The thing about new books...

that makes me want to buy them...what is it? I love book stores. I love the smell of new books. I have seldom returned from a book store without buying a book. The sad truth, however, is that most times I end up NOT reading them or only half reading them. The only explanation I have for this is that i'll buy the books now when I have the money but no time to read them so that I can read them later when i have the time but no money!

I wonder how many people read all the books they buy.

Some of the reasons why people buy books

- they buy books for "intellectual credibility" of the Bookshelf" and have no intention of actually reading them

- far too often people are buying books because they think they will be good for them, rather than because they think they'll enjoy them

- there are certain books that everyone buys because the whole world has read them

- half of the top 10 non-fiction books people buy but don't read are autobiographies

So, what are your reasons for buying a book?

The newspapers need a diet

Circa nineteen ninety-six. My first travel outside the country (second, if Nepal counts). The U S of A. It’s the little things that get your attention. Among many such little things, it was the size of the newspaper that drew my attention. Big, fat USA today. Too heavy to hold in one hand. Back then in India all we had, if i remember right, was a few pages of Times of India (yes, I read the Times of India and am not ashamed of it. Well, I’m not proud of it either:-p). BT wasn't even born. Page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 didn't even exist.

Cut to today! India is seen going the US way. We are inundated with fatter and fatter newspapers. Too much junk is being shoved into them. Too many topics and too many words. Too many special sections. They have no respect for our busy lives. I wonder how they come up with all this news. I can’t come up with a decent 250 words to blog, for crying out loud. I think the future of newspapers is to compact compelling new information (news behind the news). When are they going to learn?

The biggest side effect of this obesity is raddhi disposal. These raddhi disposal cycles are getting shorter and shorter. Which means almost every second weekend I have to remember to call the raddhi wala. This, among the zillion other weekend-end activities that are competing for time.

I am suffering RDS or Raddhi Disposal Syndrome. New age illness this! Our newspapers need to go on a diet . That's the only cure!

...like what it is about England

...like you see winter jackets all over the place - cropped leather bomber jacket, retro coats, polar fleece jackets, army style jacket, ski jackets, biker jackets, waterproof jackets, hooded jackets, snowboard jackets, ... i could go on

...like cycling is a hobby gone serious

...like drinking is a religion and there's no stopping

...like there is so much black around that you yearn for color

...like the weather is as unpredicatble as my moods. There's an old saying, "if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes"

...like i think this is the only country in the world where the guys are better looking than the gals. I haven't been to Italy yet!

...like you need a 3-square-pin adapter

...like i don't think there's too much to English cuisine other than fish n chips. Okay.. Pie and Pudding. Thats it

...like there was a serpentine long queue to get into Primark and huge frenzy of bargain hunters clambering over each other inside. I thought that happened only at Big Bazaar in India!

...like if you are in London, you'd never miss the crowd in Bombay - thousands of heads bobbing up and down in the vast sea of homo sapiens

...like rail engineering work on holidays and long weekends is commonplace. I am beginning to believe they do it more out of habit than out of need

Guru Gyaan

Dr. NAKAMATS

Who Is This Dude?
Dr NakaMats is an inventor extraordinaire. He has many inventions to his credit and claims he invented the floppy disk, one of the greatest inventions of information age, way back in 1950. He is described as the Edison of Japan. Thomas Edison patented 1093 inventions. NakaMats already has over 3000. At 79, Dr. NakaMats says he's only halfway to his goal of dreaming up 6,000 innovations by the time he shuffles off this mortal coil, which, according to his research, should be at age 144. He spends little time sleeping -- only four hours a day -- and less on food, limiting himself to one 700-kilocalorie meal, the elements of which are carefully selected to enhance his brain power. He photographs every dish he eats to recall the stimulating ones, and says his research indicates that a regimen of proper diet, teetotalism, exercise, sex, and spiritual training will keep him alive until 2072.

What Makes Him Cool?
At 5, he did his first invention which was an automatic gravity adjustment equipment. At 15, he invented the pump. He won the IG Nobel prize for his research in finding the best possible food to eat that keeps the body healthy and the brain fit. Dr. NakaMats believes that a lack of oxygen is very important to trigger an invention. He uses this in a very dangerous manner. To come up with an invention, he dives into water with a water proof writing pad (also invented by him) and remains under the surface of water till he experiences a flash of creativity. He gets such a flash just 0.5 secs before death. He quickly writes this down on the writing pad. Another method that he uses to come up with ideas are his two rooms – the calm room and the dynamic room. The calm room is made of natural wood and stone, and without nails because they reflect thinking. It keeps noise and electromagnetic fields away. The black and white dynamic room has special video and audio equipment and high-powered speakers that blare jazz and Beethoven's Fifth to refine his ideas. At first, he enters the calm room to erase all noises inside his brain. Then he goes to the dynamic room, listening to music, looking at pictures. At this time his brain is running to create a new idea. He goes back and forth between the two rooms trying to create ideas.

What is the theory of “The Pagoda of Creativity”?
According to Dr. NakaMats theory, the base for everything is a strong spirit, followed by a strong body, hard studies, experience and finally leads to a “trigger” experience. You “trigger” a bullet which contains spirit, body, study and experience - and finally that releases the actual invention.

