Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

Long time ago I read Angels and Demons - that completes me having read all of Dan Brown's famous publications. In fact, I read it so long ago that I have almost forgotten the plot. What I do remember is that this one was not as boring or predictable as Deception Point or Digital Fortress. Again, Dan is obsessed with conspiracy theory, religion, secret societies and their obscure clues. I have no clue as to whether Illuminati existed or whether Bernini was one among them... But Dan has written one whole novel on such an assumption. What I do not understand is that if the Church knew about all these - why then did it not destroy all traces of the Illuminati?

Dan likes to insert action packed scenes in his novels... wants to make it like one of those Hollywood thrillers. Unfortunately does not do a good job. Is it really true that with just one stretch of fabric, you can survive a helicopter jump from 25000 feet? Even if you did, can you get out of bed, in just 10 hours? I don’t know... but I have read stranger things... like anti-matter :-)

Another striking similarity in Dan's novels is that all of them start with death. Sophie's grandfather in Da Vinci Code, Tankado in Digital Fortress, the Canadian geologist in Deception Point and Leonardo Vetra in Angels and demons. The villains in each of the novels are those who are projected to be men of honor in the entire first half of the novels. Leigh Teabing, Strathmore, William Pickering, the camerlegno - all of them are saints in their own respect for half of the novel. He better change the overall plot for the next novel.

This particular book is made interesting by definitely knowing when it will end even though we would not know how. At the very beginning, a deadline is mentioned and we call can easily guess that nothing extra-ordinary is going to happen before that, and at the deadline, the novel has to end. That certainty gives a comfort feeling. Also, there are intermediate deadlines that give excitement at periodic intervals... the clues are not entangled with each other and hence one part of the novel can be read even a week after the previous one was read.

Prashanth Kota

Deception Point by Dan Brown:

Deception Point by Dan Brown:

I have one advice to readers who follow Dan Brown. Never read his books back to back. Even if you think a little hard you can see disturbing similarity in the plots. All the 3 books I have read have a hero with an academic incline, a heroine in a powerful position in the government trying to unearth a deadly conspiracy of utmost importance. In both Digital Fortress and this book, the leading lady has a boss whom she adores and whom she completely believes in. Towards the end, both of them die still thinking what they did was in the best interest of the nation. In Digital Fortress it was NSA and here it was NRO. But for that, both the plots have predictable surprises.

I am disappointed at the lack of innovation. Seriously... the novel may keep you guessing what’s in the next page. But after reading his other two book, there is hardly any prize for predicting what's in store in the last few pages of the book. The only welcome addition to the plot (compared to Digital Fortress) is Senator Sexton - who is running for the Presidency. However, he is shown in very bad light to glorify the office of the president of USA. He is amoral, disgusting and finally also a fool who kills his own career. Dan conveniently has omitted how Gabrielle managed to pull the trick (of switching the envelopes) off. I was also disappointed with the vague description of the action sequences. To Dan's defense, I have not read any novel that has done justice to "Action", which has always been a visual thing - better seen than read about.

But, If this is your first Dan Brown novel - then this is a definitely a novel that has pace. Gripping. More so, if you like the concept of conspiracy like any average American.

I am shifting my focus from thriller novels to comedy... and who better to start with than PG Woodhouse

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown:

3. Digital Fortress by Dan Brown:

After Da Vinci Code, I was curious about this book by Dan. Subhash suggested this book and said that a very simple funda of double encryption had been used to create an un-breakable code. Inspired by my interest in security I started reading it and very quickly found lots of similarity between the previous book (The Da Vinci Code) and this one. Looks like our friend Dan, is a little short of ideas and even words (repeated use of words like gibberish) … The habit of creating un-necessary trivial suspense continues in this book also.

