Comic Cartoons For Comic Fans In the wake of ComicCon India

How to read status updates and tweets.

Since social media has percolated so deep in our lives and our collective psyche, the meanings and inferences associated with our Facebook updates, tweets etc have gained significance. Now relationships, friendships etc are made and broken online. Your chances of getting a smile when you next time meet your significant other depend on your 'Last Seen At' on Whatsapp.

I think the day is not far when social scientists will be taking tjis user data seriously and basing their researches on it. Here are a few ways you too can gain the sociological edge by infering from your BFF, BF, GF or just F's status updates-

1. Inspirational quotes
Most inspirational quotes are directly related to the person's actual situation. This fact may be confirmed by the really specific data which is provided.
Example-
"Never trust others with things that really matter to you especially your favorite book of short stories. I hope the message is clear enough."
Clearly someone took this person's favourie book.

2. Frequent Check-ins
There are people who'd check-in at the nice places they visit and give us good reviews and then there are those who check-in at their own homes, public toilets, nearby paan shops etc. There is a hidden message in those check-ins which we all ignore. We ignore the fact that this person is feeling ignored. It's like ignore-squared! So be a pet and drop a comment on these attention-seeking updates. You will almost see a sense of gratitude in the replies.

3. Instagram (What I had for lunch)
These are just random photo updates which seek out the approval of the audience. They differ from the frequent check-in updates in the sense that as opposed to the former, the instagram-updater already thinks he is popular and these updates are just his ways of pleasing his audience.
It is confirmed by the number of likes and comments on these petty pictures. Coincidentally, almost all of the times, the person uploading these photos is a hot chick.

4. The broken heart update.
This update is characterized with a vague sense of sorrow where the reader is free to speculate on the causes. Here are a few examples-
i- Feeling sad today.
ii- Feeling sad and bored.
iii- Why does he always hurt me?
The commenters are supposed to get worried about the situation and enquire about the details. The trick is to never reveal the details and let the audience worry incessantly. Like in earlier situation, this too is employed by good-looking people or people who think they're pretty.

Do add more patterns in the comments section that you might have come across. Contribute to the research.

Looks Versus Brains!

In my series of intellectual-sounding blogposts, here's one more. We often come across people who are out of our leagues, well, at least I do. Now, that is almost always based on appearance. How does this notion of superior and inferior looks come into picture in a world where it's all relative? I think I'll take the concept of subcultures to explain these conflicts. We know that every society has a mainstream culture and a set of undercurrent or sub- cultures. These cultures emerge out of deprivation and anomie i.e. normlessness. When the society sets certain goals for individuals that turn out to be unachievable for them, those dejected people turn to form their own values and cultural norms and that results in the genesis of what is called as a "subculture".

Looking at people who prioritise looks over anything else, we can assume that they form a subculture which regards beauty as its primary standard. How does physical beauty turn to be so important for these people. Such people are characterized with extremely careful attitude toward their looks and take extra care to groom and prepare themselves. They look down upon the untidy ones and gossip demeaningly about them. One of the reasons of the emergence of such an extreme attitude can be the lack of intellect and thus, the inability of fulfil the criteria expected by the society which considers academics to be the criteria of prime importance. So, in this case, the geeks and nerds are derogatory terms and hunks and babes gain social approval.

If we reverse the scenario and consider the external beauty-minded ones to be the mainstream culture, then the outcasts would consist of these braniacs who actually are lacking in the department of physical appearance and the ability to groom themselves. This perspective assumes that these people work on their academic skills harder because they need to compensate for the sake of their self worth for their lack in appearance. And since this subculture has to gain approval, it looks condescendingly on those who do not follow its rules. Bimbos and dimwits are some of the condescending terms popularized by this subculture.

Now, by the way of above explanation, it is unclear as to which one is the main or dominant culture of the society as both seem to be overlapping subsets of each other. I'd propose that we do not delve deeper into the question of which one is dominant and for our understanding's sake assume that both are more or less equal in terms of quantity and frequency in the population.

