ThoughtfulChaos

Sorry for the bland title. But could not think of anything else and in a way the boring title very well reflects my current state right now. No particular reason to blog except that a blog is supposed to be regularly updated journal. Nothing much going on in my life right now. Actually something is going on but hopefully I will be able to tell you about it in my next post.

I am helping a friend of mine in setting up a blog. He, like me, is using Drupal to power his blog. Probably the only reason I am helping him is because he has been delaying it for too long citing a busy schedule (somewhat true) and lack of technical expertise in configuring it (totally untrue). If I get his blog up and running he will have at least 1 excuse less.

Continue reading "Update"...

Still no confirmation of the news. I am a bit disappointed because I expected things to happen more quickly. But there is nothing much I can do about it so am just keeping my fingers crossed.

Its been an uneventful week largely. I read Khuswant Singh's I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale over the weekend. A very enjoyable book. The perfect book for a lazy weekend when you don't want to exert your brain much and just want to go with the flow. I like KS's style of writing: simple English, literal translation of Indian/Hindi phrases ("they will remember their maternal grandmothers"), a reasonably fast pace of narration and a visually rich and descriptive elaboration of everything. I liked it more than the only other novel of his that I have read, A Train to Pakistan. I am looking forward to reading his third novel, simply titled, Delhi.

To stave off the boredom I borrowed India Unbound by Gurcharan Das from my neighbour. And have thoroughly enjoyed the 2 chapters I have read till now. Am looking forward to reading the entire book.

I am currently reading Freakonomics and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Freakonomics is an interesting book authored Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. They take seemingly disparate events and draw causal relationships or parallels between them. The authors 'explore the hidden side of everything' by finding patterns in the data associated with some phenomenon and arrive at unexpected often startling conclusions. However towards the end I got a little bored and I have kept the book on hold for now. Meanwhile I started reading Pride and Prejudice (P&P).

Continue reading "Freakonomics plus Pride and Prejudice"...

You read it right. Check out the site www.dumbledoreisnotdead.com created by David Haber. David, like most HP fans, was shocked when Dumbledore was killed by Snape. However he has meticulously ferreted out and explained various clues in the book that indicate that Dumbledore is not dead, or even if he is dead it is all a part of his grand plan to defeat Voldemort.

David says:

Caught up in the roller coaster of J.K.'s marvelous and fantastic mysteries, Snape's betrayal and the death of Dumbledore caught me completely by surprise. Dumbledore was dead, and on top of that, Snape had done it.

My brand-new copy of Half-Blood Prince became as tear-stained as one of Hagrid's notes, and I remained upset about it all the rest of the day.

But after sleeping on it, the next day I realized that there were important clues about Snape and Dumbledore that I had missed. And the more I looked back, the more clues I found, realizing that they had been there all along.

And all of the clues point to two possibilities, that Dumbledore's not really dead, or at the very least, that Snape's not really a Death Eater, and he killed Dumbledore because Dumbledore ordered him to, as part of a grand plan.

The site indeed has spoilers so do NOT read it if you have not read the book.

Thanks to Nidhi for letting me know about this site to me. I wonder why there is no reference of this site anywhere (on any of the many Harry Potter sites or Wikipedia articles devoted to the Harry Potter world). I also wonder whether this is a Nidhi I know or a complete stranger :-)

Spoiler warning: Do NOT read this if you are going to read The Half-Blood Prince yourself. Many events and facts about the book are revealed here.

I am a bit sad right now. The last time I felt like this was when Sherlock Holmes plunges into the Reichenbach Falls and (supposedly) dies in The Adventure of the Final Problem. I finished reading The Half-Blood Prince (HBP) yesterday night. Dumbledore has finally died. I was expecting this since (by mistake) I read a review of HBP when it was released... still it was quite saddening.

I really like Dumbledore. His presence of mind, cool composure, wisdom, his way of talking and dealing with people and the forward looking views he harboured are really admirable. He is the perfect freethinker. In my heart of hearts I wish he would come back (like Sherlock Holmes did in The Adventure of the Empty House) in the next book. But I am probably being too unrealistic and/or optimistic. Various phenomenon (his photo appearing in the Headmaster's room in Hogwarts, his phoenix crying and then flying away, the headmasters room opening for McGonagall and the body bind curse on Harry wearing off ) suggest that he is gone forever. It would also be in the natural flow of the theme to expect Harry to battle Voldemort all alone.

Continue reading "Bye Dumbledore"...