Eviction Notice: Book Review

This book review has taken me ages as I was swamped with other books and some peripheral indulgences. So without much ado, here it is!

An absolute roller-coaster ride is what I would describe Eviction Notice as. Author Robyn Wyrick has taken an alien adventure story and turned it upside down punctuating the storyline with surprises, humor and incredible phantasm. A sci-fi that makes jokes at technology and aliens is a refreshing departure from the usual fare that we have been served in recent times.

Part futuristic, part adventure, Eviction Notice starts with a high school prank that sets into motion a series of events that threatens to break the very fabric of human existence. A high school tradition of creating alien crop circles becomes an open invitation to aliens to swamp Earth and serve an 'eviction notice'. 

Let’s start with the basics first; there is a Glen Fairy, who is a fairy (what else?), who possess the ability to heal the world of its abuses. In a bid to end a war, Glen Fairy was sold to Zorgon and Aloon Zigilbraxis was given the responsibility of delivering the cargo (read Glen Fairy). No issues till now. The problem was when the crop circle matched that of a similarly shaped beacon that would have helped the delivery pod to bring Glen so that Aloon could take her to Zorgon. Now the problem starts and it’s a hilarious problem. Gren Fairy gets delivered to Iowa where the pranksters had created the crop circle. Having lost Glen and told that only one thing could replace the lost Fairy; his death, Aloon takes over Earth and serves an 'eviction notice' to its rightful or unrightful inhabitants.

Since we can't have an all-aliens star cast, a depressed human is brought into picture. Alice Able is about to commit suicide when she is presumed to be the leader of human race because of a hilarious mistake. She is thrown into a race to save the Earth and make it the rightful place for humans as it always has been. The characters are well etched and the story is fast paced and never slacks even one bit and that’s what makes Eviction Notice a must read. Somewhere down the storyline, you would think that it is so unbelievable but if the child in you is still alive, you would take all of it with an incredulous smile and a glint in your eyes. I wish I was imaginative enough to conjure up such a fantastic piece of fiction.

The writing is so descriptive and nuanced that I could see it playing in my head as if it were a movie and I won't be too surprised if it were actually made into one. Humor is the one thing that stands out like a not-so-sore-thumb and is amazingly handled as this is one genre that is not easy to grip without going overboard. Robyn Wyrick has delivered a power packed tongue-in-cheek book that brings a smile to the face and puts forth a mirror to see the child in us. Bravo Mr Wyrick!


Disclosure: I was provided the e-book version of the book by the PR agency

Copyright (c) Pigtale 2005-2012. Images copyright respective holders.

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The Guys’ Guy’s Guide To Love: Book Review

Ok, this has been long due. I received a review copy of Robert Manni's weirdly (but aptly) titled book called The Guys’ Guy’s Guide To Love (GGGLove) a couple of months back but was unable to read it due to piles of other books in the pipeline. Finally I got to read it and found it be as fast moving as the story's setting in NYC.

The story GGGLove is set in New York where the city never sleeps in Madison Avenue. In fact the story is so believable that it could have taken place anywhere in the world.

The book is all about the dating scene where the womanizing Roger and Max sweat it out. The stakes are high and the people are unforgiving in a world of love, sex and power.

GGGLove turns contemporary dating logic on its head by referring that women prefer the traditional type of men than the new-age stud. Now that's some food for thought, isn't it?

And I have no reason to disbelieve the author, given the fact that he speaks from experience. I understand that the young professional women of today may not relate to the struggles their male counterparts face, but they understand their frustration and unhappiness. And this is the reason; they are looking out for the old-fashioned, low risk taking man.

GGGLove presents the story from both the men and women perspectives and provides an insight into the mind of the contemporary women and what they really want.

Robert Manni has done an amazing job with this role reversal fun read. Go read it as it comes from a master.

 
Disclosure: The author provided me with a review copy.


Copyright (c) Pigtale 2005-2012. Images copyright respective holders.

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Lalu And His Gulaabi Keyboard

A friend of mine called me up saying, "Hey look, there is this fun thing going on in office and they want me to write a story on Lalu and his pink keyboard."

I said, "Ok, cool! So what do you want me to do?"

“Write a story for me please,” he begged.

Since I had nothing better to do,  I said yes.

The catch was that the story had to be around 100 words.

Here is the story that I sent him albeit a little more than 100 words.

Lalu Prasad picked himself from the pavement and cursed the insurance agent who had refused to cover his pink keyboard.
“Too dangerous this is saar,” he had told.
“Entire Bihar has gone blonde and this is the only pink keyboard available. We can do UFO Abduction Insurance but not this saar,” the agent had said.
A dejected Lalu fondly recalled the moment he had bought the keyboard.
 "And this one is specifically meant for blondes," the salesman had said with a subtle smile.
"This pink keyboard has keys with dumber...err I mean smarter key names."
"WOW! I absolutely love it and will have one of these," Lalu had said with an air of self-confidence.
Lalu had gone blonde as it was the "in" thing to do in Bihar those days and was taking pride in buying stuff to suit his new personality.
As Lalu left for his home, he could see a thousand blonde Biharis’ fighting and killing over his beloved pink keyboard.

