Thursday, October 19, 2006

The Defintion of a NewsWagoner (As told by an (ex?) Con)

A good way to describe a(n) (ideal?) Newswagoner is somebody who has been too idealistic once and in anticipation/actual smashing of his ideals (given contact with the real world) has made him disillusioned with the world, thereby turning him into a cynical bastard. His negative energies are then pushed outwards towards the college junta on whom he vents his anger and exposes their miniature intellects. His is nearly always brilliant and likes to exhibit it on a platter. Incredibly conceited and vain, he is one of the most confused entities on earth and resorts to satire to exhale his frustration. He is anonymous and resents and loves it simultaneously-loves it because it provides him solitude as and when it is required (trust me, he requires it often) and hates it because his brilliance wants to be showcased to the world. And yes, most, most importantly, he does have a fucking good sense of humour-a developed sense of humour that is cynical, perverted, caustic, bitter, vitriolic, scathing, satirical and irreverent. Not like the wimps' (read 'Wimps=Those who like pink bunnies') who go to the toilet and cry their hearts out when their name appears in Newswagon. And yes, because his ideals have not still been erased from his head completely, he is either fanatically moral or fanatically immoral, (sometimes at the same time). So he can have very, very high standards from himself-most of them quite ridiculous, considering his track-record.

Books I read in the recent past

6th Sem

1) A Scanner Darkly (SF) -- Philip K Dick
2) Rendezvous with Rama (SF) -- Arthur C Clarke
3) Neuromancer (SF) -- William Gibson
4) Stranger in a Strange Land (SF) -- Robert A Heinlein
5) Demons -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
6) Clans of the Alphane Moon (SF) -- Philip K Dick
7) Moon is a Harsh Mistress (SF) -- Robert A Heinlein
8) Notes from Underground -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9) Man in the High Castle (SF) -- Philip K Dick
10) The Guide -- R K Narayan
11) The Best of Robert Heinlein (SF) -- Robert Heinlein
12) The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (SF) -- Douglas Adams
13) Dostoyevsky - The Mantle of the Prophet -- Joseph Frank
14) The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (SF) -- Douglas Adams
15) Life, the Universe and Everything (SF) -- Douglas Adams
16) Shantaram -- David Gregory Roberts
17) 1984 (Revision) (SF) -- George Orwell
18) The Catcher in the Rye -- J D Salinger
19) The Historian -- Elizabeth Kostova

Chchuttiyon Mein

1) The Story of My Experiments With Truth – Mahatma Gandhi
2) The Adolescent – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3) Sooraj Ka Saatwan Ghoda – Dharmveer Bharti
4) The Foundation Trilogy – Isaac Asimov
5) Minority Report and Other Stories – Philip K Dick
6) Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
7) Har Barish Mein – Nirmal Verma
8) Laal Teen Ki Chchat – Nirmal Verma
9) Pratinidhi Kahaniyan – Nirmal Verma
10) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S Thompson
11) The Double – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
12) Cheeron Pe Chandni – Nirmal Verma
13) Sookha tatha anya Kahaniyan – Nirmal Verma
14) The Ballad of Beta 2 and Empire Star – Samuel R Delany
15) The Wall and other Stories – Jean Paul Sartre
16) The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and other Classic Stories – Philip K Dick
17) Nova – Samuel R Delany


7th Sem

1)A Saucerful of Secrets : A Pink Floyd Odyssey – Nicholas Schaffner
2)Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
3)Doosri Duniya - Nirmal Verma
4)Shekhar:Ek Jeevani (Vol 1) - Agyeya
5)Shekhar:Ek Jeevani (Vol 2) - Agyeya