The 2006 winner, The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

Youngest ever woman wins Man Booker Prize at age of 35

Kiran Desai was tonight (Tuesday 10th October) named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The Inheritance of Loss, published by Hamish Hamilton.

The Indian-born writer has a strong family tie with the prize as her mother Anita Desai has been shortlisted three times since 1980 but has never won. This year, however, her daughter, Kiran, has won the acclaimed literary prize.

Author of the 1998 universally praised Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, Desai is the first woman to win the Man Booker since 2000 when Margaret Atwood scooped the prize with The Blind Assassin. Her winning book, The Inheritance of Loss, is a radiant, funny and moving family saga and has been described by reviewers as ‘the best, sweetest, most delightful novel’.

This is the first time that Hamish Hamilton has published a Man Booker Prize winner although they had two shortlisted authors in 2005.

Chair of the judges, Hermione Lee, made the announcement at the awards dinner at the Guildhall, London, which was broadcast live on the BBC 10 O’ Clock News. Harvey McGrath, Chairman of Man Group plc, presented Kiran Desai with a cheque for £50,000.

Hermione Lee comments,

“We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Man Booker Prize for 2006 is Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, a magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness. The winner was chosen, after a long, passionate and generous debate, from a shortlist of five other strong and original voices.”

Over and above her prize of £50,000, Kiran Desai is guaranteed a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book.

The judging panel for the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: Hermione Lee (Chair), biographer, academic and reviewer; Simon Armitage, poet and novelist; Candia McWilliam, award-winning novelist; critic Anthony Quinn; and actor Fiona Shaw.

The Winner

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Hamish Hamilton, £16.99

‘Kiran Desai is a terrific writer. This book richly fulfils the promise of her first.’ - Salman Rushdie

In the north-eastern Himalayas, at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga, in an isolated and crumbling house, there lives an embittered old judge, who wants nothing more than to retire in peace. But with the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and the son of his chatty cook trying to stay a step ahead of US immigration services, this is far from easy.

When a Nepalese insurgency threatens the blossoming romance between Sai and her handsome tutor, they, too, are forced to consider their colliding interests. The judge must revisit his past, his own journey and his role in this grasping world of conflicting desires - every moment holding out the possibility for hope or betrayal.

Kiran Desai was born in India in 1971, and was educated in India, in England, and the United States. Kiran studied creative writing at Columbia University. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss.

More on this: click here...

The Other Side of Outsourcing!

A Thomas Friedman / Discovery Channel look at high tech outsourcing to India.

Me, myself and my sick monitor!

The last three days have been quite eventful. A lot seems to have happened outta here.

My monitor has been bugging me a lot. There seems to be some problem with it. I better fix it, before it gets too late. It simply doesn't 'listen' to me, unless it takes a bit of a hammering from my side. Red alert!

I also watched the movie Davinci Code. I hadn't had the oppurtunity to read the book, so wasn't biased or pre-conceived. I enjoyed the performance of Tom Hanks (The Oscar boy!). Must confess that the movie for sure will get u watching it over and over again. (Probably because of ir's uncanny storyline, if u happen to watch it without reading the book, DC).

As I had mentioned in my previous post, regarding dedicating a new blog for bringing the insanities of orkut to limelight, we have opened this blog: orkut insanity. It's a team blog, run by 3 of us ZOD, Bee and myself. Hope we will bring everything under the sun, about orkut to limelight. Feel free to contribute to it.

We had been expecting our 6th SEM results, pretty anxiously. Finally the mystery unfolded on Friday afternoon. I must confess that luck seems to have for sure leaned towards me. (Sorry Harry, I have picked ur orkut status lines!). Luckily, I managed to pull off a decent score.

After that blog entry on 'Deciphering orkut scraps', my friends, who have read that article on my blog, seem to have become very conscious of their entries in to my scrap book. I have not received any such 'Decipherable scraps' off late. Folks, the article was written for the sole purpose of providing some phun and nuthing else! So feel free to stick to your normal orkuttian literature.

PS: I happened to visit this site called Resolve Query. I recommend all of you, to go out there as well and pay a visit. Quite a resourceful site indeed. Thnx to the site owner and it's contributors.

Inspiring Story! Free Hugs Campaign (music by sick puppies)

I happen to find this video showing a very inspiring and a novel campaign! As it illustrates, sometimes all we need is just a hug! A message worth spreading...

~IT's My Life

Deciphering orkut scraps...

