Robert Ludlum wrote a lot about conspiracies of power and attempting to take control, a subject that was very popular in the 60’s and 70’s with all the talk of the rise of the arms-industrial complex and associated industries; the good part is that he was able to weave a good storyline that kept a person compelled to read the book. Ludlum’s books had many things in common, they had a fast paced action, they always had many top level people involved, including surprises where some of the people were not expected to be a part of the conspiracy, but they were.
The Materese Circle involves 2 brutal and skilled enemies, Vasili Taleniekov from the Soviet Union, and Brandon Alan Scofield from the US State Dept Consular Relations. These 2 are killers who have killed people loved by either one of them, and hate each other in a visceral way. And they are the 2 main suspects from either side when valuable people on tne US (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Soviet (a very renowned scientist) side are assassinated in a brutal way. Suspicion immediately falls onto the other, and is only neautralized when the leaders of either countries calls the other.

Both of these are killers are now getting slightly old, maybe not of so much use to their country’s intelligence community, but still have the talent. However, little do they know about the way that their life is going to be turned. They are soon going to be getting information about a massive conspiracy, called the Materese Circle, spun by an old Corsican rich man and coming to full active life now. The conspiracy has its own troops, its own assassins and its own leaders, and they will stop at nothing to remove the ones they want to remove from their path. The Materese leaders are the ones who are orchestrating the international terrorism community (one must remember this was before the time of the Al-Qaeda), and is now moving towards getting control of both Moscow and Washington DC, and it is very difficult to stop them.
Taleniekov learns of these facts from an old friend who is dying after a visit from a killer of the Matarese Circle, and finds it hard to believe all this conspiracy, and when told to work with Scofield, refuses; but soon things are moving to get them together. Both these skilled killers are, under instructions from Matarese Men, sentenced to death by their respective Governments, no capture, no interrogation, just execution. Eventually, these 2 old enemies, get together (in an incredible episode of violence where they manage to kill the assassins sent to kill them). They travel to the Island of Corsica to learn more, and learn a fair deal more about the origins of the group called the Matarese. They are pursued relentlessly by the Matarese, who don’t hesitate to kill friends and loved ones of these 2.
At the same time, these 2 are getting closer to the source, and eventually manage to reach their target, and in a final burst of violence, manage to eliminate the Matarese council, even as the Soviet is lost in this final carnage. Read the book for its fast paced flow, for the story that could seem realistic in a different time and that is very gripping.

After reading her two earlier (commercially) published works, Interpreter Of Maladies and The Namesake, I was eagerly waiting for Jhumpa Lahiri’s next one - Unaccustomed Earth. And once again, I was spell bound by her literature. Unaccustomed Earth is truly wonderfully written and keeps the short story writing to the top. She is a master (short) story teller and this latest collection of short stories is another example of it. The best part about her short stories is that her characters are well defined and complex, her handling of the words is marvelous, her stories are never incomplete and they feel like a full novel.

The short stories in this work are:-
Unaccustomed Earth
Hell-Heaven
A Choice of Accommodations
Only Goodness
Nobody’s Business
Hema and Kaushik:
Once in a Lifetime
Year’s End
Going Ashore

First five stories are individual in themselves while the last three are interconnected. In the title story, a young mother Ruma, is visited by her father, who forms a bond with his grandson. All the while, Ruma is unable to make a decision to ask him to stay with them or not and his father, on the other hand, is harboring a secret love affair. In “Hell-Heaven”, a young girl narrates the story of her mother falling secretly in love, outside of her marriage, all the while not accepting it but feeling emotions of a jealous lover when her love marries another girl. In “A Choice of Accommodations”, a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness”, a sister tries too hard to get her brother all the support to come out of alcoholism and in the end it threatens her own family. In “Nobody’s Business”, a young girl makes a wrong choice in love while her family is looking out eligible suitors for her and her roommate hesitantly tries to save her, nearly getting himself dammed in the whole process. And Hema and Kaushik, a trio of linked stories — is about the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from their foolish childhood to adulthood on separate painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later.

