Naga's Ruminations and Reviews

Rating 4/5 Genre historical fiction, romance The emperor of Rome, Domition has had many mistresses..he gets tired of a woman in no time and moves onto another..until he comes across a Jewish slave and singer Thea. Thea, a slave to Lepida pollia, was in intense love with a celebrated and undefeated gladiator Arius when they were separated by the hand of her mistress Lepida Pollia. Thea is sold to a pimp by Lepida but she escapes the fate of a prostitute.  She turns a singer and comes under the notice of the emperor. Separated from Arius for 12 years and  craving for him even after becoming the mistress of Rome(Roman emperor)..she eventually meets Arius and sets up for a story of love, vengeance,betrayal and survival.  I thought the character of Arius is just overblown in its valor, his God like power in the arena and his stroke of luck in not succumbing to a fate many others like him have. He has a voice of an inner demon the answer to whose calls for hunger he replies by killing his op

Rating 5/5 Genre: Gothic, horror, suspense  This is a story where two young sisters,under the pretext of desiring safety, turn themselves into ghosts in their tomb like castle/mansion. The story is narrated in the first person account of the younger sister, Mary Katherine. She has a desperate and compulsive need to remain safe and isolated..to have a predictability to things and persons in her life. She cares little for the loss of property,wealth and valuables as long as there is no infringement into her secure world from the outside. I thought at various points that she must be quite mad. Her sister, Constance, is as quirky as her in wanting security but is more open to allowing strangers inside their closed bubble of life. At the start of the story, in the old mansion of the Blackwoods, three people are shown to be living a contented life filled with routine activities and with little to no contact with the outside. Constance, Mary Katherine(called Merricat by her sister lovingly) a

Rating 5/5  Genre gothic, horror, mystery  First published in the late 18th century, this book reflects the patterns of speech, thought,dressing of that time. I liked the style of prose very much which is interlaced with prose and an occasional poem or a ballad. The prose had a subtle Shakespearean quality to it.  Where there is virtue to be found in abundance, the devil attempts to ensnare such a soul through the art of temptation. Some are guarded and rooted in their faith,hence dont fall victims to such entrapment. But the rest being caught unawares become pawns in the hands of an evil mongering demon. One such soul that belongs to the latter category is Ambrosio, the monk. He is hailed as an exemplary priest and a man known for his piety all over Madrid . On Thursdays he usually gave a sermon to which people from far and wide flocked with great anticipation and desire to hear him speak.  Ambrosio is 30 years of age and he had spent all of it within the walls of his abbe

Rating 9/10 Stars John krasinski,  Emily blunt  One of the most frightening films I have watched in a while. I got the same kind of chills I felt watching Evil Dead part 1. This movie is also named as one of the top ten films of 2018 by NBR and AFI.   A family of creatures hunt humans and animals down by sound. They are blind but have highly developed auditory systems. They nearly wipe out the entire human race. A family of four survives(along with few specks of humans scattered perhaps here and there) the onslaught and learns to sustain in this post apocalyptic scenario. The creatures are still there attacking and killing what ever makes a sound. Running and reaching to where ever the sound eminates from.  It is indeed very tough to not make a sound..not even speak to one another.  The family learns sign language to communicate with each other. The woman, Emily blunt is pregnant and the best scene of the movie goes hands down to when she rescues her just born baby

Rating 3.85/5  Genre Fiction, longing and nostalgia This novel is a long letter from an old father(of seventy seven) to his young son.  He is a pastor at his local church in Gilead, Ohio. His father and grand father were also pastors and he recollects some events in their lives in the letter. He tells of his grand father's visions from God, how he fought in the war, how he thought the war to be God's divine plan and preached to others as such, how he lost an eye and remained one-eyed for the rest of his life, how he left his family in old age and made a journey to his native place of Kansas and died there. He tells his son of what events led to the meeting of his wife who was very young compared to him and how they ended up marrying each other. The parts where he regrets not being able to grow up with his young son and wife, to not being there to show him the ways of life and guide him are touching and inspirational.  I thought the real interesting part of the lette

Rating 8/10  Genre: psychological thriller, suspense  Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams... Director: Jordan Peele  Rose and Chris have been in a relationship for 5 months. Rose tells Chris that he is the first black boyfriend she has ever had and asks him to her house to introduce him to her parents. Her father is a neurosurgeon and mother is a psychiatrist. Chris is initially hesitant to make the trip because as a black man he is aware of the bias and judgement his people face at the hands of white people everyday. But Rose convinces him otherwise and they set off on the journey.  They reach the house and Rose's parents are very welcoming of Chris. There are two black servants at the house and they pretend to be nice towards Chris but are subtly very hostile. He senses this and mentions to Rose but she doesn't understand him. The first night they are there, Rose's mother hypnotises Chris using a cup and spoon against his wish. He wakes up in the mornin

