Friday, March 23, 2007

Who's loss is it anyways?

While my house was being turned upside down by the packers (actually, it was the first time I saw some of the stuff that I though had vanished into a black hole – including the missing sock of a pair- which I’d promptly thrown away the other leg of. So I was still a missing a sock in a pair), Mother-in-law (the brave soul) offered to baby-sit Pickwick.
Now if you’re wondering what packers were doing at the house- well, apparently hubby was once again bitten by the one-year-itch and had the look of wanderlust in his eyes. (No. no, you dirty minds wanderlust!!!) So we’re upping and moving.
But I digress (what’s new?). Back to the glee on hearing MIL will take Pickwick off my hands for a bit. Hmm… so what can I do that I haven’t been able to do for ages? And there’s no contest! I gleefully switch on the telly! (Again, dear readers, wanderlust. Also, with packers there? You MUST be joking!). So, I look forward to watch Oprah generously hand out mansions to her studio audience uninterrupted.
The packers sensing I was going to fight tooth and nail before I handed over the remote packed everything else around before warily approaching the telly. I was outnumbered six-to-one and gave up the remote with some reluctance. With a sigh I picked up the day’s papers and the first thing I read (My eyes just glaze over anything to do with the world Cup. So my mind automatically skips those sections of the newspapers and in effect I’m left with just 3.2 pages of newsprint to choose from) is some gloriously delusional article written by some socialite who cribs coz she has to travel from town to Lower Parel for work- which she claims isn’t in real Mumbai at all.(What’s she doing on my planet??)
I disgustedly toss the paper aside and with nothing else to browse thru’,I pick up my unfinished copy of Kiran Desai’s Much hyped, much awarded, much praised ‘Inheritance of Loss’. Now call me old fashioned, but I like stories to have an end. At least do the decent thing by pretending to have an end.
Half-way thru’ this book I realized that this book had no such intensions. For all practical purposes, this book was like an Indian soap- spectacular visuals, opulent sets and no end in sight. Skip a couple of episodes, and you wouldn’t have missed a thing!
What’s also annoying is that most of the characters in the book are the sort who let things happen to them. Well, if you’re going to write a book about people who let things happen to them, at least let interesting things happen to them. If everyday things that happened to you and me made for an interesting read, every diary ever written would be a darned bestseller! There’s a reason the book is categorized under fiction, I just desperately wish the author would realize that! Even an Adoor Gopalakrishnan movie has some pretensions of conclusion for crying our loud! And NO, a ‘My salaams’ page at the end of the book does NOT classify as a suitable end.
Just so you can partake in my righteous indignation, I’m penning this post that has no point to make and has NO end. HA!
PS: Please be warned- All the hate mail I will be receiving for this post is liable to be printed, quoted verabatim, rediculed and twisted beyond recognition and pointed and laughed at.

9 comments:

Tinkerbells said...

lol, i can identify with what you said about the ending....haven't read kiran desai...but once got hold of "fasting,feasting" by anita desai and it went on and on without any end :(

La vida Loca said...

lotsa hype and nothing hyper...hmmm woky wat else is new?

hey wait a minute..isn't Pickwick's bday coming up? :) I kinda remember coz my bro's bday is around the same time :)

Varatanu said...

Second You on Kiran Desai!

Anonymous said...

About a second before I reached the line that reads, 'Just so you can partake...'; I thought to myself that this post is going no where, and that she must have been terribly bored out of her mind to actually pen something like this and et voila!!!!

Anonymous said...

i is confused... london, moving homes... dont tell me you became the CEO of the same packers and movers company?

Rajesh Rajoo said...

blossomes! r ewe meetings keeran desai en londons? eef so ewe pliss pushing her en thames. pliss. i note tells anyone.

Anonymous said...

Shouldnt we meet up before u leave?

Anonymous said...

I didn't speak to you before you left! I didn't wish my godson hebby burr-day or bubye! *Sniff* Forgive me? And mail me your phone number!

Unknown said...

tinkerbells: Ah. thanks. I shall avoid it like the plague.

loca: yes. he spent it with just the two of us for company... poor thing.

Ruch: you, my girl, have good taste.

brad: yes> i'm so glad you were intelligent enought to pick up on the pointless-ness of my post. you have me thrilled to bits with your astute sense of deduction.

iyer: worse! he's still working for teh same firnag MNC- at teh HO now! VERY small fish in VERY BIG pond

bloom: ais ais... wil weel do its... happy budday...

Anjaan: too late. London, anyone??

smithy: any more conferences on this side of the globe????