A post a day ends today!

At the beginning of the year 2012, I accepted a challenge in Goodreads to read 50 books before the end of the year. Somewhere around mid 2012 I realised that 50 books was out of my reach. I revised my target to 20 and I have read 15 books so far. Will I be able to complete the challenge? I guess not.

At the end of November 2012 I posed another challenge to myself. To write a post a day until this year end. I had published only 18 articles in the past eleven months! "Will I be able to complete this new challenge?", I asked myself. 

I certainly do not want to enter into 2013 with two failures! I took the challenge seriously and I vowed to write. I so wanted to welcome 2013 with a success. Of course, I would not forgive myself if I failed twice!

I had plenty of things in my mind to write about. I started off with a travel article, one of the easiest ways to get rid of writers block. The travel article was first in Fort Collins Diary. I then went on to write 11 more articles covering my experiences of the new place where my wife and myself had come to.

Five strangers at a bus stop happened two summers ago when I came to Fort Collins for the first time as a summer intern. That was when I played ping pong with an international student from Pakistan. It was during the same time I met André at one of the Friday Afternoon Club meetings.

After I came to Fort Collins in October 2012 taking a dreadful risk, I revisited the Fort Collins public library and had a few strange acquaintances. I applied for learner's permit and had quite an experience.

Following my success in overcoming my writers block, I wrote a few short stories. Taken was based on the effect of watching too many movies in short span. 

I wrote the draft version of Fish and the Bait a year ago! I revisited the unfinished draft when I felt I had nothing to write. Same is true with Orphaned, the only difference is I did not have a draft version ready this time.  

The story of Kurma Avatar and When the time stood still are two stories that gave me goosebumps after I wrote them. It was also my first attempt to demystify mythological stories and present it from a rational perspective.

Every Saturday, wife and myself would take a Transfort ride either to Carmike or AMC and watch a movie. Life of Pi was the first movie we saw in December. It was followed by Taken 2 and The Hobbit. The only movie that we did not plan earlier was Monsters Inc, which we went on a movie day out with my friend André.

To catch up with reading, we decided to have a study hour between 9.00 and 10.00 PM everyday. We read books that we borrowed from the public library. Though I would not be able to complete the Goodreads challenge, I read two books in December. The sins of the father was written by one of my favourite authors, Jeffrey Archer. The other book that I read in this month was Moonlight becomes you, which was also my first book written by Mary Higgins Clark.

It has been quite an eventful month for me. To be honest, there were times in the past 31 days when I felt I do not want to write anything. But then, there were also times when I felt writing more than one post a day! Looking back, I feel happy about myself that I was able to overcome the urges and stick to my commitment. I was able to write one post a day until the year end! I now have a success story with which I enter into 2013.

I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year 2013.

A special thanks to my wife Jaisri and my friends who had read and passed on their comments on my articles. Your support and encouragement made me succeed!

Moonlight Becomes You

No one can predict what will happen the next moment. Nature's way is to surprise us by not revealing us about the future. Our efforts in understanding nature and its ways had made us look into the past and recognize patterns that we believe contains the clue to what lies in ahead of us.

Often times, we chance upon those clues and call them as coincidences. But is it possible to counter a serious of coincidences in any one's life? A look into human history tells us that whenever such a serious of coincidences happen, there is always a human's hand in the course.

We always suspect that something is wrong when a few people who are close to each other die one after another, that too, peacefully at night when they all fall asleep.

We have experienced such events happen in our life. But how often do we begin to suspect and try to look at it from a rational perspective? 

How often do we have a quest to look into the pattern and try to connect the dots? How often do we isolate natural events from the events which are triggered by humans by virtue of their emotions; jealousy, ego, anger, frustration or whatever?

In Moonlight Becomes You, Mary Higgins Clark, through the eyes of Maggie (the protagonist), teaches us to identify patterns, isolate human element and trace the real culprit. If you are smart, you can find the culprit much before the climax.

A good writer is the one who introduces more than one pattern interlaced with another thereby confusing the reader. This is the best strategy that would result in having more than one suspect, which helps in building the suspense element in a novel. After reading Moonlight Becomes You (my first book of Mary Higgins Clark), I have no doubt that she is a good writer.

When the time stood still!

Image courtesy: Wikimedia

Draupadi was dragged into King Dhritarashtra's court by Dushashana. Duryodhana's lustful eyes craved to see her naked.

"Disrobe her, my dear brother Dushashana", he ordered. "Parade her naked in the court and make her sit on my lap".

How the wise men in the court wished the time would stand still that moment!

Indeed, for Draupadi, the time stood still when she was dragged into the court. She knew what the wicked mind of Duryodhana would think of her. She knew he would order his brother to disrobe her, make her naked and parade her in the court. None of what happened in the court registered in her mind, for her time had stood still.

Duryodhana never had a good opinion about Draupadi. Who would? After all, she was married to five brothers!

"It would not be a difficult task for you to walk naked in this court, Draupadi. More than one man had already seen you naked before", said Karna. The evil-minded ones roared in laughter to what Karna said.

Pandavas, who were reduced to slaves, cried inside. Even the wise men could not help but only witness the acts of evil. For them all, Draupadi was the wife of five brothers.

But, for Krishna, Draupadi was different. She was an embodiment of the society in which we live in. The society whose dignity was upheld with the fabric she wore.

The thread forms the basic part of the society, its people. The interlace represents the learned ones. The fabric was woven from each string of threads which were interlaced with another. How can he allow the evil to disrobe her?

"It was time to set an example for evil ones", he thought. He decided to extend the fabric which the evil ones are trying to strip. He set Draupadi's time in motion.

For, after all, he is Lord Krishna, the savior.

Different perspectives

Movie Out with André

"Would you like to see The Hobbit with us?", André texted me.

My wife and myself watched The Hobbit only last week, but then it's been a long time since I caught up with my friend.

"Sure!", I replied.

"We will be going to MetroLux theatre in Loveland. The show time is at 2.45 PM. I will come to pick you up at around 1.45 PM", he said.

"Sounds good!", I replied to him, disconnected the call, turned to my wife and said, "this time, we are going to watch it in a different theatre".

We had our lunch and were ready at 1.45 PM when I got a call from André saying he was waiting at the parking lot.

On the way to the theatre, André was talking to us about his plans to visit Nepal soon after the New Year. "It's very nice to see you guys today before we leave to Nepal", he said excitedly.

Soon we were joined by his wife, her cousin and their cute little niece and nephew at MetroLux.

at MetroLux Theatres with André

"My nephew, a four year old kid, wants to see Monsters, Inc", said André when we arrived inside the theatre. "But if you guys want to see The Hobbit, you can go ahead. My wife and our niece will be joining you then", he said.

We had already seen The Hobbit, so we decided to watch Monsters Inc. 

"This is my second movie in 3D", he said after buying the tickets. We mentally recollected all the movies we had watched in Fort Collins and said, "This is our third 3D movie in Fort Collins itself". We all laughed and walked towards auditorium 11.

Monsters Inc is a Energy production company that generates electricity from human baby's screaming. Monsters were trained to scare babies and make them scream which would generate electricity and were stored in capsules. The story lies around a monster coming in contact with a baby with whom he felt attached.

As in most 3D movies, the visuals were amazing! After coming out, we felt we not only had a good time with André and Rachel, but enjoyed the movie as well.