Anagrams, Ceasar’s n^2 cipher also make into this book… pretty strongly too. Why did he have to use the same techniques in two books in spite of having two esteemed ex-employees of NSA helping him with the plot?? Any way, the book was not all that interesting as it was expected to be… Telling two stories in parallel is old wine. They finally converging into one and finally realizing that they were beating round the bush for the entire 100 odd pages is old wine in old bottle. Especially the lousy way that Tankado encrypts “3” as a vague difference between U235 and U238 is laughable… I tried to imagine the firewalls falling one by one… as some sort of concentric ellipses that dissolve slowly… that’s comedy… hopelessly misplaced though.

It makes sense if a pro killer like the deaf guy starts killing indiscriminately… But Hale, and the SysSec guy die needlessly in the plot… I don’t know which came first this book or Mercury Rising the movie starring Bruce Willis with a autistic kid… obviously the one that came later is definitely inspired by the first. Strathmore – hero for the first 100 pages suddenly turns villainous and finally dies… Like Alec Baldwin in the movie… both posses the “Kill anybody to keep the nation secure” ideology. There also, a chain of murders are commited to silence any body who could have come close to the code. Repeatedly the author mentions about protecting agents in the field (obviously insprired by MI) and war time communication (enigma). Dan Browm makes no mystery about his inspirations and sources.

In summary… I did not enjoy the book. I always hoped there would be some real excitement in the next few pages… the hope never materialized… My judgment may have been clouded by the fact that I have some knowledge of encryption, system security and computers… and the author’s lack of it. I hope Deception Point will be better.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

2. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown:

Is there any one yet to read this book? Vinod asked me this. I think the answer is no… or may be there are a few people in this world still waiting for the movie to come out. Tom Hanks plays Langdon. Should be interesting… but is already under a lot of controversy. It seems, they were not allowed to shoot at Westminster Abbey where Newton is laid to rest. Coming back to the book, it was gripping… just as Andy had told it would be. I know two people at least, who say they have read only half of it… how did they manage to stop it in the middle?? Forget about Christ… his wife or his kid or the conspiracy theory that church re-wrote the Bible… Even if you take out all of them and replace with any other secret worth guarding (like the NOC list of Mission Impossible or the Enigma) the story is still equally potent. Yes, all over the world this book is famous for throwing light on other wise murky questionable history of the Roman Catholic Church. But I would say it would be equally potent just as a thriller. There are a few things that seem to be only in the author’s imagination. Was Fibonacci (an Austrian born) ever involved with the Priory?

But the style of writing becomes pretty frustrating… It’s like those sops where the chapter ends in a clue that is left un-explained. When it happens in every chapter, it gets to you. How many times there was a reference to the secret societies’ ritual before Sophie spilled the beans about what she saw… Yes, if it frustrated her, it had to be sexual but it gets confirmed only at the end of the novel… There are many such occurrences where Dan has tried to sneak in an element of surprise where there was no need for one. Yes, you can never know who is friends with whom until the last few pages… yet, it does not seem to be a total surprise either.

A word of caution for all those who raise their expectation about this best seller…

• the codes and puzzles are not even as tough as the INFY puzzles let alone MSFT of GOOGLE. It only requires you to be a European History major
• You need to have access to some of the paintings mentioned thru some other means (www of course) to appreciate the theory... But lack of it does not deminish your pleasure of reading... as I said earlier Christ or otherwise, the book is interesting.
  
• Does not answer you questions about Mona Lisa.
• You can never know who is right??
  

It was a wonderful suspense thriller that I liked more for the plot rather than the secret being protected… However both of them turned out to be a big anti climax…

B.A. - Bachelor of Arts

Since last time, I read 3 books... each different in its own way...

1. B.A. - Bachelor of Arts by R.K.Narayan :

This really connects me to the India my grand parents lived in. Most of the customs and situations happen even today in my village. Things have changed but not by much.

