Written by Dale and Renee Jacobs, the book is a good read for parents to deal with grown up children. It covers many aspects such as how to talk to teenagers, why they react in a certain way, how do they expect to be treated, how do different reactions lead to different outcomes, money matters, home and residence, staying away from home and so on.
My reason for picking up the book was to figure out what was wrong in my family. I'm not a parent, but an adult living with parents and I'm pretty much either in a foul mood or in a brawl with them day in day out and I started to think whether this friction is because of me or them.
Simple things such as reactions to events and words could shape the future or psychological make up of your teenager or adult. Sticky situations could be taken care of by optimistic behaviour. Things could be so much easier by just letting go. If anything holding tight makes things worse and harder. The best example I can think of is of meals. My mother follows a policy of feeding her children all the time. There is definitely something or other cooking on our stoves to ensure we are never hungry. But our lifestyle doesn't demand so much energy considering we are relatively sedentary. Even though I tell her not to cook so much (which is technically less work for her), she insists on cooking more and insists I eat it as well - which is both annoying - she is more tired and I'm not happy. Perhaps if she were to let go, I would be happy that she is actually reciprocating (in the long run, I would be happier to return to a place where I'm treated as an adult); she would have less work and perhaps, if I were in the wrong, I would learn a lesson in realizing I'm hungry and thereby listen to her, instead of rebelling.
The book was definitely an interesting read and is good for both parents and young adults.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Death and After
This book by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer explores thoughts on what happens after one dies.
After the death of his dear wife, Iyer starts with the exploration of things that happen to the soul of the dead person. He has compiled a whole book of quotations with people who have had near death experiences and who have been revived through electric currents. Most of the quotations describe a painless feeling with bright light and a floating sensation. Some of the quotes sounded like cliche, but I suppose people took their thoughts from those who had experienced death.
It was an interesting book to read. The first chapter was quite touching with the Justice narrating the string of events that eventually ended with the death of his wife. Although the quotations sometimes made the discussions boring, the extracts were interesting and thought-provoking. A good read.
After the death of his dear wife, Iyer starts with the exploration of things that happen to the soul of the dead person. He has compiled a whole book of quotations with people who have had near death experiences and who have been revived through electric currents. Most of the quotations describe a painless feeling with bright light and a floating sensation. Some of the quotes sounded like cliche, but I suppose people took their thoughts from those who had experienced death.
It was an interesting book to read. The first chapter was quite touching with the Justice narrating the string of events that eventually ended with the death of his wife. Although the quotations sometimes made the discussions boring, the extracts were interesting and thought-provoking. A good read.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Sophie Kinsella pens this novel about Rebecca Bloomwood - a financial journalist in Successful Savings magazine, situated in downtown London. Becca is a good student, who turns out to be a compulsive shopper. She is unable to keep her addiction to shopping in control. Eventually she receives letters from various institutions reminding about her overdrafts, credits and lack of finances, driving her to trying to save money. She tries to make food at home, but hates her soggy sandwiches and wishes for her fresh coffee and muffins, instead. She tries to make money by making a mail-in frames for a family company and her roommate Suzie seems to be better at it.
Her job isn't any better. She is bored out of her mind writing the articles and the conferences for the financial journalists are a drag, save the free stuff that they give out. Often, she finds herself speechless at questions about the industry, that she should rightfully know, but somehow either gets saved or ends up getting embarrassed beyond belief.
She has just broken up with her boyfriend, since he was very conservative. She can't stand her parents' neighbours, who seem to think that she is still interested in their son, Tom, since high school. She finds her roomie's cousin, Tarquin, a multimillionaire, a drag bore, and ends up peeking wrongfully into his chequebook on their date. Luke Brandon, who is also a multimillionaire businessman and for whom she almost fell for, thinks her stupid and hides the fact that he had a girlfriend, during dinner. She is obviously enraged.
Life for her seems to be a turmoil until she finds a story about Flagstaff, a client of Brandon's. Flagstaff is the insurance company that her parents' neighbours had just switched out of, losing a 20,000 pounds payout. She is determined to help them since she had once casually mentioned to them to switch out the company. She calls her contact with one of the tabloids and once the article is printed in The Daily News, it becomes a sensation. She not only starts making money, but also receives invitations to telly (TV) shows. She prepares herself well for the show, but discovers that instead of a simple naive show, she was going to be arguing and debating on screen with Luke. Although extremely nervous, she thinks of her nice neighbours and manages to get Luke to confess of the company's wrongdoings.
