Leisure – Subbu One-Offs #1

On By Abhiram RIn Short-Story, Subbu One-Offs1 Comment

This is a story set in the world of the Subbu Chronicles but doesn’t follow the #A2Z pattern or the chronology of the rest of the stories. This is, quite simply – Subbu Unplugged. Episode 1.

“All that is yours is rightfully mine… and mine it will be!”. 10-year old Subbu’s eyes widened in wonder as he gripped the joystick a little tighter and watched The Dark Prince whisper the next few lines and vanish into smoke…so much smoke… the screen had gone black. He waited for a few more seconds before he realised the vanishing had more to do with an external agent than an internal actor. Amma stood by the side of the TV, the disconnected plug in her hand, an expression of impatience on her facing and one foot tapping on the ground with the rhythm of one who has been ignored for a while. “Amma!”, he protested, “I was about to get to an important level!”. “I’ve been calling you for the last ten minutes”, Amma protested in retaliation and with a shriller voice that indicated the victor of this argument even before further sparring could ensue. “Dei! You have your exams in two weeks!”, she continued, “And you’re sitting here playing this useless..this useless..”. “Game”, Subbu completed, a look of resignation and decreasing annoyance on his face, even as he knew the end of the sentence was irrelevant. 

He sighed, got up and went back to his room and picked up his Maths book, placed it on the bed and knelt on the floor, his elbows propped next to the book, a notebook on the side and an Apsara Black pencil in hand; if he was going to study, he might as well start with a subject  with the most syllabus to cover and get it over with. And that was the first paper anyway.

“If Ramu’s gardening plot is 10ft long and 5ft wide, and each flower pot is 1m x 1m, how many flower pots can Ramu place across the plot’s edges?”, Subbu read out loudly. It seemed like quite the predicament Ramu was in and it reminded him of a problem his father had read to him from a story that featured a boy named Swamy. Swamy had been, to quote his father from the book, “an extraordinary idiot”. Subbu could hear Swamy’s father’s words in his own father’s voice and scratched his head in puzzlement. He gave up and proceeded to read the next 20 problems from the page in the text (which were all along the same vein), none of which he felt his skills obtained at school had adequately prepared him for. He felt immense sympathy for Swamy and decided he had made a huge mistake in starting with Maths. It had reduced his morale  a lot. He needed a break to rejuvenate. If nothing else, surely, he’d earned some leisure time for toiling this long? He tiptoed to the kitchen and teetered on his feet as he waited for Amma to turn around from chopping the vegetables. Once she seemed to have reached a logical conclusion, he nervously called out – “Amma…I’ve tried to solve twenty one problems”, he chose his words carefully and gestured with open palms to indicate a measure beyond what his hands could show. “Can I continue my game for just five minutes?”. Amma had heard this request before and she knew what five minutes meant. She sternly looked at him and said, “I’m sorry Subbu but the game will have to wait till the exams are over. You go to Pandi’s house and see if he wants to play with you for 10-15 minutes.”. Subbu groaned and shuffled out the kitchen but by the time he reached the hall, he’d accepted this free-time barter and ran out the house distractedly. Pandi and he were classmates and had also known each other ever since he had moved in. 

“Pandiiiii”, he went chanting even as he reached the 11 year old’s house’s gate. He noisily opened the gate with an air of familiarity and rapped on the door. The Ramakrishnan residence was very well acquainted with Subbu and had come to regard him a part of their family  – well, everyone except the baby of the house that always bit his hand as though indicating disapproval. He didn’t have to wait long at the door. Pandi’s mother, Mrs.Maami (as he knew her), opened the door with her ever-smiling face and greeted Subbu warmly , “Vaa da Subbu.. Padichutiya?” (Come, come Subbu. Have you completed studying?). Subbu rolled his eyes but quickly said with every ounce of politeness he could muster , “Aaan aunty, innum konjam daan irruku” (Yes aunty, only a little bit left to go). Was Pandi at home, he enquired. No, Pandi had gone to his cousin’s place to “group-study”, he was informed. Maybe he should also go back home and continue studying, she suggested. Subbu frowned a little at this unexpected dashing of his plans to have fun and even more deeply at the suggestion that he ought to resume his preparations. Hmph. Didn’t Maami aunty understand the importance of enjoyable activities? Nevertheless, he thanked Maami aunty and shuffled out, contemplating his next actions. His eyes fell on the parked cycle as he stepped into his gate and decided that would be a good act of leisure. 

