What an irony that I was in the midst of this particular book when I heard, for the first time, about a woman named Irene Sendler. Sendler, who died recently at 98, smuggled 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to give them a chance at life. Mila 18 describes just such people, who dedicated their lives to giving the rest of their kin a chance to live. It was an extremely risky job, and they did it really well.

Uris describes war not just through cold facts, but by delving into the hearts and minds of people who were involved in it. You can feel the grit and the anger of Andrei Androfski, the quiet determination and frustration of Alexander Brandel, the bravery of the Catholic Gabriela Rak who defied her people to come to the aid of the Jews; while most other Poles cowered under German domination, people like Rak came forward to help the Jews out of their misery. It is hard to conceive how anybody on this planet can be capable of such cold-blooded cruelty. But it has happened, and continues to.

It's rather disappointing to think Justine Henin is retiring so early. I had been expecting her to play for two more years at the least, to win a Wimbledon title, the only Grand Slam title that has eluded her. Perhaps it wasn't to be, or she would have won it last year. She capitulated in a bizarre fashion to Marion Bartoli in the 2007 semi-finals, throwing away her best chance to win arguably the most prestigious Grand Slam title and prove her skill on grass. I must admit that my loyalties had begun to get a little confused with the rise of Ana Ivanovic, but I did want Henin to win as much as possible because she had very little time ahead of her. However, she is retiring gracefully, while at the top, and she will be remembered long for her talents, playing amidst a host of female players who depend on brute force. She hasn't been having a very good season this year, and obviously she knows best if she is really going irreversibly downhill. Her announcement did come as a shock, though; perhaps her turbulent personal life hastened her decline. Alongwith fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters, she came as a breath of fresh air in a women's game that was increasingly depending on power and force, rather than skill. The summit will probably belong to East Europe again, with the Russians and the Serbs leading the pack.

Another star female sportsperson, Swede Annika Sorenstam, has announced her decision to retire at the end of the season. I haven't really followed her career or exactly been a fan, but she was the first female golfer whose name I knew, and I respect her for the stature she has earned in yet another male-dominated game.

I shall go back to reading My Name Is Red now. It is pretty different from the books I've been reading all this while, and I find it pretty absorbing. The power cuts have made my progress miserably slow, for I really don't fancy holding a book for long with sweaty fingers, perspiration running into my eyes as the rain clouds stubbornly refuse to grant respite from over-40 temperatures.

The race at the anti-clockwise circuit was rather uneventful, with the only bit of action coming at the start. Thanks to the withdrawal of the Super Aguri team due to financial difficulties, Force India have been left to bring up the rear of the pack. They didn't have a good start at the Turkish GP, with Giancarlo Fisichella locking up and sending his car crashing away from the track. Kazuki Nakajima of Williams retired early, and Sebastien Bourdais of Toro Rosso ended up beaching his car; these were the only retirements in a race that saw 17 of 20 drivers finishing.

Massa started well, while Hamilton squeezed past McLaren teammate Heikki Kovalainen, who had started on the front row of the grid beside Massa, into second place. Raikkonen struggled to hold his position, being overtaken by BMW's Robert Kubica and Fernando Alonso in his Renault. A minor tussle between Raikkonen and Kovalainen sent the latter into the pits with a puncture, ruining his race. Kovalainen, despite all his overtaking manoeuvres, managed only a twelfth-place finish.

Ferrari have once again asserted their status as favourites for the season, earning their fourth win in a row. McLaren seemingly have a lot of work to do to put both their cars in a competitive position with respect to Ferrari, as do BMW. Kubica and teammate Nick Heidfeld came in fourth and fifth, never really in the reckoning for a podium finish. After their promising start to the season, they have not quite maintained the momentum. Nico Rosberg managed only one point, failing to live up to his promise yet again. This season is beginning to run on predictable lines, but nothing really can be said about the championship yet. McLaren had a strong start last season, but faltered when in mattered. The Monaco GP should be interesting, as Ferrari haven't won at the circuit since 2001. Much depends on qualifying and strategy, as the showpiece race tends to get rather processional due to the lack of overtaking opportunities at the street circuit. The Monaco GP will also mark the end of a third of the season, giving the teams a good chance to get their act together and reestablish their goals and priorities.

