The Scream - Short Story

It happened some time during the night. A shrill, piercing scream let itself loose with a vengeance, lasting for several seconds. At 11:30pm, to be exact.

No one who heard that scream could sleep for several hours, such was its horror. People tumbled out of their houses with worried faces and with that faint thrill the human mind associates with a mystery. It was a gated community - secluded, safe, and boring. The monotony of their lives was such that the poor things craved some excitement, and this scream held plenty of promise. No one could scream like that without something unspeakable having happened.

"Mrs. Dunlop, did you hear that? !" That was Ms. Sheila Bishop, the kindly spinster from across the street.

"Yes, it was awful! I wonder which house it came from? " Mrs. Dunlop lived with her septuagenarian sister and at that moment could kill for some excellent gossip-worthy incident.
" It came from the Jennings's place. I hope nothing's happened!"
"I hope so, too!" Mrs. Dunlop's face showed that she hoped for the exact opposite.

People had started gathering in twos and threes around the Jennings' place, no one mustering the courage to knock. Greg, the Jennings' teenage neighbour, stepped forward bravely. He pressed the buzzer for several seconds without success and then looked uncertain about what to do. Someone called out, "Call Lisa or Jerry on their phone! They can't still be asleep, we are all pretty sure that was their little kid screaming. "

When the phones did not yield any success the police was promptly called onto the scene. They arrived quickly, tried ringing the bell again to be sure, and broke open the door. The entire neighbourhood waited outside breathlessly while the police went inside, guns drawn. It was somewhat of an anti-climax when after a few minutes they came out of the house proclaiming no one was inside.

The entire house was thoroughly searched, they said - no one was in. Maybe the people misheard? The people were adamant. They were positive that the scream came from that house.

"Moreover, the house was padlocked from the inside; how could you explain an empty house that was locked from the inside? ", was the standard dialogue on everyone's lips. The police promised to look into the matter. The house was sealed, and a policeman put on guard there.

The people talked about it and exchanged theories as to what might've happened until they finally called it a day and went back to their homes to sleep in peace. That peace was short-lived.

It happened some time during the night. A shrill, piercing scream let itself loose with a vengeance, lasting for several seconds. At 11:30pm, to be exact. People rushed outside, some of them still sleepy-eyed. Ms. Sheila Bishop was the first on the street.

"The scream came from Mrs. Dunlop's house this time. . . " Her voice was shaky.

People knocked on the door. They instinctively knew there would be no answer.

Everyone stared wildly at each other, terrified about what was going on. The question running in everyone's minds was,

Who is next?

Dear Jane - Short Story

Lady Luck had taken an instant dislike to Jane from the moment she was born.

A series of complications ensured she plopped out of her mum prematurely, resulting in being trapped in the incubator for a good couple of months. Then followed a series of incidents that can only be put down to pure bad luck. A sleepy nurse had handed her to the wrong parents; as a result, she had grown up with an alcoholic father and a bulimic mother.

Jane was almost always picked last in school for games owing to her small frame, was a wallflower when it came to parties, and being underdeveloped at seventeen ensured she still hadn’t gotten her first kiss yet.

Jane ran away from home at nineteen, hooked up a ride with a some hippies and, when their truck was stopped by a policeman for speeding, was promptly arrested along with the group for drugs and whatnot. Lady Luck perhaps decided to throw the poor kid a bone here, since the policemen who took the hippies in gave Jane a once over, checked her belongings, and told her to get the hell out of there before they changed their collective minds.

The first town she chose had a sleepy little population of 400 people.

Prosecutors would later argue that the murders started exactly two days after she entered town.

Jane just smiled.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of The Soul - Douglas Adams

(Might contain some spoilers)

The Story

Strange things are happening in London. Police are baffled by a mysterious death - a man is found dead in a room, all doors and windows securely locked from the inside. The police would gladly term it as suicide; only, the man's neatly severed head is sitting a few feet away.

 Around the same time, an explosion at a check-in counter of Heathrow airport has the authorities puzzled - no one has gotten seriously hurt, and there are no explosives to be found at the place that would actually explain how the explosion happened.

Dirk Gently, holistic detective and lazy bum, decides to look into the matter.

Just so you understand what kind of detective you're dealing with here, let us get to know Mr. Gently better, shall we? It has been a full 3 months since Dirk has opened his fridge, and, afraid of what unspeakable things might be taking life inside, he opts to throw it out and buy a new fridge instead. If Dirk Gently's in his car heading someplace and needs to ask for directions, he doesn't. No sir. He just chooses a car that looks like it knows where it's going and follows it.

