I have finished reading The Alchemist. It's been quite a while now since I have read a book. What a fascinating journey it has been from the plains of Andalusia to the deserts of Egypt. I found myself in the shoes of Santiago the shepherd boy of Andalusia. My apetite has not been whetted yet and to tell you in one line "Yeh Dil Mange More"



Last weekend I saw the movie "The Dark Knight" at Prasads Imax, Hyderabad (One of the few Imax theatres in the country). The cape crusader i.e. Batman (Christian Bale) meets his match in the Joker (Heath Ledger). As a movie review in the newspaper says Batman may be the hero but the real shining knight is the villain aka Joker played by Heath Ledger. What a mesmerising performance it was. Sad but true that Heath won't be there to see it. Other notable performances like Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) the Mayor of Gotham city who loses his beloved (Maggie Gylenhall) and becomes Harvey 2 faced lend the movie a charm of its won.

The movie based on the marvel comic series comes alive with the Joker's histrionics. Between good and evil the Joker tries hard to make people fallible and almost succeeds with Harvey Dent. The action, script and the memorable performances by the lead actors make this one of those rare movies which gets everything right.

Batman spreading his wings after jumping from a skyscraper, conversion of the batmobile into a bike, the truck getting turned upside down are some of the cool action sequences in the movie. One should definitely watch this movie on a big screen like Imax coz its definitely worth every penny spent.

It has been raining for the past few days and I am quite happy about it. Happy...well for people living in the cities who curse the rain, the power shortages should give them a reality check. We keep cribbing about the rain however we hardly realize how important it is to have regular rainfall. We need the rains for generating hydel power, farmers need it for cultivating crops and last but not the least it's the source of precious drinking water. One of the reasons I guess people hate the monsoon especially in the cities is due to the creaking infrastructure in developing countries like India.

This Saturday and Sunday I have been mostly at home. Bomb blasts first in Bangalore and the next consecutive day in Ahmedabad, added with the government apathy our cities are becoming increasingly unsafe to live in.

Coming back to the rains, the weather is so pleasant, you don't feel like getting up in the morning. It's like the cozy bed and the blanket is a paradise you love to be cocooned in forever :)

My IELTS results were out on 27th June exactly 13 days after the test. Now the results were a surprise or to be precise I can say it was a mixed bag. Speaking, my first test which I feared would be my worst performance I scored 8 out of 9. Ditto for Listening. Now comes the worst part.

I scored 6.5 in Reading and 7.5 in writing. The overall band score was 7.5 which is not bad however I was expecting something more.

The other news from my end is I bought a new bicycle 2 weeks back. It's from Atlas and has got a spring suspension to handle the bumpy ride which it surely does :). Riding a bicycle is so liberating. Now everyday in the morning I go for a bicycle ride. I avoid taking the main highway and when I need to cross the road, I just walk along with my bicycle instead of pedalling.

It's been more than 8 years now since I rode a bicycle. The cool breeze in the mornings and the thrill of cycling...you just can't beat it. Lastly I am also proud of the fact that I am not contributing to the environment pollution and the most compelling reason is to burn the calories.


The other interest I have picked up is reading a book after a long time. The book is titled "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho . I am half-way through the book and it's captivating enough. The book has sold 30 million copies worldwide and rightfully so. The surprise package is the author who is not a white man from a western country but a Brazilian. It just shows that there is still so much of talent even in the developing countries and it's not the exclusive preserve of the west.