The plunge

A grand video caught my attention during this morning's mundane scrolling of Instagram. It was that of a magnificent humpback whale coming out of the surface of the ocean and taking a beautiful plunge while displaying a grace not easily associable with that big a being.

When it went back in the ocean, its home, is when my craving rose from that spot and surfaced again. The craving to swim in the sea. To relive that experience of being in the water, rhythmically breathing, feeling minute in the vastness of the water body, a bit tense by acknowledging the unknown entities below the surface of the water, and slowly being as close a part of them as possible. 

It took me back to that suddenness when you are running from the beach and entering the ocean, feeling the first baby waves, and then further to when you realize that your hands are moving and your legs do not feel the sand or the beach shelf anymore. You're not breathing properly, the nerves are flared up, mind and body are both not at ease. Maybe the body is with its own memory of slight practice, but the mind...

Slowly as you swim towards the ocean, some people who started swimming with you go ahead, while some are left behind. Slowly you are on your own, moving swiftly, trying to get into a rhythm. Your breath calms down a bit, the mind is now listening to the body. Now your eyes truly open (behind the swimming goggles) and soak in the vastness of the ocean. The horizon beckons. Far away you see a boat, anchored at the point where you need to reach and turn back.

Hands and legs move in a ballet-like coordination and suddenly you realize, your speed is not matching up with the pace of your movements. The realization hits that the tide is following its daily routine. You feel it against you. Maybe telling you that you don't belong here in the ocean. Not anymore. You have evolved. There is still that vestigial spirit though that pushes you to go on. Now the mind takes over the body. You swim at your own pace and soon reach the turning point. 

At this point, the fellow swimmers have spread out. You are on your own. You turn around and then the tide slowly nudges you back towards the beach. You smile or rather your mind does. Now the sun is shining on your face. You see the beach and the small hill far away. Swimming goggles have become a bit foggy, but you can still see. Moreover, now you are feeling the distance than actually gauging it. You want to stop, stay afloat, soak it all in. The nothingness that you are. A speck of dust in the temporal universe. Absorb the music of the lapping waves. Rock yourself to the movement that feels like a baby's cradle swaying back and forth. Maybe you want to back to that unknown place.

And you move on. The tide reads your mind and pushes you faster towards the beach. Taking care of you. You continue swimming and closer to the beach you try touching the ground for the familiar sand. You feel it slowly, you try to walk, but it feels strange. You catch your balance, steady yourself and take a deep breath. 

You are back. Maybe a bit more alive than before.

This feeling. I need to be a bit more alive than before. I need to get back. Take the plunge.

Of awards and hearts!

“Woman sitting near bike photo”, by Nam Hoang, @puonqnam217

It was one of those lovely Gangtok mornings with that slight chill in the air and a promise of an adventure. She and I had taken our rented bikes and we headed out to explore the lovely by lanes of the town.

After about an hour of cycling uphill and downhill, the rolling roads got us tired and we looked around for a refreshing beverage and noticed a juice seller. We parked our bikes and took a breather when we noticed this beautiful old lady selling colourful handheld fans. The vibrant colours of the fans seemed like a rainbow on the monochrome background of the footpath.

As we leisurely sipped our juice, we realized that the old lady was earnestly looking at us as if she wanted us to approach her and talk to her. We realized her hesitation to directly call us but her slight hint of a smile broke the ice. We gave in and moved closer to her. She hurriedly removed a piece of paper from her bag and muttered in broken Hindi. She mentioned that a foreigner lady gave her the note and some significant amount of money. Her expressions were very confused at that moment. She wanted us to read the note and translate.

Thank you! On my last visit here, I had taken your picture and submitted it to a magazine and that had won me an award. This is a small token of my appreciation.
Keep smiling,
Love, Agnes

We returned the note and she held that in her hand and actually gave us that smile. One of the most beautiful, content smiles.

Helping to win awards and win hearts.

-

This story was written in a storytelling workshop where we were shown these images and given 10 odd minutes to write the story.

