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Book Review – God is a Gamer by Ravi Subramanian

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu



Aren’t thrillers just amazing? Do you shuffle between books and read many books at a time? I do that somehow. Weird may be. Any ways last week I was reading the latest thriller by Ravi Subramanian – God is a Gamer. Last time I read his Bankster I was quite happy with it and was hoping the same for this one. Read on to know how my experience has been with God is a Gamer.

 
Blurb from the Book
From the bestselling author of ‘If God was a Banker’ comes the first ever bitcoin thriller. ‘God is a Gamer’ is a world where money means nothing, martyrs are villains, predators are prey, assassination is taught by the Ancient Greeks, and nothing is as it seems.
Moving from Washington’s Congress to Delhi’s finance ministry, the beaches of Goa to the corporate boardrooms of Mumbai, this is Ravi Subramanian’s most gripping novel yet.
 
And here is their launch video. 


 
 
The Story
The story starts off with a cold blooded assassination of a high profile US Senator Gillian Tan in Washington. Blowing up a bulletproof and armored car was surprising and Adrian Scott a FBI special agent is clueless about the assassin.
 
In Mumbai a phishing scam is wrecking havoc in NYIB. Crores of rupees are taken away fraudulently from the depositors and Swami the retail head of NYIB is left helpless. His CEO Malavika offers no help and downplays him at the HQ. Aditya Rao an ex-employee of NYIB who is also a founder of Indiscape, a gaming company, offers some solace and advice to Swami.
 
Young and talented Tanya is in Goa for a Nasscom event. She bumps into Varun unexpectedly one night while looking for hash. After a crazy night at beach he disappears leaving her waiting for him. Varun turns out to be famous drug dealer in Goa.
 
Various events and incidents unfolds through the course of the story revealing the world run by this certain virtual money called – bitcoins. What are bitcoins? Why are people getting killed? Who is playing the games? Who is the person behind the crimes? That’s what God is Gamer gives you.
 
My Experience
The book starts with an epilogue where the Mastercard and Visa honchos are debating over NPCS or the Russian National Payment Card System. You get to know how these people make money with every transaction. The story started off well with the assassination sequence. I like the cycle bomb thing. I somehow like reading on murders! But as you progress you get hosts of characters popping in and out and several unrelated incidents taking up a lot of space. Half way through I was finding it difficult to understand why so many things are happening and why such unrelated events. Yes it does throw a good information on bitcoins, social media, technology et all. But I found the end little predictable. Okay one more thing, I liked the cover design of this one. 
 
About the Author
Ravi Subramanian is quite a famous author in the Indian thriller circuit. An ex-banker himself he writes his crime thrillers in the backdrop of banks and the financial world. His books If God was a Banker, The Bankster, Devil in Pinstripes and The Incredible Banker are all bestselling titles.
 
He is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore. He is currently the head of a leading financial institution. He has won the Economist Crossword Book Award twice for his previous books.
 
My Rating: 2/ 5. It a good one time read over the weekend. He has written better stories.

BOOK DETAILS
Publisher Penguin Books India
ISBN-10 0143421395
Imprint Penguin
Book Type Fiction Book
Number of Pages 324 Pages
Publication Year 2014 September
Language English
ISBN-13 9780143421399
Binding Paperback

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All you want is your Child to be Healthy

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

From all of the proverbs that you have heard while growing up there is only one which is invincible – ‘Health is Wealth’. Isn’t it? While you are young you do not understand the depth of this line but you get the inkling only when you grow up and realize midst the run of career, family, daily chores that how important these three words are. Really if you don’t have good health what do you have?


We are in a world today where every person is running – just trying to keep up with time and with our fast-track lives. Neither parents have an abundance of time for their kids, nor the kids spend quality time at home. When I speak to my neighbors or observe my nephews I really don’t understand how much free time they have. After school you have a tuition, or an abacus class, or a basket class or a tennis class or even taekwondo class! The most important people in those families are the nannies or governesses, yes of course the working parents don’t have any time. You always can’t have grandparents staying over to look after them. And yes not to mention the fast food – the ever growing giant in our society.

