Ten Great Relaxing Songs

Lake Pangong in Ladakh, taken with my Sony Xperia Z phone this summer

Ten great songs to relax with

1) Windmills of Your Mind- Sting's version from The Thomas Crown Affair. It's a haunting rendition of the classic and a really difficult song to do. Love it.

2) Don't Wanna Close My Eyes- Aerosmith, featured on the Armageddon soundtrack. Steven Tyler outdoes himself.

3) Too Much Love Will Kill You- Queen. Who can compare with Freddie's genius?

4) Don't Break My Heart- UB 40. Wish this group had done more. They vanished too soon.

5) Still Got the Blues- Gary Moore. I think this Irish musician was an underrated guitarist. For me, he's up there with Clapton and Joe Satriani and all.

6) Speak Softly Love- Andy Williams from The Godfather. An awesome, gentle theme from one of the best movies of all time.

7) Nothing Compares with You- Sinead O'Connor. Don't you wish this Irish lass had continued longer, too?

8) Still Loving You- Scorpions. A must at every College do in the 90's. Remember the line: 'Pride has built a wall, so strong, I can't get through...'?

9) I Have A Dream- ABBA. Although Agnetha was the lead singer and by far the better one, I love this ABBA number which has Annie Frid in charge. It's so lovely, almost like a hymn.

10) Patience- Guns n' Roses. An unlikely choice? Well, Axl Rose proves his gravelly voice is not just for belting out 'Sweet Child O' Mine' or 'November Rain'; he can be gentle, too.

What's on your list?

The Devil's Dictionary

May I introduce you to The Devil’s Dictionary? It’s a delightful collection of witty definitions compiled by Ambrose Bierce between 1881 and 1906. It was first published in 1906 as The Cynic’s Word Book, since the then publishers baulked at the reference to man’s Chief Adversary.

Here’s a sample of some of Bierce’s whacky descriptions:

A Funeral, he says, is ‘a pageant whereby we assist our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.’

Abrupt means: ‘Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon-shot and the departure of a soldier whose interests are most affected by it.’

Plunder is ‘to take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft’.

How `bout some definitions appropriate for our Indian context? I’ve come up with a few.

Indian men: Alpha males, all of them…in their dreams. That’s why it’s so hard for them to accept rejection: which woman would not want God’s gift…?

Government servants: That peculiar class of officials who believe that public service begins with service to self and, preferably, ends the same way.

Road Rage: the most common method of settling disputes arising from accidents and other mishaps on the road, requiring nothing more than fists and stones. Lessens the burden of the Traffic Police since the aggressors don’t and the victims can’t press charges.

You can get a free copy of The Devil’s Dictionaryas an ebook from Gutenberg Press.

Helen of Troy- Femme Fatale or Woman of Substance?

What do we know about Helen of Troy?

-That she is supposed to have been the most beautiful woman that ever lived;
-That she was the Queen of Sparta, married to Menelaus, and she was abducted by/ eloped with Paris, Prince of Troy;
-That this led to the Trojan war as Menelaus called upon other Greek states for assistance and they united under Agamemnon's leadership to attack Troy. Among the Greeks was the mighty warrior Achilles. After a long siege lasting over a decade, the Trojans were defeated by trickery when the Greeks pretended to retreat, leaving behind a large wooden horse. The Trojans mistook this for a gift, happily wheeling it inside their hitherto impregnable walls, unaware that Greek warriors were concealed inside the contraption...

Episodes from the Trojan war have been depicted through poetry, drama and movies, most famously in Homer's epic Iliad (probably composed between 750- 650 B.C) and recently in the Hollywood blockbuster Troy, featuring Diane Kruger as Helen, Orlando Bloom as Paris and Brad Pitt as Achilles.
All very well, but what happened to Helen after the sack of Troy? And what does that tell us about her character?

Before the stratagem of the wooden horse (described in the second book of Virgil's Aeneid), Paris kills Achilles by sending an arrow through his heel and is later killed by Philoctetes. So Helen is left in a precarious position. She is, after all, the 'pearl, whose price hath launched above a thousand ships', as Shakespeare's Troilus says (Troilus and Cressida, Act II, scene ii). She's presumably not high on the Trojans' popularity lists. In order to safeguard her position, she marries Paris's brother Deiphobus. Hector, Paris's noble older brother, is killed by Achilles during the war. No one would blame Helen for taking up with Deiphobus. But what happens when Troy is burning? She betrays Deiphobus in order to curry favour with Menelaus, who forgives her and takes her back! Surprised? I was, when I discovered this recently. And, more surprised still, when I went through the Iliad again (Alexander Pope's translation) and found Helen's reference to a daughter she'd left behind in Troy. One would presume this fact makes her elopement all the more cold-hearted. But Homer is kind to her. She's repeatedly presented as being filled with remorse. On the death of Hector (in the last book of the Iliad) she acknowledges herself as being 'the wretched source of all this misery/ The fate I caused, for ever I bemoan...'
Really? But not enough to stand by the Trojans and Husband Number Three?