All is not well for Vijay Mallya in sport; with just one of the Force India cars finishing yet again, and only in a lowly 17th place, the team has a great deal of work to do to put itself among the midfield teams, as was the initial target.

Ah! Back in fairytale Europe. Somehow, there is nothing quite like looking forward to a Sunday evening of F1, and the spectacular European circuits nestled among mountains really add to the sheen of the sport.

Home hero Fernando Alonso flattered to deceive as Finland's Iceman Kimi Raikkonen drove to victory from pole at the Spanish Grand Prix. The weather was perfect for a race, a nice, sunny day (proving the weathermen wrong yet again), and the Ferrari camp made no mistake, Felipe Massa finishing second to give the team their successive 1-2 finish. With three consecutive wins between them, Raikkonen and Massa have managed to steer their team to the top of the constructors' championship with 47 points, clear of BMW, the best of the rest, by 8 points.

The race at this picturesque circuit of Catalunya was a far cry from the unexciting race in Bahrain. The start itself provided a bit of a shuffle in the orders, as Massa overtook Alonso to move into second place, while Lewis Hamilton eased into fourth in his McLaren Mercedes with a manoeuvre on BMW's Robert Kubica. Hamilton finished third, coming back on the podium for the first time this season after his victory in Australia. All did not go well for the McLaren team, however, with the left front tyre on Heikki Kovalainen's car going bust; he slammed into the tyre wall, his car having to be extricated with much trouble. He luckily escaped injury, but the incident did throw the race into a tizzy as the safety car had to be brought out. Nick Heidfeld made the mistake of pitting while the safety car was on track, paying for it later with a 10 second stop-and-go penalty in the pit lane.

Earlier, Adrian Sutil's race in his Force India came to a premature end as he collided with Toro Rosso's Sebastien Vettel, putting them both out of the race. Nelsinho Piquet of Renault had a run-in with Sebastian Bourdais, ending the race for the two drivers. Renault's miseries were compounded as Alonso had an engine failure, failing to finish his home race. The heat in Bahrain apparently overworked quite a few engines, for Nico Rosberg suffered a similar fate in his Williams. However, his teammate, Kazuki Nakajima, picked up two points.

Vijay Mallya might have lost a bit of sleep with things not quite going his way in the IPL. Sutil didn't do anything to alleviate his sorrow, but thanks to the fight put up by Giancarlo Fisichella, Mallya still has some reason for hope. Fisi staved off Heidfeld's efforts bravely before being overtaken by the much better performing BMW. The Italian finished a commendable tenth in a race that saw only thirteen finishers. There was another battle between David Coulthard's Red Bull and the Super Aguri of Takuma Sato, which the Scottish veteran won. These were not the only moments of worry for Coulthard; he earlier had a collision with Toyota's Timo Glock, which sent the German limping with front wing damage, and a problem with his own rear suspension, causing his rear left tyre to wear away and bringing him smoking and bumping into the pit lane.

The safety car period brought some changes into the race; I believe Raikkonen would have opened a bigger gap on his rivals than he could manage, if not for the stints behind the safety car. I also have a question about the pit lane regulations during the safety car period. If the pit lane is closed and a car is running out of fuel, shouldn't it be allowed to pit? It boils down to sheer ill luck, then, as was possibly the case with Heidfeld.

The top order remains unchanged, the front runners are doing well. Reliability, however, has become a question with the McLaren team, as they haven't really been able to match last year's form. Bourdais and Piquet are yet to impress; freak incidents don't really raise their stakes in the high pressure world of F1. Rosberg has been having a torrid time as well, and being outdone by Nakajima is certainly not what he is looking forward to. Kubica has been consistent, and it will be good to see him pick up his first win this season, but the BMWs really need to up their game to match Ferrari. There is much at stake, and the picture will get clearer as the season progresses with the next race in Turkey.