So, anyway, Dirk Gently starts his investigation and runs into Kate Schechter.

Kate Schechter has gotten herself involved in the matter purely by an unfortunate coincidence. She is waiting at the check-in counter for her Oslo flight, minding her own business, when she notices the man before her is being impossibly obtuse. First, he doesn't have a ticket; when the check-in girl asks him to buy a ticket, he doesn't have the cash; he opts to pay by cheque instead, and gets deeply roused when the check-in girl tells him they don't accept cheques.

On the verge of missing her flight, and exasperated beyond endurance, Kate offers to pay for his ticket, and will he please write the cheque over to her –

"My name is Kate Schechter. Two 'c's, two 'h's, two 'e's, and also a 't', an 'r', and an 's'. Provided they're all there the bank won't be fussy about the order they come in, they never seem to know themselves."

 At this point he thoughtfully replies he doesn't have a cheque book. Kate pays nevertheless, but the last straw is when the girl asks for his passport and he slowly replies he doesn't have that one, either.
Kate walks away then leaving the man and the check-in girl to argue in peace, and moments later the explosion happens. The obtuse guy happens to be none other than Thor, the God of thunder and a lot of other things, as he introduces himself to Kate at a later stage (unfortunately for him, when she’s in a foul mood) –

"I am Thor. I am the God of Thunder. The God of Rain. The God of the High Towering Clouds. The God of Lightning. The God of the Flowing Currents. The God of the Particles. The God of the Shaping and the Binding Forces. The God of the Wind. The God of the Growing Crops. The God of the Hammer Mjollnir."

"Are you?" simmered Kate.

The plot also includes Odin, Thor's dad, Toe Rag, Odin's weasly side-kick not unlike Gollum of LOTR fame, a green monster, and a couple of others who are unimportant, so I've forgotten their names.

You've got to read the book to uncover the mystery of the death, the explosion, and other things - it wouldn't be fun if I wrote everything here.

My Take

Douglas Adams had already wowed me with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so when my husband suggested reading The long Dark Tea-Time of The Soul, I didn't need to think twice. Since Douglas Adams had already achieved perfection with The Hitchhiker's Guide, I consciously had somewhat low expectations from this one. I was pleasantly surprised - he dealt with the serious topics of death and explosions and father-son relationship strain with due respect, and he had me in splits at the same time.

Some parts of the book are particularly funny. At one point along the way, Dirk picks up a newspaper and turns to the horoscope page, and reads his horoscope for the day -

"You are very fat and stupid and persistently wear a ridiculous hat which you should be ashamed of."

The horoscope for that paper is written by The Great Zaganza, an old friend of Dirk’s who knows his birthday :P

Whatever his plot might be, Douglas Adams manages to infuse a hilarious riot of humor into all his lines. The only complaint I have with this book is, he ended it much too abruptly. He could easily have gone on for another 50 pages or so without boring anybody, but he chose instead to end it with an abruptness that must’ve surprised him as well.

If you found the plot and the story gripping, go ahead and read the book. If you haven't - well, read it anyway because it is so awesome :D

Cracked on Nicholas Sparks

I admit there was a time when I almost took Nicholas Sparks seriously - I had just finished reading Erich Segal's Love Story, and naturally turned to The Notebook. Never got to reading it though.

Cracked.com has this amazing article on Nicholas Sparks, and his formula for a successful novel / movie.
I have included a short part of it here -

Please oh please, read the full article. Will make your day.

The Famous Five turn 70

Five on Finniston Farm

 The much loved Famous Five series turned 70 recently. And to think, if they were real people, those five kids we loved to read about would now be grandparents!

When I first read the news on The Guardian I was taken by surprise - somehow, every time I read these books I like to think those adventures are happening right now, in the present. To think that Enid Blyton dreamed and penned those books more than seven decades ago can only make us envious of her imagination.

Would you like to relive those books? If not in entirety, here is a short paragraph about each book's story. A review, if you will. "Five on Finniston Farm" is one of my favorites. Yours?

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

I have never read science fiction before; I'm not familiar with the genre except for the odd super-hero movie now and then.

List of characters -

Arthur Dent. The unwitting earthman saved by Ford Prefect when Planet Earth is destroyed to make way for a new hyperspace bypass expressway.

Ford Prefect. One of Arthur's closest friends. He is a researcher from a faraway planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and he is aware of the impending disaster to planet Earth. He was commissioned to Planet Earth to research material for the book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy.

Marvin, the paranoid android. An uncontrollably depressed robot, he can make ferocious machines commit suicide simply by making them listen to his woes.

