You're it!

I've been tagged! First tag, that too. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (Get it together, man.)

Blog Tag.

Last movie seen in a theatre:
The Spiderwick Chronicles, with cousins. I was the only one who had read the little books and knew what to expect. The ones who had come there expecting another Lord of the Rings had to put on polite, strained smiles when I told them later that I enjoyed the movie. :)

What book are you reading?
A Feast for Crows, by George RR Martin

Favourite board game:
Life! Oh man, the number of fights I've been in over those games. All loud, and some physical. Somehow, the excuse "I was a kid back then!" doesn't rob me of all the shame.

Favourite magazine:
*thinks hard* I dunno, does Google Reader count?

Favourite smells:
Crushed mango leaves. Mum's pakodas that I can smell even before I enter the house. Jalapeños soaked in vinegar. And clichéd as it may be, mallige hoovu.

Favourite sounds:
Gates squealing as someone enters the house. Trees swaying to the wind. NOT the incessant cooing of the idiot bird outside my window which does it all night.

Worst feeling in the world:
Despair. Numbness.

What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?
I wonder whether getting up half an hour later would really be the end of me. And then act on my realisations.

Favourite fast food place:
Adiga's for their Idli-vada-sambhar. Subway for pretty much everything. (Especially the Spicy Italian sandwich. You should try it!) And Sreenivasa Cool Corner on the way to pati's house for the Masala Puris and the Masala Thumbs Ups.

Future child’s name:
Definitely not Karpusaamy.

Finish this statement, “If I had a lot of money I’d…”
Give it all away to charity.
Not!

Do you drive fast?
On my cycle? Oh, definitely!

Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
Erm, no.

Storms - Cool or Scary?
Cool. Like when a cyclone almost hit Madras, devastation reigned supreme and a tree fell on my window.

Do you eat the stems on broccoli?
In Chinese food, yes.

If you could dye your hair any colour, what would be your choice?
It would have to be either bubblegum pink or the way evolution made it.

Name all the different cities/towns you have lived in:
Bangalore, Delhi, Bangalore, Madras, Urbana and Chapel Hill.

Favourite sports to watch:
Football! And IPL when the Royal Challengers are losing playing.

One nice thing about the person who sent this to you:
MM can get you laughing in no time. One of the most creative people I know. And she's really pretty. :)

What’s under your bed?
A HUGE suitcase, two dumbbells that have never been used, and half the dirt on campus. I'm sure that intelligent life is evolving there right now as I write.

Would you like to be born as yourself again?
Yeah, like living my fascinating life once isn't enough.

Morning person or night owl?
Night Owl. It hurts my feelings that you even had to ask.

Over easy or sunny side up?
Erm. Well done?

Favourite place to relax:
Room. Home. Saras. The couch when I'm at home.
(I know that this wasn't asked, but I am usually most comfortable like this. :) )

Favourite pie:
Lemon meringue.

Favourite ice cream flavour:
Chocolate. Butterscotch earlier. Prefer other desserts to ice cream.

You pass this tag to –
Pops, KVM, Jayanth, Aquila and Vaishnavi.

Of all the people you tagged this to, who’s most likely to respond first?
No clue. Everyone seems to be so busy these days. Theses and exams and vivas. Pah.

The young lord.

Read this first: The horsethief.

"Quickly, my lord," urged the captain of the house, leading the young liege quietly from the tents, moments after the horn was heard. They moved silently in the night, their grey cloaks making them one with the darkness. Some thirty men on horse were gathered amidst a small, dark grove of trees. They had just finished donning their armour when the boy joined them.

The lordling was a little afraid, recovering only slowly from the shock of being unceremoniously pulled out of his tent. Seeing all his men saluting him, fists to their their hearts, new resolve crept into his thoughts. I will not let them down, he told himself. I will be a lord they will be proud to serve under.

Someone had smuggled out his armour as well. He struggled into light mail. Greaves, shoulder-plates and a helm made for a man not yet full grown, they fit the boy perfectly. Last of all he donned the sword with its leather scabbard, studded with garnets.

Everyone mounted their horses, the young lord onto his grey gelding. The men pulled up their cowls and wrapped their cloaks around themselves before stepping out of the trees. They were on high ground, and to the south west of them they could see the carnage unfold. Men in leggings cut down by armoured knights, fleeing soldiers run down by lances and men visiting the privy set on fire before they could even pull their breeches back up.

The boy could see his and his uncle's tents in the middle, on a small, grassy mound. He watched in stony silence as they were encircled by the invading horsemen, some of whom had got off their steeds and entered inside. The banners outside were cut down and their strips set aflame. A portly, old man was dragged out, barely dressed. A gentle, dignified man at the best of times, the old man now looked weak and pathetic. Uncle!

One of the outriders spotted them. He notched an arrow onto his bow, loosing it on them. Fool, thought the captain, signaling with one of his hands. The arrow landed harmlessly on one of the shields. In moments, three arrows were loosed onto the outrider, two of them finding their mark. He should have reached for the horn, not for the arrow.

"Now we ride, my lord." He said to his young master. The company organised itself into columns of five, with the captain leading and the bowmen bringing up the rear. The lordling rode in the safety of his men, in the middle of the second file.

The cavalry trotted till the fires and the pavilion was out of sight, then quickened to a half-gallop, heading north east. They had ridden for almost an hour without incident. The captain slowed a little to come aside next to the boy. "My lord, soon we will be riding dead east. In a day we will be in safe lands. Your mother's people were always a loyal and courageous folk. Also, it is hill country to the east. Even if the rest of our lands fall, the east can hold its own. We shall be safe there."

