I heard from my friend’s mother that a old lady stole a potted Tulsi plant from some flat yesterday. She was walking in the apartment common area, and this lady came and asked if she had Tulsi. She said no. Then in another turn, the lady pointed to a nice pot of plant near someone’s ground-floor apartment. My friend’s mother thought she was probably gonna take a couple of leaves, you know for making tulsi tea or something. But the lady took the plant, pot and all. It was a well-looked after and loved plant too. So she said to the thief lady that it belonged to those people in the flat. But the other lady said she has pooja everyday and needs it for that.

Well. Baffles my mind. Which God is gonna be pleased with a stolen Tulsi plant? Of course stealing flowers and stuff is common in the Apartment. My friend has a ground floor flat, and she has Tulsi and chilli pepper plants outside the house. An elderly woman routinely helps herself to it. Don’t even talk about the people who pluck flowers from the road while walking. Not the flowers in the road though. The flowers from people’s houses. If they need to do pooja, why don’t they just plant some, water it and fertilize it and generally earn the right to pluck it if wanted?! Some people!

This doesn’t have Poirot or Marple or any other recurring detectives. Friends Bobby Jones and Lady Frances Derwent investigate the murder of a falsely identified John Doe in which Bobby already seems to be entangled to his peril. There is the sinister foreign doctor, charming criminals, damsels in distress etc. It was as usual fun to read. And the murder does get solved by the foolish pair. Kind of. I now have a problem remembering which all Agatha Christie books I have read when I see a new one!

I kind of did a random reading from project gutenberg. The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne. I liked the book, and the Sherlock references. Even though reading all these detective stories made me ‘know’ the solution in the beginning itself. It was that transparent. Anyway, I looked up the author, and he is the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh. I thought Pooh was completely Disney! And wait, Christopher Robin was Milne’s son!

Dexter is my guilty pleasure. I watched the series last year when StarWorld gave us a Dexter marathon with all the seasons aired daily, and absolutely loved it. Had a tiny little crush on Dexter. So, of course I went and ordered the first four books from flipkart. To be honest, I did not like the books as much as the TV series. OK though. I did not like the supernatural in the books much. The other too books are only imported edition, and I am not sure about paying four times the usual price for those books.. Guess I will wait till the Indian edition.

Of course Dexter is a serial killer. :P

Read “The Beetle” by Richard Marsh.

It so happened that I read some books by Richard Marsh from Project Gutenberg.

I read the Beetle, which is quite the page-turner and I wonder why I never heard of it before. The shape-shifting beetle-person and somehow very 20th century love stories(not the idealistic stuff from other Victorians) were interesting.

Then the same day I happened to watch the Doctor Who episode with Agatha Christie and the giant wasp. What are the chances!

I am sucker for mythology and Shiva by far is my favourite god. Krishna with his devilish cunning is pretty good, but Shiva is special. I totally buy the ardhanareeshvara thing and he has mood swings that almost match mine. So since I was feeling particular creative today, I decided to paint Shiva. Of course I oscillated between painting Buddha and Shiva, but then anger won over serenity big time.

I have this mental picture of Siva in thandavam, his hair flying, eyes fiery and the third eye literally on fire. And since I don’t have a hunky male model ready to do a dancing pose so I can take a photo, I went googling for ‘inspiration’. And what do I see! Shiva in the online world is so freaking feminine! I swear it looks like rogue and lipstick. And even the pictures that says thandavam has him smiling. Oh dear god.

Now that I think of it, these are the kind of pictures I see everywhere. Shiva, Rama, Krishna everyone looks the same, with some props like snakes or bow or a peacock feather added. Who is responsible for femming(?) of Hindu gods?!

Back to Agatha Christie. I did not pick this up all these days because I thought I had read it. Apparently I haven’t.
It was as usual a fun read. I kind of solved it before Poirot though.. :) Ariadne Oliver too makes an appearance and it is fun.

For Esmé – With love and Squalor
A perfect day for a bananafish

I read these two short stories in my collection of Salinger’s short stories. I have wanted to read Esme for quite some time. And after I finish reading it, I am not sure I do quite understand the story. You know, what lies between the story. After years of pop reading I have forgotten that we have to think about people’s thoughts in another type of stories. And I count Camus as my favourite writer. Silly me.

I loved the stories. I liked bananafish better than Esme. Mr Glass is much more real to me than the little girl with the big vocabulary.
HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO LOVE AND KISSES CHALES.

I always wonder why it is the nuclear states that always oppose any NEW country wanting to build a nuclear weapon. That will kill a massive amount of people and could be misused and could annihilate life on this earth. Just like that horde of yours!

I have been re-reading Oscar Wilde. In awe still of all the witty one-liners he made up. Apart from that, what a difference a couple of decades make in an author. I thought Dorian Gray was more or less a children’s book when I read it first. Of course it must have been an abridged version. Then there was Happy Prince, lady winderemere’s fan and so on. All such light hearted books you see. And I read it today, and am like woah… That was some guy.

I look at the statue in Oscar Wilde’s wikipedia page, and it looks so apt. Such a beautiful man. I read Dorian Gray last night and I wonder how it will be if someone were really to live only for pleasure and beauty and one’s own self. Would it really be so bad so as to make someone a monster? But then, we are all so conditioned to be right. And am so unhappy about how it all ended for Wilde. Such an unfair world.