Zaphod Beeblebrox. The two-headed President of the Galaxy, inventor of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster (a drink), thief of the spaceship Heart of Gold, only known survivor of the Total Perspective Vortex, and what else... yes, seven time winner of "Worst Dressed Sentient Being in the Known Universe". Try beating that.

Trillian. Ex-Earthling. Arthur tried picking her up at a party once, but lost her to a cool dude. He is later revealed to be Zaphod Beeblebrox, and that Trillian had decided to pack stuff and go away with him because she found Earth really boring.

Slartibartfast. An architect on the planet Magrathea who designs planets for rich space-people. Kind of like a landscape artist, you might say. Oh, and he designed the Earth. Even received an award for the stunning coastline of Norway. Yes, the Earth was tailored to suit certain requirements.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy. A fictional electronic book that features prominently in the actual novel of the same name. Provides quirky insights into various situations. For example, when Arthur and Ford hitch a ride in the Vogon ship, the entry on Vogons reads, "Here's what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon: forget it."

The Story

The story is pretty much simple and straightforward. Earth has just been demolished into nothingness and Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are forced to hike a ride with the Vogon airship that was the cause of said destruction. People whose only job in life is blowing up planets cannot be sweetness and light; our hitchhikers are unceremoniously thrown into space by the Vogon captain, but not before giving them a dose of Vogon poetry (considered the third worst in the world; people have died just listening to it.)

I cannot resist sharing Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz's heart wrenching poem with y'all - read, and weep/laugh/pull hair.

"Oh freddled gruntbuggly/thy micturations are to me/As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.

Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes. And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,

Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"

Ford and Arthur are tied and made to listen to this goose-bump inducing verse; while Ford writhes in agony, Arthur is sufficiently in charge of his senses to praise Jeltz once he is done in the bleak hope that they might be spared. No such luck.

Elsewhere in the Galaxy, the two-headed President Zaphod is on his way to a spaceship unveiling. Right there, on the spot, he decides to steal it. The ship is the Heart of Gold, and due to its improbability drive lands at the exact spot where Arthur and Ford are stranded, thus saving their lives. This is where we're introduced to Marvin - the chronically depressed robot.

All of them then continue their journey through space, and finally land on a desolate planet, Magrathea. The people of Magrathea once upon a time (millions of years ago) were engaged in designing customized planets for the rich uns of the galaxy; then the recession came, and they just decided to sleep through it. Here we learn quite a handful from their architect Slartibartfast about what the Earth actually was, why two tiny rats want Arthur's brain, and yes, why exactly the Earth was destroyed.

Amidst all the hullabaloo the four of them - Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, and Trillian manage to make it back to the ship after being unwittingly saved by Marvin's depression (the battleship committed suicide after listening to Marvin's woes).

They then decide to go somewhere for lunch. The Restaurant at The End of The Universe.

My Take

You often come across books that drag for the first 50-odd pages - make you so sleepy you want to fling them against the wall, and just when you're about to give up, suddenly pick up pace. We have an exception of sorts here. The Hitchhiker's Guide is a feisty little bonanza that hooks you from the foreword itself. The book is wittiness at its best. Not the snicker-once-and-you're-done sorts, this is the ROFL kind of humor, the one that makes your tummy ache.

I used to read this in the local train, and I admit I got a lot of disconcerted stares - people probably thought I was loony or something, the way I snorted so many times. And get this - Douglas Adams wrote this book in his twenties! Makes the rest of us twenty-somethings go green, doesn't it!

Absolute must-read.

Animal Farm

In his essay Why I Write, George Orwell speaks about his love for writing -

"I wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings...."

Animal Farm might not be enormous, but it is definitely unhappy. When I first heard of it and decided to read it, all I knew about it was that it was a book about animals on a farm who could talk like people.

List of characters worth a mention -

Major, an elderly pig. He inspires the rebellion and sets down rules for harmonious living. However, he dies of old age soon after the rebellion.

Snowball the pig. He is one of the leaders after the Major dies, but is driven out of the farm by Napoleon's dogs.

Napoleon the pig. Uncontested leader after Major and Snowball. Responsible for the downfall of the farm. I hate this pig more than I ever hated any other pig.

Squealer the pig. Majorly responsible for spreading good words about Napoleon and suppressing feelings of dissent among the animals. I hate him more than Napoleon.

Boxer the horse. Accepts everything without question and works like a dog, only to be sent to the slaughterhouse when he's old.

Then there are the dogs who are feared by everyone and act as Napoleon's guards. The hens, who rebel briefly against Napoleon and are squashed. The cows, meek and defenseless; the pigeons, who act as messengers and try to get animals from other farms to rebel as well.

