{"id":444,"date":"2003-01-04T04:59:00","date_gmt":"2003-01-03T23:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/archives\/444"},"modified":"2003-01-04T04:59:00","modified_gmt":"2003-01-03T23:29:00","slug":"444","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2003\/01\/444\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

first and second dot com: Insufferable <\/h3>\n

What can I say? I went to the site after I read Madman’s<\/a> mail on the TWIN list. I clicked on ‘1000 greatest books ever’ <\/a>and I was lead to a page that showcased the latest Indian fiction. Latest as in, in the past few years. I was scandalised when i found Raj kamal Jha’s Blue bed spread. Oh well, probably it was 1000 worst books ever. Mistakes do happen. What is this self-congratulatory outrage? And I realised that on the top of the page they had provided links to the ‘real’ 1000 greatest books ever. But why the ### would you display Raj kamal Jha in a page that is a target to the link 1000 great books? Beats me. Trust me when I say it. Jha’s blue bed spread is horrible. Incoherent.If you wont believe me. Buy and read it for yourself. To say the least. Some real literary brain is at work in first and second. And for god’ssake wont they ever learn? The hand doesn’t appear on important links like ‘add to cart’. Also, I was saddened by the fact that under the greatest Indian books, Seth’s Suitable boy sat on top. Malgudi days sat somewhere below, BELOW Raj kamal jha! It is high time I wrote a real great book. Watch it buddy. I am gonna shock the hell out of you. What Indian fiction needs is a honest-to-reader entertaining STORY. Definitely not House of blue mangoes or blue bed spreads or crimson panties. Look at it man, they write about ‘women’ and their troubles, and somehow it is always about urban women, wonder why. Or someone sitting in the ####ing bronx would write about her step-grand father’s exploits in freaking Calcutta. And win a booker for it too. Yea yea, I know. I am raving because they are there. Up there without even half-the-effort. The days are numbered for the saga-tripping hypocrites. What we need is real story tellers. Honest story tellers if you will. But then again, what would you do with an industry where the CEO of Penguin writes and publishes his own book? I am talking about House of blue mangoes. It is better than rum man. I went to sleep, 10 minutes into that damn book. What next? Some one writing about the values of middle-ages Kerala and call it a ####ing novel? I am disgusted man. [Update: Didn’t like the last two lines of the original post. Deleted it.]<\/p>\n

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first and second dot com: Insufferable What can I say? I went to the site after I read Madman’s mail on the TWIN list. I clicked on ‘1000 greatest books ever’ and I was lead to a page that showcased the latest Indian fiction. Latest as in, in the past few years. I was scandalised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"jetpack-portfolio-admin-thumb":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Suman Kumar","author_link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/author\/suman-kumar\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"first and second dot com: Insufferable What can I say? I went to the site after I read Madman’s mail on the TWIN list. I clicked on ‘1000 greatest books ever’ and I was lead to a page that showcased the latest Indian fiction. Latest as in, in the past few years. I was scandalised…","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2Gbk8-444","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":741,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2005\/06\/book-tagged\/","url_meta":{"origin":444,"position":0},"title":"Book Tagged!","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"June 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I was tagged by Sukumar. Here I go:Total number of books I own:About 400?Last Book I Bought:I bought all works (fiction) of Yendamuri Veerendranath. Last Book I read:The Call of the Wild - Jack LondonFive Books That Mean a Lot to Me:Tiger by the tail - James Hadley Chase (That\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":607,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2004\/12\/message-to-raj\/","url_meta":{"origin":444,"position":1},"title":"Message to Raj","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"December 18, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Raj you said in your comment that Chennai is a 'left-over rice eaters place'. If you had said it in person, I would have shoved a pound of Poha and Jalebi up your throat (unless you'd wanted me to do it the other way round). However, I leave it to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1091,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/99-movie-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":444,"position":2},"title":"99 Movie Review","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"May 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A low-profile movie (by Bollywood standards) that has no real star power releases. It doesn't get too much media attention (by Bollywood standards again). But slowly but surely it creates a buzz. A friend mentions it on the phone. Colleagues talk about it. No, they are not gushing about it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "movies"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/category\/movies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":481,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2003\/06\/flavors-a-movie-by-d-k-krishna-premiering-in-newyork\/","url_meta":{"origin":444,"position":3},"title":"Flavors: A Movie by D.K.Krishna :: Premiering in NewYork","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"June 15, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Flavors: A Movie by D.K.Krishna :: Premiering in NewYork My school friend DK has made another movie (titled Flavours) which is gonna be screened here. www.asiancinevision.org is the site of the event host. Asian Cine Vision says: Director(s): Krishna DK, Raj Nidimoru Program: FLAVORS (Flushing Town Hall) Program Date: 6\/29\/2003\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1809,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/a-long-cherished-dream\/","url_meta":{"origin":444,"position":4},"title":"A Long Cherished Dream","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"November 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"So all the readers of my blog, all three of you, yes, here is why I was not updating my blog. Read no? The past three years were tough. I quit my job, became a stay-at-home-dad, rekindled the chase of a long cherished dream: writing. I started writing very early\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/category\/books-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1098,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/why-kee-pedia\/","url_meta":{"origin":444,"position":5},"title":"Why-kee-pedia?","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"July 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I caught my eleven year old nephew browsing the web and I asked him, \"What are you up to?\" He said, \"I am researching on Tamil freedom fighters on 'why-kee-peedia'. For an essay?\"I was impressed. When I was his age, I had to rely on the government library in Greamspet,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "culture"","block_context":{"text":"culture","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/category\/culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}