Books ! :)

"A Book is a man's best friend."
Well after days in fact weeks of boredom I decided to go and buy a dozen books for time pass.We've a Sunday bazaar for books here,u'll find books of different authors with the cheapest prices being sold all over the locality ,on the roads,footpaths throughout the day and the best part is that the prices are negotiable :D

After I dragged ma sis along and literally brought more than a dozen books ( that should keep me occupied for a while at least !),outta the stack I picked a book called "My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult" to kill my boredom.

"Can a parent love too much? Or is too much never enough?",thts what it says at the back cover and it should give a brief idea about the book.This is the first time I've read a book by this author and after having read this book am gonna make it a point to look up all her books and read em one by one !

The story has very real life characters and every chapter is dedicated to one character at a time,its a pretty different style of writing and yet very interesting coz this way the readers get a better insight of wht the character is trying to convey and how they actually feel.k lemme talk bout the chars and the book so tht I can actually make some sense here..

Anna is the youngest in the family,shes a girl who's life itself has been more like a lifeline for her elder sis Kate who suffers from a acute form of leukemia.She's been a donor of all sorts since the moment she was born just to keep her sis alive,in fact the reason she was conceived as a "designer baby"was so tht she would b a perfect match for her sis.

Anna is a very typical 13 yr old grl who just never had a typical American family childhood..and she plans 2 change tht ,she's being "asked"( not exactly) to donate her kidney to keep her sis going and even though she loves her sis extremely she decides to raise her voice against it and takes her family to court coz she wants her right to say "no" when and as she wants coz after all its her life too !She sues them for the rights to her own body.

Sara is Anna's,Kate's and Jesse's(their elder bro) mom,she has spent more than a decade of her life worrying about and keeping her elder daughter alive.When ever Kate got sick and needed a transplant or donor of any sort she expected her youngest daughter to comply.. but
when her youngest daughter drags her to court shes divided between both her daughters and her love for them,can she love one more den the other?Is she being wrong if she wants both of them to b happy and alive?

Anna's lawyer is yet another interesting and peculiar character named Campbell who's stuck in her family's situation in a real bad way,he never goes anywhere without his "service dog" and hes not even blind !

All in all itz a very engrossing,sad,emotional,complex yet a very compelling,simple and honest book!
I just googled Jodi Picoult and went thro her list of books and they seem very tempting! and I also found out tht "The Sister's Keeper" is gonna be turned into a feature film that shall be released next yr (2009),the main character's of the book -Sara is being played by Cameron Diaz,Campbell by Alec baldwin and Anna by Abigail Breslin.

Here are 2 links - one regarding the movie and the other is Jodi Picoult's official website,do check em out !
1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1078588/
2. http://www.jodipicoult.com/
Hope 2 catch it on the big screen next yr and hopefully the movie will do full justice to the
book ! :)

A Year Too Late

A year later..its been a year (25 Aug 2007) since the bomb blast that
shook the Hyderabad city ,just posting my thoughts that i was supposed 2
post last yr-

Unnecessary blood shed,innocent lives at stake,families being eradicated,kids innocence being stolen,fear of living and lastly damage to property,is this the definition of terrorism?!I was just switching thro channels on Saturday (25th aug,2007) at around 8 pm,none of the programmes were interesting enough to catch my attention,suddenly my sis pops into my room and tells me to switch on to any news channel and tht theres been a bomb blast in the city!!All the news channels were covering the news about the two blasts tht had taken place in the city,most of them were airing unedited video footage of the bombed sites.We may have seen blood but how often have you seen blood splashed across a park,across seats, on the ground ?how many times have you seen bodies scattered across a park or on the road unattached to their heads and other body parts?!a kid without his hands ?just bits and pieces of bodies lying everywhere.

We may feel paranoid and sick just looking at those scenes but imagine the families and friends of those victims searching thro those bodies..trying to identify their loved ones! hoping tht they were not thr n praying tht they may have escaped unharmed,only to realise tht their worst nightmare has come true !

