Sitting across my table are 4 other mid aged women (at the same coffee shop). From their talk I figure that they are teachers from Hiranandani Foundation School.
The last minutes they have been talking about how great Aashiqui 2 is. I know its plain inane talk when 4 friends get together….but seriously, if my teachers like Aashiqui 2…..I strangely have a little bit of problem with them 
……Taste is dead, long live the tasteless.
Always beautiful to catch up with your sister on a random unplanned lunch in an equally random unplanned city.
It helps that the lunch is at Mainland China, one of my all time favourite places to eat.
Sitting in a coffee shop, and across me sits this really stylish babe, selling the concept to internet selling and etailing to some really dorked out poor brickworld guy. She is asking him in suede hindi “aap internet bilkul nahin use karto hoan?”.
Its charming to both focus on the babe and the undisguised selling.
This is one of my freakiest experiences in recent times. I have to share this in some form or shape.
Picture this.
Yesterday, I booked a cab to the airport. When he finally arrived, my wife spoke to him, and told me, “bada hi suede hain”!!, which means he seems far too polished for the job.
I get into the car, and the guy starts chatting up, and quick big time. I usually avoid these chats, not because I dont talk to drivers, more so, because during a drive I try and focus on the road and meditate – I quite literally do.
But he seemed more than eager for a chat.
The coupe de grace was his English. If I had taken him and put him in a different uniform and made him enter my office lobby, he could easily pass off as an Investment Banker, just based on the kind of English he spoke. It was impeccable and he used avant garde phrases, which he could only know if he was well read, or he was an expert with the gab.
He indeed did have the gift of gab. He asked me all kind of personal questions, which I deftly avoided, and he offered me a range of opinions, from national politics, to what is wrong with Dubai. And he spoke intelligently on these topics.
He also told me a lot about himself. Here is a summary. His name is K*****, he is originally from Rampur in UP. He has been working for 19 years, 10 in a call center and later 9 as a driver. He lost his two sons 10 years ago. One to a brain tumor, and the other to a still birth. This also caused him to lose his call center job. That shattered his wife completely. They then adopted two labradors. He has 2 brothers and a sister both living in Bangalore. He loves to indulge his loved ones in mango. His labs are the love of his wife. He thinks of the labs as his family.
He is 10th failed and English he picked up, entirely on his own. He is self taught in that sense. He also spoke immaculate Hindi (Rampur!!), Tamil and Kannada.
He also shared Dalai Lamaish wisdom on how he learnt to cope with loss of a job and two sons, and recouped his life as a driver. He loves his current job, though it is tough financially.
Did I tip him more? Yes double of what I usually do…but I told him to buy something for the labs.
Why did I trust him? I dont necessarily do. Either he is the most authentic story teller I know of, or he is just telling his life in plain speak.
Either ways, he deserves more in life. He gave me a memory which I shall remember for years to come. I dont think I could have asked more from a driver conversation.
I did feel he is intelligent, witty, thoughtful and precise. What more should you expect from a conversation companion?
Thank you K
Going back to a house where you spent some of your growing up years, is always a little unusual. Its almost similar to going to the neighbourhood speakeasy, having a few shots of Gin and then the walls begin to talk to you.
In the house, which was once a home to you, the walls most definitely do. Not just the walls, but curtains, the bathroom fixtures, all of them have a shared memory and a story to reminiscence.
As you keep walking around the house, bumping into things, you brain tunes itself to some very unexpected stories.
The house is now old, quaint and has quite a few basic things missing from “my” definition of a home….and yet, strangely enough, I continue to love it.
Being alive is an one act play.
I wont explain that too much, but I recently saw a live act of a small obscure artist, and came out jawdroppingly impressed and charred for life 
. I think I shall remember that performance for many years to come.
Now can you imagine, sitting through the 1986 Grammy and listening to Sting singing Russians live and full throttled, with the single orchestra harmony on Guitar…..I love just listening to that song, if you had been part of that audience, how integral would that song be to part of your life.
Or listening to Dave Matthews Band play #41, their iconic song, live on 1996 New Years’s eve with Jeff Coffin and Bela Fleck. I get goose bumps, even today when I listen to a version of the song – and I have heard that song at least 300 times. Its close to 25 minutes of utter jazz manna.
Being (a)live in a context does make a real difference to your own fabric of consciousness !!
I am one of those oddities, who thinks and uses Microsoft even today. Like this blog post is coming out a legal copy of the Microsoft Writer.
That said the Ad Server Network on Bing is hilarious. To set the context, because I use outlook, I am forced to watch Bing ads.
Picture this.
I click a Car rental confirmation email, I would have expected Google Ads to show to Avis or Hertz or Uber. What I get instead is a whole range of ads on “Dental care” and “DIY Teeth Whitening”.
Maybe it picked that mail wrong.
I click on a mail from my daughter’s school. What do I get “Safco products Bamboo Wall Magazine Rack”.
Something is completely rotten in their contextual engine.
I love this tiny book called “Nirvana in a nutshell” by Scott Shaw. Its really tiny, has 157 tiny posts, most of which jolt you into an insight, no matter how often you have read them.