The perfect excuse for a kid to demand for a pizza or a KFC burger – ‘mom you came so late, I want a pizza’. And the poor mother can’t help but has to bribe her own kid for not being there.

But isn’t it really important that we take care of what the child is eating or drinking? Isn’t it important to let him build his own immunity? In my childhood my grandmother never spared me from her immunity inducing herbal tonics. In Bengal it’s called ‘kalmegh’ and ‘chirotar jol’ Yes they were bitter and I hated them then but that is what probably is keeping me going on. If I was on a fast food and cola diet like today’s generation z I would have in a very state (and shape too).

I see my cousin running to hospital every now and then with her younger son – it’s either stomach infection, or throat infection, or cavity in teeth and what not. I wish parents did take care of what the kids eat – or rather I should say do not eat. I don’t find any child now-a days having any sort of vegetable or fruits. My mother had made me eat all sorts of vegetables, fruits, fish and a daily dose of chavanprash – and no demand tantrum or pleas had helped me then. I also had my share of eating out and ice creams and chocolates but as the grandmother says – when you are doing physical activities don’t worry on eating out. My parents ensured I went for swimming classes in the morning and dance classes in the evening. Can you imagine the amount of physical exercise that gave without even realizing! May be because my dad is a doctor himself he didn’t allow too much of my tantrums and knew one day when I grow up ill give into the fast life and fast food. But still thanks to him I haven’t had any major sickness ever apart from some bouts of viral fever. Really a healthy child makes a happy home.

What does it take to make your child healthy? Not much actually. Nature’s secret is not a secret at all, everyone knows anything natural is time tested and fool proof. There is nothing better than natural ingredients – for internal immunity, skin, hair anything. That has been the law of nature. Parents it’s your victory if you bring up your child as a healthy child, she will thank you when she grows up!

All you want is a healthy child
Image source



This post has been written for “A Healthy Child Makes A Happy Home” prompt for the contest by Dabur Chyawanprash in association with IndiBlogger.


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Missing the Ghar Wali Diwali

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

Hello beautiful people, its Diwali time in India!!! The time for lights, crackers, sweets, snacks fun and galore. I cant believe its midway into October already. I somehow feel it was only last week that I was dancing away in a Kolkata club bringing in the New Year. How did ten months just pass by so soon??


Anyways now since we are getting closer to Diwali I’ll tell you what my plans are and how I like my Diwali. When I was a kid all my cousins used to gather during the Puja holidays in our Kolkata house. This used to be the happiest times of the year. You had every room beaming with people. Diwali for Bengalis is more of Kali Puja, where we worship Goddess Kali and not Lakshmi. It’s only much later that I got know about Lakshmi puja on Diwali and Dhanteras, cards and all.


But for me the best part used to be lighting candles, bursting crackers and awesome food at home. Some of my cousin brothers also made crackers at home. There is this one cracker that we call ‘Tubri’ in Bengali which is also known as ‘anar’ in Hindi and may be ‘light pot’ in English – I am not sure about the English name though. This one is the toughest to make and is most appreciated cracker. It doesn’t have sound it’s all about lights. You place this small pot sort of a thing on the ground and light a wick on its top and then light shoots up for some time and is amazing. There used to be like a rivalry between neighbors on whose ‘tubri’ went the higher and whose burnt longer. Can you imagine the things we did!! The younger lot was not allowed to make the crackers even after millions of pleas. That was to keep us safe, but yeah who wants to think about safety when you see all these things happening on your terrace!



Then there were these things called chocolate bombs. Tiny but loud. I still love bursting all these loud sounding crackers. You can tell me a lot of things on noise pollution bla bla but I love my crackers. Period. I remember putting these chocolate bombs inside earthen pots and bursting them. The loud noise of the cracking pot was something to be amazed off. When these crackers were banned beause of the noise level, I remember people selling them in black market! Such was the craze. Those were the days of #GharWaliDiwali

Those days now have been replaced with Standard Fireworks with some sparklers, rockets and different lighting crackers. Now it’s a society Diwali or an apartment complex Diwali. But hold on, I still go and buy as many crackers and burst as much as I want to. We decorate our houses with candles and lighting. But no Diwali party is over without friends, family and good food. 