The novel ends with her dealing her financial troubles and shopping addiction maturely and getting together with Luke Brandon.
Although the novel was extremely irritating in seeing how Becca was so idiotic and thoughtless about her finances, it isn't uncommon to find many youngsters so today. I, however, found it very frivolous and unplanned and it's almost impossible to figure out how come a person so incompetent is still hired by the company without realizing what kind of job they are doing. Even though with the unrealistic plot and character, it was good for light reading and it was good to know that not everyone stays on top of things and almost every event can bring daydreaming.
Her job isn't any better. She is bored out of her mind writing the articles and the conferences for the financial journalists are a drag, save the free stuff that they give out. Often, she finds herself speechless at questions about the industry, that she should rightfully know, but somehow either gets saved or ends up getting embarrassed beyond belief.
She has just broken up with her boyfriend, since he was very conservative. She can't stand her parents' neighbours, who seem to think that she is still interested in their son, Tom, since high school. She finds her roomie's cousin, Tarquin, a multimillionaire, a drag bore, and ends up peeking wrongfully into his chequebook on their date. Luke Brandon, who is also a multimillionaire businessman and for whom she almost fell for, thinks her stupid and hides the fact that he had a girlfriend, during dinner. She is obviously enraged.
Life for her seems to be a turmoil until she finds a story about Flagstaff, a client of Brandon's. Flagstaff is the insurance company that her parents' neighbours had just switched out of, losing a 20,000 pounds payout. She is determined to help them since she had once casually mentioned to them to switch out the company. She calls her contact with one of the tabloids and once the article is printed in The Daily News, it becomes a sensation. She not only starts making money, but also receives invitations to telly (TV) shows. She prepares herself well for the show, but discovers that instead of a simple naive show, she was going to be arguing and debating on screen with Luke. Although extremely nervous, she thinks of her nice neighbours and manages to get Luke to confess of the company's wrongdoings.
The novel ends with her dealing her financial troubles and shopping addiction maturely and getting together with Luke Brandon.
Although the novel was extremely irritating in seeing how Becca was so idiotic and thoughtless about her finances, it isn't uncommon to find many youngsters so today. I, however, found it very frivolous and unplanned and it's almost impossible to figure out how come a person so incompetent is still hired by the company without realizing what kind of job they are doing. Even though with the unrealistic plot and character, it was good for light reading and it was good to know that not everyone stays on top of things and almost every event can bring daydreaming.
Deepavali
Starring Jayam Ravi and Bhavana in the lead, the movie is a mixture of Kamalahassan and Sridevi's Moondram Pirai and a typical love story.
Susi (Bhavana) is the daughter of a Bangalorean mafia leader. She hates her violent father and loses her mother and her partial memory in an accident, which was an attempt by her father's enemy to kill him. Driven mad by people asking her to remember things, she arrives in Chennai to live with her father's ex-employee's family. His neighbour is none other than the local Samaritan Mudalaiyar. Billu is his son.
Billu falls in love with Susi at first sight, when he is sent to pick her up from the station. They hang around as friends and one day, Billu's family saint predicts that Susi will be his wife. There is awkwardness in the air after that incident between them, until Susi tells him the truth about her past. He gives her courage by telling they will pass all hurdles and go to the doctor next day for checkup.
With Susi's medical condition, she will be able to remember what she had forgotten, but she would forget what happened after the accident i.e. the times with Billu. Susi takes a promise from Billu that no matter what, he should never leave her, even if she denies or insults him.
Seeing the continued fear of her father, Billu calls her father up to Chennai. After some threats from her side and peace talking from his, the marriage is fixed, but her father cheats everyone, beats up Billu to a precarious condition and leaves with his daughter. Seeing Billu beaten up badly, Bhavana gets cured and forgets everything about him by the time they reach Bangalore.
Now, Bhavana is leading a new life with her fiancee, when she sees Billu creating a havoc during her ceremony, following wherever she goes and starts to request him to leave her. Billu keeps reiterating what she had said to him as his lover. Eventually just before her marriage takes her back to Chennai forcefully and tries to remind her of the life she led there. With no success, she is almost ready to leave, when she changes her mind (even though she can't remember anything) and returns to Billu.
