Great blog - I

In this new series, I am going to highlight a few good blogs that I occasionally read...other than Amit Varma's India Uncut, which I catch up on almost daily.

Today, I bring to you..Jai Arjun Singh's great blog Jabberwock.

Jai Arjun is from Delhi and, unlike yours truly, writes a blog that lots of people read. The title, Jabberwock, is based on a poem from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll. Just learned that over the years, Jabberwocky has also taken on some other meanings.

I am a great fan of Jai Arjun's reviews, be it of movies or books. For example, only Jai Arjun can come up with something as universal and profound as:

'We feel most self-important in our sadder moments, but step on the outside just briefly and one sees that, viewed from a wider perspective, there’s always something intrinsically funny about the situation.'

in reviewing a movie like Munnabhai MBBS.

I saw the recent Hindi movie, Omkara - based on Othello after reading Jai Arjun's raving review (others have also reviewed it very favorably too) and I was glad I saw it..

And here is a fine example of a review of a book (Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra, whom, being a journalist, Jai Arjun actually got the opportunity to interview!)) that I sadly will probably never read despite all the hype* around the book... (I read a lot but do not have the patience for 1200 page tomes!).

* Earlier this year, I had written this in my compilation posts on Indian subcontinent literature:

The book to look forward to apparently in 2006 is Vikram Chandra's (of Love and Longing in Bombay fame) big (1200 pages - so very big, at least page-wise) epic book Sacred Games. First there was lots of press about the huge advance that Vikram Chandra got for the book, and in January the publicity machine in India was abuzz with interviews and profiles in what seems like every paper. For example, see interviews and profiles in:
The Hindu / The Indian Express / DNA / plus an interview /Economic Times /Mid-Day

And this article listed the book as one of the 36 reasons to wake up to 2006 !!! Wow..now thats hype!! :)

There is a whole lot more of great stuff at his blog... bookmark it and then go read it!