BRAINRUSH II

Brainrush was quite a thriller with unanticipated turns and twists until the very end. A story that started in California, traveled to Venice and Afghanistan to end back in the sunny valley of Redondo, CA. The plot has everything - bad ass guy trying to wage a jihad, a normal ex-army dude whose brain suddenly develops superhuman abilities, aliens, death defying stunts to rescue the love of his life, etc. It's got it all! Its a kind of book that would make a cheesy but entertaining movie.

It made for a pretty good mindless read so after I finished it, I went hunting for part II to find out what happens with our superhuman guy with this amazing brain. Also the die-hard jihadi from Book I hasn't been killed yet so I was sure he would make an appearance in the sequel; which he does. The book opens to all sorts of actions with the jihadis on the tail of our hero, his love and his friends (the ones who assisted him in Afghanistan). Anyway, long story short, for now I'll keep reading and see where this overwhelming sequence of events takes us.

For a new author, the story line is really not bad. He hooks you in and keeps you engaged, the thing most first time writers dread whether they will be able to do. My only suggestion to the author is to concentrate on 1 or 2 sub-plots at a time. Trying to mush in everything makes the reader feel saturated. Part I was going well until the alien thing came up. Granted it gave the story a nice sub-plot but not sure if it was really necessary.

Christmas was spent with part I; I'll go into the New Year with part II. Happy 2012! May the New Year bring us peace, satisfaction and make us thankful for everything this wonderful life has offered!

BRAINRUSH

The Bhagavad Gita took its toll on me. By the end, I was absolutely overwhelmed and waiting to finish it. The message of the scripture is very powerful but after a long while, my fleeting mind wanted something a little less serious to dwell on. I, however, did not give up on it and was relieved when it finally got done.

With all the upcoming holiday sales, Kindle books are a dime a dozen! This meant I could splurge on a few without busting out my wallet. And splurge I did. Add to the fun, I received a secret santa $25 gift certificate for Amazon! So bubbling with excitement; I don’t know how to spend my newly discovered riches!

Back to the Kindle sales, hundreds of books are going for less than $5 so I took the chance and bought a few  from lesser known authors but with good reviews. One of them that I now have started reading is called BRAINRUSH. Not sure why its all caps, but that’s the way it is.

Anyway, so the book is about this ex-army tough guy who was diagnosed with some sort of cancer (I forget which) a few years ago and fought back until it went into remission. Everything was hunky-dory until a few months ago when the cancer returns, this time as a tumor in the brain. The scene opens with him lying in an MRI scanner when the power suddenly goes off and he gets knocked around as a result. When the power finally comes back on, pissed, he gets off the machine and makes his way home, realizing something in his gray cells is not the same.

He has become a savant and has developed an eidetic memory. Now, he is a good guy so there has to be a bad guy lurking around somewhere. Turns out the bad guy is in Venice, in charge of this really big hospital for autistic children. On the face of it he appears to want to change the children’s lives and study them to prevent the disease from affecting others, blah blah but in reality he wants to understand how some of these children have these superhuman capabilities – able to learn a new language in a month, paint a Picasso and so on so he can use them on normal humans and make them deadly Al Qaeda weapons, yikes!

So one thing leads to another and the good guy comes to the bad guy’s attention. We’ll see what happens next. To be honest, it’s really not a bad version of events so far. The author is doing a good job of holding the story together and consequently the interest of his reader. Apparently there is a Part II as well.

I am ringing in the holidays with some travel, some mindless reads and family. Hope you enjoy yours too, under the Christmas tree, with a glass of eggnog; preferably with rum; opening presents and sharing some laughs with people that in the end matter the most.

Wish you a warm and happy holiday season!

The unknown life

This morning I came across a beautiful article that talked about how the righteous always face an up-hill battle but for the wrong doers, things seem to be a lot easier. Somehow, I agree with that. It's always easier to eat up a piece of cookie or devour a yummy chocolate cake but so much harder to say no and walk away from it. I know the article meant about more intense things in life - upholding dharma, being kind, etc. - but I think these things are also a part of it.

