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L quotes

Sometime back, D had sent me the best love quote I’ve ever read “If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?” (Lily Tomlin) A few other love quotes .. "Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds." ~ William Shakespeare "Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass." ~ Euripides "Love conquers all things." ~ Virgil "Love is an irresistable desire to be irresistably desired." ~ Robert Frost

The Scapegoat - Daphne du Maurier

Imagine a situation wherein your identity is taken away from you. That you have to, from one sudden day, become another person. That is exactly what happens in 'The Scapegoat'. An evening in Paris, a chance meeting with a frenchman who looks exactly like him, and John’s life turns topsy turvy. From an Englishman, he becomes a Frenchman ; from a bored professor who taught French history, he becomes a French landlord; from a loner he becomes a family man, from a life without worries and troubles he gets into one which is full of it. The story is about how John manages to get into the skin of Jean deComte, how he discovers past one by one, constructing it bit by bit, as in a jig saw puzzle, from the daily conversations, observations and many things by chance. How he slowly , sometimes suddenly discovers that Paul is the brother, Renee brother’s wife , Marie Noel , his daughter , Bella his mistress, __ his wife , the servants …. The book is a real page turner. Breathtakingly pacy. ...

I feel the need, the need for speed

Maverick: I feel the need... Maverick, Goose: ...the need for speed! (movie - Top Gun) There was a time when I used to do things real fast – talk fast , walk fast , write fast , read fast – do everything fast. Something used to itch if I was ever action-less for a second. After continuous scolding by parents and other well-wishers I mellowed down. I consciously began to ‘think’ before I acted. But now, am feeling really bored . am wondering if I have become a slow, lazy individual ! The need for speed I feel. For speed I feel the need. The need I feel for speed, To meet only speed can succeed The feel of speed I need To do many a great deed

The House on the Strand - Daphne du Maurier

On a vacation at an ancient Manor house, a young man takes an experimental drug that transports him 600 years into the past , while leaving his body in the present. The result, you wouldn't know if you are not in it , is , to put it in simple words – an-outstanding-must-read book. This might be the best du Maurier I've read..

K for Kannada

I spoke to K yesterday , that after a long long gap. He made up for it, for the lack of talk all these months, told me so many things that even if we’d been speaking everyday all this while, I wouldn’t ve had this much of info in my mind at this moment. K – my chennai pal - the one who ate, drank, slept, talked, walked in Kannada, one who cursed Chennai in every breath he took. Not a day passed without hearing him spewing out an expletive or two against poor citizens of the place whose fault it seemed to me was that they either loved their language too much or simply didn’t have the ability to pick up other languages quickly. ‘Language fanatics’ he said, ‘narrow minded’ he swore. Probably, being a chatterbox all his life, he wasn’t used to being a mute spectator amongst people who talked more than him, that too in a language completely alien to him. Probably he was jealous of them since he didn’t have the passion for his own language as they had. Probably Chennai made him learn that on...

The flight of the falcon - Daphne du Maurier

Do you like flashback movies/stories ? The stories where past is slowly revealed to you, wherein during each small incident you are carried back in time to something that happened long ago , those stories where as you go on living in the present you catch glimpses of the past , where present floats along with past. I love them. The first such book that comes into my mind is “Wuthering Heights”. It is not the chief protagonist comes back to his home kind of story. Well ! you can say that about Heathcliff. But the seeker of past is Lockwood, a person who comes to stay for a short while in the Yorkshire moors, it is his curiosity to know more about his landlord that lets Nellie, his maidservant unleash the tempestuous past into his mind. It is the reason why I liked “God of small things” too. This is more dramatic. The present belongs to Estha and Rahel. But the way you get to walk along their , their mother’s , uncle’s, grand-parent’s past, would grip you into the novel. Here you are , i...

"Stipendium peccati mors est"

The wages of sin, is death. Paradise lost – satan and here I am, thinking of Dr.Faustus. This doctor was someone who went too close to the sun and burned himself (figuratively speaking of course. He did no flying towards the Yellow Star. In the legends it is Icarus. Well Icarus makes me think of Ludlum’s 'Icarus agenda'. that gives me a topic for another blabbering). He knew too much and he wanted too much. In the first scene of the play Faustus tells us why he considers medicine, philosophy, theology and other studies as worthless. He says the only worthy thing is necromancy – black magic. He sets out to learn that and how ! before long he has Mephistophilis, Satan’s messenger standing infront of him. Mephistophilis tells him that if he is ready to give his soul to Lucifer , he will give him all the knowledge and power. Faustus agrees. Says he will give his soul after 24 years. Faustus becomes great within days. His fame spreads far and wide. He meets Pope and becomes invisibl...