Time and Tide

Photo Credit: Luke Peterson 

As a young man he'd never considered time as anything other than a current to bear him aloft, propel him into his future, now he understood that time is a rising tide, implacable inexorable unstoppable rising tide, now at the ankles, now the knees, rising to the thighs, to the groin and the torso and to the chin, ever rising, a dark water of utter mystery propelling us forward not into the future, but into infinity, which is oblivion. 

- Joyce Carol Oates (extracted from the short story Fossil-Figures)

Contagious

Whether you're a marketer trying to sell your product or an HR professional trying to get people to do their appraisals on time, have you, at some point, tried to get a large number of people to talk about something and change their behaviour even for a short while?

If you have, then this book is for you.

Jonah Berger's Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age manages to attain the Holy Trifecta rare in so-called "management" books - it's readable, it's backed by research, and it inspires ideas.

Not just that, it also makes it sound like it's very easy to build word of mouth. Just follow the six steps and you'll have a viral phenomenon on your hands!

Frankly, I'm still not convinced that it's possible to build word of mouth using a "by the book" approach. But for what it's worth, Berger creates a very convincing framework of six S.T.E.P.P.S for the aspiring viral-er to follow. Here are the six steps.

1. Social Currency: People care about how they look to others. For example, if you make a club exclusive or secret, people will tend to brag that they've been there - thus spreading word-of-mouth.
2. Triggers: Top-of-mind means tip-of-tongue. Rebecca Black's horrible Friday song went viral because - you guessed it - people were reminded of it on Fridays! 
3. Emotion: When we care, we share. That Susan Boyle 'Britain's Got Talent' video? It inspired awe - and that's why we shared it. (I just watched it again, and it's still as awesome as before. Go watch it. NOW.)
4. Public: Built to show, built to grow. To use the simplest example, this is why brands have their own signature carry-bags. 
5. Practical Value: News you can use. Did you know that articles about education and health are the ones that people share the most? Because they're so practical you'll WANT to share them with somebody else. 
6. Stories: Information travels under the guise of idle chatter. If you tell me Flipkart has great customer service - meh. But if you tell me you ordered a product at 5 PM yesterday and got it at your doorstep at 10 AM today - THAT'S interesting.

Berger illustrates each of the S.T.E.P.P.S with an interesting set of examples, and cites enough research to make you believe he's got a point. All the S.T.E.P.P.S seem quite obvious at first sight (OBVIOUSLY emotion would cause more sharing), but he digs in and shows us the nuances (low-arousal emotions such as sadness or contentment don't result in sharing).

Despite my belief that it can't be that easy to create something viral, I have a feeling I'm going to come back to this book again and again. If nothing else, Berger's framework provides an interesting way of looking at the viral phenomenon, and his examples are sure to inspire some ideas.

Want to know more without buying the book? This might help. 

I Read Neil Gaiman's American Gods (And You Won't Believe What Happened Next!)

I came up with this post - what else?

I just finished reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods again and have been (once again) blown away. Instead of writing a long post about how awesome it is, I decided to have some fun by writing it Buzzfeed style - click-bait title and lists and breathless writing and all (I'm not great at finding animated GIFs, so you'll have to do without those).

Here are eight reasons you should drop everything and read Neil Gaiman's American Gods NOW.

1. For the concept alone. The book is based on what is certainly one of the best ideas in the world of SF / Fantasy in a long time. The idea is simple (and obvious when you think about it). All the migrants who ever came to America brought their Gods along with them - African Gods and Irish Gods, Indian Gods and Chinese Gods. They worshiped these Gods, fed them with their prayers and sacrifices. But today, these Old Gods are slowly becoming powerless, as Americans become less religious, and start worshiping new Gods - Technology, Money, Drugs, Media. And now there's a war brewing between the New Gods and the Old Gods.

2. For the characters. The lead character is Shadow, an ex-con whose sense of loyalty and justice makes you fall in love with him. But he's one of the few humans in the book. American Gods is like a Who's Who of Gods from across the world. There's Odin and Anansi, Anubis and Bast, Kali and Ganesh. And many more that I didn't even recognize. And there are other creatures too - there are jinns and leprechauns, dwarves and thunderbirds.

3. Because nobody can quite figure out what the book IS. In Gaiman's own words, "... it was given a number of awards including the Nebula and the Hugo awards (for, primarily, SF), the Bram Stoker award (for horror), the Locus award (for fantasy), demonstrating that it may have been a fairly odd novel and that even if it was popular nobody was quite certain which box it belonged in." Is it a travelogue, is it a thriller, is it a romance? Who knows, and - frankly - who cares?

4. Because it's on pretty much every 'Best Fantasy Books' list out there. Maybe you don't care much about such lists, but here's one. And another one. Oh, one more. And another one. These are just the first few from a Google search, by the way. But I guess you get the picture.

