Cosmos: A Review

Author: Carl Sagan



Rating: 4.5 out of 5










Carl Sagan is unquestionably one of the brilliant minds to have ever lived on this earth. Cosmos is a very popular book in the so-called nerd fraternity, and many of my friends encouraged me to read this. And being a fan of the author's work I finally decided to read this. Cosmos lived up to every expectation and more. It is a delight to read.


“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”

― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Carl Sagan with his elegant and fluid writing explains the various virtues of space and of our existence in a manner that is comprehensible and exciting. The book is written in a manner as if the author is talking to the reader over tea, like narrating a story. Also while reading this book one really is humbled by the depth of the author's knowledge and far sight. Dr. Sagan's vision is based on his encore knowledge and deep understanding of the cosmos, and makes for an enthralling read.

Thus to sum up I would say that if one wants to begin reading non-fiction especially astronomy then this can be a great book for you.

Turning Points: A Review

Rating: 4.5 out of 5




Author:  A.P.J. Abdul Kalam






In this book, Dr. Kalam talks about his journey from 1999 to present. Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was the president of India from 2002 to 2007. He talks about the various instances that left an impression on his mind before, during and after the presidency, in this book.

Dr. Kalam has always been a very popular president amongst the youth and this book provides an insight into his work and his thoughts. Throughout the book, Dr. Kalam emphasizes on the various strengths that India has and how they can be used in our development. He explained the position of the president and how that position can help our country to reach higher milestones of development. He encourages the youth to have faith and to work hard for their country. His dream of India in 2020 is often talked about in this book.

While reading this book one can understand Dr. Kalam’s thoughts with great clarity. I felt a deep sense of respect for Dr. Kalam and his humble self that he has maintained throughout even after achieving so much in life. Dr Kalam is a self made man and whatever he has achieved in life is because of his own hard work. His journey is very inspiring to read and his thoughts are a food for thought for the reader.

The Phases of life

In high school I read the famous poem by William Shakespeare, All the World's a Stage. It talks about the various stages one goes through in the play of life.

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.” - William Shakespeare

As I will complete two decades of existence on this earth next year, I look back at the journey so far.
Well it has been one heck of a journey. Lost a lot, gained a lot, learned a lot and forgave a lot.

When I look back, I see the changes I have gone through. I won't say I turned out the best I could or that I am the best me but I will say that under the circumstances and situations I faced, I turned out fine. And as this year ends I want to promise myself that I will fight harder now ............

Gone With The Wind: Idealist or Realist??

Gone with the wind, the epic novel by Margaret Mitchell is one of my all-time favorites. This book was like a mirror to human relationships. The adoration for the mother, the attachment to home, the first love one never forgets, the sibling rivalry, and the friends/foes, almost everything is portrayed impeccably. The plot, the story, the characters and the writing style are all just perfect.

I read this book about six years ago but the story is still fresh in my mind. Many people, who have read this, are not so pleased with the ending. But I think the ending is what makes this story so epic and so close to real life. Yes, happy and mushy endings are what everyone wants but they are not what everyone gets. When I finished reading this book, I was so overwhelmed by the sheer reality of it. Although, everyone might not have wasted decades over the first love/crush but remember those weeks or months or even years............All the evenings you might have spent pondering over what might have been if he/she would have been by your side.

Some readers have also called this book idealist or overly romantic, but in my opinion this book is a realistic read. Yes, Scarlett is a very strong woman but don't such women exist today, in a modern sense. Isn't Rhett a guy you can imagine even today? 

I haven't seen the movie, but the book surely warped me into its world and is one of my favorites. It’s one of those books that provoke one to think and analyze one's decisions in life.    

Fun with Watercolors

Something I painted last night .....

Forgiving oneself is the hardest thing........

We all make mistakes. Some minor, some major and some utterly disastrous. But making mistakes is easy; the difficult part is when you have to forgive yourself for it.......

After every mistake that one knows one has committed there is this whole cycle that begins. First is denial- it was not my fault, it could have been any one, just my bad luck..... One can form a highly un-penetrative shield of such phases to shun the guilt that may follow. 

Second, comes the blame game- It was his fault, she is the culprit; I was used and etc, etc... The shield might have weakened now but one is still pointing fingers.

Third phase is the acceptance. It may come to you in a blow or maybe a metaphor might suddenly take a new meaning for you and you realize that while pointing one finger at someone you were pointing three at yourself. And the final and hardest part, ‘forgiving oneself’ begins. 

