Reflected in You

Paperback: 352 pages
E-book: About 10 hrs
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd(1 August 2013)
Language: English

• ISBN-10: 1405910259
• ISBN-13: 978-1405910255

When I sit to write this review I have finished the Crossfire series till the books available now, ie Reflected to you and Entwined with you. Yet what follows have no spoilers.

This book, Reflected in You, is not a stand alone book, and yet this is the first book in this series that grabs my attention: simply because it was a NewYork Times best seller. But I chose to read the books in the intended order.
 I believe that relationships are always complicated. It ain't a relationship till it gets complicated, because people are complicated. So here's continuing with the...alright...romance between Eva Tramell & Gideon Cross.
The two were drawn to each other like moth to a flame, and what followed was a raw, fierce, hot and tumultuous relationship. Both of them want the same things out of their relationships, but neither of them have been in a healthy relationship long enough to know how to work it through. The books goes about how the couple deals with their own demons and evils, while trying to save the relationship. Both of them have their own set of demons from the past to deal with. To make things worse, Eva is quite often faced by blasts from her past.

So in the beginning Eva is the volatile and self-obsessed among the two. But advancing into the story see that Eva realizes how she has been in the relationship and decides to work harder at making things work. At one point she decides to stop running because her 'recovery was so fragile that she'd learned to protect it at all costs.' So, midst the self-discovery, self-realization and the struggle to stay together the couple more than anything depend more on physical bonding to bond emotionally (No, I'm not complaining!). In Reflected in You, Eva and Gideon fall more and more in love, instilling some hope in us, readers, so that we keep pining for the franchise.

Well written and feel-good, it's not a stand alone story. Nevertheless it's a good continuation to the 1st book. If you have read Bared to You, you are bound to love this one as it just adds to the experience.

Rating: 3/5

(I have a Kindle at hand which makes me grab the e-book. But if you still live the paperbacks, fret not, as they don't make much of a difference to your pockets. Though paperbacks come cheapest at Flipkart the e-books are out of stock. So for e-books you still have to go to Amazon.)

My Reading List of Oct '13

Reading list of July '13

Tawny, ageing books send me reeling into a nostalgic old world charm. They remind me that someone gazed into this very book and spiralled into a world quite different from what each one of us lives in. Someone grazed through these very pages that I hold and emoted similarly as I move from emotion to emotion. So if I'm sure of it being a good read, and if it's economical I would definitely buy second-hand books. And I came across just what I wanted when YMCA gave space to some second-hand book dealers space in one of their halls in Thiruvananthapuram. I grabbed a copy each of Don't Blink by James Patterson and The Girl who played with Fire by Steig Larsson.

Before reading about James Patterson I had heard about him inCastle, the television series(I'm a huge fan!). I kept muttering that dialogue of and from Castle, "Oh, I'm not James Patterson rich, but I do ok" for all the few days I had Don't Blink with me but didn't read it. So finally I dig into it and I finished Don't Blink in the blink of an eye. And now I'm a James Patterson fan too, waiting to lay my hands of another book of his. Inspite of having read it in May this book deserved a mention here more so as this helped trigger my insatiable thirst for good books all through the month of June. Come June I had finished that and moved on to a bunch of interesting books.So here goes the tiny list of books that took me through Oct-Sept 2013.

The Shiva Trilogy:

Mythology has always been my favorite genre next only to crime-thrillers. I fell in love with the genre with Devdutt Patnaik's Jaya. Through I had issues with the passive language, the narrative and the inner meaning of the stories left me spell-bound, that I went on to read The Pregnant King, also by the same author. And no, I wasn't disappointed. But after the two books I never found anything worth my time in the genre till the Shiva Trilogy. Though I was reluctant to read it, The Immortals of Meluha reached me through a friend who insisted that I read the book.So I started the month with The Immortals of Meluha, the first from the Shiva Trilogy by Amish Tripathi.