Disclaimer: The author owns the copy rights of this blog entry and it shall not be reproduced in any form whatsoever. Any resemblance, to any kind of orkuttian literarature in this blog entry, is purely co-incidental. The author, shall bear no responsibilty, whatsoever, for any kind of direct or indirect refrences to any orkut user (Online or Offline).

Off late orkutting seems to have smitten me for sure. I have been orkutting quite stupendously. So this naturally has helped me gain a bit of proficiency in orkuttian literature ! After a week long 'deep analysis' of various orkuttian profiles and known scrap book entries (nope, I haven't indulged in to any sort of fugitive work!). I proudly present before you my 'Winter Thesis' work on a very novel and emerging research area called 'Deciphering Orkut Scraps' (probably this might very well fetch you a nobel prize or something equivalent). I must confess that even though orkut scrap literature is pathetically stereotyped, at times one also finds a few really gud and off beat ones as well. I have off late been exposed (rather victimized) by suchhaa pain in the neck sort of orkuttian scraps! I have quoted below a few typical scraps from the orkut literature and their latent meanings. It's a small effort from my side to decipher the so called 'cryptographic orkut scraps'. Here we go...

1. Howz life out there? (or what's up @ ur end? or how r u doing?)

>> The most toughtest of all the questions. You are trapped! U open up a new conversation if u answer it or will get mercilessly bugged up, if u remain quite, with a zillion interrogative questions about why u didn't reply.

2. Nice to c u in orkut!

>> I am really amazed when ppl say this. what do people mean by this? Does it in any way, remotely mean, that I look nice only on orkut eh? (Like people check that column in their orkut profile regarding pets: Like them in zoos!)

3. R u online? (When u receive an instant scrap as reply from ur friend?)

>> The most dumbest of the questions one could send on orkut! I'm offline would u believe it? U know what, orkut allows users to send scraps being offline these days! (I have been tempted to say this on several occasions, but somehow out of modesty I have refrained from doing anything like that).

4. Keep in touch.

>> Well it has a plethora of subtle meanings. One of whose many meanings is as follows, I don't have anything much to scrap now! The ball is in your court, pass it back to me if your interested or let it die bouncing (in an exponentially decaying fashion) in ur court.

5. It's been pretty long since I scrapped u.

>> Well before you get too excited to answer this one, plz take some time off, to see his/her scrapbook. 9/10 times, this is used as a powerful tool to find a new source of scraps! It often ridicules me why people suddenly remember u when their scrap book entries dry up! Just chk on them.

6. C da this is ur first scrap! I am the first to scrap u!

>> Is it? Wow! I wouldn't have known about it, if not for ur timely acknowledgement, thnx. I mean, this crossess all limits of insanity! C'mon plz don't expect your friend to be so dumb!

7. Wow tum bhi orkut main? (I saw it in X's scrap book)

>> What does that mean ha? I know orkutting is legal, but c'mmon u can't humiliate me like that! I am not an outlaw!

8. Looking gud eh? whats cooking up dude?

>> Well thnx or wait.. what's me looking gud, has got to do with me cooking up something ha? @#$%%%? I dunno why ppl try to smoke out everyone's personal affairs unnecessarily in the public.

9. kya beta hai yaar... orkut pe..... koi special reason?

>> Yeah, don't let this go public. It shud be between us. I am working on CIA's new mission to track down offending users in orkut, who are trying to introduce some malacious traffic! C'mon every one knows why people join orkut. (If u still have doubts about it's objectivity, visit orkut's home page)

10. Keep scrapping!

>> I wonder if it's a request or an order. But in any case, u need to shower atleast a few scraps in to his/her scrap book!

PS: Well, my search continues for more of such weird stuff on orkut! Will post them as and when I find anything new. My new mission is to get to all (weird) types of about me: sections in profiles!

Munna Bhai and Gandhigiri...

Finally, I managed to pull some time off my whooping sleepless schedule, to watch the movie 'Lage raho munna bhai' - Munnabhai meets Mahatma Gandhi. After watching the movie, I felt as though I never could have found a better way to know Mahatma and his philosophies. Lage raho... illustrates it in such a lucid and a rolling-in-the-aisle humorous manner.

Murli Prasad Sharma alias Munna Bhai (Sanjay Dutt) this time around plays the role of a history professor, pretending to know everything about Mahatma Gandhi. He happens to meet Jhanvi (Vidya Balan) by winning a quiz contest on radio. He gets trapped when Jhanvi asks him to come over to her place, to deliver a lecture on mahatma and his ideologies. Now he gets compelled to read all about Mahatma. He spends days together literally in the library, to learn every bit about mahatma. That’s when he has his first tryst with the man himself, Mahatma. Only munna manages to see Mahatma (must say, a very novel concept in itself), while he is invisible to the rest of the world. Mahatma promises munna to take him on a road, which is difficult to travel but success @ the end of the journey is assured.