5. Because they're making a TV series out of it. I don't know about you, but I like to read the book before I watch an adaptation. But don't worry - they've just announced the series, so you have some time to read the book before the series comes out. I just hope it's better than Neverwhere, which was I thought was quite bad (here's a sample). Neverwhere is strange because the TV series came first and then the book, but the book is still better - which just proves that books are always better than their screen versions, no matter which one comes first.

6. Because of how obsessed people have become about it. In Gaiman's words again, "... you create something like American Gods, which attracts fans and obsessives and people who tattoo quotes from it on themselves or each other, and who all, tattooed or not, just care about it deeply ..." Here's the tattoo bit he was probably talking about.

7. Because it's so awesome you don't want it to end. And it almost doesn't. It doesn't matter whether you're looking for a quality read or a quantity read. American Gods scores on both counts. The copy I just finished reading (the author's preferred version) is 600-plus pages. And even with that, you really don't want it to end. You want it to keep going on for ever and ever, because you love Shadow, and you don't want to leave him.

8. Because it's Neil Gaiman. I put this reason last, but really - do you NEED any other reason? Gaiman is the brain behind Sandman, Neverwhere and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. He describes himself as a "messy-haired white male author trapped in the body of an identical white male author with perhaps even less-tidy hair". I also like his Twitter bio, "will eventually grow up and get a real job. Until then, will keep making things up and writing them down."

American Gods is probably the best of Gaiman's novels. READ.

Anita Nair - Cut Like Wound

Why aren't there more Bangalore books in this world? There's more to Bangalore than IT and traffic, you know. There are so many communities waiting to be explored - the Muslims who were part of Tipu Sultan's army, the Tamils who migrated when the British set up an army base here, the real estate mafia that springs up in any rapidly expanding city. There's so much waiting to be written about, and nobody's doing it. Everybody turns their noses up at poor old Bangalore.

Anita Nair didn't set out to write a Bangalore book. She just wanted to a write a nice dark meaty detective novel. But along the way, she manages to throw light on the dark steamy underbelly of Bangalore - an underbelly that middle-class citizens like me would have never known existed. Transvestites, corrupt corporators, gone-to-seed policemen, male prostitutes, young men hungry for sex - these are some of the people Nair chooses to populate her novel with.

A serial murderer is loose in Bangalore. A murderer who has sex with men and then strangles them with a manja thread (which is apparently a normal thread coated with glass particles). From the seedy by-lanes of Shivaji Nagar to the still-underpopulated places in Hennur and Nagawara, the bodies pile up, and it's up to Inspector Borei Gowda to figure the whole thing out (though nobody wants him to).

Gowda is a policeman in his forties whose career has gone to the dogs because he knows he's more intelligent and honest than his superiors (and doesn't have the tact to hide it). Gowda is a brilliant creation. He has a wife who doesn't want to stay with him, a son he doesn't feel connected to, and an old college sweetheart who's back in his life. Add to that an alcohol problem and the worshipful admiration of younger colleagues, and you have an interesting mix. Blasphemous as it may sound, I would put him right up there with the likes of Commander Adam Dalgliesh and Inspector Rebus in terms of complexity of character (for a detective, that is).

Nair's Bangalore is mostly restricted to Shivaji Nagar and the north-eastern parts of Bangalore - Banaswadi, Hennur, Nagawara. Lending local colour are things like the Infant Jesus festival, famous old Bangalore cafes, and of course the newer places like UB City.

The cover says Introducing Inspector Gowda. I hope Nair is planning to write a sequel (a whole series would be even better), because she's got a good thing going here.

Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

The first I ever heard of Eat Pray Love was when the Julia Roberts movie came out back in 2010. Though I generally like romcom movies, the trailers weren't particularly appealing, and I didn't watch the movie. I knew that the movie was based on a book, but I had no intention of reading it. When it comes to books, the whole romcom genre is something I can't handle.

But sometime last year, I read an interview with the author, Elizabeth Gilbert. The interview was part of the promotion campaign for her latest book, The Signature of All Things and it made her seem fairly intelligent and common-sensical. So I thought that maybe I'd been mistaken in dismissing Eat Pray Love as a mere romcom. And I decided to try the book. 

The result in three short words? Biggest. Mistake. Ever. I should've just stuck to my original snap judgement.

Eat Pray Love describes a year in Gilbert's life. Some time after a divorce in her early thirties, she decides to take a year off from normal life and spend four months each in three different countries around the world. She spends the first four months in Italy, learning Italian and eating a lot of pasta. The next four months are spent in an ashram in India, meditating and whining about how depressed she is. The final four months are spent in Bali, where she ends up falling in love with a Brazilian guy. Does the book cover make sense now?

Why did I dislike the book so much? Well, mostly because of her sheer whining. 

Her divorce has made her SO depressed. Yeah, because SHE didn't leave HIM. And because it HASN'T been two years since the divorce, during which she's had another relationship as well.

She'll NEVER find another man. Nobody loves her. Yeah, because she's not a pretty white woman with a successful writing career and enough money to spend a year traveling around the world. 

