Letter to GOD

Dear God,

I am not an atheist. At the same time, I don't encourage the practice of worshipping at temples, churches or mosques. Think good, do good - for me as well as for others. That's my principle of life. I believe in one supreme power, creator of this universe but am against the concept of the screenplay of our lives already written by that Supreme Power. My life is made by my thoughts, deeds, words and actions. As long as none of them hurt or cause trouble to others, I don't find a reason for pain and sorrow.

Today, 28th December is my birthday. 23rd to be exact. I know I am too young to introspect and lack experiences that can help me understand life in a better perspective. Still, I am going ahead only because this pain and loneliness that I am going through now is too much to withstand. I need an answer before things fall apart beyond my control.

As a single child, I have been blessed with a Dad and Mom who have lived their lives for me. Every wish of mine, regardless of whether I deserve it or not, were fulfilled by them. All I gave them back was pain and tears. I could never be son my parents wanted me to. Not that their expectations or standards were too high, beyond my reach. But I couldn't. I am trying my best to be a good son, a son my parents can be proud of. Can you tell me why?

The girl of my life, my love, my dear koottukari is not with me anymore. She is there somewhere regretting of the relationship she had with me. I couldn't give anything to her expect tears and pain. She tolerated my possessiveness to a level which I think no other girl can do. I respect her for that. I can never love her enough to let her go. I want her with me, by my side. Now I know I can never have her in my life. With all my pain and loneliness, I was living a life without dreams hoping she was happy. But the truth is something else. I wish I could be with her, as a silent listener at least so that she could have someone to open up. But I am denied of even that. Whatever I do are irritating and stressing her up which is the last thing I want to do. It is clear now, I have to walk out of her life. As soon as possible. Can you tell me why.?

My mom is a strong believer of you and she believes everything happened for good. If so, can you tell me what good has happened to my dad,mom and her because of me? Why did u create me? To hurt everyone and be the reason my dear ones' tears? How long should I go through this shit? And what for? I have never hurt anyone intentionally. Never. If anyone was hurt, don't I deserve a chance to correct myself? Why can't I be trusted?

Today, I don't have any dreams,aims or hopes. Everyday I go to sleep with the hope of not waking up ever after.  Death,the biggest reality of life is what I wish for. If I am wrong and you exist and you decide our lives, please God, take me to hell and save these people. I love them so much, and I desire to be loved and forgiven.

God, if you are reading this, kindly help me out. I want to be a good son to my parents and a good friend to my kootukari. I have no one else to beg for.

Rahul.

God Is A Gamer - Ravi Subramanian

GOD IS A GAMER – RAVI SUBRAMANIAN

Okay..here we go…God Is a Gamer by Ravi Subramanian. So..I finally finished this bitcoin thriller from the master author of financial thrillers. This is the first book I preordered on Flipkart and still I don’t know why I did so. May be because I had read The Bankster by the same author and liked it.

God Is A Gamer, again is set against the backdrop of an international bank. The story is spread across India and US. A thriller by the tagline itself, the author introduces us against all those characters who can be the ultimate culprit. A murder followed by its investigation, series of other events linked to the murder taking place in India and US simultaneously, FBI and CBI agents and the unavoidable factor, the bank – New York International Bank.

The suspense of the story is good, well packed, not leaving any clues for the readers till the final chapter. The author has to appreciated for his knowledge and research he had done in bitcoins – the virtual currency which can be the future. I feel the story cannot be called a bitcoin thriller just for the fact that its mentioned somewhere along the storyline. The story would be the same more or less even if the bitcoins were replaced by normal currency.

To sum up, Ravi Subramanian’s latest outing with bitcoins, God Is A Gamer falls short of my expectations. Its not a bad book either. A book that falls in th same genre of all those previous books by the author, its indeed a ravi Subramanian thriller. I sincerely wish Mr. Ravi Subramanian leaves his comfort zone and start exploring other backgrounds other than banks to come up with great thrillers.

My rating : 2.5/5

HER - A Spike Jonze Love Story

Well, this is the first time I am writing about something other than a book. This film was there in my harddisk for the last couple of months but I managed to watch it last week only. Now, by the time I am writing this, I had already watched it twice and can watch it n number of times without getting bored.

