Fantasy and Science Fiction

OMG! Literally :) This should have been a October post. Not even October, it should have been in September. But November it is.


Fantasy and Science Fiction - A course on coursera taught by Prof. Eric Rabkin.
I like the way Eric describes the nature of fantastic - "...the diametric, diachronic reversal of the ground rules of the narrative world."  
After reading Harry Potter series, LOTR and more recently GRRM, i knew that i loved fantasy genre. After all, i am a true escapist at heart. (And why not in this real world.... more on this later). But it was not any kind of fantasy that i like. Political drama like GRRM with good prose is always a favorite. I reread LOTR last December just to remember how good it was. I liked HP series never for its prose but how the jigsaw puzzle unfolded and connected everything in the end. 
According to GRRM,  people don't like fantasy because of magic spells or dragons.   In LOTR, when there was war, Gandalf was not fighting with spells and curses, he had a sword in his hand. My thesis here is that (a) fantasy shakes the ground rules of our world and that is what makes it so appealing and (b) It is not the props that matter, it is the interaction between reality and those props.

(As a sidenote, herein lies why the battle scenes in Harry Potter movies do not work because there is no excitement in watching two people fighting with muted breaths and words with a broken stick on their hands).

As far as Science Fiction goes, the genre never appealed to me. I have never really enjoyed Star Wars. I read Ender's game last year and found it to be too young adult-ish (read childish). Battlestar Gallactica was impressive but again not due to its SF elements but because of its political drama. I believe that the whole SF genre is way more popular in US that India because of the cultural context that they grew in.  But, it is not to say that i am not amazed by SF. I truly believe that the power of science as a fantasy tool has endless possibilities but just that  before this course, i had not come across any good SF writing. 

I also believe that mythology is  an extension of fantasy. Having read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Mahabharatha and Illiad before,  i didn't see them as religious texts but as one of the best writings of fantasy ever possible.

So, my motives for taking this course was to know more about great writings in this genre. The course description had Dracula and Frankenstein. I have never been a fan of horror genre either, so i thought it was a good way of getting into its roots as well. It was to be a demanding course - 10 novels in 10 weeks. The course outline is copied below - 


Grimm — Children's and Household Tales
Carroll — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
Stoker — Dracula
Shelley — Frankenstein
Hawthorne & Poe — Stories and Poems
Wells — The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, "The Country of the Blind," "The Star"
Burroughs & Gilman — A Princess of Mars & Herland
Bradbury — The Martian Chronicles
LeGuin — The Left Hand of Darkness
Doctorow — Little Brother

Off the above, i didn't get time to read Poe. I couldn't finish Island of Dr. Moreau and i read the wrong Bradbury (idiotic mistake) - I read a graphic novel adaptation of The Martian Chronicles instead of the actual book.

The course is designed intelligently. Not only it goes from fairy tales to horror to SF to modern fantasy, the writings selected are also in chronological order.  This shows how the genre has evolved over time. The books chosen are the ones that has helped in shaping the genre. I especially enjoyed the fact that i read Dracula and Frankenstein back to back.

Among the list, the ones that i disliked the most was Burrough's A Princess of Mars. I found it to be too YA and lacking completely in prose. Followed by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which outside of the wordplay (which is excellent), i found it falling abysmally  short in plot and story elements.  My favorite were Stoker's Dracula (oh how much i enjoyed reading it) and Wells' stories. I liked how Wells deconstructs the grandeur perception of super-hero abilities.  The one that surprised me the most was Gilman's Herland. I had never read a utopian novel and to read a feminist utopian novel was simply a treat. It was a very refreshing read and it was the one that broke most of the ground rules.  Doctorow's Little Brother was the most "masala" book of the lot, it is an ideal summer beach reading. But as Eric explains in his lecture, it is not at all an easy task to write in this manner. The craft is much more appreciated after attending the lectures.


We had to write a small essay on every book offering an insight about the book which will be useful for others. It was a good creative exercise to do so. Reading peer responses was also quite informative. Coursera has done a good job in creating a platform to do so. The discussion forums were too noisy but some of the popular posts were a delight to read.

Cafe hopping in Bangalore

So, it's been almost 45 days in Bangalore and here is the update on cafes at Bangalore so far.

Overall, bangalore has scores of cafes and CCD is the dominating chain. But none of them have been Philz level. Most of the cafe's are actually restaurants selling food such as pasta/paninis and what not under the guise of a cafe. My other complaint is the size of coffee mug, smaller than any of US's sup and the lack of simply brewed cup of coffee.

