Review - Game of Thrones - Season 3 Episode 5 (SPOILER ALERT )

"KISSED BY FIRE"

Episode 4 continues to be my favorite episode in this season thus far.

As promised, Sandor Clegane was given the fair "trial by combat" against Beric Dondarrion , which he won ,much to Arya's disappointment (and mine :-/) . But I remain hopeful since "The Lord of Light isn't done " with him yet.

It was interesting to see the fiery side of Robb Stark .The "wolf" in him finally made an appearance and slayed the Karstark traitor who murdered the Lannister boys purely for vengeance :-/

Jaim'e Lannister recounting his tale of why he killed the mad king was touching. I felt as much pity for him as I had felt hatred prior to this.

Jon Snow and Ygritte finally heat up things in the icy cave and thus, the vow is broken.

Daenerys Targaryen freeing the men again seemed slightly redundant. But I suppose it was necessary to provide a segway for the Unsullied soldier to appreciate her noble act.

Stannis Baratheon's daughter, Shireen makes an appearance in this episode and she's known to have had a friendly relationship with Ser Davos, who she attempts to teach to read. A heart-warming scene.

Ser Loras Tyrell cannot keep his natural instincts at bay and succumbs to the charms of one of Petyr Baelish's spies (Olyvar).

But the real kicker comes at the end, in the form of a one-sided discussion between Tywin, Tyrion and Cersei, where Tywin decides that Tyrion would marry Sansa. Cersei 's smug and amused expression at this declaration is short-lived as Tywin immediately declared that Cersei would marry Loras Tyrell :D :D

Overall, a decent episode describing the events well. But the previous episode had set the standard pretty high ,of which, this one fell short.

Why is reading so awesome?

I wouldn't normally blog unless I had some serious motivation. But I have recently taken up answering questions on Quora as a hobby. So I've decided to post some of the answers I post there, here as well ; killing two birds with one stone, so to speak :)

Question - Why do people who love reading love it so much?

I started reading at an early age,initially beginning with Grimm's Fairy Tales (ages 5-7) and then moving on to the then-popular Amar Chitra Katha series.

And people ask me why I'm so into mythology. Pfft.

 Every weekend, my mum would take me to the library and we would both read. She would dive into the likes of Shakespeare and such (books I could not comprehend at the time) and I would skip on to the children's section to pick up an Enid Blyton or R.L.Stine (a 10-year old's Stephen King :P ) . To me, that was just..bliss..

Paul Theroux said - "'Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us"  

And I believe that is a 100% true. Because, as a 10-year old, I honestly could never even dream of spending my summers on an island in a lighthouse, or digging up ancient runes or fighting in a war with arrows that could shoot flame or ..you get the picture .. :) But, the point is , reading about all these gave me the ability to conjure up mental pictures of such magical things that would not/ could not practically exist. 

I love reading, because it transports me to worlds beyond this world. And throughout my life, just from my bedside, I've travelled both in time and space- to Medieval Rome , Hogwarts (Muggles,click here)   the ruin that is Mordor - to name a few and recently , I've shifted my residence to King's Landing in Westeros. :P

To whoop with joy when the protagonist succeeds , to curse under your breath when the antagonist gets away with a perfect crime, to shed a tear when a beloved character dies, to ponder with empathy when the scene turns sombre , and to realise that all this is happening inside your mind, to characters you have conjured up just by reading their intricately-woven, precise description by the author, that is the kind of satisfaction only books can give you. :)

P.S : Granted, I've only spoken about fiction here, but then again, that Is my most favorite genre :)

Review - Game of Thrones - Season 3 Episode 4 (SPOILER ALERT )

I positively loved it :) Daenerys' revelation as being able to speak Valyrian and freeing The Unsullied and yet having their support was a scene that's burnt into my mind much like Kraznys mo Nakloz  (the previous master of the soldiers) was burnt alive by the dragon . :D 

I particularly rejoiced with vicarious sadistic pleasure at Jaime Lannister's misery (I still cannot get over the fact that he pushed a mere 10-year old Bran  out the window so mercilessly).

The riot in Craster's Keep was expected,given his hedonistic ways . But the way it escalated so aggressively was a little surprising.