Like today I read this, which was really apt for the day:
Internal Peace is a choice.
The world will give you a million reasons not to be peaceful if you allow external images and negative stimuli to dominate your emotions.
Next time you find yourself upset – stop everything.
Be Still.
Let your mind rest.
Do no let momentary emotions control you.
Catch them and watch them fly like a beautiful bird across a scenic horizon.
Understand that whoever or whatever has led you to this unpeaceful state is not worthy of controlling your life.
Allow yourself to feel peace- even in the most unpeaceful events and enlightenment will be yours.
There is something very poetic about having partner who encourages you after every defeat of yours. Its also unlike me. I could never do that, because in every defeat, I would be busy analysing the seeds of what went wrong.
Yet I have someone who does this exactly for me. She is terrific at this.
Thank you!!
I was talking to someone at work, who was aghast that I blog in personal life. Before I get into why/what….let me take you through the course of events.
What I did was, politely shared with him the URL of this page…I also categorically mentioned that if he can conclusively ever conclude that I am who I AM, and if he can figure out from the blog where I work – I shall be curious of the slip ups I had made.
Also, if someone did figure where I work, they should ideally see that I idolize it, and I really do….if I did not, I would not be working there at all.
What worried me more was that, I could have a facebook page, where I say I am XX working at YY, and then also post my “anti LGBT” tirade there….and it would be perfectly fine with everyone. (For the record, I don’t have a facebook account, and I have colleagues who are LGBT who I admire and cherish).
So its fine for me to puke in facebook and defecate in Twitter, but if I blog….well, I am a threat to the society.
Now where did we lose the plot, I really sit and wonder?
I blog because it allows me to maintain my history. Facebook is just too transactional and bizarre for my social tastes. I would willingly not tarnish anyone’s personal life (and that includes the firm I work for). I will write here on this blog, because it allows my voice to be heard, for me to be an influence.
The senior person, did come back, about a week later, and privately patted my back, he said he had been sucked into the content and the range of this blog. He thought this was in no way remotely a worry to a person or a firm.
Thank you, but I wish we did not start off with “the onus of innocence is on the accused”.
I loved this article….original at
http://gizmodo.com/5994589/why-your-cell-phone-doesnt-have-a-dial-tone
Reproduced below for easier reading….
Why Your Cell Phone Doesn’t Have a Dial Tone
Eric Limer
In addition to the long curly cords, and the part where they are permanently attached to a wall, old-fashioned landlines have something else that we've lost in the cell phone revolution: a dial tone. What happened to that thing?
Dan Goldin of Makers Alley just happened to be reading The Idea Factory when he came upon a passage that addresses just that and was nice enough to share it with us all.
From the book:
Meanwhile, Phil Porter, who had worked with [Richard] Frenkiel on the original system, came up with a permanent answer to an interesting question. Should a cellular phone have a dial tone? Porter made a radical suggestion that it shouldn't. A caller should dial a number and then push "send." That way, the mobile caller would be less rushed; also, the call would be connected for a shorter time, thus putting less strain on the network. That this idea-dial, then send-would later prove crucial to texting technology was not even considered.
Typing everything in and hitting enter may seem like second nature to us tech savvy folks, but it's weird to think that the change was actually an explicit choice, even a jarring on to older folks; phones like the Jitterbug still go out of their way to emulate a dial tone for old time's sake.
Today's phones don't need a tone since they can parse and send numbers all at once instead of one at a time, so it would have been silly to keep it around. But still, it's a little bit sad to think that it's gone for good. [Dan Goldin]
I have been awake since 2 today morning, and I have been reading, writing and drinking cups of poison…and yet through this jungle, my brain has been humming….Pink Floyd’s Comfortably numb.
I have not heard that song in the past many days/months…and yet the song is going on in my head like a rhythmic capsule….on and on….like a gong.
Ever wonder why that happens?
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I... Have become comfortably numb
Someone I love turns 42 today. I have been telling him, “that now he has the answer to life, the universe and everything”.
I hope he gets the joke.
He should remember that we live in a Dickensian world, “it was the worst of times, it was the best of times”, and yet, no one can take the number away from him.
Here is wishing you a big happy birthday, my dearest one.
I have been struggling a lot with my health for the past 4 days, and yet, I have been doing nothing much about it. I have been impassively looking at it from a distance and almost, as if, I was waiting for a truce to be called.
Ican’t easily explain my own behaviour away….and yet it makes perfect sense to me. I am at complete peace in this bloody war.
From a distance
You look like my friend
Even though we are at war
From a distance
I just cannot comprehend
What all this fightings for
From the Bette Midler classic….
I was talking to someone who was leaving. (Leaving who? where? what?….does that matter?). As I was talking to him, he quite matter of factly weaved a Zen like story into his conversation. It was fascinating.
Here is what he told me…..
When you remove your hand out of a bucket of water, for the first few moments, you see a gap, infact in the first instant, it looks like a big hole….then it becomes a gap…and soon, it looks like focal point around which ripples are forming and settling.
Give it a few more seconds, and the water is still all over again….as if, there was never a hand. Someone who came and saw the bucket now, could never tell you that 2 mins ago, there was a full lifesize lifelike hand in the bucket.