Rating 3.5/5 Genre Contemporary A woman in her late 20s works at an art gallery. She has had a troubled past with parents who were distant, selfish and uncaring. She has an inner voice that is highly judgemental and critical. She looks at everything and everyone with hatred and dislike. She doesn't like this about herself and wants a transition so profound that there is no trace left of the past her. She thinks sleeping endlessly without break for a year would help her erase her past and past self. To be reborn again as a new her. She finds a psychiatrist on yellow pages and tells her all kinds of stories and lies to get prescriptions for powerful drugs. The doctor Dr.Tuttle is quite a character who is wierd, forgetful, sloppy and incompetent. She uses loopholes in the insurance system to prescribe drugs for hearing loss, anxiety, paranoia etc when the complaint our protagonist has is insomnia. She even gives samples of drugs that are not approved to be in the market.

This is a short story and a quick read with only 27 pages. The story tries to redefine what it means to be living in hell. It creates an alternate reality of the place called hell where souls go after death. Here souls are neither roasted for eternity in fire nor tormented by hard physical torture. They are subjected to a different kind of pain.. Three souls having commited sins of deception, lies, narcissism and murder etc  are forced to stay together in a room in hell after they are dead. Soon their flaws, sins and insecurities are exposed to each other. They are locked in a tug of pull and push with each other. They cant love the other due to an awareness of their true nature. They cant hate the other cause they are stuck with them for eternity in the same room. What happens to someone if they cant go mad or die (to escape repetition and boredom) because it is a soul..  The story is quite popular from the author and it is great thrill to read it. Sometimes short stories

Rating 4/5 Genre Romance, Magic, Fantasy I am honestly surprised that there are not more people who have read this book(based on the number of ratings in goodreads) and found it impressive like me. With this book I learnt that I could appreciate a story with flawed characters and like them all despite the imperfections. The main characters are powerful in a supernatural way and drive the narrative forward with their fated (sometimes impulsive) actions and suffer through the lasting consequences of those actions. When I picked this book, based on the title, I expected something to do with magic, spells, curses and was only half keen on reading it past a few initial chapters. I have been doing this a lot lately..just trying a book on before committing myself to read it through to the end. I soon found myself engrossed in a tale of fated romance spanning multiple lives, dark magic binding the souls into a dance with each other for eternity. It’s the same story that plays

Genre horror, thriller  IMDb rating 6/10  Budget 50 - 80million dollars  Box office 40 million dollars  Starring Krksten Stewart of twilight fame.  I felt that the concept and story are pretty good but the cinematography is poor. Not just poor but really bad. I watched this film twice to make sense of what's actually happening.  Most of it is shot underwater in the glare of flashlights and headlights.  A bunch of people are caught in an underwater drilling station when an earth quake occurs. It damages most of the base stations and equipment. It also releases a swarming pool of alien like creatures into water which kill and feed on human flesh. With a high risk of their drill station exploding, they must reach a near by station in order to access air pods which can fly them back to the surface. With no alternate option available, they decide to make the journey on foot. To actually walk the distance on ocean bed. Braving the odds, some of them make it. Some don't. W

The characters in the story have a depth and are well defined. Ignatius is a character concoction that will remain with me for long. He is both self righteous and naive at his core that makes me sympathetic although he is not portrayed to evoke such an emotion. He is a big fat man who depends on his mother and some menial jobs to survive him(due to his ideals) despite having quality education from college. What circumstances in life must have produced someone as idealistic and rebellious, selfish, self righteous as Ignatius is a wonder. Bad parenting is one word that comes to mind. His mother dotes on him endlessly with no personal life for herself until she has had enough with Ignatius. She gets into a car accident which sets off a series of events into action that are both hilarious and ordained(or so they seem).   I am going with a liberal 4 out of 5 for the plot and the screenplay. I would have liked immensely to have some background into the childhood and early lives of Ig