While I dug into the book I heard many a friends, interested in the genre themselves, express their reservations about Shiva being depicted as a casual, pot smoking, free-willed mortal. They didn't want their beliefs about Lord Shiva to be questioned or influenced after turning a few leaves of the book. Frankly being an agnostic myself, I found the books a logical explanation of why Shiva is revered the way he is. Tripathi made me respect the intricacy with which myth is woven into a logical story, with the right amount of magic sprinkled on it. 

The language is plain and the story a melodramatic strain. Its runs a risk of sounding like a mythological drama somewhat like your everyday K-brand of television serials. While the war description is painstakingly long and laborious, Tripathi's language is simple and sweet in handling emotions and relationships.

Rating: 4/5

The Girl Who Played With Fire
I had read the 1st book from the Millennium series, 'The Girl with the Dragon tattoo,' a long time back. This girl, Lisbeth Salander fascinated me with her complete mysterious ways of detachment from the society. The 2nd installment in the series, 'The Girl who played with Fire,' gives you answers regarding her peculiar behavior. This book here is less about Mikael Blomkvist & more about Lisbeth Salander. Go, read it for her.

Gives you a better picture of why Lisbeth is the way she is.

Rating: 3/5

They Do It With Mirrors
They do it with mirrors pretty much refused to move. It gave me sleepless nights & restless days. This one being my first Agatha Christie book, I'm not sure I'll go back to one. Having said that, though the book was not all bad the exercise seemed oh-so-trivial.

This one is a neatly written slow story that dragged on to meet a rather flimsy climax.

Rating: 2/5

Whose Kahaani is it anyway?

Movie   :Kahaani (2012)
Director:Sujoy Ghosh

Actors   : Vidya Balan, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Nawazuddin Siddiqe, Indraneil Sengupta, Kharaj Mukherjee, Saswata Chatterjee

Movies are always end-products of a collective creativity. Many might argue about whose craft a movie is in the end. The director, producer or the lead? With Vidya Balan soaking in all the glory for winning the National award for her stalwart performance in Dirty Picture, there couldn't have been a better timing for her to see Kahaani released. Undisputed that Kahaani is yet another feather on her cap, before showering praises let me just give the rest of the gang their shares of the credit.

The very first thing that caught my eye about the movie Kahaani was it's trailer.Quite lucid and yet cryptic. Giving away almost nothing about the movie and yet keeping the viewer at their toes. I thought, "Wow! This is how trailers should be made!" Lot of times I've known what twists and turns to expect from a movie right after the trailer. Kahaani's trailer left me gnawing for answers. So 10/10 there.
Reviews for a movie good or bad,always begin with the director. We shall make no exceptions here, especially when the co-writer, director and co-producer of this wonder is one man. Sujoy Ghosh, who debuted his career with an off-beat like Jhankaar Beats hadn't been in many talks there after. With Home Delivery:Aapko...ghar tak and Aladin (inspite of Sanjay Dutt and Mr.Bachchan) bombing in the box office, there wasn't much to talk about. And hence Ghosh did a comeback and how?! Well, it wasnt intended as a comeback, says Ghosh. He was already toying on Kahaani's kahaani when Aladin was yet to release. So it was a natural progression? Fine by me.Sujoy Ghosh, bong by birth was brought up in London. And yet he has managed to keep Kolkatta a subtle character throughout the film, with seemingly deliberate attempts of avoiding the overwhelming tourist spots.But frankly, I would have enjoyed wee bit more of the bong flavor especially because it's been a relief to watch a city other than Mumbai,Delhi or even Punjab, in a Bollywood movie. But credits to Ghosh for choosing Bengali actors over Hindi speaking Bollywood actors who could  have spoit the whole deal for me.
Be it Parambrata Chattopadhyay as the doting policeman who turns  'Arjun ka saarathi' Satyaki' a.k.a Rana or Saswata Chatterjee as the contract killer and part-time insurance agent Bob Biswas, both were a spectacle, to say the least! But the list of Bengali actors in the crew does not end there, and that is a comfort. The freshness and authenticity is quite enjoyable. The 'V' being absent from Vidya and Vishnu making it both Bida and Bishnu, the reference to 'running hot water' and the frequented Bengali mixed Hindi have all added to the salt of the earth script of the movie.So hence arises the question again, who is the real star of the show? The writer (in this case writers), director, or lead? But with all this I also wish to mention how pretty much flawlessly the story was carried by the music. 