The world has conveniently accommodated an absence, filling up the hole, removing all traces of the missing arm……whats left, if at all, is but a weak memory….and that is living, only in those heads which knew of the arm. They faster they (folks who have the memory)expunge that from their head, the faster they shall accept the new reality.
In retrospect, everytime I have completely stepped away from a problem, I have usually seen the edge of the knife glimmering….the real underlying force shine right through.
Its not something unobvious, but stepping away seems to clear up my mind no end, and it allows my rational brain to kick in with some really insightful solutions.
I can think of so many examples in my life – like quitting a draggy job, or moving to a new city, or moving away from your parents….in all examples…a few months later, the situation has become better for all involved….only because all involved brains began their recourse (in earnest) to reclaim their own lives.
And then….
When I look at real life….I realise that its just not designed for that level of reprieve. How many times does your manager tell you during a performance review “Amit you are terrible at sales, why don’t you just drop everything for a month, and we shall pick up the threads again”….instead he rattles out 101 Kottler, and then pushes you harder into the open mouth of the dragon….so close that the fire breather now hurts.
Or for that matter, how many times do a couple, say….maybe we are really breathing down each other’s neck, lets take a break (from each other) for a month, and then lets start all over again….never.
….conventional warfare is always ….if you are in the belly of fire, stay there and fight……versus wisdom says….when you see a fire….just walk away…let the fire burn its own soul up….you can come back and reclaim the living.
Wonder where and why we got so knotted up?
Now this is why good writing shall never ever go out of style. The following piece is from Mint Lounge edition available at http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/PINoa4Ca6fW5fGljoVZ38O/A-death-in-the-family.html?ref=ms
I have copied the article below for easier reading…..
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The impact of losing a parent on a young child is immense
First Published: Sat, Mar 30 2013. 12 10 AM IST
Children flounder when they lose a parent. Photo: Natasha Badhwar.
The first time a child lost a parent in my class, we were in class V. I was new in that school. Priya was my best friend even though we had only known each other for three months. I had attended her birthday party in Geetanjali Enclave in south Delhi. Her father died of kidney failure. He had had a transplant earlier.
I remember feeling numb. I didn’t understand what she had lost. I was just quiet. My mother was distraught. She spoke about their family for a long time. She would repeat how young the father had been. I remembered a man with a dark beard. A 10-year-old child thinks all adults are old.
Many years later, we were film students, hanging around an inner courtyard on our campus. A classmate had had to leave suddenly after she received a phone call informing her that her mother had died in another city. I remember going into a shell again.
An argument broke out somewhere near me. Our class argued about everything. Two classmates seemed to be disagreeing vociferously over the impact of losing a parent. They were loud and angry. Hours later, we realized that both of them had lost a parent in their teenage years. They had been deeply shaken that day. You have no idea how it really feels, they were both saying. Screaming from the raw isolation of their experiences.
I had walked away that day. Both of them became my best friends later.
Our children bring home stories from their classrooms. There was a new boy in the first grade with our daughter. First she reported how he didn’t understand English. He didn’t wash his hands after going to the bathroom, she said. He drank water from other children’s bottles.
We spoke to our daughter. Children come from different kinds of families. They learn different kinds of behaviour at home. Some children take longer to learn the ways of a new school. Don’t laugh at him. He needs friends too.
She began to tell us lighter stories. He was still being inappropriate, but they had begun to laugh with him, rather than at him. I met him after school one day and spoke to him. He looked away, his mouth slightly open. He is tall and stout but his face is still like the baby he was a few years ago.
Later, my daughter explained him to me. “He only talks to people he knows. He listens to our class teacher, but he is shy. He will talk to me but he won’t talk to you,” she said protectively.
One of our friends called us on a weekend after years of being lost to us. “Tell him to come home,” I said to my husband. “He needs a family. I can use a son.”
Rohit is a successful design entrepreneur. He is also a single child, a single adult and one who lost both his parents in his early 20s. He came over and stayed with us for the weekend. The first night he stayed up late, dusting and sorting everything in our house. We found toys and books arranged according to themes. “I am always trying to build a home,” he said.
Life. Our stories keep converging. They intersect. They cross each other. Sometimes it takes years before we realize what it is that draws us to another. Despite our successful, sorted out external selves, something in us connects to the backstory of the other. These stories may take years to unravel, yet we subconsciously recognize something in the other.
The boy in my daughter’s class. He would ask her every day how long it was before it would be lunchtime. He had difficulty in reading and writing. Girls were complaining that he irritated them.
We spoke to the class teacher about him. “His mother died of leukaemia last month,” she told us. “She had been in hospital for a long time.” The teacher was now making him sit next to her throughout the day. She knew he had special needs. She knew his needs.
Rohit came over one weekend and painted one of the walls on our terrace, splashing it with colours. He shot a photo feature with our children fooling around in front of it. My mother-in-law made him sit next to her and asked him about everyone in his extended family. She is a single child too.
The child in our daughter’s class is changing his school. He needs a special educator, the teacher told me. Since I am a grown-up now, I don’t feel numb any more. I feel that there has got to be something I can do.