Em and The Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto - A Book Review

Em and The Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How would you classify this novel? How would you describe it? My first throwaway line was "It is about a dysfunctional family... Erm, a dysfunctional mother..."

It made me wonder before I realized that I was wrong. I questioned just like the book puts it, "What is normal?" Who defines these blurred lines? How does love, affection, or hate makes these lines very subjective?

What pushes you across these lines? Is it the external forces? Is it the internal defeat? Is it the submission to the ashes to ashes, dust to dust eventuality? Just ride the train till you can and are allowed to. Smile, joke, and act normal.

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A God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - Book Review

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A pair of actors trapped in a recondite play with no hint of a plot or narrative. Stumbling through their parts, nursing someone else's sorry. Grieving some else's grief.
Theater. Actors.
Roles. Fate.
Marionettes.

And here I am, trying to find a meaning in every line when I should rather be feeling every line. Of a book that first slowly, diligently, metaphorically dug a hole and then filled that book-shaped hole by silently creeping in. With soft steps while treading on the Love Laws.
That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.

For me, this book is a beautiful, haunting symphony, composed by people bringing their own instruments, playing their own tunes through all that rigid background noise and making a soulful, sad, arresting, comic, tragic, and vividly evocative music.

Maybe I will read it again. I will read it again. And love it a little more.

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Lone Fox Dancing: My Autobiography by Ruskin Bond - Book Review

Lone Fox Dancing by Ruskin Bond
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Towards the end of Lone Fox Dancing (LFD), Mr. Bond writes about the severe storm that ravages his Ivy Cottage home. How the natural yet merciless powers shake up the house and sweep the roof away, and then the snow falls and freezes the fear. Mr. Bond finds beauty in the midst of this all. It is almost an analogy to his past with events that swept his life and carved his future, and all the while he hung on to the things he loved. The man whose pen rains wonderful words on paper and writes beautifully about the life that he has had, the different people he met and loved, and the immovable mountains that sheltered the writer in him.

I missed being among strangers without feeling like an outsider; I missed everything that made it all right to be sentimental and emotional.

This is only my second book by Mr. Bond. I haven't read any of his fiction, but I feel that when I pick up his other books to read, LFD will help me recall his memory-rich past life that might have triggered a particular anecdote, story, events, or characters in the books. As Mr. Bond himself explains so well:

I suppose most writers, to a greater or lesser extent, base their fictional characters upon real people. Mine come very close to the reality. It is my own response to them that varies. The most fictional of all my characters is myself.

I love his writing. It gave me a warm and cozy feeling. The journey from childhood to adulthood and further was sprinkled with giggles, smiles, a bit of sadness, hope, and continuously moving on to the next phase of life. It is evident in the writing how, as a child, he absorbed the happenings around him, let the most memorable things carry him forth, and recalled the quick flashes of history. Then the mountains took over and then the words became one with nature. Birds sing, trees rustle, raindrops pitter-patter, snowflakes mesmerize, the lone fox dances, and the brave leopard leaves with indigestion.

I was fortunate in that I ventured into the literary world with a certain wide-eyed innocence, and managed to maintain that innocence for most of my life.

On the "evening of Mr. Bond's long and fairly fulfilling life," I certainly think that I will be revisiting Dehra, Delhi, Mussoorie, the mountains and the valleys, the birds and their songs, the people and their stories through your writing, Mr. Bond.

I hope to learn a thing or two about "how much I still needed to learn about contentment."

So here I am, a young boy, an old writer, without regrets.

So long!

It seems strange
How we used to wait for letters to arrive
But what's stranger still
Is how something so small can keep you alive
We used to wait
We used to waste hours just walkin' around
We used to wait
All those wasted lives in the wilderness downtown

We Used To Wait by Arcade Fire.

