Orhan Pamuk

....as I just tweeted as well, is now on my list of do-not-touch-again-authors!
I braved his 'My name is Red' and vowed never to voluntarily read him.
And then I became part of this book club where the first book was one I had read ages ago and quite 'not liked' :-);  and the second one was Orhan Pamuk's Snow.

The book didn't look too bad from the initial few pages. My mistake or rather very cleverly written to trap people just like me.
Yeah sure- Mr Pamuk has got all the time in the whole wide world to design strategies to get such 'valuable' readers like me to read his books. He wouldn't just write for the pleasure of it.
Ok now I am losing it a bit.

Thing is I am sure he writes very very well and where as he can put together many books with many pages, I find it extremely difficult to string together a few coherent sentences.
Thing is- I still can't stand his work. And I was so looking forward to 'Istanbul'...now thanks to this book club book, I have been made to pledge to never read him again.

I ploughed  through it, just like characters in this book plough through snow and I thought I will make it.
I couldn't.

This is the only other book to have been abandoned by me; the other one being....can't remember for the life of me!

Joni Mitchell Again

Finally, am nearing the end of sorting out the discography, which I assure you is not a small task. It is in fact herculean!
But as I was telling A, it is totally worth it- each one is a one 'me likey' :-)

Travel Plans...and the trip :-)

I have no excuse for delaying this post any longer other than laziness. Also the fact that I wanted to write and write and write as soon as landed back in Delhi, but then the days got lost in doing laundry worth 8 days, and then not doing laundry as the machine conked off and then buying new machine and then doing laundry!

There you have the complete lowdown on my life in the last two weeks. But you still don't know where I went...well, we finally went to Singapore.

And what I found out- for those faithful readers (bless you) who remember where I left the other post- was 'cheaper rates' at a brilliant hotel!
Well the whole trip turned out to be anything but cheap, but also because my adorable husband wanted us to have a brilliant holiday. My whole notion of not being able to afford Singapore- I dismissed myself. It was my sanity versus our savings- my sanity won!

And just as we were unable to find a single decent hotel out of the dozen or so we contacted, also meaning a hotel of our choice, for the price we were willing to pay; I made A call up the Swissotel. We lucked out. He happened to speak to a wonderful guy in reservations, who gave us a great rate. We got the visas, we had the tickets already, we now had reservations- we were ready to go!

The flight was in the morning and was quite uneventful, if you don't count my younger one physically pooping in his pants twice, and I mentally sh@##$%^ bricks. Wow, if this is the start of the holiday, what could be in store for us?
I pumped homeopathic medicine into him and yes put him to bed in the bassinet!

We reached and were out of the airport in 25- 30 minutes flat, including immigration and baggage. Wo...are we out already?
The airport was quite empty and it felt as if we had arrived in some sleepy little island. Island it is and so green that most trees are mossy as well, but sleepy it is by no stretch of the imagination. A hsort 20 minute ride got us to our hotel. The check in was smooth and the room- gorgeous!

It was a large room with enough space for two big beds, a big writing desk, television- my children were quite pleased, a big bathroom and the icing on the cake- a balcony with what has to be the best view in town. We could see the flyer, the quays, the esplanade- the night lights were straight out of a dream.

Singapore II follows!

Do We Ever Really Need A Pep Talk?

I guess we do.

The power of good words, kind words, words which might actually fly right over your head and which might not mean a thing at the time of delivery, still made me feel loved- after I had ranted at the mere 'words' of it.

It is extremely irritating in the face of grave losses. I mean, I would personally physically harm the person, if they were to say, 'Oh it's for the best!!!'
What loss would qualify that form of pep talk- the loss of dead weight relatives!!!

I guess I am making little sense even to myself- fatigued.