AL SHAH MATA!

The king is dead! Shah Mata! That was what flashed in my mind, when I read about the death of Sidney Sheldon. At an age when parents would frown if their daughter was walking around with a Harold Robins in her hand, I got away with Sidney Sheldon! I read his Naked Face first. What a change from the Wodehouses, Nevil Shutes and Richard Gordons my father used to avalanche me down with! Quite a different kettle of fish from the J.T. Edsons, Suddens and Louis L Amours pilfered from my brother's collection!
When it comes to reading, I suffer from compulsive disorder! If I like one writer, I end up reading him till I finish all his published work. Master of the Game made me a slave of theis great master. Rage of Angels left me terrified for months... But nothing beats the book called "Are You Afraid of the Dark'. I finished it in record time during Xmas vacations... on the 25th. The next morning the notorious tsunami struck wreaking havoc of the kind hitherto unheard-ofin Asia! My first reaction was to take the book again and read the ‘Afterword’ once again... And I was in a turmoil... Was the tsunami a natural disaster or masterminded by a superpower? It took a few weeks of self-counselling to allay my doubts and fears...such was the mastery of the great story teller! May he rest in peace up there!

Art Buchwald! I was (as usual) introduced to him by my dad, an ardent fan of his column in the HIndu. Initialy I just read because I was forced to...unable to understand anything due to my ignorance of the political scenario in the US... Later things started connecting and his infectious humour worked its way into me and thus started my long liaison with Buchwald's brand of writing which later led me to the likes of Khushwant Singh, with his malice towards one and all! Buchwald was forced to write his obituary by his friends, which he did and the papers ran it the day after his passing away... It is just like him! If anyone could have died with a smile on his face, it would have been Art Buchwald definitely, in spite of the physical agony he was going through!
The world is shy of two great writers-- each a master of his own game... And we fans feel stalemated! Sigh! Shah Mata... the king is dead!