Wednesday, January 28, 2009

My Review on Ezine

Ezine articles featured my book review on AIDS Sutra on their website yesterday :) Here's the link to the article - http://ezinearticles.com/?id=1908824

As Featured On EzineArticles

They also added me onto their Expert Author's list, so now I can post more articles there, which am planning to do very soon. If you want to view all the articles or subscribe, you can visit this link - http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Pratima_Jayaram

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Orbis Terrarum Challenge Winners

Last year, when I got into reading books all over again, I took part in the "Orbis Terrarum Reading Challenge" hosted by Bethany on B&B ex libris in 2008. She announced the winners last week and I am thrilled to be one of them!! :) Eagerly waiting to receive the bookie gifts! It was very nice of her to have agreed to send me those gifts all the way here, though she is based out of US…Thanks Bethany!

On seeing the response to last year's challenge, she has now started a dedicated blog for the OT challenge and plans to host it again this year. Am eagerly waiting to take part in it!

If you would like to know more on the books that I read for this challenge, click here and if you have any books that you want to recommend for this year, don't forget to leave a comment :)

Monday, January 19, 2009

Life is too short...

All of us at some point would have felt that life is short, for we humans..... but for puppies, it way toooooo short! You ask me why am I thinking of puppies suddenly? Well, about 5-6 weeks back a dog (bitch, to be precise) that used to roam around on our street (being well fed by my parents :)) laid 8 puppies right in front of my house, near the gate. They were the cutest set of puppies I had seen; I just loved watching them lying around next to the tree, being nursed by their mom so lovingly.

(Took this pic from my balcony just few days after they were born ... )
It was just about 3 weeks since they were born, when a scorpio went over 2 of the cutest white puppies that were sleeping by the roadside and they were just smashed to death instantly :( I really wonder how a driver can just run over pups sleeping near a tree, not even on the middle of the road! It was a sad sight to see. Their mom now chases every four-wheeler that passes on this road and barks like there is no end. What more can it do?!

Anyways, another pup was taken away by someone (hopefully they are keeping it as a pet!) after a few days. At least it would have got a home to live and wont die coming under some damn vehicle. The 5 remaining puppies grew up to be nice and fat, eating 4 meals a day that my mom feeds them. They are very naughty and keep running around on the road even though we have made a cozy place with a few old carpets near the tree so that they can sleep. Though this is a small cross-road, the number of vehicles passing by is pretty high during the day and there is always a danger of someone running over. It's a pity that they never realize this!!

The saddest part is today evening, a bike (not even a car) went over another pup and it died right in front of my parents eyes. I just came in 10 mins later to see it lying dead. The other one is badly hit and just doesnt open its eyes; but it is still breathing, so we kept it inside a cardboard box and covered it with a small carpet to keep it warm. That's the max that I could do...to just keep it warm in this weather. But seeing its condition, am not sure if it will survive till tomorrow morning.....just keeping fingers crossed! We put the remaining 3 inside the compound so that they are safe, but they just sneak out thru the gate every few minutes...now what more can we do?! :(

It just feels terrible to see only 4 puppies (1 badly injured) remaining out of the initial 8. And it is even worse to see them die right in front of your eyes. Feeling so helpless. I really wish I could do something to keep this injured puppy alive :( But I guess this is the fate of all street dogs... just have to accept it and move on...... sigh!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Book Review: The White Tiger

Author: Aravind Adiga
Pages: 321
My Rating: 4.5/5

This book, the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008 had generated a lot of curiosity among the readers and I was eagerly waiting to get a hand on it too; wanted to figure out if it was just a hype or there was really some substance in it, worthy of the prize. I picked it up in Dec'08 and nearly took a month to finish because of the hectic work schedule, but if I count the actual number of days I read the book, I have probably taken about 4-5 days...
[Click here to read the complete review]

Saturday, January 10, 2009

A quote..

...by Marilyn Monroe. Came across while browsing thru the web and really *loved* this one, so thought of sharing it here..

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Check your reaction time

Want to check how fast you react to changes?
Feeling tired or sleepy and want something to wake u up?

Check how alert you are by taking this short 1 minute test (it's more like a game than a test)
It's pretty cool!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/sheep/