The rest of the movie demonstrates the concepts and ideologies of truth and nonviolence in the simplest possible terms (no hi-fi jargons) or to say, "In the akkha mumbai istyle". The movie literally proves the relevance of Gandhiism in today's world. We might boast of being in the 21st century, and might have framed out new ideologies for tackling problems. We may ridicule and talk cynically of the outdated ideology of gandhigiri. But folks, watching 'Lage raho....’ made me feel that, we probably need to re-work our philosophies. The movie has so many scenes where Gandhigiri clealry wins over so called Gundagiri. For e.g.:

• Mahatma speaks via munna, to show how the world has failed pathetically to imbibe any of his principles. We might boast outrageously of having named our roads, built statues and even printed Mahatma’s photos on our currency, but have we ever tried to implement any of his ideologies? Our methodology, of trying to keep 'Mahatma alive' materialistically, has been nothing more than a mere folly.

• Munna asks Circuit, (Arshad warsi) to pardon him for having him slapped. A message, asking sorry for a mistake committed by us is not a shame, but it requires some real guts. I mean how many of us dare to do it. For many it’s a question that hurts their ego, even if they are @ fault.
  

• A protest by munna, Jhanvi and others to get back their 'II innings home" from Lucky Singh (Boman Irani). The scenes are so fabulously picturised in illustration of how the so called age old concept of 'satyagrahas' can really pay off (No, not the ones you often get to see these days, where violence rules over real objectivity of the protest).
  

• Munna confesses in front of jhanvi, that he is not a history professor. A very simple message to prove that any relation built on the foundations of falsity is sure to die premature.
  

• Finally, the ultimate victory of truth is spectacularly shown where munna convinces the groom (Abhishek Bachan makes a guest appearance as the groom) and his family that the bride Simran (Diya Mirza) is the ideal choice. She dares to come up with the truth in public. A re-emphasis on the importance of the underlying concept of essence of truth and trust in any relationship.
  

These were just a few scenes I have quoted above, but when the movie is looked @ in entirety, is a perfect blend of entertainment and a social message to enlighten the masses of India (& abroad) about the real ideologies of mahatma, in a simple, easy to comprehend manner. One just wonders and looks @ the whole movie in awe, "Were mahatma's ideologies all this simple? ", "Is Gandhigiri the ultimate solution for all the niggling problems that one faces in day today life?”. Hats off to it's director Rajkumar Hirani and the entire team of Lage raho munna bhai for coming up with such a wonderful movie.

I am sure that this movie for sure has awakened the youth, as more and more people from India and abroad are really loving this whole concept. Now the youth community seems to chant this new mantra, "Say no to Dadagiri, embrace Gandhigiri!".

PS: I happened to visit this website, where one could stage his/her views on Gandhigiri. What do you wait for? Just go out there and stage your opinions. Try Gandhigiri, may be it might help!

Breeding fragility...

Internals have left no efforts in bugging me throughout this week. I have been mercilessly deprived of the much needed sleep. Finally I have got a break (till 2nd Oct), which gives me some time off this ruthless slogging. I am back outta here before my 15" LG monitor, all set to rejuvenate my extremely enervated neural cells (courtesy: Internals). I am back in to what I am really passionate about, blogging!

This week has been quite an 'eventful' week. The first day of this week beginning with a strike in protest against the delay in announcement of the results by VTU. There was quite a bit of a row on the whole issue, but things seemed to have settled down after the university finally managed to announce the results.

The week not only got me in to some real slogging, but also has left me emotionally jeopardized. My mind has sort of been deluged with a lot subtle queries. I have failed pathetically in answering those queries, (Nope, even Google failed to get me the required answers!). I have been battling it all the way, and it just simply seems to exacerbate the complexities of my life outta here. I badly need to find some convincing answers.

Now getting back to the crux of the whole issue. I have been haunted by this whole concept of 'Winner - Loser' labelling. What comes along with it, quite cumulatively, is the whole "Breeding fragility' stuff. A few incidents I have witnessed off late, have made me to contemplate really hard on this. I am left with a perplexed question, "Who amongst the two labelled entities (Winner or Loser) is the strongest? Are the people whom we admiringly call up on as the so called 'Winners', really strong enough? I have seen it very closely, when one encounters success in a row, 9/10 times it makes him/her vulnerable to becoming more and more fragile, and hence forth lose the even the slightest power of resilience to evolve out victorious, from any of the failures in life.