He took the cycle out and began his new act with renewed vigour, the previous disappointment forgotten. He pedalled despite the midday sun, passing the regular shops he visited with his dad, and the idle shopkeepers who were looking out on the streets hailed him, “Ay Subbu, enga da porai! Paarthu votu ” (Hey Subbu, where are you headed? Ride safely!), (those that recognised him anyway) and he yelled back  – “Hi uncle!”,” Hi aunty!”. Everyone was “uncle” and “aunty” as far as he was concerned. One of these greeters was Paramasivan uncle, the local florist. He went one step further than the rest of the shopkeepers and called Subbu into his store. Subbu’s mother was a regular patron here, being quite the green thumb and Param uncle and she had become good friends (which meant discounts were given without being asked for). Subbu regularly accompanied her on her visits; needless to say, Paramasivan uncle had taken a shine to this charming youngster who stood by his mother patiently every time she chose seeds for what must be quite the forest by now and given him a lot of free methi seeds “under the table” in an attempt to inculcate the interest in the boy as well. Subbu wondered why he was being invited , maybe Amma had said she’d collect something from him and he, Subbu was to be the conduit? Maybe. He went into the shop nevertheless and looked at Param uncle who was surveying the boy with a glint in his eyes. Then suddenly he said, “Subbu! I haven’t even shown your mum this, but I’ve been working on a new project. Come!”, he dashed to a backdoor and beckoned the boy into it. Subbu warily stepped in and gasped. It was a huge greenhouse with a whole bunch of pots with plants huddled at one side of the room. A small portion of the floor had been cordoned off by an array of red bricks. 

“Subbu”, Param uncle called. Subbu felt a strange memory knocking at the back of his mind, even as he looked at all the pots at the corner of the room. 

“Subbu, I have this plot of land here 10ft by 5ft and I want to place pots all along the edges….”

The Republic of Thieves

On By Abhiram RIn Book ReviewsLeave a comment

Author : Scott Lynch
Preceded by : Red Seas Under Red Skies
Succeeded by : The Thorn of Emberlain (Not yet released)

Disclaimer – SPOILER ALERT

If “Red Seas under Red Skies” was a series of waves on a stormy day at sea, “The Republic of Thieves” was nothing short of earthquakes, one after another – some mild tremors, some that make you stand up with a start and a couple that jolt you out of your being and rip apart the very ground you’re standing on. 
The story starts off where its predecessor stops – with a very ill Locke and an extremely patient Jean (Locke doesn’t seem to want to end books in a healthy state). They try to get physiker after physiker to examine and possibly provide Locke an antidote for the poison the Archon left them with, but with consistent failure. When all hope seems lost, they’re approached by the one person they’d hoped they’d washed their hands off of – a Bondsmage. Patience, as she called herself, proposed a deal with the last remaining Gentlemen Bastards; an election fixture at Karthain in exchange for Locke’s revival to health. With no real options, they begrudgingly find themselves accepting the deal with no real idea of what they were getting themselves into.
In all honesty, I Knew they couldn’t Kill off the most interesting protagonist throughout the series with a mere poison, so the introduction of the antidote in this manner was interesting. What Was a let-down though was the manner in which a reunion with their long-lost lady Gentleman Bastard, Sabetha was conducted. She was their rival-to-be in the contest that was the winning of the Election. But this was a minor convenience in the grand scheme of things, so I bemoan it very little. I was left wanting in the previous book, to know more about Sabetha and that was definitely slaked here. Her character despite having received only 33% attention as far as the entire universe (so far) is concerned, has been very fleshed out in this book. 
Anyway, the rest of the story is a chain of tricks, alternatingly pulled in turn by Locke (aided ably by Jean) and Sabetha, to try and benefit the respective parties they’re trying to help win – Deep Roots and Black Iris respectively. The tricks are crafted skilfully by Scott Lynch, in various degrees of complexity – some are elaborate and some are childishly simple, but they never ceased to amaze me, the reader. 
Another thing I loved about the book and something Scott has maintained throughout the trilogy is the seamless shifts between stories of the past and the present. The former is a journey of the Bastards into a theatrical production of a play titled “The Republic of Thieves”, which is, if you’re paying attention, the title of the book. The play itself, with Aurin, Ferrin and Amadin felt like the foreshadowing of the whole plot, a story within the story, if you will. The latter brings into focus the rivalry between Locke and Sabetha, even as they grapple with their feelings for one other. 
And much like how we humans sometimes feel like we’re puppets strung along by invisible forces in this vast drama that is life, Locke, Jean, Sabetha, the parties and the people of Karthain are very much controlled by the all-seeing Bondsmagi of Karthain , primarily ruled by 4 main Archmagi – Archedama Patience, Archedon Providence, Archedama Foresight and Archedon Temperance – and these figureheads have an arc and schemes of their own which we’re slowly led through, the reasons divulged towards the end. 
There are a lot of minor characters introduced in this book, but they serve their purpose as pawns in schemes and they serve it well – nothing more, nothing less. The presence of the Sanza twins, even as characters in flashbacks, was regaling.
The Thorn of Camorr and his Bastard brothers have provided me with a lot of joy and I’ve savored every bit of the story thus far. I look forward to some questions in my mind being answered with the next and possibly final instalment in the series – “The Thorn of Emberlain”.

