22 Sunday Jun 2014
Tags
Setting: Los Angeles to Bangalore; and back.
Cast: the Famous Five – K, A, A, D and I.
Story & plot: Author’s main protagonist is K, who is gifted with Synaesthesia- the ability to visualize human beings and emotions in colors.The proverbial ‘poor little rich boy’, whose paternal and maternal origins are murky, but is amply compensated by wealth, academic success, raging testosterones and … Continue reading
12 Thursday Jun 2014
Posted in Random Musings, Spirituality
Tags
first date, first job, first love, Gratitude, happiness, joy, last farewell
What a lovely Life it would be; If…
We remained as sinless as on the first day of life
We remained as fresh as after the first bath of the day
We cared to remain as interesting and impressive as on the first date 
We remained as enthusiastic as on the first day of work 
We remained as enamored as on the first discovery of love
We cherished a gift as much as when we first unwrapped it
we felt as gratified as on beholding the first pay slip
We never got accustomed to the magic of sunrises and sunsets
The whole rainy season smelt as divine as first rains
We valued Independence as much as when our country won it
We discovered acquaintances with as little prejudice as when we first met
We bid goodbye to friends and family as if it is the last time 
As James Dean said,
Shoot off your opinion. If practice makes perfect; then why does repetition take away joy? Why should familiarity breed contempt? Why should companionship produce boredom?
29 Thursday May 2014
Taskforce: A cat, a dog, an owl, a baby skeleton and a 5000 year old rat (Reminded me of the mix-match and mismatched cast of Wizard of Oz).
Task: To free a deadly island from a battalion of demons, monsters and witches.
Underlying message: Inner demons (Fear/Prejudice/Hesitation) are worse than fictional demons. Humans are more destructive than demons. Humans, stop encroaching upon the animal world.
Target audience: Children, I guess. In spite of the demons and devils all over, there is nothing macabre enough. Also, in true Enid Blyton style, *SPOILER none of our five-member team dies. *
Pluses: a} Some deep thoughts:
1. Not showing quietness is difficult. You are required to talk a lot to do that.
2. Love at first sight is an invention of poets. They don’t have the patience for the second sight.
3. You have to lose an emotion to get a perspective.
b} Cute characterizations, albeit a tad clichéd: Cat with attitude, dog with ‘hang-dog’ attitude, wise owl, cute skeleton. Although the Rat may not be what he seems!
c} Bursts of humor– 1. Dog says,’Tell the world I killed 99 demons.’
Cat says, ‘Why 99?’ Dog says modestly, ‘Well, I just don’t want to exaggerate.’
2. Hey, Son of a Bitch, says cat to dog.
3. Witch says,’God has a special affection for owls. He made me serve owls for breakfast.’
Owl goes, ‘I cannot even say “Oh My God now!”.
Need improvement: a} Grammar– There were errors like ‘He clinched his teeth’, he was prepared to die thinking of her beloved’, he was tore into 2 halves like paper, no existence worst than being blanked.’
b} Punctuation marks– Some affirmative statements ended in a question mark, while questions ended in a full stop.
c} Unnecessary tendency to explain sentences, resulting in repetition: For example- ‘Can you please utter it in a language that I find easy to comprehend?’ Dug pleaded Katy to make herself available for easy interpretation.
Overall: Definite seeds of a fertile imagination exist here. The climax hints at a sequel. Need better grammar and sharper editing next time. Good Luck.
Note: I received a print-copy for review by the author. Free of cost.
19 Monday May 2014
Posted in Blog Eureka moments
Anybody can complicate matters. It takes Genius to simplify.
Techies, feel free to laugh. Non-techies, I hope I am your savior angel.
Blog world has 3 planets: WordPress 
, Blogger(Google) 
and the super-special stand-alone independents.
My quandary-How to make these parallel paths merge?
1. Foremost, there are blogs who follow me (Yayyy!) and those I follow (which may, unfortunately not be mutually inclusive) Circa Now, the latter outnumbers the former. Some fine day, I intend to reverse the numbers!. For now, I will call these Followers and Wishes respectively.
2. The Followers and Wishes can be inhabitants of the above mentioned 3 planets. (Techies, I forewarned you!)
I mean, my Followers can be http://xyz.wordpress.com; or http://xyz.blogspot.in or http://www.xyz.com (WordPress, Blogger and Independents respectively). The same goes for my Wishes.
OK, take a deep breath… Fine…
By now, my simple, easy blog world is split into 6 lists. (How come whenever I intend to simplify; I end up blogging…I mean, boggling myself…I mean, get bogged down…) 
3. Sharing – That was the whole purpose, wasn’t it? How do you connect?
For WordPressers, the ’Reader’ is the golden gate, of course! It is the fav arena to preen your blog, to collect Followers, to sniff out new blogs and faithfully trot after Wishes.