His young liege nodded, remembering his days in the hills with joy. Things had been uncomplicated back then, he had been but a boy then, stealing peaches and playing the Giant and the Warrior in the woods with his cousins. Now he was twelve, almost a man grown. Much had changed, too much.

One of the riders the captain had sent back to watch for the enemy came galloping back. "Cavalry. I could not tell how well they were armoured. They are riding hard on our heels, my lord. Not half a mile away."

"How many?" asked the captain, reining up sharply and calling the men to a halt. "They are at least as many as us. If they are any good, they have split their party into two, the one in front smaller and screening the movements of the larger group."

"They could not have sent too many, the enemy would have sent horses in all directions, scouring the land for us. Very well," muttered the captain.

"My lord, I will leave you with five men and the extra horses. Ride hard to the east, do not look back. We will meet up with you later."

"See that you do, Captain." The young lord found himself saying, voice strangely steady. Just when he had thought that they were safe. Twenty five men against maybe twice their number. Even men of the captain's valour can be butchered, thought the boy, I am no fool.

The men bowed to their liege, unsheathing their swords. The five men who had remained with him watched the rest gallop back as they had come, their courageous captain at their helm. "We ride!" Shouted the boy, tugging at the gelding's reins. The men followed.

The horsethief.

"Quickly!" Whispered the thief in the darkness, his body covered in soot and horse-sweat. Unpleasant as the combination was, he was used to it. Strange man-smell would drive the horses into panic, but strange horse-smell they wouldn't care so much about. We need to be holding the reins of enough horses and leading them away before the next stage in the plan, he thought to himself. The others crept in, too noisy for the thief's liking. "Fools," he muttered to himself. You work with what you are given, his brother always used to say. Then he had gotten himself killed, rebelling against his liege-lord by allying himself with poor, disgruntled farmers. Fat lot of good that piece of advice had done to him.

The fellows he had with him were not bad though, and soon enough they had reined in some two dozen of the finest horses, and led them away.

When the others were a safe distance away, the thief singled out a tame mare. "I'm sorry, my friend," he said softly, as he unsheathed his knife and opened the beast's throat. The smell of blood drove the remaining dozen score or so animals into a frenzy. An alarm was taken up, and men started rushing out of their tents, some immediately trampled by the manic horses.

The thief knew that they were fighting an unworthy foe, for no knowledgeable battle commander would house this many untrained horses together.

A lone horn blew a long and quivering note, a few hundred paces south of tents. Seconds later the men in the tents could hear the thunder of hundreds of hooves coming closer. Before anyone could find their arms the enemy came upon them, bearing lances and axes and torches. The cavalry hacked, burned, and drove through everything. Only the three big and colourful tents in the middle were allowed to remain standing, the rest was razed mercilessly to the ground, and the soldiers with it. The battle was over before it had begun, their own horses had seen to that.

The thief had slipped quietly into the surrounding night.
*****

PS. Somewhat of a standalone. I've kinda given up on my fan fics and have been wanting to write something set in some kind of a medieval setting. With destriers and heavily-armoured knights and archers in the darkness. Maybe it has something to do with all the George RR Martin I just read, or maybe it is all the Age of Empires I've been playing that is talking. Even so.

Man-eating strangelets.

Questionable Content is one of the webcomics I finished last week. (Real life being the other.) Apart from the really vague Indie-music references, the comic is quite alright. And very addictive.

Doesn't the whole Higgs-Boson business seem so science-fictiony? Strangelets and mini-black holes and weird vacuums whatnot. Would He come down from the heavens with his host of angels and make war with the strangeness and take the chosen ones to heaven?

"Ode to the LHC"
O! Prometheus of mass,
We come to unchain thee
Not with key, nor torch, nor saw
But a circus of relativity
Hadrons colliding,
A sudden, stable strangelet
devours us all.

:D

Less than 3 hours to go for the Med Chem final. Start studying, dammit.

What I really want.

A historical fiction novel set in India. Must be set in a time at least 400 years ago, and older the better. With elaborate explanations of Indian warfare, heraldry, politics and the like. Written in English, of course. With little or no religious subtext, if that is possible.

Shouldn't be about Anarkali and Salim, or about the nutter Allaudin Khilji coveting Rani Padmini of Chittor. I can read Shakespeare if I want something so sordid. (Anyone who goes around besieging castles without even pretending that the damsel is in distress, is a nutter. And he was gay for crying out loud! Hmm... perhaps a case of over-compensation.)

Know of any? Please do let me know.

As I haven't found any so far, and as I have finished David Gemmell's series set in Helenic(sic) Troy (See what I did there?) twice, I shall endeavour to read A Song of Ice and Fire again. Bliss. The next two weeks are taken care of. All work goes down the drain, of course.

PS. I'm curious. Have Ponniyin Selvan and the other Kalki novels been translated well into English? I know, I know, even these are sappy stories. I remain curious.

PPS. Feel free to thank me for all the wiki links. I really doubt that any of you would be very familiar with all of the things I've mentioned. Though the last one is kinda superfluous. :)

PPPS. If anyone replies to this asking me whether I've heard of the Mahabharata or the Ramayana, I'll hunt them down to the ends of the earth and make them listen to all of my poetry.