The story (if there is one) is set in pre-independent India in Malgudi (which is almost real Mysore + Coimbatore + Chennai) where our hero - Chandran finishes his graduation and is forced into this world. In India even today, arranged marriages are a norm. It serves as a Insurance cover for those who are hopeful of finding a perfect soul mate themselves but (for some reason) not able to. Chandran likes a girl without knowing pretty much anything about the girl. The most daring thing he can imagine to do is ask his parents to "arrange" his marriage with that beautiful girl he names her Lakshmi. However, the ever notorious horoscope does not permit him that privilege. I find it hard not to wonder how many times I have heard of this episode...

There is an episode where Chandran’s mother cribs about somebody stealing the flowers from her garden… My mother does that. To catch the thief Chandran’s father stays guard from 4AM one day. My father did that once. Finally when mother learns that a sadhu was stealing flowers only to be offered to God, she forgives him… goes a step further by approving of him stealing for a noble cause… just like my mother… I could not relate to any other episode in the book more than this.

Time is one thing people of that era had in plenty... Chandran spends some years of his life reading books... and doing nothing else... can any body do it now?? He wanders into a aimless journey and lives on the streets for almost an year and nobody thinks it’s awkward or disrespectful... In fact it is the contrary.

Students of that age were devoid of any peer pressure. Narayan himself completed his degree in the second attempt (so I read). Chandran proclaimed that he would go to London for studies and become a professor to who ever listened… finally did nothing of that sorts… but no shame… no guilt… Where had that society gone??

Narayan has very vividly described India in 1930 without mentioning any thing about the political turmoil of the time. Its both good and bad… good because his story line is not contaminated… bad because, it makes it a complete fiction even though you can relate to it.

Chandran, his friends, his obsession with Lakshmi, his younger brother, his family values are all timeless… Some things have changed from then and now. Unfortunately they have only worsened… some where in the meanwhile India becoming independent is the only positive.

Suggestion: Definitely worth a read. Inspires you to read the rest of Malgudi series.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Yesterday I contributed to the $20 billion asset of Mr. George Lucas by watching the "Revenge of the Sith" in the theatre. Yes, it is sad that it is already available for download on the P2P networks. The movie, like any other Hollywood sci-fi movie of recent times surprises the viewer by the scale. Everything is big.

I have never watched any of the 5 other movies. Yet I kind of liked this one. I guess I could still follow the movie because the plot was pretty thin and simple. Something hard-core star-wars fans would not like. Andy had told me at the beginning of the movie that people with white or green swords (oops... they are called sabres) are the good ones and with red swords are the bad ones. That really helped me sort the characters out in the first 20 minutes of the movie.

Things I liked about the movie:

1. Sanskrit like grammar in sentences of Master Yoda.
2. Names of all the characters. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin SkyWalker, Darth Vader, Yoda... The last time I liked the names of the characters was when I saw "The Mask of Zorro".
3. Concept of the Dark Side and people siding with that. Seems so similar to never ending clashes between dev and danavs in Indian Mythology.
4. Sunset (Sun like star set) scene where Padme is looking at the Jedi temple from her pent-house.
5. Varied Landscapes - Anikin's house was in a sky-scraper. While the place where General Grievous was hiding was like deep Africa... Some war scenes seemed to be copied (at least locations) from Saving Private Ryan. The Lava planet and so on...
6. Security system in Jedi temple which had hologram re-play. Proves the point again that no matter how strong your fire-wall is... it can not stop physical brute-force attack.

Things I did not like:

1. Vague ending... Can not say who won or who lost.
2. Dull humor. Seems like somebody is trying to hard.
3. Some part of the movie was slow.
4. Un-necessary dinosaur like animal that Obi rides before killing General Grievous
5. Words like "republic", "congress" also being used even long long ago in a far far galaxy.
6. Predictable story line. I am seeing any STAR-WARS movie for the first time... but as soon as Padme wanted to tell something important to Anikin, I guessed that she must have been pregnant. Also, when Palpatine asks Anikin to kill Count Duku, even though he is a Jedi - his Sith worthy intentions were made pretty obvious.

Overall it is a nice movie. But is it worth all the hype?? I guess not. It has definitely made me want to see the other 5 movies.

