The Trouble with Magic

First Line : I don't know what it was that made me abandon my usual path to work on that particular October Tuesday.

The trouble with magic by Madelyn Alt is a mystery novel. In this story Maggie joins an an antique shop which is owned by Felicity Dow, a witch. Isabella was murdered on Maggie’s first day of work. Stony Hill cops considered felicity as the main suspect. But Maggie’s instinct convinces her that Felicity could not be the murderer. Is Maggie’s instinct right?

The title “The trouble with Magic” made me to read this novel. I expected a fantasy treat but I was greatly disappointed. In the whole book they didn’t use any supernatural powers for their rescue. Felicity was hooked in a murder case at the beginning of the novel but nearly half the book is over before Maggie begin the investigation. Madelyn tells a lot about magic and super natural powers in the first half when it had nothing to do in the second half.

The good thing about Madelyn is the way she tells the story eventhough there is nothing to tell. Her description is interesting. I don’t know to which genre this novel belongs. I saw this novel under fantasy list in a blog but it has no fantasy stuff. According to me this is a crime novel by an amateur crime writer.

Message in a bottle

I recently read Nicholas Sparks’s ‘Message in a bottle’. In this novel, the columnist Theresa Osborn finds a bottle in a beach. The bottle has a letter written by Garrett to Catherine. On reading the letter, tears rolls down from her eyes. She wants to find the man who is in love with his wife, who was taken away from him.

With the help of Deanna, Theresa finds Garrett. Theresa and Garrett are falling in love. But is it possible for Garrett to get over Catherine completely? Can they get into a long term relationship? How will Garrett react if he knows that Theresa came in search of him only after finding his letters to Catherine?

The novel starts well. Bottle in beach with letter, then a letter from her reader and again a letter from a local magazine all written by Garrett. These things not only increases Theresa’s curiosity but also our curiosity to know about Garrett. The initial meetings of Garrett and Theresa is interesting to read. But once they have fallen in love, everything changes.

After falling in love she visits Garrett or he visits Theresa and they do the same thing. The only difference which Spark shows is the place. The novel sags a little in these chapters. Garrett who is in deep love with Catherine falls for Theresa on seeing her. I think, Theresa being the heroine of the novel is the only reason for this.

Eventhough the life of Garrett and Catherine comes scarcely in the novel they are interesting. Every character in the novel wets their eyes on reading Garrett’s letter but I feel nothing like that. At the same time Garrett’s last letter made me feel sad. On the whole this is an average novel.

Anything for you, ma’am

Tejas, an IITian falls in love with Shreya. Shreya is in Chennai, 2000 Km away from Tejas.The novel tells how Tejas goes all the way to see his lady love and what are all the hindrances he faces.

Raheja had given an excellent flow to the novel.I liked it a lot since it is a feel good story. The tag line “an IITian’s love story” made me to think that this is about the love between two in IIT. So I thought that this story will revolve around IIT campus and will be a pastiche of Five point someone. But it barely tells about Tejas campus life and more about his journey to Chennai.

The book is non linear narrative type. The story begins with Tejas rushing to book tickets from Delhi to Pune and then from Pune to Chennai with false identity. Then the author goes back to the past to explain the reason for going to Chennai, then comes to the present to show the problems he encounters and then to past to show how they fall in love and then to present. The book is rich with humour content, especially the first meeting between Shreya and Tejas made me to roll down and laugh. Tejas gets so many problems but he is lucky enough to get someone like America return cousin, Shreya’s friend’s friend, Dad’s friend and the list goes on, to slove the problem.

Eventhough the chapter about DISCO committee takes us back to Chetan Bhagat’s work, the good thing is that he didn’t take it to next chapter. Some may think that the novel is too cinematic but to me there is nothing wrong if the novel is cinematic. So I highly recommend this novel to all fun loving people.

Murder Justified?

“It is a common experience that when the younger sister commits something unusual and in this case it was an inter-caste, intercommunity marriage out of [a] secret love affair, then in society it is the elder brother who justifiably or otherwise is held responsible for not stopping such [an] affair.

If he became the victim of his wrong but genuine caste considerations, it would not justify the death sentence... The vicious grip of the caste, community, religion, though totally unjustified, is a stark reality.”

On reading this if you think that these are the words of some jobless persons who strongly support racism, then you are wrong. This is a Supreme Court judgement in a honour killing case. Is this correct?. If so then why is government encouraging inter caste marriage?. Is Supreme Court justifying Honour killing?. I cannot find any difference between planned murder and honour killing.