I would say that I started this book with a prejudice and finished with it as well. But it never came in my way of reading this book from another point of view. It was just that I could not find faults in her writing - for me a fault is a boring phase through the book, a predictable story line or a complete lack of words and emotions. She kept me involved in the book all the while and never once I felt like what-am-I-reading. And for me that is a big thing while reading something. She has surely kept her high short story writing status well and truly intact throughout this book. Some people would say that she writes about confused Indian immigrants again and again and re-using her character set but then there is no deny from the fact that she is doing it wonderfully well.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an incredibly famous book, probably the most famous book by Richard Bach (and he has written some other famous books such as One, Brodge Across Forever, Flight from Safety), and so on. The book is a very short novel, and many people can actually read it in one sitting without too much of a worry. However, the worth of the novel is in appreciating the contents of the book, so don’t be too surprised if I say that I have read the book many number of times.
The novel in fact does not even cover any humans, and is all about seagulls (actually covering a seagull named as Jonathan Livingston). The book, covering his life, his fights and his struggles, is all about inspiration and the attempt to achieve what one is determined to do in life. So, Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a seagull who feels different from the other seagulls. He wants to feel the pleasure of flying, and exults in going faster and faster. Unfortunately, this goes against the code of the community, where flying is a means to and end, and flying fast or going outside the code is not recommended.

He is warned, and refuses to heed the warning, until he is exiled from the community one day. This means that he will not be with the community of other seagulls, and they will not talk to him. He is sad about this, but his ambition is to gain control of fast flying, something not easy to do so. One day he has to suddenly deviate from his flight pattern in order to avoid a young one, and his new path takes him into the cliff-face, but he does not crash and die, instead he moves into a different plane. He now has certain powers, one of the few who have tried to do this and succeeded. Ultimately, he learns that Heaven is not a physical place, but the concept of attaining perfection. He then becomes a teacher, teaching other defiant young gulls the same art. I will not tell too much more, this is a book worth reading.

Airframe is an interesting novel by Michael Crichton. It starts out with a normal flight returning back to Denver from Hong Kong when suddenly the whole plane starts to go haywire. The plane starts rapidly going out of control, and everything inside moves very rapidly, with passengers getting bounced around. And the plane declares a emergency off the California coast, and makes a rapid landing. A pretty horrific event. This starts the whole novel.
A typical event like this, which results in injuries and deaths to passengers will get investigated to the last bit of detail; after all, if there is a problem inside the type of plane, it needs to be found out so that the same thing can be avoided on other planes with other airlines. Part of the people who get affected by such an accident are the plane manufacturers, Norton Aircraft. They have to quickly figure out what went wrong, both to avoid scaring other airlines and to satisfy other stakeholders such as the media, shareholders, etc.

The person central to this novel is Casey Singleton, a divorced single mother who is currently the Quality Assurance Representative on the Incident Review team (the team who actually does these sort of investigations) at Norton Aircraft. She will also be the press spokesperson, a high pressure job. Unfortunately, for the investigating team, there are some constraints;
- The flight crew has already left the country
- There is a probable deal with the Chinese airlines for 50 aircraft, so this incident needs to be investigated accurately within a very short time
- The union has heard rumours about a vital transfer of technology to China, and is beginning to get hostile
AS the investigations start, Casey soon discovers that not everything is as it seems to be, and she could very well be the scapegoat. She also has to balance being a single mother on top of everything else. She is also getting attacked by a mediaperson out to get some sensational stuff. DOes she manage to do a good job and uncover the truth ?

The last review was the Volume 1 of this collection. This is the concluding review, taking on the stories in Volume 2 of this series. There are some great stories in this collection as well, and let’s get started on reading them.
Asimov has an incredible novel called ‘Nightfall’, about a society, not very advanced, that has 6 suns all around it, and does not know darkness. It’s scientists find out that the society has followed an unusual pattern, with society dying and taking rebirth every 2500 years, and almost at the same time, they discover the law of gravitation, and find that the 6 suns actually all go into an eclipse once every 2500 years, and the time for that is approaching. This society cannot stand darkness, and when the suns are all away, setting fire to society is the only response from the crazed crowd. Nightfall was developed from a short story, and this story is there in this Volume of short stories.
There are some very interesting stories - some stories about interaction with alien species such as ‘Green Patches’ - probably a form of precursor to the single super-organism concept used in his later novels; there is another moving story about conflict with an alien species in the story ‘Hostess’ - in fact, this is about a parasitic organism, ‘Breeds there a man’ is more about humanity being a lab species for a super species, C-chute is about the conflict with another species and the disparate group of people who get caught in this conflict, ‘In a good cause’ is a classic story where the focus is on inevitable conflict with another species and the different ways of getting humanity to focus on this conflict. ‘What is this thing called love’ is a humourous take at some of the same concepts.
‘What if’ deals with some what if scenarios in a relationship, and is a pretty intersting story, ‘The Ugly little boy’ is a story about the passion of motherhood and what it can make a person do, ‘Sally’ is an intersting story about a sort of robotics and how it can eventually seem scary, the same with ‘Nobody here but -’, ‘Its such a beautiful day’ is a great story about the wanting to escape from a closed society even when it is very comfortable. ‘Strikebreaker’ is a very moving story about the discrimination in a closed society and how they can make humanity veer off its basic sense of right and wrong,
In this second volume, Asimov was moving more towards a model of more conflict with other species, where eventually humans will strove to move into other worlds, and conflict is inevitable. It is possible that the basic nature of humanity being of a state of independence of thought, the possibility of humanity getting split is also possible.

