school and books

Apparently I was wrong in my pessimistic belief that hard work doesn’t pay off, because as it happens I landed in the second batch, which is more than I could have hoped for, judging by my performance in school of late. I’m not miffed at having not gotten into the first batch one bit. In fact, I’m pretty glad I’m not in the first batch. Who’d want to be cooped up with a bunch of terrifyingly smart nerds anyway? Plus one of my old friends is with me in my batch, so I shouldn’t really feel deprived of fun and entertainment. Even if he weren’t in the same batch, I could have managed somehow by pretending that the vapid people around me, obviously intent on making my acquaintance, or in some cases, desirous of making conversation with me simply out of politeness or exuberance at being in the second batch, were friends. But I’d choose real friends over fake friends any day, as would anybody.

We have new and better teachers, for which I’m thankful. The old set barely knew how to speak English and was comprised of self-important old douchebags who knew nothing about teaching things that an 11th grader can comprehend. The new physics teacher’s supposedly the best of the lot, since the greater part of the stuff that he teaches apparently actually enters your head, and his teaching methods are favorable to his students. Next is the chemistry teacher. He looks like a nervous young guy trying to conceal his nervousness at facing a new class at first sight, but it turns out that that was a total misconception. He was the funniest guy I met in a long time, and although most of his quips are in Hindi, it’s in an educated dialect. Not the crude, jarring ‘Hyderabadi Hindi’ that I’m wont to hear living in his city. It figures because he’s a North Indian, but still. Anyway, both these teachers are young—in their mid-twenties or thereabout—are actually graduates of IIT, and have pretty good English. Plus a decent sense of humor and understanding toward the students. That is to say, not as unreasonable and exacting as the old douchebags I made mention of earlier in this post. Most importantly they’re really good at what they do. So they pretty much embody most if not all of the qualities that I look for in a teacher. I haven’t actually attended a class of the math teacher since the guy (supposedly the owner of the campus) is presently on leave, so no comment there. What I’m certain about is that I’ll be able to understand a lot more than I did in my older batch.

Today I found time to read twenty or so pages in The Second World War, which was a major relief since I haven’t been finding time to read it of late. Books like that kind of impress upon you the need to be polite and well-mannered and stuff. Makes you brim with dignity and self-respect. Also, I’m done with my present collection of P.G. Wodehouse books, and I don’t think I’ll be able to visit the bookstore anytime soon, so I picked up a book at random last night out of the seventeen I have and have read and started reading it. The humor never gets old. Interestingly, this particular book was first published in 1974. It can be safe to assume he wrote it in the same year. One can extrapolate his age from that. Which just happens to be 92. I reeled when I realized that. I mean, come on. Someone writing a book that good, without the faintest implication of senility, at such an advanced age as 92. Then I went and did a little research and discovered that “Wodehouse died with a manuscript (of an unfinished book) on his lap.” Talk about being a writer to the death.

As for my other books, I tried reading a chapter of ‘Cause of Death’ (Patricia Cornwell). Failed. I guess there’s a reason she’s not as prominent as people like Jeffery Archer and others (not that I read any of Archer’s books). For me it’s because it’s in the first person. First-person narratives tend to be boring, especially since authors tend to describe the most insignificant of things in such detail as would convince one that it were actually significant. For instance, I wouldn’t give much importance to the act of pouring out coffee into cups. And then there’s idle, pointless, desultory conversation starting from nothing, going all the way up to nothing, and returning to nothing. Pure, unadulterated inanity. Plus there’s incest. The niece (who judging from the author’s description of her is a Mary Sue—unparalleled beauty; astonishingly high IQ, etc.) has romantic feelings toward her aunt (the first person in the narrative). She confessed, and the aunt seemed so indifferent and unfazed that for a moment I wondered if the author completely forgot about the confession and moved on to something else. It was never brought up again. Anyway, I’m still giving the book another chance, since I’ve already reached Chapter 5, which is a great achievement per se, considering the kind of book it is—medical thriller. I want to actually see the mystery being solved. That is, after I figure out what the mystery is in the first place. Seriously, though, if I ever get the urge to read a medical thriller, which hopefully I won’t ever again, I’ll stick to Robin Cook, despite his amateurish attempts at imitating slang when he’s obviously from the generation of people to whom present-day slang is alien.

I’ve totally given up on David Baldacci’s ‘Simple Genius’. It’s simple, sure. But far from genius. It’s simply terrible. Like I always say and repeatedly say when the topic of this author pops up, the chapters are even shorter than a page in one of Dr. Seuss’s books; words to that effect, that is. Dr. Seuss was genius, though. David Baldacci should follow his example and write children’s books, instead of making a fool of himself repeatedly. The results may not be satisfactory, and at first read, a three-year-old might puke, but they’d indubitably be better than his lame attempts at writing adult books. Because I’ve already criticized him and his book enough, I’ll spare him too long a diatribe this time. But I stand firmly by my opinion that American authors shouldn’t be read no matter how bored or sick of life one may be. Sadly, British authors are lately trying to imitate the style of these ironically style-less American authors. So I’ll be sticking to British authors of the late Victorian Era and early twentieth century. Style was still alive back then.

But I don’t want to be left in the past, so if anyone can recommend a present-day author worth reading, I’d be more than willing to give them a chance.