The Realm of the Pachyderm

15 Books That Have Really Stuck With Me

1. The Giver [Lois Lowry]
2. Don Quixote [Miguel de Cervantes]
3. Life of Pi [Yann Martel]
4. Fight Club [Chuck Palahniuk]
5. Ender's Game [Orson Scott Card]
6. Xenocide [Orson Scott Card]
7. Shadow of the Giant [Orson Scott Card]
8. The Book of Mormon [Nephi, Alma, Moroni...]
9. Animal Farm [George Orwell]
10. Lord of the Flies [William Golding]
11. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows [J.K. Rowling]
12. Watership Down [Richard Adams]
13. The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes [Bill Watterson]
14. Winnie-the-Pooh [A.A. Milne]
15. The Hobbit [J.R.R. Tolkien]

READ THEM.

Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to announce that my latest musical obsessions have been the soundtracks of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. Both are spectacular, especially "Haule Haule" and "Dance Pe Chance" from the former and "Mitawa" and "Where's the Party Tonight?" from the latter.

In order to commemorate the vague landmark of 70th post, I think I'll bust out something that hasn't been around for a while--

SURINDER SAHNI VS. DEV SARAN!

[For those of you unfamiliar with either, what's so awesome about this is that they're both played by SHAH RUKH KHAN!]

Let's start off by meeting our competitors, eh?

Surinder Sahni: Hailing from Amritsar, "Suri" is an introverted reserved fellow who habors a passionate desire--for his wife! Ideal marriage, right? Wrong. You see, the day he met Taani, his wife-to-be, she was celebrating her Mehndi--the mad hot fiesta pre-wedding. However, on the way to the wedding, the groom and his entire family died in a bus crash [that's Bollywood for you]. The shock of the catastrophe was so great that it sent Taani's elderly father into cardiac arrest. His dying act was marrying Suri and Taani so that she would be taken care of. Now, she's in a marriage which acts as a daily reminder of all her heartache and sorrow. Peachy!

In order to gain the reciprocated love of his wife, Suri dons an outgoing flirtatious alter ego named Raj. Raj becomes her partner in a dance class and the sparks start flying betwixt them. Does Taani fall in love with them? How will this affect Suri? Is anything ever simple in India!? WATCH THE MOVIE AND FIND OUT, THUGS!

Strengths:

• Extensive knowledge of electrical systems [he works for Punjab Power, after all]
• Enough cleverness to power a small country [he beat a sumo wrestler without being huge and terrifying!]
• An extremely disarming alter ego/Fabulous wardrobe and hair altering skills
• Relatively admirable dance skills
• Extreme eating capacity

Weaknesses:

• Difficulty expressing emotions when not a ding-dong named Raj
• Electrical engineer wardrobe
• Drastically impaired vision
• Inability to pack a tiffin

Dev Saran: On his way to becoming a famous "football" [actually soccer] star, Dev pretty much has it made in the shade. Living in New York with his fashion magazine model/editor wife, they sometimes fight about her lack of attendance at all of his games, but they have a pretty solid marriage--that is, until Dev meets Maya, a woman about to marry her best friend who she isn't in love with. After a brief exchange, they part ways, lost in thoughts of each other--which lead to Dev getting nailed by a car.

Fastforward five years. Dev's football career is over, thanks to a bum leg, and he's generally angry at life. His marriage is coming apart at the seams because of his wife's success while he languishes in what should have been. Somewhere else, Maya can't fall in love with her husband, which causes considerable strain because of the burning passion he has for her. To spare a much longer explanation, Dev and Maya reconnect, fall madly in love, and complications due to their married statuses bring about a plot of deception and heartache. Do they end up together? What about the spurned spouses? Why do so many Indians live in New York!? BETTER WATCH THAT ONE TOO, WENCHES!

Strengths:

• Previous famous footballer status
• Enough rage to destroy the Soviet Union in its hayday
• Smouldering Indian passion
• Power couple status/A really cute kid

Weaknesses:

• GIMP
• Poor deception skills
• Emasculated
• Did I mention GIMP?

How It Would Go Down: Suri comes in with a quick sweep of the leg. OVER.

Just kidding.

Dev initially ignores Suri completely, seeing as footballers don't really deign to speak to cubicle people. Suri would take the slight with a couple of tears and a few quiet moments in a corner, but then he'd bounce back with a strong re-entry as Raj. Raj would then challenge Dev to a dance off, which would trigger Dev's inordinate rage against Fate. A barrage of punches to the face would follow, the first of which would connect with Raj's shnoz due to his inability to see without his glasses. However, anticipating the next punch, Raj's fangorious mouth would fly open and catch Dev's fist.

Raj would then proceed to swallow Dev whole, due to his enlarged stomach. However, the passion burning within Dev for his Maya would cause severe reflux, thus resulting in regurgitation. Realizing that physical conflict simply wasn't going to work, Dev would submit to the dance-off, only to be miserably beaten by Raj.

The only drawback? No one would know that Suri was the actual victor.

The Victor: It looks like it would be a stalemate. Technically, Suri would win, but only as Raj, who doesn't actually exist. Dev would experience more public humiliation, so it looks like any way you slice it, Dev still comes off as a bigger loser.

What it comes down to is that Shah Rukh Khan is amazing.

In other news, I finally saw August Rush. Prognosis? Not good.

I'll admit, I've kind of been ruined by the theatre program at BYU. No longer can I sit in a movie or play without completely dissecting it and finding every little thing that's wrong with it. Fortunately, there were so many glaring errors in this one that I didn't even have to try that hard!

While I could go on for pages and pages about how straight ridiculous this movie is, I'd like to focus on the one aspect that rankled me above all else: Freddie Highmore's "guitar playing".

Are you SERIOUS? Come on, guys. Really? He was slapping the guitar without even playing individual notes and HARMONICS came out!? How dumb are we supposed to be as an audience? He wasn't even CLOSE to pretending to play! It was just wrong how off this kid was, which soured the rest of the movie for me. I was so intellectually insulted by the director's choice to throw out real guitar imitation that I couldn't enjoy the rest of it.

Want a good child prodigy movie? Check out Vitus.

Ok, so maybe that last post wasn't as spectacular as you were hoping, but I liked writing it. I'll try and write more regularly from now on, k?

PEACE.