“Should I do something,” I say aloud at home.
“Yes, Mamma, yes,” my children answer in chorus.
At the parent-teacher’s meeting last weekend, the teacher pointed out the boy’s father to me. I turned to see a young man taking his place in the classroom with a half-smile on his face. Spectacles. A pleasant, comfortable expression that made me feel relaxed and hopeful.
He had come alone. I told him that my daughter is his son’s friend. “He’s a wonderful child,” I said. “We wish him luck.”
I don’t know why I felt I had to write these stories here. I just wanted to.
Natasha Badhwar is a film-maker, media trainer and mother of three.
On the return flight I did try hard to get some movies, but simply could not get myself to watch anything at all. I ended up listening to hours of Bach, who used to be such a favourite, in my growing up years. I also ended up reading a lot of economist, and actually loving the articles (for the first time), I usually have found the economist to be a stiff upper lip....some of the most important matters of the world today, presented in the driest fashion possible….but this time around The Economist was a revelation.
I am definitely switching off to the visual medium completely.
Personal peace is a very important goal in my life….so much so that I possibly value it above everything I love and adore.
And yet, in the past few days, I have seen an emotional state of mind, disrupt this peace easily….not once or twice, but at least 4 times.
Each time, in retrospect, I have felt like a loser…almost like someone who scored 299, but in that rash minute also got run out. The next stint at the innings is always going to start from 0.
Life is a tough game. I have been telling myself, that to be a triple centurion, the focus at 299 has to be 299 times more than when you scored your first run.
Yet, that balance is difficult to maintain….and I feel like a fledgling. One day….I hope to imbibe tiny parts of The Buddha and The Dalai Lama into me. Till then……
I am not a big movie buff or aficionado, but I do definitely try and play catch up, everytime I am on a flight. And last week had one such day..(my first time on a A380....potentially a facebook moment, for someone who is not even an active email user 
)
I think I have so switched off from the visual medium, that I was really finding it difficult to get myself to hook upto to either the newer Bollywood, or action movies or even the inane rom coms....but I did manage to catch Argo (more on that later) and I did love it.
I also started to watch 3, to check how jaded my Tamil is – and surprising was completely hooked on. Shruti Hassan and Dhanush look so utterly believable as college students, and you almost bleed for their puppy love. Reminded me of the times when my own heart fluttered like a butterfly J
Both Shruti and Dhanush are so real, you almost want to participate in their make believe world. The chemistry between two of them is electric....and the lady just steals the thunder, by virtue of having a more real world role.
Shruti goes straight into my favourite list of actors – she is gorgeous in the movie, and she acts so smooth, that she could even give her legendary father a whole goosebump experience. Dhanush too becomes a favourite, he is just fab.
Expect for the last 30 minutes where the movie veers into histrionics, the movie is as lovable as DDLJ or QSQT (yes, I still love that movie....Juhi Chawla brings such grace to the role).
Go watch it, not once but maybe 3 times.
We all experience it every now and then. You know what I am referring to.....? Picture this. You are driving on a 3 lane road, and you are on the middle lane trying to overtake the one on your left. The car ahead is backing up. You know if you slam all your horses, you can dive and just manage to make it, but its going to be close....very close. On most days, your sane mind should tell you that being slower is wiser and to wait for the next overtaking opportunity....but someday in the bowl of the madness, your mind says, go for it....whats life but a risk? You floor the pedal....
Get the drift.
Or the one occasion, when rage takes over, and you tell your wife and best friend, things that are designed to hurt her.....and worse still, in that moment, you don’t really care. The fire of rage is burning, and its now turning out to be a forest fire.
What makes us all do it? I don’t know, but I do know that my anger and rage can also be channelized to achieve something otherwise impossible....like overtaking in a tight spot.....or writing beautiful poetry.....
Should we fight the fire or fuel it ?
I have been on and off from this blog for the past two months. That usually happens when either I am part of a terrible writer’s block, or if I am just not making enough time for my soul.
I think its been the latter this time around.
Similar to the George Orwell 1984, I do feel that the Big Brother which forces you to behave in an optically inconsistent manner is what I am having an overdose of.
I often seem to reach this point, where I yearn for the laptop, because my mind has so much to say, I login and open my browser, and my hands go limp, not wanting to move – again, not because of a writer’s block, but because I think I have “too much to say” and the airwaves are getting jammed up.
One day, when the clouds clear, hopefully I shall have a good clean cup of British tea, the kind Douglas Adams would have been proud of.
I spent an evening last week with someone, whom I admire a lot. I have respect for him, and almost believe he is like a friend and father figure.
What was also special, it was his birthday. It was he who reached out and set it up.
He is much more powerful (much much more) and much more wealthier than I am…and yet it was small 1-1 affair. We went to this small (non ZAGAT rated) tiny shack which sells south asian food. Coincidentally, its a place I had eaten before and I kind of liked it.
We ate a simple meal, chatted boisterously like two friends do. Laughed a lot, and when the time was up….we hugged and parted.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and it will be meal I might remember for some time.
I do miss catching up with my friends 
, yes terribly miss 
Picture this.