Isaac Asimov is famous for his visionary science fiction works such as the Foundation series that take on a future galaxy side humanity and its search for peace and order as well as progress, and for his Robotic laws that seem like natural constraints on the actions of robotics experts. Besides these however, Asimov also wrote a number of short stories, and they find place in the 2 Volume Short Stories collection. This article takes on the first volume of this collection; the stories are an incredible mix of societal issues, future trends, and so on. There are some very interesting stories in this collection, and some that were somewhat not so interesting to me.
The best story of this collection, and one that appeals to me the most, is a story called ‘The Last Question’. This is a story that takes on a question, moves it along the ages, never answering it, while projecting the technological advances in the ages that follow until you end up in an age ten trillion years in the future, when the entire universe is dying; and then you get the story of the creation mixed up in this answer ‘Let there be light’. This story, while being a pretty short story, and without much complexity, is about the best blend of science and religion that I have seen.
There are numerous other stories that are particularly interesting stories, with the first one, ‘The Dead Past’, being a very direct reminder about the dangers of tinkering with some things that should not have happened, such as creating a machine capable of looking into the past. ‘Franchise’ talks about a future dealing with ability of machines to interfere in the political process that seems like fantasy, but it could have seemed realistic at some point of time. ‘Gimmicks 3′ is a delightful story about dealing with having sold your soul, and the way to get around that. ‘Kid Stuff’ is another interesting story about dealing with non-human creatures.
Some of the stories are more complicated such as ‘The living space’ about alternate probability patterns of existence. And we do have stories related to robotics, ‘Satisfaction guaranteed’ is a very interesting story dealing with robotics and human interactions, including the natures of self-confidence and jealousy. ‘Hell-Fire’ is a very short story about the dangers of atomic weapons, similary ‘The Last Thump’ is about the dangers arising from atomic weapons. ‘Jokester’ is a story that is very worrying, dealing with the problems about the existence of jokes and whether they are just a lab experiment. ‘Profession’ is a very moving story dealing with the need for future societies to encourage people to have new ideas for development of society; one reads this story, looks at the present, and is very happy that our society did not develop in such a manner (I would seriously recommend that this should be a story that should be part of general reading).
There are other stories such as detective story that would not be out of place in today’s stories - “I’m in Marsport without Hilda”. Asimov also wrote a few stories on the innate nature of humanity to fight wars and yet maintain their overall nature of independence, such as ‘The Gentle Vultures’. Asimov also could not really conceptualize the age of the personal computer, imaging the existence of centralized massive computing resources, and in the midst of this single large computer of his called ‘Multivac’, he wrote a story about the stress of all the troubles of the world on this computer, and the incredible urge of the computer to terminate itself, called ‘All the troubles of this world’. The story ends in this line, ‘I want to die’.

Nearly everyone of us (from my generation) would never forget the “Malgudi Days” we used to watch on the television in our childhood. That title music still lingers on our lips. To hear the tune, click here. Well, the serial was based on a wonderfully written collection of short stories from one of India’s greatest novelist, R.K. Narayan.

It is a collection of short stories written by the author (around 32 in number) which are based in a fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. The fiction town of Malgudi has been imagined and described in such a form that it could be any town of India. The vast majority of the stories are less than ten pages long; several are under five; and only one is more than 20. Narayan wrote many of these stories under deadline, within the limits of word count and column length for The Hindu, a Madras newspaper for which Narayan had a contract for a weekly submission beginning in 1939. At the same time they all seem spontaneously and effortlessly composed. Each stands on its own, but they are inherently intertwined while remaining independent from each other. The only force binding them is the town of Malgudi.

