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Tips to become a succesful book blogger

No one has become a superstar blogger overnight.Recognition in blogosphere takes time and there are no short cuts for achieving instant success as a blogger.Read like there is no tomorrow and pen down your sincere thoughts in a lucid, organised and unpretentious manner.Your work will definitely get its due.

Blogadda-Quikr Shopping Fiesta: My Experience

It was like a slap on my face.Thankfully Arun was not there with me to witness by embarassement. I was all set to call him when some random piece of paper with a phone number written on it from my pocket caught my attention.

Book Review:Salvation Of a Saint

On the whole,’The Salvation Of Saint’ is a decent thriller.It may not be as racy as ‘The Devotion of Suspect X’,but still it’s a pretty good one.

Interview with Doctor-turned- Writer Deepal Kripal

Earlier this week,we chatted with Doctor-turned-Author,Deepak Kripal.He has authored 'The Devil's Tale:An impossible journey',published by Leadstart Publishers.In this candid interview,he tells us about his debut work,future plans,his journey as a writer and his other interests in life.

Private India: Book Review

On the whole,'Private India' by James Patterson and Ashwin Sanghi is a strictly average work.

October 24, 2009

Book Review: 2 States by Chetan Bhagat

reviewed by nikhimenon@gmail.com

                                        Chetan Bhagat is undoubtedly the most popular english writer of the country.His books are mostly light hearted-easy read kind of stuff which has attributed to his great success.(Probably ,that might have prompted the writer to come up with his fourth book,hardly a year after the release of his last one.!)Anyways.if i am asked to rate his 3 previous books in a scale of ten, i would give his first one Five point someone -seven ,the second-One night @call centre (which was later made into a dud called 'Hello' with  Salman Khan in a cameo)- five point five  and his last one -3 Mistakes in My life -a meagre five. Naturally i went into his latest one,2 States : the story of my life with least expectations,yet i found this 269 pages' book as mediocre stuff..

The story revolves around Ananya Swaminathan,a tamil Brahmin and Krish, a punjabi by birth.As fate would have hit,these two individuals who were born geographically apart ,meets at.....(where else, at IIM-A!).,love blossomes,the couple decide to get married (only after getting their parents' approval.).Their desperate attempts to get the 'much needed approval' of  their folks forms the rest of the story( there is the mandatory twist too...!).Bhagat has tried to portray the culture clashes,difference in sensibilities in a humorous yet cliched way.
 

 The basic problem with this book is it's predictable or rather familiar story line.Haven't we seen all these in umpteen number of bollywood flicks?It's high time that Chetan Bhagat came out of his routine formulaic  stuff,(you can hardly miss the essential  five elements of his  wrting in this one too: young, modern protagonists (no prizes for guessing that they are  from IIT or IIM); conversation with F word, Bollywood-ish plot complete with proposals on knee; a love story and a twist at end).We loved it in five point someone ,dared to overlook them in 'One night @call centre',tolerated them in '3 mistakes', but not any more Mr.Bhagat. The writer seemes to be in a 'self indulgent mode' as we can see 'left overs' of 'five point someone' in the initial half of the novel.

All these flaws apart, what makes this book an okay 'one time'. light read is it's simplicity and the occassional fun it manages to provide.The writing is mostly simple (as any of his previous books) and there are a few funny lines too....(that's what we expect from a chetan bhagat book,after all ..!)

On the whole, '2 states: The story of my marriage' ,though cliched is slightly better than his previous one 'the 3 mistakes in my life'.Grab a copy if you want to kill a boring sunday after noon.

I would give this book five point five out of ten...

October 22, 2009

The Verdict..!

nikhimenon@gmail.com

So finally,the maharashtra assembly results are out..As per the latest reports,Congress-NCP will retain power.Raaj Thackery has also proved his mettle through this election..

Here is the seat tally as of now,

    Remember last week we had predicted a similar verdict,( http://nikhimenon.blogspot.com/2009/10/its-election-time.html) much before the Desi news channels came up with their so called projections






 Maharashtra
Leads
Wins



  Cong + NCP
12
135

  BJP + Shiv Sena
5
87

  MNS
1
11

  Others
6
31

 Total
24
264


October 19, 2009

The debacle called Champions League T20....!

nikhimenon@gmail.com

 With the three IPL teams - Deccan Chargers, RCB and Delhi Daredevils - crashing  out of the Champions League, the event has lost a lot of zing and popularity .Lalith Mody and co seemes to have lost their battle this time if empty galleries and poor TRP ratings for the tournament is anything to go by.That leave us with a few questions.


Has the Champions League exposed IPL in some ways? 


Were the foreign teams too good for the so called devils , challengers and chargers  ?


Did too much cricket make the IPL franchisees a tired lot?


Or was it the lack of motivation that  resulted in the early exit of the IPL teams?


Lalit Mody may have some other explanations for all these,but for me it's a bit of all the afore said that made their exit way too early. The single thing that was clearly lacking among the IPL teams was  motivation .While the foreign teams were  playing like cohesive units, the IPL  players looked exhausted and as one Dare devils  player has told in a recent interview,they hardly got  much time to develop some kind of bonding among themselves.Most of the Indian players were either attending  to other priorities they had  or 'shooting for commercials' till one or two days of the commencement of the tournament.

Delhi were undone by injuries to greats like Daniel Vettori and AB de Villers. Challengers bowling was weak while Deccan depended too much on a few individuals, like skipper Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds. Another reason was that some leading lights of IPL teams opted to play for teams from their own country, thus weakening the IPL units. All this negated the home advantage that the teams had. 

The lacklustre performance of the IPL teams has therefore ensured that one of the foreign teams will emerge Champions of the first edition of Champions league T20....