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Roads to Mussoorie by Ruskin Bond - Book Review

Roads To Mussoorie by Ruskin Bond
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been really slow with reading books from last year or two. The pile of abandoned books feeds the volume of guilt that I kept feeling from time to time. Guilt for having given way to easy and non-committed wanderings on the social media instead of diving in a book. This year, I would like to change a few things to reduce that volume of guilt. But can I? Ah, I digress, rather I've not started with the matter at hand...

A month back, I picked up a friendly Wodehouse (My 24th) and proceeded to read it during my trip to the lovely place called Landour in Mussoorie. Yes, I loved the place and everything it stood for. Early morning runs around Char Dukan > Nag Tibba > Kellogg's Church, getting worried about big monkeys on the road instead of the usual dogs, breathing copious amounts of fresh, pristine air, eating scrumptious food, sleeping cozily inside a fleece blanket while thinking about the 40 degrees back home, was a fantastic way to spend time with the family.

Even when you read a bit and hear stories about Landour, you know this place has seen some incredible history. Or at least history that will make up for good and interesting stories. I was really sure this is one reason why Ruskin Bond stuck around there. I would do that too if given a choice (and a lot of money). Roads to Mussoorie confirmed part of my theory. (Part of it might be unraveled by his upcoming autobiography Lone Fox Dancing.) It was my first Ruskin Bond book. I had bought his collection of stories a few years back but somehow didn't read them. (Like many, many other books.) The recent visit to Landour, Mussoorie, and around made me pick this book up. I wanted to meet the man himself, but he visits the mall road only on Saturdays and sadly we couldn't have a free Saturday in our itinerary.

Roads to Mussoorie is a fun little book filled with lovely anecdotes (and some unruly spelling mistakes that Rupa Publications should really work on!). In fact, just because of the vivid stories and interesting characters painted by Ruskin Bond, and his lucid style of writing, I could look beyond the typos. I wish this book was a bit longer though, and wish that Mr. Bond lingered on with his words, but I think that will make me read a lot more of his work. It is rare that a writer can make you feel warm about humanity, make you laugh at life, and make you wonder about the beautiful nature that is around us. All things we seem to easily take for granted.

I have made a list of Ruskin Bonds books that I would like to read next, but foremost, I am glad that his autobiography will be out in the next 15 days or so. I am looking forward to that! Maybe on my next trip to Landour, I hope I meet Mr. Bond and get a signed copy from him.

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New Bike Day

It's been a while I wrote. I guess I need to revive the art of reflection. Even if it is for a personal use.

-

I am part of this recreational athletes group that discusses all things under the sky that are related to running, cycling, or swimming. The other day someone got a new bike from a brand that is known to produce good quality goods at an affordable price. This brand is not considered as "elite" or "super good" by many cyclists or runners, so a few of the comments that this person received weren't motivating. Some of us did try to cheer up, but that somehow led me to a tangential line of thought. I wanted to type it in the group itself, but it's not like all of them are my bum chums. So here it goes:

I don't know about you, but for me, bicycles are a type of time machines (alcohol being a major one). It somehow rings the bell of the innocent times from the school days of yore and plays the subtle notes of nostalgia. I remember fighting with my dad to fix gears to my BSA SLR Photon (the one with the alloy wheels!). I eventually got them after persisting to the cause, but then I grew old and dad sold the bike. Then just over a year back I got a new bicycle, albeit for different reasons. I did not go for the costliest bike I could buy, but my budget did double up eventually! I have had a good time riding this bike (Cannondale Quick 6), and I hope I continue to do so!

Dejection

I failed to reach my goal.

I had put in considerable practice that included both physical and mental conditioning to reach a goal of sub 2:20 hr timing for a half marathon.

I couldn't reach it. In fact I overshot it by 10 minutes 43 seconds.

Those 10 minutes 43 seconds meant that I cannot use this timing as a qualification for #SCMM2016.

Till the 10-11K mark, I was on target. After that, my mind started giving up. It started taking control and convincing me that an additional minute won't matter 2:25 is still OK, within the qualification criteria. I started walking more after 15K. 2:28 is still OK. Somehow I just gave up. One runner came along and tried to motivate me. I tried, but I couldn't gather myself. Towards the end, I sprinted, but still reached a bit late. By 43 seconds.