Mandira's saree misadventures, noodle straps and lack of cricket sense are history. When it comes to talking of women in cricket, the focus has shifted to the cheerleaders in their obscene, skimpy, indecent, unacceptable (feel free to add to the list) attire, and their (repeat list of adjectives) dance moves. So now we have politicians butting their noses in as usual, calling for a ban on something that violates Indian culture.

Why are we even paying so much attention to the cheerleaders? When people thought test cricket had got boring, one-day cricket came in. And now that the scheme of 50 overs an innings is also looking uninteresting, Twenty20 is grabbing attention. (Next in international cricket: the six-overs-a-side games that are played in Hong Kong by the bigwigs, along with minnows like UAE. Who is next after Subhash Chandra, if the ICC refuses to recognise it?) To add to the appeal of the game, we have fireworks, Bollywood (as usual), SMS contests, and, yes, cheerleaders. They are just one of the numerous unnecessary elements in the IPL. So why not just let them be, instead of raising such a hue and cry over them? Surely nobody is fool enough to watch the IPL matches just for the girls when there are plenty of them, dressed in a similar fashion, on many other channels?

If they're thinking of banning the girls, then they should also ban the bicep-flaunting non-entities that yak away in the studio nonstop, talking more of flat stomachs and phone numbers than the actual game. Apparently you don't need much skill to be a presenter in cricket. You need some credentials as a model/VJ or maybe not even those, and be able to string together three consecutive sentences in English, and there you are in front of the camera, babbling away to glory in the company of better men like Robin Jackman and Greg Chappell. Every few sentences, you hand it over to a girl near the boundary, who will give you 'exclusive' interviews with one of the numerous entertainers (read out-of-work, quite-into-retirement 'celebrities'), specially for the viewers. I think Mayanti Langer did a much better job with the ICL than the pretenders here. She had good screen presence and carried off the show rather well, despite the fact that many of the matches resembled the ones ageing movie stars, who last played cricket in high school, participate in for charity.

Adding to the list of irritating elements in the IPL, and perhaps topping it, is the Bollywood contingent. Why on earth do our actors feel that they simply have to make their presence felt everywhere? SRK definitely goes overboard with his antics, and to someone looking for refuge from his constant onslaught on television viewers through advertisements, game shows, movies, promos and the news, the IPL matches are certainly not the answer. Has he forgotten about the movies that he has on hand (if there are any, that is)? Is the IPL also responsible for amnesia, then?

When I look at Sharad Pawar, what come to my mind first are the air-conditioned boardrooms of the BCCI. It only strikes me later that he is also a Cabinet Minister. After all, cricket is what hogs the headlines all the time, and the new controversy involving Harbhajan and Sreesanth is only making matters worse. Cricket is important, the crisis in Vidarbha can take a backseat. For the first time, I feel more interested in the stock markets (of which I've never understood much), than in cricket. For the same old debates on ethics in cricket will play themselves out, we'll have Barkha, Rajdeep, Arnab and co. conducting serious debates on whether cricket really is a gentleman's game. Rajeev Shukla and Kiran More will be seen on three different TV channels in one evening. There will be talk of how the incident is being perceived in Australia after the fiasco during India's trip there, and comparison perhaps with the Shoaib Akhtar-Mohammad Asif incident. Ban the cheerleaders? Maybe we should start with the news channels.

Bans seem to be the only solution to every problem in India, especially when a thing is alien to 'Indian culture' (which, apparently, only our politicians can define best, even if they send their children abroad). I've seen a sticker my father bought when he was young; it said: 'Ban Teachers'. Of course, that is how we feel in college when we have unending lectures from self-professed experts, especially during the last period. You can feel badly about anybody or anything under the sun, but you possibly can't always call for a ban. Rational thinking is a term that seems to have got obsolete. Anyway, if it is right to call for bans and if it does work, then I'll call for a ban on SRK, even if I'm putting my blogging career in jeopardy by doing so.