In my case, let’s say I screwed up big time (pardon the slang). And that too at the most crucial point in my life (so far). And my life is pretty messed up now because of that. I have always been a focused student and I knew what I had to do in life since the third grade, but in the 12th grade I lost my focus,I lost myself in a big way and ended up in a B-grade college. I know this is not the end of life but every time I look back a huge wave of guilt and remorse hits me. I know I could have done a lot better but I didn't. Also, some crazy things happened during that time that shook me hard but still, I think I could have handled it all differently. 

So, as there is nothing I can do to change it, I will just have to forgive myself.Oprah defines forgiveness as: 

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”-Oprah Winfrey

        And that what I am trying to do, I am just gonna give up the hope that the past could have been any different........

The Emperor Of All Maladies: Review

Author : Siddhartha Mukherjee




Rating: 5 out of 5

Reading this book is a journey in itself. The book begins with the references to cancer in the past, in ancient texts. It then reaches to the struggle of Sidney Farber and Mary Lasker who initiated funds such as the "jimmy fund" and through extensive lobbying, advertising and sensitizing the public at large, bought the fight against cancer under the spot light. 

This book has a very strong backing of the extensive research that Siddhartha Mukherjee has done in writing this. One can feel the amount of effort that must have gone into writing every word as one reads this book. Also the writing style of the author is commendable.It is lyrical,elegant, insightful and intriguing. He has managed to stitch the facts, the stories and the history altogether in such a manner that is of the precise right mix. While reading this book one would not find oneself burdened with factual rambling or come across extra fine scientific theory; rather this book presents the scientific terminology in such a manner that one finds it interesting.  

Furthermore, the stories of patients such as Carla Reed, jimmy and many other keep the human touch alive and also helps one realize the full terror of cancer. I have also been interested in knowing about cancer. Wherever in school my biology teacher asked us to make a project on something I would always choose cancer. And when I learned about this book, I wanted to get my hands on it as soon as possible. And this book has exceeded my expectations exponentially. 

This book is masterpiece, a poignant journey through the history of cancer, the true biography of cancer. 

Sidney Sheldon's Angel Of The Dark:Review

Rating:  3.25 out of 5

I visited a book fair recently. It was awesome and I found many good reads there (Ha!).This was one of them.

I have read about four Sidney Sheldon's books and I found them interesting. This one, despite its title, is not fully written by Sidney Sheldon. Its author is Tilly Bagshawe. She built this story on some unpublished work of Sidney Sheldon. But this story is not disappointing at all.

The story begins when a very-old-very-rich man, Andrew Jakes is murdered in cold blood and his wife-Angela Jakes, is brutally raped. Due to lack of evidence the police fail to pin the accomplice and the case is closed. The wife disappears and leaves all her inheritance i.e. four hundred million dollars to charity. Everyone seems to move on except for Danny McGuire. He ruins himself in the process of trying to find her, Angela Jakes and the murderer but to no good. He then joins the Interpol and marries again, to get over her.

Back in LA, Matt, the long estranged son of Andrew Jakes is fascinated by this story and wants to a documentary on it. But it soon becomes his passion and later his life.

Story has an interesting plot spanning over France, America, Hong Kong and India. The author clearly has done her research. She got most facts right. The technicalities are well taken care of too but at a certain points in the story one may notice a few loop-holes, like wouldn't they have analyzed the DNA samples of the victims and if one disables the infrared security the surveillance cams would still be on and a few others but for the story's sake it’s better to ignore them. 

The writing is well paced and keeps one hooked to the story. The story doesn't lag overall and there is no rambling like one may find in thrillers generally, where whole chapters are written in building the characters. The characters are shaped well and are interestingly real. The leads i.e. the wives are portrayed as goddesses with hearts deeper than the ocean. The detectives are rather naive and fail to look at what is right in front of them. I don't want to talk more about the characters because then you'll know the end.

I always tend to figure out the end of a story by the time I am like half way through it and I am rarely wrong and this book was no exception to that. Also the funny thing in this story is the portrayal of the men. Most of them (except of maybe Inspector Liu and the mastermind of the murders), are either too naive or either too stupid or both. They are shallow in a sense that they wag their tails for a woman who they have just met and just because of her beauty wag their tails after her, even to a point that they cheat on their spouse, leave their pregnant wife, their family and go completely broke. 