I ran 21.1K in 2:30:43. (Chip time was different than what my GPS watch collected.) I couldn't even shave off those 43 seconds.

What if it was my personal best in a half marathon? Does it matter?

How do I strengthen and condition my mind further?

The search continues...

2014 in Books

After a dismal 2013 in terms of books, and a resolution to not repeat that in 2014, I somehow managed to read just about 10 books. (As opposed to 20 that I had took up as a challenge!)

Even though the number might not be impressive, I have to say that I read some of the best prose and style this year.

Here is the denary:

• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson - What a drug-addled chaos! Review.
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess - "Oh it was gorgeosity and yumyumyum." A bloshy big review will be govoreeted later on.
• Money by Martin Amis - "I will spin out a review as soon as I am done with a twenty-quid rug-rethink." I keep recollecting about some situations from this book as I do from the still-incompletely-read Infinite Jest.
• Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett - Probably the best of the Discworld. Review
• Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy - Wow! The very stylish McCarthy just whips your imagination to a degree that at times makes you cringe, and at times makes you hold your breath in horror. The most violent book I have read so far. Review.
• The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman - If you think that a graphic novel cannot be simple and yet represent the horrors of WW2, then you must read this book.
• Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut - Another classic Vonnegut, or so it pretends to be. Review.
• Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, The Ultra-runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall - Very inspiring and a brilliant narrative! Motivated me to run my first ever Half Marathon!
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami - I was eager to read this before this was released, but it didn't turn out as good as I hoped it would. Review.
• Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons - A masterpiece in itself. Someday I would write a review about this milestone of a graphic novel. Someday.

Book shelf of read books in 2014. Courtesy: Goodreads.

Here's to a better year in 2015!

Piccadilly Jim by P.G. Wodehouse - Book Review

Piccadilly Jim by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In a recent Reddit post titled What books are worth reading just for the quality of their prose alone?, I was very happy to see P.G. Wodehouse being mentioned. He truly deserves to be mentioned!

With Piccadilly Jim, PGW is probably at his descriptive best and the book contains ample amount of the sunshine-filled (hat tip Stephen Fry) language that is known to flow out of his mind.

Plot-wise I wouldn't say that this book would stand well in a Sumo wrestling match against some of his other champions, but the Wodehousian charm is strong and pervasively permeating in this one.

I loved the characters drawn in this book. Mr. Pett (Sensational Turning Of A Worm!), Miss Trimble, Mr. Crocker, Jimmy, Jerry Mitchell, Ann (with her red hair and the nature which generally goes with red hair), and even Ogden for that matter are beautiful.

He had the plethoric habit of one to whom wholesome exercise is a stranger and the sallow complexion of the confirmed candy-fiend.

(On a slightly unrelated note, the Kindle / Gutenberg version has chapter titles that are missing from the printed book. The titles do add to the fun part!)

Few gems from the book:

An exile from home splendour dazzles in vain.
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again;
The birds singing gaily, that came at my call,
Give me them, and that peace of mind dearer than all.

Mr. Crocker had never lived in a thatched cottage, nor had his relations with the birds of his native land ever reached the stage of intimacy indicated by the poet; but substitute "Lambs Club" for the former and "members" for the latter, and the parallel becomes complete.

"Have you packed everything I shall want?"
"Within the scope of a suitcase, yes, sir."

It is but rarely that any one is found who is not dazzled by the glamour of incivility.

It is one of the effects of a successful hunch that it breeds other hunches.

And this one is particularly romantic!