There are also people who have both the brains and looks. For them, there still, is a question of priority. I think, it is these people who can provide us with deeper insights into the psychological underpinnings of the condescendings and admirations involved in either societal norms. Do they have to be critical of 'bimbos' when they're with their fellow nerds? Do they look down upon 'geeks' when they're with hunks? I think they are the perfect chameleons, at least some of them. The others might pick a side and stick with it as diplomacy might not be their cup of tea.

So, which one are you?

Why is Batman angry these days?

God And Me

Emile Durkheim explains religion on the basis of concepts of sacred and profane and presents a neat analysis of the same showing how certain things turn to be sacred due to their utility and the others remain profane. It does explain why cows are such a big deal in India. It makes sense because God does seem to be a convenient concept. What remains beyond my comprehension is the reverence shown by man to an entity which hasn't ever revealed itself to him in recorded history. All fragmants that support God's existence are grabbed and held close while anything that doubts it turns to an element of a subculture, as opposed to the mainstream culture. God according to Marx, (well, religion actually) is the opiate of the masses. Is it really a mass hysteria which is continued so long. The doubt in His existence makes sense in a scientific setup yet, people would still treat it as deviance.

The concept of prayer, too, is beyond me as to someone who is in constant need to be praised and acknowledged doesn't seem to be God. The purpose of prayer, is according to its supporters, to be one with God, feel closer to Him. It's not Him but us who need Him. That does make sense except, what if I do not want to pray. What about the times when I am not in a crisis? I might pray only it remains the last option. Does that make me selfish? Isn't God, by nature, transcendental and hence, would appreciate me praying only when I feel like. When I am enjoying good food, am in great company; why would I stop and thank God for it? Wouldn't He want me to take Him for granted? If I am His design, why would He want me to stop playing the role that He assigned to me and acknowledge His presence? Would a movie director like it if the actors stopped acting and looked at the camera and thanked him for the wonderful direction?

The origin of religion is more convenience-based than divine. You can realize that with the multiplicity of religions existing and the differences in their preachings. Origin of new cults, sects and even religions shows that it is a human created concept. How did religion emerge then? Did the power-hungry ones create it? Or was it due to fear and awe of nature? (Naturalism) Or did the seekers of those times- the intrigued ones (animaism) design it? Sacredness and Profanity do explain the reverence but yet, the perpetuation of that reverence; why no one would ever question the 'faith' throughout the history of mankind until the modern days is something to ponder upon; or am I overestimating human intellect?

I do not think the seekers of power created religion. That is something a conspiracy-theorist would argue but in Indian context, I think the Brahmins did believe in what they preached and the power its corruptions came later. The "varna system" was uniform in terms of status at the outset and later turned to be hierachy-based. Fear does seem to play a role in emergence of believers but then, the non-believers should have also continued to exist since the very beginnning. Because, where there is fear, we also have courage and bravery; rejecting a proposition and forming own hypothesis is a very human trait. The "mass hysteria" nature of relgion still demands some explanation, Mr Max Mueller.

Now, as all these questions remain unanswered, and to sleep well, every human needs to know what really happened, I too have my own theory to believe in. I think the non-believers always existed and there were varying degrees of penetration of religion in different societies and among different individuals. But as crowd has an IQ of zero and all the voices of dissent had no other, better option to explain natural phenomena; plus religion had the advantage of solidarity and control, it perpetuated and percolated through generations.

Through decades of such reaffirmation, now it has clear-cut norms and a definite following. I am sure, I am not stating anything novel and it might already have been a discussed theory, it is my official viewpoint. As to whether God exists or not, I don't know but even if he does, he loves randomness and chaos over order. So, I prefer to be random. Microwave!

Book Review- The Other Side... Dare to Visit Alone?

Title- The Other Side... Dare to Visit Alone?

Authors- Faraaz Kazi, Vivek Banerjee

Publishers- Mahaveer Publishers

ISBN- 9789350880760

Genre- Fiction/ Horror

Price- Rs 150/-

Pages- 320

Ok, what I have in my hands right now is an author-signed copy of "The Other Side" all thanks to The Readers' Cosmos's Book Review Program and Nimi Vashi.

