Reading Eat Pray….

One damn good thing about letting go on the work front is you shift yourself off to different things.

Also once you work for long on organization specific stuff you lose touch answering generic stuff and so when you gotta go for interviews where they send poor people like us only to do interviewing and they ask the bookish stuff ,
youve got to start brushing up the question answer thing.
And to get in the mood for reading boring stuff I need some light reading practice.

So I decided to read something slightly fluffy to first get back to reading pages and well considering its gonna be soon a Julia Roberts movie I thought ok lets wrap this book first as I am not yet up for more complicated reading.

The book ” EAT PRAY LOVE ” to be frank is I feel slightly overrated on the overall bit, but I feel this is one book where the movie might be a bit more fun.
Julia Roberts kind of would add up to this movie. She has this knack of pulling up stuff like this pretty well.

The books written in quite good humor and all , but I especially found it written more like the journal / blog and sort of does not give that overwhelming feeling at all.
But then I’ve always believed that movies and books are different not only to different people but, different to the same people based on the mood and circumstance that the acquaintance with them starts.

So may be I just was in that kind of wrong mood.

Although the most boring part for me was her India part. The part dedicated to Pray.
I mean it seemed the most hopeless part. All she describes is her stint at a Ashram and where they teach her the usual stuff devotion, yoga and self belief.
Now most of it can be achieved at your own home if only you can self control or care to listen to general good.
But you cant , we humans love to led around by a Guru.
If someone we are familiar with tells us – wake up at 4am and sit still for 4 hrs would we revere him/her and do it – No not that easily.
Go to a ashram and have some hypnotic voice say it and you realize God.

I have nothing against the guru concept itself but its more often than not misused . But why complain – it simply shows that most of
humanity loves to follow – they just need a intoxicating and rousing enough cause /man/ woman who can convince them.

Any one can be the Guru -the ultimate pied pipers of this world – you just need to discover the right tune and the children of god flock to you.

Getting back to the book – the India part has nothing India in it except an Ashram and it in no way is India.
It is when I read such authors that I value authors like Shashi Deshpande etc even more whose writing may almost
seem boring to most Indians as its so very realistic and middle class compared to the exotic Western writing on India
Or the more famous Indian elite writers like say Rushdie .
I have written in previous review on Shantaram etc too how I hate this romanticzing the Indian rural village for westerners.
Its a very brutal and politicized landscape and the poorest too are hardly any innocent – the only argument would be they cant afford to be that.
So I felt absolute nonsense in that part OR may be familiarity breeds contempt.
I really wish someone from Italy or Bali can tell how they felt about the section on their countries compared to the others.

Now lets get to what I was not familiar with .
The Italy part – I sort of like it better. Now she might have called this the pleasure part ,
but this is where she delves mostly into her thoughts , so sort of liked it better.Though again I guess people who love food
would empathize with this part hugely.

The only part where I really could empathize was the point where she describes the situation of a friend who has a baby and
just then a successful exhibition of her paintings and throws a party about it and the situation what happens next
– she describes is something I’ve seen a bit often – where women do act as if its totally worth it and may be it is for them.It was the most realistic part. But well its all perspectives!!!.

I liked the fact that she didn’t in the end totally romanticize Bali. She showed how the very kind hearted — are also very human.
How many cultures in the east have a great reverence for a guest (e.g esp a guest from town in a village is taken such dear care of /
people from the west see our best and worst and not the real shades that we live in.)
and so on but can be brutal and heartless to their very own.
The part where she describes how the woman almost tries to blackmail her for more money — based on the very permise that most
tourists are treated in here ” Arre for them a few dollars is nothing” .
The very fact that normal people from the west somehow are slightly more gullible and easily open their purses in the name of charitable causes.
Its not like we are all misers here but we are relatively smarter about cheats (they being a part and parcel of life here).
Also fact is mostly we need a good enough cause for most things including charity
– like washing away sins
– feeling better for the day (ah my 5 rupee coin let a beggar live a day more on the street)
– or be with the in crowd
Ok I think I’m in my worst sarcastic mood but there are enough good and bad people all across the world just that we love to generalize.

As I said its a good read , but somehow the book did not have that touching effect.
I really feel the movie would be much better.

P.S: The nicest inspirational quote in the book
“it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection”
One thought here – why is it that westerners discover/ are told about such awesome quotes in our Bhagvad Gita.
When they teach it to Indians we have it interpreted differently or rather more stringently.
Imperfect lives huh – in Gita haan – that’s against society , again parents and what not .
But that’s what the best part of Hinduism – I guess with all its flaws . Its all about finding your perspective in the same words .

I kind of keyed this in a a hurry so well missed the truest line in the
book.Kind of hard to counteract in any sphere of life.
“There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? And Who’s in charge?” Everything else is somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all,
trip us up and cause war, grief and suffering.

P.P.S
I guess Im in a kind of feminist tirade mood too – its not planned but circumstances seem to be all for it.
Saw a update on profile of friend who is a mom.
Some guy on her list confesses since my daughter was born ,I now respect women,
great you are you all moms Godly
earlier I disrespected women that they came to office for wasting time – did no work but you are all god
the lady applauds !! Better late than never

I dont know what to say – if I had to say (so glad I dont knowthe chap )-
appreciate that better late …Or
yeah so now all moms are gods and rest – since they arent gods ??

I hate the whole updates and stuff …should turn them off .
but they have their uses I guess

An Update – Its a waste to write a post on this so I am adding the update here.
The movie is worse the books better I say now. Even julia Roberts cant save it really

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Oh to grow up – once again !!

I’ve been as good as missing from here and well good I guess rather than some repeat cribbing.
But the last two weeks have been a blast from the past time having suddenly spoken/met so many of the people from the past.

And I suddenly wanted to write , just for the heck of it
But well lets start from some other point. The moment I heard the song I knew it would touch a set of people,
so it did and found so many loving that song.
The children who became adults of the 21st century majorly the +/- 1975-80 born people.
A sense of missing out , of how much could have been persists I feel in that generation which spent its best years
when there was such huge competition and no escapes even like 3 idiots.

Yes these are the people who want in their hearts desperately
– to grow up once again – with some sunshine.

Its a lovely song and I know some very hardworking , simple bright well settled people who at the exterior seem like the
calm / unemotional great acheivers or hard hearted but deep within in a very unsaid fashion longing for that sunshine , that happiness as there is that feeling of having missed out on what can never be again.

The movie 3 idiots well thats OK – good fun but I hate it being called great and I dislike quite much
in there (the know it all of Aamir’s character – the definitions of success and a lot of the oversmartness –
the book was actually tad more realistic in some sense as there was no HERO who had to be perfect)
but well fun it is – no two ways on that.

I always feel if you have a happy childhood , other half of your life may be good or bad but you kind of thrive on those memories.
But if that part of your life has pain some of the best acheivements and happiness in life will never take away that pain.

Even books from a children’s point of view are way too haunting at times.
I had started reading Kite Runner. I was depressed deeply half way through reading it. I had to stop it for a few weeks. It was a beautifully written book but I just found it depressing me.

The other book “A Thousand Splendid suns” did not affect much . It was just another story of what we sort of know and are used to – I mean of opression of women , human spirit and all that – somehow it does not match up to the first book Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini.

Well back to my memories well I met a friend from school – after 18 yrs and I just talk and talk .
I come home and think why is it that you who take a minimum of a year to get used to talking to a person in your cubicle in today’s times and yet have it so easy talking to someone close to two decades ago.

It was so hard to remind myself this wasnt yesterday when we talked. Some of our teachers were dead and life hasnt been kind .
We havent lived up to what we had thought of becoming in school and yet it never felt that far.
Time plays havoc on the mind and letting go of past is such a hard process.
I of all seem to live in a time warp on the surface. Beyond the fact that then I was in school and now I am employed nothing seemed to have changed.

But its beneath the surface that the change lies
– I was then a sad scared and a tense child but had hopes in life , believed in surmounting the obstacles somehow, righting the wrongs
– I am now a confident adult who us is hugely cynical in life now

And yet when you see someone from that past and despite what you see only confirms your cynicism of life and the world
you want to turn the clock back
and grow up – once again

So I re-post this beautiful poem
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To deepest dusk,
from morning sun
to twilight dreams
fantastic schemes
and lives that go awry
such shining hopes
such sudden twists from
bright to dark
from grim to grand
from joy to sorrow
always waiting for tommorow
and a twist of fate
a ray of hope
with the faintest sleight of hand
the alteration of all of life’s schemes
and all its scope..
all with one tiny turn
of life’s KALEIDOSCOPE.

