I guess I took a real long break from all things I indulge in as pastimes, or hobbies you could call them. Stopped reading fiction altogether some two weeks back, the occassional comic strips too, and deleted the customised playlists in my C drive. The deletion drive swam through my entire D drive too, taking with it all previously saved movies, making way for some new ones like the Da vinci code, the aviator, kingdom of heaven, the patriot , saving private ryan n half a dozen others. I simply had to watch da vinci again, for the movie had been such a thrilling experience when I saw it in a theatre, and I realised that truly good movies do not need the big screen to demonstrate the greatness in them. I fail to understand why people are more concerned about Hanks' receding hairline than his more than obvious colossal acting talent. Loved Audrey, the big- screen Sophie, and was slightly saddened to hear that she had sported a highly- trimmed hair cut in her Oscar appearance later on.
Back to me.
The only book that I read in the past week was one about the history of 15th cenury Europe, written in 1914. Though I learnt a lot about the Roman city states, the Ottoman turks, the Scandinavians and the dying Holy Roman Empire of the Germanias, I was still complaining. The book intended to glorify the corrupt Roman papacy, one that was known more for its empiric tendencies than its religious fervour, and downplayed Chengiz Khan and his mongol followers, who were ultimately vanquished by Ivan the Terrible. Such partial interpretation of historical facts, including the coverage of the infamous 'Black Death' cauised by plague in the 14th century, probably forced me to throw the book away with great force. The author says the plague, that killed off a third of European populace in the 14th century originated in Asia and visited Europe through frequent sea routes. The reality, in fact, is quite the opposite. The Europeans always used to live in hovels and buildings with thatched roof which were a favourite hiding and breeding spot for the rodents. Plague originated in Central Europe and soon spreat to the United Kingdom and the rest of Western Europe. While an effort was made to quarantine the infected population, many were sent off to foreign lands to stop the spread of the disease in Europe. Because of lack of medical diagnosis available at that time, the apothecasies failed completely to curb the spead of the disease, and great fires were arranged in principle cities to ward off the evil spirits that caused the plague. A lot of Europeans who had been chased away from their own lands landed in Central Asia, China and India, and brought the plague with them, which led to occurrance of epidemics in certain regions. In fact, the black death has not been referred at all in Indian history books, probably because we were better prepared to face the disease or maybe our medical treatment was far superior than what existed in Europe at that time.
Apart from that book, which I did not finish, because of obvious reasons, I read some Indian military archives for a change. I read about the new supersonic missile BrahMos, one that is supposed to be three times faster than the American Tomahawk, and which can fly at a height of ten metres for three hundred kilometres. Then came the megaton nukes, the ballistic missiles, the anti- aircraft and anti- missile patriots, the new devastating T-90s, the Tungushka and Smerch missile systems, the Sukhois, Admiral Gorshkov and Akula nuclear submarines. Things are obviously looking up for our armed forces, I guess, and with a defense budget six times than that of Pakistan, they have to be.
Met Tanmay Rajpurohit, the president of Paritraan, the much- hyped political party floated by passed out IITians earlier this year. Made friends with other members too, and I thought they were comparitively much nicer guys than the RSS recruits I met last year. I hope they have a great future ahead of them.
Listened to a french song caled 'Belle' that was composed in 1995 jointly by Garou, Daniel Lavoie and Patrick Fiori. Amazing song, I must say, and it already is a part of my 'foreign language' favourites, apart from Cantique de Jean Racine and El Otro Del Rio, and a lesser favourite- ne me quitte pas. I think its time I started mastering my French, for listening to songs that I can't understand is quite an embarassing affair.
My blogging habit has suffered lately, probably because of the lack of themes that I could afford to comment upon, and basically because I've lost all desire to write all of a sudden. My personal diaries too have been lying unused for over a couple of weeks, and I guess I won't be too regular with them in the near future.
Saw Lage Raho Munnabhai with some friends yesterday. The film has been reviewed too many times already, and I would spare myself the effort. But if I were to say a couple of words about the movie, they would probably be 'astounding', or 'awesome' or their thesaurus equivalents. At least it was a value for my money. Probably I would'nt ask for more.