PS – Look out for the metaphors. Scott loves metaphors.

Subjective Rating: 4.5/5.0.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

On By Abhiram RIn Book Reviews2 Comments

Author : Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows

To,
The Reader of this Review

Date  : 5th June 2019

Dear reader,
Please be warned that there are some spoilers ahead.
That out of the way, I wish to share with you how I felt upon completing this book, an epistolary, and I hope you will not mind the manner in which this review is presented. Reader, please believe me when I say this book found me rather than my seeking it. A dear friend first sent me a link to the trailer for the Netflix movie version late last year and at the time, I remember being charmed by the trailer, although , it quickly slipped my mind. Early this year, someone at my book club meeting mentioned in passing that they’d watched the movie and that it was actually derived from a book and I remember feeling surprised but again, I paid it no further heed and got on with my life. It was only two weeks ago when I was listening to a podcast that one of the speakers spoke about how she’d stopped referring to her Book Club as such and now referred to it as a “Literary Society” after being influenced and enamoured by the book. By now I was very intrigued and on my very next visit to Blossoms, a lovely bookstore here in Bangalore where I reside, I picked up “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” and began reading it the very same day.

And I was hooked. 

My dear reader, I tore through the book as though gripped by a monster who craves nothing else but devour page after page of content. At first, Juliet Ashton, who’s something of a protagonist, I will not lie, struck me as something of a bland character, someone who needed crutches upon which to stand; Sidney Stark and his sister Sophie Strachan being the crutches. Her story begins with her bemoaning the lack of a subject about which to write a book. And as fate would have it, a letter drops onto her lap, sent to her by one Mr. Dawsey Adams of Guernsey, an island in the English Channels. He seeks nothing but to thank the previous owner of a book he possesses – Essays of Elia – and to know more about the author of the book, Charles Lamb. It is in this letter that he also mentions the existence of the literary club that he’s a  founding member of, on Guernsey. An intrigued Juliet writes back to him and informs him of an avenue where he can obtain a copy of the biography of Charles Lamb and this is where the tale picks up steam.

In the meantime, Juliet is also the recipient of a large and incessant amount of flowers from what is revealed to be a wealthy American publisher and an eventual courter of Juliet, Markham V. Reynolds, Jr. What follows is story of collaboration of Juliet with a host of Guernsey inhabitants and members of the Literary Society which seems more tightly knit than that can be said for blood-related families today. And in them, Juliet found more than just a topic for a book. She found friends, some who eventually became family, I suppose. I loved most of the characters , Reader – the supportive Sophie, the feisty Isola, the quiet Dawsey, the capricious Sidney , the troubled Remy and most of all, the invisible yet amazing Elizabeth. Elizabeth was the founder of the Society, dear Reader and she, while never featured in the book as a character with a voice was one of the strongest characters written in a story. The reason I say this is because she’s shown to have had a personality of selflessness. When she quick-wittedly thought of announcing to a German soldier that her group that was outdoors after curfew was in fact a literary society, when she got romantically involved with Christian Hellman, in spite of his German alliance, recognising him for the good man he was, when she slapped Adelaide Addison for being horrid to the children at Guernsey , and when she, with no concern for her own life, stood up for a fellow woman being tortured at the concentration camp she was held captive at. I love the authors for being so brilliant in creating this strong character.I found myself thinking about the unfairness meted to her and I remember my jaw clenching when I realised that she never had the life she deserved. But then I remembered she was simply a character in a book. I smiled to myself at the realisation of the effect the authors had had on me.

Well done.

Over time, and with the passing of the story it seemed to me that I might have judged Juliet Ashton’s character prematurely and somewhat harshly, for she matured. She learnt to have a spine of her own and recognised Mark Reynolds for the bully he was and sent him packing on his way when he proposed marriage to her. She came to be a voice for the people of Guernsey and a provider of more than just communication from London and the world outside Guernsey. She adopted Kit, Elizabeth’s daughter and this is one of the things that ingratiated me most to her. And she, like Elizabeth didn’t hesitate once she was sure of the man she wished to marry and spend her life with, and seeked him out. 

Is there anything I didn’t like about the book? Well, Sidney’s character seemed a little off-putting at times and Mark was absolutely despicable. But I suppose they were integral to the whole thing, so I shall harp upon them no further. 