"To a girl with your ardent nature some one with whom you can quarrel is an absolute necessity of life. You and I are affinities. Ours will be an ideally happy marriage. You would be miserable if you had to go through life with a human doormat with 'Welcome' written on him. You want some one made of sterner stuff. You want, as it were, a sparring-partner, some one with whom you can quarrel happily with the certain knowledge that he will not curl up in a ball for you to kick, but will be there with the return wallop. I may have my faults—" He paused expectantly. Ann remained silent. "No, no!" he went on. "But I am such a man. Brisk give-and-take is the foundation of the happy marriage. Do you remember that beautiful line of Tennyson's—'We fell out, my wife and I'? It always conjures up for me a vision of wonderful domestic happiness. I seem to see us in our old age, you on one side of the radiator, I on the other, warming our old limbs and thinking up snappy stuff to hand to each other—sweethearts still! If I were to go out of your life now, you would be miserable. You would have nobody to quarrel with. You would be in the position of the female jaguar of the Indian jungle, who, as you doubtless know, expresses her affection for her mate by biting him shrewdly in the fleshy part of the leg, if she should snap sideways one day and find nothing there."

I enjoyed reading this book a lot.

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2014

Last year has triggered a variety of emotions and feelings in varying degrees of manageability. Close family members were caught between two cycles of life. One began while another ended. Two very closely interlinked cycles. For most of the time, we had to play the game of wait-and-watch.

It is tough thinking about how unexpectedly things can change. As eloquently put by P "a verbal reply of what I really feel, is impossible to formulate".

I tried to imagine how it must be to caught in between "I felt unguarded, a little less loved and a bit shaky in my knees" and "I believed every minute that she is in a better place, that her suffering has ended, that she is at peace". Though I could come close, I cannot say I completely feel what you do.

In fact, I failed miserably.

In grief we are all alone.

So much so that the past starts to feel more real than the seemingly-fictional present, or the unknown future.

The room of memories that opens with us, will close with us eventually. The ones adjacently close to us will remember and reminisce, probably shed a silent tear or two, and walk along the path of time. 

Everything has a tendency to move on.

Just as you should. Move on carrying the memories, the thoughts, and the values with you. Ensuring they stay alive. Just like the person they belonged to would have desired.

With the only communication coming in the form of wails and cries, we are at times reduced (or elevated) to reciprocating in the same manner. - Kd's Journal.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami - Book Review

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't want to answer "What did you think?" I would prefer "How did you feel?"

Pain is what gives rise to meditation. It has nothing to do with age, let alone beards.

Some parts of the story hit the right notes. Some of it were diffused, hidden somewhere between the noises of the criss-crossing trains intermingled with the noises of the passengers waiting at a train station.

But there are some keys about human emotions that Murakami knows how to pluck, and he plucks them quite a bit once in a while.

No matter how quiet and conformist a person's life seems, there's always a time in the past when they reached an impasse. A time when they went a little crazy.

I would fondly remember him talking about harmony towards the end of the book. The little observations and analogies whenever I see a railway station.

I read the line "Then she paused, as if leaving a space on the page." and the enrapturing power of words and meanings took hold of me.

Eventually, the book echoed some of my feelings, and stayed surprisingly positive!
Not everything was lost in the flow of time.
We truly believed in something back then, and we knew we were the kind of people capable of believing in something - with all our hearts. And that kind of hope will never simply vanish.

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Reminiscing the South Indian road trip

Almost a year back, we started with a plan for a small trip Bangalore. What was an innocent 2-3 days trip to a lovely city with the aid of sheer adventurism and longing wanderlust snowballed to a 2-weeks, ~3300 km, east coast to west coast South-Indian road trip.

The idea of touching the sand on the east coast and west coast in the same trip was the main trigger if I try to recall by clearing the happy fog of colourful memories a bit. With that romantic idea, somewhere the seeds of visiting a historically important place called Hampi were sown. Somewhere in between, other nearby locations like Pattadakal, Badami, and Aihole were brought into the travel plan. West coast was finalized as Goa much before we even began to discuss, but to give the trip due justice, we planned Gokarna en route Goa. For east coast we picked Pondicherry. At the centre of it all was Bangalore! The place that made us think of steering away a bit on its either side.