I might be sounding outrageously cynical here, but let's face it folks! In light of intense competition these days, one just gets mercilessly crushed, if he/she happens to be victimized by this plague of repetitive failures. No matter how successfull you might have been in the past, the world aks for a testimonial from you every time. These days a new trend has emerged, the trend of brain washing from teenagers or youth that 'Losing' is a 'shame'. While the obviousness truth is failure is always an integral part of a competition. When they graduate to adulthood and they tend to carry these very misconceptions and their mindset gets tweaked to a state of a "win win" state and they hardly prepare themselves for an unforeseen failure. When failure actually strikes, we stand hopelessly in an utter state of submissiveness, begging it to let go of us. We need to change this abnoxious attitude. The biggest challengee in life often shakes the very roots of your potentiality and you are mercilessly asked to prove yourself again. I guess this is the norm.

One cannot completely blame the so called 'values', one imbibes from his surroundings. A lot also matters on how one learns from his/her own experience, to accept failures in life with the same grace as any other success. With my personal experience I could tell that the very first time you encounter a setback, it’s really hard to digest it. Its very difficult to overcome the state of 'INERTIA', a state of continuous success. But as one gets to see they gray shades of life, one starts to grow really strong. Fortunate are those who have developed this capacity to take both the results with the same sportive attitude. I sometimes feel that one needs to lose a few times, before really getting an oppurtunity to relish success. Failures, as I said make you stronger. The more you 'run away' from failure, the more are the chances, that you will be prone to breed fragility.

Are you subtly breeding mental fragility? Just make sure...

PS: I happened to share my setback @ IBM with my friend, he sort of 'consoled' me saying, "Suresh, you have been enjoying success till date, now enjoy failure." Now that’s what has left me utterly puzzled! I am left wondering what made him say that and how do I 'enjoy' a failure?

Inaugural Function of EC FORUM, 2006-07.

Our EC Forum kick started it's activities for the academic year 2006-2007, with an inaugural function on 18th sept, 2006. After watching these pics, I felt I missed out on a wonderful event. I have uploaded a few snaps of the event, hope u enjoy them all.

Master of ceremony.

Let this year bring with it success and glory...

A presentation about EC FORUM.

Address by the Chief guest.

Varsha's vocal charisma...

DK's mimicry in full swing!

How to write a famous blog?

Blogs, or web logs, are the fastest-growing mode of mass communication on the planet. Articles about blogs, a form of online public journal, have appeared in the New York Times, Time, and Newsweek. The "blogosphere" has affected elections and corporate policy, and some blogs have thousands of readers a day. Moreover, they are fun.

Steps

1. Go to a simple blog creation site. A few common sites for blogging are: wordpress.com, Inthewire.com, Blogger.com, freeopendiary.com, or the ever popular Myspace.com. You can also try using a Google search for free blog hosting sites, and you'll easily find one that fits your needs.

2. Choose one that appears to be "User Friendly" for you. I've known a lot of people who start a blog not knowing a single thing about making their site individual to them, and, let's face it, HTML codes are a hard trick to learn, so check it out. If it looks a little to hard to create, and navigate the blog site and you're confused, then don't use that site. I tend to use Inthewire.com, because even though it may go down for a few weeks at a time, it's the most user friendly.

3. Choose what type of blog you want to create. Carve out a niche and pick a catchy title that captures the essence of your blog. Remember that a blog, like your clothes, is an extension of you. For most people your blog site may be the only thing they identify you with and you want to be sure that who you are on the inside is reflected on the outside...er...inside of net...you know what I mean.

4. Some claim that posting at least once every day is best; Some also say that three quick posts a day are far more effective than one long post every three days. Others claim that when they update a blog every other day they get more readers than when updating two or three entries in a single day. Whatever you do remember that for most bloggers, it's all about reading and many of them would prefer content rather than quantity. Once you get started you'll find that you attract a certain readership, and you may have to adjust how you work your journal to appease and keep the readers you've obtained.

5. Some recommend putting together about a month's worth of material before you tell anyone about your blog. I recommend that you just start writing and fame will come in time. Feel free to go back and rewrite entries to make everything just the way you want before or after you "go public." You can edit any entry at any time with most blog sites. Writing a popular blog doesn't happen overnight. The essence of the blog stems from journaling which means the blog is FOR YOU. Work it how you feel most appropriate.

6. When you're ready, tell close friends about your blog and ask them to tell their friends. Often if you use it as another way to network with those people around you, you'll get a better response. If you push it too hard don't be surprised if they ignore your blog because they feel you're fishing for compliments and attention...remember, blogging is about you, and the more attention you put into yourself, the more people are going to notice.

