From 1984

The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was the part of the attraction. It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you already know

Reading Orwell’s 1984, from which the passage above has been reproduced. An amazing piece of literature, I regret not having read this book earlier.

Of Reality and Make-Believe

Via the tweet of a friend , I came across this Channel 4 video on the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November last year. The video is a detailed documentary on the attacks with interviews of people caught in the line of fire or affected by it, and communication exchanges of the terrorists. It’s amazing how easily we forget and move on, and maybe that is a good thing, or may be not.

—-

It’s been a summer of movies. Watched the latest Harry Potter movie with a group of potterheads and muggles (defined here as someone that has not read the books or watched the movies before, in addition to lacking magical abilities). I’d classify myself someplace in between – haven’t read the books, have watched all the movies so far. At the end of the movie, the potterheads liked it, the muggles did not. My opinion of the movie is, unsurprisingly, somewhere in between. It did help me recover from the experience of watching Bruno a week earlier – a funny and brave movie, but to what purpose?