Danielle Steel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Idle thoughts as I laze in a year end break

Been long gone …. have been way way busy with work and stuff the past quarter so much – and that too when there isnt much light at the end of this tunnel I seem to have fallen into.
There’s something wrong with me – I always end up working for two bosses somehow wherever I start.
Also this year my evergreen time pass – my dear sister has finally moved to a far lil town so Im just all by myself and my work.
But nevertheless I took a break, a nice week off – no vacations nothing – just too many leaves going down the drain while Im horribly stressed with work did not feel good.
So here I am just sleeping way into noon and reading all over the place in my little room .
I picked up quite a few books, read up all my unread stuff in RSS on the net.
Watched some CD’s.Essentially nothing to write much of but some thoughts jotted here.

I cant even write about the books I picked up (it was fun as I splurged on them) as I’m like multi tasking among some amazing variety

– The God Delusion by Dawkins
– Think About these things by Krishnamurthy
– A Thing Beyond Forever by Novoneel Chakroborthy
– Mr Sampath by RK Narayan
– Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra

And then I have stuff I have yet to start

YajnaSeni –
Never let me go- kazuo ishiguro

But sometimes I hate the way my own reading degenerates into.I was reminded it a book fair , there were a bunch of girls picking books
Girl A was trying to pick Olivers Story – the sequel to the famous book Love Story by Erich Segal
Girl B said oh leave it yaar. Its boring -I will tell you the story. The guy meets another girl and then he still does not like her at the end leaves her too . Thats it and it was described in native language by her.

I guess thats a way of looking at it and age does have stuff to do with it I guess. When I read Olivers Story sometime ago I found it a bit brooding may be , but it was more emotional.It did not have the popular appealing eternal love of Love Story. It was about coming to terms with things, that some people just cannot get over things like others can.

As much as I am a fiction person with age I guess you like looking at other stuff .
I still love fiction but a pure dosage of that does not work well for me now , but I guess it never did fiction / non fiction.
That is why I pick up such bestsellers like A Thing Beyond Forever by Novoneel Chakroborthy. It reminds you of all sugary stuff you liked at times and now it isnt bad but has a tendency of getting to you .
But thankfully I am not yet that old to dislike them and start loving the self improvement books.
Gimme a story any day – soppy sugary or spicy.
If anything this year I started reading some science fiction. Started with Asimov’s magic and though havent read much of other I absolutely loved his essays in it. Absolutely – the way he distinguishes Magic and Science fiction and all that.

As for now Richard Dawkins is working hard through his ” The God Delusion ” trying to convert me from agnostic to atheist.
Whether he succeeds or not I absolutely love the arguments – and may be I should read the Origin of the species. Usually I dont really care.
I mean well wherever we came from we are here and thats the thing isnt’t it.
Why is it always such a big deal always about – ” where we came from ” and ” where we are going to ” I find it hard to get, but I try hmm.
I guess its because ” where we are now” seems perenially boring so we let our imagination come into play and without any drugs the best place to imagine is always the past or the future.

I then had to clean up all my finance stuff. I mean when I got my first job I wanted to save and yet there was no google no information like we have today , but I wanted to invest and the simplest was Mutual Funds, and just like a stupid newbie I bought all over the place – itsy bitsy penny money in some 10 funds. It was exasperating to consolidate them now and strained me on my holiday.
One article I loved when reading up old stuff online was this
http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2009/03/why_do_people_m.html

I may have lost good amount of savings in the market and may never be a pro in that field and make money but tell you what
I like the markets .If only I had enough money to lose in there .Sigh !! I know it sounds more like hoping for money to gamble – but it is fun.
A part of it is explained in that article. It should be read even if you know nothing about the markets.
It will explain why CNBC flourishes with its perenially wrong forecasters – It not not just cute Udayan and Shirin.

” The dirty secret is that stock market forecasts are fun.
It’s odd that people ignore this basic insight. Markets are a lot of fun. Sure, every serious person is seriously concerned over market forecasts because they’re not serious. Still, people do it anyway. Why? It’s damn fun.
………………
Finance is and has always been a game. I’ve noticed that over the past few years the look of ESPN and CNBC has become steadily similar. That’s not an accident. ………. Heck, the indexes are nothing but a scoreboard……………………………..

Of course it’s addictive because it’s fun. Trading or forecasts aren’t harming people. Investing and risk-taking is good for a society. Obviously people should know what they’re getting into”

The worst part of taking a home holiday is you still get tempted to open you office email and see all the pending work and list coming your way come Monday and it spoils the whole damn peaceful aimless lounging around.

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Escaping life

This is going to be a long post of mish mash , of my readings , of thoughts , some unwritten snatches remembered and some pieces fitted in.
I was looking up some of my older posts and realized Ive lost even that focus. Even though what I write is hugely diarylike I asked myself why do I write then on a blog, may be because making it a post allowed me to focus on a structure or a thought.

But I seem to have even lost that grip and so I write even less. But whats worse is its become quite hard to read books as I used to read.But I try for my own world is collapsing just as I assumed it would , but hoped it wont.

As quoted by R.A.Heinlein one must never be a pessimist
“a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun–and neither can stop the march of events.”
But unfortunately events have proved me too correct for my own good esp at my home.

Tolstoy knew what we was talking about when he started that morose novel with the lines
“All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
So is ours .paranoia , hurt ,power and economics rule our lives more than we care to admit.
If I were younger I would have still been complaining but for now I just know each of us are unhappier due to each of us
and its a vortex of hurt we are being sucked into and I fall in line.
Giving up doesn’t solve it.you have to keep fighting it and that is life.
To escape this and a listlessness of a different kind at work I tried my only escape left.Books
=================================================================

I thought a simple fantasy story would keep me hooked to another world and started reading the Lord of the Rings, a movie which I resolved not to see till I read the book.It was a hard start esp the initial pages I just was losing my patience but it was the Gollum story and Gandalf thing that finally pulled me in and I was lost for a few hours every day.

But wherever you get lost one line here a thought there pulls you back too your own world

Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters – but hunters ever of the servants of the Enemy; for they are found in many places, not in Mordor only………………..And yet less thanks have we than you. Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names
“”Strider” I am to one fat man who lives within a day’s march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so.”

As I read this my thoughts of having peace came back to me and then I thought one cant have peace without war , whatever some people preach.You need some brave strong and fearless who fight so you have peace. I don’t like this thought but somehow what I see around me convinces me more and more of this.

The news then got filled up with death of CM of Andhra Pradesh in unforeseen circumstances and you can see everyone for a moment was in shock, not out of of grief for the departed or such but more because of it brought back to people the fragility of life, the helplessness of man against nature .
It convinced the fatalistic even more of fate,
to the religious the certainty of the power of God ,
to the happy go lucky it convinced them that there may never be a tommorow so live for the day
and to some it reiterated their own beliefs.
We all interpret events ,books, movies by our past experiences and deepest emotions ,fears .
How ever can there be an absolute truth?

=========================================================================

Have started reading Stay Hungry Stay Foolish by Rashmi Bansal.Its quite a good collection till now though I must say nothing beats Steve Jobs speech.

Though when you read something like this (its by Shantanu Prakash of educomp)at a time when your pay sucks and career seems hopeless you really feel…Hmmmm lets somehow get out of this

Two years you may struggle. If the average salary is Rs.15-18 lakhs p.a. (gross) how much do you make in five
years? 18 x 5, right? After tax, you make some 50 lakhs.In 5 years, I can guarantee you, any business you do, will
earn you that. Assuming that you are at least a little bit intelligent, within a year, the valuation of your business
itself will exceed fifty lakhs. No matter what you do.

Now its not the logic of it which can be argues , its the sheer confidence and obstinate persistence I think that makes some people successful.But then failures don’t have books written on them.
===============================================================

A friend brought up Atlas Shrugged a book I read a decade back and cant recollect every scene, but she was a author I liked
though not quite completely in the usual sense.
Ive written about it here.

I tried re reading parts of it and though I still like the conception of her theory its a ideal we can struggle towards may be , but it ignores so much. The Francisco money speech is one of the best in defence of the goodness of money , something you want to throw back at all those smug people who say money is evil.
“When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other–and your time is running out”

But what this assumes is men always deal honestly with money, truth remains that men make/buy men as tools using money too and just as “blood whips and guns” money too is a tool used by mankind to gain power(over what depends on the individual ).

Ayn Rand is quite popular among some of great acheivers Ive noticed and you have to say that in her times it seemed right considering what she must have seen living at the height of communism and complete subjugation of the individual, the high ideal that she created even she never lived up to it , because life even for a individual sans society is much complex.

Every individual somewhere deep with is a sum of the parts of his experiences and personas he battles within.

================LIFE SIMPLE ?===================

Someone remarked at office – Life is simple people are complex in a different context?
Is it ? – I wondered at heart. what is life if not people and how is life simple.
People defintely are not but so isnt life. Its just that since we cant simplify ourselves we wish life was simple,
like a set of rules and so we have religion or society or whatever that makes people frame the rules to live by.
And people who refuse to look beyond it and live by it may be do have it simple.
But its a choice in the end and it has to be made.

