Its been a while I read this book. But it still remains as one of my favorites. Such an interesting book it is. Its a story of a black son of a white jewish mother who is in search of his identity. Reading through the pages of this book you will understand how a mother can sacrifice her entire life for her children. Being a white mother of black children how she has to confront the racial discrimination in the society. She goes out of her way, suffering and struggling in every moment of her life to make her children reach great heights. This book is written in a peculiar yet an interesting way. The author writes one chapter describing his mother and siblings. And in the subsequent chapter he writes in his mother's tone about her own childhood life. The chapters in the book keep toggling between the author's story and his mother's story. Mostly about the struggles in their life to overcome the difficulties at various stages of life. The author gives an insight about the living style of orthodox jewish families and also the racist acts of the white American people against blacks and vice-versa. Its so hard to believe that the American society is still divided into two parts, Blacks & Whites, even after emerging itself as a Super Power in every field. Its so hard to believe how much the color of your skin matters in every step of your life. Again, a wonderful book to read if you want to know what a mother is and how she can sacrifice her own life for her children, if you want to know how racial discrimination still persists in America.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire
Saw this movie on the same day I started blogging. An amazing movie by Danny Boyle. A movie that clearly shows what real India is and how people survive in the slums of India. Ever imagined a boy from a slum becoming a millionaire by participating in a show called "Who wants to be a millionaire ?" ? A stunning performance by Dev Patel who plays the role of Jamal Malik, the boy who wins a million rupees in the show. The movie shows how simple things that we ignore in our day to day life play a very important role in the long run. Jamal remembers every single incident that happened in his life. Coincidentally, the questions that he encounters in the show relate themselves to all those incidents and help him answer all the questions.
Every day we ignore hundreds of things that happen around us treating them as petty things. But there is something underlying in each of those things. It is very important that we disinter the underlying essence of such things. It may not fetch us million dollars or million rupees like Jamal. But surely, some day they will fetch something even more worth than that.
One of the things that really hurt me in this movie was knowing how people make money in India by transforming innocent kids into beggars. They even resolve to cripple them or blind them so that the kids can earn more by begging in that state.
Here are some links to know more about this movie.
My First Blog
Its 31st of Dec, 2008 and the time now is 11:30 PM. I am sitting alone in my apartment with my mind running across various things that have happened in my life. For the first time in my life I am celebrating the New Year all alone. At first, I was depressed by looking at my loneliness. Slowly I understood that its a good opportunity to think about my life and then give it a new start. Thought about all those things that I should have done and things that I shouldn't have done in my life. Well, I cannot change the latter but I am sure I can try for the former. Ideally speaking I should have made a list of all those things that I want to do in this new year. But, as usual, the laziness in me started waking up slowly and stopped me from doing that. Fortunately somewhere in a corner of my mind that list got auto saved. One of the things in that list is what I am doing currently i.e., "Blogging". The fact that I am a complete novice to the world of blogging gave me some initial jerks and always resulted in a halt. But this time I thought I will surely give it a shot. After all, as Paulo Coelho mentioned in his book "The Alchemist", the secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times. As planned, I will try to put in this blog every thought that I get in my mind about anything that I read, hear and see around me.
Happy New Year 2009
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