Lots of fighting (without gore), but 20 minutes of fighting straight is too much for a rear end on a bad chair to take. We'd rather see the story move. Jayam Ravi looked well in the movie, except for his squeaky girly screaming pitch (It almost reminded me of M.G.R.'s voice after he recovered from being shot in the neck). There was an excessive hint of Madras Thamizh in the dialogues to a point where I wasn't even following what they were trying to say (but apparently it was funny, since my sibling was laughing to it). Songs weren't that memorable. Bhavana was bearable and the story itself seemed somewhat too cheesy, when she jumps into water, without knowing how to swim and the Holi festival protection of just letting some random guy overpowering you without reason. Except for the fact that Jayam Ravi was the better looking guy compared to the paunchy fiancee Susi was going to marry, I didn't really see a reason why Susi would get together with Billu, unless she really remembered him! And honestly, Ravi could have a better name than that of a cat!
Susi (Bhavana) is the daughter of a Bangalorean mafia leader. She hates her violent father and loses her mother and her partial memory in an accident, which was an attempt by her father's enemy to kill him. Driven mad by people asking her to remember things, she arrives in Chennai to live with her father's ex-employee's family. His neighbour is none other than the local Samaritan Mudalaiyar. Billu is his son.
Billu falls in love with Susi at first sight, when he is sent to pick her up from the station. They hang around as friends and one day, Billu's family saint predicts that Susi will be his wife. There is awkwardness in the air after that incident between them, until Susi tells him the truth about her past. He gives her courage by telling they will pass all hurdles and go to the doctor next day for checkup.
With Susi's medical condition, she will be able to remember what she had forgotten, but she would forget what happened after the accident i.e. the times with Billu. Susi takes a promise from Billu that no matter what, he should never leave her, even if she denies or insults him.
Seeing the continued fear of her father, Billu calls her father up to Chennai. After some threats from her side and peace talking from his, the marriage is fixed, but her father cheats everyone, beats up Billu to a precarious condition and leaves with his daughter. Seeing Billu beaten up badly, Bhavana gets cured and forgets everything about him by the time they reach Bangalore.
Now, Bhavana is leading a new life with her fiancee, when she sees Billu creating a havoc during her ceremony, following wherever she goes and starts to request him to leave her. Billu keeps reiterating what she had said to him as his lover. Eventually just before her marriage takes her back to Chennai forcefully and tries to remind her of the life she led there. With no success, she is almost ready to leave, when she changes her mind (even though she can't remember anything) and returns to Billu.
Lots of fighting (without gore), but 20 minutes of fighting straight is too much for a rear end on a bad chair to take. We'd rather see the story move. Jayam Ravi looked well in the movie, except for his squeaky girly screaming pitch (It almost reminded me of M.G.R.'s voice after he recovered from being shot in the neck). There was an excessive hint of Madras Thamizh in the dialogues to a point where I wasn't even following what they were trying to say (but apparently it was funny, since my sibling was laughing to it). Songs weren't that memorable. Bhavana was bearable and the story itself seemed somewhat too cheesy, when she jumps into water, without knowing how to swim and the Holi festival protection of just letting some random guy overpowering you without reason. Except for the fact that Jayam Ravi was the better looking guy compared to the paunchy fiancee Susi was going to marry, I didn't really see a reason why Susi would get together with Billu, unless she really remembered him! And honestly, Ravi could have a better name than that of a cat!
Monday, May 5, 2008
Pazhani
Bharath stars with a new heroine in this movie, which was akin to what Pazhanimalai is famous for - mottai. A movie with excessive punching cheesiness and defeat to almost all theories of Darwinian or biological evolution of things! Anyway, to the story...
Pazhani a.k.a Vellaiyan is getting released from jail (years after he committed a murder at the age of 10) and his inmates are celebrating for him when a jealous bad guy starts challenging him and gets beaten up badly. Here comes in a song, which was funny, but also so unbelievable cause there was a mass of prisoners out dancing! Were the theory about bad guys being in the prison right (for the most part), you'd think they'd just overpower the police minority and escape. But apparently these people just danced around and quietly returned back to their cells.
Anyway, Vellaiyan leaves jail and starts hounding Jeeva for a job and eventually gets it, after fighting away some bad guys and losing his cycle. He becomes very dear to Jeeva's wife, Karpagambal. He disappears on the death anniversary of Karpagam's mother, saying he had a personal task to attend to and here viewers are shown that both him and Karpagam are children of the same mother.