The story in a nutshell - It all starts with rebellion and the ousting of Mr. Jones and his wife, the owners of Manor Farm (renamed Animal Farm). The animals assume control of the farm under the leadership of the boar, Major. He lays a few ground rules for a peaceful existence that the animals refer to as the Seven Commandments.

Things work out great for the animals initially; ecstatic that they're not working for humans anymore, they work harder than ever and produce harvests the farm's never seen before. Slowly, it is noticed that the pigs rarely work but are almost always supervising or ordering the other animals about. This is put down to their superior intelligence and the animals accept the turn of events without complaint.

With the old boar Major now dead, the leadership falls into the hands of two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball. Snowball is always full of intellectual ideas for the farm and how it could be bettered; Napoleon's only job is to undermine Snowball's ideas. One fine day Snowball is chased away by Napoleon's ferocious dogs and never seen again.

As the years fly by, Napoleon becomes supreme leader and dictator and the Seven Commandments initially written by Major are now altered to suit the pigs. Napoleon's descendants are now the rulers, not allowed to mingle with the other animals, the lower classes. The pigs' supremacy is now absolute, and they even start walking on their hind legs, just like humans.

My take on Animal Farm - The book is a political allegory on the then situation in the Soviet Union; and I felt George Orwell was able to put forth the details of Stalin's rule beautifully. Accepted, the novel is depressing; but then so was Stalin's government.

The only thing that disappointed me was the manner the novel ended. I expected the animals to fight against the injustice that was meted out to them; however, they mutely accept their fate, their memories of good old days dimming day by day; they just have no idea that if they wished, their lives could be better. Maybe in some distant future Napoleon might have faced rebellion, but Orwell ended the novel before it could.

Nevertheless, the book is a must-read and a must-have in any library.

PS: You can also read George Orwell's essay, Why I Write. I loved it.

An excerpt from Swami and Friends

Every once in a while you come across a book that strikes a chord, that is simply impossible to let go without being affected. This is one of those masterpieces. Swami and Friends by RK Narayan doesn't need any introductions, does it? I felt like sharing this particular excerpt from the book with you people - it has never failed to make me smile.

Swaminathan sat in his father's room in a chair, with a slate in his hand and pencil ready. Father held the arithmetic book open and dictated: "Rama has ten mangoes with which he wants to earn fifteen annas. Krishna wants only four mangoes. How much will Krishna have to pay?"

Swaminathan gazed and gazed at this sum, and every time he read it, it seemed to acquire a new meaning. He had the feeling of having stepped into a fearful maze. His mouth began to water at the thought of mangoes. He wondered what made Rama fix fifteen annas for ten mangoes. What kind of a man was Rama? Probably he was like Shankar. Somehow one couldn't help feeling that he must have been like Shankar, with his ten mangoes and his iron determination to get fifteen annas. If Rama was like Shankar, Krishna must have been like the Pea. Here Swaminathan felt an unaccountable sympathy for Krishna.

'Have you done the sum?' father asked, looking over the newspaper he was reading.

'Father, will you tell me if the mangoes were ripe?'

Father regarded him for a while and smothering a smile remarked: 'Do the sum first. I will tell you whether the fruits were ripe or not, afterwards.'

Swaminathan felt utterly helpless. If only father would tell him whether Rama was trying to sell ripe fruits or unripe ones! Of what avail would it be to tell him afterwards? He felt strongly that the answer to this question contained the key to the whole problem. It would be scandalous to expect fifteen annas for ten unripe mangoes. But even if he did, it wouldn't be unlike Rama, whom Swaminathan was steadily beginning to hate and invest with the darkest qualities.

'Father, I cannot do the sum,' Swaminathan said, pushing away the slate.

'What is the matter with you? You can't solve a simple problem in Simple Proportion?'

‘We are not taught this kind of thing in our school.'

'Get the slate here. I will make you give the answer now.'

Swaminathan waited with interest for the miracle to happen. Father studied the sum for a second and asked: 'What is the price of ten mangoes?' Swaminathan looked over the sum to find out which part of the sum contained an answer to this question. 'I don't know.'

'You seem to be an extraordinary idiot. Now read the sum. Come on. How much does Rama expect for ten mangoes?'

'Fifteen annas of course,' Swaminathan thought, but how could that be its price, just price? It was very well for Rama to expect it in his avarice. But was it the right price? And then there was the obscure point whether the mangoes were ripe or not. If they were ripe, fifteen annas might not be an improbable price. If only he could get more light on this point!