Anand, Bombay and Charles Dickens !?!!!

This weekend, I must decide whether I will continue to read that book I have picked up a long time ago… Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens… I have finished the first few chapters but it is very hard to make any progress. May be a person who has lived in such an environment will appreciate the descriptive style of Charles Dickens. But this is the last opportunity that I am giving myself to complete the book.

I have been watching few emotional movies over the last few days… CVO has been on a roll. First it was Manirathnam’s Bombay and yesterday it was Anand. Contrasting movies… but not so capturing viewer interest for the entire duration.

I had heard about Anand so much. But I had never seen the movie. Yesterday, the most famous dialogue of the movie [“Zindagi aur maut uparwale ke haath mein hai, Jahanpanah. Hum sab rangmanch ki kathputliyan hain jinki dor uparwale ki ungliyon se bandhi hui hai. Kab kaun uthega koi nahin bata sakta.”] was put in perspective for me…I had always thought that it was a sintimental dialogue told by Anand when he tries to explain the inevitable to Bhaskar babu moshai. But now I know that the intention was totally different. The songs are excellent… each one of them... both lyrics and music. Sometimes I wonder why such good natured movies have disappeared from Bollywood all together. May be there is no money in slow movies no-a-days.

May be this vacuum of sensible movies is what made me like Bombay so much. Yes it has violence, slightly unrealistic, too critical of the system and so on… But good lyrics, bold (at the same time sensitive) story line and amazing music set it apart from all the modern movies. Its amazing how the lyricists managed to fit such great poetry in 3 languages for the same music. The names chosen for the kids are also so thoughtful... Kabir Narayan and Kamal Bashir. Well, the Ayodhya incident is at least one forgettable part of modern Indian history.

Island of Lost Maps and Detective.

The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime. by Miles Harvey.

I leased this book from Ashish - a colleague of mine for a week-end. At first I thought, that it would be very difficult to finish reading such a bulky book in just 2 days... given my levels of concentration. As chapters after chapters rolled by, I found myself admiring the debutante’s way of narration. It was very similar to what I do when I write... the things that are told seem unrelated and vague until, the author himself connects all the dots for you... Some times even after the author connects the dots the picture is somewhat hazy... I guess Miles Harvey knows this and repeats himself where ever the reader may feel lost. That’s so much like me... I liked the book partly because of that. Apart from the gripping story, the book is filled with cartographic trivia.

Al in all, the book is an excellent pass time to read on a lonely journey.

Detective - by Arthur Hailey.

I borrowed this book from Mayank Singh. There was no dead line to finish the book... The story is about a serial killer and one another killing that does not fit in the pattern... I was reminded of all those episodes of Law and Order that I had seen when I was in US (and here too...) But after all that, I found this book lacking the excitement. It was very easy to expect the unexpected... I may be feeling so because of those serials or the expectations I had about the author himself. If I don’t like a book, i better justify it... In this book I feel, the author has gone too far to complicate a crime... and the methods used to do so are also not highly imaginative... how many stories have we not seen where a highly placed government officials have dark episodes (of sexual nature) in their childhood... In most of them, the perpetrator is usually the father... Americans have been obsessed with the Bible... I can remember at least 2 famous movies ("Se7en" starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, "The Seventh Sign" starring Demi Moore) that deal with similar topics... The author seems to have "bible based serial killing" as the center piece and added the rest of the story by backtracking and tying up lose ends... and try to make it interesting in the larger sense. I wonder how this ever became a best seller?

To learn to live without....

Day in and day out we use things that has become part of our lives... Hardly we stop to think "What would I have done without this??" If we continue to skip such thoughts, then one day we may lose our imagination. At a moment, when we may have to re-invent the wheel - we may not be able to do it. Hiking, backpacking or trekking has been my ways to stimulate such thinking.

