Book Review: The Second Empress

My Verdict - 3.5/5

This book is good for people who are fascinated by history. Being one of them, I liked the book. Michelle Moran has presented last few years of Naoplean's reign from the perspectives of three protagonists - Marie Louise (Second Empress), Pauline (Napolean's Sister) and Paul (Pauline's lover). The book could not focus much on Marie Lousie as the title says but on Napolean's character and his fall. Pauline's character is scandalous and very well depicted. Paul seemed to be a silent spectator. Author could have given more details of the time when Marie Lousie was made Emperor of France for 4 years and how well she handled the regency. Its interesting to read the letters included in book which have been declared original by author in the epilogue. In spite of being narrated by three different characters, the story did not create any confusion, instead made the intentions clearer. It made me more curious about the Napoloean and his family's history.

This review can also be found on GoodReads over here.

Man of Steel - Review

My Verdict - 2/5
Unlike all other babies on a moribund planet "Krypton"- who are engineered by a codex, a superbaby 'Kal-El' is born as a natural birth after centuries. 'Kal-El' is packed and sent off to a distant planet 'Earth' with codex by his parents Jor-El and Lara to save his life and the Krypton race as well. Kal-El's parents are killed by General Zod - a rebel on Krypton for stealing codex and Zod banishes to phantom zone along with his followers.

Years after on earth, a young superboy - Kal-El who is very much like humans is raised as Clark Kent by farmer couple Jonathan and Martha Kent. Jonathan reveals his adopted son that he is an alien and he must hide his super powers as he would not be acceptable in society of Earth. Clark being aware of his super powers wonders about his origin and stuggles with the ultimate question - Why I am here? After his father's death, Clark lives a nomadian lifestyle, working at different places with false names. Clark finds out who he really is when he discovers an ancient Kryptonian scouting ship where he communicates with his original father's ghost through hologram and comes to know about Zod.

In search of codex, Zod and his followers come to earth and ask for 'Kal-El' to surrender and warns the people of earth for destruction in case of disobedience. To save earth, Kal-El surrenders and goes with the Kryptonians. As Zod reveals his plan of converting Earth into Krypton by destroying it completely, Superman morally chooses Earth over his own race and fights against Kryptonians. Initially being mistrusted as an alien, Our superhero eventually wins trust of humans and saves the entire earth from ill wills of Zod to become a "Symbol of Hope".

Its a whole new man of steel we see in the movie. Director Zack Snyder has introduced a sci-fi genre in the superman series while keeping humor and romance at minimum. Movie also tries to bond emotionally with its audience which had been missing in other fantasy movies. Actor Henry Cavill (Kal-El/Clark) is looking utterly handsome as SuperMan and even having less dialogs in movie, his actions does all the talking.  The first half of the movie slips back and forth between childhood memories and present of Clark which at times are confusing. Its almost an hour after we see our super boy as Superman and for a big change he is not wearing his underwear over his pants. Few scenes in movie are jaw dropping like when Kal-El tests his powers and when his father's ghost explains him about his native planet. Actions scenes lethargically follows the legacy of drastically falling buildings and explosions which after some time becomes soporific. The sheer amount of destruction that takes place in end is insane. Apart from Henry Cavill, movie is far from perfect. Sadly disappointing, Good in some parts, a total mess in others. We expect better from the Batman team.

Aashiqui 2 - Movie Review

Image Courtesy : www.indianexpress.com

My Verdict: 7/10
Aashiqui 2 is a Love Story which is inspired by a 1971's  Amitabh Bachchan starer Abhimaan. The protagonist, Rahul Jaykar, played by Aditya Roy Kapoor, is a popular singer & has a severe drinking problem. The movie starts as the protagonist is to perform on stage but he is busy consuming alcohol. He consumes some and climbs up the stage for singing one of his very popular songs. However his stage performance is disturbed by a bunch of goons but that night he meets a girl who changes his life. The beautiful Aarohi, played by Shraddha Kapoor, is an innocent girl who has come to Goa to earn a living but can't do much. So this Rahul Jaykar, who is quite a popular singer and a big shot in Music Industry accidentally meets this girl and falls in love with her voice and apparently with her. He is determined to make her a super-star as he finds the girl promising. So he does all he can to make her popular. In a significant amount of time, after putting in much hard work, she indeed becomes popular and a Super-star. She wins some amazing awards for singing and the two of them fall in love. This is when the problem between them starts as a jealousy factor creeps in. She becomes popular while he is losing his popularity. He misses his old popularity and his habit of drinking starts to eat him up. His minds gets filled up with all sorts of negativity. Our sweet Aarohi does everything she can to help him out. But all her efforts worsen the conditions and he keeps on drowning deep in the sea of alcohol only to die in the end.
                           The movie is simple, believable. Screen play is good and acting by most actors is plausible. Sound tracks and music is undoubtedly amazing.Songs are the best part of the movie. Shraddha's acting disappoints me but her beautiful looks more than compensated for the short-coming in her acting efforts. All in all the movie is a beautiful romantic drama. A must see for all love-birds out there.