I am in the midst of conducting an interview (at work), sitting across me is a prospective manager. (This happened months ago, I ensured that I would not be revealing something too soon 
).
I quite like the chap, and I am creating scenarios where he can help me with his out of the box thinking.
Me: Imagine you have a team member who is not doing well on code quality. You have already run him through Sonar reports and other diagonistics, he is still not getting the message. It almost seems as if, he is intentionally avoiding dealing with the problem. Is there a way you can help him?
G : Of course, this is common place. I will start of by running him through the reports. While doing that, I shall be “suggestive” for the first few days. If he does not get it, I shall be “explicit” with him.
What can I say ?
Maybe I have an OCD…..but everyday as I drive, I ensure I learn the roads better and better….so much so, that through roads I drive regularly, I always know which lane will move the fastest….which lanes have potholes, which lanes have lesser street lights.
It comes very naturally to me 
So much so, that I sometimes can drive through new roads and yet predict, based on some “thin slicing” that a particular lane is going to be more efficient than others.
…and I do this incessantly, even while I am with wife and family….not just about lanes, like I always like to observe how the car ahead is using so much more brake than I am…or how a particular car in traffic has its wheels mis-aligned(seriously….these blurs just hit me!!)
And then…on the few days, I do get driven around, either in a cab or a car pool….I am so focused on the person’s driving style and etiquette, that it is almost a distraction….it equally fascinates me, that the “driver” is just not being efficient around some of these dynamics….especially cabbies and chauffeurs surprise me with their (more often than not) lack of interest in learning this “market knowledge”.
And then I wonder, am I just weird
Those who know me, would recognize that the Dalai Lama is a role model that I wish I could emulate (even a wee bit). My second read of this book is just as fascinating as ever.
I love the simplicity of thought, and the self deprecating humility that flows through the book.
Do read, it might help you a better human being. 9/10 definitely.
| # | Date | Author | Book | Rating | Comments |
| 21 | Feb 2013 | Dalai Lam | The Universe in a single Atom | 9/10 | Great Read. This book will buy you some peace  |
| 20 | Feb 2013 | Rahul Pandita | Our Moon has Blood Clots | 7/10 | Good Read. A good Kashmir memoir from a Pandit viewpoint. |
| 19 | Oct 2012 | Arthur Clarke | 9 Billion Names of God | 10/10 | Fascinating. Very small story. Worth the 5 minutes you spend on reading – a thousand times over. |
| 18 | Oct 2012 | JM Coetzee | Life & Times of Michael K | 8/10 | Good. Stark imagery and a stunningly dark book….a signature Coetzee work. |
| 17 | Oct 2012 | Lisa Genova | Still Alice | 9/10 | Outstanding. You just connect with Alice immediately and her life becomes yours. You can see shards of her mind through the book. |
| 16 | Oct 2012 | Arthur C Clarke | Rendezvous with Rama | 9/10 | Outstanding. It hooks you on completely, and leaves with emotionally attached with Rama, quite some time after you have finished the book. |
| 15 | Oct 2012 | Salman Rushdie | Joseph Anton | 7/10 | Good Read. Strictly only for a Rushdie fan. |
| 14 | Sep 2012 | Walter Issacson | Steve Jobs | 9/10 | Excellent read. I found it inspiring and the book made Jobs a more humane person with an infantile ego |
| 13 | Aug 2012 | JM Coetzee | Disgrace | 10/10 | Outstanding. My 3rd read of the book. If you have not read this book…I urge you to. Minimalism combined with stark imagery. Coetzee is cross between Kundera and Rushdie, my two other fav authors |
| 12 | Aug 2012 | Randy Pausch | The Last Lecture | 3/10 | Crappy. This is my third attempt at reading this narcissist take on dying. I have learnt more from the Jobs book than this shit tale. I have never finished the book. |
| 11 | Aug 2012 | Garth Stein | The Art of Racing in the Rain | 9/10 | Fantastic. It starts of as a cute book, gets philosophical, and actually gets damn endearing and makes a bigtime emotional connect. |
| 10 | Aug 2012 | Milan Kundera | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | 10/10 | Outstanding. My 3rd read….and 2nd in the last 2 years. What can I say? I plan to read this every year, at least once. |
| 9 | Jun 2012 | Salman Rushdie | Midnight’s Children | 8/10 | Fantastic. My 4th read…..strangely I did not enjoy it as much this time around. |
| 8 | June 2011 | Robert Spencer | Books on Islam (set of 2) | 6/10 | Engaging Read. But very Islamaphobic. I am genuinely interested in religion and philosophy, so I liked this history….but others might not. |
| 7 | May 2011 | Milan Kundera | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | 10/10 | Outstanding. My 2nd read. |
| 6 | May 2011 | Sylvia Plath | The Bell Jar | 6/10 | Read Once. Her poems are so much better. |
| 5 | Apr 2011 | Salman Rushdie | The Enchantress of Florence | 7/10 | Read Once. Only for fans. |
| 4 | Mar 2011 | Stephen King | The Shining | 9/10 | Haunting. Must Read. The movie and the book are both one of a kind. |
| 3 | Mar 2011 | Michael Ondaatje | Divisadero | 4/10 | Pass. Very mediocre book. |
| 2 | Mar 2011 | Salman Rushdie | The Satanic Verses | 10/10 | Outstanding. Controversies not withstanding. My 4th read, as a piece of fiction, this book is a masterpiece. Also, its really not disrespectful to Islam, all it does is use a bit of creative licensing while telling history. |
| 1 | Mar 2011 | Salman Rushdie | Shalimar The Clown | 10/10 | Outstanding. Fall in love with Kashmir. |
| Dec 2006 | Rohington Mistry | A Fine Balance | 10/10 | Outstanding. My own initial review at Post 197 - Book 6 – Rohington Mistry’s A Fine Balance |
A riveting book about the Kashmir issue, especially from a Pandit point of view….high on content, but kind of terribly in the narrative style.