Let's talk about the cover first- We have a graveyard, silhouttes walking, hand rising from the graves, a haunted mansion in the background in a full moon night, bats flying, and two eyes lurking in the corner, looking to pounce on you and tear you apart... ok you get my point. The Hindu review reads (on the cover itself)- "Engrossing in ways more than one, it surprises, it shocks, it holds you in vice-like grip!" Well, the "in ways more than one" part might be because it is not one story but a collection of short stories- 13 (Ooo... the cursed number) short stories of pure evil to be specific.

The author Faraaz Kazi is recipient of the YCOF National Excellence Award and the winner of the National Debut Youth Fiction Award 2013. He owns his own academy and is a fellow member of the the 'Film Writers Association of India'. The other guy- Vivek Banerjee is a pediatrician by profession and has written stuff for Westland's Chicken Soup for Indian Doctor's Soul and other well-known publishers.

The book begins with a prelude with the authors sharing horror stories in a horror movie like set-up and we just know that something ominous is in the offing. Soon the idea snowballs and they decide to write a book together and that's how we have the book in our hands. The thing with reviewing a short stories' book is that you cannot judge the book as a whole. Every story is a living, breathing tale here and should be used for haunting the nights, one story at a time. Anyway, horror thrives on the element of tension. Just like surprise is the tool of thrillers, tensed heavy air with the characters seemingly walking into a trap is the typical horror fiction structure. Very few are the gifted ones who can write short stories on horror without rushing the plot and doing the plot justice by the patient build-up to the eventual unleashing of the demon, ghost or whatever. Also, since we have only a few stereotypes of ghosts in our mind, the author runs the risk of overusing the cliches like backward-feet, white floating figures, blood-dripping, eyes rolling back in the skull etc., I think with the limited tools, the authors have done justice to the stories and kudos to them for that.

As someone who's not spooked easily, I deliberately chose to read these stories at midnight hours just so that I could get into the mood and yes, the mood was created and how! I'd be lying if I say I didn't wonder if someone was hiding under my bed before sleeping after reading the book.

Coming to individual stories, some of the stories have been written exquisitely with the execution of a professional where the author grips you and you cannot but turn the pages to find out more. But a few of them, in my view, fall in the trap of too much detailing. The thing with ghosts is that we are scared of them because we know nothing about them, if they were to live next door, we'd actually kind of grow friendly to them. That happens only once or twice, but in the rest of the stories, the narrative is spot on!

Talking about the language, I think it's a bit difficult to judge Indian writers on the basis of language because most of them are trying to make their books more appealing to the masses and sometimes that happens at the cost of the language. I could have done with some grotesque detalings but then I think about the teenage girls reading the novel and then finding themselves unable to sleep the whole night so, maybe it's for them that the authors have gone a bit easy. I'd like to mention here that there is no such thing as an awful horror story. If told in the right mood, even the story of the rabbit and the tortoise can spook you out; and I think Faraaz and Vivek have the tools.

Another art that seems to be of particular importance for short stories in general and horror ones in particular is the art of landing a perfect climax. Anton Chekhov's short stories used to end abruptly sometimes making you want to go up to the author and demand explanations, sometimes feeling a bit cheated but the purpose of the story ie to make you restless and worried about the characters was served. Of course, Chekhov is Chekhov and Faraaz and Vivek are no where close but in terms of the art of ending the story with a bang, these guys nail it almost everytime. The 'almost' is because of the occasional lingering when the plot has already ended but then that's just my view.

"Short stories" is a genre close to my heart because of my early tryst with Chekhov, Ruskin Bond and also every Indian kid's favourite- Malgudi days by R K Narayan which is why maybe I had high expectations from this book. It does live up to them for a certain extent. I'm looking forward to a sequel where the "The Other Side" gets spookier and the ghosts get deadlier. I'd not mind if the stories were longer. We actually need the authors to take the ghosts more seriously, crank it up a notch, you know!