The end of this story could have been better if the author would have just omitted the last two chapter, they take the fun out. For the last time I wanted to believe a man would choose his wife but again he abandons her while she is pregnant and chooses the so called love. Typical men huh! That is why I earlier wrote that the characters are interestingly real. 

Thus his is a good paced thriller which would keep you hooked for the major part of it and Could pass for a weekend read or a book one wants to read while commuting. I read it while travelling to and from my college in the metro.

The Summer I turned Pretty Trilogy : Review

This trilogy by Jenny Han is a about three teenagers- Conrad, Jeremiah and Isabel a.k.a. Belly  and the summers they always spend together. Their mothers are best friends and they spend each summer at the beach house at Cousins Beach. Conrad and Jeremiah are siblings while Belly has a brother named Steven.

The story revolves around them as they grow up and are about to start a new life where there may nor may not be that beach house or those summers.

In the first book, the three of them realize that they have "grown up", and the feelings that they had for each other transforms the dynamics of their relationships. Belly is shown as teen who is still very childish and acts like one whereas Conrad is now grim and sad and is isolating himself from the others. His mother, Susannah  who is the very link that connects them, is now terminal and  this is affecting everyone. Belly who has always had this huge crush on Conrad waits for him while Conrad tries to stay aloof and Jeremiah tells Belly about his feeling for her.

The story packs a lot of drama and it is interesting to see how people change with time. The book includes flashbacks where Belly tells stories from her childhood which explains present scenarios. The characters in this book transform as one reaches the end but still I thiink they could have been more depth to them.



The second book begins with Susannah's death. This takes a huge toll from everyone. Belly's mother Laurel, who is the strongest in the family, has become detached from everyone and Conrad is missing. He left summer school and no one has a clues as to where he might be. Thus, Jeremiah and Belly set out  to find him. This time they were not spending summer at their usual spot - Cousins Beach but instead Belly had to stay home. So this whole "Find Conrad scenario " attracts her and she joins Jeremiah in the search without informing anyone.

This time around the story packs Belly's and Jeremiah's perspectives. As Conrad tries to push Belly away from him she finds love with Jeremiah and finally let's Conrad go.

In third book, there is wedding waiting for you. Yes, Jeremiah and Belly are getting married and everyone else is shocked and angry at the same time. The two of them are barely 19 and have decided   to tie the knot. Everyone, initially, is against this. But by the time everyone gets their heads around this and gives the wedding a go Belly is not so sure she is ready for it. Conrad is back like he was before his mother died. He helps Belly and Finally confesses that he always loved her. Now, Belly has to choose.

The writing is not week but please don't expect this to a Jane Austen.This isn't a novel which compells you to think intellectually  But it is a novel that  can make you feel good, the story can bring a smile on your face and can make you believe in love ..............

Why I think Flatland should be thrown into the Trash Can

Rating : Let's just not talk about it




Author: Edwin A. Abbott









Every nerd/geek or even a mathematics enthusiast would have, at least,  heard about the famous essay Flatland: A romance of many dimensions. I read it a while ago myself. The internet too is filled with its praises and extolling reviews.

Sadly, for me this "land" just does not make sense and I'll explain why.

Firstly, lets take a plane paper and draw a circle as well as a line segment on it.It would look something like this:

a circle and a line segment

  This would represent a male and a female in a two dimensional plane. Now, if you would imagine yourself to be either you could very well understand that life as we know it would be impossible in such an environment. This is so because as there is no depth or the third dimension in a two dimensional plane. So actions such a movement, sensing, or anything for that matter would be impossible.

Now, Edwin A. Abbott, the very author of Flatland, talks about a world of two dimensions whose inhabitants are pentagons, circles, line segments and various other two dimensional geometric shapes. They move around, have houses, have a government, police and are basically a projection of the three dimensional world, i.e. our world, on a two dimensional plane.
  
I, personally find this notion of a 2-D life absurd and stupid. As to do any "living action" as we know them, we need the third dimension.

Even if I ignore the whole paradox in the existence of a two dimensional world, I find the book filled with chauvinism, rank-ism, and all the other problems that our world is filled with. I mean, if you are imaging a world then might as well imagine it to be Utopian and if not Utopian then at least a little better than ours.

Thus, this book greatly disappointed me overall and in my opinion should be trashed.

