Books

I was tagged by my friend Zen in September. Here's my attempt at filling this out:

Book that changed your life - As a young impressionable 16 year old, I read a whole lot. The one book that really made me think, however, was in fact a play, The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare. I know Shakespearean plays make a lot of people cringe, but they truly delight me.

Book(s) you've read more than once - Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. The more I read it, the more I find it new. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I wish I could read Spanish so I could get a taste of the original.

Book you'd take to a deserted island - How to Survive on a Deserted Island ;) Seriously, though, I think I'd be lost without my books.

Book(s) that made you laugh - White Teeth by Zadie Smith, The Inscrutable American by Anurag Mathur and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Book that made you cry - Thomas Hardy novels: The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Urbervilles,and Jude the Obscure. Also, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, and The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseini

Book(s) you wish you had written - Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Book you wish had never been written - A true English teacher response (sorry): None; all books add something to our existence.

Book you're currently reading - No one Writes to the Colonel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Book you've been meaning to read - Too many, but specifically: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Book you've been meaning to finish - The Life of Pi by Yann Martel; I just can't do it!

Oh God!

I live 40kms from Pune; campus is on a hill. You'd think that would mean a lot of peace and quiet, right? Wrong. After the festivities of the Nav Ratras when every popular bollywood song was played to the goddesses, the joys (read noise) of diwali begin. Please don't get me wrong, I LOVE diwali; I'm so happy I'm in India for it after so many years. However, it is a festival of LIGHTS not SOUNDS.

Every morning at 4:30a.m. I can hear people from the local village on a loud-speaker, no less, chanting and singing God's praises. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if they could actually carry a note...but alas, God denied them that talent. With all due respect (although this post appears to be laden with disrespect), my grandfather stated, "God isn't deaf. He can hear your thoughts." I wish more people believed that.

If the people in the village want others to think of God early in the morning, guess what? They've succeeded. When I hear the music, I take my pillow and put it over my head and whisper, "Oh God! Not again!"