But! It is a snobbish, uppity, eclectic party. It frowns upon non-Wordpressers. I can neither see their blog update nor show-off my blog update to them. So…
If your Followers/Wishes are non-WordPress bloggers….then simply copy-paste their blog url . Now come to WordPress Reader…Blogs I Follow…click ‘Edit’…add the url in the textbox that pops up…and click ‘Add’.
Voila! Now you have all your WP and non-WP blogs under one roof. Neatly classified by either Alphabetical or Date-wise series.
Remember to remember: Crucial information.
a] Understand that your name, blog url and blog title are separate entities.
For example, my name:drsweetyshinde
url: https://sweetyshinde.wordpress.com
blog name: Impractical Dreamer.
To my vexation, I may have a Follower/Wish whose
name :Arvind shah
url : http://torture myself often.com
blog name: White Elephant.
How on Earth am I to remember the connection between these 3 names?
My solution: I painstakingly made a Word document where I enter all relevant data about each WordPress, non WordPress and Independent blog. Followers and Wishes. It is the only sane way (atleast to my limited knowledge) to keep it all together.
This document has name, blog title, blog url, and blog-specialty(book review/creative photography/spirituality)
Why do I need to do this? I get a witty comment from , say GreenEyes. I would love to visit his/her blog and demonstrate my wit in return. Next step, I hover over their Gravatar image.
b] Gravatar: It is a visual hook. Also, pausing over the Gravatar image gets you a quick peek into Gravatar profile. For example, “Shaun Mason. Author of abc book. Virile footballer. Violinist. Wine connoisseur.” (P.S-Shaun is imaginary)
c] If I hover over your name, I should automatically get linked to the blog url. (Provided you have edited Gravatar profile).
Thus, your Gravatar image shows your face and your Gravatar introduction(make that Wow! first impression), your name tells your real name and hovering over the name links to your blog url. Mission accomplished!
Coming back to our neat Reader list of non-Wordpress and WordPress Followers/Wishes.
….
Grudges: {a]Reader will not update you on non-WP blogger’s new posts. So you need to click on the blog url under ‘Blogs I Follow’ to see their latest posts.
{b}Reader will save your favorite blogs by ‘Blog Title’ and not blog-url or blog-writer name. So, that painfully crafted word document is much needed as reference point.
Whew! 
How do you keep track of your ‘I follow’ and ‘who follow me’ ?
Do you know a much simpler method? Enlighten me, please.(Don’t say email is the best option.)
13 Tuesday May 2014
Tags
aurangzeb, book, book review, jahanara, mistress, mughal, review, shah jahan, throne
‘Our Empire had an abundance of everything- except trust and loyalty.’ says Jahanara. Daughter Shah Jahan; sister to Aurangzeb; wife to none and as aptly titled, lonely Mistress to the (Cursed) Throne.
Ruchir Gupta, debutant novelist, takes up the mantle of unfolding her life saga. Thankfully, he adds a family tree to clarify the baffling plethora of characters.
Steeped in debauchery & deceit; forbidden lusts & chilling cruelty. The Mughal Empire has always been a source of curiosity and wonder at their culture and their architecture.
However, there is a turbulent atmosphere within the palaces. There is deep insecurity for personal safety; burning ambitions and raging envy that lead brother to kill brother; sister to torture sister and son to imprison father!
Particularly deep chilling moments burst out, surprisingly, not from the blood-lusty men…***Spoiler alert…but from the frustrated and ill-fated women of the Empire. (Raushanhara’s lovers are boiled to death by the creator of Taj Mahal! Equally blood-curdling is the cruelty that drives Raushanhara to roast alive her younger sister’s lover!) Spoiler ends***
In spite of the female protagonist, the men get a fair deal in terms of character development, emotions and bravura. Especially noteworthy, Aurangzeb is not reduced to a sinister caricature. Instead we see his lonely childhood, under the relentless misguidance of NoorJahan. We also see his martial exploits and competent generalship; and yet see him facing constant ridicule from Shah Jahan.
If anything, it made me want to re-read the superb Marathi novel, Shahenshah by N.S Inamdar. (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16204056-shahenshah?from_search=true).
Note: I have not read Indu Sundareshan’s Mughal series. So no scope for comparisons there.
Verdict: Ruchir has evidently researched thoroughly and sifted through emotional depths instead of skimming the surface. Recommended, especially for Mughal era fans and History buffs.
Impractical Dreamer: Sweety Shinde 