Be it 'Eklo cholo' by Big B himself, or 'Aami shotti bolchi' by Usha Uthup, the Visha-Shekhar duo deserve a round of applause for their un-intrusive melancholy of music. Each of the song has an individual character to boast about, which is interesting in itself. Not that 'Tore bina' & 'Piya tu kaahe' are not mention worthy, but 'Eklo cholo' and 'Aami shotti bolchi' are my personal favorites. the soulful rendition has made it stand apart for me. But what has really made the movie the talk of the town has to be Ms.Vidya (Bida) Balan!

This woman has definitely proven that she has some iron gut acting prowess! She isn't kidding anyone here. Her acting is pretty much flawless as the director puts it. But at the end of the whole exerciser one doubts if she began acting knowing it was a revenge driven story and not search hunt! More so because at times she doesn't come across just as serious as one might expect. But still the director-cum-writer was seen arguing that her playfulness is with Rana who she wanted to steer in her advantage without making her look like the obvious seductress. The bonding had to be innocuous and innocent in order to appeal to the sympathetic audience. So that part can be pardoned. But Ms. Balan is yet to astonish me with some unexpected, powerful performance, as some of it looks familiar from some of her earlier movies (Parineeta, No one killed Jessica, Dirty Picture). Also it wouldn't hurt to train on some variants of voice modulation. It's been some time since I've seen any from her. But all that said, Vidya Balan has now steered clear all the filmmakers who have been apprehensive about making women-centric movies. With a Priyanka Chopra in a possible shoulder-to-shoulder competition, atleast for now, Balan is a clear choice for the thinking man's muse for a woman-centric role. But my question still remains.

Sujoy Ghosh did show some real guts to bring out a movie with only a heroine, that too a pregnant one. Hats off to that! But Balan has also made the effort worthwhile. So who do you think is the real star here? Ghosh or Balan?

The Adventures of Sherlock Homes and his Funny Bone!

Watching movies could be the best way to idle away one's time. Movies not only take your thoughts away into an entirely different dimension, they also give you an insight into things you never gave a thought about. More so in the case of mystery, thrillers and fantasy movies. Mystery and thrillers not just keep one's brain engaged they also give you a fantastic adrenalin rush. So, nothing like watching something out of this genre when in blues as that is exactly when you need a distraction and an adrenalin rush to give you the pseudo rush of the happy hormones!

So here I picked this movie based on a character who even in literature fascinated me since a

very young age. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock

Homes could possibly be my first stint with literature. And oh boy did I enjoy it! My fascination led me to buy the books to posses them. And even set hands on the entire collection which I preserve till date. But sadly as age advanced I read Sherlock Homes no more. But I did some research on Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Homes. Like any Homes enthusiast would know I stumbled upon a few facts on Sherlock Homes and his characteristics. So all this grew on me and painted a picture of how Sherlock homes, if alive, would be. A maverick as he would have been, I also pictured him to be a pensive man of a rather austere demeanor with a pipe tightly held between his lips. As many a people have expressed anxiety on his sexual preferences, I would always try and imagine a woman who could excite Homes enough for him to pursue her. Now this is what brings us to this movie.

