Echoes

Danielle Steel is a master story teller; blending facts and fiction modestly. As the story unfolds the incidences seem happening right in front of your eyes. Echoes gives a vivid description of society under the Nazi regime.

The story plot is well stretched from pre to post World War II era. It is really unnerving to read about holocaust and the Hitler’s atrocities on Jews. The author seems to do a thorough research, crucial fact findings before weaving the story line.

It is love at first sight for Beatrice, a Jewish beauty from affluent German family. She falls in love with a French Christian gentleman while vacationing in Switzerland. Their union is not accepted by either family but they start life together in Switzerland, in penury amidst all hardship.

It is really heart rending to read Beata’s futile attempts to unite with family, once back in Germany, a widow with two daughters. Her parents had performed Shiva, proclaiming her dead; the day she leaves to marry a Christian.

Reading the word Shiva in Jewish-German context rings a bell. Researching further I found the ancient Aryans spread in Iran, North India and Germany. Maybe because of race factor some similarity, like Swastika symbol. Reading contemporary fiction involves a lot of default cross culture learning.

When the war horrors start engulfing the Jews in Germany; Beata’s parents and siblings are not spared. Jews are hand picked and sent to Nazi death camps.

Beata had a peaceful life for a while, under the mask of Christianity. Soon her past echoes, her Jewish roots come to light and she is also chucked out of her house. Amadea, her daughter, unaware of half Jewish parentage, was in the making of Carmelita nun. The convent did not come for her rescue either, as her roots echo. Soon she was out of the convent, in hiding, struggling for survival.

The story has few broken links, once the story catches up with Amadea as the main character; nothing is mentioned about mother Beata, the lead character, on which the story builds up. Maybe the author tried to make the long story short and left for the readers to presume that death was inevitable in Nazi camps.

Amadea’s story takes a u-turn on her escape from one of the Nazi camp. She reaches countryside France, after facing near death situation, on several occasions. Here she becomes part of French resistance squad and meets the British secret agent, Colonel Montgomery, doing daring missions together. In the end she settles with him in Britain along with a brood of Jewish orphans whom the colonel had rescued and eventually adopted.

I read quite a lot Danielle Steel. I personally like her way of story crafting. Her novels are good casual read, most of them best sellers. Her official website and blog reveal more about her. She publishes three books in a year, writing several simultaneously. It takes her about two to three years to complete one novel. A lot of hard work, indeed!!

Forrest Gump

A post on fifteen year old movie seems outdated, when Indian film fraternity is going gaga over slumdog millionaire. There are valid reasons too, AR Rahman winning the golden globe, the Indian music with Rahman flavor getting international recognition, indeed an achievement…now back to Forrest Gump.(as I need to watch the movie first, before giving any further inputs)

Though I read the book and watched the movie long time back. I recall it today after reading a news snippet; Aamir Khan will remake Forrest Gump in Hindi. Of late, Aamir has got the latest bug of remaking Hollywood movies. After success of Ghajini, remake of Tamil movie which itself was an adaptation of Memento. All’s well that ends well.

The book, Forrest Gump, by Winston Groom is a good read and academy award winning movie is also awe-inspiring with Tom Hanks at his best performance. The story is about a boy with below average IQ, and how he struggles in life and slowly achieves everything; and wins over Jennie, his childhood sweetheart.

Prior to watching movie and reading book, I dined at Bubba Gump, a seafood restaurant, with specialty in shrimp. The prawns are known as shrimp here and are bigger in size, the big shrimps are sold as jumbo shrimps. The international restaurant chain is inspired from the movie.

The storyline portrays, Bubba, a friend of Forrest Gump, while Gump is enlisted in army during Vietnam war. Bubba always shared his dream of owning a shrimp business, but he succumbs to injuries during war. So Forrest starts the shrimp business to live upto his dreams.

I always wonder how life incidences connect. Everything seems related. Dinner at Bubba Gump, watching movie Forrest Gump, reading the same title and stumble upon bollywood gossip. All four incidences happening at different places at different point of time. I just tried to join few dots together and created this post.

The pursuit of Happyness

I chanced upon an interview of Christopher Gardener with Glen Beck on CNN Headlines news channel. Remained glued to the television till the end; though having very little inclination for watching television.

Christopher’s life is that of, rags to riches story. A working single parent, homeless in San Francisco. The interview just gave the crux of his entire life story.
After watching the interview, few weeks later I read his autobiography, The pursuit of Happyness, indeed an inspiring true story. Despite all odds; poverty, lack of education, African American lineage and broken family(knew not who his father was); he succeeds in life.

I always keep on hearing and reading everywhere, American phrases like believe in yourself, follow your dreams, your past cannot define your future. All holds true for Christopher Gardener.

The turning point in his life influenced me too and for sure I will always remember it for the rest of my life. Chris observes a man in red ferrari looking for a parking space. He walks up to the man, offers his space as he was moving out. Chris asks him two questions before leaving.

What do you do for a living and how do you do?
“I am a stock broker”, the stranger replied and invited Chris to his office, in response to the second question.

Till date there is no looking back for Chris, today Gardener runs a successful brokerage firm and owns a red ferrari.

A blockbuster Hollywood movie was also released with the same title, starring Will Smith in the lead role.Most of the Hollywood movies are based on best selling books, having record breaking sales, millions cannot have a wrong opinion. No wonder these movies are so meaningful and leave behind a lasting impression.

Taming Infinity

A must see video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBS_cNHvnBE), on INFINITY by Prof. Manil Suri. Anybody having little knowledge or interest in mathematics will enjoy it. A forewarning, the video is pretty long, unlike familiar short and sweet youtube videos.

A couple of months back I read, The Age of Shiva, by Manil Suri. A good casual read. Inside library, somehow my eyes encounter, Indian titles, Indian authors unintentionally. There is always something to relate to in these books.

Sometimes I re-read, if not the entire book, but few interesting (as per my prudence) excerpts from the book. Once the book is complete, next I learn about the author. Most of the contemporary authors own websites and blogs, if not, wikipedia solves the purpose, giving comprehensive detail about author’s life and work. Thus I stumbled upon this worth watching video.

The elephant, The tiger And The cell phone

“THE elephant, THE tiger AND THE cell phone” by Shashi Tharoor; centers around India as the emerging super power of twenty first century. For me it has been third in series, books predicting futuristic India based on statistics past and present. The earlier two being ‘Planet India’ by Mira Kamdar, and ‘The world is flat’ by Thomas Friedman.

One really needs to have extraordinary vocabulary while reading Shashi Tharoor. There are far too many words to look up in dictionary. Few interesting excerpts from the book follow.

Sarojini Naidu on Mahatma Gandhi’s frugal lifestyle, one of the great one-liners of independence struggle.
“If only he knew how much it costs us to keep him in poverty”

On renaming of Indian cities like Bombay to Mumbai.
An American businessman who was planning a visit to India after a long absence told me (author) that his associate there “used to live in Madras, but he seems to have moved to some place called Chennai.”
When told that his friend hadn’t moved but Madras is renamed as Chennai. He promptly replied “But cities don’t do that”.

Soap Operas, a new vision of Indian family, teeming with betrayal, infidelity and rivalries of all sort, has gained entry into the living rooms of middle class.

A popular international news magazine reports that the septuagenarian (being seventy years old or between the ages of seventy and eighty; that’s why I mentioned above one will need a dictionary all along while reading this book) wife of then president of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma, instructs her servants to tape every episode of the afternoon serial Swabhiman that her official duties oblige her to miss.