All in all, I say it again, Reader. I loved this book. It made me feel ..warm. I felt like I was travelling with Juliet every step of the way and I guess that’s how Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece, Annie Barrows intended it. And I urge you to read it as well. 🙂  


Yours,
Abhiram

Subjective Rating: 5.0/5.0.

Sky Album

On By Abhiram RIn Book ReviewsLeave a comment

Author : Anusha Sridharan

I loved it! 

People mention the pros first and then the cons normally. I’ve never been much of a conformist that way. So first, the negative –
Language could do with a little more polish, but given that this is author’s first work, this is largely dismissible, considering the larger number of plus points, which are –
A) Lovely pics that give the words surrounding them a pleasant context.
B) I found myself highlighting multiple paras and insightful observations the author made – for e.g how the sky has emotions as well that it demonstrates by way of the different climactic conditions, how people look at the moon in the sky and talk to it while longing for the special someone etc. 
Brilliant.
C) By the time I was done with it, I was filled with a genuine sense of lightness. This was a very calming book.
Kudos to the author on a first book well written. Looking forward to more works! 😊

Subjective Rating : 4.0 / 5.0

On Cockroaches

On By Abhiram RIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I suck at poems but I try

– Abhiram

We are resilient.

We were here long before you were born, and we will be here, long after you’re gone.

We are intransigent.

We wander into your house like we own it. And in many ways we do.

We are stealthy.

We creep along the sides, on the walls, on the blinds. We whisper to the inner walls of vessels.

We are cautious.

You may catch us unawares, with your stares and your scares. You may scream at the gleam of our hide — you desire it. (Or not.)

We are evasive.

Your presence is not lost on me, but you don’t matter. You may stamp me, you may hurl me, you may wrap me up in that encasing you call a cover. You may squash me , smash me, destroy my shell and my dreams of meeting a lover.

I might die. And that’s alright.

For we were here long before you were born, and we will be here, long after you’re gone.

Thank you MCU :) Endgame.

On By Abhiram RIn MoviesLeave a comment

There are no spoilers here but I have thoughts about the journey I’ve been a part of as a viewer aboard this Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) rollercoaster and I’m going to share a little bit of that here.

Movies are churned out by the hundreds every year. So what makes superhero movies so special? What makes Superheroes special? There is definitely a faction out there that will say “Nothing”, but the vast majority of us, superheroes are a symbol of hope and wonder, the fact that acts are being done by individuals that the rest of us can only…marvel..over. For all the hypocritical beings that we are, we still yearn for personal justice and superheroes seem to provide us that.

For the past 11 years, over 22 movies, the MCU has been giving us just that, perhaps not meeting expectations every time but always leaving us with something to talk about and the characters themselves to visualise as perfect images in our own minds, either in agreement or in criticism of their works.

This movie, Avengers : End Game, is special in that sense, if not for anything else (even though it IS for more reasons) . It marks the end of an era and in an extremely satisfying way. Iron Man both, as a character and as the first movie that started this train off in 2008, has been one of my absolute favourites partly because of our shared affinity to everything tech. Add to that Robert Downey Jr’s charisma and his chemistry with the (again) perfectly-cast Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts and you get one brilliant character. Every scene that they’ve been in since then has been my favourite throughout the years and this movie is no exception.

The mind works in mysterious ways and we as humans have evolved over time to embrace cliffhangers very well – Chris Nolan has left no dearth of training us to accept those as brilliant ends for movies. But what the mind also desires, and subjectively, is happier obtaining, on a parallel vein, is Closure. And Endgame gives us that. When the movie ended after 3 hours, a duration that is long on its face but seemed to fly away in this context, I remember feeling exactly how I’d felt when Logan ended. Like there was a knot in my chest that didn’t seem to want to untie itself.

I’m not going to tell you anything specific about the movie. If you’ve been a fan of the franchise, you’ll watch it and you’ll form opinions about it. But I really hope you love it 🙂

And I guess it’s okay that it’s over. You know? Part of the journey Is the end, after all.

And if nothing else, we will always have Blu-Ray discs to watch and relive it all again.

Writer’s Fatigue

On By Abhiram RIn Philosophy, ThoughtsLeave a comment

We are all writers in a sense – coders write code, digital marketers write Facebook and E-Mail posts and an advocate writes legal proposals or notices. But this article aims to address those who write long form text in order to inform or educate or entertain – either by way of journalistic reports, enthusiastic essays or even casual book or movie reviews.

