Bagatelle
Lost in Transit
Our children
Are lost now
In a frenzied success
A typhoon, a tornado, a whirlpool
Of time deficit
That has swirled them away into
A mental absence
From the terrestrial world
They roam lost in figures and unfound yet solutions.
Will they ever come out of their trance and
See us again?
Are we already dead for them?
iPhoned U or U phoned me?
Book Review of Life after Life by Kate Atkinson
The book Life after Life opens a time-warp into England during the Second World War. The author Kate Atkinson weaves a dreamlike story of Ursula, who dies several times but the author opts to resurrect her again and again, Life after Life. It is beautifully done. Finishing the book, I felt reluctant to leave the world of Ursula her mother Sylvie and sister Pamela. This book is a time machine that bounces even into the private life of Eva and Hitler.
Perhaps this is the best novel about London during the Blitzkrieg.
One has to be patient with good books. Most of them take about 70 pages to create a certain ambience and cast of characters. I got glued to the web of characters in Life after Life somewhere near hundred pages. That is them moment when one really looks at the back cover to read more about the author.
I am cowering now with Ursula in the ruins of a building in London during the night time incessant bombing.
As a writer I feel like a tiny dog perhaps like Jock. I want to bark a good story and run and run around Kate in circles yapping my praise mixed with jealous anger—‘How can you have so much talent?—while we here are eating cake in our literary poverty.
MARGIN NOTES
I have also decided that in future any book that I read will henceforth be defaced by me on the last empty blank page with tiny details of the characters as in plays’ cast of characters. That way I will not get lost as I did in A Thousand Years of Solitude with the Antonias and the Buendias.
Thus:–
Sylvie—mother of Ursula.
Hugh – Father of Ursula
Teddy – Ursula’s brother
Izzie – Hugh’s sister.
This listing will make life so much easier while reading great complicated books.
After finishing the book I feel as Kate Atkinson—about the book, ‘everything was ephemeral, yet everything was eternal.’ The book is so English. Kate has the secret map to a treasure of good writing. I am just like the cowboy in the posse who gets shot off his horse right in the beginning. Kate gallops ahead and reaches the gold mine.
Here I am sitting shot and propped up perhaps against a cactus in the desert pulling needles out of my butt as far as I can reach back. The realization of one’s own incompetence is so painful.
Walk safely in the park because of this inventor’s contribution to technology.
Some religions object to graven images but every believer in God accepts that each particle of dust is made by God. If man today seeks solace on the couch of a psychiatrist, why not allow him a tangible God to pray to?
Christianity already has hung Christ on the walls of its establishments. Are not massive cathedrals and mosques images of God’s glory. If we do not object to that why should we object to Godly images which bring personal peace?
Earnest, eager and idealistic. These human resources will bring in a new and powerful India eradicating the white ants of corruption.
That’s the guy I was telling you about. Look he’s again taking pictures without asking!
‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, ain’t Dem’s d guy dat Cow- Chaachi (Aunty or father’s brother’s wife) was complainin about taking unasked pichures? Ok we don’t bite him but start Barkin and howlin like hell when I says so!
This is a guiding light which we sorely need on this 15th of August, 2015, Independence Day of India, where the leaders and the people need to do a rethink about their democratic attitudes.
I love these lines—
“I realized that the light was me.
And you.
And us.
The difference we make.
The imprint we leave.
The caress we give.
The path we can make.
To help other people.
The light is it.
The light is within us.
It’s why we are here.
The light is love.”
Car Trouble.
No it is not some sort of voodoo. It is just the regular cricketers’ wicket abandoned because of the soggy pitch!
This is the bowler’s end.
The Mango Park is the scene of hectic cricketing activity everyday but rain and bad light stopped play.
Valuable information on Hindu Festivals, Slokas, Prayers, Dasara Songs, Vegetarian cooking, and many other relevant topics can be found here.
Musings on the past, present and future of English cricket
Health and Wellness, Indian thought and literature: Women Writings, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Yoga , poems
chandleur 
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