Its always great when you have your near and dear ones with you on this day. Last two years my parents were with us on this day and we had a blast – blasting crackers, attending Diwali Functions, hosting a get together with good dosage of snack and Bengali food. No Bengali Diwali party is over without the quintessential ‘Luchi’, ‘cholar dal’ and ‘kosha mangsho’ and as I write this I am almost drooling.

I will miss my parents this year, the good food, the love the warmth. But next year either you are coming down to Bangalore or I am going to Kolkata. Deal?
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Team ByLines – A team that stands by their Lines

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

Have you been visiting my blog lately? You would then know all about the Game of Blogs and the story writing competition that I was taking part in last month. This one is one of a kind competition that you can think of. You write a single story in collaboration with 9 other bloggers across the country! How amazing is that. What did we do in the past three weeks? We talked, we typed, we moulded the characters, we let our imagination go wild and we came up with our sci-fi thriller – The Awakening.  


Now that three weeks of action is over and we await the results I want to look back on the past three weeks. When I first received the mail from Blog Adda with the list of my team members – I didn’t know a single blogger in that list. I knew a lot of blogger friends who were participating in the contest but no known faces were in my team. But if you know me you will know I love to meet and know new people. I love to observe. So meeting and collaborating with new bloggers was even more fun.



Okay for you guys here is my team By Lines – and the amazing authors behind it. Yeah we call ourselves authors now, given the amount of words we have written, edited, re-written and given the amount of research we have put in for this – we are all no less than any author.

That is team By Lines for you


Anmol is the captain of our ship and we fondly now call him ‘The Axe Man’. He provided all the required axing in all the correct places. He is the only blogger I knew in my team. We have been visiting each other’s blogs for some time. Go check out his blog anmolrawat.blogspot.in
Preethi, is our editing goddess and we made sure nothing went published before a final edit by our editor in chief. The germ of the sci-fi thriller originated from our darling editor and now at the end of it she sometimes spots UFOs in Bangalore!! So much thinking and writing we say. Preethi is also a published author and her latest Second Life is out in the market now. She is also an amazing artiste. You need to check out her sketches in her blog Tulips and Me.
Soumya, who is also a law student, like one of our main character Cyrus, is our second editor. Do check out her tales in her blog Shall we Callit a Tale?
Paresh, our busy man provided content and chapters. He was also kind enough to give me admin rights in his blog so that I could do the last minute editing, formatting, link updating and all sorts things. Thanks Paresh for being such a sport. Here is his blog

Ashutosh, this Dabbang guy (That’s what his Twitter username is) surprised us with his chapters. You can check out his blog here.

Prerna, is I guess the youngest member of our team. She provided us content entertainment and a good dose of Bollywood gossip. She is the founder of Panda Entertainment  and is also a die hard Deepika Padukone fan who has walked the Red Carpet with the star! You are lucky girl.

Ramanath, our next busy man also helped us with some good chapters.     

As for me, what can I tell you about me? Well yeah, I wrote, re-wrote, combed the net for all sorts of available info on aliens, UFO, alien detecting material and chipped in with some editing too. And at the end of it my knowledge on UFOs and aliens have grown in leaps and bounds and I am sure both Preethi and me can write a thesis on them now. Lol

If you were wondering why I mentioned only 8 bloggers and not ten – we went into the competition with two inactive bloggers. But never the less we had a compact team and the most important part – had a good team.

To get 8 minds to think and focus on a single vision is difficult but who wants it fair? What is the fun in team bonding unless you overcome some challenges? And believe me a team grows stronger when you jump over some hurdles and every team member realizes what is good and where the strength lies – the strength is always in being with the team, in thinking as the team. Okay before I start sounding like some HR manager giving a boring lecture let me tell you all the fun we had.

Quite early on we had decided we will take the difficult path and will not write a run of the mill love story, or stories of betrayal etc etc. And in raking our minds on ideas of this ‘different’ story over Google Hangouts, Mails and WhatsApp we finally chose to go the extraterrestrial way. Yeah why not a sci-fi thriller, we asked! And with it started our research on aliens. Having aliens in Mumbai sounds goofy but hello if Rakesh Roshan could get aliens to Kausali in Nainital then why not Mumbai! Okay disclaimer: Our story is not ‘inspired’ from Koi Mil Gaya or ET or anything like that. You could read the entire story to decide for yourself.