Best 5 books read in 2013

I managed to get in a good bit of reading last year and I thought I'd share brief reviews of books/ works that I liked most. So here goes, first the list, not in order of preference, though. They were all so good:

1) Simon Kernick- The Business of Dying

2) Ian Rankin- Knots & Crosses

3) Shakespeare- Coriolanus

4) Robert Goddard- Dying To Tell

5) Pete McCarthy- McCarthy's Bar

Simon Kernick's The Business of Dying: Simon is a British thriller/ crime writer. The Business of Dying is his first novel published way back in 2002 but I read it only last year. It's a wonderfully edgy and humourous novel that introduces a complex hero, Dennis Milne, a cop that moonlights as a hitman. Things turn awry for him when, during a particular hit, his targets turn out to be customs officers and an accountant, not mobsters like he'd been told. Great plot, witty dialogue, a must read.

Here's an excerpt: 'An ominous sensation crept up my back as partially buried thoughts suddenly unearthed themselves like zombies in a graveyard.'

Kernick's other big successes include Relentless, Stay Alive and many others.

Ian Rankin's Knots & Crosses: This one was a re-read. Just realized that this, too, was his first Rebus novel published in 1987. I was so sad about Rankin having retired Rebus that I wanted to revisit the beginning. Once more I was struck by Rankin's amazing characterization. John Rebus is the divorced, hard drinking Scottish copper who's willing to bend rules to get the bad guy. Knots & Crosses is pure joy with a complicated plot, cryptic messages, Rebus's messed up personal life, his drug-dealing brother Michael, and so on. Grab it whenever you can.

Shakespeare's Coriolanus: Another re-read. For the uninitiated, this tragedy is one of the Bard's later works, written between 1605-08 and it's based on a legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. As always, Shakespeare's mastery in presenting great openings grabs the reader (or audience's) attention from the very first scene. We're thrust into a conflict as the play opens with a riot and the people of Rome are up in arms against the hero, Coriolanus. His arrogance, bravery and enigmatic personality are powerfully brought out right at the start and, of course, this continues all through. The play also has a powerful female character in Volumnia, Caius's mother. Consider her declaration about Caius in battle:

'Had I a dozen sons, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action'. Charming, wasn't she?

Coriolanus has been adapted for television and the movies many times and I especially like the 2011 version directed by the hugely talented (and very handsome) Ralph Fiennes, who also plays the lead role. If that isn't enough to grab eyeballs, there's Gerard Butler playing Coriolanus's arch rival Aufidius. Don't miss it.

Robert Goddard's Dying to Tell: This is an early gem (pub 2001) from the British writer who's known as the master of the clever twist. Goddard's novels feature regular guys who get caught up in tricky, dangerous situations. This one has a mind-blowing ending (I'm struggling hard to not reveal it!). The plot revolves round a guy called Lance Bradley who's whiling away his time in Somerset when he gets a call from his friend Rupert's sister, saying that ol' Rupe has gone missing; can he help? Typically, Bradley is soon caught up in a life and death situation and he's propelled by circumstances to get deeper and deeper into it...You can also check out Goddard's website: robertgoddardbooks.co.uk. He describes his work as having 'unprincipled chicanery; unsolved crimes; unforgotten betrayals...' How can you resist?

Pete McCarthy's McCarthy's Bar: one of the funniest books I have ever read. Pete McCarthy was a British TV travel writer, sadly no more (passed away in 2004 in his early fifties). McCarthy writes about his travels though Ireland. The narrative is so humourous and well-observed that it'll leave you gasping in awe at the guy's talent. Sample this:

'I've never understood how cars work, beyond a long-standing conviction that petrol is crucial'.

He describes meeting two American GIs in Germany who declared they were planning to visit England 'because it would be neat to see where John Lennon and Elvis grew up.' He says they also wanted to know if they could use dollars and would the street signs be in English?

The one common thread in all these works is the sheer joy of storytelling that shines through. These guys were writing because they wanted to. Period. That's what sets them apart.

How about sharing the best five books you read in 2013 with me?