Whole life explained in one song!

Age 1 to 15: नैनोमे सपना
15 to 25: सपनोमे सजना
25 to 35: सजनापे दिल आ गया
35 to 75: क्यो सजनापे दिल आ गया?

(Forwarded)

The Lost Years - Mary Higgins Clark (Spoiler Alert!)

Yeah, yeah, I know. Stories about ancient parchments that were stolen years ago from some equally ancient church or monastery have always been my favorites. I fall for the trick every single time! :-)

But sadly, the parchment, in this case the only letter written by Christ that had been stolen from the Vatican many centuries ago, serves only as a backdrop to the novel. The letter is found by a well-known academic, Dr. Jonathan Lyons, in a safe in the walls of an ancient church that's being razed to the ground. Though Jonathan is pretty sure about its authenticity, he shows it to some experts to gain a second opinion, or perhaps two! Little does he know that it's going to cost him his life.

Jonathan is found dead in his own library and the only suspect seems to be his wife, Katherine, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. Though the police initially look at the possibility that Katherine could have been framed, they have little choice but to arrest her when the investigation doesn't turn up any other suspect. It is soon discovered that the house of the Lyons' next-door neighbor, a lawyer, has been robbed of his wife's precious jewellery. Did whoever rob the Scotts get a look at whoever killed Jonathan? Who has the parchment? What has happened to Katherine's weekday caregiver Rory? Who killed Jonathan? And will the Lyons' daughter Mariah be able to achieve the Herculean tasks of retrieving the parchments, finding her father's killer and getting her mother out from behind the bars?

Clark has deftly kept the needle of suspicion pointed at everyone involved in the story - Jonathan's girlfriend Lillian as well as his friends - Richard, Albert and Michaelson. Hell! At one point I even suspected the priest! But then she spoils all the fun by making Greg simply too good to be true. Any fan of detective novels worth his or her salt knows that in almost 99.9% cases the most innocent person turns out to be the perp! :-)

Insidious

If you love things that go bump in the night (I don't!), then this movie is for you. Be prepared to spend a sleepless night or two though :-)

A family moves into a new home. As they go about the business of settling down, the eldest of the 3 kids falls off a ladder in the attic (where else!). The next morning, his dad discovers, to his horror, that the kid has slipped into a coma. The doctors are unable to find any reason for this despite doing numerous tests. And so after a few months the kid is brought back home where the mother takes over the responsibility of caring for him. Just as she is juggling his care with that of her youngest child, a daughter who is not even a toddler, she starts noticing weird happenings in the home. At first, the husband refuses to believe (do they ever?) that the place is haunted but gives in later on and moves the family to a different home.

The wife gets the shock of her life when she realizes that whatever was haunting the earlier home has moved along with them. Her mother-in-law brings in a friend, a paranormal investigator, to help sort out the matters. What she tells turns the family's world upside down. The paranormal investigator reveals that their kid is not in a coma but separated from his physical body because during the course of his astral projections at night he has traveled very far from it. The dark spirits are circling his empty body in an attempt to possess it to be able to live once again. And then she delivers a shocker - it seems that the kid has inherited his ability from his dad and the dad will have to make a journey to what the investigator calls 'The Further' to get his son's soul back.

Spacious houses with their creepy attics and basements aren't one of my favorite places on earth. This movie has only confirmed my belief that they serve as the rent-free accommodation for the spirits. :-) Jokes apart, the movie manages to give you more than your fair share of scares - especially during the scenes when the wife notices something running about the house and decides to follow it. The only funny thing in this movie is the mask that the investigator wears while guiding the lost spirit of the boy home. :-)

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Just Take My Heart - by Mary Higgins Clark

I am becoming something like a Mary Higgins Clark fan. :-) Lately, I seem to be reaching for more and more of her books on the library shelf.

The novel begins with the murder of Natalie Raines, a famous actress on The Broadway. She is found shot in her New Jersey home. Though the cops don't make any arrest immediately, the needle of suspicion soon begins to point at her husband, and agent, Greg Aldrich. Almost everyone seems to know that they were having problems in their marital life. But few seem to know that before she died Natalie was terribly scared of someone. The case lands in the lap of Emily Wallace, an Assistant Prosecutor, who is dealing with a lot in her personal life - the sudden death of her husband who was in the armed forces and her equally sudden recent heart transplant surgery. She and her immediate boss have a lot riding on the successful conviction in this case. Just when Emily's intellect tells her that she is doing all that she practically can to put Greg behind bars, her heart seems to be telling her that he is innocent. Matters turn complicated when Natalie's own mother says the same in open court. And in the midst of all this, Emily is blissfully unaware that a serial killer is practically her next-door neighbor.

Will Emily listen to the heart that till a few months ago was beating in someone else's chest? Who killed Natalie? And will the cold case of the murder of the struggling actress who was Natalie's roommate years ago ever get solved? Who is the mysterious Jess?

Clark has been successful in keeping the reader guessing as to who the possible killer could be because there aren't many suspects on the scene except for Greg and Emily's neighbor. It's only in the last few pages that we begin to get an inkling about the true perpetrator of both crimes. On the other hand, the reason why Emily knows it in her heart that Greg is innocent is not a big mystery if you reflect on the novel's title for a moment :-)