Bran's dream had been a solo-event all this while. With the introduction of Catelyn, it's not long before he remembers who was really responsible for his life-long crippling. 

Overall,one of the best episodes so far. Waiting with bated-breath to watch how the rest of it is captured from book-to-show.

"Dracarys"

The Gambler's Remorse

He had it all..he lost it all..

In the blink of an eye..He could do nothing but sigh..

He knew what he'd done

He knew how it'd begun..

It wasn't expected though..But his regret he didn't show...

He walked back from the tracks..
Slowly,he was in no hurry..
But he gradually picked up his pace..
Coz' back home was a family that would worry..

All the while he thought about how he'd explain
That fatal last bet..the reason for his pain..
Why didn't he stop when he was on a roll?
Why did he dig himself into a hole?

Immersed in his thoughts..He'd walked more than a mile..
He didn't really know how far...He'd been lost for a while..
He reflected on his past..All the mistakes he'd made.
He debated taking his life..But only cowards die..The brave ones stayed..

He vowed that day,never to gamble again..
All they'd given him was an irremovable stain..
He'd turn his life around..He'd atone for his sin..
He'd care for every penny..A  new chapter would begin..

"F"acebook. F-ing more and more people everyday.

It was the summer of 2003. I had just completed my 8th standard exams and my end-of-term vacations were on :) The rare months of the year,when you actually got to do what you LIKED.

At that time, at that age, I was just beginning to discover "The wondrous world of Harry Potter". So all day I would sit and read those books,over and over ..imagining every page coming to life..aaaah...Good times...And in the evenings,I would go out to play Badminton,running around ,having bicycle-races and "exploring" our locality with my neighbors....I LIKED doing those things.

When somebody asked me,"Hey Abhi...So, now,that you have holidays,what do you LIKE doing? "..I could tell them all the things I just told you..And more.. I could tell them, "I Like collecting stamps"..or "I Like playing video games"..Funnily enough, "I Like watching TV" was never on my list in those days :D Seems like a weird,oh-so-long-ago time.

By now you're probably thinking,"Oookay grandpa...where are you going with this? :-/ Also..what is with highlighting the word 'LIKE'?"...

I'm going to answer those questions,with a question of my own...What does the word "Like" mean to you now???

(And please..Spare me the romantic sentiments. In that context,"like" has always meant the same. :P)

I feel the word "Like" has been thrown around too much in our day-to-day-lives, primarily by one soul-sucking entity:

You see,unfortunately, Facebook has killed the whole spirit and meaning of Liking things and activities by making EVERYTHING "like"-able. 

>Oh,so you think that pic is nice?  "Like" it.

>That comment made fun of someone you secretly hate? "Like" it.

>Aww...that video with the baby talking to the monkey is totally adorable innit? "Like" it :-/

There was a time when the very essence of you liking something MEANT something. It meant that you favored it over everything else. But now..people go day in and day out "liking" things on Facebook and the very charm of that special word, is lost.

I'm no exception to this madness. According to my Facebook profile ,I "like" over a thousand things. And this new knowledge is so overwhelming that when an acquaintance asks me "So..what do you like doing in your free time?", I'll be, consciously,forced to say.."Well, I like Liking things on Facebook. So if you look at all the things I've Liked, you should probably get a sense of what I like and don't like." The flaw in this very elaborately worded sentence is that, the list of things I've mindlessly liked on Facebook, is so exhaustive and conveniently spread over a span of 3 years,that I don't even Like more than half the things on that list anymore!!!!!! And I'm just too lazy to un-Like the pages I actually don't like anymore. And if my addiction to Facebook is any indication, I'm not going to stop liking pages. 

The end result of this madness is that, in around a decade, I'll be left with a list of pages I've Liked,90% of which will be a lie. This is true for each and every one of us who is consciously or inadvertently hooked onto Facebook. Every minute spent in "Like"-ing something tangible ,is a minute wasted ,which could have otherwise been spent on actually going out and enjoying that thing you like ,for real :) :-/

 So..I ask you people..Where is the like? Where..is..the..like? :-/

Coming to another seemingly-trivial,but vital  issue, I'd like to hint on a couple of predictions for our monitor-induced "glow"rious social-networking future:

• There will be de-addiction clinics to help us. You've heard of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). But wait for it. Because there will be, an FBA (FaceBook-ers Anonymous).And  the people running it will be the very creators of Facebook. This seems like a very viable and profitable business option since 

                    a)Facebook's share-value is dropping everyday and yet,
                    b)The number of people getting addicted to said site is increasing everyday.