I would still rate the book 7/10 because its about Kashmir, which I feel strongly about, and because in certain parts it feels honest and connects to you immediately.
Worth a read anyday.
(image courtesy : india-forums.com)
| # | Date | Author | Book | Rating | Comments |
| 20 | Feb 2013 | Rahul Pandita | Our Moon has Blood Clots | 7/10 | Good Read. A good Kashmir memoir from a Pandit viewpoint. |
| 19 | Oct 2012 | Arthur Clarke | 9 Billion Names of God | 10/10 | Fascinating. Very small story. Worth the 5 minutes you spend on reading – a thousand times over. |
| 18 | Oct 2012 | JM Coetzee | Life & Times of Michael K | 8/10 | Good. Stark imagery and a stunningly dark book….a signature Coetzee work. |
| 17 | Oct 2012 | Lisa Genova | Still Alice | 9/10 | Outstanding. You just connect with Alice immediately and her life becomes yours. You can see shards of her mind through the book. |
| 16 | Oct 2012 | Arthur C Clarke | Rendezvous with Rama | 9/10 | Outstanding. It hooks you on completely, and leaves with emotionally attached with Rama, quite some time after you have finished the book. |
| 15 | Oct 2012 | Salman Rushdie | Joseph Anton | 7/10 | Good Read. Strictly only for a Rushdie fan. |
| 14 | Sep 2012 | Walter Issacson | Steve Jobs | 9/10 | Excellent read. I found it inspiring and the book made Jobs a more humane person with an infantile ego |
| 13 | Aug 2012 | JM Coetzee | Disgrace | 10/10 | Outstanding. My 3rd read of the book. If you have not read this book…I urge you to. Minimalism combined with stark imagery. Coetzee is cross between Kundera and Rushdie, my two other fav authors |
| 12 | Aug 2012 | Randy Pausch | The Last Lecture | 3/10 | Crappy. This is my third attempt at reading this narcissist take on dying. I have learnt more from the Jobs book than this shit tale. I have never finished the book. |
| 11 | Aug 2012 | Garth Stein | The Art of Racing in the Rain | 9/10 | Fantastic. It starts of as a cute book, gets philosophical, and actually gets damn endearing and makes a bigtime emotional connect. |
| 10 | Aug 2012 | Milan Kundera | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | 10/10 | Outstanding. My 3rd read….and 2nd in the last 2 years. What can I say? I plan to read this every year, at least once. |
| 9 | Jun 2012 | Salman Rushdie | Midnight’s Children | 8/10 | Fantastic. My 4th read…..strangely I did not enjoy it as much this time around. |
| 8 | June 2011 | Robert Spencer | Books on Islam (set of 2) | 6/10 | Engaging Read. But very Islamaphobic. I am genuinely interested in religion and philosophy, so I liked this history….but others might not. |
| 7 | May 2011 | Milan Kundera | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | 10/10 | Outstanding. My 2nd read. |
| 6 | May 2011 | Sylvia Plath | The Bell Jar | 6/10 | Read Once. Her poems are so much better. |
| 5 | Apr 2011 | Salman Rushdie | The Enchantress of Florence | 7/10 | Read Once. Only for fans. |
| 4 | Mar 2011 | Stephen King | The Shining | 9/10 | Haunting. Must Read. The movie and the book are both one of a kind. |
| 3 | Mar 2011 | Michael Ondaatje | Divisadero | 4/10 | Pass. Very mediocre book. |
| 2 | Mar 2011 | Salman Rushdie | The Satanic Verses | 10/10 | Outstanding. Controversies not withstanding. My 4th read, as a piece of fiction, this book is a masterpiece. Also, its really not disrespectful to Islam, all it does is use a bit of creative licensing while telling history. |
| 1 | Mar 2011 | Salman Rushdie | Shalimar The Clown | 10/10 | Outstanding. Fall in love with Kashmir. |
| Dec 2006 | Rohington Mistry | A Fine Balance | 10/10 | Outstanding. My own initial review at Post 197 - Book 6 – Rohington Mistry’s A Fine Balance |
I have been reading a lot around Marissa Mayer and her mission to change Yahoo. While I do admire her commitment to such a challenge, I can’t help wonder if she is really ever going to succeed.
Over years, I have gotten more and more convinced that at the heart of a corporation, is its sweet DNA….and DNAs cannot be changed all that easily, even if it is driven from the top.