The team had spent days and nights in reading and editing each chapter. I remember Preethi editing chapters on her 10th anniversary night before and after her dinner date! We all thank you Preethi. I used to read hundreds of WhatsApp pings while driving back home in the traffic signals. I have also spent days researching on aliens sitting in meetings at work! Our axe man Anmol spent nights in drafting stories adding and subtracting plots so that we could edit in the morning. I wrote my last chapter in a flight from Kolkata to Bangalore! Soumya chipped in with her chapters even if it was late in the night after her Garba events. Yes we need to keep in mind we spent our last week in the challenge amidst all the festivals around, but we all worked in synergy to keep our alien friends happy. Where else do you find such awesome team work?  

We have also had some really spooky stuffs happening with us in the course of writing the story. Preethi’s phone started acting weird and she couldn’t type anything without typing three lines of emoticons! Her broadband suddenly died when she was about to post and she had get into her neighbor’s connection to post! Most of these spooky things happened with our editor in chief and she even spots UFOs and it makes me look out of the window to check if really I am also in this alien hangover!! But yeah unfortunately I haven’t spotted anything so far!

But you know at the end it all paid off. We have quite an enthralling  story. At the end of Round 1 we were at the third position among 30. And by the end of Round 2 we were at Top 2!!! Isn’t that like really amazing. 

The day the results came out I was jumping and tweeting around and people at my home thought I had gone crazy. I am quite confident of our story and feel it has a good dose of drama, entertainment, mystery – all that you need in a good novella. And if you are a Bollywood director (or even Hollywood) you are most welcome to pick up our story and don’t worry we’ll also write the screen play for you!! We have actually debated if this was a Hollywood movie who will play the character of Tara – Megan Fox, Scarlett Johansson or Mila Kunis!!! Lol

I am really happy that I took up this Game of Blogs challenge and in that course met such great bloggers. Thanks to Blog Adda.  Now I have found great friends in Preethi, Soumya and Anmol. And guess what I have also found one common thing between Me Preethi and Soumya – we all love Hrithik Roshan like crazy!!! And Soumya has even met him barging into a press con – you go girl… I will do that someday!!!

Read the chapters from Beginning – Chapter 1 by Anmol Rawat 
 and follow the link after every chapter to progress in our story. 

  

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Blog Adda Game of Blogs – Team By Lines Chapter 25

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu
Team By Lines: Chapter 24


CHAPTER XXV

This was the only place in her house that could give her the serenity she desired at the moment. Her life looked scattered ahead of her and Tara needed some time alone to retrospect. She looked at her reflection in her bathroom mirror.

It was only Tara who could see the coded messages in the video and she was left aghast. Am I really not Tara Dutta? Has Cyrus been telling the truth all this while?  A bevy of questions clouded her mind. She rushed off under her shower. The cold water drizzling down calmed Tara, she wished she could stop her mind from thinking anymore on this.

By the time she stepped out of the shower she had one thing clear in her mind – she would face it.

Something told her Cyrus was nearby. She could feel his proximity.

Downstairs Shekhar, Jennifer and Aryan were still clueless about the wedding video. Where did Aryan get this from? Why did he show Tara our wedding video?Shekhar thought.

His thoughts were broken when he saw his wife coming down the stairs with a blank face. She looked pale. She looked as if she was in a state of trance. Shekhar watched Tara walk up to their garage and get in her car without looking anywhere else. She didn’t even respond to his calls.  She drove past their lane keeping Shekher and Jennifer astounded.

***

 “She is coming” said Cyrus, who was keeping a watch at the Dutta Mansion, in his mind and the Grand Master heard him from his lab.

 “Let’s prepare”, The Grand Master uttered just two words.

When Tara reached the Colaba address, she realized it was a rather calm and quiet locality, in the otherwise buzzing area of the city. The cool breeze from the Arabian instantly soothed her. The bunglow that stood in front of her looked like a well maintained massive shack. 

“Welcome Clariota`”, the familiar voice broke her trance.