13 Things That Don't Make Sense: Review

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

Author: Michael Brooks







This book is one of those which compels one to think and encourages one to learn more, to educate oneself. Being a nerd/geek that I am, the whole concept of these amazing yet baffling mysteries science faces today, attracted me and I wanted to read this as fast as possible. I practically lived with this book while I was reading it.

The book packs 13 phenomenon that we all see, all observe, all experience but no one can really give a satisfactory explanation as to why these phenomenon occur. All thirteen of them are sewn together in a series with one leading to the other.I really appreciate the author's writing skills as not most non-fiction books are such well written.

Also, the author writer in a very unbiased manner and includes both the pros and cons of the subject. Some of the topics such as how the constants may not really be constant really got me thinking about rigid and close minded we can be to change and how going against a scientific celebrity like Newton or Einstein could practically ruin one's career. It is sad. I find it a paradox that how in science we are searching for new and still our biases don't want to see new.

The book is thoroughly  researched and  make for an excellent read. It does not answer question and neither does it favors any one, which I think is the best part about it.

Gone Girl : A Review

Rating: 3.5 out of 5



Author: Gillian Flynn










This book is like |sine| wave. For those who don't know what that is, well it looks like this:

                                                                           


Yes, just like the graph above, the story has a lot of ups and downs. Initially, this story appears to be of a recession-hit couple whose relationship is going down the gutter. But as the story progresses, more twists and turns keep you hooked. The plot of the story is not fresh but is interesting. The writing is good but there are many technical flaws, the author should have consulted a forensic scientist.


Amy Elliot is a super smart girl who doe't know how to lose. She has a book series, Amazing Amy, which her parents wrote inspired by her childhood. She met Lance "Nick" Dunne or just Nick Dunne who is a movie critic. They try to woo each other and get married. Then comes the recession and both lose their jobs. Also, Nick's mom gets cancer and they move to his hometown. Now, everything changes. They get to see the real side of each other and they simply stop trying.


Initially, while reading Amy's diary one tends to like her and sympathize with her. At one point I hated Nick for what he allegedly did to Amy. But the next twist just blows you. And one tends to hate both of them.


Other characters like Margo or fondly referred to as Go, is an ideal sister. She loves her brother and takes care of him like a baby. She believes him and helps him throughout. Marybeth and Rand Elliot, Amy's parents, are psychologists and soul mates. Well here is the catch, either they extremely bad psychologist or Amy is extremely cunning from birth because they just don't know the hell is wrong with their daughter. Or it could just be that they are pretending that they don't know.........somethings not clear.


This story is full of technical mistakes. If one takes a urine sample, then it can last for only a certain amount of hours, not days. Same goes for vomits. Forensic techniques like tough-DNA and post-mortem autopsies certainly do not exist in this 2011. There are a lot more but lets just end here.


The ending is disappointing. I expect some real blood bath but it turned out to be quite the opposite.


Thus, it is an interesting story but could have been better.

Mockingjay : Review

Rating: 3.81 out of 5

Author: Suzzane Collins









My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead.

I laughed, I gasped, I choked, I almost cried and finally I smiled. This book really moved me. The ending 100 pages really did hit me on a level which I still am trying to comprehend.

This book begins with the rebels launching attack on the Capitol.People are dying and everyone is now living under a routine in District 13. Everyone's lives seemed to have been tangled in the cobwebs of this military lifestyle. As the war progresses things look worse.

The plot is now the whole war scene with people dying at the fall of the hat. Transfer of power is never peaceful is more often than not bloody. But even in all this chaos love thrives. All kinds of love- sister-sister, mother-daughter, love between friends, frenemies, even strangers. The characters are now all very sharply defined I do respect Katniss for sure. Though Gale, in the end, disappoints me big time but Peeta and Hymitch save the day.

This book had a huge impact on me and I still don't know why but I guess I will figure it out slowly, with time.

And I highly recommend this book :)      

Catching Fire: Review

Rating: 3.55 out of 5

Author: Suzanne Collins





As soon as I finished Hunger Games I wanted to read this one.I was a little disappointed by the previous one so I did not set high marks for this one. But as this book progressed I started really liking it.

The book begins with chaos, chaos in every relationship, chaos in Katniss's heart and chaos in the land of Panem. This time the story is really gripping as bombs drop both physically and emotionally in Katniss's, Peeta's and Gale's life. The plot grows and is very interesting. The characters, especially Gale's takes new depths.New voids are formed in Gale's and Katniss's relationship. At one point everything seems like going kaput. But the end is a real shocker and makes you want to dive into Mockingjay.

