is the story –teller, and also a participant in the story. The Book Thief is a story written in the backdrop of second-world war, in Nazi Germany. It goes exceptional talent of Markus Zusak that he so delicately creates the world of a small German Town, in the throes of the volatile, history defining times. It was a time o...

See I Fooled You Source: MSN In a time of universal deceit- telling the truth is a revolutionary act.- George Orwell.  A dream rose from desperation. Hassled by blatant corruption, Indians rose in protest against a thoroughly corrupt government which largely laughed off those protest. Those in power were not concerned, worried. They were amused, they laughed it off, they asked the people who questioned corruption in embarrassed, scared voices- “Are you nuts?” Then, suddenly it was Y2k or Java or Cloud to use a technology equivalent. Everyone was doing it and no one knew what it meant. Technology democratized the media and the Social media split into two. It did do something good. It churned the politics and challenged the status quo. It broke the collaboration of convenience among the top two national parties. Narendra Modi was brought in as change of guard for BJP. Many called it attempt to polarize. I do not look at it that way. It was an attempt to offer what peopl...

I have been a child. I have been an only child. I have been through a major part of my life believing, it doesn’t matter. Loneliness is not a function of number of people in your life. It is a matter of attitude . So I have been telling myself all those years. I would sleep through the summer afternoons as a child, waiting for the evening to descend . I would read magazines and little Pocket-books much to annoyance of parents through the days, haunted by loneliness. I would tell myself, brotherhood or brotherly love is something that can be won over by kindness, charm and what not. I would learn later that you cannot argue with nature. I, in later life, took to writing. Sometimes I wonder why? When my health suffered, I was to take to some physical exercise. I tried gyms, but with absence higher than the attendance, gave up. Then I took up long distance running and it stayed. Why? What is the common theme between writing and running and why it links to my own solitary...

Kangana Ranawat as Datto and As Tanu Released: 22nd May, 2015 Director: Anand L. Rai Writer: Himanshu Sharma Cast: Kangana Ranawat, R. Madhavan, Swara Bhaskar Rating: 4/5 (Enjoyable Watch, one point lost on unnecessary love angle of Puppy and needless kidnapping plot)   In a very famous TED talk, Elizabeth Gilbert  , famed author of 'Eat, Pray, Love' speaks about the artists often crashing under the heavy load of their own earlier success. While the talk is on a different subject regarding how an artist who gets an early success of such stupendous proportion should handle the enormous stress such a success puts on the artist by expecting further greatness from him, by considering Talent as some outside force, beyond the Artist's mortal persona, I bring it up here for a totally different reason. I was trying to understand the phenomenon which Tanu Weds Manu Returns seems to be on the way to make and contrary to the general fate of any follow up work, how ...