Go Goa Gone

My Verdict: 7.5/10
Comments: Good

Courtesy:http://www.moviehdwallpapers.com/

'Go Goa Gone' is more than what   you might be thinking of it. It's a fairly good movie and people, specially boys, looking forward to some typical raunchy humour would be delighted.The dialogues are pretty well timed and delivered, which gives that extra punch to the dialogues.The humour is very natural on most of the occasions. It is unlike the poorly executed and artificial humour which is typical of the movies of Rohit Shetty.
The movie takes you to Goa where three friends, and luckily a girl as well, land into all sorts of trouble. They end up coming to a secluded island where possibly they are the only humans left - rest everyone being zombies!!!
When there is no way out left, the actor-producer Saif Ali Khan comes to their rescue.
Let it be a suspense as to how and why the zombies come to existence in the first place and eventually how does our group of youngsters manage to get rid of them.
Saif Ali Khan is an add-on in the movie only to boost the star cast. Kunal Khemu, especially, has stolen the show with his quick-witted dialogues and ribaldry.Expect expletives!!!
A pretty light movie to watch and a good way to spend time with friends.
The music is good but not very soothing to the ears.
Overall a good complete package of fun-filled evening.

Pseudonym : h!v

The World is Flat

Book Review : The world is Flat

The amazing 539-page novel on Globalization and its impact is an eye-opener. More precisely it is a book which made me look out of the box. The box here is the borders of countries. I realized, after reading it, that the borders between countries are indeed dissolving and the world is becoming a leveled playing field for everyone.
The book started in India and ended over in India itself. It has descriptions about how the dot com boom and bust impacted the world, how the world changed over the years and how the Third world countries are brought to more or less at the same level by the influence of technology. The book has descriptions about the change in markets and Global position(as nations) of India and China. It encapsulates all the changes brought about by the globalization which is termed as "Flattening of the World " by the author. The book not only lists the positive aspects of globalization but the negative as well and hence I'd say that authors view about globalization is not biased.
The book is full of anecdotes and has phrases and monologues by many entrepreneurs and billionaires which makes the book quite inspirational as well.
The worst part about the book is that it is addressed to the Americans. All the "we" and "us" and "our country" is for the Americans which irritates me because when you are writing a book on "Flattening of the world" then it should be addressed to everyone and not to a particular audience. So I as a reader felt neglected.
Since the book was written before the Sub-prime crisis and the arab world and euro zone crisis hence the reader might find that the present scenario is not the same as described in the book. Things have changed a lot since when the book was written.
Being an IT Professional in India I could connect to every word in the book & felt that the book was written about me(although it was addressed to the Americans only). I'd recommend this book to everyone as it has the potential to be a life-transforming book and you can not afford to not read it.
Rating : 8.5/10

The Black Swan

Book Review: The Black Swan

The Black Swan - Nassim Nocholas Taleb

The book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is about the occurances of rare yet high-impact events. He says that some events are rare and are least expected to happen at a particular juncture.One such event when occurs and have an high impact on the contemporary beliefs, to a level that it shatters all the beliefs and theories, is called a "Black Swan". Unexpected, High Impact event. He says that the frequency of such events is high in the present world scenario and further he says that although we could never predict the occurance of such events yet we offer a plausible description of the causes of occurance of event.

His views are biased at some points and pre-obsessed with the idea of randomness to an extent that he neglected even the primary and basic laws of nature. His views are strong and rigid. However, most of what he said, i agree to.

In the book the author challenges the most-well-established facts or theories and also teaches the reader to challenge any theory or belief one comes across. The thoughts presented here are raw and also not in an organized manner as the author has digressed abundently on many occations. But he has been able to keep me involved in the book throughout.

I found his views as conflicting with each-other at one point he said that a Black Swan event can't be positive or negative within itself; it depends on the perception of the discerner. However in the very next page he said that the positive Black swan happens (occurs) slowly while negative one happens fast. But here he failed to explain the exact definition of positive and negative black swan.

Apart from a few rare unworthy-of-mention mistakes I found the book full of beautiful insights into the dynamism of our world. The trail-blazing views were thought provoking and were a true delight for me. Flambouyant and confidently-aggresive narration. This book should be read by everyone irrespective of one's profession or interests.

I found this book very interesting, to say the least, and also it helped me shape my thoughts (if I may say).

Rating 8.5/10
Genre : Non-fiction

Kautilya's Arthashashtra

Book Review - Kautilya's Arthashashtra

Kautilya, popularly known as Chanakya and Vishnugupta was a master stretegist of the Second Century A.D. He is regarded as one of the greatest teacher of state-craft - wisdom in the management of public affairs. He is known for his genius and foresight and also for his knowledge of vedas and puranas.
Kautilya's Arthashashtra (by Penguin Publications) is the reconciliation of the original Arthashashtra which has been edited, rearranged and translated by L. N. Rangrajan.
The book has been divided into 10 chapters and deals with all the facets of leading a state from an emperor's point of view. Its gives a broad view of how a kingdom or state was lead by a King and his ministers. As i went through the book i attained a completely different view of our history as compared to the old school history books, which i consider to be completely irrelevant. The book has a compilation of different aspects of statecraft which includes - Responsibilities of  the King, his Behavior towards his subjects, Law and Order, Foreign policy, War and Defense, Taxation, Departments of Government. The views presented by Chanakya are strong and at times ambiguous. He has given exhaustive list of a possible scenarios for a number of cases. For an example he gave an exhaustive list for how a King can attack his enemy or how can an enemy be conciliated. I differ with Kautilya here because its not possible to give an exhaustive or complete list for such practical cases as every case is different in itself. However, i believe, the practical knowledge that he has imparted here in his work is of great use in present world. The author has also compared Kautilya's theories with other strategists here.  
After reading this book i realized how little we have changed since then. We have come so far yet the basics have remained just the same and will remain so. Some examples of similarities is the taxations syatem and governance, rules and regulations, trade and commerce and punishments etc.
All in all, the book is for those people who have interest in Indian statecraft and are looking for wisdom. It is surely not for those who are looking for a casual read.
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating : 7.5/10