Her, the film written and directed by Spike Jonze had Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson in lead and was released in the year 2013. It went on to win critical acclaim and Spike Jonze won the Best Original Screenplay award at the 86th Academy Awards.

As I don't want to be an IMDb or Wikipedia, I am not going to elaborate on the story or its technical side. I just watched the film without even pausing for a single moment and had a feeling of watching a good movie after it was done. As far as I am concerned, a film is good if the viewer can carry something from the movie in his heart at least for a couple of days – be it the story, a character or even a scene or dialogue. So Her is so good as Theodore and Samantha are still there in my mind, not willing to leave my thought process at least for now.

Theodore and Samantha are the lovers of the future. This tech savvy world without doubt will turn out into a place where we humans don’t feel for other humans; instead we depend on technology to be our partners – in work, love and life. As we are going through an era where we smile more at our smartphone screens than at any of our fellow beings, falling in love with someone who don’t actually exist or rather exist in a virtual world created by ourselves is not going to surprise anyone.

Whether you fall in love with a real person or an OS, once you are in love, the feelings are the same. We feel the magic in our hearts when we spend time together, we miss each other when we are apart, we care for each other, we dream together and work together to make that dreams come true, we share everything – our secrets, fears, likes, dislikes we argue, fight and say sorry and to some extend we even feel jealous and insecure when the person we love spends time with someone else, maybe a friend or colleague. Human feelings remain the same no matter how much advancements we make in the fields of science and technology.

To be personal, Theodore reminded me of myself which is one of the reasons why I can write any number of pages about this movie and the character himself. Samantha is so caring and loving that any guy will love to have a girl like her by his side. But her heart as she said is not a box to be filled with love, it expands the more you love. By letting a third person walk into your life and become a close friend, a person can still have the same feelings for his/her lover. At the same time, being committed in a relationship, we have to make choices – either we are theirs or not. The scene where Samantha confesses her conversation with eight thousand three hundred and sixteen others while talking to Theodore and her relationship with six hundred forty one of them is really heart touching. I guess I got the numbers right. Even if it’s wrong, it’s ok.

To sum up, Her is a fantastic love story of the future which is a must see film for everyone who love romantic tales. The film was released last year and the critics and viewers had already given their verdict. If u have missed this wonderful film, make sure you watch it soon.

I Too Had A Love Story & Can Love Happen Twice? - Ravinder Singh

My thoughts on I TOO HAD A LOVE STORY & CAN LOVE HAPPEN TWICE? by RAVINDER SINGH

It has been almost two weeks since I finished reading Ravinder Singh’s two bestsellers – I Too Had A Love Story and Can Love Happen Twice. First of all, I would like to apologize all my friends who suggested me reading these books which I neglected calling them chick flicks and below standard during my college days.

Before I share my thoughts on the two, I would like to thank my dear koottukari ( a female friend in English) for mentioning the first book in one of our last WhatsApp chats. Reading that book made her miss me so badly that she texted me. This made me rethink and finally give the book a try.

I TOO HAD A LOVE STORY - A book with a not-so-great story. A love story with a sad ending. We had read such stories in the past. We have seen them on the celluloid. Still..we start loving the book and the characters once we start reading it. It is our story. A love story which we can relate to our personal life. Most probably it may remind many of us of our First Love. As we go on reading, Ravin & Khushi become the reader and his love. Keep apart the backgrounds of the characters and their life. The emotions they underwent are the same as many of us had undergone in the past. Many of us going through the emotions now and many are yet to fall in love. The way they met, they interacted, the texting, late night calls – everything is the same. It is not something new. This novel never told anything new. But I believe it touched the heart of every reader at least for once during the course of reading.