• Opticians will rule the planet. This must seem fairly obvious. As most of my age-group spends most of their day bent over a computer screen, and since "we are the future", a sizable amount of our finances will be used to aid our vision to further spoil our vision. This will no doubt result in far more trips to opticians by far more of our deluded population. Aaaaaaand,hence the new regime.
  (If you're reading this blog post with some difficulty,my prediction is already coming true :P)

I realize that it must be awfully hypocritical of me to use a site I so blatantly vilified , to advertise this post. So I'm grudgingly required to add this disclaimer:

I am not against Facebook for all purposes that will benefit me in any way. If I speak ill of it,it is only in a light sense ..and also in an honest manner to convey the inevitable. :P 

Oh well...."Que sera sera" (Whatever will be, Will be)...

So..... 

I'mmm going to go like some more pages on Facebook now :P :D

BRAVERY..Part-I

We lead fearful lives. Day-in and day-out. We're afraid to lose, to fail, to cry; afraid of pain, of rejection ,of sorrow, of heart-break, of theft, of death..The point is, we lead fearful lives.

And to what end? Is it that, by being afraid of these things, we overcome them?

NO.. In fact, we spend so much time pondering about the various negative effects, that formulating a sure-shot way of achieving positive results is something we often never get time to do.

And we more often than not, end up facing the very things we're most scared of.

No more. I think it is time that ,we as individuals realize that  fear of failure is the biggest obstacle in our path to success.

My friends will know of this incident. I have bored them with an overview of it many times. But I'd like to repeat it here,because it was an incident in my life that was truly a humbling moment for me. It deals with failure , how I hoped never to get there ,how that's exactly where I got and how I got out of it.

It was in my 5th semester of engineering. It was a subject I told myself I loved (haha). It was also the subject I neglected studying the most because frankly, the textbook seemed voluminous by itself. (The fact that the contents were utterly boring is a different thing) . So, days became months, and I procrastinated . So much so, that it was 0000 hrs 14th December 2009 and I had covered half a chapter out of the 14 chapters I had in my portions for the exam that very same day at 1400 hours.

 I felt brave.  Now I know that was just stupidity masquerading as bravery masking practicality.

And surely as the rest of the semester had passed with me disinterested in the subject, the remaining 12-and-a-half ours before the exam faded. And there I sat in the examination hall forced between a topper and a genius (not exclusive),the idiot who did not know yet that bravery was not about writing an exam with absolutely nothing in mind. The question papers were distributed and I remember a zillion thoughts racing through my head at that point (none of them related to the subject..how helpful) . I remember thinking how wonderful it would have been if I hadn't wasted time celebrating my birthday just two days ago. I remember thinking how helpless I felt when I saw words on the paper I had never encountered in the subject (That was pretty obvious..considering..) . I even remember fantasizing about how awesome it would be to just fly out of the examination hall on the broomstick that lay by the classroom door, Harry Potter style.

SO, I resorted to the one thing all helpless students do.. "Psst..", I called out to the guy in front of me, desperate that he hear me, hopeful that the invigilator wouldn't. That was the only point of time I was successful at in those 3 hours in that examination hall. Because try as that helpful guy in front of me might, I could not, for the life of me , fathom what clues he was giving me on his answer sheet for three reasons :


 a) I was not skilled at the art of copying just yet.
 b) I hadn't worn my glasses and could not distinctly make out what he was writing
 c) I wasn't really familiar with the subject enough to unravel the seemingly complex clues he was trying            to pass me.

Yay me.

 I soon got bored of  unsuccessfully trying to finish the exam by the only means that seemed obvious just then..unfair..I left the exam hall in 40 minutes, with my classmates staring at me in awe. If only  they knew how pathetic I felt just then. 

Clueless morons. 

To be fair, I was the only moron right then and there. Because as stats would soon show, around 99.8% of the department had passed in that subject . The proudest moment of my life (Surely you can read the sarcasm there :/).