So what is the situation like on Dalaal Street?

Why do we go to bed at night
And frolic by light of day?
Because the night is dark and dull
But sunshine for fun and play.

The night is dark and I'm afraid
Why does it scare me so?
Feel our light, make friends with the night,
Just watch your fears go.

Enough said, now go to bed
In deep slumber may you lie
As dreams stream into your head,
And winds outside sough and sigh.

The clouds come sailing through the sky
Hark! How softly the rain falls.
Let it lull you, may you sleep till
The first of the morning birds calls.

Rhythm, rhyme, metre, cadence- I don't know much about these words. I don't know how they are used. This is my first ever attempt at poetry as an adult. I should have written all this in an introduction before assaulting your senses with this pretence at poetry, but I was afraid it would make you overly critical of or generous to this very schoolgirlish attempt. I can never understand complex emotions in poetry, so my poem naturally has to be plain and unembellished. If you're a casual reader, this piece might have amused you; if you're a purist, you might use this to tell people how not to write poetry. At all events, I am convinced of its usefulness.

PS: This piece draws no inspiration from 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'. My stars here can actually talk.

Languid Idleness

What does Paulo Coelho do that no other writer I've read seems to have done? He raises the questions that are always at the back of our mind but never spoken about, for fear of derision and embarrassment, or out of plain timidity. His books are always extremely compelling and realistic, and each book of his that I read is memorable in its own way.

I have just finished The Zahir, and what a remarkable book it is! It is the story of a writer who goes in search of his wife across continents. He doesn't know what is wrong, if she has been kidnapped or walked out of a seemingly happy marriage, and wonders what he should do to get her back. This book, like his other works, is about courage and love, and the struggle people have to put up with to get to what they want, to figure out what they want. The Zahir, as explained in the book, is something that a person becomes obsessed with when he comes in contact with, to such an extent that he can think of nothing else.

When people have the means to make their dream come true, what comes in their way of realising it is the fear of failure, and of what life will be like in case things don't work out. Coelho talks about it as he relates his own struggle to begin writing a book, once he knew that was what he wanted to do and had the means to do it. The love and support of his then wife, Esther, came to his rescue.

The book says it is important to forget the past to move on with the future. This is something we probably know; only, it is not easy to get rid of the baggage we carry. Maybe it is possible through conscious effort. The means used here is repeating the story of your life to another person, as many times as possible, so that it no longer belongs to you.

One of the things I identified with, and shall not be afraid to mention, now that it has been talked of by Coelho, is making weird pacts with God. I don't know if everybody does it; I have never asked anyone. It is like asking for a sign from God that something will happen the way we want it; for example, if the phone rings in the next five minutes, we're going to have some rain tonight. Illogical pacts. It is just a strange form of seeking assurance from God. I'd like to know if there are other people who do it as well.

The book explores unhappiness and loneliness; the need to feel wanted at all times, to know that you matter to your friends and family. The part about loneliness really touched me; it was another of those things that I'd often felt but never spoken out about. Which is why we have Coelho.

There is one thing that is often advocated by several religions and traditions- whirling and dancing, to get in touch with the energy of love. The Witch of Portobello introduced me to the idea, and reading about Sufism and Rumi, I have come to learn that this seems to be quite a popular, ancient practice, and it is perhaps our inhibitions that prohibit us from taking to such demonstrative forms of getting in touch with the energy that pervades the universe. The Zahir mentions it as well.

The courage to do what we really want to doesn't come easily, especially when it is something that doesn't conform with the rules that were once set down as proper for societal living. Love and courage, as I mentioned earlier, form the theme of this book. No amount of effort on my part can do justice to this magnificent book; there are parts of it that each of us will certainly identify with. Coelho sets down on paper what we always think about but never dare to ask. It helps alleviate the loneliness to know there are other people who think the way you do, and you're never alone in the world, no matter what you feel.

When Shashi Tharoor runs out of ideas, he gets down to writer bashing. I don't read his column regularly, but on two occasions, I have seen him get rather critical of a couple of the finest writers the world has known.