CUSTOMER FIRST

‘Customer first’, ‘We cannot pronounce Success without U’ these are some of the phrases used by enterprises to attract customers.
Recently my Uncle purchased AC and some other household items in a well known ‘XXXXXX & Co’ in our city. He made the settlements and came to his home. The things reached his home the next day and he was shocked to see that the AC was not the model which he ordered. He went back to the shop and asked them to change the AC. But there was not even a single person to listen to him. They were busy with the next customer. Only now I realised how customer is first to them.

Thiruvanmiyur to Sembakkam

From Thiruvanmiyur bus stand I took T51 bus to go to my sister’s home. Most of the seats were empty. I sat in the seat just opposite to the back door. I prefer this seat because it will be easy to get down from the bus. A middle aged man sat near me. He wore an ash colour pant and a full sleeve white shirt. The full sleeve was folded to half. I wonder why some people buy a full sleeve and fold it to half.
The bus started.
‘It’s very hot. huh’, the one near said to me.
‘Yes’, I replied.
Generally I love to travel in silence, so I tried to cut down the conversation by giving the shortest possible reply.
‘What do you do?’
‘B.E’
‘Which college?’
’Anna university’
‘Now a days the quality of engg is degrading. Everyone is joining engg without knowing anything about it’
Is he saying that I’m not a quality engg or asking me whether I know any thing about engg. I got angry. I wanted to ask him what he knows about engineering but I simply smiled.
‘Which major?’, he asked.
‘EEE’
‘Why didn’t you take ECE? It has wide scope. Didn’t you score enough to get it?’
‘I like EEE’, I lied. Actually I didn’t get it but why should I tell the truth to him.
The bus crossed the IT park. I looked the place where I’m going to work.
‘All are speaking about IT boom. We can see these people in early mornings. They’ll wear a neat formal, get into the company bus and work like slaves hours together sitting before computer. Nothing can be on par with government job’
Another attack on me. But this time without knowing that I’m placed in a software company. I wanted to fight with him now. These government employees, they won’t do their work properly, but he is talking inferior about us. These elders they simply find fault with others.
Within next 10 minutes he shot nearly 20 questions like ‘your percentage?’,’your native?’, ‘future plan?’ and a lot more.
Again he started to talk something. I decided to get rid of him so I simply said, ‘Sorry I feel sleepy, don’t disturb me’.
I slept. After some time……
He patted on my shoulder ‘Which is your stop?’
Now he has crossed his limits. I hate being disturbed while sleeping. Can’t he keep his mouth shut for atleast 30 minutes. ‘Why are you always disturbing me? Please leave me to sleep’.
Again after five minutes "’Sorry, Is Sembakkam your stop?’
‘Yes’, I groaned at him.
‘Our bus crossed the stop when I called you before’
?????????

MISSION - L (Part one)

Project carries 6 of the 17 credits in our final semester. But hardly a few in our class had an idea about it. Unfortunately my project mates and I were not in that group. All the student friendly staffs in our department had been chosen as guide by others. We had only two options – Prof.K and Prof.L.
K and L are the two staffs whom I hate the most in my department. After some discussions we came to a conclusion that Prof.K is better than Prof.L and we approached her. We had a doubt whether she will give her consent to guide us. After our meeting with her our doubt became a truth. Now we have no other go.
Next fine morning.... sorry not a fine morning.....because we prepared ourselves to meet Prof.L. I was praying that she shouldn’t accept to guide us so that we can tell it as a reason to some other student friendly staffs. We came near her room,
We : Excuse me maam
She simply nodded her head. We entered the room and Karthikeyan gave a brief explanation her our wish to do project under her guidance.
Prof.L : You have come after 15 days. How can I be your guide?
On hearing this I felt a lot relieved inside but I made a face as if I’m worrying for not getting a guide for my future award winning project.
Karthikeyan gave some explanations. I was 100 percent sure that she won’t accept. Suddenly she said,
“OK I’ll be your guide. Fuel cell emulator is your project.....”
Immediately I went motionless.
‘ .... I want you to be in the lab in all your free hours’
Even in our first meeting she took all our free hours and along with it all my happiness were drained. We agreed to this pact (unwillingly) and came out of her room. My mind which usually thinks about numerous things at a moment , now had nothing else to think other than this project. Now the project is no more a project to me, it seems like a mission – ‘MISSION L’.