===================THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS ==========

The last book I read completely immersed into was like 2 months ago and though I was moved enough to write on it I never managed to.
I have had a certain dislike to Arundhati Roys views since well like very long and my tendency to stay away from hyped books at times prevented me from reading “The God of Small Things” . But I guess everything has a time and so I finally read it.

I have a complete distaste for many of her arguments esp political but I say she writes marvelously.
I felt that first when I read her piece against the nuclear tests in outlook over a decade back and was very impressed and her novel is moving enough.The book may have the usual nuisance like the incest parts and the India for the west potrayal (inserted for sales) at times, but I rather ignore them and enjoy the better parts.

She really brings a visual and auditory feel by her words esp her repetitions and the childrens parts there were truly refreshingly childlike.
“Ammu held out the crisp matching knickers for her. Rahel, with her hands on Ammu’s shoulders, climbed into her new knickers (left leg, right leg) and gave Ammu a kiss on each dimple (left cheek, right cheek). “
You could almost see a small little kid girl being readied by her mother.

It was probably a long time since a book had captivated me by its style and writing .
I liked the kids part of the description in the novel hugely for its sheer innocent beauty.

The way life was as I stared at another of the birthdays then I just could think of the lines
“Not old, not young, but a viable, die able age.“

The line keeps coming back in the novel and in thoughts so very often.
And then the below

Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.
Still, to say that it all began when Sophie Mol came to Ayemenem is only one way of looking at it.
Equally, it could be argued that it actually began thousands of years ago. Long before the Marxists came. Before the British took Malabar, before the Dutch Ascendency before Vasco da Gama arrived, before the Zamorin’s conquest of Calicut. Before three purple robed Syrian bishops murdered by the Portuguese were found floating in the sea, with coiled sea serpents riding on their chests and oysters knotted in their tangled beards. It could be argued that it began long before Christianity arrived in a boat and seeped into Kerala like tea from a teabag.

That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made.
The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.
And how much.
However, for practical purposes, in a hopelessly practical world…

So she proceeds to the story and while its flaws are immense the little goodness outshines them when you read it from the heart.

=========================================================================

Watched Kaminey. Did I like it YES I did , considering that I am not much of a gangster movie fan I still liked it.
Shahid Kapur was quite good and though I did not think it great of anything as so many reviews say I liked it . Seemed like a 70 mm movie after a host of multiplex movies.
I am not very sure but may be it was just my mood which made me like it. My mood of letting this world go to hell I guess.

The music too added to the mood.I love the line in the title track

Jiska bhi chehra cheela, andar se aur nikla(whenver i peeled the mask off a face the face was completely different inside)
masoom sa kabootar , nacha tho mor nikla(the innocent pigeon when it danced , it got revealed that it was a peacock)

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Just a bit of Sarcasm

Sarcasm – I will agree is ” intellect on the offensive”
and yeah you dont just get it just like that
– you need to suffer and then get over it with the spirit .

You could see it yesterday with rahul dravid saying what he did
“Conditions like these give boys like me a chance to play”
Oh how the modest man has changed with all that he has been through and the way times
have changed with the young aggresive men.

But then I will go back to my beautiful school days to reiterate how time takes off the rose colored glasses.

Here’s the lovely poetry by Surdas – something that I loved then and now too
the difference being just the way I think

Translated loosely it says
Where would I find peace and happiness O lord
but am just like a bird on a ship would fly all around and be back to the ship.

Leaving the lotus eyed god who would pray to the other gods
Just as Leaving the great and pure Ganges only a fool would go and dig a well.

Just as any bee who once having tasted the sweet nectar of lotus would never have the bittergourd
Leaving Surdas’s great god who is like kamdhenu(provider of all wishes) who would milk a goat.

I loved the beauty of poem – it was taught with great passion by the old teacher and
I love reciting it just like just that life’s ways make me think of it with sarcasm

Why will some one who has tasted sweet nectar eat Bitter gourd – Ok dear they will if they have diabetes
Why will some one with sense dig a well leaving the Ganges – Hmm if u see the Ganges and the sins and the filth in it any one with an iota of sense will dig a well
And goats milk does have its uses in the health conscious and other areas where the great cow cannot survive.

It means nothing much – beyond that I ‘ve gotten over so many illusions that I now feel it was nice to have them .
As mark Twain famously says
“Dont part with illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist,
but you have ceased to live.”

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Reading India Unbound

Last fortnight had so much work that I never managed to write about this book which I really liked reading, and as always with time its never quite the same for me. My thoughts as I say on my blog , with moments- flit by.
When i finished off reading the Introduction chapter of India Unbound which ends with “Although slower India is more likely to preserve its way of life and its civilization of diversity, tolerance, and spirituality against the onslaught of the global culture. If it does , then it is perhaps a wise elephant.” I simply felt like  ha ha Wise Elephant eh – how hindsight can leave you so cynical.

These lines must have been penned less than a five years ago and yet here we are in a India where things seem to be going quite the opposite with hatred and seperatism and religion seeming to be leading the onslaught against peace.

But the book does reflect how the pace of change itself has changed. Change might have always been a way of life , but its become so very fast paced that it becomes tough to keep up with the next happening or risk predictions of any kind.

Coming back to the book as a whole, its splendid simply because its one those few books that manages to talk about economics of India for over a century as a whole with perceptions of individuals especially of different generations as example.It never feels like a heavy
statistic oriented or overtly economic theory oriented and the best part for me is it explores both ends of a equation. The leftists and the Rightists, individualism capitalism socialism and there is no taking sides or solutions of any kind.
Proven solution offering books that irritate the living daylights out of you and one the foremost reasons why i hugely prefer fiction over non – fiction.

Like he says at one point
“It is important not to direct people too much and to let them find their way. It might bring out their creative urges. This is not to say one abdicates responsibility to train employees…..but he or she must refrain from controlling them”

Something I found quite interesting for example was his description of the impression made on him by a  ‘A Theory of Justice’ by Rawls wherein he felt ” moral justification based on consent seemed to me superior than the greatest good for the greatest number“. As he says further “Most of  us
became Socialists because we were repelled by the inequality of capitalism.Having said that it is important to remember that Rawls model works only in a genuinely open society. In the end no society even America is completely open.The key is to ensure that everyone has a equal
start in life and hope to raise to the Top.”

The books starts off with how rich India was but the good part is it does not keep harping on it. It shows why it was that and how it was us who lost it rather than someone really looting it all from us and why we better concentrate on creating it all over again rather than mulling over who took it , and blaming them for what we are now.

It potrays quite vividly about the leftist and socialist feelings of the 60-70’s especially in young people and why exactly once those rose colored glasses were gone the world had actually moved on far ahead.

Somehow as I read this book the movie ‘Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi” somehow played on subconsciously in the mind.
Like when the author says “As I look back on my four years at college , I am shocked that we were so concerned with the distribution of wealth in those days that we ignored the whole subject of wealth creation……..All of us wanted to be scholars and dedicate our lives to the dispassionate pursuit of ‘truth beauty and justice’ like Socrates”

Then he comes back to today’s scenario
“Today’s undergraduates both in US and India don’t seem to suffer from our hang ups and our Idealism.They have the opposite problem…today’s youth I think need to be reminded, I think that there is a great world out there beyond money.”

His anecdotes from corporate life too make a nice read.
“A Swiss manager of a MNC told me that a sure way to inaction is to put two talented Indians on a Global task force. They will never agree and brilliantly  argue the proposal to death.”
His account of how he was treated by his first managers in India once he came to India after graduating in US makes quite a read.
Another beautiful and for me commonplace incident was his description was of meeting with few young people in Bandra whom he asks “Would you take arts in college” and gets a the true reply.

“Arts subjects aren’t high scoring” …….”in Science you just have to memorize a bunch of facts and luckily I have a good memory”

The author then ponders over that our education wherein no one had told him that science was about learning to  think more exactly …..”experimental habit of mind“.

Nevertheless he concludes that the young are no less virtuous today – chief difference is there is less hypocrisy and more self confidence.
I somehow am not very sure – I must say I see a very different hypocrisy and a tendency to the very old religious extremism right now which makes one feel like we almost want to go back.

As always there might be a simple point wherein you feel strong empathy in any book and for me it was in that one line “For one Dhirubhai who succeeded there were hundreds who failed“.
I’ve been surrounded quite a lot by ever green dreamers of being someone or something like him if not exactly in that sense but getting to the simple point – making  millions soon enough . What none of these wonderful people know ,and if the theory of positive thinking is to be
followed must know is – of those hundreds who failed.

Thing is I feel deeply uncomfortable about is the discounting of the possibility of those hundred and relying on the success of one.
Like a friend recently asked after over a year of niceties , so when did you pass out – oh 1998 – it was a good year only nah(he must have joined college then )and you did not go to US. All your friends in  US must be millionaries by now. What do i say as much as I try. That i know of people who’ve scraped through there, of people who are living well enough there but millionaires, nah I know none.

