The Dark Knight Rises (To the Everest Base Camp)

Gather round, kids, and let me tell you the story of how one of the most iconic movie trilogies of its time ended. The second part of the trilogy was one of the greatest, most beloved movies of all time, and great expectations rested on the shoulders of the third - the epic conclusion! The creative force behind the trilogy decided he wanted to close with a bang. He lined up the biggest plot device he could imagine and did everything right... but ended up with a conclusion that was ultimately less loved  than the second part - even though it was crafted with precision, it got accused of being a color-by-numbers predictable ending. Oh, and the big plot device, was a lazily reused Death Star...

You probably guessed right: the trilogy was Star Wars, the conclusion was Return of the Jedi, and the year was 1983.

But hang on you say... wasn't this blog about The Dark Knight Rises, you ask? Well ok... tell you what... go reread the opening paragraph of this quasi-review/ pseudo-rant. Just replace "Death Star" with "Nuclear Weapon", "Star Wars" with Chris Nolan's Batman Trilogy, and 1983 with 2012. Go on... I'll wait...

On Creation

It is a pity
The Inner Eye cannot
Wield pencil, brush, or, paint
If it could,
I would paint...

From the left,
An Olympian hand
Elbow shrouded in finest silk
Squeezing with abandon
A mortal chest, until,
From the puny eyes, ears, and mouth,
Bursts forth
A brilliant yellow light
To arrest
A Stygian dark

And I would call it
"Creation!"

Or perhaps
I would paint...

Two mortals,
Cowering, and Confident,
Atop a chariot
On a field of battle
No glory, gold, no halos,
Only kin,
Arrayed for slaughter,
Adorned in boiled leather;
One holds in his hands
A puny bow, awaiting
Stone tipped arrows
From a wooden quiver
Dipped, in lethal intent
The other spews forth
A steady stream
Of heady justification,
Deadlier than any weapon
Under a sky
Blood-red with fate

And I would call it
"War!"

A pity, thus,
(Or relief!)
That my Eye but paints
With words...

Speaking of Tongues

Language Families in India
via Wikipedia

The reason I write today is this article by Saritha Rai on the NY Times' India blog, which my sister linked to. It laments the fact that the next generation in urban India is cut off linguistically from the country/ region/ their homeland because they speak - and think - in English. For me personally, this article has come about twenty years too late, because I have no hesitation in saying that English has always been my first language - perhaps not my mother tongue, or native tongue, but always my operational tongue (if you will).

I think it's a great article - but I also think it is an article that only scratches the surface of a deeper, wider phenomenon that "English as a First Language" is merely a side-effect of... what follows in this post is a predictably lengthy meditation on this phenomenon, as opposed to the symptom.

Chronicles of the Black Company

The Omnibus Edition

So I bit the bullet one fine evening last month, and on impulse purchased the first volume of Glen Cook's "Black Company" series. This is the omnibus edition of the first three books in the (thus far) ten book sequence from Cook, comprising the books "The Black Company", "Shadows Linger", and "The White Rose". I read the Kindle edition.

My interest in Glen Cook is explained in large part by my being an unabashed fan-boy for the works of Steven Erikson (SE) and Ian Cameron Esselmont (ICE), who are the co-creators of my favorite fantasy series - or universe, really. SE's Malazan Book of the Fallen is a true magnum opus, and ICE's Novels of Malaz are great additions to the vast universe they've gamed out. Time and again, I had heard that SE and ICE owe a great debt of inspiration to Glen Cook (they even admit themselves that there are elements in their books that they ripped off of Cook wholesale!)... I thought it was about time I started tracing the antecedents for SE and ICE's work. Who knows? Doing so might even inspire me to complete my abortive "Malazan Mediation"...

This then is a reflection (not quite a review) on my first run-in with SE and ICE's genre daddy! At the risk of giving away the gut punch of this article early, let me say this: as soon as I finished "The White Rose", I ordered the remaining seven published books in paperback from Flipkart, because they don't seem to be in the Kindle store!

Our Peacock Apes The Eagle

The New India?

This is a response, rambling per usual, to a thought provoking article by Akash Kapur, whose identity in a sense straddles America and India. Every day, anyone living in India is witness to any number of 'Americanisms' introduced in our day to day lives. Not all of them are bad, and not all are good.

Supermarkets and fast food such because they are killing traditional Indian (sustainable) farming and health. Shopping malls bring with them consumerism of a at times revolting magnitude. Builders of gated communities, whose projects are at times unsupported and in the long term unsupportable by existing infrastructure are building their own little fiefdoms complete with power and water grids. Any one living near a major city is witness to large roadworks and an explosion in the number of cars on the road, and all the attendant evils of pollution.


One fondly remembers greenery with nostalgia, as concrete rushes to fill the void... and as you look at this concrete jungle, you wonder how long it will be before it breaks down for lack of water, of power, of fuel, and there is blood in the streets...