The other day, a batchmate of mine had the following status message in her Gtalk profile – “Life on earth would be better off without men”. I, with an intention to score some cheap brownie points, was quick to point out that without men the world would’ve been without electricity, medicines, industry, telephone, car, engine and blah blah blah.  And she responded by listing out the achievements of Curie, Mother Teresa and other such admirable women. Eristic dialogues!!

I’m sure every one of us would’ve had such petty (albeit passionate) arguments with members of the opposite sex. I really am not a male chauvinistic pig. In reality, I find it amusing to project myself as one, just to annoy the fairer sex.

Battle of the sexes is as inconclusive as the quest for secret of the universe. Perhaps, we need each other. I have no qualms in admitting that women are the most beautiful of god’s creation. Women may not return the complement. The truth is that men do not expect it, and women do not offer it. That’s nature at work. 

Background Info – A limerick is a five-line poem with a strict form (AABBA), which intends to be witty or humorous, and is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. There is a sub-genre of poems that take the twist and apply it to the limerick itself. These are sometimes called anti-limericks. The following poems subverts the structure of the true limerick by changing the number of syllables in the lines. Also, I’ve named the title of this post as ‘Cricket Limerics’ instead of ‘Cricket Anti-Limericks’, purely for the sake of improving the visibility of the post in google search results.
 

Ganguly

Dada

There was a cricketer from Bengal,
Who never failed to entertain us all.
        From plundering runs with ease
        To fielding like Munaf Patel’s niece,
That old man has done it all.

Sachin

Sachin

I read Da Vinci code and Angels & Demons roughly 2 years back. It was around the time my orgy of reading novels reached its peak. Im giving my honest opinion on the Dan Browns 2 famous works. Here it goes.

Selling 60 million odd copies of any book is no mean task. Many writers wouldnt dare to dream of that. But that is precisely what Dan Brown managed to achieve with the 2 famous books. Why did they become best sellers? The reason is Dan Brown broght into light, some intriguing facts about jesus, christianity and the church. The reading public always loved such kind of conspiracy thoery related writings. How many of us suspected that jesus was married? How many of us noticed that one person in the famous Last Supper painting, was infact a lady?. Not many i guess. I remember asking a christian friend of mine about the Last Supper painting. Only after reading Da Vinci code did he notice Mary Magdalene in the painting.

But does selling millions of copies make Dan Brown a good author? Im afraid not. I would say is novels are well researched but not well written. New york times famously reviewed the book as “Dan Brown’s best-selling primer on how not to write an English sentence”. For one, the first noticable shortcoming of Dan Brown’s books is that they are badly plotted. Langdon could be a famous professor of symbology and Iconology. But Langdon solving various puzzles and breaking codes within a short time is pretty farfetched. Beyond a certain point things become too predictable. It doesnt need a genius to guess that Langdon is going to break another code or solve another puzzzle in the next few pages. Its like the southindian movies in which our hero drives the guts out of numerous thugs he encounters, without a tiny scratch. One gets tired of the never ending treasure hunt. Another shortcoming is the flatness of the main characters in his books. His writing doesnt strike any emotional chord with the readers.

So Dan Browns mantra is simple : ‘ Pick on a sensitive topic. Create a conspiracy theory. Cash in on it’.

Several years from now, modern writers of fiction like Stephen King, J.K.Rowling , Grisham would still be remembered for their literature while Dan Brown would sink into oblivion once the interest in christian conspiracy theories fades off.

If you are a beginner then dont bother to read Dan Brown’s books ( atleast defer it to a later date). If you are a voracious reader and havent read the Brown’s books then forget that a person named Dan Brown even existed. If you are into cheap thrills, then ‘Da vinci code’ and ‘Angels and Demons’ are your cuppa.

R.B.Pravin