Minia's Mundane Musings

A Prayer for Owen Meany. John Irving. This book was picked up by me because it was very highly recommended by a leading author of historical romances, although to date I know not why! The synopsis of the book didn't do anything for me, but now that I was in possession of the book, I wanted to check it out.  I was engulfed from the very first sentence"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice" The prose was so evocative that the book just carried me along. Each individual, incident, emotion and object is described in such beautiful detail that you are transported to that realm. Nothing is as it seems and each thread gets neatly tied up, though you do not realise this foreshadowing whilst actually reading it. A standout feature for me, was the unemotional way in which the author announces the most momentous of occurences. There is no suddenness to the events, they are allowed to creep up on you gradually making you a bystander as the characters hurtle towards an in

Today morning I had an ear-worm, there is a popular number (Lamberghini) which I had listened to and it just would not exit my brain! To root it out I had to resort to my one of my favorite genres of music – Sufi in Bollywood! Listening to this genre led me to think of the deeper meaning of these songs and how these masquerade as innocent love songs, when they are actually a sonorous obeisance to God. One of my favorite songs is Bulleya from the movie Sultan, the opening lines of this song are:   “ Kuchh rishton ka namak hi duri hota hai Na milna bhi bahut zaruri hota hai ” So also another song from the movie, Secret Superstar gets every silly ear-worm out! This song is Nachdi Phira, which goes: “ Teri hi boli boloongi main , Teri hi baani gaaungi main ” Both these songs to the uninitiated would seem like the expressions of a lover, and they are! Just not of the kind we see on screen. They are actually a prayer to the almighty, a commitment, a promise and a re-

I am sorry, I am going to come across as terribly insensitive when I have said this but, what is all this fuss about? A celebrity was unable to cope with the pressures of the life he had chosen and gave up on living. I mean have you ever seen a rejected sportsperson commit suicide? And the person in question here actually had a degree from a very prestigious institute and could have looked for another job, but he didn't.  So my take on this is: 1- Nepotism is a fact in all walks of life. 2- A person who is suffering from Clinical Depression is a person who needs to be constantly monitored and a care-taker needs to be assigned, because patients of such depression always experiment with dosages and such. They also cease to take their medications. 3- Here it seems to have been the sister who was the designated care-taker, so why isn't she being questioned? 4- Also the doctor who was treating him said that SSR had discontinued his treatment. The correct protocol is to m

Mrs. America This is on HotStar. Please read no further if you aren't interested in the ramblings of an insomniac. It is a mini series that depicts the battle between the feminists and the anti- feminists. It spans decades and is a true account of both the movements. I mean, as true as an account possibly could be.  Technically this one is just perfect. It makes no misstep in casting, script, direction or execution. It is one of those pieces of polished brilliance that will probably be nominated for every award it could possibly qualify for. And given the current climate of bending over backwards to assuage various movements, whether deserving or not, this one will surely go the distance. It runs like a docu-drama and takes a long road to let the viewer know which side of the fence it sits on.  That for me was the primary flaw, it masquerades as being a true account and yet the bias with which the stories are told would skitter past unnoticed if you weren't watching it vigilant