I'm usually sympathetic to fellow women in distress, but reading this book, all I could think was, "Get over it already!" The heavy dose of pop spirituality in the India section of the book didn't help either. She goes on and on about meditation and kundalini shakti and what not. It was so terrible it was funny. And then later it stopped being even that. (Here's an interesting article on Gilbert's spiritual guru.)

The only parts of the book I enjoyed were the later chapters in the Italy section (where she finally decides to get off her ass and explore Italy), and her initial explorations in Bali (before the Brazilian guy comes into the picture).

And now comes the contradictory bit. Despite not liking this book, I'm in two minds on whether to try her next book. The thing is - Gilbert can write well. The good writing is visible in bits and pieces amidst all the whining and the crying. And the second book (Committed) sounds promising - an investigation into how the whole concept of marriage is seen around the world, inspired by her imminent marriage to the Brazilian guy.

Maybe she'll be tolerable if she whines less? Watch this space to find out.

Nilanjana Roy's The Wildlings

I picked up The Wildlings quite by chance at the library the other day. I'd heard about it and read Jai Arjun Singh's review, so when I saw it on the 'Just Returned' shelf, I picked it up immediately.

When I got home, I sampled the book to decide which of my two library books I should read first. Before I knew it, I'd read fifty pages. Yes, it's THAT engrossing.

The Wildlings is about a world that exists in and around our own - the world of the cats in our neighbourhoods. The Wildlings is a clan of cats that lives in Nizamuddin in Delhi. Each cat in the clan has its own distinct personality - there's Katar the leader, Baraal the fierce queen, Miao the wise Siamese, Hulo the warrior tom, Southpaw the kitten and - the latest entrant - Mara the Sender. 

The book starts with Mara's arrival in Nizamuddin. She's a Sender, which means she can broadcast her thoughts to other cats across large distances. The arrival of a Sender generally means troubled times ahead for the clan, and it's no different this time. 

Though Mara is the Sender, she is by no means the main protagonist. Every cat in the clan gets its own stage time and its own role. My favourite was Southpaw the kitten, who just can't seem to keep himself out of trouble. Other small animals are also introduced - a mongoose named Kirri, a tiger family named Ozzy and Rani and Rudra, a cheel named Tooth.  

Simple language and sheer imagination make this book a great read. Adding to the atmosphere are the wonderful illustrations of the cats. Roy also seems to have had fun with the animal names. My favourites were the Supreme Court cats named Affit and Davit, a mouse named Jethro Tail, squirrels named Ao and Jao. 

By the way, lest the cats make you think that this is a book for children, be warned - it's most definitely not, at least for younger children. There's plenty of violence and death in it, especially towards the end. 

The book ends on a note that indicates that there's a sequel coming - I fervently hope that's true, because I can't wait to read more about these cats.

Z is for Zipping it all Together

This post is part of the AtoZChallenge, which I'm doing on my recent trip to Siem Reap in Cambodia.

I've written the twenty-five posts of the AtoZChallenge in no particular order. This post aims to put them all together in chronological order so that it makes sense to anybody who's planning to visit Cambodia.

Day 0:

We traveled from Thailand to Cambodia.

Day 1:

We visited Angkor Wat first - getting up early to catch the sunrise there. After 3-4 hours there, we moved on to Angkor Thom and were greeted by its majestic gates. Inside Angkor Thom, the first temple we visited was Bayon, right in the center of the city. Next up was Baphuon temple, followed by the Royal Palace Group (the Royal Palace itself, the Elephant Terrace, the Leper King's Terrace, Preah Paliley, etc). After a bite of lunch, we left Angkor Thom by the East Gate and visited two smaller temples - Chao Say Tevada and Thommanon. Next up was Ta Keo, followed by the awe-inspiring Ta Prohm. After Ta Prohm, we moved on to the beautiful Banteah Kdei. Outside the eastern gopura of Banteah Kdei, we rested for a while on the shores of Srah Srang. We ended the day with a visit to Prasat Kravan and then drove back to Siem Reap.

Day 2:

The first temple on our route was the sandstone temple Pre Rup. After that, we drove almost 45 minutes to the beautiful miniature temple of Banteay Srei. It was there that we discovered which Hindu God guards which direction. On our return journey from Banteay Srei, we made a rewarding stop at the Landmine Museum. East Mabon was the next temple on the list, followed by the small Ta Som (a smaller version of Ta Prohm). Next was the eerie Neak Pean, followed by the astoundingly large erstwhile Buddhist University, Preah Khan. 

Day 3: 

We visited the Ruolous group of temples in the morning. From there, we went off to the Floating Village of Kompong Pluk and Lake Tonle Sap. After the energy-sapping visit, we went shopping at the Old Market. 

During those three days, the book Ancient Angkors was our tour guide. We got around by tuk-tuk, and had an interesting variety of food. We met hardly any Indians. We suffered under the punishing heat, but got through by buying a lot of water with our USD. We might have made a few bloopers along the way, but we survived.