The results soon came and needless to say, there it was. The alphabet that continues to mock students around the globe ,had made an appearance on my report card. It's almost like it said ..'F' YOU!, serves you right. 

The amount of shame I felt in those days was insurmountable. Because in my culture, you do not go by the motto "If you've never failed, you've never lived." . My parents had never heard of that .(Or at-least they pretended never to have). And I had failed. For the first time in my 14.5 years of academia, I had failed. And I felt miserable.

  I spent days after that flipping through the haunted pages of that book that I had neglected, hoping for a glimpse of valid explanation for why I hadn't paid more attention to those pages. One besides the sorry excuse of "It's boring". I found none.

I even applied for a re-evaluation of my paper,telling myself they must have been valued by a bunch of tea-sipping idiots who took out their anger at their wives by drowning our fates in those tea cups (trying to buy my way out of the shame, as it were). Turns out they were pretty resolute about unwittingly wanting to teach me the price for not studying enough.

The sixth semester exams arrived .My second battle against the same enemy . This time I was prepared ;or rather better prepared than the last time. I cleared the paper, and my name. ("Too little, too late" ,my mum maintained . But I was relieved.)

I learnt a very important lesson from the whole incident:

Bravery isn't about performing an act of rebellion or about breaking the rules.

It's about not being afraid to do the right thing when such an occasion calls for it.

I thought studying just 12 hours before the exam was a warrior-like thing to do. Almost God-like. Most students still do that. Heck, I still do that.

But it doesn't work out all the time. If only I had been brave enough to face it ahead of time and not shirk away like a coward till the last moment, perhaps I could have avoided the whole situation altogether. But I do not regret learning from my mistake.

That said, fear of failure should not be a reason to not attempt something. Except in the rare case of an academic exam where failure is sometimes inevitable when you are not prepared, there are other cases where adversity brings out the best in you . And you should be brave enough to take that chance. "A leap of faith".

Feeling limerick-ish- :D

Left home this mornin' with a dream and a smile,
Prayed to God to let it last for a while;
Little did I know,God had different plans in mind,
When he made me leave my house keys behind...

Came back home to an unpredictably locked door,
My dad wasn't home,my mum was at the store;
All I could do was sit n wait on the floor,
This wasn't part of the dream, I wasn't smiling any more :P :D

#Nonsensical_Verses #Forwards_and_Reverses :P

"We R who we R"

[ YAAAAWNNNN (Stretch)..Been loong since my last blog. My sincere gratitude to an idiotic singer for her thought provoking title and an unnamed friend for boring me with the rave that it rocks-You know who you are ;) :P ]

Yes,the title is inspired by (and ripped off from) one of Ke$ha's singles; and No,the following content is of no relevance to the song (as I haven't heard it yet) . Now, I've always been one to admire the wisdom that philosophers of yore have provided us,
"A bird in hand is worth two in the bush",
"All that glitters isn't gold",
"Early to bed,early to rise" ,etc etc.
All these great proverbs are meant to guide; to lay down a path on with to follow with seemingly,healthy results. All these years,I believed this to be true (even though I've paid heed to very few of them). But...Ke$ha in her usual,odd and weird way has unwittingly triggered a thought in my head with this song of her's (again,just the title). "We R who we R" . Regardless of everrrything that we SHOULD be doing, at the end of the day, we are who we are! Based on the kind of personality embedded in our brain,we are either
followers (people who have no mind of their own and do what other people do),
leaders (nutjobs who have a god-complex and believe what they do to be right heedless of the consequences . eg. our government )
and
(there's no term what these people are called,so I'm going to call them) "feaders" (people who neither lead nor follow at times,and sometimes do a bit of both..oh wait,maybe I should have called them "lost").

Anyhoo,these are just 3 categories of many more subsets of people.
So,first off,ask yourself. Where do you belong?
Do you have that individualistic streak? Can you rise to the occasion when it calls? Or do you look to your side for confirmation for that which you think is right?

Here's a "poem" of sorts I made to illustrate my point.

There once was a guy a long time ago,
Who took too long to think,
He would scratch his head so often,
And more than talk,just blink.
He worked on a ship as a captain,
Where all they did all day,
Was look at the skies and the seas and the sun,
And at night just sit and drink.
Once there came a storm so fierce,
Everybody ran here and there!
And this guy took too long to save
his ship,so it could do nothing but sink.