Both the segments have something to sell – some form of an idea, translated into its end forms. But the latter segment, I’ve found, needs more persistence if they are to be successful in their endeavor. We’ve all heard of “Writer’s block”, that excuse most authors offer up as an excuse to explain their laziness and/or procrastination. And there are a lot of articles on how to overcome this (imaginary) affliction. But relatively less is spoken about how writers end their works. There are some, of course, but the phenomenon is experienced more than it is spoken about. Let’s assume therefore that the writer; a writer, is all gung-ho about what he’s writing and has a solid start and an idea in place; a solid premise with which to begin his work. And he continues putting on paper, so to speak, the words that are taking shape in his mind as he takes context into account of what he has already written. And at some point, when the facts have been laid out and he has said what he has had to say, the crux of the idea, atleast, he pauses. He hasn’t really thought this through. He scratches his head and looks around for inspiration. Maybe some object in his surrounding can be incorporated in his work that will bring him closer to a conclusion. He retraces his steps and reads what he’s already written. Did he miss some logical threads? Did he jump the gun at some point to an unobvious inference? He hasn’t. In the meantime he’s received a ping on his cellphone that prompts him to check on a tweet he’s posted earlier in the day. It’s a response cheering him on. He’s boasted promisingly about how he means to write something concrete by the end of the day. He guiltily slinks back to the minimized document and rests his hand on the keyboard, by now having forgotten where his thoughts wandered off and he rereads the last line. He tries thinking about the original premise again. Should he add an alternate angle to the pot? Will this help him round off the whole thing nicely by stating that all perspectives having been looked at, this is the logical end of the topic in question? Perhaps. He thinks about all the authors he’s read. How did they conclude their works? The last arrow in his quiver – imitation. But even drawing inspiration from that seems laborious. His eyes droop. He yawns. He’s exhausted..his brain cells are slowly shutting down, having thought so much about something that should, ideally, not be so tough to do now that he’s managed to convey his original idea pretty cogently. But, as easy as it should be, the end is, in fact, a very important part of the article. But the writer is tired and he makes up a lazy half-assed conclusion and hits “Publish”. He’s victorious. He has completed his work, hasn’t he? He’s too tired to feel guilty, to acknowledge the gnawing voice in his head that’s telling him he hasn’t done complete justice to what he set out to do.

Another important parameter in this discussion and one that’s even more relevant today than it has ever been is distraction. Humans today have shockingly low attention spans, fueled by smartphones and the Internet and false measures of satisfaction received from hits of dopamine from social networking sites that they think they’ve made contributions to by way of one-line statuses and “microblog” entries. Likes and Reactions and Hearts do nothing to disabuse us of our misguided notions. These excuse for ideas are fleeting and are wasted on the transient content hoarders. Their only purpose is to give us those bursts of “happiness” and are not of any value when ideas have to germinate and grow in our minds. And while there are many thinkers and doers on these websites that do offer up tons of free advice and thoughts that poke and tickle our minds, these effects are again, impermanent and do not leave any lasting traces to better us as individuals. Let’s say you do draw some value. It’s still minuscule compared to what you’re losing out on in the process. This is a massive reason for Writer’s Fatigue.

Paraphrasing a quote that has dated well from when it was originally made, I believe in 1867, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”,most people are told. Maybe they’re friends of this writer. Maybe the journal that’s published his work has some faith in his past works and this article has therefore passed muster. And so, the first network that this writer can reach reads the article. The fact that it starts off strong dripping and showcasing the pinnacle of his enthusiasm is very good. But if, by the time, the reader reaches the end of the article and is not offered the requisite satisfaction, or if his interest has somehow dwindled by the 60 or 70% mark, the writer has quite unambiguously failed in his efforts. He has transferred the idea he wished to convey to the reader, sure. But the idea will not linger. Because it is now clouded with this air of dissatisfaction. If, even by chance, conversations are struck up about this piece of work, it will always have words synonymous with “okay” or “alright” attached to it. And the secondhand narrative will not come off as persuasive as it could have been. A whole second network of readers deprived of an idea all because of the writer’s fatigue; his failure to end his article with the same interest he had started his article with. And this is the damage that “writer’s fatigue” can do.

Is there a solution to this? Is there a way a writer can power ahead and give an article the kind of conclusion it deserves? Will a reader be rewarded for the time he has invested in the article all the way to the bottom of the page?

One of the most obvious solutions is to take a page out of Stephen Covey’s book. He famously remarked – “Begin with the End in Mind“. Easier said than done, yes. But it always helps if you sit and think about the entire draft and not just the meat of the matter, before putting pen to paper.

Another step in the right direction would be to deprive one’s self of all distractions while writing so as to not interrupt the flow of thoughts. In the dozen short stories I’ve written so far, only a couple of them have had satisfying endings, if I say so myself, because they’ve been written with some amount of intense focus, and it shows. The irony that this very post will be shared on the vile aforementioned social networking websites is not lost on me. But I have tried to prevent myself in their usage while working on this post. Attempting to walk the talk, as it were.