Copyright (c) Pigtale 2005-2010. Images copyright respective holders.

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Stalking Proposal

This short piece was written by me way back in 2005. Somehow I stumbled upon it now. So here it is!

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Author Henry David Thoreau once said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

There are certain situations where desperation more often than not takes the better of us. I believe that this is inherent to everybody at one point or the other in his or her life. What drives a man to jump off a skyscraper? What drives a woman to bobbitise a man? What drives a child to scream to get the parent’s attention? What drove Abhay to make all the wrong choices in life? Some would say “Hopelessness”, others would scream “Forlornness”. But ask Abhay and he would say with a grim smile, “It was sheer desperation”.

• Age: 31
• Place: Kolkata
• Marital Status: Single (not by choice)
• Mental Status: DESPERATE

That’s all one would require to draw a mental picture of Abhay. Handsome, tall and full of energy, Abhay was the cynosure of all eyes wherever he went. He never had any dearth of females who followed him; females, men would kill and die for. Abhay was the topic of envious gossip of every male in his office and the secret focal point of fantasy for all females. Then, Abhay should have been the luckiest guy in Kolkata, right? Wrong!! According to Abhay, he was the unluckiest person to have been born this side of the Arabian Sea.

Abhay’s problem? He always fell in the company of wrong women. Women who wanted only one thing from him…his virginity (or so thought Abhay). And all the women were successful…no not in making Abhay lose his virginity but something more precious; his mental peace. Let us rewrite Abhay’s profile and this time with some specifics.

• Age: 31
• Place: Kolkata
• Marital Status: Single (not by choice) & Virgin
• Mental Status: STILL DESPERATE

He was always rubbed the wrong way (literally) by each and every girl he met. Abhay’s traumatic tryst with such women had made him even more desperate to search for the right woman. Such desperation assumed manic proportions and so started his journey. But little did he know that his desperation was driving him to the road to perdition. Satan was waiting with open arms.

Since the physical world had failed Abhay, he decided to go virtual and posted his profile on a matrimonial site. Desperation drove him to become a paid member giving him all the paraphernalia for self-destruction. Being a paid member gave him the facility of posting his email address and phone number on the site for public scrutiny. 4 hours out of the total 8 that Abhay clocked at office were used up for searching the right girl. His colleagues would suddenly watch Abhay yelp with delight when he found a girl with the right credentials. Since he used to occupy the corner most cubicle humanly possible to build, no one could see as to what Abhay saw on his computer monitor. His boss too was happy. Such a hardworking fellow who takes pleasure in his work. If only he knew, that Abhay was billing the client for his search for the perfect girl, he’d flip out.

Then Abhay was faced with a strange situation; one that he had no clue or expertise to handle. He liked a lot of profiles on the site; profiles that drove his hyperactive brain to start imagining leading a peaceful and thrilling life with the lady. He made contact with all of them in the hope that it’s better to be in the company of a million right ladies than in the company of 1 wrong one. I dare not ask Abhay for the definition of right or wrong. But this was the least of problems for Abhay. Not a single girl responded to his request…some even blatantly rejected him. Now that’s a big problem, don’t you think? I’m sorry but we’ll have to rewrite the profile of Abhay (which has changed of course)!

• Age: 31
• Place: Kolkata
• Marital Status: Single (not by choice) & Virgin
• Mental Status: EXTREMELY DESPERATE

Given the extremely frustrating situation, it’s quite easy to predict what Abhay did next. Yes! He waited for the very first lady to either respond to his request or contact him in the first place. The former never happened (a profile that says “I’m single n ready to mingle with trouser pockets that jingle!!”, can make even diehard gays stay away). So even we were very surprised when we saw Abhay’s eyes light up with 2 lac lumens (or is it candela) intensity. At last a lady worth her salt had the gall to contact Abhay. Oh! I forgot to tell you as to how the contact was made. She went to the matrimonial site and found Abhay’s profile, which she liked very much…no, no, don’t make a mistake…it was Abhay’s designation in his company that she liked. She had a motive and Abhay was the means; a perfect match don’t you think!

Ah! There again I still haven’t told you as to how she made contact. She first sent an innocuous looking SMS: “Hi! Ru looking 4 Brahmin! Im Kayasta Plz go thru my profile n if it’s like bi u (sic) then ok else we can b frnds n plz dnt go 2 my photo section. My friends say I look better in real dis is debasree 4rm Kolkata.”

So Abhay thought, that here was a lady who was the least demanding and was even ready to start a friendship if the marriage didn’t go through. Lucky me, he thought. And then he did something that will haunt him for the rest of his life. No! He didn’t lose his “you-know-what” straightaway but did something else. He SMSed back to Debasree. He was all mushy when he wrote: “Hi thr! Can I hve ur profile id? We can surely be frnds” Pretty mushy and romantic start, don’t you think!?