The book states stuff in a matter of fact style and that is what made it appealing to me

“In the competitive market some will gain and others will lose.Even if the winners greatly outnumber losers, In a country like India, The losers will be considerable.But it has to be that way in a society with a young population that needs to absorb an increasing labor force.One should be aware of the downside of capitalism, but one cannot morally stop the yearning o fthe underprivileged and the poor to rise to a better standard of living…..Nobody knows the ideal social mix.the West certainly does not offer a model ….for its excessive individualism has a corrosive effect on family and society.Individualism is certainly vital in the economy of information and innovation but the west has also learnt that Individuals need a supportive society as well…………………..

…..It is no good hoping that Indian values and Indian way of life will survive intact…Asian values are indistinguishable from Victorian values….Modernization has its positive and negative consequences and we have to live with them”

“The irony of liberalism is that it gives the individual free space, in order to fashion his life, but he is unable to cope with the free space and fills it up with trivial objects….without an ideology – life is reduced to an endless pursuit of cars cellphones channel surfing“.
The core point he puts across “Self interest has always been the greatest motivator of individuals and classes. In denying this basic truth about humanity, we embraced treacherous ideologies and failed economic policies.”

Its something many people try to deny but in the end thats a truth Ive always seen win.

Though there is no startling knowledge one will gain through the book , its a real interesting overview of the interesting times that we’ve started living in, and how that the most trivial things at times may affects us with a far greater impact than what we call the most important incidents ,and what misconceptions we always start our future with.

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P.S: After finishing this I was engrossed by the very personal murder mystery by Agatha Christie “Sad Cypress”. Its so enjoyable to see how beautiful a study fiction offers on human nature, rather than the most philosophical books.

A very cruel thought – Was hearing about the food riots in Bihar – Thoughts went back to the ‘The Dark Knight’ . The Joker won in his experiment?

But sometimes when one sees such stuff one does wish one has real tangible solutions .Nothing seems to convince me that donations by a even lakh people for over twenty lakhs will suffice.And most people like to calm their conscience  by donating a few bucks, but no one thinks who will administer the relief bought by these donations,  a thousand or so volunteers for such a huge lakhs.

Not me I know, Not my colleague or friend or whoever I know. We all have a  life which we may hate but we still have not been able to reach onto such high ideological humanity serving paths.So I really admire the people who get personally involved rather than donating etc in such efforts and feel a bit challenged at never being that kind somehow.

Then you think of Nature and you know that Man has never won in so many ways.
Its become a mutual destruction path the way things keep occuring on and on.
Man destroys nature for his ever expanding needs and Nature destroys mankind in its gay reckless abandon ways.

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As I read Shalimar The Clown

Had been reading Rushdie’s Shalimar The Clown.

More than the book its the epigraphs that seem to have settled in my mind.

Shakespeare (specifically Romeo and Juliet)anyway seems to be in thing in my life. In 2 days flat i come across his lines straight offwhen i did not expect them.
After the roses lines ( in my prev post)You come home open your next fiction read and the epigraph says “A plague on both your houses”

Now i i feel like using it oh so many times when i am so very irritated with life or caught between two people who want to see no sense which is quite often these days.

Even the simple act of getting a learning license becomes a nuisance for me. I managed to get a leave after 3 weeks of cancellation and got the learning license and then that envelope got lost in 15 minutes flat never mind how.

Fate as much as i like to wish it away seems to just catch up in amazing ways. Now this is not some huge issue, it simply adds to the irritation factor in my life.Every little thing seems a huge road block and i am worn out with this.

“It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.”

Neverthless getting back to the other epigraph taken from from

“The Country without a post office” by Agha Shahid Ali
Its quite lovely in itself cause you could almost feel it

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I am being rowed through Paradise on a river of Hell
Exquisite ghost, it is night.
The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves…

I’m everything you lost. You won’t forgive me.
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.

There is nothing to forgive. You won’t forgive me.

I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to
myself.
There is everything to forgive. You can’t forgive me.

If only somehow you could have been mine,
what would not have been possible in the world?

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As for the book in itself its not ingenious or anything . It just shows some good research and linking up of facts and fiction with brilliance and brilliance is Rushdie’s trademark.Though i never love his books one simply has to say that whole idea he scripts in his books is sheer brilliance. How he develops his script  sometimes irritates you.

 Every word esp in the introductory parts of the book alludes to something more. India is named to represent something …Kashmira represents something.

Though cannot say liked the book much it seemed quite better than “The Ground beneath her feet” which left you quite a bit unstable may be.The book when it looks beyond the revenge storypoint presents different facets of the same thing well……like the point wherein the Gen Kachhwaha thinks how the Kashmiris are not thankful about being defended and how he himself degenerates into savageness. The Kashmiris villagers though have their owm version as all the other characters define it.

The nuggets Rushdie inserts have their own significance like the story  about the “Room of Power” which he ends with the lines “Freedom is not a Tea party, India. Freedom is war”

Rushdie somehow lets one down badly when presenting a female standpoint and his sketch of Boonyi Kaul seems so messed up and confusing sort.
In fact the character he completely fleshes out i felt was only Max Ophelus. All the characters were set to represent something in the macro plot(Kashmir India and Pakistan) and never clear into the micro plot(the revenge drama).

Through out there is the description of a paradise called  Kashmir which probably was and which will never be even if peace returns.It is here that to some extent Rushdie succeeds.

Neverthless its an addition to Rushdie’s brilliant plots set in tumultous times and full of human greed for power of various kinds manifesting itself in various ways.

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Remembering the Roses and its yet unanswered question

This post was actually prompted after the previous post about crowds and individuals thought i expressed.
This first thought came to me years ago first in school though then it was not so definitive.

It was prompted by a story in it called “Remember the Roses”.
As if the mystery in the story was not enough it was the only story in the book for whom author information page said “Information not available” author name though was Avery Taylor but the yeah there was no Google then.
Its a story that has a haunting quality about it and i believed i was the only one who thought so much about it, but i found a comment here just a few hours ago by someone who also remembers it which just adds to the story anyways :).
Caesarean Conspiracies seems to be my most visited post on the blog .

Actually thought i would put a link to the story if i could find it online and i was led to a site http://www.remembertheroses.com/ .

Here the person tells in the background section how he came across the story
“About fifteen years ago while traveling in India, I came across an old book of short stories being read by the school children there”

I happen to be one of the schoolchildren and have loved it ever since.
I would want to see the movie cause everyone has their own interpretation ,
own touching part of the story and a part of my own imagination and thoughts is what this post is all about.
Every time i think of the story i have a different dimension to it.

The story overall is really special in that special book aptly name “Treasury of short stories ” .
I still treasure it and its yellow pages with underlines and meanings i remember some of the happiest days of my life.

There is a word called “apoplexy” in it which i had not understood and had looked up the dictionary.
Strangely i forget so much in todays’s world, but i always remember that word and the story.
It is in this story that in those days when very few people around spoke good english that we came across the first french words “Au revoir” ,”Adieu” and “Vive Churchill” etc.

Its a story set in the World war era of Nazis where Robert a soldier of the Allied forces is captured by the German and he is saved by a
mysterious woman called Jehane Lebrun.
No one believes his true story and report of escape and when he digs up the evidences he can only come to the conclusion that its Joan of Arc
who saved him and his friend.
But what is more touching is the way the story sets off as though this Robert of the second world war era is the Knight called
Sir Robert whom Joan of Arc is supposed to have loved.
Its a very touching story with just the right amout of love , mystery and history and sort of lingers on and on in the mind especially the last line

“See Jehane i remembered the roses”

In this story the below lines are the ones which first brought the conflicting thought about individual vs the whole crowd(be it a nation/ community/family).

Here Robert is being helped to escape by Jehane and he also tries to take with him another captive soldier but he is unconscious and when Robert cannot revive him

Robert decides to kill him so that he has an easy death compared to the torture by Nazis to give secrets, but Jehane prevents this by the below argument.

Robert:“Do you think i enjoy doing it”
Joan:“No it sickens you”
Robert:“yes but its necessary”

Joan: “Ah yes the old story Always the same. Better to sacrifice one life than many. Thats what they tell you , isn’t it”

Robert:“And its true”

Joan: “Its never true” There was pitiless anger in her eyes and her voice was bitter
“Every life is precious. War demands that we kill, but in our own defence, to save what God has given us.But this is murder…It is betrayal and you know its wrong. In
your heart its wrong”

Since then whenever i come to a conflict about whether Every life is precious or some are more equal than the others this story fills my mind.
Honestly i have never resolved any answer.
As long as that one life to be sacrificed is no one to you or rather is not some one precious or special in our own eyes , we have a tendency to say yes one life can and should be sacrificed if saves/ helps the collective whole.