(Un)fortunately this time, just before my Yedakumeri trip I dropped my watch and it stopped working. I took this opportunity(??) to experience 3 days without a wrist watch. Of course I was always in touch with people who had wrist watches... But if I had asked them time every time I looked at my empty wrist, I would not be alive to write this blog today. I realized that I had become totally dependant on some machine to tell me the time... even though I could look up to the sky and see where the sun was... I was not able to figure out the time... My mind was just simply not tuned to such a deduction. My closest approximation of time happened at lunch time. It was around 2:00 PM when I was really very hungry and it was almost 2:00PM. Does that meant that the biological clock can substitute the quartz clock ?? I have another reason to believe so.. earlier in that morning, I just got up at 4:00AM to alight from the bus. No alarms... No conductor stopping at the bus-stop. You can call it sheer luck... but it is worth training our subconscious mind to work so well for us. Trying to learn more about knowing time without watches lead me to this site... http://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/Daymarks/ good one to read.

Another thing I learnt to live without is my warm soft bed. As a usual practice of carrying less baggage, I carried only one thin blanket to protect me through out the night. I was woken up many times during the night when-ever a strong gust of cold wind passed by the railway-station. Normally, this is bad.. but that night it was really good. By the time we slept there was enough cloud cover and it could have rained any moment. But waking up to pitch dark sky decorated with millions of stars was satisfying for two reasons - simplistic beauty was the first reason; and assurance that it would not rain was the second. I am thankful that decided not to take much of warm clothes for the night and thus was able to see the sky.

Food and water were in plenty during this trek. Some day... one of these treks will also teach me to live without the city food.

Adventures of Alice In Wonderland

Finally I finished the book... Not only I took too long to read the book... I feel I read it 15 years too late. Anyway, It is said about this book that it is for people at all ages... Each one gets his own interpretations. The book requires a fair bit of knowledge about rhymes of Vicorian era to understand that they are being mocked.

Some stories in this book are really thought provoking. Things like, Alice trying to answer "Who am I?" provoke deepest philosophical discussions. It also points out that no matter what you are inside, people only care for what you do. When Alice has a long long neck, it does not matter to the little bird whether she was a serpent or not. If "Alice/Serpent" was long and ate eggs, it was a threat to its family.

It is very well pointed out that it is very diffcult to think like another person. When Alice tells that it was very difficult for her to have changed so many sizes that morning, it comes as a surprise to the caterpillar for whom changing size and shape is just a part of life. But for little Alice it was so diffcult to comprehend the changes.

The whole episode of the Hatter and his realtion with Time is intriguing. What if Time was our friend?? What if we could really control Time? Obviously even though all of know that time has a constant pace, we often refer to terms like "time flies" or "it seemed like ages"... The Hatter puts the very same logic with little bit of exageration to make the point that individual mood has lot to do with how time passes.

The Mock Turtle's description of life under sea, is a good mockery of the British education system. So is the Court room scene a mockery of the British judicial system. The converation of Alice with the Dutchess mocks the intent of so many fairy tales searching for a moral in each one of them. A fair knowledge of the social setup would help to enjoy the book more.

My take : A must read, at any age. Preferable every 10 years.

My Lucky Pen.

I am not superstitious. Definitely not. I have never based any of my decisions on things that I cannot control...

Having said that I have had my share of irrational, inexplicable choices. During my school days from 7th standard I always wrote exams using the same pen. It was a HERO pen, Chinese make. Never used that pen for anything trivial. I used it for filling forms for scholarships, writing essays for competition and so on... You may call it down right superstitious. On the eve of the most important exam then (10th Standard,1994) I slept over it (literally) and broke the pen. If I was superstitious, I would have been mentally broken... thought it was some sort of a sign for something really bad. No.. I just went on to write the exams using a brand new pen. I did very well in the exams. This new pen soon became my "Lucky Pen".