Rating 3/5  Genre journalism, AIDS epidemic  I wanted to read this book to learn about AIDS. How it has started, what were the events that lead to its discovery and why it doesn't have a cure. Most of what i wanted to learn, which I call useful information, is found in the first 100 and last 100 pages. The rest of the chapters and stories in the 1000+ page book seemed irrelevant that I just skipped them. It was too much information..too many details. I was afraid that I would lose sight of the forest for too many trees. Although it seemed like thorough journalism and the author at the end claimed to have included no fiction in the narrative, the characters are one too many, the story is boringly repetitive.  The author fails to evoke an emotion of injustice and unfairness through conveying the same message over and over again. At the bottom of it, the reason for the unchecked wide spread of AIDS epidemic in the United states between late 1970s to around 1985 is insoucia

                       Once Viswamitra who was a Rajarshi (a king who has become self realized) grew envious of Vashista who was a Brahmarshi (a sage who is enlightened and self realized) and decided to become a brahmarshi himself. He reasoned that if he also turned into a brahmarshi, he would become more respectable and sages like Vashista would treat him as an equal. He set off to a forest and started to perform deep penance. For a long time he performed his penance without interruption from the outside world. He grew content with each passing day that he was nearing his goal and would anyday seize the honor he so craved for.                                            Then one day a beautiful celestial maiden Menaka appeared near the hut where Viswamitra was undergoing his daily austerities. She had come to that place to take bath in the nearby lake. Viswamitra accidentally looked at her while she was taking bath in the water. She was scantily clad and had a beautiful smile on h

Rating 2/5 Genre: Investigative journalism, First hand reporting            I thought this is a mediocre tale. I am not sure if I can call it a tale, it is more like a collection of different stories of  women who are locked away in a mental asylum. The tone of the narrative was matter of fact and I would have liked it to have some emotional depth and a visceral quality. It felt like she was hurling the stories at the reader one after the other before there was enough time to process them.                           A journalist,Nellie Bly,pretending to be insane gains entry into a mental asylum on Blackwell's Island. She stays there for ten days and experiences the horrors of the place like the rest of inmates. After coming out, she publishes her report of what she saw and experienced. It causes quite a stir in the society. As a result of her efforts, the government increases funding to the asylum by a significant amount.          The island houses around 1600 women suffe

             King of Himalayas Himavantha had two beautiful daughters Ganga and Uma with his wife Menu.  One day the gods of heaven approach Himavantha and his wife. They ask him to give  his daughter Ganga to them for the welfare and prosperity of the world. Himavantha happily accepts this request and sends Ganga away with the Gods. Ganga starts living among the other damsels and demigods in heaven.               King Bhagiratha is a ruler iof the Ikshvaku dynasty into which Lord Rama will be born later. Several of his ancestors try to bring Ganga to earth and die without succeeding. Bhagiratha is determined to bring Ganga down to earth so that her divine waters could liberate his ancestors. He leaves his kingdom to the management of his ministers and goes to perform severe penance and austerities in the forest. He spends hundreds of years in penance to impress God Brahma. Brahma becomes pleased with his dedication and appears in front of him along with other demi gods. Brahma ask

Rating 3/5  Genre thriller, paranormal, virus, mystery  Definitely a lot more engaging, horrifying and thrilling than most of Stephen King's works. I picked this book because I got to know that there is a mention of a virus called wuhan-400 that resembles the Corona virus covid-19 which is raging a war against the world at present. This wuhan 400 as the rumors go causes pneumonia like symptoms before killing the victims but i am disappointed to find that is not the case. Wuhan 400 in the story kills the victim in less than 24 hours by secreting a neuro toxin at the brain stem and causing failure of organs. These characteristics are in no way similar to Corona virus and the disease it causes, Covid-19.  The story is solid and well rounded. A woman in the show business in Las Vegas, Tina Evans thinks she has lost her son Danny in an accident. But he starts trying to reach out to her through dreams and other paranormal means. She dismisses them as works of a p

Rating 4/5 Genre Religion,Spirituality, Evolution For starters, this is not a science book. It does not lay out a step by step plan for the construction of spacecrafts and satellites to help transmigrate masses of people between planetary systems. Why I am saying this is because the title can be misleading. Srila Prabhupada prescribes perfecting the art of meditation and bhakti yoga in order to develop an ability of moving to higher planets. He presents his case to the readers as to why they should opt the yoga method as opposed to scientific methods for traveling to other planets and calling them home. He calls the endeavours of scientists to reach other planets through spacecrafts a waste of time and whatever success they yearn for as meaningless. It is easy to see why this work of literature rubs a scientific minded person the wrong way. Those who are not acquainted with the teachings of iskcon or haven't read other works of Srila Prabhupada might call it a little extrem