If the subject has a conclusion of its own – like the end of a movie or the last page of a book, that’s easier to see as a logical end, but even that shouldn’t be jumped to just because you’re tired of writing. Because, as I’ve already said, a skydiving experience is only blissful, if your parachute opens up and you land safely, gracefully. The alternative is a plunge that no one recovers from. Abstract subjects are less easy to end, but for these, a scope of discussion must be established.

Of course, these aren’t silver bullets and you are ultimately at the mercy of the subject of what you’re writing about, the amount of practice you’ve had and your own mind. I’m learning how to overcome it consistently myself. But I hope this atleast helps address the issue if not resolve it.

Maybe this isn’t a satisfying end to this article either.

Maybe it is.

What do you think? Have you faced Writer’s Fatigue? If yes, what’s your way of tackling it?

Red Seas under Red Skies

On By Abhiram RIn Book ReviewsLeave a comment

Author : Scott Lynch

Disclaimer 1 – SPOILER ALERT
Disclaimer 2 – I had no frame of reference for comparison in the previous book. This time I do. And I intend to make full use of the privilege. There will be multiple references to “The Lies of Locke Lamora”, hereby abbreviated TLoLL.


I started this as soon as I was done with book #1 in the Gentleman Bastard series and that’s saying something about how captivated the first book’s world building left me that I didn’t want to get out of it. This, the 2nd book in the series was very good as well. Did I like it as Much as I did Book 1? No. But it still stood well on its own. Feels familiar to how Well of Ascension was in comparison to The Final Empire (Mistborn #2 and #1 respectively.)
If TLoLL had us following Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen solely on land, this time their time was distributed between both land and sea. The book opens to a present-scene of confrontation and double-crossing (Scott Lynch wastes no time) and then we’re taken to a time when their previous story ended and this one began – aboard a ship sailing for Tal Verrar from Camorr. As in TLoLL, here as well, we have multiple timelines being narrated – a timeline of preparation for their activities and setting the stage for the “play” they mean to enact around unsuspecting characters and another timeline 2 years hence where the trickery is afoot. The main antagonists, so to speak, are Requin & Selendri and Maxilan Stragos and Merrain.
Initially all Locke and Jean wanted to do was hoodwink Requin at the Sinspire and escape, but they find themselves unwillingly at the mercy of Stragos after the latter poisons them and enlists them as his contractors, giving them the task of stirring up trouble from the seas and bringing back piracy to Tal Verrar, so that he, Stragos could defeat them using his navy and seem victorious in the eyes of the city, so as to seem in control as opposed to his current shunted standing. This puts quite the dent in Locke and Jean’s plans, so they have to improvise their plans to factor this new development and Locke decides to do what he does best – pretend to be a double agent, trying to gain the favors of Requin to beat Stragos, who the Master of the Sinspire does not like either. 
Following this brief bit of initial setup on land, the duo are sent to sea to pretend Captain and First Mate of a ship called The Red Messenger, assisted and directed behind the scenes by an actual seamaster, Caldris. Unfortunately Caldris dies while they are at sea and they are found out by the crew and mutinied. 
This is the first of admittedly very few hints of convenience I felt Scott Lynch exploited as he introduced Captain Drakasha and her ship, the very people who the Archon needed as pawns for his plan, into the mix, with no real struggle on Locke and Jean’s part except a few hours of sailing on a boat.
Aside from that and a couple other mild issues, I felt the overall plot was well done and tied together. The finesse of TLoLL was missing as was a lot of the banter and Father Chains, Calo, Galdo and Bug were missed. There was also a gaping hole in the non-usage of an “ally” they picked up as they were training for their tower-jumping escapade at The Sinspire. But I’m sure that was a calculated move.

Locke had set himself up to be the primary antihero in TLoLL. Here we see Locke a lot in the background as compared to Jean. Then again, this can be argued to be a plot feature illustrating Locke’s mood and possible post-trauma effects inflicted upon him because of his losses and his wounds. To that end, the romance between Jean and Ezri Delmastro and the focus on their relationship was a pleasant introduction and read; not at all overly mushy as these scenes tend to be. What I also liked was how Scott gave the series a strong female character in Drakasha. I loved the chapters where was in focus and her way of balancing a ship as well as her role as a mother. The touch of insistence that a cat and a woman were necessary for a smooth sailing and several minute details were also very welcome.


