Readers' Paradise

This is about books.
Well, not books exactly but my reading style, book preference, bookstore choice... blah blah blah... u'll see...
I have half a mind to start with the ONE line that i've seen soo many people start their debates with.....

" The oxford dictionary defines books as.... "

and I hate it when someone says that.... I mean, where's the innovation?? why does everyone say the same stuff?

Anyhow..... I've always liked reading... ever since I can remember.... although, its been on and off kinda..... as a kid, I used to love comic books.... my mom even got our newspaper waala to deliver the new releases of each week at home. So yea... lots of comic books..... I grew a little and started feasting on the short stories.. Enid Blyton and stuff ...The most memorable part was when I would get my English literature books at the start of a new academic year ...I'd read the entire thing in a couple of days! ...siiiigh... how I love the smell of newly printed books... its so... Inviting.
I have no other words for it....
I'd loved issuing books from the school library.... NO, I never read the hardy brothers or any such crap... I was more into Dr. Doolittle , classics and the likes.... I'd come home... not study the entire day... just read. Occasionally my Dad asked me why I wasn't doing coursework, and left after I didn't come up with a good enough answer. "Dad, I like this. Schoolbooks are boring. " .... "Dad, he just found a chair with wings... I need to know the next part!" ..... and so on...
Then came the Harry Potter era. I think I was in the 9th when the first one released.... suddenly, all everyone was talking about involved this book rising in popularity charts... Newsflashes depicting incidences of overcrowded bookshops (Nope, India TV wasn't there yet, The phrase 'Breaking News' wasn't used for everything.) were on TV .And so I got my hands on the first HP book... and I absolutely loved it !!!

You know, I noticed something lately...

Blogs have this awesome quality ....making the author seem larger than life.... whatever the topic of writing. Seriously..... think about it....
I admit that I'm not as voracious a reader as I'd like to be. But that's just me ( refer to the blog title if ure too thick !).... I sometimes don't get my hands on a book for months at a stretch if the situations are such. Last month , on the other hand, I read 3 different ones...

The white tiger ( the man booker...why??), Shalimar the clown and A fine balance ( WOW !)... I travelled a lot that time, actually... so I read a lot too ! One of my favourite places to read in is the window seat on a train . Its just so comfy, reading while everything rushes past.... Thats for another day, though ......

I sometimes daydream about having an incredibly well furnished reading room with a La-Z-boy and a huge book shelf. Other times the room gets converted into a gaming zone with a PS 3, a pool table, a foozball table and a pinball machine... the La-Z-boy stays put though ;)


About Bookshops... which one's your favourite? If ure in delhi... Om book shop maybe? Oxford? I have a preference here too.... See, even though I love the sight of so many books, the humongous bookstores don't really appeal to me. What do, though, are small, cozy bookshops.... You know, the ones in corners ( no, not the porno collection... jeez .. !) ... those that you would've missed probably while walking past.... those that don't necessarily send pamphlets about sales to ur doorsteps..

I was in a city called Jalandhar last month when I came across a similar bookshop. I wouldn't really have noticed it if my cousin hadn't pointed it out... " hey, u like to read na... check that out."

The first thing that struck me was the sign board displaying the name. "Readers' Paradise" .... I smiled looking at the apostrophe at the correct location, after the "s" in "readers"..... "Finally! " I said to myself.. "A signboard with correct grammar!"

I went in and noticed piles of books on the sides.... immediately the smell hit me with that same nostalgia of settling down with a paperback ( I never could take to reading ebooks... uuggghh ) .... There was a middle aged guy sitting behind the counter , reading something.... I looked around a little and noticed he didnt have any trashy stuff... just good, readable ones..... I had been hearing about this author called 'Rohinton Mistry' for a while, and wanted to get one of his works.... so I asked the counter guy about him and he had 2 of the guy's books. I chose one.... in the meantime I was chitchatting with the guy... turns out he was actually the owner of the shop.... said he never wanted to have a large bookshop, just a good one like this... quality over quantity kinda thing....

Oh n yea.... funny thing... every 2 minutes, someone would walk in asking for a box of pencils, a packet of A4 sheets, pens etc etc...... After refusing the 5th person to ask him, he said to me .."you know, there's a sign behind the counter that says NO STATIONARY....I thought people read...."

The incompetent camera's efforts at redemption.

I like clicking pictures.

To the innocent, this seems like a harmless sentence.... " So, u like clicking pictures... cool, grab a camera, CLICK! "
For the "worldly-wise" , this simple sentence metamorphoses into a cluster of counter- inquisitions:

- why?
- hmm, what kind of pictures? (some morons might even have a smirk by this time)
-You got a camera? What kind is it?
-Does it earn you any money? (if yes, they might wanna buy a camera too...thats the next question)

finally......
- Will you click mine? ---on clicking---oh, show me show me!