The main characters in each of the short story is a real life character - be it a school boy, a retired old man, a gardener, a maid, post man, snake charmer, cobbler, a gateman or even a dog. They all seem so familiar (especially for people like me who were born and raised up in a small city - not a metro); they are people from every walk of life. In nearly all the stories, the description of Malgudi is very real-like - you can actually imagines its market place, its school, its main roads and other things while reading the stories.

Here are some of the best stories from the lot:-

Attila: Attila is a small pup in a family who is bought with the expectation that he will grow up to fierce and protector of the house, after all he has the right pedigree. He turns out to be the friendliest dog in the world and when a thief enters the house he turns protector in most unexpected fashion.

Leela’s Friend: Sidda works as a domestic help in an affluent household. His main task is to play with the daughter of the household, Leela, who is just a small girl. Leela is very fond of Sidda. One day her gold chain goes missing and Sidda is accused and handed over to the police. The chain is found later on.

Iswaran: In India, we seem to have very little tolerance for failure and Iswaran flunks his 12th board examinations more than once. He seems not to care and develops a tough exterior. This story rings true for many Indian youngsters even today.

Lawely Road: Lawely Road pokes gentle fun on the fixation of changing names of everything British after India got independence. In this story, the municipality wants to pull down a statue of Sir. F. Lawely with hilarious consequences.

Father’s Help: Swami (a small child studying in first standard) develops an headache in the morning just before school. Father is adamant that Swami has to attend school. Swami tells tales to father that his class teacher Samuel has a fascination of skinning people alive. Father writes a strong letter to the Headmaster of the school and Swami has to deliver it. The dilemma Swami then faces makes this story the best one.

A must read classic in my opinion.

The Piano is a movie that was released in 1993, and went to earn great critical acclaim, along with a bunch of Academy Awards. The movie was the brain-child of Jane Campion, who wrote and directed the movie (the movie was produced by Jan Chapman). It is a movie that is very different, with the depiction of the silent lady, who has a strong will, and who struggles for her own feelings in a land far away from her own. The movie was a big hit at the Oscars as well, with 3 awards (and a total of 8 nominations), along with a host of other movie awards as well (such as Palme d’Or (Golden Palm), BAFTA, Australian Film Institute, Golden Globe, etc). Holly Hunter, who won the Best Actress Oscar, was only the second actress in the non-silent movie era to get the Best Actress Award.

Academy Awards Won:

* Best Actress (Holly Hunter)
* Best Screenplay - Original (Jane Campion)
* Best Supporting Actress (Anna Paquin)

Nominated:

* Best Cinematography (Stuart Dryburgh)
* Best Costume Design (Janet Patterson)
* Best Director (Jane Campion)
* Best Editing (Veronika Jenet)
* Best Picture

The movie is set in a harsh, rainy, mid-19th century New Zealand backwater. The subject is one that is not dealt with too often, making this an even more interesting movie - the movie deals with the wishes and aspirations of a young mail order bride who is not able to strike a bond with her husband, but instead becomes closer to her husband’s neighbor.
Alistair Stewart (Sam Neill) lives in New Zealand in a frontier backwater and desires a bride. In Scotland, Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter), who has a daughter Flora (Anna Paquin) marriage is arranged with Alistair and she is sent via ship to New Zealand. Ada can speak, but remains silent, and has done so since she was six years old (the reasons for why she stopped speaking are never clearly outlined in the movie). She is able to make herself understood through sign language (with the help of her daughter), through writing, and through usage of the piano (something she loves). For some special people, they are able to understand her without her needing to use speech, and that includes her former teacher who was also Flora’s father.
She reaches New Zealand along with Flora, and spends the night over there along with her luggage (including a piano - something that will form the center-piece of the movie). The next day Alisatair reaches there with a Maori crew to pick her up (having taken the help of his neighbor Baines (Harvey Keitel) to hire the crew). They find that they cannot carry everything, and so the piano is left on the beach. In the marriage, Ada stays distant from Alistair (displeasing him a lot), and her desire to go to the piano is very great, so she asks Flora to talk to Baines to take her to the piano. Baines agrees after some hesitation, and they spend a fine day at the beach; Baines is very impressed by Ada’s playing of the piano. Soon, Baines suggests to Alistair that Alistair can have a piece of land that he wants, if he gives the piano along with lessons from Ada to Baines. Ada is shocked, but Alistair goes along with the deal.
Baines then offers a deal to Ada, he will sell her back the piano one key at a time (for a total of 36 black keys) if she lets him do what he likes when she is playing. This leads to a series of intimacies that Alistair soon discovers. Ada has grown much closer to Baines and further away from Alistair, and he furiously boards her inside the house. Baines also returns the piano in order that they can get away from this arrangement, but it may be too late already; they are in love with each other.
Baines is planning to leave soon, and Alistair visualizes a new beginning with Ada, when he discovers (via Flora) a love letter that Ada was sending to Baines in a piano key. He is furious and chops off Ada’s index finger, with the promise of doing more if she continues to meet Baines.
Alisatair is soon able to read Ada’s face, and discovers that she can only be at peace with Baines, and sends her away on a ship with Baines; at the start of this journey, in a beautiful scene, Ada gets the piano thrown into the water, goes down with it and then comes up again in a sort of re-birth. She settles into a life with Baines in a different town along with her daughter Flora.