One day, he saves Karpagam from henchman attack and finds out that it was by Jeeva's illicit lover. When he threatens Jeeva and tells the truth to Karpagam, Jeeva frames him for embezzlement, which forces Vellaiyan to reveal that he is Pazhani. Karpagam sends him out of the house. She gets a phone call the next day from her husband who pretends to have been injured seriously by Pazhani and out of love for her husband, she files a complaint and Pazhani is thrown in jail. A few days later, Karpagam's long lost father returns to see Pazhani, but she discovers that Pazhani had killed her father's illicit lover, to make his mother happy. She, then finds out that her husband's story is false and tries to get Pazhani out. Her husband strikes a deal that if she won't see her brother, he can be released and she accepts.
A few days later, Pazhani plays tricks on Jeeva and gets him thrown in jail. His illicit lover, Durga, is insulted in the station and he is released when Karpagam comes to station, since he is his wife. Durga forces Jeeva to marry her, but Pazhani stops the marriage. Eventually, Jeeva is about to kill Karpagam, pretending Pazhani is the murderer, but again is stopped.
In the end, Jeeva goes his boss and successfully gets Karpagam thrown out of the house, but also loses the house to his boss. Eventually, he also loses Durga to his boss and finds out that she is a woman with loose morals. In the final climax, Pazhani kills and saves everyone dear to him and also displays his heroics.
It was nothing but an hour of torture. I have seen other commercial movies, but probably this movie had so many punch dialogues and cheesy lines that I was squirming and rolling my eyes half of the time. Except for loads of noise that kept me awake from dozing off and Bharath's balanced dancing, director Perarasu needs to look at better topics to make movies out of, since wives who tolerate their husbands' illicit relationships and brothers who send their sisters back to live with their abusive husbands, as well as using thali as release warrant for those in jail is as old as planet Earth.
Pazhani a.k.a Vellaiyan is getting released from jail (years after he committed a murder at the age of 10) and his inmates are celebrating for him when a jealous bad guy starts challenging him and gets beaten up badly. Here comes in a song, which was funny, but also so unbelievable cause there was a mass of prisoners out dancing! Were the theory about bad guys being in the prison right (for the most part), you'd think they'd just overpower the police minority and escape. But apparently these people just danced around and quietly returned back to their cells.
Anyway, Vellaiyan leaves jail and starts hounding Jeeva for a job and eventually gets it, after fighting away some bad guys and losing his cycle. He becomes very dear to Jeeva's wife, Karpagambal. He disappears on the death anniversary of Karpagam's mother, saying he had a personal task to attend to and here viewers are shown that both him and Karpagam are children of the same mother.
One day, he saves Karpagam from henchman attack and finds out that it was by Jeeva's illicit lover. When he threatens Jeeva and tells the truth to Karpagam, Jeeva frames him for embezzlement, which forces Vellaiyan to reveal that he is Pazhani. Karpagam sends him out of the house. She gets a phone call the next day from her husband who pretends to have been injured seriously by Pazhani and out of love for her husband, she files a complaint and Pazhani is thrown in jail. A few days later, Karpagam's long lost father returns to see Pazhani, but she discovers that Pazhani had killed her father's illicit lover, to make his mother happy. She, then finds out that her husband's story is false and tries to get Pazhani out. Her husband strikes a deal that if she won't see her brother, he can be released and she accepts.
A few days later, Pazhani plays tricks on Jeeva and gets him thrown in jail. His illicit lover, Durga, is insulted in the station and he is released when Karpagam comes to station, since he is his wife. Durga forces Jeeva to marry her, but Pazhani stops the marriage. Eventually, Jeeva is about to kill Karpagam, pretending Pazhani is the murderer, but again is stopped.
In the end, Jeeva goes his boss and successfully gets Karpagam thrown out of the house, but also loses the house to his boss. Eventually, he also loses Durga to his boss and finds out that she is a woman with loose morals. In the final climax, Pazhani kills and saves everyone dear to him and also displays his heroics.
It was nothing but an hour of torture. I have seen other commercial movies, but probably this movie had so many punch dialogues and cheesy lines that I was squirming and rolling my eyes half of the time. Except for loads of noise that kept me awake from dozing off and Bharath's balanced dancing, director Perarasu needs to look at better topics to make movies out of, since wives who tolerate their husbands' illicit relationships and brothers who send their sisters back to live with their abusive husbands, as well as using thali as release warrant for those in jail is as old as planet Earth.
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