One thing I noticed particularly was how we see Stragos’ mind at work in one of the chapters – his perspective was given importance. We’ve been used to seeing only the protagonists’ perspectives thus far. This also set the tone for Merrain as a far more important player than she portrayed herself to be, which was evident when she escaped despite Jean and Locke’s efforts and plans. 
Another thing that I loved was the consistency in the relationship between Jean and Locke; they remained thick as …well..thieves throughout, even with that one minor argument they had that they bounced back from relatively quickly, ego suppressed and all that. Well done. And Locke’s act in the final scene was lovely. Sealed the deal and all that.

I won’t tell you how the book ends for two reasons – If you’ve read it, you already know. And if you haven’t, I’d rather you discover this bit for yourself. I can’t rob you of that pleasure even if you did sign up for the spoilers.

I’m definitely looking forward to reading The Republic of Thieves for 3 reasons – The Bondsmagi of Karthain, Sabetha’s arc and to see if Locke escapes the clutches of death again.

PS – Learnt a lot about ships and nautical terms in this book. Good, that.

Subjective Rating: 4.0/5.0.

J is for Jealousy [#AtoZChallenge]

On By Abhiram RIn AtoZChallenge, Short-Story, The Subbu Chronicles1 Comment

Subbu’s jaw dropped.

“And I got this for my last birthday”, Mani said as he produced a white, shiny Hot Wheels car. “And this one was for my previous 95 out of 100 in Social Studies”. Another item emerged from the bag that seemed to hold an infinite supply of toys – this time a GiJoe. It was the short break hour and Mani had decided to exhibit his collection atop Prema ma’am’s table that day to his huddled group of gawking, incredulous classmates. “Mani”, Subbu asked when he finally found his voice, “What does your father do?”. This endowment of seemingly hundreds of toys could only be justified if Mani’s father owned a toy shop. “Don’t you know da?”, Mani asked with a mixture of condescension and genuine puzzlement, “Your father and my father are colleagues at the same company.”. The knot in Subbu’s chest tightened and he found himself looking at the bench lost in thought about the unfairness being meted out to him by life, his parents and everyone. He had scored a lot of 95s as well. Mostly in English, but it counted, didn’t it? He was shaken from his reverie by Murugan who was by now staring daggers at Mani. “He thinks he’s some sort of big shot just because he has more toys than us. We’ll see who’s smiling when something goes missing.”. Subbu didn’t like the glint in Murugan’s eyes but he didn’t want to antagonise his friend, so he meekly nodded hoping his face didn’t betray his conscience.  Mani had just finished displaying a tiny He-Man eraser (that held in an outstretched plastic hand a small, but sharp plastic sword of sorts, sharp enough to prick any of Subbu’s mental balloons of happiness, if any were left), when Prema ma’am walked into the classroom and Mani hastily replaced all the objects back into his “akshayapatra” of a bag and the rest of them hurriedly took their places in their seats.

Later during lunch, Subbu spotted Mani frantically looking for something. He had an inkling as to what might have happened but he innocently went and asked the worried boy, “Mani, are you searching for something?”. Mani looked up ashen-faced at Subbu and said, “My brand new kaleidoscope, Subbu. Have you seen it?”. Subbu thought Murugan might have something to do with this missing tube of mirrors but he shook his head vigorously…perhaps a little too vigorously, for Mani surveyed him for a few seconds as though the location of the missing cylinder was marked with an “X” on Subbu’s forehead, before resuming his search under the desks. The latter stayed there a few more minutes watching the former struggle before sympathetically patting him on his back and walking away. 

As he moved away from the seeker he saw Murugan, standing a few benches away, looking at Mani with a satisfied expression on his face. “See how he pitifully searches for his Parker Pen”, he smirked with a whisper once Subbu was within earshot. Subbu furrowed his eyebrows – “Parker ..Pen?” he thought, but not aloud. “Now Mani has lost two items, only one of which he has noticed missing”, he brooded. “Subbu?”, Murugan enquired, “Do you think we should keep it for ourselves or break it?”. Subbu frowned. Of course, he had been jealous of how many more things Mani had and maybe a tiny part of him had revelled at the thought of Mani grappling with the loss of one of his prized possessions that he had “shown off”, but was he, Subbu, an evil person? What would Harry Potter do? He pondered the paths his heroes from fiction and mythology might take if faced with such moral questions and decided with a resolve as a wave of shame washed over him – “No”, and prepared himself to patronise Murugan for his action; but the thief had vanished out of sight and Subbu’s eyes wandered back to a still worried-looking Mani. He walked back to the bemoaner and said with the tone of a savior, “Don’t worry Mani, I’ll help you find your pen…err..telescope.”, he corrected himself as Mani looked at him quizzically. “Kaleidoscope”, he was corrected. Subbu adopted a loftier expression all the while muttering to himself about having overcome jealousy and being the bigger man and yet being corrected by ungrateful monsters. As he bent under the desk himself, he wondered if he should bring up the topic of adequate compensation with his parents and ran a possible scenario over in his head about how that conversation with his father might go –

