123/5 Tag for Ladies Coupe

Tagged ... by neihal.. two weeks back on 123/5 tag and this seems to be strange and interesting tag.

The rules:

1. Name the person (of course with the link) who tagged you.

2. Describe what you are asked to do, in this case publish 5th paragraph of page 123 of the book you are currently reading. (if the page does not have 5th paragraph, take the last paragraph. And if the book doesn’t have page no. 123, take the last page.)

3.Tag five people.


I like reading 3-4 books at a time . Currently I am reading Shantaram the popular book by Gregory David Roberts , iWoz the autobiography Steve Wozniak , the co founder of Apple Inc , It's not about the bike:My journey back to life , an amazing book on how Lance Armstrong fought with Cancer , came back to life and won Tour De France and Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair.


The 5th paragraph of page 123 of Ladies Coupe looks interesting enough among all these books so that I can bitch about Indian Angrezi lady writers and Anita Nair is one of my favorite writers from Kerala who writes in English and is worth reading. At least in Betterman and Ladies Coupe she tells us where all women can find problems with men in married life or in any other relationship (Bachelors , {would be} spinsters and all those people out there who are single please take note).

There were two reasons for me to buy this book. The primary reason was that it was by Anita Nair and it was out of stock in most bookstalls . The second reason is that I found the title Ladies Coupe very strange . It is a special counter for ladies in overnight trains that existed long time back and I came to know about this when I started worrying about how my mother would travel safely in her journeys across Kerala.

The 5th paragraph of page 123 reads like ..

It showed on me; in the double chin , in the rolls of fat around my waist ; in the thickness of my calves and the puffiness of my wrists .I hated to look at myself in the mirror. But at least I was no longer Daddys little girl.

Thoughts by a lady about her body vis a vis her husbands when facing a middle life marriage crisis. The book is a collection of experiences by ladies who met each other in the ladies coupe of a train about their lives . A treasue and potential collection by all feminists and would be feminists and intersting reading for non-feminists.

Find it amusing and strange that in books , serials and in most media woman is always featured as the victim and the man as a terror who dominates her life . None of the stories in this book is different , it is about how Man1 dominated Woman1s life and Man2 tortured Woman2 and so on though there are some non cliche stories as well.

This is a secret . Even when I go through trends in blogging it is amusing to see many women blogging first about romance and then about the problems in relationships while men blog about Current affairs , world cup cricket and Kashmir Issue (Grinning , Thanks Thanks for all those MCP boos).

If you exclude people like Shobha De who dissolves some **x and ***k with Page 3 to sell books and include Arundhati Roy and people like Kamla Das who sits in Kolkata and write about Malabar so poetically as

Wild feet stirring up the dust in my home in Malabar and I so far away

women writing in good Indian Angrezi seemed to be a rare species.

But Anita Nair is good even though I don't know whether she will suit the tastes of everyone, especially the cola drinking , shit swearing , barista going , orkut browsing , IT booming , post liberalisation kewl people in my generation.

Somehow Anita Nair reminds me about a character played by Geetu Mohandas in the Malayalam film Raapakal starring Mammootty . Whatever , read an interview of Anita Nair by a blogger here

Tagging five people {thinking all of them read and each of them is reading books with nice 123/5 sentences}
Umesh , Attribution , Mathew , Jina and Jo

Thanks Neihal for the tag :).