One Two Buckle Your Shoe - Book Review

One two buckle your shoe is that book that I took up this week to suffice the mental craving of a stale mind. A book written Agatha Christie, its one in a quite a few you would pick up, just as most of her books are. A very vivid and thoughtful crime and mystery writer, Agatha picks up really small things that form the environment of a crime scene and uses them to form a bigger plot that makes the book, many a times, un-put-donwable. It is most amusing of how she acquired these skills as she was born dyslexic. More about the author and her writing style can of course be found in most of catalogues of such kinds.

Coming down to the book, this is one with Hercule Poiriot, a French private detective residing in London, as its protagonist. The books starts with the murder of Poiriot's dentist the very day that he had been to the dentist for a regular check up. The story overall covers a lot of aspects of the crime. The order here being the most important. The book is dated back to 1940's and so forensic science was naturally not that well developed. Putting constraints of time upon its character's death AC deals around the plot with her protagonist moving around whole of London first trying to judge the exact time of the death by interviewing various patients who had an appointment that day. While this interplay is in course, there is a second murder of a foreigner who had been to the dentist that very morning. The reason of death being the overdose of a particular drug used to make the nerves around a particular region of the mouth numb. Following this, one of the prime witnesses of the murder goes missing right after the first chapter. Three murders and not a clue who did them all. One woman missing and the stage was set for Poiriot to profess his intelligence.

The books looks very deeply into the environment that Poiriot experiences every time he enters a new region or in proximity of a witness. This elaborate description gives AC a lot of room to explore possibilities of how the murder could've been committed. There is yet another murder down the line which of course I shall not disclose, just in order to keep you waiting.

The crux of the book lies in the way AC has dealt with the plot and placement of each and every character and the way that she has dealt with the ideology and work ethics of her protagonist. It gives us a far more realistic personality and the sense of being right over his shoulder as all the things happen. The book is filled with numerous different twists and turns each time Poiriot hits a new incident. It is commendable how AC manages to put so many aspects into the book and yet it all finally fits in by the climax.

A classical climax as expected, Poiriot directly confronts the murderer and explains how he came to conclude so. A very typical and every so liked format of a mystery. Its requires the reader to be at par with the author at all times. There are no places where you may skip an event. It all falls in line by the end of the story and everything that at first seems to be random compilation of events forms a line up for the almost perfect crime.

Though one thing that goes against the book is the fact the other than Poiriot himself, none of the character are so vivid that you may be able to imagine them as a very strong personality. Something that quite  few other authors pay great deal of attention to. Human emotions and behavior do not play a very significant role. Only to a certain extent. I would say the hasn’t been so very well simulated as it could have been. There are certain wild card characters that appear seldom in the book but have been cast with fine details. Mr Barnes of that matter has been put up interestingly.

The book can do far better of a general scale. Nevertheless, it certainly is a must read for every novice reader that wants a bit of thrill and some brain working in a relatively simplistic manner. The novel being British has a touch of typical British vocabulary that an Indian may find a tad more over the surface in the beginning, but a little make do does help making the process far more interesting.

There is as such no particular moral that one can derive out of the book as the most important piece of a crime story, the motive, has only been cleared in the ends and puts to question the fact of what is more important? The economic well being of a country or the lives of humans.

Not spilling any more beans, I end this review here by simply mentioning that if you're home for long and if time goes by hard, picking this one up will surely help you great deal. I shall be looking forward to reading more of her works.

Just a morning post

And once again, i start mobile blogging
More like tweeting, only more subjective
Haha
Anyways, so, this seems to be a really awesome day to do some good work, finish that slimy book report hanging off my head, some 500 questions from topics like what not and if course, the picture of this day is none with a relaxed posture, rather you may expect things to be perplexed
Nevertheless we have a lot to look forward to and so keep track
Do good things and have an awesome day ahead..!!!
Buenos dias..:)

Killer Instincts- A complete Waste of Space

June 28

Killer Instincts

Bachi Karkaria

This particular article was once again the death of classical print media and a complete hoax in terms of a good read. The writer, being a lady, has her own go about modernizing her writing style and has in that very glory, completely and irrevocably yet miraculously managed to pick up an already stupid topic and make it all the more idiotic.