This is not the first time that Sherlock Holmes is being painted into the silver screen. But there are stark differences from one Holmes to the other. Sherlock Holmes is British and hence is perceived a stereotypical Brit with a crisp accent and clean and disciplined lifestyle. But here the script-writers have taken a creative liberty to portray Holmes as an untidy maverick, who prefers boxing for a stress buster.The movie Sherlock Holmes has a narrative style most suited to literature of the same name. Showing the events happening in it's natural flow and then to go through it again with a proper explanation of things. But my personal favorite were the fight scenes where Holmes starts by analyzing the potential harm he could cause and then going about the act in a jiffy!The movie is no creative marvel. But it sure excites any Holmes enthusiast for the sheer creative imagination and ideation of characters.The movie is all about Sherlock Holmes finding his match. When many Holmes enthusiasts raise questions over his sexual orientation, the movie take a creative liberty of setting things right. Here in the movie, where Holmes obsession over Watson is not hidden, the fact that both have separate love interests is a laudable creative twist to the story.The background scores for the entire movie blends in with ease.Although I don't find many glitches in the movie, neither can I call it a marvelous movie. But the story is sufficiently gripping and has a good flow of events. The most apparent aspect of the movie that sets it apart from the literature is that unlike the literature, it is perceived as a comedy.

First and foremost, Robert Downey Jr. is pretty ugly for what I would have imagined Sherlock Holmes to be. I pretty much imagined Holmes to be a clean-shaved man. But the way Robert Downey Jr. sported a stub bringing logic into the untidiness and erratic lifestyle Holmes has in the literature has fascinated me. Robert Downey Jr. definitely is a breath of fresh air for an adaptation. He succeeds in giving a dash of his personality to the character while retaining the true essence of Sherlock Holmes. Unmistakably, that is true Robert Downey Jr. style where his mastery lies in portraying men the public has an assumption about. He brings to us a Holmes who is not a stereotypical British gentleman, but an extremely erratic intellectual who so much life-like. In Downey Jr. Holmes looses the larger than life package and gets closer to the logic of a viewer. The man shows a controlled acting reflecting the maturity he gathered through his many attempts to come clean. The actor has an amazing chemistry with every other actor he is paired with.This is most evident with Dr. Watson.

Jude Law, who plays Dr.Watson is quite a dish! But apart from that there is no magic in comparison to what Robert Downey Jr. has done to Holmes. But unlike literature, the movie has treated Dr. Watson as an equal to Holmes, if not less. And the way Jude Law carries it off deserves applause. Dr.Watson's medical skills are put to use from time to time, increasing his prominence in the movie. I doubt if Holmes was so evidently against Watson getting married in the literature. But here the relationship between Holmes and Watson is much more colourful and life-like. British himself Jude Law retains the flavor and culture of the nation throughout the movie.
This movie has deviated from the original literature in many counts. But the most significant deviation would be in the case of Irene Adler, Holmes' love interest. Rachel McAdams is absolutely breathtaking for Irene Adler.Although in literature she is the only woman who Holmes takes any interest in, the movie adds character into their relationship.Given that the literature has many discrepancies in terms of the chronological order of the events, the movie follows on and does not give us any time, date or event when the two of them first met. Although it might show us how exactly Holmes was beaten by Adler.i e if the 'beating' is not physical, but intellectual.

 "To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex....”

Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Homes

Robert Downey Jr as Homes

The movie urged me to watch the old Sherlock Homes television series with Jeremy Brett as Mr. Homes and Dr.Watson portrayed by David Burke. The whole series was meant for a thoroughly British audience. As a comedian once said..."it was so cold & boring". I do not deny that the television series did more justice to the literature than the movie. But the movie is appreciable as a creative extension of the literature. It suits any viewer, irrespective of their nationality, race or gender. Jeremy Brett embodies Sherlock Homes and, if I might say, immortalises him. But Robert Downey Jr. goes on to add spice to the character making the experience a a brand new one, without losing its flavour.
The movie is enjoyable for the comic timing of the duo and the storyline. Performances have been good but could be better. The script was good and adds to the enjoyability of the movies. Kudos to the team...but I expect you to do better the next time. My hopes stands justifies as the directer, Guy Ritchie has not done any noteworthy movies as of yet.( the reference depends entirely on my discretion!) So I'll be waiting until the next Sherlock Homes movie!