Anyhow, I'm not keen on answering any of the above....
Here's some random stuff that I clicked :

aah.... wilderness in the city.

(A hint of exaggeration? )

This is a temple in the city of jalandhar in Punjab... its called the 'devi talab' for obvious reasons.

Purple. Love it!!! I noticed the single ray of light visible on the petal in the picture. woohoo! My first captured solar ray :P

I like to think of this as rising above boundaries.

Then again, its just a tree and a fence.

Personal perspective.

Defines Delhi in so many ways.

The greenery, the flyover, the broad road, the litter.

Ghar ki murgi...

hahahahahaha !!!!

no, I haven't gone berserk, I'm just laughing! Its just that as soon as I clicked on the ' new post' tab, this self-morphed slim shady stanza began playing in my head.... instantaneously .. here's how it goes..

na na na na na.... na na na na na..... na na na na na.... na na na na na ...

Guess who's back?

Back again..

Mohit's back ..

Tell a friend ..

guess who's back ...guess who's back ...

guess who's back (deepening)

no!!! not lame, it really is funny... sing it in the tune.....well, makes me laugh anyway...

Have you ever thought about the adages that've been supposedly passed down from generation to generation? well, this thing happened with me, and I realised how much the situation befitted a particular proverb...
here's what happened..

You know how Adidas n Reebok have this bi-annual 40% off sale? A few months back,one friday, this particular sale was on, and I was generally browsing through the stock... just then, dark clouds blocked out the sun and thunder started rolling across the skies. I walked out of the store and to my astonishment, the clouds were concentrated only over the store that I had been in... also, fire breathing dragons with saddles and armoured, horned creatures with medieval weapons riding them were flying straight towards me.... one of them fired a flaming arrow at me, and all I could do was cover my ears in the frightening thunder ... I fell over , overwhelmed, and noticed the shop number... and that's when it occured to me, and I smiled at the newly gained knowledge of why I was 2 inches away from gruesome death... the shop number was 13.... Friday the 13th... I should never have come out shopping.

naaaaa..... In case uve closed your eyes and covered your face in anticipation of my untimely demise, revel in the knowledge that I was exaggerating a bit. Well, I totally made that up!!! (I'm sure you would've guessed that by now...in case u hadn't, GROW UP !)

I dunno what got into me back there... I really was gonna go on with my sale story, when I started imagining...

anyhow... so as I was saying... the 40% sale was on, and I'd gone to the store with my bro to look for shoes for him.... next thing I know, I'm looking at this GORGEOUS pair of basketball shoes with silver streaks on black..... and on 40% discount !! SCREW IT, I said to myself... and we walk out the store with the shoes in my hands ( nope, my bro didn't find anything 'gud enuf ' ). So what had been intended to be a shopping visit for my bhai's feet, turned out to be an impromptu pampering for mine!!!!

Fast forward a few months......
I'm wearing my oh-so-sexay shoes and I'm browsing through another adidas store....
on the high shelf, I spot them again.... brand new, shining... even the same size as mine... the exact same pair...looking at me from up there. I walk up, lift the shoe from its podium.... look it up and down... examine it.... everything identical.... look at the price... yup, I did get 40% off.... and I realise that the shoes aren't talking to me anymore !! - You know that feeling? or maybe ur just not the 'shoe type ' - like they did the first time I saw them....

I look around, keep the shoe back on its podium... go left and pick up a snazzier pair of ball shoes, complete with plastic and springs and all...
and the voice in my head calls out........ "Now that's what I call SEXY !!"

I was thinking about this today, and I realised that I know a hindi proverb that fits the situation perfectly!

--- Ghar ki murgi daal barabar ! --

Literally translated : -- Hen of the House equals Lentils-- ( clever, I know :P)
In English, it means You never appreciate what you already have .
I guess our forefathers were pretty bright, eh? ;)

Beat this ! n hey, happy women's day!

First of all, I'd like to wish all of you a happy women's day !! Strive for everything you want to, it's an open sky!

Here's the scene:
One dingy classroom, 15-20 odd, uninterested students (sound familiar?)... the lukewarm, yet comforting winter sunlight streaming in through the windows..... a cyborg drone, in the guise of a professer,in the process of setting a new Guinness world record for the longest, most drab, meaningless monologue ever.The spotlight is on a wild-haired guy, in the evergreen ensemble of a black tee n blue denim, looking out the window, basking in the soft solar warmth, fully unaware of his blogsworld ventures in the not-so-far future. yup, me!
If I'd known then, I would've written this down a long time ago... but it just struck me, and I realised it'd be a fun thing to write about.

Have you ever heard of those whirlpool washing machines that have an axle-type thingy for a claimed 'hand-wash type result' ? The advertisement on TV used to carry the slogan one-two, one-two...or something like that...oh, well, that's why I took the pictures na?