Coming to what this is supposed to be, the article was about the raving competition between Delhi and Mumbai, two of the major news making cities of the nation. While people like you and me are drowning in the sea of a terribly disorganized economy, as the corruption in the state rises, as the politicians play cards to irreversibly jeopardize our future, this lady chooses to talk about how one city rages against the other in terms of how "cool" people are. Her vocabulary has been blessed by koalemos himself as she foolishly tries to incorporate multilingual terms into the passage and completely misses out on making a point, at least to me.

As much as this article was a waste of newspaper space, it also did tell us how much we need to improve the way we receive information about the country and the world. We need to improve the information channels in such a way that we can achieve the least manipulated first hand information. A lesser corrupt media would of course be a wonderful place to start with, accompanied by a more frequently updated and less adulterated news channel.

Not pondering more on this already over-discussed topic, I terminate it here, to your discretion. Read the article, and embrace a challenge. And come on, you after all bared with twilight, this is a piece of cake.

A New Era Blasts Off

June 27

A New Era Blasts Off

Saswato Das

A new type of editorial I would say and certainly something that points towards a concept that has till date been thought of to be rather unrealistic.

We are talking about the privatization of some of the biggest enterprises of a country. Here in focus was space travel. The first dream of a lot of toddlers and the biggest to many who grow up to be in it. The recently launched Dragon-X unmanned spacecraft by a company called Space Explorations Technologies (Space-X) was the center of discussion in this editorial. Dragon-X recorded itself in history by becoming the first privately developed spacecraft to make a successful space expedition and return in full health. It certainly did markup to be the "blast off of a new era". And that metaphor has come by to be looked upon by a lot of other industries. Here, this particular event does not simply point towards the privatization of space travel, but it is also points out the great possibility that the current services that a government is providing to its people can be done better by private organizations and this therefore leaves more room for the government to provide us with the services that matter more.

The postal service is one big example. Private organizations can provide a huge leap in the postal industry with very viable and functional implications and can possible, according to my logic, do better than the current government operated post. To add to this, such industries can be monitored by the government in order to prevent and misuse of power by the companies. Apart from post there are several other industries that private companies can play a vital role in.

This not only provides better functionality for the people, and less burden on the government but this also helps in the upbringing of a nation that has state of the art technology available to the lowest section of the society.

We can get better cities, better postal services, better logistics, more integrated and accessible telecomm networks (part of which are already there but we lag to a great extent compared to the international market) and many more innovative ideas that may crop up in the process.

It therefore goes without saying that privatization of industries can definitely lead to a better governance of the people make the country a much more resourceful place.

Although it has to be considered, simultaneously with these applications, that the increase in the cost of day to day facilities does not crumble the common man. This of course in the first place requires a very stable economy which has a considerable overprice tolerance. As such, the current overprice tolerance of this economy is negligible, which makes us very vulnerable to a downfall, and which in fact is the case right now.

To sum it up, privatization is a very good idea to be implemented but we first need to strengthen the economy, give the rupee some back, give our citizens more room to accept a change.

Split Wide Open

June 26

Split wide open

Neeraj Chowdhary

This article mainly dealt with the complicated political situation that arouse lately owing to the interplay of various small and big decisions taken by some of the most prominent leaders of the nation. The main focus was on two things, first were the presidential elections that have pitted Pranab Mukherjee and Sangama against each other and second was the tentative stand of CM Narendra Modi as the PM candidate for the upcoming lok sabha elections. Both of these topics were dealt in detail and described as to what all led to the present scenario.

One of the prime focus was on the poor integrity of the NDA and how vulnerable they are to the interests of the coalition parties. That in fact has remained to be the major concern with every type of coalition government India has ever had right from the time of establishment of the republic and it is one of the major concerns of today as to how each and every party that forms a coalition is only interested in fulfilling its own agenda. And the complication doesn't end here. Within the party itself, people, rather leaders, perceive the party policies in their own manner and discretion. This further leads to a variation in the demands of people within the party itself and this as we all know leads to cracks within a single party, a further division of manpower, further division of opinion and a further division of the credibility of that alliance.

This has been a major problems with most of the parties within the country which has also, to a great extent, hampered the performance and pace of performance of these parties.

All in all, under such circumstances, the more legible candidates fail to express their presence on the national podium and a more devouring lot of power playing politicians takes the stand of ripping the country off its integrity.

