Life Etc Etc

Plot: Perry Mason receives an unexpected call from Ellen Adair, a lady of queenly bearing with a dark past. Ellen was a beauty contestant who suddenly disappeared at the height of her fame. Now, there's a tabloid which is planning to run an inside scoop on what might have happened to her. Ellen wants Mason's help in ensuring that none of the details of her colorful past come out into the open and her identity remains a secret. Despite not receiving satisfactory answers to his preliminary questions, Mason agrees to help out his new client and promptly shuts down the newspaper from running the article. But the matter doesn't end there, the newspaper sends a detective to negotiate a fee with Mason for his client's compliance. Mason immediately senses that there's more to the matter than what's being laid on the table. With the assistance of Paul Drake, his trusted detective aide, Mason finds out that a very powerful family from the same town as Ellen Adair is desp...

I guess it was destiny that the 150th post of Life Etc Etc had to be about Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Shivaji rose like a phoenix from humble beginnings in the 17th century and laid the foundation for the Maratha empire which changed the course of  history. The history I studied at school restricted his life and achievements to a single chapter and quite erroneously credited the British Rule with the decline of the Mughal empire. I found out later on that it was in fact the Marathas under the able leadership of Shivaji who hastened the Mughal empire's downfall. They were the preeminent power whom the British had to checkmate in order to wrest control of the Indian subcontinent. Despite such monumental achievements my history syllabi had very little information about Shivaji. It was therefore a no-brainer for me to pick up this book and discover for myself why the history of India would never be complete without the mention of Shivaji.  In order to understand any histori...

We live in the times of the antihero. Grey is the new white now and it has become increasingly cool for our protagonists to repeatedly toe the line between good and bad. Nobody stands for anything anymore which makes it all the more difficult to root for such characters. That's probably the reason why I had to go back to Perry Mason . Mason, his confidante Della Street and the ever dependable Paul Drake are a crimefighting unit whom you can get behind in their pursuit of justice. A Perry Mason book comes with the guarantee of justice being served at the end. With this one, I just had to find out how the justice was meted out to the perpetrators.     Plot: John Witherspoon, the wealthy rancher doesn't think too much of his daughter Lois' love interest, Marvin Adams, a science student with no discernible family lineage. When Witherspoon digs into the past of his daughter's suitor, he finds that Marvin's father was convicted of murdering his business partner. Unable t...

My 60th post had to bring me back to Hyderabad, the place where it all began. There are books which allow you to pass time and there are books which transport you into another time. ' Hyderabad a Biography ' by Mr. Narendra Luther belongs to the second category. I picked up this book a few years ago amidst intense work schedules and instantly fell in love with it for it's wit and charm. I've read books which either narrated history with gravity or recollected facts with solemnity but Mr. Luther's book was the first I read where history was recounted with generous sprinklings of humor. Plus how can I not love a book about Hyderabad, my hometown and one of the most vibrant cities on the face of earth. A city with a rich history of more than 1000 years and for centuries a melting point of cultures from all over the world . Here was a region which remained a country within a country long after India gained independence, braved it's period of turmoil and instabil...

Picture This!  It's a lazy day and you have plenty of time to kill (if you don't have too many or any of those ' free time'  days you gotta make some serious changes to your life). You are fed up of the TV and the updates on the social media don't excite you. You want to do something different but don't feel like going out. You are looking for something interesting to read or hold your attention. That's precisely the time for a book like ' A beam of light '. It has a plot which moves at a steady pace and holds your attention through all the twists and turns.     Plot: Inspector Salvo Montalbano wakes up from a nightmare with a start. The nightmare has him visit a vacant plot to investigate a coffin containing the body of someone very familiar. As Montalbano struggles to make sense of the dream he's beckoned to a vacant plot to investigate a cabin which turns to be a hideout out for anti-nationalist forces. The vacant plot has an eerie semb...

The Plot Neville Strange is handsome, athletic and wealthy. He is a gentleman who wears his heart on the sleeve and cannot help but be sportive even when he loses a tennis match at Wimbledon. His good looks and impeccable manners make him irresistible to all women. Neville is planning for a fall vacation at Gull's Point  with both his wife Kay and his ex-wife Audrey . Neville plans to use the vacation to make it up to Audrey for leaving her to marry Kay. Kay reluctantly agrees to Neville's plan but deep in her heart resents Audrey very much. Ted Latimer , the childhood friend of Kay Strange is tagging along with the couple to Gull's Point. Ted cares for Kay beyond anything else and carries a flame in his heart for her even after her marriage to Neville. Thomas Royde , the Malayan planter and cousin of Audrey is coming to Gull's point too. Thomas adores Audrey and intends to ask her hand in marriage during the course of the vacation. Lady Tressilian is the m...

" Jerry Burton arrives in Lymstock along with his sister to recover from a bad crash. The peaceful country side, the fresh air and the benevolent families of the village immediately take the brother-sister duo in. Everything seems rather idyllic and rather perfect until an anonymous letter arrives with a spiteful message. The nasty letter is quickly forgotten as a mischievous prank until Jerry discovers that people across the village have been receiving such slanderous letters. The anonymous letters soon become the talk of the town leaving everyone in a tailspin as to who this sick mind could be. Just when the letters are about to be dismissed as nothing more than a prank, the first victim falls. Before the community recovers another one goes down. As the body count rises, everyone's a suspect and anyone could be the next victim. It's a race against time for Jerry to stop the culprit as the next one to fall might well be his own. " The Moving Finger Now that...

There are books which you read and then there are books which make you read them and change your life. Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari's (Rajaji's) Mahabharata belongs to the latter category. Mahabharata introduced me to the joy of reading books as a kid and today I couldn't have picked a better topic for my 25th post. I cannot describe what a pleasure and honor it is to extol the virtues of this classic book during this holy festive season of  Makar Sankranti . Mahabharata by C.Rajagopalachari The story of Mahabharata is as old as the mountains and has been retold several times. Mahabharata by Rajaji however stands out in my mind because here is a story which is spiritual yet not religious, is thought provoking yet not preachy, is compelling yet not tedious. The story left an indelible impression upon me for several reasons which are: Rajaji uses extremely simple language to convey some of the finer aspects of the saga. I was 10 years old when I read Mahabharata ...