So our prof was telling us about this particular case study involving this particular brand of washing machine...and I decided to listen (and it was a hilarious insight into our wonderful country's amaazing regional culture !) ... cuz I remembered we had it at home too...what the heck..
Now, according to the case study, after introducing this product in the Indian market the whirlpool guys noticed a very peculiar pattern in its sales.... the machine wasn't doing too well, frankly...apparantly, the Indian consumer hadn't taken to it in the way that the whirlpool people had hoped for. The sales were showing a negative growth pattern in the entire country EXCEPT for one state... PUNJAB . To the boardroom's bewilderment, the machine sales had gradually escalated in the entire state!

This was something no one had ever expected or thought about, and so, a very capable team of the marketing department was sent out to Punjab, for an expedition to the unravelling of this enigma... to discover the cause behind the product's success here.
As they were travelling towards one of the major cities of the state, to rest for the night and start their survey from the next day, they couldn't help but stop at one of the ever-popular and recommended-by-all roadside DHABAS along the highway, which I'm sure you guys know of...even if you don't, n I'll be glad to let you know that they're supposed to have awsome food!

The executives took their seats in front of a plastic table, under a pepsi-sponsored beach umbrella that had SRK grinning as if pepsi was heaven's nectar itself. A little wary of the cleanliness of the food, and excited about the alleged amazing taste of it, the city dwelling executives were having a good time there, happy to get out of office for this tour cum vacation, which they were keen to take full advantage of. One of them suddenly remembered what he had been repeatedly tought in school, and thought of following the advice, at least to project a good image of his kind in that remote place... and he got up to wash his hands (seriously!) ... he was guided by the table-boy towards the back of the dhaba, where the makeshift washrooms were located. The exec was drying his hands when out of the blue he heard a familiar sound... "no, it can't be"..." is it? could it be?" .... and he hurried behind the sound towards its source... what he saw when he got there, left him at once, in splits at the humorous obviousness of it, in awe at the diversity of his country that he hadn't thought about till now, and smiling at the simplicity and pragmatism of the people.

Standing in one corner, was his company's product...the whirlpool whitemagic washing machine with the rotating and counter-rotating, churning axle in the middle.... and its use:

To prepare goliath-quantities of the local, world-famous beverage of
Punjab... LASSI !!!!!!

Ingenious large scale production, eh? Jai Ho !!

ps: For all those unaware, click here to know more about this beverage called- Lassi.

The chariot of thought

Hey again. reeeally loved the comments on the last 2 posts ,which I wrote on the same day, btw...just one of those 'idea-centric' days, which I'm sure all of you have too!
So thanks for that...the comments make me smile :D

I'm currently reading 'shalimar the clown' by Salman Rushdie.... now, I'm not sure how many of you have read his works...but doesn't he ALWAYS have a sexually subversive overtone (not complaining !) to his stories? I don't mean to sound judgemental Mr. Rushdie...firstly, I'm not in a position to be a critic of your works and secondly, uve probly not even read this and there's a really slim chance that u will ever do... so that really is what I think !

So anyway, there's an idea presented at a point in that book... and I decided to write something on similar lines. Here goes:
Did you ever think of why our deepest and most involving, not to mention absorbing thoughts come to us at NIGHT, when we're lying down in our bed, waiting for sleep to take over? Well, mine do, at least.... I've asked myself the most perplexing of questions at these times... who am I? What have I achieved till now? Why am I here anyway? Why do I do the things the way I do, and say the things that I say? Will I ever have six pack abs? (yes, I was sober at the time, unlike what u may be inclined to believe!)

And I thought about why night times are such captivating zones, why does the chariot of my imagination move freely across the verdant nightly world of thought? Why does my soliloquy stage mostly when I'm about to doze off?

My reasoning is (and I agree with the book) that at night, when the day's work is done, when we're through with heaving those humongous baggages of routine, the mind takes the reins from the body, and the aforementioned chariot of thought runs wild. So yeah, what you ultimately have is a pretty free-willed, adventurous , often drunk-at-night, on-the-rampage driver in control of the horse-power and behold, in come the myriad variety of all of your hidden dreams, desires, and feelings, emanating from both external and internal stimuli. Because we don't have puny stuff such as living, earning, working,studying etc.etc. on the mind at sleep-time, it appears as if our thought chariot has delinked itself from its innumerable bogies, and it gains velocity, hypothetically lightened.

So there you have it... another thought taken apart in the effort of being analysed.What say?Of course, the mind also does gain temporary control over the chariot in the day too, and we've termed it "daydreaming".