If its hard on the families of the victims to overcome their loss its equally worse for the few "lucky" ones who managed a narrow escape,sleepless nights of nightmares and each time a cracker is burst or just the sound of thunder is bound to remind them of tht dreadful day !

After such incidents u'll find the CM announcing few lakhs as compensation to the families of the dead and few thousands for the injured.I truly never understood this concept/scheme !does it mean tht those ppl were worth jst few lakhs? or does it mean tht the officials are saying ,"sorry we cant fulfill our duty of protecting our citizens successfully so kindly take this money n shut up"?!

How does one give any amount of money and compensate for the death of the only male earning member of a family who was not only supporting his own family but also two of his widowed sisters ?!!

Lets take this from the political point of view,as soon as theres news about such incidents the current and the opposition political parties arrive at the scene and do what-"give interviews ! and play the blame game by pointing out each others incompetence!".The opposition party blames the ruling party and the ruling party blames the central government and the central government blames it on the terrorist and some countries ex- Pakistan,Bangladesh etc. That's as far as they like to be concerned or want to be bothered.They'll wait till another tragedy strikes and then repeat the same old pathetic drama all over again !

The next day I switched on the tv to watch the latest updates on the last nights incident,to my disappointment i see tht news like tht of katrina kaif going to meet salman khan in jail is considered primary , far more important and needs to be covered in detail unlike the bombing tragedy!
Through out the day i got loads of sms,each informing me to be careful and that theres been information of a bomb being planted at almost every location in the city and i should fwd the mesg to all my family and frndz.If ppl were not gonna get paranoid enough i was asked to fwd these sms's and really freak them out !

I often wondered how ppl live in iraq where lives are lost everyday due to bombings.How kids play on the roads,how men and women go about with their daily chores knowing tht any minute could very well be their last .I suppose after a point of time ppl get used to everything irrespective of how inappropriate or gruesome the situation mayb,spl ppl of less or no authority , the common man has little choice in this matter except being grateful for being alive and being able to life thought every single day.

I think a common citizen can all but raise his/her voice so tht his/her point can be heard and hope tht it makes at least a minute amount of impact.

LOSING CONTROL !

Ahem..!k lookin at da title i knw wht ur thinkin rt now,well stop it !DIRTY MINDS !: P getting back to the post ..
I think am just about ready 2 cause some serious damage or at least torture someone physically, mentally n emotionally. I dont really care if they r kids( even though i love kids n adore em ) or adults coz at da moment everyone .. Every damn livin thing seems 2 b getting on my nerves !Believe me all those horror,gruesome movies that I absolutely love watching are begging me to get inspired and break all limitz !

Am a v impatient person ..extremely short tempered and my patience level is being tested with every passing min nowdays. K lemme try and make some sense here.. How would u feel if u've been working like a "dog" da whole damn week cleaning,dusting ,decorating da entire house and entertaining guests 24/7 ,being kind and hospitable towards em(yes .. wid tht v cheesy ..plastic smile intact) and they come over and literally create a tornado effect thro' out the place ,leavin no room or things intact?! Ahh.. Wish i cud jst run a freakin bulldozer over em !

Lemme put it in simple terms I'm "Antisocial".. So jst being around ppl ,a crowd ( more specifically..humans taking over my share of oxygen) is nothing but self torture ! I've no idea why some ppl like or rather prefer joint families ,large gatherings,being social, I mean whts so appealing about havin all those ppl stare at u from top 2 bottom wid that evergreen nasty smile as soon as you enter a room?!

Anyone who has even seen a glimpse of those "k serials" would know how it sounds when someone actually gives u a compliment at a party,if a female goes like "omg! u look really beautiful in that Outfit ! Nice color,it really brings a glow 2 ur face!"( and she smiles sweetly 4 da longest time possible,one cud die from diabetes!) ,but what she really meant is "omg! U look absolutely hideous in that outfit ! N tht color..yuck,looks like someone puked all over ya,u would definitely stand out in a circus"! I cant help but picture em as vamps ,plus the sound and camera effects !
All in all lets just say am not cutout for this human bonding thing !