Character wise katniss's growth is remarkable. She is not portrayed as a miss goody two shoes or the ever so perfect heroine but she is the brave imperfect girl who is trying to figure out the world around her, trying to make sense of it . Also Gale is now given some limelight and it is very interesting to read about his actions and to think from his point of view. The dynamics of relationships is changing all over and some real shockers grip one to this book.

So If you like the first one, then the probability of you loving this one is quite high!!!!

Going to finish Mockingjay in a few days and will post about it :)

The Hunger Games: Review

Rating: 3.45 out of 5 

Author: Suzanne Collins

I started reading this book because of the popularity this one got. I mean some people even said this was better than Harry Potter. Thus, I had a lot of expectations from this book. But after having finished it today I’m not sure how I feel about this book.

The story is not Harry Potter best but it is interesting. Katniss, the protagonist, is shown too much in the positive light except for in the last 50 pages. She hunts for the whole family, takes up the role of the breadwinner, and then she sacrifices herself for her sister, fights till the end, just too much heroic.  Also I think the beginning lags a bit before the actual hunger games begin. Peeta, on the other hand, is the love struck boy who risks everything to save the girl he loves. Other characters such as that of Prim, Katniss’s mother, Gale would have been better if there was a bit more detailing and some stories relating them. But I guess that might be the central theme of the next book.

The plot is nice and I do like the post Armageddon scene with one group ruling over the entire land and controlling the people as they wish (not much different than our own world).I somehow feel this book is unfinished. Having read many open-ended stories, I do realize that ambiguity of the end is inevitable in such stories but to me this book had the concept, the plot, the characters but in some way it didn’t make it. This book had the potential in its plot to bring something fresh to the table but it misses its shot.

  Nevertheless, I will read the next one in this series, and I seriously do hope that it is going to be better than this one.

11/22/63: A Review

Rating : 3.5 out of 5


Author : Stephen King

This is the second book (first being Misery) that I have read of Stephen King's, and I am not disappointed. I had heard a lot about this one on Goodreads and finally when I saw it on Oprah's summer reading list; I thought I must give it a try.

The central theme of the book is time travel. The protagonist, Jake Epping’s, travels through a "rabbit hole" (as referred to in the book) to 1958, to prevent Kennedy's assassination.

The story begins when Al, who has a diner, tells Jake about a secret passage which is hidden in his diner that can take him back in 1958. He lets Jake try it out. Then after Jake is convinced of its existence he puts Jake to a task, the task of saving John F. Kennedy’s life.

The detailing in this book is exquisite, sometimes too much. The starting 200 or so pages are like a roller coaster ride. It is very difficult to put this book down during that time. But when the whole Oswald quest begins, the story seems to lag. It can get very boring to read about the mundane details of Oswald’s family life. The part when Jake is in Jodie is a bit entertaining but is full of cliques. The substitute teacher who is more than friendly and changes the life of a football player by promoting his acting capabilities sounds like a perfect tag line for a B-grade teen movie. The ending is adequate and comes with a statuary warning of – ‘Thou shan’t mess with the past’.

The characters in the story are well defined. Jake, who is an English teacher and to whom crying does not come naturally is well written. He is divorced and still coping with that. Sadie, his love, is a librarian and is in the process of getting a divorce from her abusive husband who is fanatically afraid of germs. She is beautiful and doesn’t know it. Is vulnerable and has a monster of a mother (A lot of cliches huh!!!!). The villain of the century, Oswald is “a semi-educated hillbilly, but he's surprisingly crafty."    He has a Russian wife Marina and a daughter June. The daughter he loves the wife he beats and loves. He is the apple-of-the-eye of his overly possessive mother who screams a lot. There are many side actors like Deke, Miz Elle, John Clayton (Sadie’s Husband), but the one that I found most intriguing was the Yellow-card Man. He seems creepy and scary. This is one character who I think needs a bit more detailing.

All-in-all the concept is nice, the plot is interesting and the characters are well written. But, firstly the middle part of this book I think, needs editing. It’s like listening to some annoying person rambling about his life. I have no issues reading books with a page count above a thousand but in this case it is unnecessary. This book could be written well within 600 or so pages if the editor can cut the rambling to a minimum.  Secondly, the story has a lot of cliches (as discussed above and more!!!).