Once the tentatively-final plan was charted, we began detailing. Talking to experienced people, Eicher maps, tons of blogs, travel forums, shared spreadsheets, hotels, guest houses, best routes, highways, and thus slowly all the little circuitry started connecting bit by bit.

The first decision was whether to go east before west or vice versa. The heart said west (read Goa) before east, but the mind and experienced folks said otherwise. Eventually east to west made more sense. Then we resumed our information gathering for the trip.

Thereby, a grand road trip was planned in our little Wagon R and the three of us took off!

The route was:

Pune > Bijapur > Badami > Pattadakal > Aihole (we gave this a miss eventually) > Hampi > Bangalore (planned this slight detour while sitting right near the paddy fields and rocky boulders of Hampi) > Pondicherry > Bangalore > Jog Falls > Goa (skipped Gokarna)

Dates: October 12, 2013 to October 26, 2013

The route we travelled

It's almost a year now when we initiated this beautiful road trip. For almost the entire year I have felt that I need to write a travelogue about the trip. It will take a lot of dedication to sit, think back and actually pen down the beautiful feelings in fitting (or close to fitting) words. I'll try and attempt it. Someday, I'll look back at these words and they'll connect me to the feelings hidden deep inside.

Here's to wandering!

 

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut - Book Review

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I picked up Mother Night after reading Maus. There is one major, dreadful, heartrending thread that binds these two books together:

Auschwitz.

While Maus paints a deeper and detailed picture of what it would have been on those unimaginable, worse-than-hell grounds, Mother Night superficially mentions it. But this outwardly treatment is done by Kurt Vonnegut in his own melancholy-inducing stylish humour. Very few authors can write war humour so well as Kurt Vonnegut does. His humour has the power to make you realize the degree of destruction caused by a war and the effect it has on humans. Both the victor and the vanquished.

Vonnegut’s proud characters, unfolding of events, and the subtle humour stitches together a meaningful tale in the form of Mother Night. Here we listen to or read Howard J. Campbell’s memoir about the way he pretended to pretend during war times and weaved together a complex identity for himself. How things tumble down during and after World War 2 for him and how the seeds he has sown grow into trees that creep towards him and pull him back to tangle him upside down by the hanging roots. I also loved his talk about the little "Nation of two."

As Vonnegut describes very early in the book the moral of this story is: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." The intensity behind this apparent "moral" becomes jarringly obvious as we trod along the story through the little twists and turns.

Compared to his other works like Slaughterhouse-Five, Cats in the Cradle, and Sirens of Titan, Mother Night is more grounded and is without the grandiosity (sometimes interplanetary!) of the other books. It is definitely a lovely little book, if you can describe a WW2-related book as lovely. I will certainly be returning to Vonnegut books again when I become older and maybe a bit more eccentric to enjoy the books even more than I do today.

Till then...

P.S.: One of the other vivid moments I recall from the book is the incident about the corpse-carrier. It still keeps haunting me thinking about how dreadful WW2 must have been for some. Just to think that people survived hell... and oh what a hell that must have been. It's really sad when people used WW2 related jokes when the German team won the football world cup this year (2014), specially the earlier semifinal against Brazil. Indians joking about WW2 and the German war juggernaut? Do you even know what you are talking about?

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Went for a run

Went for a run
Today I saw the sun
We looked beyond the clouds of yesterday

73% Guerilla Warfare

A young, ambitious boy goes to his mother to declare his desire to capture a fort. He lays out a detailed, well-thought of plan in front of her...
"... and so this is the plan. We'll have prepared guerilla tactics..."

His mother, a woman well aware of the current affairs, gives him a stern look and says, "STOP! Don't you worry about capturing that fort, my boy. It has been specially reserved for us."

"But mummy I want to capture the fort based on our fighting skills and merit!"

"Merit! Stop talking like a rational, educated fool!"

Torna 2014

I have written a post on the experiences we had during our previous Torna Trek that was done after the onset of monsoon. This time around the monsoon got delayed a bit. Though we enjoyed the scenery, we missed walking in the clouds towards the top of the mountain and the lush blanket of greenery all around us. We had sensed the grandness of Torna by the slight outlines that stood out amongst the dense fog, but this time around we actually saw the grandness of the mountain and the immense fortification of the fort.