But inspired by this article - http://tsr.net.co/2012/01/cafe-hopping-in-bangalore I also decided to do my own cafe hopping today morning.

Koshy's cafe/restaurant: A very old place,must be about 40 yars old, the decor is still like those old ones (reminded me of Indain coffee house), it is a place to go just to remember those good ol' days :) Had cold cofee (good but sweet) with a brunch of omlette and toasted bread. The omlette with toast is definitely recommended. Also, they have a bike rack in front, hurray!!!

Next, based on the article i wanted to go and try Java city but google maps was wrong/out of date. Couldn't find it, so decided to check on Au Bon Pain and again the directions on Google maps is out of date. But found Au Bon Pain at Brigade and residency road.

Au Bon Pain: Fancy American style restaurant but again with small portions but the coffee is not that expensive. They have Baguette bread, and other interesting sandwiches which were tempting to try. The Latte that i ordered was decent, not that strong.  Receptive people, they even turned off the tv on my request.

The chocolate Room: Barely a month old, the chocolate room offers an awesome view of the Brigade street. It has tons of hot chocolate options, frappes, pancakes etc etc all featuring chocolate. I tried the classic Hot chocolate,  it was decent, again sweeter for my taste. Rates are on the expensive side. But the decor of place is great, they have lots of space and it reminded me of Peet's at Castro. Will definitely be going there again to check on their cafe. (My secret hope to get the Palo Alto Univ Ave hot chocolate is still unfulfilled....Bay area spoils you badly :))



General good cafes that i have visited -

~ Hotel Airlines : Located near Cubbon park, this place has filter coffee which is good (quantity wise as well). Even with a bad service, this place is a good hang out because you sit under big giant trees in an open space on simple chairs and tables. Just for this ambience, you are willing to forget everything else. Highly recommended.

~ Ants Cafe: This came from Parul's recommendation. Again it is mostly a restaurant, but coffee is decent. But this place is special because Ants is actually Action North East Trust. They sell handicraft stuff from North Eastern local manufacturers and they follow fair trade practices. Their collection is a must to check out and is something that draws you again and again. 

~ Claytopia: This came from Gurshi's reference. Not sure if it can be clubbed a cafe but definitely a great hangout place. I tried the Thai coffee and it was a disaster but still the ambience makes it special.

~ Krishna Sagar on Langford road: Haha. This close to office darshini is now a friend. He fills my coffee mug at the cost of three filter coffees (INR 36). Not only that, when i asked him to prepare a less sweet FIlter coffee he was able to make the correct ratio with 40% unsweetened milk and 60% sweetened milk. He also makes it extra song on request. This is a life saver if you ask me :)

~Kalmani coffee at Garuda mall: Good! Strong coffee, less sweet. Reasonable rate. Good place to have filter coffee.

CCD: I hate them. Here are my reasons : (a) Their quantities are even smaller than the rest of the world. Tried their exotic flavors and they are even smaller. (b) They are like Starbucks, have no emotional attachment to the coffee and (c) The ratio of price to quality/service is royally screwed up.


What Bangalore needs:
(a) Free WiFi at cafes.
(b) Simple black brewed coffee with large mug sizes
(c) People who serve should be more educated about the coffee and its history
(d) Live music at cafes.
(e) Good coffee.
(f) Stretch:  Invite people to open startups from cafe

If there is any cafe @Blore which has four out of above six, they can count me as a regular any day. 

Erato

Erato is a poetry magazine published by Georgia Tech students containing submissions from students. In Spring 2008, i submitted my first written poem and it was selected. Naturally, i was excited. So for next sem i submitted again and they have been kind enough again to select my three poems this time. The three poems are Crazy girl, Think of me and Golden Gate.
Although they have not yet uploaded these issues yet, but their site is here. http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/eratopub/issues.html

Well, indeed i am thankful to Erato for selecting my poems. Unfortunately, i no longer will be publish anymore as i have graduated. But i am glad that Erato exists and its always good to read what other students are writing. Check out the issues, they are very interesting.

This reminds me of Insite - the NSIT student magazine. I wish i had submitted something for Insite as well. I liked Insite - sme of its stories were actually very creative and some were funny indeed. I wonder if they do it now also. If they do, then they should also maintain a site and upload issues.

Timestamp

Today is Sunday, 24 Aug and today stands as one of the timestamp days in my life.
I got my laptop back after a week (its LCD got broken somewhere in between New York and Atlanta) and its working fine now.
So today, i will timestamp all the tasks that were meant to be. There are some 5 drafts waiting in dashboard and plus i need to document my life in july and aug.