The lady sent her profile ID and Abhay instantly went to work and quickly clicked on the photo section and was pleasantly surprised. Here stood a lady with a body to die for and a face to kill for. This is my Helen. He called up the lady and was greeted by a pleasant voice on the other side.

“Hi Abhay! I have been waiting for your call”, she answered, her voice laced with honey. And so started the conversation of a lifetime for Abhay. Even now he shudders and gets nightmares. After about 45 minutes, Abhay was seen tearing his hair in utter disdain by his office mates. They didn’t dare ask him the reason lest he bit them. Leave the mongrel to his fate. During the course of his conversation, Abhay came to know that the lady had come to Kolkata from Pune, where she used to study. She had come to Kolkata at the behest of a guy she had contacted from the same matrimonial site and who was only interested in taking the girl to his home. No! Not to meet his mother, but … But she stayed back in Kolkata and started looking for a job and what better way to look for a job than to contact the job giver through the matrimonial site and seduce him. Since Abhay had never been rude to a lady, he agreed to forward her resume to the HR, but all this while he was looking up as if cursing his luck and asking for justice. The facilities people of the office thought that the AC vent just above Abhay was clogged and so they increased the airflow. Now both the lady’s blabber and the cold air were killing Abhay.

The call ended with a sighing Abhay and a muffled scream; muffled because he was trying to scream and bite his biceps all at the same time. Desperation is great leveler. Within 5 minutes, Abhay received an email from the lady with the resume attached. And he promptly uploaded it to the intranet site of the company for processing. He returned home that night with a heavy heart and bruised biceps (he was biting them, remember!) He couldn’t sleep that night. No, it wasn’t the thoughts that were tormenting him but the constant missed calls and corny SMSes from “Helen”. Abhay was having trouble reading and comprehending corny SMSes like: “Sending u 1000000000 smiles…take 1 for now n keep d 999999999 under ur pillow- pick out one every time u think of me coz I want u smile. Good night luv! Debasree.” Abhay’s real trauma had just begun. The next day, Abhay got 15 missed calls from her and was seen howling at the AC vent above him a la werewolf. This has been continuing for the past one week.

And so ended Abhay’s search for the right lady. As I write this piece, Abhay is busy posting his profile on a job site and calling up the mobile phone company to get his number changed. He took this desperate step after the HR executive called up to say that Debasree’s resume had been put on fast track and in all likelihood would be recruited fast. Poor Abhay!! So now we have just one more thing to do; rewrite Abhay’s profile AGAIN.

• Age: 31
• Place: Kolkata
• Marital Status: Single (not by choice) & Virgin
• Mental Status: Paranoid

Ah! Before we packup…it’s important to mention that Abhay is seen screaming like hell now. He has just received a forwarded mail of a very notorious bar girl dancer…and guess who she resembles? While you spare a thought for Abhay, I’ll just go and tell him to do one last thing…remove his profile from the matrimonial site…forever.

Copyright (c) Pigtale 2005-2010. Images copyright respective holders.

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Freelancing no more!

I have always felt the need to express myself by writing and have done that on paper (as in real paper) since childhood. All went well till the Internet bug bit me. I could write whatever I felt and wherever I liked on the web. It also provided a huge market for content. I happily lapped it up. I thought that if I got paid for what I wrote, then I could consider myself a writer. Website content, marketing brochures, sales newsletters...anything and everything that came my way was happily delivered. Few original content here and there but most were rehashed versions of the originals.

Money was a by-product of the satisfaction that I got by writing. Satisfaction in the sense that I could call myself a freelance writer. How wrong I was…only time taught me. Like all things, the charm wore off pretty soon and I stopped soliciting work which dealt with the above. Up came article ghostwriting. Since I am not a big name in the literary world, no one wanted my name on the article...which was fine by me as long as it paid me. I enjoyed till it lasted. How long could I write articles on home products or fishes and plants so that they could be submitted to ezine website for marketing purposes…and that too featuring someone else’s name. I quit doing that as well. In short, the self inflated bubble called a ‘freelance writer’ was busted. I realized, I was not one.

And why am I saying this now? Because, I think I have achieved one of the things that I wanted in life; complete a novel. The childhood dream of weaving a story and just holding the printed pages in my hand just got fulfilled. No! I am not published yet…far from it. For now I have just held the computer printout of the 1st draft. Nothing more!

I am hoping that through this blog, I will take you through the publishing journey. Writing the book was the easiest part. The real pain starts after one has written the book. Either I will get published or else the PDF version of the book will be freely distributed. I will chronicle my journey whatever be the outcome. Success or failure, you will have the truth.

Stay tuned for the start of the journey as you see it from the eyes of a 1st time writer.

Copyright (c) Pigtale 2005-2010. Images copyright respective holders.

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