So hey, keep at it... its not like anyone's complaining, right? Besides, if we don't let the mind wander about freely, the world's surely going down on the scale of exciting places to be in !

the hip hop ride and the one liner

One of the things I like about Delhi are drives late in the night.... the city looks so inviting when the pot-holed roads are seemingly empty... the yellow street lights appear almost occult against the greyish background of the sky.... and what makes the entire experience even more surreal is if you ditch the car and hop onto what I like to call a "hip hop auto" .... Its not your regular auto-rikshaw... rather, the driver is a lively young bloke who has an ear for blaring loud music... so there's a woofer system installed in there... unfortunately, most of the time you'll get cought in the Himesh brand of music... although, if you can manage to squeeze the monotony of it out of your head, just enjoy the beats and take in the cool night air!

Over the years, I've noticed that lady luck (if you believe in her) seems to have a set pattern of behaviour towards a particular person for extended periods of time. If its good, then nice things happen continuously for a while and vice versa. Although, one would argue that people strive hard to achieve goals... so then should they not try at all if they're having a rough patch with lady luck? Not really... do try... but u gotta remember, if luck's on your side, the results appear sooner...and u can't deny that.

In my case, the 'clumsy' side of lady luck's temperament seems to have a liking for me every now and then.I'm extremely prone to 'screwing up' (quote Obama) when least expected. One particular aspect of my 'speciality' comes out when in contact with other people's sunglasses (thank god they're not mine !) .
This happened in the first year of college when I was checking out a classmate's shades... two or three other people checked 'em out too...but when I tried them on, they broke in half! (yup, inferior quality :P)... and what I said that moment has eversince become iconic in my friend circle.. "ab kya karun?" (roughly translated as "what do I do now?") and I don't know if it was the way I said it, or my expression, but everyone around me burst out laughing!
A similar thing happened a week ago at Shaun's place... Shaun, Alex and I had partied well that night (which is just another way of saying how drunk we were)... just when everything's been fine,just when you start having fun at the party, does it ever happen with you that an innane mistake (often unintended) spoils your evening?

That's what happens with me, mostly. There's rarely a 'morning-after' that I wake up and think about what SHOULDN'T have happened.

So as I was saying,both of them had gone off to sleep, and I decided to mess around with Shaun's computer... I was sitting there, and I moved my feet slightly, when my foot hit the extremely wobbly computer table ... and Shaun's ray-bans fell to the ground. 'CRACK' ... the left lens came off completely... and I couldn't help but say to myself "ab kya karun?"
It wasn't my fault Shaun... Alex had kept them on the CPU in the first place... how was I supposed to know???
When I told my friends what had happened, they couldn't help but recall my one liner ... "ab kya karun?"

one kind act

It's kinda funny that when I look at my blog, I ALWAYS end up thinking " woah, how the f^ck did I manage to actually write all this crap? "
I met up with this school friend after a really looong time... and it was nice and all.... you know how everyone fills up slam books and stuff on the last days of school and everything? yea, well this friend of mine has literally been in the same class as I have for like all of the 12 years of school.... I still remember when she handed me her slam book and asked me to write, I went completely blank. like seriously blank... and I did want to write.. I just couldn't think of what to though ..and I managed to fill in a couple of words (which was silly on my part cuz we'd been friends for so long and I couldn't even make a good memory in there) ....
and now, I'm the same person who writes on this blog.
Bigtime changes, huh? I can't say why... but I kinda write here for no specific reason, and without thinking it out a lot... When I do start to pre-decide what to write, my way of writing seems ,awkward, somehow.
So hey, sorry about my lame entry in the slam book back then, Anne...

Moving on,
You ever had a stranger touch you in a nice way?

OK, I might wanna rephrase that, sounds kinky. SO, Have you ever been emotionally moved by a complete stranger? If yes, then you'd know how good and nice the world feels for a little while after, right? If no, oh well, maybe I'll have to come touch you in the nice way sometime then. (ummm...emotionally!)
Well, this happened to me today in the bus while coming back home after meeting Anne ..... Its something really small, so even if you think it's pretty lame and inconsequential, keep it to yourself, I'm the writer here ( mwahahaha !) .
What happened was that this lady was standing behind me in the reasonably crowded bus... the guy in the seat ahead got up for his stop, and this other guy took the opportunity to sit down. Not a prob, untill I remembered the lady .. and I asked the new guy in the seat to get up and give her the seat.... really normal stuff...happens everywhere... but what was not so common was that she thanked me. and believe me that rarely happens! I mean its fine that we give the ladies our seats, but what's not fine is that they don't even show the tiniest bit of gratitude ( and its rude !)... but this particularly lady did, and I actually felt like smiling the whole time I was in the bus (except that I preferred not having a moronic grin stuck on my face and look like a clownship intern). So all in all, its nice having a little gratitude around.... remember... one kind deed at a time, and you can change the world.