The moment we replace the person to be sacrificed with someone we love or regard as a great person relative to other being who live day in and day out the argument thins out and we believe every life is precious.

Its also probably my favorite short story with a romatic touch, along with that excellent Jeffrey Archer short story called “Old Love” and i remember it very well ,far after it was supposed to be remembered by the school .

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P.S: For all those who somehow love this story , thanks to Vinits efforts we have a pdf version of it. and here is the link to download “Remember the Roses”.Very nice of you Vinitt and thanks a lot.

Check the comments section for links to other stories and a few more uploaded here.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=2b12de67400a8fb991b20cc0d07ba4d29c366712a409c822

Update3: Since this a rare post with too many comments to scan through I am putting the links to the specific comments where one can get all stories and of course the scanned copies download .
all the stories are collected from the net and whatever we could not I have scanned my copy and uploaded it.

Check the two links below
https://frozenthoughtz.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/remembering-the-roses-and-its-yet-unanswered-question/#comment-360

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=2b12de67400a8fb991b20cc0d07ba4d29c366712a409c822

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“The Last Burden” & Three years

My first weekend after quitting my job and i was stuck at home in rain and a not so very great mood i picked up the ” The Last Burden” by Upamanyu Chatterjee. It certainly did not help my mood.

Its a book to be read to realize why art films will always be that…..art films….Truth personified but for a working class person it is what we dont like to look at or rather why a normal middle class person does not find it not worth the time
and money.It explains why Bollywood potboilers and everlasting Television teary sagas and the no good fiction like M&B’s and are infinitely more interesting or rather seem more worth spending time and money.

They help you escape , they give you hope or rather they just blot out the present and when the present is a dark and unrelenting pain this isn’t that what the majority would like.

The reason is stark and simple. Who wants to go and see on a 70mm screen or read for hours or days together of a dreariness, of a hurt that on lives through day in and night out – reflected and picturised again and then spend time and money on it….unless you are a soul looking for refuge in the compassion that you are not alone suffering the same.

“You’ll notice, Jamun, money’s never within your reach when you need it the most. I’ve witnessed how the itch to hoard dominated both my father and yours. I merely hoodwinked myself – that if i spent bountifully on deserving things then somehow my kitty would be replenished.”

“Instead over the years while Jamun has grown up observing his parents squabble…while he’s witnessed their marriage paralyse his father and slowly butcher his mother, he’s begun to believe that living is elementally a petty , indecent, punishing business; its value lies in struggling against its meanness.”

Most of it if not all is about the everyday middle class fare that we live through and struggle with. The finances, the hatred, the guilt ,the sense of duty, the helplessness compounded by the frustration of with /for the people around you.

The forces that pull you down when you try to make an escape.One should read this book to understand why its so difficult to simply read those new age books on positivity and leading a better life are so useless in so much of our world and why so many of our brilliant and not so brilliant people escape as a last refuge to that land of promise USA and others far enough despite criticizing all about it and its culture.

I come across such books once in a while and to say i enjoy them would be too nonsensical. There are mirrors you dislike and this is one of them. But for people who like mirrors however truly they reflect the darkness around and within them
this should be just fine.

“belu was the sole person in my family who cherished me, and not the salary i carted home-……….living together merely to thrill in unkindness…”

“But you oughtn’t judge all marriages by the corrosion of ours. I know – that you don’t wish to marry because you dread that you’ll tail off like us.”

Then there was Chekov egging on the cynic in me as i read his “Three Years”

“You’ll fall in love and you’ll suffer, you’ll fall out of love and you’ll be deceived, because there isn’t a woman (I happily read it as woman/man rather than criticizing Chekov) that wouldn’t deceive you, you’ll suffer, fall into despair and you yourself will deceive. But the time will come, when all this will be just a memory and you’ll reason coldly and consider it utterly trivial…”

“He remembered the long conversations in Moscow in which he had himself still so recently taken part, conversations about how it is possible to live without love, how passionate love is a psychosis, how finally there is no love…..but now …..(some stuff about how he fell in love at first sight) …he would be at a loss to give an answer”

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P.S: Loved the Vodafone ad with the Kabhi Kabhi song.I guess its because its pretty much of what we grew up like and some did end up just the same way if not all.

This post is almost a week old as i just felt too lazy to complete it and in just a week i find my mood is different enough.

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“Landour days” – a writers journal …and the thoughts as I read it I put in my own journal

As says my Tooltip for Books in Life tag my book reviews are not reviews but the feelings ,thoughts and memories the book puts in my head and heart and occasionally the soul. 

After quite some days I started off reading Rusking Bond’s Landour days this weekend. He is one author I love (and perhaps envy )for the sheer simplicity of life he has had is able to relate in his books.Except for his book “Strangers in the Night” which is absolutely a male fantasy kind of book different from any other book of his and I did not enjoy rest of his book bring into life an idyllic pleasure that I never have had.

His love for flowers and his description of them makes me so enjoy them .  So when I started of on the introduction of this book “Landour days” – a writers journal  I found so many of the things echoed and so many memories brought back .

The first line itself reminds me why I started writing this blog anonymously

““The habit of keeping a diary has led me into trouble more than once,””…..“People love dipping into other people’s diaries and….resulted in … ill-feeling.” 

It happened to me with someone of my own with just  a few lines and no one has the time to read the whole ….just a few words that “I hate her” (Never mind the fact that she is the only one in this world I ever have trouble deciding to hate or love at any given time ) is all that was remembered and it probably caused a crack that though time has hidden has caused irreparable damage.

 Then the story of  his headmasters wife reminded me of the day in school when I  was given some real insult as a child saying I was trying to forge.Funny part was I never understood what I was doing was wrong. On my lazy afternoons I just copied my teacher’s signature a few times in my notebook and when it went again to her with the homework I was caught for An attempt to forge in fourth or fifth class I think. I recalled it as I read it. 

His introduction itself is what I think I would like to write for my blog….

 “I am a compulsive diarist…..In this way I have preserved much that otherwise would have been forgotten. Naturally there were evnts trivial in  retrospect which are better forgotten but it is salutary for me to flip through the pages of old diaries…..and see how stupid I was at times or how I coped with difficult situations…..…Not everything  that  happens goes into the diary. The privacy of friends has to be respected. My own privacy has to be preserved, to a certain extent.But I am a subjective writer and much that I have written …has been from personal experience.” I guess that’s why being anonymous is best for this journal. 

His lines about compulsive walkers –“ who will walk all day here and there everywhere not in order to get somewhere, but to escape”……….Those of us who must work for a living and would love to be able to walk…It’s a rat race for most people whether they like it or not.” is another some surely can relate to. 

 In his advice to budding writers is a point 3 which convinces me of my limitations whenever I think of my writing in general

“Are you interested in anyone else other than yourself? Writing about oneself has its limitations” 

The book  and its simple funny incidents which are so believable and the idyllic morning and mountains reminding you you of times when you could dream of it at least .Many love the sea , but I like the mountains a bit more , theres something about them which fascinates me – hillsides covered with flowers may be that’s what is my imagination – especially cosmos. As I walk to office I see the orange variety oif them planted in the traffic circle and they are so lovely standing up to the sun. I like the white and pink more but in the dusty crossroads I guess orange is suitable.Today one cant afford houses in hill stations . One cant afford them in these concrete jungles firstly. 

Throughout the book he uses quotes like” It isn’t life that matters , but the courage you bring to it” which put things into perspective which is something I love to do in my blog , never realized that till now.

I wouldn’t write what he wrote of flowers they mean a lot more and so to me but ah the way he puts it.

“To me flowers are the most sensual of living things, or perhaps  its just that they appeal to the sensuality in my own nature”

For me flowers are a  hope , are a sign of living and blooming for the day and yes they appeal to me in ways nothing else does esp when they are on plants itself.

During my trip to Mumbai I traveled so much  but what I remember is the flowers there , they are so cheap compared to here and so fresh and available in bounties. As I got down from Dadar station I saw a little girl with bouquets of red and yellow roses some 10 to 15 bouquets I guess as though they were so unreal all in her arms and that’s all  I remember. And then the African daisies you see green centered white ones that they pluck and sell at temples.I was so reluctant to give it to the pandit who would just crush and throw them at Siddhi Vinayak.Herein I see houses though where the pink bougainvillea wraps itself all over neem trees in such a pretty manner that I just stand for moments when I walk that path occasionally. I used to love the long walls for kilometers covered by bougainvillea a few years ago on roads which now have glass buildings. 

 “My faults and limitations are many  but I’ve always accepted that I’m a most imperfect specimen of humanity, which means I’ve always been on friendly terms with myself”The first part of the above line I can write today but I hope I mean the second part too some day i.e I accept my faults and limitations easily but I can’t be friendly with myself for them and none around me let me be. 