Yesterday's (April 13) Hindu Sunday Magazine carried a column by Tharoor, in which he has denounced the importance given to Rudyard Kipling. He describes how his teenage fascination for the much-celebrated poem If wore off as he came to realise the true story behind it. Kipling, in short, was allegedly racist. Which is why, Tharoor says, we should 'relegate Kipling to the darkest recesses of our history', and get rid of the poem If from school curriculums. In the past, Tharoor has also criticised RK Narayan, and though I don't remember the exact language that was used, I believe it was something to the effect of Narayan not being skilled enough. Narayan, a people's writer who contributed much to the growth of Indian literature in English and gave us what we could understand and relate to.

This yardstick should then be applied to every author or poet whose morals and values go against what is part of our society and culture, and who are not talented enough to match up to the exacting standards of self-appointed critics. We should stop reading Frances Hodgson Burnett because of her denigrating depiction of the 'lascars'. Enid Blyton was often denounced because the children in her books represented the white, well-to-do families; critics also said she had a limited vocabulary. So maybe we should clear our bookshelves of all those adventures that we read with much enthusiasm while at school. George Eliot lived with a man she was not married to, because she didn't believe in the sanctity of a relationship that could be easily dissolved. Isn't that opposed to what the traditions of our country say? Off goes Eliot. And so do all the other writers of the British era in India, who were guilty of racist mindsets. Continue with the list, and it is doubtful we will be left with anybody at all who has managed to please absolutely every section of society without drawing a single word of criticism.

Racism is unforgiveable. But a person's beliefs and ideals should not be used to judge his/her literary skill. A piece of work should first be admired for its literary merit. The questions will automatically follow. If might have been racially motivated, and such ideas definitely need to be denounced, but that cannot be done by ignoring its writer altogether. I don't know much of Kipling; I have read only two of his books- Puck of Pook's Hill, a fantastic tale of adventure and war, and Stalky & Co., a delightful schoolboy story. But the insular idea of ostracising a writer for the beliefs he holds would not exactly help the cause of literature. Why, then, the hue and cry over Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen? They could simply be asked not to write, and that would solve all problems without violence and unrest. After all, in today's volatile world, it doesn't take much to create controversy, even though the implied crimes may in no way be as heinous as racism. Mein Kampf will continue to be read, and if I read it, I don't become a dictator or a Nazi. I read because I like to, and because I want to learn. If I don't agree with a particular blasphemous idea, I ignore it.

Beginning a new book is like going on a journey. The actual reading is preceded by days of longing, anticipation and excitement. I plan, I contemplate, I dig through all my unread books, quite making up my mind that this is the book I'm going to read next, and I let my anticipation rise accordingly. Then, all of a sudden, my eyes fall on another book, and it beckons invitingly. Change of plan. I simply have to read it, shooting down all my earlier ideas.

I had quite decided to read The Children of Hurin, when I realised that it has been atleast two months since I last read a Paulo Coelho book. Except for excerpts from Like A Flowing River and pieces in the 'Deccan Chronicle' on Saturdays, I haven't really seen much of him. Reading Coelho always seems to me like an unpredictable journey, with lessons of life strewn along the way without being preachy. The best thing about his books is that I feel like imbibing from them. I remember what I like in them. They don't make me sceptical; even the most incredible things seem possible. So, yielding to impulse, I picked up The Zahir.

Probably nothing matches a book for company and comfort. These long summer afternoons will be made enjoyable through all the random bits and pieces I will end up reading. I always smell a book before I begin it. I feel the cover, the letters, the spine- a book can really put you on a high. There's nothing like a book that's pretty inside and outside.

Now I'm looking forward to this new journey. I'm just a few pages into this book, but I can't wait to finish it. This is one more feeling that's really hard to understand. I can hardly wait to begin a book, and once I'm into it, I can hardly wait to finish it. And once I finish it, I feel like the journey ended all too soon. Can somebody explain?