This guy,took too long to make a snap sink-or-swim judgement and it lost him his crew and his ship! Are you that guy?
So,next time you look in the mirror,ask yourself. Can you save your ship? Don't laugh. It's a metaphor.
But I'm not saying you can always save your ship. One of my favorite sayings is "Be a Roman in Rome". This one tells us to do what the crowd does,blend in,follow etiquette, and all that. It's up to you to decide when you have to be "that Roman".

"We R who we R". But it's never late to change,if who you "R" is not who you want to be.(Okay,that just sounded like a line from a song).

All said and done,I believe,the time to do some soul-searching is now. or maybe after you listen to that Ke$ha song...Whichever. :)

Abhiiisevil...and out :)

(HAHAAHAHAAHHAHAHAHA...)^∞

Disclaimer for people who judge a book by its cover and a blog by its title:
This is NOT a funny blog full of jokes which will make your sides split,your tummy ache and your jaw break. Or maybe it is,depending on what gets you going. This,is me,talking about laughter and comedy,how it originated,how everybody enjoyed it,loved it..and ruined it..[How? You'll see.]

Comedy (from the Greek: κωμῳδία, kōmōidía) as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy.(Copied with no second thoughts,from Wikipedia-The world's largest Cafe "Copyee" Day).

Man by nature,is a complex being ,with emotions as many as the number of ripples in an ocean (and before you go all mathematical on me,I'm speaking metaphorically). Laughter is one of them,and a very essential one at that.

So,ever wondered what the firrrst-joke-ever could have been?

I imagine it would have been this:

God created the Earth and eventually Adam and Eve and the First apple tree.

So Eve spots it first and runs to it and grabs the First(and only) apple.

So Adam says : (again guessing this is what he must have said and yes,I made him part-Australian,part-Irish)

"Eve mayte,how about we split that Apple aye?" ..
And she says (Punchline:) "Haha,good one Adam :D".

And thats how she gave birth to laughter..you know..before she gave birth to the rest of the humans..Whatever..

So we've established the origin of our emotion in question.

Laughter and the spirit of laughing has evolved over time,aided by the following :

1) Cavemen who doodled on their cave walls,hit their friends on the head with stones and laughed at their misery (which is now called "Schadenfreude" btw ..It's German..for sadistic bastard..okay,I made that last bit up).

2)Ridiculous-costume-wearing-people-in-the-Medieval-ages (who were made fun of a lottt).

3) Towards the end of the Medieval time,in 1392 to be precise,came the advent of April Fool's Day.

This marked a historic moment for fools present everywhere in the world and for fools in the future generations to come.(Don't kid yourself.You know you wait eagerly for it every year,as soon as the last week of March sets in.)

4)From the 1400's to the 1900's,it was a very solemn and serious time..You know..with the wars and people-trying-to-conquer-lands and all. Nobody really had any time for fooling around,pranking blah..Hitler never ended his sentence- "The Jews must go." with the sentence "The juice must flow."..Sad,coz people never got to die laughing.

But thats where we Indians take the cake. [Proud salute] .Granted,ours was a country with conflicts so many,that the rest of the world looked very happy from where we were standing..bickering..fighting..[For more details,recall your painful high-school years where you had to memorize a billion dates of when who fought whom,where and over what.] Butttt,we still had those two witty people everybody loves.You know who I'm talking about-Birbal and Tenali Raman! The two shining gems ->jems -> jemsters -> jesters of India who made everybody laugh on TV and in books (coz we don't know for a fact that they existed).

5) And now,we come to the 20th and 21st century, where humor and comedy really branched out,sprouted wings and took flight in the form of funny conversations,television shows,stand-up comedy and humorous writing [ ;) wink] among other things. We humans have understood that these emotions,born of happiness (and Eve) can be a great way to pass time enjoyably and also,in some cases,make money!! (And who wouldn't like to enjoy and yet make money?!)

But..every coin has two sides to it..And sadly,so does this..i'm going to call it "The Happathetic Syndrome":

All the terms mentioned up till now- comedy, humor,laughter etc have evolved to a whole new level..coz apparently,now we have "types" of humour that "we" prefer!A respected wevbsite, [I shall not name for the sake of anonymity and bad-mouthing. Aenh,what do I care?!]