It was nice to read something so simply joyful  its always the reason I love his books, including the humor which does not get cynical and yet leaves you amused The part where he decides silence is the most sweetest sound is what I feel at time and cant bear to listen any music at all. 

His stories set in simple people of Mussorie, Dehra and such hills remind me of what one can never have…its not just because of the financial factor but also because of the time that passed by.

The lines he writes for Dehradoon are what I guess one can write for anything or anyone one loves.

“Dear old Dehra : I may stop loving you, but I wont’ stop loving the days I loved you”  

 P.S: The weekend I guess has been idyllic for me this time…Went for an interview which felt too easy except that the interviewer seemed more inrested in my education details or rather pulling out information from there. His wry look when he asked “how come your % dropped from 80% in school  to 65% in Engineering- Too much studying eh was quite memorable” ….though I will forgive him rather for putting it humorously rather  than the other chap at the Database company who found that some one from my college was supposed to be very active and god knows what.

 Sunday was all watching Sachin and as that banner by some one in the match said thanks for all the memories. Not to watch him in live action is a regret I will live with.Then I had pre decided Monday was not right for office as I woke up idyllically at 9:30 am as I slept finishing this idyllic book late at 1:30 am and now write of it. 

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Pondering upon “The Unbearable Lightness of being” by Kundera

Amongst my varied reading which defies any sense most books that i read i either empathize or feel the book sympathizes with me or it simply puts the thrill and excitement of life into me or which makes me think.

Few books really give a new direction to ever wandering thoughts.This is one such book.On the surface
if you read it just as a story its all a series of infidelities and i hardly have much to say of the subject .But then it is the thoughts of the character and the narrators theories that are amazingly thought provoking.
Sadly though for a book with so much to ponder the story of the book as a whole seems focused on infidelities and such and is definitely not a great fiction read.Added to it there is a lot of physical descriptions which after a point get plain irritating in a novel with thought as its core.But then since the novel   was originally written in French one does let it be .

The book opens with a deep conflict in itself
“The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recur¬rence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?”

I rarely get coninced by categorizations but this one surely made a mark and i surely put myself in the fourth category

We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under.

The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the

look of the public. ………………………….anonymous eyes……………………..

The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known

eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. They are happier than the people in the

first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the

room of their lives. This happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. People in the second category,

on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. ………….

Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of

the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One

day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. ……………………….

And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary

eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers.

The chapter “A Short Dictionary of Misunderstood Words” is a real fine one though my favorites are surely what is written in for the word “Music” and “Light and darkness” and “Living in Truth”

MUSIC
Franz made no distinction between “classical” music and “pop.” He found the distinction old-fashioned

and hypocritical. He loved rock as much as Mozart.He considered music a liberating force: it liberated

him from loneliness, introversion, the dust of the library; it opened the door of his body and allowed his

soul to step out into the world to make friends. He loved to dance and regretted that Sabina did not hare his passion.
They were sitting together at a restaurant, and loud music with a heavy beat poured out of a nearby peaker as they ate.
“It’s a vicious circle,” Sabina said. “People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder. But

because they’re going deaf, it has to be played louder still.”
“Don’t you like music?” Franz asked.
“No,” said Sabina, and then added, “though in a different era…” She was thinking of the days of Johann

Sebastian Bach, when music was like a rose blooming on a boundless snow-covered plain of silence.
Noise masked as music had pursued her since early childhood.
……..Music roared out of loudspeakers on the site from five in the morning to nine at night. She felt like rying, but the music was cheerful, and there was nowhere to hide, not in the latrine or under the bedclothes: everything was in range of the speakers. The music was like a pack of hounds that had
been sicked on her………………………………………………………..
“Noise has one advantage. It drowns out words.” And suddenly he realized that all his life he had done
nothing but talk, write, lecture, concoct sentences, search for formulations and amend them, so in the nd no words were precise, their meanings were obliterated, their content lost, they turned into trash, haff, dust, sand; prowling through his brain, tearing at his head, they were his insomnia, his illness

LIVING IN TRUTH

Putting it negatively is easy enough: it means not lying, not hiding, and not dissimulating. From the time e met Sabina, however, Franz had been living in lies. He told his wife about nonexistent congresses in Amsterdam and lectures in Madrid; he was afraid to walk with Sabina through the streets of Geneva.

And he enjoyed the lying and hiding: it was all so new to him. He was as excited as a teacher’s pet who as plucked up the courage to play truant.
For Sabina, living in truth, lying neither to ourselves nor to others, was possible only away from the public: the moment someone keeps an eye on what we do, we involuntarily make allowances for that ye, and nothing we do is truthful. Having a public, keeping a public in mind, means living in lies. Sabina
despised literature in which people give away all kinds of intimate secrets about themselves and their friends. A man who loses his privacy loses everything, Sabina thought. And a man who gives it up of his own free will is a monster. That was why Sabina did not suffer in the least from having to keep her love secret. On the contrary, only by doing so could she live in truth.

LIGHT AND DARKNESS
Living for Sabina meant seeing. Seeing is limited by two borders: strong light, which blinds, and total arkness. Perhaps that was what motivated Sabina’s distaste for all extremism. Extremes mean orders beyond which life ends, and a passion for extremism, in art and in politics, is a veiled longing for death……………………………….
But for her, darkness did not mean infinity; for her, it meant a disagreement with what she saw, the negation of what was seen, the refusal to see.

Its hardly a great fiction read , too much gross stuff in between for people with puritanical tastes and lain boring in places but wherein it pauses and observes and ponders its simply amazing.

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Poetic Lookback

Interpretation

Somewhere within your loving look I sense,
Without the least intention to deceive,
Without suspicion, without evidence,
Somewhere within your heart the heart to leave.

                                                                Vikram Seth

When i feel the least like writing or even reading something new i read the old already read books and poetry but then i love them all over again and wish to post them.
I guess this blog has lot of Vikram Seth’s fine poetry on it which i post cause i love just rereading it.

Another lovely one below

Across

Across these miles I wish you well.
May nothing haunt your heart but sleep.
May you not sense what I don’t tell.
May you not dream, or doubt, or weep.
May what my pen this peaceless day
Writes on this page not reach your view
Till its deferred print lets you say
It speaks to someone else than you.

Vikram Seth

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Tagore ‘s Chitrangada and Lipika over the weekend

Have been reading Chitrangada by Tagore this weekend.
It about another of those princesses smitten by Arjuna though Tagore models this drama in a very sensitive and different way and herein the warrior princess is the equal of Arjuna at least thats the way the drama’s written . It ends by some very strong proposal by the princess
“I am Chitra. No goddess to be worshipped, nor yet the object of common pity to be brushed
aside like a moth with indifference. If you deign to keep me by your side in the path of danger and daring, if you allow me to share the great duties of your life, then you will know my true self.”

The story as per Indian mythology is different and softer but then thats the joy of mythology …there are myths galore …to each his own.

It beautifully describes how the princess is spurned by Arjuna giving his celibacy vow as an excuse
when she meets him first in her true form and thus she gets a beauty as a boon from gods for a year
and when Arjuna breaks his vow on seeing her she is disillusioned .
But then the gods persuade her to keep the disguise for the year.
When i am in a critical mood i guess i would dissect everything and make all noises about stuff
but since i decided for now i am enjoying fairy tales and dramas in good spirit it was a nice read.
It probably reminded me of the same thoughts that made me write “The Charm of Appearances”

Its been long though since i read Tagore.
Some times translations take away so much…i probably realize t a bit more as i have knowledge at least two languages which i an speak and understand to a great extent but cannot read but This book Lipika is relatively well translated by Indu Dutt.

I had got Tagore’s Lipika(Brief Writings) in a very old and soiled with ink condition and another book ‘The Gardener” on the street for some 10 or 20 rs 6 yrs ago and then i had loved it way too much cause it made you ponder a lot.
I wish i had blogged then…i seem clueless about my thoughts
except the one story which i somehow remeber well and recall at quite a few occasions.

Its a small writing called the “The First Letter”

Herein a young man newly married has to leave his young bride to go abroad.
Then abroad while walking reading the first letter from her
where she begs him to return saying

“Without you, when i do ot see you, the whole sky of my world is drenched in tears”

At this point he wonders
“What have I in me that has the value of those tears?”
Then suddenly a group of foreign girls come across him on the
street and its described thus
“Who knows what was exactly in his face or his dress or gait………but they hurried away bursting into a giggle”
“In that cruel amused laughter mountain springs also changed their tune”

Now he wonders
“What was the value in my looks that could provoke such laughter”
and then he cant stop himself and goes back to his letter and
re reads the lines asking him to return.

Somehow i find myself often wondering on such lines when people are sweet or nice or cruel to me or vice versa(coz i too seem to be nice and cruel to some)
in ways that seem to have no explicable reasons.
I will probably re read those other stories and post some more .