Few days after the exam results I had been to SBI, JC Road where the rank holders would be felicitated. The manager had a very similar pen and our pens got exchanged while I was signing on the guest list. I realised it only after I had come home. But I feared that if I told someone that I wanted to back to the bank to exchange the pen, I would sound irrational and superstitious. What would the bank manager think?? Just 2 days before he had praised me for doing so well in the exams and now I would ask him for my "Lucky Pen"?? At last I thought it was not worth the effort... after all, it was not even my original Lucky Pen... if luck could pass on from my old pen to new pen, then it could as well pass on from my pen to that manager's pen and I would still continue to do well in the exams...

There ended my saga of "Lucky Pen". Now-a-days, I don't care which pen I use to do what ever important I do. I make it a point not to. Superstitions are bad either way... if they work for you we get over confident... if they don't we get a scape-goat to blame our mistakes upon. Its best to let them go as soon as possible. Nevertheless, life would get boring if everything becomes logical.

I hope the pen is working fine... where ever it is now... I miss you.

Figures for fun by Perelman Ya and others...

The past 2 weeks have been utmost boring.... It has got nothing to do with the world around me... At least the world around me gave enough triggers to be happy about... first it was Ganesha Chathurthi... on and off showers... beautiful scenaries were created which could have been photographed if I had a camera at hand... But that's all hind sight... To sum it up... the whole 2 weeks was just plain uneventful. However, I picked a nice little obsession with volleyball.. we play for at least 3 hours a day now... 5-8PM... I used to come home with swollen fingers during the early days... But now it is OK...

Also, during the week, I finished the book of puzzles - Figures for fun by Perelman Ya.I. It was a very good book to start with... but towards the end it became a drag... an interesting drag though. The book gives reveals some lesser known history of some of the famous puzzles like Sam Loyd's 15 Puzzle, the game of chess, the original Indian "Towers of Hanoi". For instance, I never knew that half of the 15 puzzle combinations can not be solved. After reading the book, I realized that the Internet is full of that info... How could I have missed it?? In the same breath, I also felt proud that the author had acknowledged the Indian origin of the chess and the problem definition of "Towers of Hanoi". However, felt a little perplexed as to how biased historians and rob a nation of the credit it deserves... Just take the "Hindu-Arabic" numeric system that we use... The name Arabic is there only because the ignorant Romans learnt it from Arabs. It should have been only "Hindu" numeric system. The Arabs were only the carriers that spread the knowledge around. I hear that in some books the numeric system is even referred to as Arabic system... what non-sense. Apart from the famous puzzles, this book also introduces various mechanisms of measurements with out instruments... and general awareness of some unbelievable numbers. All in all, a good read for any one who appreciate mathematics.

I have now started "Alice's Adventures in the wonderland" gone past 3 chapters... lets see how it unfolds....

Alumni Meet and JanmAsTami

Random thoughts.
The weekend was dry... or should I call it wet since it was raining all the while. Sunday, I had a chance to attend the Alumni meeting of my college (KREC, now called NITK). Most of them were from the 70's batches... very few were from the 90s... Only 6 from 2000 or younger... Well, it was heartening to see that most of them were in very good positions and in time, there was a very good probability that we could also be similar positions... But Andy pointed out those who attend the alumni meeting are only those who are successful... Either way, since we also attended the meeting, we were also destined for greatness :-)) wishful thinking.

Today is JanmAsTami, the day we celebrate the birthday of Lord Krishna... Happy Birthday and Many happy returns of the day... Legend has that he knows everything... and hence I believe he can read this blog too:-)) I was talking to a colleague about the festivities in his house on this occasion... We both felt that the "cosmopolitan" nature of bangalore has eroded all distinctive brahminical cultures from our life... A holy day means no more than a holiday (and this one was not even a holiday) for us... But I believe (and desperately hope that it is true) that inspite of not following the rituals associated with a holy festival as this one, the faith is still intact.

Phew... the thoughts just stopped coming....

The moment I thought I should start blogging, the train of thoughts just got derailed. Let me be back after regaining some sense and composure...

Till then...