Fountains of sparks

I hate it when things begin to happen all at once. Ok, let me rephrase that, I get annoyed when things I don't care about in the least, start intruding on time I'd set aside for other things. Like sorting out my coin collection for instance. Something I haven't done in years! The fact that others may find the priorities precisely reversed doesn't really make it any less annoying :|. I guess that makes me a selfish person. Oh well.

Anyway, a rather belated Happy Diwali to all! As it turned out, this was the first time I was back with family and celebrating the Festival of Lights with fireworks in a decade! (I hate round numbers like that. Seems made up. Nonetheless, it is actually true in this case. I checked :|.)

Of course, that merely meant that I was hanging around the fringes, trying not to choke on the concentrated fumes of spent fireworks while grinning profusely as the often unpredictable, occasionally belligerent but always delightfully colourful and bright fireworks worked their magic! Ever since a misguided rocket had charred some of my clothing back in junior school, I've been rather circumspect about these things. It was endlessly amusing however, to see my mum join my aunts, uncles, neighbours and some completely random party crashers in having an absolute blast :D.

Around the same time, I decided it would be a good idea to get some serious reading done. I'd started with Sea of Poppies sometime during my flights back home. Somehow, the story, almost from the beginning, caught me a little unaware, beginning as it does somewhere in the middle. But it might also be because being settled firmly in a reality quite familiar to me, it was at odds to most of my reading of the past few months.

The familiarity, however, was riddled with such a profusion of languages (or rather variations thereof) that it added a whole sub-plot by itself, it seemed to me :). Thing with reading a book quickly is that the days seem to intertwine with the story. I was so immersed in the goings-on aboard the Ibis that the end came upon me quite suddenly!

One might say the book begins and ends somewhere in the middle. We are left to devise any future we wish for the protagonists. But such is life, I suppose, and any tale can merely touch upon some small part of its flow. I couldn't really have asked for a better break from my immersion in fantasy :). But now, as I prepare to run away again, chasing haphazardly made plans towards a dubiously diaphanous kind of joy (hopefully, that is, and no broken bits), I've got the next two Artemis Fowl books to keep me company :).

Currently: looking forward to the next fortnight!
Listening to: KT Tunstall - Uummannaq song