‘How much does Rama want for his mangoes?'
'Fifteen annas,' replied Swaminathan without conviction.'Very good. How many mangoes does Krishna want?'
'Four.'
'What is the price of four?'

Father seemed to delight in torturing him. How could he know? How could he know what that fool Krishna would pay?

'Look here, boy. I have half a mind to thrash you. What have you in your head? Ten mangoes cost fifteen annas. What is the price of one? Come on. If you don't say it—' His hand took Swaminathan's ear and gently twisted it. Swaminathan could not open his mouth because he could not decide whether the solution lay in the realm of addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division. The longer he hesitated, the more violent the twist was becoming. In the end when father was waiting with a scowl for an answer, he received only a squeal from his son.

'I am not going to leave you till you tell me how much a single mango costs at fifteen annas for ten.'

What was the matter with father? Swaminathan kept blinking. Where was the urgency to know its price? Anyway, if father wanted so badly to know, instead of harassing him, let him go to the market and find it out.

The whole brood of Ramas and Krishnas, with their endless transactions with odd quantities of mangoes and fractions of money, were getting disgusting.

Father admitted defeat by declaring: 'One mango costs fifteen over ten annas. Simplify it.'

Here he was being led to the most hideous regions of arithmetic, Fractions. 'Give me the slate, father. I will find it out.' He worked and found at the end of fifteen minutes: 'The price of one mango is three over two annas.' He expected to be contradicted any moment. But father said: 'Very good, simplify it further.' It was plain sailing after that.

Swaminathan announced at the end of half an hour's agony: 'Krishna must pay six annas,' and burst into tears.

You can buy this awesome book from Flipkart, or you can read the ebook here on Scribd.

The Virago of Veerpuri

The Virago of Veerpuri got me hooked from the word go - this was the first ever mystery that I had ever read - and as luck would have it, was a mystery that was left unsolved.

The story was published on Chandamama as a series, appearing first in the May issue of the year 1997. It belonged to an era where every single piece of fiction was riveting - full of kings, queens, princesses, evil tantriks, royal astrologers, predictions of doom, the entire lot. You get the picture.

I was living in a town where the only accessible reads were academic text-books; I grew up with my grandparents, and they belonged to the clan who thought kids who didn't read Chandamama growing up would grow up into unspeakable adults. In all fairness, I loved the little book. I literally pined for the 4th of every month, waiting hungrily for the mailman to deliver my copy.

To cut a long story short, The Virago of Veerpuri mysteriously stopped after a few episodes, just when the story was at its most interesting. To this day, it remains like that grain of sand in my eye, that seed stuck in my tooth, that thorn in my foot - I just can't let go. I keep remembering it from time to time, and wonder how the story might have unraveled.

Ah well, wouldn't bode well for me to get nostalgic again, so here goes - all you Chandamama fans, you can go through the archives of the book by going here. And for you old-timers who did follow the story, and know what happened to it - Yours truly is waiting to hear it.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest

The third and final book of the Millennium Saga begins on a fairly dark note - Lisbeth Salander is battling death with a bullet lodged inside her head; not more than two rooms away is Zala (in the hospital with an axe stuck in his head by Miss Salander) screaming bloody revenge.

Yeah, that's Lisbeth for you! Funny how this scrawny, devil-may-care, bisexual-and-proud-of-it, outrageous delinquent rouses the gentlest, protective, shaking-your-head-with-a-grin feeling.

Lisbeth is awaiting trial for three murders - and it is obviously up to Mikael Blomkvist to prove her innocence.  With Lisbeth locked away in the hospital, and also not on talking terms with him (she refers to him as Kalle Bastard Blomkvist), this might easily be the toughest task he's ever encountered. As he delves deeper into the seemingly simple case, he comes up with startling revelations - the sinster plot goes all the way into the very heart of the Swedish Secret Service, with consequences that might topple the government.

I guess what sets these novels apart from others of their genre are their approach towards women; these books do have women targeted as the weaker sex, but they also show how they spring back with vigor; they show that today's women are independent, strong, completely capable of taking on the world, come what may. Also that it's mighty foolish to meddle with them - as Bjurman the Advocate found out, in a very painful, and life-altering way (Thanks to Lisbeth, obviously ;-)). Women in these books have strong characters, and not one single girl in the trilogy has been portrayed as a damsel-in-distress.

Men need not feel left out here - Mikael Blomkvist is quite the hero, let me assure you! Book lover or not, these three novels are a must read for everyone.

Beg, borrow, or steal - but get your hands on these beauties. They are totally, totally worth it.