I am in no way obsessed with the way I look and what weight I carry but I take care of my body because this is the vehicle I need in order to learn from life and ensure I walk the right path. If my body is not sound, my mind will be caught up in the disease and naturally other, more important things, will take a back seat. It is not about eating little but eating right.

The article further went on to say calamities happen with everyone and it is impossible to determine the cause or the reason for these. Whenever something goes wrong in life, we always fling our hands and ask "why, God why? Why me?" When I was in India, while conversing with a young lady about something awful that had befallen her and her family, she said something that stuck with me throughout. She said, "Why not me?" Now that doesn't mean she is praying for bad things to happen to her, I'm sure quite the contrary, but when things go sour she is standing bravely to face them without complaining.

Good times and bad whirl us around on the wheel of time and life is incomplete without a taste of either. The article goes on to state things happen as a result of our actions in our past lives. Karma makes good or bad things happen. This doesn't mean the guy swindling people and getting away with it did everything right in his past life. Even if he did, he blew his chances this time around, didn't he?

The idea is sometimes we question adversity (never happiness) and wonder why it is happening. The answer is -- something from a past life has to be resolved and this is the way to get rid of it. Sometimes we question certain events and the answer is - we don't need to know why they happened yet. Perhaps at a more conducive time in the future, they will be revealed. Sometimes maybe not, because we really don't need to know why. The important thing is to learn from it and move on. Treat each experience as a lesson. Treat this universe as a school and we are students. We enter and leave based on our soul's need for education. When we graduate, we won't return. Until then we keep learning.

Distrust & disdain

I have a problem with the word of man. We humans are a very tricky species. In order to gain power, affluence, recognition, etc. we love to manipulate. Not to say that everyone does, but given a chance the majority of us would take up the offer to deceive and derive benefit as a result.

Today I was reading the Bhagavad Gita on the bus and in one of the verses Krishna describes to Arjuna his ideal follower – someone who doesn’t eat a lot, but doesn’t eat too little either, someone who doesn’t sleep a lot but doesn’t sleep too little either. OK so I get the point; any kind of indulgence, over or under, is bad. I could abide by this not only for my spiritual well-being but for my physical sustenance as well.

So after each verse, the author launches into an explanation of the verse which in most cases is helpful since my knowledge of the spiritual realm is limited. What, however, I do not like is the author’s nonstop ability to introduce his own views in the explanations. For instance, while explaining a particular verse he puts certain class of people down by saying what they are doing is wrong or sinful or doesn’t take you to the right path. If Krishna didn’t say so in the entire scripture, who is he to claim thus? Who is he to say one class of people is better because they follow what I am preaching over the other class because they are clueless? Is it really spiritual glory to say I’m better than someone else? And if it is, I am better off without it!

Coming back to the eat and sleep verse – here the author introduces his own idea and claims anyone who sleeps for more than 6 hours is lazy. And pray tell us how did you come to that conclusion? Did divinity, who decided it not fit for Arjuna to know so, think you would benefit more from it? To give him some credit, maybe his experience taught him so but my only point is if Krishna refrained from putting a number on the hours of sleep needed why did the Bhaktivedanta guy find it impossible to stop at that as well? Yes admittedly its a small thing but it gets under my skin that people want to quantify that which is boundless!

I am not a big fan of saints – barring a few I wasn’t around to see (Jesus – yes I think he was a saint, Buddha – yes, him too and Vivekananda) I don’t like the idea of saints. Maybe I am cynical because where I grew up there were everyday tales of saints getting into women’s clothes, raiding ashrams for prostitution and in general not practicing absolutely anything they preach. It’s unfortunate because somewhere in this world lie some saints who are truly glorious and worthy of being heard. I will be happy if I find one in my lifetime.