The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

One other book I purchased at Dubai Airport was The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. It is a co-incidence that out of the 3 books I purchased, 2 had tigers on their cover and 1 had a dog..:). This one though has nothing to do with an actual tiger as such.

Winner of 2008 Man booker Prize, The White Tiger in the story is Balram Halwai a school drop out who wants to make something out of his life. The story's narration is so absolutely straight forward and honest about the way parts of India is today that I sometimes hope the author is exaggerating - simply Brutal! Balram Halwai or Munna is a smart kid, but as in all cruel stories, he is forced to drop out of school and get into the work force to help his family survive.

As he just slightly climbs the ladder in life, he realizes how years of servitude towards rich landlords makes slavery still seem almost honorable and natural to him. Working as a car driver to his masters in Delhi, the stark difference between life in his village and the country capital jumps right out at him. But the irony is not lost on him as his life style is still at the same level - that of a lowly servant.

Desperation forces this village simpleton to do the unimaginable. Worse still he changes into one of the Them and regrets nothing.

An eye opener in some sense. A scary image of India I must say!

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

I purchased a few books on impulse at the Dubai Airport while traveling to India. One of them was Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize.

This is one of the books that I had seen so often in book stores that I decided that the book must be worth the money. It is sort of hard to classify the book into a specific category. In wide terms the story is on adventure, religion, zoology, zoo keeping, India and small extents of Canada. :) Yes it is that diverse! In small ways I am even reminded of a Paul Coelho's way of writing.

The story begins with Pi Patel an Indian teenager born in a liberal minded family, who strangely though is ardently religious. Not just on Hinduism but also on Islam and Christianity. Pi lives in a zoo owned by his father in Pondicherry. While his parents struggle to cope with Pi's strange belief's, situations force them to migrate to Canada. As the whole family crosses the Pacific on a cargo ship along with their zoo animals, the ship sinks. All that remains in a life boat are Pi, a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and Richard Parker - a 450pound Bengal tiger.

The rest of the story is about how Pi beats the odds and survives his cast away life for 227 days! The final version of his story though is heart wrenching.

Life of Pi made quite some impression on me. I even had tigers in my dream for a couple of nights :). I can actually re-read this book. Good one!

South Indian Eatout in Eindhoven

Sri Ganesh

The "News"spread like wild fire. Within a week most of the Indian population came to know of a new Indian restaurant in the city. The only other one in the city "Touch of India" is a touch too expensive for most of the student folk. So we had given up on eating any Indian food outside. Well, things have changed now. I went there 3 times last week :D.

On a Friday about 10 of us made a reservation and as I went in, I realized I knew most of the people inside. The place is run by a Sri Lankan family. The service was completely messy and the staff were totally caught off-guard by the jam packed crowd that bombarded the place. With constant chatter, babies crying and a Tamil, "mrudhangam" (drum beat) playing in the background, it felt close to home. We waited for 2 hours for the all of us to be served! But ah! it was their first week so we decided to give them few more chances.

Check out their funny way of spelling some of the Indian dishes. We had such a laugh :)

The food is very very nominally prized and tastes pretty good for that money. Imagine, Masala Dosa is 4.5 euro!! Within 10 euro you can have a grand meal! The place is open from Tuesday to Sunday 11am to 11pm. If you are in Eindhoven, a must visit at Kruisstraat 92a.

P.S - No, they did not pay me to do the advertisement..:)