Russian Doll: After thoughts

‘Russian Doll’ lingered on in my mind well after the show ended.

The universe conspires to bring together two individuals who need each other. Nadia, the arguably self-destructive 36 yr old, is made to question the ghosts buried in her past while Alan, suffering from OCD, needs to face the fact that you can’t control everything.

..we are very unreliable narrators of our own stories.”

The eccentric and eerie music soundtrack suits well with what the characters are going through.

At the end of the show, you are left with the question as to why did this happen to Nadia and Alan and will there be a second season.

Books I read in 2015

Though I was not successful at finishing my backlog I did get some really good books into my collection which I shall finish in 2016. Unlike those long lists out there, I am just getting back to reading. Here are the chosen ones.

Being Mortal: I loved his style of introducing his topic and keeping you interested through every chapter.

Do androids dream of electric sheep: One of the smoothest sci-fi stories which is bound to make you fall in love with the genre.

Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist: I do not know why i like the story, but I finally read the novel behind one of my all time favourite movies. Next up is Me, Earl and the Dying Girl.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories: Surprisingly my first Rushdie was a book written primarily for the child in you. Next up is Luka and the Fire of Life.

Modern Romance: A subject I would not have chosen to read upon but was a delight and reading it made me enjoy ‘Master of None’ even more.

What I talk about when I talk about running: Easily the best book i’ve read this year and the one I shall recommend and gift to people to read. You need not want to run to read this book.

The Hard Thing about Hard Things: Recommended by a lot of people, this book did not live up to its hype and Ben came across to me as a mighty lucky chap who is looking at things in hindsight but there were good things to be learnt from it.

The New Ghost: A short story about the afterlife with some great art.

By this Shall You Know Him: A short story about creation with some mind boggling art

In Real Life: A story set in the contemporary world of MMORPGs and questions ethics on the internet.

Killing and Dying: This anthology of short stories of people like you and me made it to bestseller lists this year.

Gaysi Zine #3 #4: A shoutout on the Kokkachi fb page showed me this wonderful zine and I ended up funding the #4. However I liked #3 better 😛

Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland: This tribute revival of the Winsor McCay comic strip was beautiful though I had bought this book thinking its the entire collection.

Prophet: Remission Volume 1: I bought this book because I am a fan of Brandon Graham. The story so far has been cryptic.

The Wrong Place: What a pretty watercolour graphic novel. Brecht Evans’ debut has a good story to go with the art but it ends up lacking something.

Chicken with Plums (reread): Because I was feeling like Nasser Ali Khan.

Antares Episode 5: I just love this series, the alien world’s Leo illustrates are fascinating.

I hope to read more in 2016. Feel free to recommend me books to read.

Objectified

I just finished watching ‘Objectified‘, a film by Gary Hustwit. Its a documentary which takes us through the various facets of design; the conception, the sustainability and the innovation. Objectified is the second part of a three-film “design trilogy” by Gary Hustwit, who is currently working on the final film: ‘Urbanized’.

Watching it made me realize some things about design. About how design is everywhere and how good design is invisible. Whenever an individual designs he/she brings to it their own being. I know i am not happy when i am doing something eventhough it looks okay. I always tend to get my geeky nature involved into things i create like those quizzes.

“At the end of the day, when you are looking around the objects in your house and you are deciding ‘what here really has value to me. They are going to be the things that have some meaning in your life.
The Hurricane is coming, you have 20 minutes to get your stuff and go. You are not going to be saying. “Well that got an amazing writeup on the design blog”. You will pick the most meaningful objects to you because those are the true objects that truly reflect the true story of who you are and what your personal narrative is, the story that you are telling to yourself and no one else. Coz thats the only audience that matters.”

Thanks to Citruz for the recommend.

Greekalicious

Some people consider me as an ideal example of a person who lives to eat. I love hogging out every now and then and my bank balance will tell you the story.

Way back in College, Way back when we started watching Highway on My Plate.. i had this dream of having a job of travelling and reviewing food. Man vs Food introduced us to food challenges. What a life i thought, even though it had its own pitfalls health wise. But nevertheless everyone has a dream job and this is one of mine.

I’ve been in Chennai for the past one year and i’ve been loving the food here. When me and my friends initially got placed in TCS and booked our tickets to Chennai, our friends and relatives were apprehensive about the food in Chennai. They talked about stereotyped food everywhere and this scared us a bit. But surprise, surprise..our gastronomical journey so far has been awesome. True there have been ups and downs but generally i’ve had some really good food. It helped that i have a group of friends who love to eat as well. In the past one year, i’ve eaten at more than 60 restaurants in Chennai and my Burrp! profile is proof of that 😀 We also had this little side project titles ‘ Experiments and Food ‘ going for sometime until it became too tough to gather pictures and upload them to one place.

Now the fun part came when Burrp! emailed me and asked me if i was interested in reviewing Azulia, where a Greek food festival was taking place. THIS was BIG! I was so surprised!! The email said that i could take a friend so i called up @Nievu as she’s accompanied me to most of the restaurants and also because she could offer a vegetarian perspective to the food.

So the date was set, 11th November was the night and boy was it fun. Except for the part where we paid 400 for the cab to drop us back, the night was epic! Wish i could take part in more such free food… erm Food Reviews.

FYI: You can read the Review here.

Food for the Soul

The Wine..hic

The Mezze

Yeros

Pastitsio

Chef Ethem Aydemir