A Streetcar Named Desire is an iconic movie that was release in 1951, and has become very popular down the years. The movie was directed by Elia Kazan (who also later (1954) made the other Marlon Brando movie - On the Waterfront). A Streetcar Named Desire is based on a play of the same name (the Broadway play was directed by Tennessee Williams) and had a major influence on the movie given that all the stars except for Vivien Leigh (who starred in the London production of the play, not the Broadway one) had acted in the Broadway play. Leigh was the lone exception since she was already a star (Gone With the Wind) and was expected to lend star power to the cast.

Due to the Hollywood Production code in force at that point of time, the movie had some changes carried out to the script (a glaringly adult script), and then further cuts carried out so as to avoid going outside the Production Code. However, in 1993, a version of the movie was released that had the earlier removed changes and the audience could finally see the movie as it was originally planned. The movie was a hit with the critics, with a total of 12 Oscar nominations (an incredible number) and finally got 4 (out of which 3 were acting Oscars):

Won:

Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Karl Malden)
Best Actress in a Leading Role (Vivien Leigh)
Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Kim Hunter)
Best Art Direction — Set Decoration, Black-and-White (Richard Day and George James Hopkins)

Nominated:

* Tennessee Williams (Best Screenplay nomination)
* Marlon Brando (Best Actor)
* Elia Kazan (Best Director)
* Harry Stradling (Best B/W Cinematography)
* Alex North (Best Score nomination)
* Nathan Levinson (Best Sound Recording)
* Lucinda Ballard (Best B/W Costume Design)
* Best Picture

The movie is primarily about these 4 characters, Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), his wife Stella (Kim Hunter), her sister Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh), and Stanley’s friend Harold “Mitch” Mitchell (Karl Malden). The movie is a harsh movie about relations, about the interactions of humans, especially in adverse conditions. There is a lot of background story of the characters that slowly starts to get revealed; with the prime role being played by Marlon Brando. He plays a primal role, an aggressive male who does what he wants to, is devoid of most pleasantries and is almost Neanderthal-like.
Blanche recently arrives to New Orleans, wanting to stay in the small apartment of Stanley and Stella. She has never met Stanley before, and only knows that her genteel sister married a man of the city. And then she meets him, a man so different from their gentle and gracious manners, rude, crude, foul-mouthed, and the king of his place. She in turn is the lady of manners who is shocked at the choice of her sister in terms of husband (and can’t understand how her sister can still adore him); and pretty soon both Stanley and Blanche literally hate each other. She repents the loss of their estate, and having to depend on her sister for a place to live in. She also starts getting closer to Stanley’s poker-partner, Mitch, in terms of trying to figure a common future.
Stanley, is trying to figure out whether there is any money to be made from the lost estate that Blanche keeps on talking about, and soon starts to peel away the many layers that cover Blanche’s past, showing a more sordid past and revealing her to be not really a lady in terms of the things that she has done. He toys with her for some time, and then reveals his knowledge to both his wife Stella, and to Mitch (causing Mitch to break up with Blanche), causing her to tip over the mental edge. In the end, he violates her in a brutal rape; and while Blanche is going off to a mental care institution, Stella (with her new born baby) finally leaves Stanley.