7. Look around the Internet for blogs you love. Read and post to them religiously. Leave a note that actually has something to do with their site so that they know you actually took the time for pay attention to the material posted; do not expect anything back in return. Just commenting will cause others to be more likely to visit your and do the same. Often when you make comments to sites a link to your own personal site will already be included with your comment, unless you are posting from one hosting site to the next. If your at ITW and you read a blog on Myspace then it would be appropriate to include such a link.

8. Build a network with other people in the blogosphere - make friends online. This is the best way to get readers and a great way to meet people you would otherwise never know. If you get one thing from blogging, this will be it.

Read more...

PS: I dunno if all the above would really help u build a unique identity in the blogosphere. But whats the harm in giving it a try. What do u say?

Disabusing myths!

Mood: One of serious retrospection!

I was in utter dilemma whether or not to jot this down. But I have decided to write about it. I happened to take up IBM (E&TS) as my dream offer, in the recent campus recruitment drives. We were being recruited for the post of R&D engineer. We took the written test in KIT College, Belgaum, on 18th Sept, 2006. It had 3 sections, 1st section was aptitude (1hr), 2nd section was a software test (15min) and 3rd section was a hardware test (30 min).

I screwed up my chances of getting placed in IBM. The shortlist they announced, crashed all my chances of becoming an IBMer, as they call themselves. Yes! I failed to get through the written test.

All was okies, until today morning, but as the day progressed, my mind seemed to have been deluged with a plethora of retrospective questions. Well if u are wondering what’s so special about it? Let me tell u, what has left me disappointed or rather put me in to some thinking, is the way I lost it. I must confess here that I had taken the test very lightly. The first of the series of blunders I committed.I knew I had lost it right from the time I subimtted the papers back after the tests. As the results were out, I hardly had sensed any sort of disappointment, coz my preparations were simply not up to the standards.

Today I met 3 of my friends, who managed to make it to the very end in IBM. Lemme make my self very clear, I am not 'disappointed', but what is haunting me, are the issues that I discussed with 2 of my friends, Vivek and Vinay. The discussion was something like this…

11:45 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. (Vivek's room):

We saw Vivek reading the OS textbook, something that we have never seen him do, at least not when the internals are not around. Some of the things that we discussed outta there...

Me: "Guys, I think my engineering life has gone off track and I feel myself totally lost and left clueless as to what I did all these 6 semesters during my stay here @ BIET. I mean we have been in to Electronics and Communication, and we hardly have got any proficiency in even a single subject. I am not able to name even a single subject in which I can claim to have an in depth knowledge." I continued, "Guys, I feel I should have spent more time in gaining an in-depth knowledge on atleast a few of my subjects. I think I spent most of my time in doing 'frivolous things', probably something more than I should have done. I have decided that I will not do it from now on. My IBM 'failure' has, for sure awakened me to reality. I think I have gotten in to the habit of awakening after a setback."

Vivek: A bit disgusted (with himself) and slightly disappointed said, "I agree with u guys. I think we have done too much, probably more than we ever could have done. I think I need to take a break. I feel, I have almost lost that yarn to learn, I wasn't this way when I joined engineering. It's not that I don't have the potential; it's only that I haven't been able to spend ample time on my academics. (Guys lemme tell u, Vivek plays a similar role in our documentary "Woh college ke din", which has got exactly the same shades). I have decided that I would spend some real slice of my precious time concentrating on my academics, so that I do gain some knowledge in atleast few of my subjects."

Vinay: Some one who always thinks very pragmatically, said, "I think we haven’t lost anything yet. Guys, atleast all 3 of us have got job offers. What if we have lost in IBM? Just think of those who still haven't made it in to any company. Now coming to the point that we spent a lot of time doing 'frivolous things', lemme tell you, none of us, fortunately have got our academics screwed up! I think what we lack, is just the right orientation. I think we just need to reduce devoting our time towards extra curricular activities and concentrate more on academics. Let's not forget, that we have gained a lot from 'them' as well. We have learnt how to work in teams; we have gained a lot of insight on organizational skills and many more. Let's try to focus more on academics. Don't worry guys, all will be okies."

I felt somewhat convinced. The mental storm seems to have settled down and things are becoming clearer. But I have decided for sure that I would spend some ample time of my final year in grooming my skills to equip myself to meet my company’s requirements. My failure @ IBM test has really gotten me in to some serious retrospection. I have, for sure picked up a lesson or two. Thnx to it!