So, it’s a good book if one can bear the talked-above issues.        

The Golden Past......

Today, the weather here in New Delhi is simply amazing. It was raining throughout and as I looked out of my window, sipping hot ginger tea, I wondered about a lot of things. These days I am reading “11/22/63” by Stephen King. Reading this book has been a roller coaster ride so far. In this story, the protagonist journeys back to 1958 via a “rabbit hole”. The author talks about the whole 50’s-60’s era in detail about the quality of food, the prices, the people, and the landscape.

The whole late fifties to the mid seventies era fascinates me. The pre-industrialization era where the word terrorism was not of daily use and food came from farms not mega factories, and friendships were formed to be lived, not to showcase on Facebook. I wonder what it would be like to live there, where the air actually had 22% oxygen content. Where the S-word and the F-word are not considered cool and a sense of safety prevails; where one does not have to undergo a full body scan just to board a two hour flight. I would watch epic movies like Breakfast at tiffany’s, To kill a mockingbird on the very first day of their release while eating popcorn which has real butter on it and drive back home in a '67 Pontiac Grand Prix convertible.Where Springsteen and the Beatles would rock the music world.  

I know most of you reading this would argue that the equality in society, the sovereignty, the technology and the medical advantages we enjoy today would outnumber the above factors. And the statistics like infant mortality rate, life expectancy, poverty rates etc would favor you too, but ask yourself this, wouldn’t you want to make “some actual friends” who you meet physically every day instead of a herd of online friends who may or may not be truthful. Don’t you want your “normal” food to be originally organic instead of specifically asking for one? I can go on and on about this. Maybe I am a bit biased. I am a classics fan and have always preferred nature to technology (although I am pursuing my Bachelor’s in Technology and Mechanical Automation), books to internet. Well I think it causes no harm to fantasies of a better world.  

Teachers are people too!!!!

Yesterday, I was watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1), where Harry is wondering whether he knows Dumbledore at all. He knows Dumbledore as a guide, as a leader and as the headmaster of Hogwarts but he doesn't know him as a person. His personal life, his family are all unknown to him.

I think this happens because while growing up we do not see people like our parents or teachers as 'people', we see them under the paradigm of their role. And the idea of  them having a life outside of their 'role' is absurd to us at this age. Oprah, in one of her shows, shared a similar incident from her childhood. Once she saw her teacher eating at a restaurant and she was shocked to see that. We, as children, are used to acknowledge people according to the role they play in our lives and thus never perceive them as 'people'. But as we grow up, the other dimension becomes visible and it can be hard at times to undergo this transition. But that is what life is all about, isn't is???

Monsoon !!!!

Hey guys above are some sights which I captured during this Monsoon season :)
Hope you like them !!!!

Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power Within India: Review

Author: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Rating: 4.5 out of 5






Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is one of the few very I sincerely respect. The way he has walked through life from being a nobody to the 11th president of India. And he has been able to do this solely because of his talent, determination and lots of hard-work.

Ignited minds is a book which really stands true to its title. This is one book which every Indian student or for that matter every student should read. This book analyses India's potential, its resources and asks a very important question that why haven't we been able to achieve what we should have by now, what are we missing??  Dr. Kalam narrates various incidents from his own life in this book and talks about how he never felt defeated in his failures and took them as important lessons in life. He talks about various students, teachers, schools , colleges and many other visionaries like Mr. Ratan Tata, Mr. Azim Premji and how their work is helping to shape a better future for India.

Dr. Kalam gives no prescribed solution to our problems in this book, but he does lead us to a path on which we can find it. 

A Not-So-Close Friendship

Today is friendship's day so happy friendships day to all!!!!!

"Change is the only constant. Hanging on is the only sin."

The above line has been quoted time and again in history. And our world appears to revolve around it.
Landscapes change, people change, relationships change and sometimes we want to believe that they haven't. We want to hang onto what isn't there anymore.


Friendship, especially, the ones formed when one is very young are most affected by such changes.
For example :  My closest friend. Let's call her Sheena.We have been friends for about 16 years now.  I have know her since kindergarten and we have always been very close. She lived quite near my house and we would attend each others birthday parties. But when, due to some inevitable circumstances I changed my residence and my school, we ( naturally ) began to grew apart. Sheena made new friends, I made new friends but we still stayed in contact. This continued till we joined college. She moved on, calling frequency decreased and silly me still held onto the past, that was just that - the past.