Idiots

“Vijay is stepping into the shoes of Aamir Khan in tamil version of 3 idiots”. On hearing this fans of Vijay are on cloud nine because finally their star is going to give them a change, not in his character but by remaking a hindi movie instead of telugu. But it is not possible to remake the movie as such. Some changes should be made here and there to suit Vijay’s style.

STORY

Madhavan gets a phone call. He jumps from the bus and starts to run. His memory rewinds to the first day of college……

INTRO

Vijay enters into college’s hostel. His blood starts to boil on seeing the uncivilized behaviour of seniors – ragging. Senior tries to rag our Hero by asking him to remove the scarfs which he tied in his forehead, thigh, right hand, left hand and neck. Vijay holds his fist and gives a punch to the senior. Senior falls on the floor unconsciously. All the seniors are coming to attack Vijay but all in vain. There comes the intro song telling about the bravery of Vijay.

LOVE

Hero sees heroin with a guy(boy friend) in a shopping mall. Slowly the screen fades and in the flashback Vijay saves a college girl from this guy( He too belongs to the same college) as usual with some heroic stunts. Flashback over. Vijay unveils the mask of heroin’s boy friend to her and saves her life. Heroin falls in love with our hero and a duet song in Havana.

TWIST

Bad guy is a politician’s son. He uses all his influence to bring problems to Vijay. Amidst of all these problems Vijay comes first in his class for seven semesters.

……Madhavan enters into the hospital and cries on watching Vijay. Vijay is on bed with his right hand severely fractured. Exam on next day!!!!

Invigilator comes into the exam hall. Villain is glad for finally defeating the Hero. Clock shows 9.25 and the Hero comes into the exam hall in slow motion, not style but due to pain in his hand. Everyone in the exam hall expects the Hero to fight with the villain with his one hand and win. Here comes the twist of the year – our Hero can write with left hand too. Vijay becomes an IIT graduate.

P.S.How is the movie? You can’t expect a better movie with Vijay in it. So I specially request Kollywood producers not to remake 3 idiots with Ilaya thalapathi as Hero and make themselves idiots.

What will they speak?

I went to canteen at 10 AM. I saw one of my friends sitting with a girl in the last table and busily talking. I said “hi” to him, had breakfast and returned to my hostel. Again I came to canteen for my lunch at 2PM and saw my friend and his partner outside the canteen. I wondered even though there is nothing to wonder. This is a common thing our campus.

“What will they speak for so long?”…. will they clear each others academic doubts… no it’s not possible because both are from different department. What make them to sit and speak continuously for hours?. Will they discuss about application of computer in electrical field?…. I don’t think this is possible because my friend knows nothing more than the spelling of electrical.

I think they must speak about some movie. But the full length of the movie itself will be only two and a half hours. As they are in final semester they must be speaking about their project?. Oh no no no…most of the students don’t know what to speak about their project for five minutes in their review.

Will they speak about Indian politics and economy? Even our country’s economic geek Manmohan Singh cannot speak 3 to 4 hours daily about this topic(my assumption).

Lot of ideas kept coming in my mind but I cannot find a satisfactory answer. So I wrote this post with the hope of getting an answer to my question. The people who know about this can help me.

IPL – Indian Pre-planned League???

Underdog Indian team wins the first world cup after beating its rival Pakistan in the finals. This made the whole country to turn towards young Indian team. This made the crazy cricket fans to become crazier. All the fans are now caught in the victorious hands of young Indian team.
BCCI cannot find a better time than this to invest in a new league – ‘Indian Premier League’ and to bring damage to its rival ICL. BCCI formed a committee and appointed Lalit Modi as its Commissioner. IPL in many ways resembled EPL - Huge money, separate team anthem, willingness of other foreign players to play in it and so on. At the same time it is not on par with EPL because IPL is only a baby.
Ever since its inception IPL was a great success. Modi popularity too increased with IPL. But now IPL and Modi are in their life’s worst part. Modi, who is often surrounded by press people is now surrounded by people from IT department. Then the Cochin franchise problem started, resignation of Tharur and the list goes on. Above all these problems the news “IPL is fixed” came as a bolt out of blue. Now the fans are more interested to know about IPL’s result than MI – CSK result. Let us wait for some days with the hope to get the good result.