And the DNA is central to the behavior of the beast….almost like a brand. Like you begin expecting BMWs to be edgy, Mercs to be more sedate and understated, Microsoft to be full of bravado (even while their own ship is possibly sinking!!).
What do you identify Yahoo with? A bunch of non-involving informercial driven site(s). Somewhere along its evolution, it ceased being a tech company, and became more an ad business….and that’s where its heart possibly got corrupted. Marissa thinks she can shephered 11000 folks back into the “tech shape”. Will an ad company ever compete with the 100 ton gorilla called Google, which continues to be fiercely tech in its DNA?
I think that is a gargantuan task. We all resist change, especially if it means, it will personally threaten “me”.
Another example, what do you see Flipkart as? A bunch of opportunistic discounters. Do you think this DNA will fight Amazon, who is a technology behemoth, that just as an aside also does Tablets and etailing, and is spellbindingly successful at that too?
Never have I been more convinced that to be a lasting firm, you need a culture of success, burnt into your DNA. I currently work for a firm, which epitomizes this fascinating journey. I don’t know of any other organization, that is more devoutly wanting to be better and better and better…almost as if perfection was its only goal. This relentless pursuit, while it continues to be infinitely tiring, is also intensely transformational for the self…and that is the high, that draws you towards such a poison tip.
A firm like mine, might one day (still) die, but while it lasted, you know it had a soul coursing through every cell in its body, and that to me, is so terribly fascinating.
Will Yahoo and Flipkart last another decade? Lets say, the chips are down 
The bee buzzed around, flitting from flower to fauna, and then quite suddenly, it found it had hit a wall, where it thought none had existed.
A spatial dilemma…..a spider’s web.
Not too big, not too small…yet enough to stop one in its tracks. Enough to halt the march of the carrier of honey.
As it grappled with the visual disconnect, its realised that the world was quite surreally and completely closing on it, and for a few moments, it stopped buzzing.
Stationary and still, stuck in a point within 3 dimensional vectors. The clock waits…to allow space time to freeze.
And then…it begins its rapid incessant flapping. A mad buzzing that is shaking the whole web…making the duo of spiders tremble, their whole world quaking….in fear and violence.
The buzz gathers its own crescendo…..and soon there is resonance….there is a tiny tear in the web, and another, and as the silk tears, shards stick to the wings of the bee.
The spiders are spellbound, unable to comprehend the fightback, unable to believe this could be real.
Soon enough the web snaps.
The spiders fall off the web onto the parapet. The bee, falls down, tired, broken flaps and covered in tiny splinters of the web. Its unable to move, and soon enough it shall die, either of exhaustion and heat….or if the spiders are brave enough to walk the walk.
And yet….
There is duo of scared spiders and yet… there is something heroic here. The war is lost and yet…there is something instructional here. There is an imminent death…and yet there is something alive here. There is a whimper, sigh and gasp here….and yet….there is the last eternal hurrah!!
Islam as a religion (more as a political movement) has its shares of downs. Intolerance of another idea (Rushdie or the Cartoons) being one of its most infamous…..
But…..
There is something eternally fascinating (and endearing) about its music, its people’s devotion, simple acts like the sajda and just the heart of its people.
As I walked into one of the poorest neighborhoods of Bangalore, a traditional Muslim ghetto, I was greeted by sights and smells of dirt, grease and grime.
And yet…..
As I walked around, lost and searching for something….I have never heard more polite voices answer my question. Every single person, who I stopped and asked for directions, was covered in grime, and yet he/she paused, smiled, their eyes lit up, and they answered me in a language of utmost respect and politeness. (probably the urdu equivalent of lihaz)
I came out of the ghetto, feeling very humbled…and yet cared for. I did not feel insecure, instead I felt as if their world would happily envelop me.
I am an atheist, but sometimes do feel strongly that this religion is maligned, misunderstood…al because a petty handful, give the many a very bad name.
PS : My mom speaks very fondly of her trips to Lahore and Karachi. She would relate to this.
Got this as a forward, found this hilarious. Courtesy dilbert.com
Have been reading quite a bit on exiles (more on that later), but it does remind me of my own sense of exile. Exile can be locational, situational or just a sense of being out of place.
In my case the sense of exile comes from a yearning for what I have lost. I do hope that I don’t ever have Alzheimers, I do want to remember every single thing that I loved (and lost).
When the times comes, that for me shall be my “completion”, (and) that for me shall be a life lived.
Read this lovely quote from Kiran Nagarkar recently :
“Let nobody fool you, most couples are conjoined on earth. The mismatches, now they are a different story. They are made in heaven.”
In one of my recent house moves, this is what the packers did. I think this is a sign 
. Or so I would like to believe. Dil ke rakhne ke liye yeh khayal bhi accha hain.
(Credit : Image from http://th00.deviantart.net/fs36/PRE/f/2008/253/9/1/Valentino_Rossi_46_by_ospyder.jpg)
Once again from Open. It noted that Sobha Karandlaje, who recently quit from Energy Ministry of Karnataka, had offered to use the “underutilized” 24 hr helpline of Bescom (the electricity provider), to also double up as a emergency helpline for women in distress.