This book is Ravinder Singh’s tribute for his love. Not everyone can transform their emotions into words and finally into a heart touching novel. But all those readers who remembered their lost love after reading this book, the drops of tears that came out from their heart, that is their tribute. The signature of destiny can take away dear ones from our life forever. The memories but stays forever. Like I read somewhere today, don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

CAN LOVE HAPPEN TWICE?  I never asked this question ever in my life as I never thought a life with some other person. But for those who had either lost their love or broken up and moved on, this question is relevant. Our emotions are so complex in nature that we can never be sure of what is going to happen in the very next second. To meet a person, to like each other, to be friends, to get close and know each other- both pros and cons, to fall in love and finally reveal it – It may or may not happen. But in the story, Ravin meets Simar and finally falls in love. Relationships are the best things that can happen to anyone in their lifetime. Be it a romantic relationship, friendship or a parent child relationship. This story is also tragic. But compared to the first, its more heartbreaking as it’s a break up that ends the relationship in this story. BREAK UP – a word that I hate the most. Death and birth are inevitable. When a person dies..it is beyond our control. It’s beyond our limits. We cannot do anything but live the rest of our lives in the memories of the past. But a break up is an entirely different thing. People may advocate a break up saying it’s for the good or no one commits to break up in future or if two persons cannot find a way together, it’s better to part ways and stay happy. They may be right. But I would like to find a reason to hold on in spite of a million reasons to part ways. Call it my selfishness..but I cannot let anyone be her best friend and love and her kid’s dad. Move On. The new mantra for all heartbroken friends out there. It’s not easy. As happened to Ravin, depression is the other option. We may not wish for it..but moving on might seem a bit difficult. The author gives a hope at the end by saying Simar packs her bag to meet Ravin and what happens next is known only to the author. Since life do not have happy endings always, let us hope for a happy ending for Ravin and Simar’s love story. After all, it’s the happiness for which we live, we work, we fall in love and even we BREAK UP.

I was even tempted to write down my story once I finished reading this book. But I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. I recommend these two books to all those who had been in a relationship, who are in a relationship and all those who might be in relationship sooner or later. Leave aside the novelty, the freshness of the story or any other stupid reason critics may find. I am sure it will touch your hearts and if it does, it is the success of the author.

I would like to thank my koottukari once again for mentioning this book and for all those beautiful moments you gave me. Hope you are safe, healthy and happy. I can assure you both the first two but I am not sure whether you are gonna be happy with me. That is the only reason what is holding me back. Thank you.

“The longings for someone who is not gonna come back are heartbreaking. They are nothing but tears”

                                                                         Rahul Mohan

The Bankster - Ravi Subramanian

Finally I am done with Ravi Subramanian’s The Bankster. Its been a while since I read a thriller and that was the main reason why I ordered this book on Flipkart after reading the reviews. Now let me share my thoughts (as I would like to call it rather than review) on the book.

The story as mentioned is a financial crime based thriller that progresses through two main subplots – one through a series of events that take place at Greater Boston Global Bank (GB2) and the other one in Kerala where protests are being carried out against the commissioning of a nuclear plant.

Be it Krishna Menon, an elderly man with some clear intentions fighting against the commissioning of a nuclear plant which may threaten the life of thousands or Jayakumar who joins Krishna Menon on his mission or Vikram, Head of Retail Banking at GB2 or Tanuja, HR at GB2, all the main characters have been described clearly not leaving any clue about the suspense. Most characters have a shade of grey leaving the reader suspecting them to be antagonist. Only disappointment was the mentioning of Karan Panjabi as the protagonist on the rear side of the book who actually appears in the story almost halfway only. This left me waiting for his appearance all the way killing the thrill a bit.

Starting at Angola, the story then shifts to GB2 in Mumbai and then to Kerala. From then on, the story progresses with alternate chapters which take place in Mumbai and Kerala. Being a suspense thriller, I think its unfair to discuss the story in detail.

The story had n number of characters which I found difficult to remember as I was not reading the book in a single stretch, reasons owing to my profession. Not a single character appears for just the sake of it which makes it a neat thriller. The story takes a big turn with the series of murders of GB2 employees who came close of revealing a financial fraud which leads to the introduction of the chief protagonist, Karan Panjabi, an ex GB2 employee and how he solves the mystery in the next few days forms the rest of the story.

The author is successful in telling the story through the subplots which are well connected without deviating much from the main storyline. However, like most thrillers, most of the clues through which the mystery was solved lacked solid backup. I felt it was left for Karan Panjabi to just check it rather than discovering it. It was an easy task for him. All the clues and evidences left in front of him, he had no serious role other than summing them up and unravelling the mystery.

On the whole, The Bankster is a good thriller which was more than what I expected when I bought this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read books belonging the thriller genre. Looking forward to othe books from Ravi Subramanian.

My rating – 3/5