End of The mania

The countdown has truely begun. There are less than two months before I am home, after a long time. The internship ends in another fifty odd days and then there will be a really long holiday !!
The insomnia gave way to peaceful sleep even while Pakistan kept inching towards a comfortable win in the Abu Dhabi match. Channels were changed to have a look at the Champion's League semi final between Barcelona and AC Milan. But that match also turned out pretty boring during the first few minutes I managed to stay up.
Shantaram seems like a nice book for the first hundred odd pages I have managed to read, the most exciting thing about the book is that, for the first time I get to see our culture, dressing, food habits ..almost everything, from the point of view of someone who is not Indian and for whom everything is a different experience!
Especially the description of a Salwar Kameez and that of a Pan vendor, the way we fight to reserve a seat in a local train. The village folks, the livestock that travel in the local trains with as much comfort as we allow ourselves... I have never been to Bombay (never quite got used to the 'Mumbai' word) but the description of the slums, roadside shops, shady bars and the underworld definitely accentuates the impression already created by movies like Satya, Company, D and Sarkar. Hope the book doesn't disappoint me in the end.

1 comment:

Phil said...

I already took your suggestion and reserved it at the library. It sounds like a good book... I'll let you know what I think of it after it becomes availiable and I've read a sizeable chunk of it.