 To sum up with, there is certainly a lot more room for (improvement would be the wrong word) reconstruction and for an integration of various different arenas and expressions such that we can make a government who is there for the people in distress, a government that is made by the people that form one of the world's biggest democracy, and a government that is made of the people that represent what the nation is poised for.

How to save this world (editorial review)

June 25

How to save this world

This particular article did catch my eye as our nation is currently dealing with the what to do and what not to do of Rio+20. This article did majorly focus upon how it is simply not possible for our nation to imply concepts of green economy to the citizens as our per capita income is not enough to fuel the subsidy cut-down that such an implication may bring.

Overall it is something very simple to understand. The concept o green economy or something vaguely similar to it called the carbon credit system dealt with the problem of pollution in an innovative manner. It was based on a very simple principle. Every commodity, just before it reaches the consumption process, however eco friendly it is, does involve a certain amount of pollution or contribution to the pollution in terms of logistics and manufacturing or marketing or any such operations which directly or indirectly involved the usage of polluting agents.

 These process would then be graded as to how much impact they cause upon the environment, and henceforth their equivalent carbon footprint would be calculated which would assign a dollar equivalent carbon credit to the company performing (gaining profit out of) these operations and an extra tax would be implied upon these products according to their environmental impact. This would therefore create a greater demand of more ecofriendly products and processes and therefore lead to better innovation.

Although this sounds to be very self-working at first sight, we need to understand that not all the nations can take an attempt at doing such a thing. This process is initially highly expensive and as the local industries develop alternatives, it gradually becomes more and more demanding in terms of the level of engineering involved in the formation of these products, both of which are very hard for the time being for India to follow.

The prime minister being good at finances certainly took a stand at this in the international conference and brought up the point that the rich nations should first begin with the process and act as a model for the developing nations. Also, certain ops related problems in the process can only be gauged once it is put into action and these richer nations do have room for experimentation which makes it more viable for them to indulge into such forms of economy.

This is, according to me the most ideal solution to be offered as the vulnerability of an already weak economy to downfall in case such an economic policy is implied, becomes too much of a risk to be put up with in the first place.

One good thing most certainly is that the nation is now taking a stand on international grounds as to what it should and should not be doing. Similar dilemmas do crop up also with the Indian foreign policy and  its relations with Iran and Iraq and it is needless to say that even though this is not at all a situation related environment, its impact on national economy and security is magnanimous and it becomes very crucial for us to take a firm stand on what to do and what not to do.

International tensions between middle-eastern countries have always been a bone of contention in their trade with other countries in terms of defense mechanisms as well and crude oil and it stands to be most important that we do not let our assets turn into liabilities by virute of a third party conflict. This also applies to the Rio+20. We must make it clear to the more influential powers at the UN that the country is not only in a state of economic distress but is also currently counting millions of chickens, desperately trying to make them hatch. Such times in a country's growth do seldom come upon where she has a huge pile of opportunities to bank upon and simultaneously is standing at the brink of the next big international conflict. And at such times, a country must truly learn to balance its ambitions with it's conscience, be there for people, make policies for the long run and stand for the good, stand firm and stand with definite decisions above a minimal threshold of diplomacy.

Wh do we expect so much from Aamir (editorial review)

June 24

Why do we expect so much from Aamir

Politically Incorrect

Shobha De

I basically picked up this editorial for today mainly for two reasons.

1. I do not like Aamir that much

2. I am not fond of shobha de as much as well.

So that’s that. Not that I am a particular hater on his Sunday morning spree or criticizing and scrutinizing things around, but of course, I read it for I wanted to change to my opinion on both of them in general.

Coming down to the editorial review, it was interesting. Shobha De's contemporary style of writing does take you by pace over the sentences but then again, her approach being way to objective does not attract people who have a very more classical preference of the language. The article mainly talks about how Satyamev Jayte is not really the best show around but only for the name of Aamir has it gone to heights no other reality show of India ever reached. This is a fact that I absolutely agree to and as well to the fact that the show is another commercialization of the sobs of this country. They bring up a few people who recovered from a loss that matters to the money makers, they make the country cry their brains out for an hour and a half and then move back to routine with nothing but sorrow in the heart.

The article does also talk about how keeping Aamir as the host and having the Sunday morning time, the show has captured a huge audience as well as a time slot where they have virtually no other competitor.

Hence the article is overall a fine read for a Sunday morning, if a game of chess is very good for you.