Just like last year, we completed the trek and then went to Mirch Masala for some scrumptious lunch.

Some pictures from this year's visit to Torna:

A familiar sight. Sometimes these dogs will accompany you throughout the trek. We rewarded them with some egg yolks.

Some cloud cover hovering around the top of the mountain

The view of the grand Torna. (Click to see the larger version)

The railings towards the top

The trekking route as seen from the top

Fortifications that have withstood centuries of human history and forces of nature

Torna trek route from Velhe

Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy - Book Review

Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Is someone in there? the first man said.
The man who was relieving himself did not look up. I wouldnt go in there if I was you, he said.

Is there somebody in there?
I wouldnt go in.

He hitched himself up and buttoned his trousers and stepped past them and went up the walk toward the lights. The first man watched him go and then opened the door of the jakes.
Good God almighty, he said.

What is it?
He didnt answer. He stepped past the other and went back up the walk. The other man stood looking after him. Then he opened the door and looked in.

What he must have seen is a copy of the book "Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West"
--
I had approached the book with a lot of caution, but not only did it shock me and took me off guard (more than) once in a while, it made me cringe like never before. I usually read and watch a lot of violent books and movies. Gore and slash. But nothing ever prepared me for the bone-chilling, heart-squeezing, brain-freezing violence that suddenly pounced and as swiftly went away.

Eventually making me feel lonely. Almost making me miss the violence. Suggesting conversion. Submission to the ultimate.

While he danced around in my thoughts. Picking my nerves and playing notes I've seldom experienced before. Rendering me restless to understand the deeper meaning beyond the depths. I tried to clarify the symbolic ideas that shadowed the harsh yet metaphoric simplicity, where the most fearful activity was swiftly executed. But I failed. I couldn't coagulate the bits of the underlying objectives and reasons and weave them in a string of logical succession.
--
To say I loved the book without understanding it completely yet feeling a lot of it would be accurate. I caught what the author throws at you in the landscape trying to make you understand the vivid yet harsh surroundings that is probably a mirage for the twisted members of the society.

I understood the wonderful symbolic summarization of the transgression of the Kid.

I almost accepted the terrorizing portrayal of the most violent tendencies of humans and the consequences in an unrestrained candour that were told in a matter-of-fact way.

I bowed to the beautiful landscape and it's survivors. The pilgrims of the oldest sect of mankind.
--
My hook in this book was chapter 4. Here is what I had noted after reading it:

Starts on a very slow note. Bulldozing a vivid landscape with beautiful descriptions that were at times beyond comprehension and needed re-reads to get some meaning out of it. But how the tempo shifts, how the hunter becomes the hunted, just flames across the eyes. Just like lighting matchstick in a pitch dark room. Suddenly you see ghosts and monsters inches in front of you and all you have to do is submit. Submit and surrender to the clarion screams and chaotic hooves stamping off the slithering words that deliver a sudden shock.

"Chap prays for rain, blood pours from the skies."
--
So then, "What's he judge of?"
--
While reading this book, I was reminded of Detectives Hart and Cohle from the TV show True Detective. Glanton echoed a bit of Hart's personality and Cohle echoed some of Judge Holden's.
--
You can read proper reviews and evaluations of the book here and here. I wrote what I felt. I need to read it again objectively. But I dare say that I will come out just as foggy.
--
I would also like to drop in this amateurish post "I am You" that I had written in 2011. The book reminded me of this post.

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Running, music, and some confessions

I was never a serious runner. I used to love the 100 m dash in school and considered myself a short distance speed-runner (Ha!). Then as usual, I grew up. I started enjoying the tipple, or two, or three, and puffing the nicotine on and off. Started working out in the gym but balanced it out with a beer for every kilo progress with the dumbbell. Eventually giving up exercises and just devoting myself to Lord Bacchus (Dionysus).