As they walked in Tara felt the house looked deceptive. It was quite the opposite from inside with all modern surveillance technology and plush interiors. Cyrus led her to a massive chamber at the eastern corner of the house. The chamber had a soft blue lighting and felt eerily cold.

“Welcome Clariota”, called out The Grand Master

“We are your friends. You are amongst your own people now Clariota” he repeated.

Tara walked towards him but stopped at a distance facing The Grand Master.

“Clariota, don’t you remember anything my Lady?”

She nodded in approval feeling a weightlessness in her head.

“We’ll help you, but you have to be ready from within. Are you ready my Lady?”

“What will happen to me?” she asked feebly.

“You will know who you are… you will know how potent your powers are… you will realize your greater purpose of life… sit here my lady”, he said pointing her towards a plank on the floor.

“Clariota, relax you are with your kin, and we need you” said Cyrus.

Tara sat down on the plank feeling the same lightness. The soothing Raag Bhopali playing behind was the only calming factor.

“Relax Tara, take a deep breath, unless you calm your mind it will be difficult to awaken the Kundalini.

“Close your eyes and imagine a candle flame right here in your forehead between your eyes”, said the Grandmaster placing his thumb on Tara’s forehead.

“Can you see the flickering candle light?”

Tara nodded in approval.

“Now concentrate on the flickering flame, use your mind’s power to make it a stable and steady flame”

Tara concentrated on the flame without asking any question. She felt calm.

Cyrus brought a little cube like box and placed it before The Grandmaster. The moment Grand Master placed his forefinger on the box it opened up throttling a smaller circular box upwards. One tap on the smaller box opened the lid which gave way to a sparkling fume rising up. Cyrus’s eyes widened when he saw what lay inside circular box. A loud thunder crashed nearby shaking the windows of the bunglow. The bright lightning across the sky pierced through the window panes.

He looked up to The Grand Master in astonishment. But something in his eyes told Cyrus he shouldn’t utter a word.

The Grand Master picked up the sparkling galladium on his fingers and placed his fingers between her eyes. He gestured Cyrus to come forward and place his hand on Tara’s right shoulder. The galladium glistened on Tara’s forehead. The moment Cyrus placed his hand on her shoulder the galladium sparkled emitting a glowing blue light. It started spreading across Tara’s face and within no time it expanded across Tara’s body as if water was running down. Tara could hear Cyrus and the Grand Master telling her to relax and be calm. But no one had uttered a single word in the room.

Away from this drama two shadows lurked outside the bunglow in the dark garden. It was a spotless night without a speck of cloud in the sky. Yet it lightened as if an impending storm was approaching.

Tara felt an unknown sensation through her body. The warm feeling in her body now was not worrying her. She felt as if her body was at ease. She tried opening her eyes but felt herself slipping away in the black hole.

Her skin had now completely absorbed in the galladium.  The centre of her forehead shone bright. At The Grand master’s behest Cyrus removed his hands from Tara’s shoulders. Tara’s eyes opened with a jolt the moment the contact was broken.

The screen on the Nikon D800 showed two bright blue eyes instead of Tara’s deep brown eyes. Shekhar and Jennifer were left aghast with what they had been witnessing so far. How was this possible? Both had the same question in their minds but both were content with their feat. This was gold mine for them. They have been successful in recording Tara’s awakening leaving everyone unaware. They were perhaps the only humans on earth at this time having knowledge of this secret. They had just witnessed something that was unthinkable.  


The flash of the lighting shone bright on Shekhar’s spects. What went unnoticed by Cyrus and The Grand master didn’t escape Tara’s eyes. She was reborn in the last several minutes. A revived Clariota had taken over the petite Tara.    

Update: Read Chapter 26 here
“Me and my team are participating in ‘Game Of Blogs’ at BlogAdda.com. #CelebrateBlogging with us.”
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Durga Pujo in kolkata 2014

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

Hello people guess what I’m in kolkata…in my home…. Yay!! I am feeling happy. But in not here to have fun though im here on work. But I spent the Sunday well doing some last minute puja pandal hopping in kolkata. And believe me it was all worth it. Practically no crowd and you get to see the idols in peace. Kolkata pujo is all about theme pujo with special attentions towards pandals decoratives lighting and do on. I’m sharing some photos today.

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