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You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel as if you’ve lost a friend.

I just loved this wallpaper and feel i dont need to add more words for it.

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Degeneration methinks…

Fame however unwanted i think if forced upon
people adjust but then it
might be very difficult to get over.

That is the only reason i can think of
why Rowling has done what she did.
To again become front page material
now that the last book mania is calming down.

I have nothing against her revelation about Dumbledore being gay(except a lurking feeling that in the west the concept of friends is really being killed by giving every relationship a name.) .
Her revelation is simply is irrelevant to the story and hardly makes a great difference to Dumbledore lovable and wise character.
It would have been good fun and enjoyment to all those Potter adult fiction fans to spin tales on it…
but why does she need to confirm it….simply to drum up attention on herself.
Its really sad how much people get dragged down by fame.

If this every time new revelations goes on she may very well ruin all the other
characters too, or may be she has changed her thought process to…well before someone else ruins my characters let me ruin them.

Nevertheless some characters outgrow their author and Harry Potter series is a great example and for us simple fans ……it will always be the original books …no matter what  Rowling degenerates into.

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Pomegranate

The most impassioned of all trees,
The home of three intensities;
Gnarled trunk, dark concentrated leaf,
And flowers that burn in love and grief.

These are part of those haunting lines by Vikram Seth  and
 i really dig them too much and they kind of get imprinted on the mind.

This was a small draft i saved somewhere  and i just though i better get over with it.

Last year when i had to walk 10 mins home everyday across some lovely houses with gardens-  there used to be these trees with the sweetest orange flowers….and most of us know its the Anarkali.(Sad if we can only remember Salim now).

I have been so off mood that i looked back on my own blog
and then thought ….
why once upon a time i was so better at cribbing ….
now its such a boring rant….
Almost all in life seems so hopeless….
dont know whats the fuss is all about …
its not just me…most people just go on living ….and on.
But then i realise we create our own hypes…
our own passions which keeps us going….
the movies and movie stars/cricket and cricketers /Harry Potter/TV shows/Stock

markets /chat forums/hours of gossip/ambitions and even blogging for some.

But honestly what i still like when i look back and reread  are my favorite poems

and my thoughts on reading books.
Actually thats what it seems is missing….its been so long that i read a pure
fiction story apart from Harry Potter.(Well i better not start on it again…).
I need that escape …my books else this is how i become .

Bad memory has its pleasures.
I was looking up some old selected quotes and found this quote

“People who are not in love fail to understand how an intelligent man can suffer because of a very ordinary woman. This is like being surprised that anyone should be stricken with cholera because of a creature so insignificant as the comma bacillus.”
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, vol. 2, “Swann’s Way: Swann in Love”

Some people have an awesome way with words….Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
Comma bacillus …ROFL………..

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Weekend with the Google Story

This weekend with nothing better to google than the complications of wisdom tooth extraction(if doctors are a pain ….what the heck  do you call dentists…they are  a bloody damn pain and i am living with it for nearly a month and a half) i just cuddled up with ‘ The Google Story ‘  by David A Vise.

Its a book that gives a pretty good insight but somehow not a very interesting book.Its quite factual the kind most techies would be familiar with and so it just adds  date and time and names to the events.

Of course i liked some chapters a bit more like ‘Divide and Rule’ wherein Sergey and Larry decide to have both the leading venture capitalists and not one so that the infighting between them would prevent the loss of control by the founders and the parts about Eric Schmidt’s initial times at Google.Also interesting was the ‘Going Public ‘ and ‘ Playboy’ chapter which details Google very different way of going public.

The book makes it clearer though how superior the product was as unlike most other companies here it wasn’t reallly some management and marketing guys who called the shots but the engineers who built the product and they pretty much have been having their own way which actually is not a very easy thing on a corporate world dependent on marketing and management heavily once a product is available.Not many engineers really think or can manage  keeping that kind of control over what they build or code.

All in all its a good book but not quite half as good as the product itself and no there’s nothing inspiring for those who love inspirational and motivating stuff(of course their success of all kinds itself may motivate some people…dont know but yeah it will not fit that category).

Its just a chronicle really of one of the greatest product of our times and it fascinates in small parts .

Google is one of those  rarest of the products i guess where the  product is as superior if not more than how its projected to be.I cant deny i have a deep personal fondness for it as i cant think of any other brand i have any sort of attachment to. Unlike most people i guess i dont really get awed by brand names just like some, dislike some.Some brands , i do admire but never really feel their presence or absence would cause any difference to my life.

But it is exactly here that Google differs. Among many brands that might have changed the world, humanity , science , universe or whatever , when it comes to me in my cocoon and instant thoughts i know Google made a huge difference to my life .

Unlike other brands for which i can think up alternatives or adjust may be with their absence i really would as an individual feel its absence….its such a part of everyday life.

Last week when i saw the google logo conveying its 9th birthday i remebered the difference it made.I passed out of college 9 years ago and how different it would have been to have google then.Not many can understand the impact lack of information can have (esp for people who lack contacts who hoarded information)….information which we or certainly I take for granted in recent times.

I am one of those hugely dependent on Google. Not that there aren’t other search engines or i don’t try them…just that i seem to be have a very good hand at searching very fast what i want in google and for some one with my kind of random access memory Google is a real savior and i dont mind having a reputation of a Google dependent.

Last week i got a new handbag in a shade of pink . Now a colleague asked  what do you call that color. I was very busy at that moment and could think of nothing really and I said I will find it and tell ya …and i get an immediate smiling reply…where on google????  I could only quip….Hmmmm

Well i did find it through google and its ‘Mauve Taupe’.Well…..

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Some musings on the charm of Appearances

The world is governed more by appearance than realities so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it. ~Daniel Webster

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”- Oscar Wilde

While being politically correct we can hold on that appearances being just the
surface , they do matter though may be not as most people beleive they do
but then but one can never say they do not matter.
Of course when you’ve known a person deeply by chance and circumstance ….
appearances dissolve into irrelevance at times.

But whenever one has a choice of knowing a person appearances will matter….
how they matter is individuality but then
some appearances appeal/repel universally,
some to very few very strongly ,
some appearances grow roots and slowly but surely hold you intrigued.
Well why i got thinking of that…
Hmm quite some time pass on two of my all time favorites and a movie i saw made
me think of it.

I’m quite fond of that evergreen universally loved Austen novel hashed and
rehashed everywhere, but as much as the character of Mark Darcy is fascinating
in Pride and Prejudice , one must agree that Colin Firth simply increases it a 100
times. He’s way too dashing as Darcy….

I’ve been spending the whole of last week downloading The BBC mini series from youtube and really beleive he simply enhances such a enchanting character. No wonder the fan following.

Then there is the most complex character in Harry Potter….Severus Snape.
He has a amazing fan following for a character so nasty at times at least till Book6.

I liked the complexity of the character and admired quite some stuff but no i did not
really feel deeply affectionate for him till Book7 wherein you cant do much but sob
off for him….its a pretty tragedy woven in there.

But then i did not watch the movies as i wanted to wait till book7.

And now i see Alan Rickman and while i wont say in part1 i love him ….One cant help liking him … he’s such class and so very addictive.and as some one on the Amazon forum said

“he cast a Confundus spell on half of the population?”
So Rowling clearly is dead right when she posed the question to someone who confessed to love Snape. “Are you thinking of Snape or Alan Rickman?”.

Because lets face it till Book7 (here its a final shift and whatever be the face you
just would have to agree with Harry at the end), if you dont see the Harry Potter
movies it is very very difficult to like Snape.

You can trust him…admire him ……beleive he’s is Dumbledore’s man and has reformed or whatever but to like or love him he has to get the face of Alan Rickman.

Well Snape gets appealing truly as Alan Rickman i guess.

Then there is this movie Chak de …that i saw I liked it and enjoyed it enough to watch it twice a rarity these days for meBut the thought that played on was simple ….would the movie be the same without SRK. We’d have better actors…some of the girls in there were also as good.But some appearances can capture the imagination more universally.

If it was not SRK also the movie i believe would be good but would only be
watched by some very genuine movie goers and admirers .

Thus i will end with another quote

Appearances are not held to be a clue to the truth.

But we seem to have no other. ~Ivy Compton-Burnett

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Of Stories, Of Choices….Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

if someone still wants no word on the book 7 suspense please do not read any further

“Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.”

~Barry Lopez
well if not literally alive but to feel alive yes you do…some stories do that and
Rowling’s magical Harry Potter books do that.
Last week almost seemed like the end of an era…..when i finished the book seven (Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows late at night.
It was too much to resist and it brought back that feeling you have when you leave school. There is so much in life beyond school everyone tells but you want it back…those rules which you despised…those innocent friendships…..that world which you owned and will love for life.Therein lies the charm of Rowling’s world.