He would gingerly broach the topic – “Appa, Mani had brought 4 HotWheels cars today.”
Appa would remark only partially listening – “Mm Hmm.”
He would repeat the premise for father’s benefit.
Appa would feign interest this time and look at him as if to wonder why this sentence was being posed to him.
Then he would ask for an increase in number of cars for himself and let the chips fall where they may. He had no idea how Appa would react to this new man with a spine, but he was prepared to try, for justice’s sake.

For the second time that day, he jerked back to reality only to notice that he had wandered off to the opposite row of benches on his knees, all the while, trying to look for Mani’s kaleidoscope, obviously unsuccessfully. As he prepared to abandon the search, he spotted a glint of something shiny by the trash can situated at the left end of Prema ma’am’s table. He rushed to it and picked it up even as it came undone in his hand, the glass pieces smashed to smithereens. It would seem that in Mani’s haste to pick up his things, this tube had fallen to the ground and scattered. He brought the remnants of the tube and the bad news back to Mani. The boy took one look at the glass pieces and started weeping profusely, spluttering pieces of speech from which Subbu gathered that Mani had had to sweep the entire house to get his Appa to buy him this what-was-once-a-fine-bangle-piece-displayer. Subbu felt even more sympathetic towards this boy and thought he should probably, at this point, not add insult to injury by enquiring if Mani had noticed anything else missing from his Bag of Wonders. By this time, two more of their classmates had arrived by Mani’s side and had begun consoling him. Subbu felt confident about the moral support Mani was receiving and decided to confront Murugan immediately, chide him, maybe teach him a lesson or two about the virtues of honesty and the horridness of jealousy and get the pen back to Mani before the latter even discovered its loss – surely the poor boy had suffered enough already.

His thoughts and actions were interrupted by Prema ma’am walking in again with an expression of what he could only surmise was absolute rage. She slammed the notebooks she was holding onto her table and dust from 1947 rose up to fill the air in the classroom, it seemed.

“Everyone take your bags and keep them on your desks”, she said, in an icy tone. Subbu blinked and looked around at his classmates who looked equally clueless.

“One of you has stolen my Parker Pen and I’m going to find out who.”

The Lies of Locke Lamora

On By Abhiram RIn Book ReviewsLeave a comment

Author : Scott Lynch

I find myself shaking my head in amazement, shuddering as I write this. This was one hell of a journey. I started this having finished a few Sanderson books and my head was full of magic systems and I somehow led myself to believe that this book was along those same lines. But as I started reading and finding no hints of any visible sorcery (atleast in the first half), I thought I would be disappointed, but the disappointment never came. I just felt more and more sucked in with each passing page.
Right from the get-go in fact, when “Father” Chains is introduced to the would-be Thorn of Camorr, the grasp of a promised-roller coaster held on tight and never let go. Locke’s weaving in and out of disguises as Lucas Fehrwright, a Midnighter and everything in between, and his camaraderie with the Gentleman Bastards – Calo, Galdo, Bug and Jean was everything I could have wanted in a book if not more. All the minor and “boss” antagonists (Conte, the Capas )are given a believable amount of power and matched well against the protagonists which is more than I can say for many other books which leave you feeling a sense of disbelief at the protagonist’s sudden victory or his/her unfair ease.
Scott Lynch’s writing style of alternating between the present-day-plot and the trainings-in-the-past make for an interesting experience as well. Over the chapters you come to recognise that what he talks about as an episode or a learning in the past will be relevant almost immediately in the chapters to come as an instrument in the present. The language is very rich as well. At many times I found myself marvelling over the exquisite (yet not overly grandiose) construction of sentences.
The story is compelling on its own merit as well, even without the rich characters and detailed world building (Shades Hill, Perelando etc) . We start off with the fleshing of characters, followed by a well crafted masterplan of theft, all of which pale smoothly when you realise what the story is really about – Revenge. 

I loved it.

Favorite quotes –

(Reveal)
Such was the custom with every note that was sealed in blue with nothing but the stylized sigin of a spider for its credentials. : Chapter 9

(Revenge)
“When you see the Crooked Warden,” said Locke, twisting something in his hands, “tell him that Locke Lamora learns slowly, but he learns well. And when you see my friends, you tell them that there are more of you on the way.” : Chapter 10

(Healing)
“You are learning that what you require and what your frame may endure can be two very different things.” : Chapter 12

Subjective rating: 5.0/5.0