Today, after an year and a half  of this not-so-close friendship, I do now let it go.I will still wish her on her birthday and I'm sure she will too, I will still send her greetings on festivals and friendship day like she does and I accept this as just it is, A Not-So-Close Friendship.     

An Award Nomination !!!!!!!!!

I still can't believe it, but I have been informed that "Untitled", yes this very blog has been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award, by Stephanie . Thank you Stephanie, Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!



There are a few rules one one must follow before accepting the award and they are as follows:

• Nominate 15 fellow bloggers who are relatively new to blogging.
• Let the nominated bloggers know that they have been nominated for this award.
• Share 7 random facts about yourself.
• Thank the blogger who has nominated you.
• Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your post. 

Random Facts about me :

• I wear eye glasses.
• I love gifts (who doesn't).
• I love to read.
• I hate summers.
• I love autumn.
• I am addicted to chocolates.
• I am an Insomniac ;)

15 Blog nominations:

Daydreaming Bookworm

Cheerful Book Reviews

The Page Turner

College Life

(un)Conventional Book Reviews

Children of the Three Suns

Bound To Astound

Endless Days of Literary Ecstasy 

Diary of Redcherie

Ensconced in YA

Forever is Now

One Clown's Circus

Incredible India

Milena's Book Corner

Defending Our Oceans

All the best SOMDEV DEVVARMAN

My way of saying ALL THE BEST for OLYMPICS to you.

Make Us Proud :) 

Tell Me Your Dreams: A Review

Rating : 4 out of 5
Author : Sidney Sheldon


If you are a fan of crime fiction, then you must have read a Sidney Sheldon novel and if you haven't then I strongly recommend that you should.Sidney Sheldon never fails to grip you and always delivers a page turner. And Tell Me Your Dreams is no exception to that statement.

The story starts with the description of three girls working at the same company. All three of them are very different from one another but as one reads further, one finds that they have more in common than one can possibly imagine. Storytelling skills of Sheldon can't be questioned as the story binds the reader as it progresses. This story is full of surprises and nail-biting moments. Also, the plot is brilliantly written, from the beginning till the very end, there are no boring moments.

The characters in the story are very well written. The protagonists of the story, i.e., Tony Prescott, Alette Peters and Ashley Patterson are adorable. When one learns the truth about them, one really feels sad for them and does sympathizes with them. Dr.  Steven Patterson, Ashley's father, is the one who can be blamed for all the mess. He is a famous doctor, but like many famous people, has a very dark side of himself.

Thus, the story is really nice and the characters are great too. So if you are a crime fiction/ thriller fan then this could be your next read.

Also, you must be wondering that if I liked this book so much then why didn't I give it full five stars. Well, my answer to that question is that, having read previous works like Master Of The Game by Sidney Sheldon, I have set the bar too high for him.

SAVE THE TIGERS

Well some of you guys must be wondering that why the above image is my display picture. This is actually a painting/poster I made regarding a project for my college. The project was to create awareness about endangered species and my topic was tigers.
So,                                        LET'S SAVE THE TIGERS

The Bourne Identity: Review

Rating: 2.5 out of 5


Author: Robert Ludlum



Being a fan of thrillers and spy novels, I really wanted to read this one considering the hype surrounding it.But I am very disappointed. The story begins when a half dead man is found floating and is rescued by a fisherman. The plot covers and lot of Europe and the United States. The story is interesting and not much predictable.The characters of the story are well drawn and there is enough detailing.

The protagonist, who is called Jason Bourne for the major part of the story, is very interesting. Especially, the last fifty so pages amazes one and one really comes to adore him. Marie St. Jacques, on the other hand, is depicted as an intellectual who falls in love with this lost man. Her loyality towards Bourne really wins her the respect of the reader.

The "Villain" of this story, Carlos, is a surrounded with an air of mystery. All one knows is, he is a lethal assassin who wants Bourne dead, and will go to any lengths to ensure this. While, the governments, secret agencies want him dead at any cost, they have no clue how he looks and they know only Bourne can help them.

I would have given this book about four stars but two things vexed me a lot. First, the pace. The pace of the book is extremely slow, and one does feel bored at times. There is a lot of useless detailing at places and the writing style also bothered me at some places. Secondly, the sentence Cain is for charlie, Delta is for Cain. This line is repeated page after page after page.