Unlike other books which critics praise as much more accomplished and classy,
Potter books are actually just a hark back of the wonderful days when we
believed, we hoped and we loved.

Unlike other books ,its not a magical world for all the magic in the book.
The same can’t be said for other books…….its all about friendships, families…
responsibilities and choices.
Yes choices…somehow this line had caught my eye when i read it in Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets.
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

Somehow in the end the whole series seemed to emphasize just that.If there was
one character who seemed to good to be true or above being just human it was
Dumbledore and in this book she humanizes him the most and makes the
greatest point about choices and abilities.
At every point in the book most characters choose,
Harry chooses to trust Dumbledore finally while burying Kreacher
…Harry chooses to die……if that was the only way.
Voldemort chooses to kill who he believes served him most loyally.
Ron chooses….,
Draco chooses….even Narcissa Malfoy chooses ….
Xenophilius Lovegod chooses
Dudley chooses and so do most in some part or the other.
While i wont say it was the best of the seven books it surely was a befitting end
and Rowling simply was amazing.

The Dumbledore angle was brilliant and it shows how one becomes wise.Dumbledore was brilliant…but it is after his misery that he understood how much
power corrupts and as he says
“It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrustupon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their ownsurprise that they wear it well.”

On a side note i’ve always felt this about leaders and managers.

Snape’s character was brilliantly etched. It shows how the most resourceful and brilliant
can be the most brave or the most evil depending on the choice .
It shows how not all brave people believe in showcasing themselves.
It shows why appearances can be deceptive, and why you first have to be strong
in the mind to be do anything great evil or good.
People who are weak within like Xenophilius may have good intentions
but will easily break.
People like Snape once they choose the right side will never break and is the
greatest cause he probably was the only one who overcame temptation most.

Even Dumbledore was never confident about himself having power so he never
took up a post at ministry but Snape was confident enough that he wont do
wrong again and hangs around with Voldemort’s power.

There was nothing exceptional in Harry except that he earned the
love and trust his friends and fellowmen by his being brave and loving for them.
I’ve not yet seen the movies of this book though i’ve read all seven ,
now i may see them. But to really love this story you’ve got to read it,
get immersed in its world and then feel its familiarity…
a movie does not do that to you.
Some who did not read the book ,don’t understand the movie they tell me
and some enjoy it nevertheless and you have to hand it Rowling , she made it
complex enough and its all linked up from book one …clues clues and clues.

I’ve read the book in absolute anxiety(been waiting since i read the sixth and
wrote a post on it) and sure would ‘ve missed so much and so there might be another post or some addition to this.It could’ve been made more thrilling , more duels more magic, but Rowling instead focuses on human nature, its temptations, its fears and fallacies .

Its definitely not literature but then once you read books which deal purely with
such literary stuff ,you kind of wont face up that you belong there even if you do in reality……..but here in Rowling’s world you do own up .
Ron faces upto his fears when he tries to destroy a Horcrux
Harry faces unto them when he realizes that others were becoming leaders too as he wavered off.
But the book surely leaves you longing for what you cant have….
what you leave behind or
rather can never leave behind …memories.

**************************************************

And some more of Harry Potter Book Seven after effects.

The Epilogue was boring and nonsense but well she probably did it to shut it off.
I mean Ginny …she’s so quite boring.Harry anyways was never the most

interesting its always the stories and people around. And now after book seven

oh wow …its everything but Harry.
I ‘ve been having soo much fun reading forums and watching videos on You tube.
Like i was so astonished to read Rowling was asked by a small girl…Does Snape

love anyone?? Wow …clever question…Rowling surely must’ve been stumped .

Oh what a series its been and now you want to go back and read again those little

parts which link here.
All the lines which are explained…..
what dumbledore said…(she’s made him bloody hell interesting….and i love it.)
Lily evans…hmmm….
and Snape well now his fan following would be the highest…forget Potter.

Hmm ive never seen the movie yet but after Book Seven i know the seventh one

i will see it in theater first day…i tell myself…its still t wo years but yeah …it’ll be

good. Katie Holmes as Lily …cool.
All the characters now seem so very interesting except the main ones.
This book seven is not the best in terms of writing but what makes it special is that you will go back to the previous books all the more.
I’ll end up re -reading the whole thing again…… I know.

Rowling’s great and thank god for her timesof india article in 2001 (which was sort of very special in a different way to me at that time) when i picked up this

book……never bothered until book three thinking its just hype and kids books
are not any more for me.
Then she’s kind of left it soo very open not for the main haracters but ah those side stories…you let your imagination enjoy.

I took the first book after reading her interview……not any review……
I have that times paper still in my old stuff….

i felt somehow very inspired being at very very low point in my life.Reading her interview (i’m searching for that archive sometime in 2003 or 2002 i guess) made me want to read the book.

I read the first few chapters in a bus and i still remember the feeling :—-
i was like whats this cat waiting …oh i dont get this kiddish nonsense
lets leave it …and then after half an hour …i’ve never looked back.

Its so much joy !!!!!!!!
I just wish there was a book more and all the stories of Dumbledore, Snape and all could’ve been expanded more.
Ah hopes
Hazaaron khwahishein aisi, ki har khwahish pe dum nikle
bahut nikale mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle!!

I will just update this like this………………

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Alchemist : A lookback

I somehow recommend the book Alchemist to people . I wont say its a great book but its a book worth a read or some reads esp when you really start doubting  yourself, when you need to beleive in  yourself again against all commom sense.

People say its about love but i actully did not enjoy the love story in it all that much. The last part was too magical and over the top. Its the earlier parts which i admired a lot and liked the different perceptions like those of the crystal seller and the boy.

Whenever someone thanks me for recommending it i quickly glance through the book again and its refreshing.

Some of the best passages in Alchemist i felt are below
===================================================

The old man pointed to a baker standing in his shop window at one corner of the plaza. “When he was a child, that man wanted to travel, too. But he decided first to buy his bakery and put some money aside. When he’s an old man, he’s going to spend a month in Africa. He never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.”
“He should have decided to become a shepherd,” the boy said.
“Well, he thought about that,” the old man said. “But bakers are more important people than shepherds. Bakers have homes, while shepherds sleep out in the open. Parents would rather see their children marry bakers than shepherds.”
The boy felt a pang in his heart, thinking about the merchant’s daughter. There was surely a baker in her town.
The old man continued,

“In the long run, what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own destinies.”
==========================================================
“Well, why don’t you go to Mecca now?” asked the boy.
“Because it’s the thought of Mecca that keeps me alive. That’s what helps me face these days that are all the same, these mute crystals on the shelves, and lunch and dinner at that same horrible café. I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on living.

“You dream about your sheep and the Pyramids, but you’re different from me, because you want to realize your dreams. I just want to dream about Mecca. I’ve already imagined a thousand times crossing the desert, arriving at the Plaza of the Sacred Stone, the seven times I walk around it before allowing myself to touch it. I’ve already imagined the people who would be at my side, and those in front of me, and the conversations and prayers we would share. But I’m afraid that it would all be a disappointment, so I prefer just to dream about it.”

That day, the merchant gave the boy permission to build the display. Not everyone can see his dreams come true in the same way.
==================================================
“I’ve had this shop for thirty years. I know good crystal from bad, and everything else there is to know about crystal. I know its dimensions and how it behaves. If we serve tea in crystal, the shop is going to expand. And then I’ll have to change my way of life.”
“Well, isn’t that good?”
“I’m already used to the way things are. Before you came, I was thinking about how much time I had wasted in the same place, while my friends had moved on, and either went bankrupt or did better than they had before. It made me very depressed. Now, I can see that it hasn’t been too bad. The shop is exactly the size I always wanted it to be. I don’t want to change anything, because I don’t know how to deal with change. I’m used to the way I am.”
The boy didn’t know what to say. The old man continued, “You have been a real blessing to me. Today, I understand something I didn’t see before: every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don’t want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I’m going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don’t want to do so.”
It’s good I refrained from saying anything to the baker in Tarifa, thought the boy to himself.

================================================

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting, he thought
When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person’s life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

People learn, early in their lives, what is their reason for being,” said the old man, with a certain bitterness. “Maybe that’s why they give up on it so early, too. But that’s the way it is.”
. “In any case, it’s good that you’ve learned that everything in life has its price
Sometimes it’s better to leave things as they are, he thought to himself, and decided to say nothing. If he were to say anything, the baker would spend three days thinking about giving it all up, even though he had gotten used to the way things were

“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.”
This candy merchant isn’t making candy so that later he can travel or marry a shopkeeper’s daughter. He’s doing it because it’s what he wants to do,

Who knows . . . maybe it’s better to be like the crystal merchant: never go to Mecca, and just go through life wanting to do so, he thought, again trying to convince himself.
Making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.
 

There are more but i guess its a small book and it makes no sense to put it all on the blog.

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