Master of the game

Long family lineages remind of Sidney Sheldon. If you fail to see the relation, most probably you have not read ‘Master of the game’. The only masterpiece of Sidney Sheldon and his only work I would recommend. It happens to be the first Sheldon I had read and all his other books after that seem to me to be scripts of C grade A rated movies. And no, Master of the Game’s no book you’d give to an underrated child still. It does have a generous demonstration of Sheldon’s most prized art (else, how in the name of Merlin, would his books sell?), but as a bonus, this one also has a soul thats not prostituted. It’s a wonderful tale spanning three or four generations, I forget how many, and has insightful accounts of various kinds of human personalities and how their interplay defines destinies.
It’s a pity Sheldon exhausted his genius with one book.

Love your family!

It’s all about loving your family! Who’d know that better than Rahul Gandhi? Maybe, Karan Johar. But its not Karan’s family the country is interested in, and the country doesn’t comprise all of film industry sychophants, who flatter him and are all praises for his 3rd grade movies, only made on a kingly budget, just to get a chance to act in his ‘annual blockbuster’. I thought even Ekta Kapoor outdoes him after I sat through half an hour of KANK! (coincidently, it even rhymes with Skunk.. poor creature! )
Him and those stalkers aside, its Rahul’s family that we are worried about. Fool us once, fool us twice, but his family has played the same trick for four generations and want us to be fooled everytime. What fools! Those self abnegating individuals, having been forced to take up the office of the highest executive of the country for four generations! By Merlin! That makes my country sound handicapped!
Nehru hesitantly became the prime minister (Gandhiji was the citizen deemed for the popular honours), Indira didn’t have a political inclination and joined the fray only for the good of the country ( and what good she did!), Rajiv was a happy go lucky pilot, not bothered about politics at all. Sonia was forced too, but didn’t accept the office, smart girl!. The old trick would have become rather too patent!
And then isn’t Indira Gandhi the one who had made oh, so many bloody mistakes- the most criminal being the Emergency? She is also infamously rumoured to have killed her son. I do not know about the veracity of the last rumour but most of her contemporaries would probably swear by it.
I can gladly say thus, that I am no Indira fan, even though I wasn’t even born when she ruled our country, to know her politics too well. I wasn’t born even during Nehru’s days, but I have come to admire him immensely as a passionate idealist and a human from the little literature that I have read of his and about him. There’s not much literature on Rajiv though, but people’s accounts of him are often praiseworthy and he seems to have been a committed prime minister. His wife’s, however, turned out to be no nationalist- Indian definitely not, Italian I don’t know. She was the one who didn’t want Rajiv to make his foray into politics, he did it and yet did she. And what was the reason espoused by her? – to raise congress back to its past glory. Not once did she speak about Indian interests. The only preoccupation of her mind seems to have been to preserve her family legacy- and that legacy is the party. Its all about the family after all. Rahul’s no alien to that blood.

Sorry boy! I don’t hate you. But I am not too fond of your family- blame it on the womenfolk.

oh, Merlin!

Oh, Merlin!! NO dear, he is not a creation of J.K Rowling. Her books do not even tell his story. They just use his name as most wizards do. He is a fictional legend ( the earliest instance of his name is in the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, as Merlin Ambrioses) who is reinvented again and again. Some use him as their villain, some name humanitarian societies after him. It all boils down to convenience in the end. I prefer to know him as a frivolous sage(yeah! Talk of paradoxes!) and best read him through these lines:

*Of Merlin wise I learned a song,

--Sing it low, or sing it loud,

It is mightier than the strong,

And punishes the proud.

I sing it to the surging crowd,

--Good men it will calm and cheer,

Bad men it will chain and cage.

In the heart of the music peals a strain

Which only angels hear;

Whether it waken joy or rage,

Hushed myriads hark in vain,

Yet they who hear it shed their age,

And take their youth again.

*-MERLIN'S SONG by RALPH WALDO EMERSON

By Merlin!

she: by Merlin! why by Merlin?
I: why not?
she: what do you mean by by Merlin?
I: by by Merlin I mean 'by Merlin' and 'By merlin!'
she: by Merlin! You mean it!
I: In Merlin's name I do and Merlin does so too!