Krishna dancing in the midst of gopis is called rasa dance.  Krishna expands himself into multiple forms - one for each gopi and dances with them. Each gopi thinks that Krishna is dancing with her alone and with no one else. This is kind of a mental and physical illusion Krishna has created to ensure the contentment and happiness of those gopis. The climate is cool and the air is filled with aroma of different flowers of the vrindavan forest. Krishna dances with each gopi and when they are tired, they rest their heads on his shoulders. Krishna and the gopis exchange sweet tender kisses on neck, cheeks and drooping eye lids. Krishna places his hands on their thin waists, shoulders and passes crushed beetlenuts from his mouth to those of the gopis. The moon and heavenly demi gods watch this display of spiritual and transcendental love from the sky with great pleasure and amusement. After the dance, Krishna and the gopis wander off into the river yamuna and spend time splashing

'Atmarama' is someone who is self satisfied. Someone who doesn't depend on anyone else for love or affection and is content to be independent for his/herself.   Lord Krishna   Once gopis ask Krishna how many different types of lovers are there? What are those different types of lovers? What kind of a lover is he ?  And Krishna answers them as follows ( I am explaining it here succinctly):  1. The first kind of lover conducts love like a form of a business. He gives as much love as he is given and doesn't give anything when he gets nothing in return. This form of love is of no use for anyone.  2. The second is kind is a lover who loves his partner unconditionally.  Either the partner loves him or not, is agreeable to his tastes or not, he never stops showing his affection and love towards the partner.   3. The third kind is called atmarama and is self satisfied with himself. He doesn't look outside for love and is indifferent if he gets love f

Rating 5/5 Genre: Mystery, suspense, thriller, art, Mental illness The story is a powerful,gripping page turner. I was quite surprised to note that it is the first novel from the author. He has written it with an air of a veteran novelist. It is also an easy and quick read. I mostly flipped through the pages with a palpitating heart and a mind that kept guessing at what would come next. I accept with a deflated pride that none of my guessing turned out to be true and the story turned out better because of it. Alicia and Gabriel are a happily married couple. She is an artist and he is a fashion photographer. One day Gabriel is murdered and Alicia is arrested for the crime. Instead of defending herself and proclaiming her innocence, she remains silent. Either she wouldn't talk or couldn't talk,they deem her fit to be in a mental institution rather than jail given her past history. The story makes many headlines and a psychotherapist Theo Faber who has followed it close

"Once we look into the eyes of another and see ourselves looking back, we will be able to create a heaven on this earth." When we die, we remove our masks and we rest in our natural state. There is no disappearance, no oblivion. We simply take off our masks, our clothes, and other outer coverings, and we return home to the spiritual realms. Here we are renewed and restored. Here we reflect on the lessons of the life that we have just left. Here we are reunited with our soul companions across the centuries. Here we plan our next lifetime on the earth. When the time and circumstances are right, we don new masks—a baby’s body and brain—and return to the physical state. With a refreshed energy and outlook, we continue learning our spiritual lessons until the need to reincarnate is no longer necessary. Then we can continue to help people from the other side. We have an eternity of time to learn our lessons. Our symptoms and fears have probably carried over from previous lifet

Rating: 4.5/5 Genre: Historical fiction, Drama, mental illness A mesmerizing tale! One of the very good books I have read in a while! A young girl named Grace Marks of sixteen along with a man James is accused of murdering her employer Mr.Kinnear and his mistress in cold blood. They run off to United States from Canada from getting caught. But police eventually get to them and James accuses Grace of instigating him with the murder. Grace tells different versions of her story during her arrest, trial and confession. She also suffers from lapses of memory as to what has happened and how she has ended up in company of James. James gets a death sentence and Grace gets life imprisonment on account of being a young girl who is quite susceptible. So she is locked away in a penitentiary in Canada. When they think she has wild dreams or is quite unsubdued, they commit her to a mental asylum where the conditions of living and treatment are not sanitary and quite harsh. Some respectable persons

GOD = Generating, Operating, Destroying. Brahma is responsible for creation/generation of things(rajo-guna,passion,creation,desire nature). Vishnu is responsible for maintenance/operating and sustaining things (sattva-guna,goodness,prosperity of goddess lakshmi). Lastly, Shiva is responsible for destruction of things(tamo-guna, destruction of desires, hermetic quality with no desire for sansara). Since Vishnu is responsible for the maintenance of peace and order on earth, each time Mother earth faced a problem with plenitude of demons and rakshasas on earth in forms of humans - she along with other demi gods, brahma and vishnu would approach the milky ocean where lord Vishnu resides. Lord Vishnu to alleviate her pain and rid the earth of cruel demons took different avatars/forms at different times. Kali yuga is said to last for 4,32,000 years of which we have so far lived only five thousand years. The day Lord Krishna vanished from this earth was like a candle being put off and it mar