Orkut asks new users to update their preference of humour [as if,it is going to publish jokes of that variety on our page everyday.This wouldn't be an issue if it were true.] and classifies them into the following-

-->Goofy,[yeah,coz I like Walt Disney a lot]

-->Campy,[uh..what?]

-->Cheesy[coz either I'm a dumb chick who doesn't get hit on very much or I'm a glutton who loves cheese on everything I eat],

-->Dry,[coz I'm a camel]

-->Friendly,[I'm on a Social Networking site coz I like friendly humor...That didn't even make sense]

-->Obscure..[enough said..this is painful]..

See what I mean by Man ruining humor? .

Also,we have what people call "adult-jokes" or "non-veg" humor which have taken the sms-world and the web-world by storm.This is a slur on the pure,untainted face of this emotion.True,we humans,sick as we are, all have our guilty pleasures.But this is also an issue to be concerned about and given the option I would put this on the same scale as Global Warming.This is Global Jarming people [Global Joke+Harming] .We need to stop making sick jokes.And if I'm bumming you out,I would advise you to scroll back to the top and read from the beginning where..you know..you weren't..bummed out.

The last thing I'd like you to ponder upon is on the topic of our health.We all want to stay fit.Now if you're thinking,"Oh what does he know? I gym everyday,do yoga for at least 15 minutes and get a check-up done every month." ,you're an idiot for haemorrhaging cash on meds everytime you fall sick.. 'coz as we all know...

"Laughter is the BEST medicine" ..

Oh,And btw,if you're thinking this was the most ridiculous entry you've ever read,please remember that you just wasted 4 minutes of your life reading it.So..haha..

The "joke" is on you :P :D...

Keep laughing (just a smile works too) :)

Abhiiisevil..and out..

Sooooo....Ive felt the urge to blog..again...

It hurts...stings..itches...this rash ive got after being bitten by the writing bug for the second time..

Alright fine.Honestly? This ,whatever im doing right now,is actually just a way of getting away from my routine day of assignments and records and college (which seems like 99% of what my daily life has gotten reduced to now).Now you're probably thinking this is going to be another account-of-how-boring-some-guy's-life is right? I'm not going to lie to you;it might seem like that's exactly what this is..
Alrightie.. So,today,in my first endeavor, I intend to talk about time management..and how i'm not doing it...

They say :
Early to bed,early to rise;Makes a man (or woman..i'm not sexist),healthy,wealthy and wise..

And then there's :
The early bird always catches the worm..



Me on the other hand...


Yeah...I tend to do that...
And another popular quote people kiiinda happen to notice but never really care for on roads? You know the one..You've seen it..You've rolled your eyes at it....
---Speed thrills,but kills...

Normal people who 've woken up like in the image #1:
















Annnnd then,there's me...before the fall...only,imagine an Access instead of a superbike...and no helmet on head...




Looks cool hunh...waiit for it....CRRRRRRRRRASH!





That's what over-speeding leads to...I'm slower now..Okay,maybe not...But I AM safer...

Moving on...

The #1 image guy/girl's reached college safe ...We know that...

So,some guy paying attention and participating in class would probably be like this -




He's awake..Yes..
But Iii haven't slept all night...Im night -guy...Being morning guy sucks...so there's ME in class...




Okay,I've had enough of pictures...The day goes on as usual..I get bored to death..blah blah..

The moral is --
Time management's a necessary evil..We may deny it for all it's worth..
Possible arguments: (few of which I've employed in the past) :
1) I do things MY way!!!
2) Time management's for sl- o-w-ldies!! [Read slow-oldies] ..
3) A watch? What's that? A guy's excuse for a bangle?
4) Come onn dude,we've got all the time in world !! [A dummy's version of procrastination]


The point is..they dont work... What always works is a proper plan set into motion to perfection..well,near perfection...


I've learnt something here...And I feel obliged to pass it on to my fellow bloggers and humans [humans???? okay..too "worldly"..whatever]


Time's money :) Money buys us icecream...Icecream's sweet..By law of syllogism..Time's sweet.. :)


Until next time...

Abhiiisevil..n out....