The book needs to be appreciated for the sheer novelty of the ideas though. In a market ridden with thrillers and love-stories, this genre comes as a fresh change. It's about time the Indian reader grew up and woke up to newer themes and genres. It's very reasonably priced and the book will place the authors in a slot where the audience would expect them to experiment and innovate more. I hope they continue the good work.

I'd rate it 3 out of 5 stars!

Book Review- Baramulla Bomber- Svastik Triology- Eka

Title: Baramulla Bomber

Author: Clark Prasad

Publisher: Niyogi Books

ISBN code: 978-93-81523-97-1

Price- Rs 395

Genre- Sci-fi Espionage Thriller

Pages- 313

As the back cover introduction reads "An ancient weapon from the Vedas and Bible once hunted by the Nazis, powered by the sound of the universe, reborn with the help of quantum physics going to be unleashed onto the World and Kashmir holds its secret.", I cannot help but get intrigued. This book sells itself through its very description. Science fiction meets espionage and a fast-paced, action-packed saga is born. The book is only the first "Eka" of the Svastik Triology and leaves one wondering what else has the author in store for us in the coming sequels.

A word about the author Suraj Prasad aka Clark Prasad- "a healthcare management consultant who had dreamt of being an archeologist or an astronaut." it says in his bio. Well, when you read the book you'd come to know how the novel is actually an extension of his own self. Currently based in Bengaluru, the author has lived in Lagos (Nigeria), Delhi, Mangalore and Kozhikode and is deeply influenced by Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". I see definitely influences of Jeffery Archer and Dan Brown in his writing and also a bit of Tolkien. You'd understand what I am talking about once you read the book.

Now, the book starts with a 'Warning' in bold letters not to flip through pages lest the suspense will evaporate and a request to the bloggers not to reveal the plot. I sense a deep attachment of the author with his story and I'd like to talk as less about the plot and characters as possible. Then science and religion are brought to a confluence on the next two pages where Albert Einstein, Rig Veda and the Bible are quoted hinting toward a cosmic religion. The book has graphic illustrations at different places which make the story come alive and give it an eerie realness. The main characters are Mansur Haider- A Kashmiri and his girlfriend Ahana Yajurvedi. We also have Swedish intelligence officer Adolf Silfverskiold who is a non-believer. These are the pawns being played on a chessboard much larger than they can imagine. Let's leave it at that.

Every chapter begins with a World map and a target focus sign above the area where the event is about to transpire, that gives the novel the feel of an action movie. The novel has broad spatio-temporal horizons and at one juncture we're talking about the ancient times, suddenly we're in medieval era and the next moment we're in present day World. The book is bigger than its characters and they all come to life in a World where conspiracies run deep and high. The chapters are also designed to serve as a countdown to the climax which makes the book to be read in a single sitting with zero distractions.

The language used in the book caters to an average Indian reader who is just starting out with Indian fiction. The author tries not to be fanciful with the wordplay and is probably because he has already given the reader too much to munch on already in terms of drama and suspense. Personally, I could have gone for a language that suits with the intricacy of the plot but maybe to the author, the thickness of the plot was enough codification already. The pages are crisp and the novel is a definite page-turner. At 313 pages, the novel is fast-paced read and ideal for journeys and long waiting hours. To be very honest, Clark does not try to do an H G Wells or a Tolkien with the theme, he takes the story and slowly weaves it around with tools that he finds fit.

One more thing is the clear lack of intellectual snobbery in the book. The book is not about turning non-believers into believers. When you go to the movies, you don't reason with the director about the themes and theology of the plot, similarly, this book requires you to indulge yourself without any pre-conceived notions and simply enjoy the read. There are books that are for niche audience and there are ones for everyone. This one is somewhere in between.

I'd give the book 2.75 out of five stars.

Happy reading.

This review is a part of the Readers' Cosmos Book Review Program. Thank you Nimi Vashi for these amazing opportunities. :-)