I can’t say this enough, but life has been busy in the past couple of years. I am really ashamed to say that I haven’t had time to read any books other than textbooks, journals and papers. I love to read and I decided that I will spend at least one hour every day doing something that has nothing to do with computers. I even ventured out to buy a few books until my friend suggested that I could borrow some from the library. I immediately made a list of books I wanted to read and promptly borrowed them. I have about 8 books on the list and it took me about 2 weeks to finish the smallest of the books. I picked “Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger to start with because it was on the ‘favorites’ list of all my friends. I have been wanting to read that book for a long time now and I couldn’t wait to find out what the fuss was all about. I have to say I really wanted to like this book even before I started it. Maybe it was the expectations I had, but the book was really quite hard to sit through. The English in the book was old American slang and I had trouble ploughing through it. It also seemed like a monologue where the guy would go on and on about the things around him without giving the other person a lot of things to say. It took me a week to get through the first 100 pages and I dropped it for the next 5 days without the intention of finishing it really because I did not know if there was any point to this story. If the guy in the book would stop being such a whiny little teenager and get his life back on track.

The story is about this teenager who keeps getting thrown out of one school after the other. It starts off with him being thrown out of the current school he is in called Pencey. His dad is rich, and his friend is dating his neighbor that he has a crush on. He is highly principled and thinks that every guy in the world is a phony. He sits on his high horse and judges every guy/girl in the world, calling them phonies and doesn’t listen to anyone in the world. He is kicked out of the school, and he decides to spend a couple of days out in New York before going home. In that one night, he experiences a few things-some interesting, and some not so interesting. I don’t want to give too much away but the book really does get interesting in the last few pages. It isn’t until after we run into the character of his little sister Phoebe, who is just lovable and most adorable, that the book transforms from being dull and whiny to lovable. Phoebe is obviously the most adorable character in the book; the other character I really loved was Mr. Antolini, the English teacher from his previous school. Those few pages changed my perception of my book. I could have easily hated the book if I stopped earlier but those few pages in the end sort of made me feel like this is a good book. I wouldn’t say it was a great book or one of my all-time favorites, but it is definitely a good book that I can recommend to someone.

I couldn’t help but identify myself with the lead character. He is constantly pissed off about the double standards in people and life. I was particularly impressed with the Mr. Antolini’s talk with Holden when he visits him, when he says, “The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one”. I felt the line was really profound. The way he talks how education is important in determining the size of your mind is quite interesting as well. All in all, a good read.

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Valentine’s Day is a day invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.

–Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine is one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s an amazing movie with some brilliant lines that resonate through some good acting by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. It is one of those movies where you see Jim Carrey not resorting to his stupid antics and Kate is brilliant as usual. The movie is basically where a couple have a bad relationship and they try to erase their memories about the relationship(Its a fictional procedure). He starts reliving those memories that comprise the relationship from the earliest to the oldest as they are being erased. So we see the bad memories first where he is really happy that he is doing it and he starts regretting the whole thing when he starts reliving those good memories they spent together. It’s all a little surreal but a great movie nevertheless. I must’ve watched this movie a million times already learning the lines by heart. I really wanted to see this movie again on this Valentines day. I recommend this movie to all the people who have had heartbreak or been in a bad relationship or if you are just single. The movie is not about all those perfect romances we see in the movies, it’s about normal people involved in a normal relationship where there are bad things as well as there are good things. All we need to do is to try and resolve the bad while we remain happy for all the good that it has given us.
Anyway, on a more relevant note, this is our fourth Valentine’s Day together. Three anniversaries and four valentines days, its amazing how nothing has simmered down as yet. Archana has always told me how she had bad Valentine’s Days before our first. I’ve always had that in the back of my mind and I always wanted to make our Valentine’s Day a great one. I think we have been doing a good job for the past 4 years now. We have always been happy during this time of the year especially last year when Archana sent me 2 kg black forest cake. It was probably the first major surprise she had given me as a gift (I was always quite good at guessing her gifts). This year though, we went ahead and did something better. Most of you guys probably already know and there is no need to tell about it all over again . Of course it sucks that we have to be apart on a day like this but on the plus side of it, we get to celebrate it twice . For us, V-day starts 12 am my time and ends 12 am archana’s time, so we have a few more hours to douse ourselves in the celebrations compared to the usual 24 hrs time you get when you are living in the same time zone.

So here’s wishing you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope all the couples celebrate all these years of love and all the single guys/girls find love and happiness. Have a great day everyone.

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