BORN June 16, 1928, in Japan

WORKS
Claimed invention of the floppy disc.
The Jumping Jax shoes with springs in the soles to prevent the jarring effect of jogging, The Love Jet aphrodisiac
The Cerebrex brain-enhancer chair
PyonPyon flying shoes which allow the wearer to leap into air with minimal effort

COOL QUOTES
“Genius lies in developing complete and perfect freedom within a human being. Only then can a person come up with the best ideas”

Look up the net for more on the ‘mad’ scientist.

Money v/s Relationship

On to hsbc again....

The other day I get this call from hsbc. The voice at the other end started without any warning whatsoever, “I am Arvind calling on behalf of hsbc bank. I am your new Relationship Manager …blah.. some more blah.. we will arrange for someone to come and speak with you”. HSBC knows I have relationship problems? How? From my bank account?!! Come to think of it, I have a balance of about 76 rupees and fifty paise. That must give it away, I guess. “Ya sure…”, i said. The next thing I know is that I have an appointment scheduled for next week!!!

During this week and all of last week, I have spent a lot of time and frustration trying to get a grip on my investments and finances. I am really no good at it. Sifting through all those papers, which look seemingly unimportant on the face of it, I have unearthed some money that i should already have claimed in the years gone by. But not all's lost...I can still claim it. Which means my bank account is gonna get a shine! But now I am scared. Scared that I may not get the relationship manager after all:( Now that I'll have a lot of money HSBC will probably guess that I don't have relationship problems after all!!!!

Damn! I don't want all this money. I want a relationship! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.....

:-)

The Telegram

It was the postman at the door. “Madam, Telegram”. When was the last time I got a telegram? I had forgotten how to react to that. Very quickly it came to me…i had seen it in the movies. I let go of my calm and my heart began to pound. Did someone just die? “Telegram?!”, I asked the postman. “Haan madam, telegram”. “Kiska hai?” realizing soon enough how stupid I sounded. After all, he wasn’t Rajesh Khanna who read out daak to the people. “Madam, yahaan par sign kijiye”. I signed. He left.

Cut to…inside home. Scan through telegram. Sigh of relief! It was hsbc’s latest discovery. Their method of credit card interest fee extortion! Very very sophisticated indeed! While the others employ bhais and the like, hsbc uses the telegram! - 5826.32 out of which so and so is overdue…blah blah blah…kindly ignore if the payment has already been made.. – how polite! This after I have received several phone calls and being warned of being blacklisted and not being sold any hsbc products. Blacklisted for not paying interest on annual charges?! Go blacklist! Then they very generously reversed all the charges. That’s not the point really. The point is I got a telegram! Who sends a telegram these days?!

Talking of hsbc, I used to be a huge fan of their efficient and innovative use of technology. It all started with the deposits. Being able to deposit checks & cash at the atm (when no other atms could do that) and the machine very gracefully dispatched the envelope and took in the deposit. Magically receiving check books out requesting one when you’re on the last few leaflets. Then came the security device. The one that guaranteed no one could ever access your internet account. The one that guaranteed that a new number got generated every 16 seconds. The one that was required in addition to the username and password. The one that was required to be tagged along wherever you went... Here I have my home keys, my car keys, office drawer key, mobile phone, credit cards, debit cards, frequent shopper cards, and now this. I really don’t need any additional burden. There’s no choice they said…you can access your account only if you have the device. Damn! So secure that I could not get in myself! That actually did it for me. I started losing interest. I ceased being a fan! To top it they actually charged me 100 bucks a month for back dated statements which took 4-7 days to reach. I decided to close the account. I could not afford having to pay that much for an account even I could not operate! Then came the telegram…

On the one hand they are super sophisticated. On the other they send a telegram! This post is actually about hsbc. Not about the telegram. But what the hell, it was the telegram which got me started!

One gadget too many!

It’s all too much. Lets see – what all do I own? There is the ubiquitous refrigerator and television. These of course were considered necessities during my parent’s generation. But then, these were the only two possessions that my parents really owned. I have a lot many more though.

Now, I have all the modern day time saving gadgets like a washing machine, microwave oven, the laptop, toaster, hand operated juice extractor, vegetable slicer, electronic mixer and grinder, the vaccum cleaner, the electronic screw driver all of which are supposed to make things easier and faster. What with all these things, one should think that I have a lotttttt of time on my hands. But the fact is I don’t have time. I don’t get time to call my parents as many times as I would have liked to. I don’t have time to call on my best friend. I don’t have the time to reply to all the emails my friends send me, I don’t have the time to wish my cousins on their birthdays. Perhaps, I am now far too busy maintaining and upgrading the so called time-saving-gadgets. God alone knows!

Not just these – among the ‘make-me-happy’ gadgets I own are the aircon, the video camera, the digital still, mobile phone, land phone, the baba adam music system, dvd player, i-pod, discman, another baba adam device the walkman (and a whole lot of tapes), the car, the car stereo, the car aircon, car audio-kit. We all own the same junk and it sits in our house for years. Does it makes us happy? I don’t think so.

The things we own do end up owning us. Is it possible to get rid of everything regardless of value – sentimental or monetary - and start all over again?

I like my new telephone, my computer works just fine, my calculator is perfect, but Lord I miss my mind! - Anon