Review of 'The Moon is a harsh Mistress' by Robert A.Heinlein. Rating 3.5/5 Genre: science fiction, humor, war I have finished reading. So yayy! Reading this book has taken me longer than I expected. I know the reviews and ratings are overwhelmingly positive but I didn't find the book exciting. Perhaps it has got to do with the style of prose/language - the narrator Mannie writes it in a dull, passive tone that is occasionally sprinkled with humor and wit. But the storyline is not quite so bad and got me going at crucial points. Instead of humans fighting off extraterrestrial aliens like we see in most movies/books, in this story they are fighting off fellow humans from Moon. In the year 2075 Moon(Luna) is populated with families and descendants of prisoners being shipped from earth(Terra) for over a century. Federated Nations and Lunar authority are the organisations responsible for operating the Luna project and seeing to it that trade(wheat grains cultivated on luna) h

Review of Lord of the flies by William Golding Rating 4.5/5 Genre: classic,horror,young adult A band of children are stranded on an island when their flight crashes. Their pilot is dead and they are left to take care of themselves without adult supervision. Ralph, Jack, Piggy(a really fat and myopic kid) are the three main important characters. Roger and Simon also play crucial roles in the plot. Initially Ralph becomes the chief/head of their group and with the help of Piggy(intelligent and forward thinking) establishes rules so that they could build shelters for staying,hunt for food and burn a fire to hail for rescue. Soon Jack challenges his authority and takes away a group of children with him. Things start becoming evil as Jack and his group brutally kill a mother sow(a female pig) and descreate its head. They hoist its head on a spike and leave its guts to be fed upon by the flies(a symbol for Lord of the flies/beezlebub). [This scene marks the transition from innocence in

Herodotus Story of Candaules, King of Lydia,Turkey Candaules was a king of Lydia, Turkey. He had a beautiful wife named Nyssia. He worshipped her beauty and often boasted of it with great pride. He had a bodyguard named Gyges. Candaules once tells Gyges that he is going to prove to him that there is no one comparable in beauty to his wife(maybe Gyges didnt believe his claims or the king just wanted to show off..). So the king puts together a plan and tells it to Gyges in confidence. He tells Gyges that every night the queen has a habit of getting undressed in their room before getting into bed. So he asks Gyges to stand near a door in their room and watch secretly her as she is undressing. Gyges stands near the door in darkness and waits for the queen to come into the room. Candaules pretends to be asleep and waits for the queen to come. So Nyssia comes into the room, goes to a desk and removing her clothes one by one puts them on the desk. Gyges gets mesmerized watching her n

The English Patient book by Michael Ondaatje review Rating 3.5/5 Genre: romance, drama, war It is the time of 1942-43. Italy and its allies are at war with Germany. The war is coming to an end and German forces are retreating from Italy. A pilot is flying a helicopter in a sandy desert and it catches fire. He hits the ground with a parachute but his skin is badly burnt and his nerves are so damaged he can barely move. The local tribal people rescue him and take care of him as long as he proves useful to them. He knows the maps of the desert by heart and can recognize different models of guns. They find this kind of information useful during the war. And when he is no longer useful, they abandon him at a hospital in Villa San Guirlamo in Florence. He remebers everything but doesnt know his name. No one knows who he is but from the way he talks think he is British. Hence he is referred to as the English Patient. As the war is coming to an end, the doctors plan to shift the hospital to

Review of Pratiroju pandage movie (2019) Rating 4/5  The hero's grandfather is diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer and the doctor gives an estimate of 5 weeks left for him. The old man's children are well established  business persons, software engineers in USA, Australia and India. They take a detached and practical view of his medical condition deciding to put money, jobs, work over their love for their father. But the hero flies from USA to stay with his grand father the minute he learns of his illness. He decides to make all the unfulfilled dreams of his grandfather come true and celebrate each day left till his death as a festival..hence the title 'pratiroju pandage'. How he was able to convince the other family members to prioritize relationships over money and to reevaluate their bond with their once beloved father is the essence of this movie.  Loaded with humor and dialogues that are reflective of the current prevailing mind set among people, this film is