Thus, the book is a good read if you can stand a slow paced book. I am not encouraged enough by this book to read the two other sequels of this trilogy.

Do we need to update our fairy tales???

Today, while I was travelling back from my college, I was listening to the radio. And as I was shuffling between radio stations, I stumbled upon a relatively old number by Taylor Swift, "love story".
This really got me thinking that Do we need to update our fairy tales?
  
The good old fairy tales in which there is a perfectly beautiful princess who is in grave danger and there is an overly handsome prince charming who comes riding on a well bred magical horse to rescue her from the beastly witch. And how can we forget the kind hearted fairy god mother.

But, in today's times, when happily ever after don't even last 72 hours, and the whole concept of the alpha male is taking a back seat, do we really need a man on a horse to rescue us????

I don't think so. Today, when women all over the globe, are outdoing men in almost every field and outdoing them in many, The concept of alpha male is slowly being replaced by the the alpha female. Women today are no damsels in distress, rather, they are the breadwinners. They keep the family together and have a career too.  
So, is that we don't need a prince charming at all??? Well, we need partnership not ownership.

Thus, I think we do need to update our fairy tales after-all.

The man behind the Bosons :Dr. Satyendra Nath Bose

Yesterday CERN made an announcement about the results they got from the ATLAS and the CMS experiments conducted at the LHC.They stated that they have found a particle whose mass is in the range of the mass predicted for the Higgs-Boson particle or in common terminology referred to as the "God particle". They haven't confirmed this particle to be the Higgs-Boson particle as its other properties have not been tested so far .

This news caused every particle physicist in the world to jump with joy. The whole day, media was abuzz with stories about the "god particle". Physicists were called on live shows to explain the gravity of this discovery to the common public.

But in all this aren't we forgetting a very important person !!!

Dr. Satyendra Nath Bose, a great Indian Physicist. The word Boson has actually been derived from his surname.Bosons are particles which obey Bose–Einstein statistics: when one swaps two bosons, the wavefunction of the system is unchanged. Bosons are one of the two fundamental classes of subatomic particles, the other being fermions. This class of particles includes photons and gluons, as well as the Higgs boson.

Dr. Satyendra Nath Bose

Dr. Bose was a polyglot, he was well versed in many languages including Sanskrit, Bengali, English, French, German and English. Dr. Bose wrote a paper deriving Planck’s quantum radiation law without any reference to classical physics and using a novel way of counting states with identical particles. This paper was seminal in creating the very important field of quantum statistics.


Though not accepted at once for publication, he sent the article directly to Albert Einstein in Germany. Einstein, recognizing the importance of the paper, translated it into German himself and submitted it on Bose’s behalf to the prestigious Zeitschrift für Physik. As a result of this recognition, Bose was able to work for two years in European X-ray and crystallography laboratories, during which he worked with Louis de Broglie, Marie Curie, and Einstein.


He was honored with title Padma Vibhushan by the Indian Government in 1954. In 1959, he was appointed as the National Professor, the highest honor in the country for a scholar, which he held for 15 years. In 1986 S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences was established by an act of Parliament, Government of India, in Salt Lake, Calcutta in honour of this world renowned Indian scientist.

Currently, I am reading The Emperor of All Maladies, and I am completely overwhelmed by this book. I have read about half of this book and the flow in which this book is written is commendable. The reader can easily feel the energy and effort which must have gone into writing this marvel. The research done in writing this book is extensive, which one can easily see by the length of citations and notes given at the end.

This book truly is the biography of cancer. It starts from the very early traces of cancer in the known history, from Aufderheide's thousand-year-old mummy of a thirty-five-year-old with well preserved breast cancer tumor to the word karkinos, derived from the Greek word for crab. All the stories included in the book strikes one and one realizes the impact that cancer had had on the human race for centuries.

I will post a detailed review of this book after I will finish it. 

Something from My Childhood

As this is my first day at blogging, I thought I might share some of my sketches from my childhood.
These are some cartoons which I drew from my fairy tale book. Below average work, but very close to my heart. I drew this when I was in the fourth grade. 

Introduction.

Paintings, Drawings, Sketches are often a reflection of  the personality of the artist. They convey an artist's  mood, his perception of the world. So does his choice of books, clothes, etc.

In this blog, I would be talking about books, people, art, music, technology and whatever catches my attention along the way. Also, as the description says nerd, so science and especially astrophysics will be common topics. 

Lastly, Happy blogging to all.