Till last year that is. Sometime in May 2013, I realised that I need to build up stamina for the upcoming trekking season. I started walking a bit and then combined walking and a bit of running. In the first couple of treks, I realised how screwed up my stamina was (Not that it has improved to the teenage-level, but somewhat significant improvement. And more so, boosted confidence!). I realised that not only should I take up running a bit seriously, but I should also be cutting down on the Bacchus potions (Easier said than done!). But then I somehow, surprisingly, stuck to chasing the breeze a bit, pushing the ground and running about. Soon the walking and running combination evolved to just running. Treks happened in between, and running continued.

One thing I would like to specifically point out was the motivation given by the Android application called Runtastic. I don't remember if it was the application that made me take up running or whether it happened after I started walking-running. Whatever the case (that eludes my memory) is, it has been motivating me throughout. I really started enjoying my run, and further enjoying the treks. Did a lot of treks last season!

Coming back to running, the course hasn't been easy. Yes I set up some goals like 5K continuous, then 10K continuous, and then average 15-18 K per week, and thankfully I was able to achieve them, but with all the sudden intensity, shin splints returned. Google helped me to realize that a lot of runners experience shin splints. Everywhere I checked people mentioned that there is no cure as such for shin splints, just try changing shoes, modify your gait, apply ice after every run, and keep doing stretches after a run. Shin splints are painful. Shins hurt not just while running, but they make every step painful if they are inflamed.

I don't remember when I switched from a random 3-4 K per day to 6K every alternate day. The rest day in between helped me contain the shin pain. I got into a good running regime and then ran the December 2013 Pune Marathon in the 10K category. (That marathon made me realize how beneficial it is to have a running partner!) Sometime back I did a continuous 10K on a weekend and then joined a Pune Running 10K event and was happy to complete it in 65 minutes.

So, after 12 months of somewhat consistency, Runtastic tells me that I have managed to do 170 km walking, 70 km hiking (haven't measure all of the hikes though), and 320 km (rounded up) running. There is a lot to do. Next up I would like to target more immediate goals like sub-60 min 10K, sub-25 min 5K, sub-30 min 6K, et al. Then a 1000 km running year. I need to pray more to the Greek God (TIL Goddess) of running now and also pray to whichever gods the Tarahumara people pray to.

Now, on to the reason that triggered this post and the second word from the title of this post.

I never tried running with music because I remembered making a mess of the headphones and the way they kept pulling out. I also got used to observing and following the rhythm and rhythmic change in my breathing during a run. I kept wondering how it will be to run with a non-falling pair of headphones and good songs. Searching for the difference between runners who run without music and runners running with music gave me some good insights on the psychology of runners and running. But then, there are times when you are bored with the usual routine and want to try out something new. So yesterday, I made a playlist of what I thought would be good songs for running and added an early-morning reminder to not forget the headphones, and today I ran while listening to music.

Yes, it was a positively good experience. I had to keep pushing the headphones back in the ear frequently, but it was all right. What need adjusting was my habit of listening to my breathing. As I mentioned earlier, I am mostly a nose breather and tend to exhale loudly thus forming rhythmic exhale sounds that change with different pace. Music distracted me from listening to my usual air-music. But then after 1-2 km I was grooving. I must tell you that Lonely Boy by The Black Keys has got a nice rhythm to it that matched my running pace brilliantly and I enjoyed that stretch quite a bit. I had added Daft Punk, Prodigy, Avicii as well, but it's The Black Keys and AC/DC that I enjoyed the most.

Music distracts you from the usual thoughts and sounds while you run, if you are used to running without music. It adds to that necessary change as well. I might not run with music every time, but I will definitely go back to running playlists once in a while.

Specially when I need some motivation to run.

On that note:

Oh, oh-oh I got a love that keeps me waiting
Oh, oh-oh I got a love that keeps me waiting
- Lonely Boy by The Black Keys

Those lines could very well be dedicated to a glass of fine whiskey and puff thereafter. ;)