Open noted, and now it seems fair, “how can someone trained to deal with faulty electric bills, help someone who is being stalked”?
This is why, I continue to read Open. Its one sane voice in media lost to Rapsody.
And Madhavan continues to impress, inspire and instil hope.
The link for this article at http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/voices/the-story-of-their-experiments-with-truth. Reproduced below for easier reading.
2 February 2013
On the contrary
Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open’s chief of bureau, Mumbai
What the screening of a one-minute montage on Thackeray before a movie says about your standing in India
SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE A movie of your choice is not all that you will get at cinema theatres in Mumbai
If you got to a multiplex in Mumbai, then you will soon get acquainted with Devendra Khandelwal. He makes the public service films that are aired before the movie starts. You will remember these clips forever because of the absolute absence of drama in them. It’s easy to produce a bad work of art, but to make something devoid of art is talent. For example, in Khandelwal’s film, there will be a man throwing garbage on the streets and someone will tell him not to. That’s it. It is so bland that it could be farce.
Khandelwal is not the only man to assault your senses when all you want to do is watch a movie. There are several short messages on tobacco consumption. These are an antithesis to the Khandelwal fare. Here, a piece of sponge is wrung and black liquid comes out of it with a voiceover saying that if you are a smoker, this is your lung. Another film has a cancer patient with a tube attached to his face regretting the tobacco he chewed, and later, a line on screen tells you he died in 2009.
Recently, for five days, without the consent of anyone who buys tickets, 200 theatres agreed to air a one-minute montage of Bal Thackeray. It was to mark his birth anniversary. There was nothing special about the number. It was not his 100th anniversary or 75th anniversary. If he had been alive, he would be 87. The one-minute fleeting memorial had been thrust on the theatre owners by a Shiv Sena affiliated union, Bharatiya Chitrapat Sena. The montage tells you that you are in Thackeray’s debt for what he did for Maharashtra. Unlike Khandelwal’s movies, it has some production values, like fade-ins, fade-outs, a background ditty of piano keys. If you don’t consider yourself in Thackeray’s everlasting debt, it’s rather pointless to show you all this. The Bharatiya Chitrapat Sena’s name appears in the credits at the end. There are also images of Uddhav Thackeray. This is good free advertisement, yet another avatar of the extortion that the Sena has made such an art out of.
In addition to Khandelwal, tobacco consumption, the Thackeray montage, a man who buys a ticket also has to see commercials and stand up when the national anthem is sung. The anthem was forced onto Mumbai’s theatres 10 years ago. Some have been stupid enough to be brave and not stand in attention. Random strangers have pilloried them and then put up Facebook updates of how they taught the traitor a lesson. After a decade of such conditioning, even those who know that it is absurd stand up. You can spot them by how they fiddle with their phones or munch something.
Note that when something stupid is couched under the label of ‘patriotism’, how easily it is swallowed. When a Shiv Sainik says ‘My view of the world must be your view of the world’, secularists find it offensive. But many of them would also find it offensive if someone told them ‘Your patriotism is not my patriotism’. Or that patriotism is just another form of superstition because it’s blind. It’s a tool to brainwash the citizen to make him feel that he is relentlessly in debt to the country. And as an individual, he must suffer for this abstract idea—the ‘nation’.
This is also the force at work that makes the 10 minutes before a movie not his own, but of arbitrary agencies seeking to coerce their agendas onto his consciousness. Take the tobacco consumption clip. It is good that it is shown. But then there’s this question: why tobacco consumption? Why not any of the hundreds of other social evils. Film stars smoke on screen and set a bad example. But they also race cars, so why not have a short message on the dangers of rash driving with a mutilated accident victim? Women are raped in movies. Why not a short message on the advisability of not raping?
Is there a measure by which there is a list of priorities to decide what is shown? If there is, then what makes the national anthem and tobacco clip head the queue? Shouldn’t there at least be a shuffling of order once in a while? Tobacco for two months, then alcohol, then rape, a one-minute montage for one political party each month. There is really no logic by which these experiments are done on you to make you a model citizen. The loudest voice owns your attention.
I dont remember the exact circumstance, but I do remember the occurrence photographically…here follows.
A few months ago, I was in a lift (elevator) with 2 women, presumably from North Indian (sure? yes, pretty much!!).
On the journey down, one of the ladies (I can still picture her), slightly plump (from all the butter and paneer maybe!!), was telling the other in typical Punju hindi….and hell no, this is true….I am not exaggerating the content at all :
“Mere huzzbend se mujhe na, bohat hi setizfection milta hain. Mujhe kabhi na nahin bolte, jo manga woh agree karte hain.”
What can I say, I was so unhappy that we reached the desired floor soon.
I am an unabashed Google fan. I love their innovation.
I am an unabashed Microsoft fan. I love their products and the ease of use.
I am an unabashed Apple fan. I love their experience.
And…..
I just dealt with my first Android device. Jellybean 4.1 and it sucks big time.
Battery is abysmal, and signal adherence is worse, and the experience is tacky. If Apple’s experience is 9/10, this one rates at 2/10.
Once bitten twice shy….I think my next upgrade will be a Lumia phone.
Nokia here I come soon.
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