How to buy books?

I bought Richard Branson’s autobiography Losing My Virginity. Then I remembered I already had that book on my shelf in Delhi. Before you ask me how can I be so forgetful, I queried myself why? The last time I had seen this book in the Sunday book market in Daryaganj, Delhi, I was tantalized by the title itself. I bought the book without haggling over the price. But since the title was so bold I couldn’t gather enough courage to read it at home. The book is also very thick that I can’t read it hidden within another book. So I shoved that book at the back of a swelling bookshelf and gradually the memories worn out.

This time I found it again in Higginbotham, Chennai, albeit under a different cover. For a second time, the title appealed the virgin inside me and I bought it instantly without any second thought. But as I came to my desk, I was in doubts. The thought of spending money on something I already had and had again and that I haven’t read it the first time and probably might not read it the second time too made me restless until I fished Amazon for the book. The book appeared in its old cover and left me doubtless.

So I went to the bookstore downstairs and took this chap with me. There I got to know about a whole new perspective on buying books. I have told him that to replace the book would be a difficult chore as books appeal my mood and I never go to a bookshop with a book in my mind. He gave me a discourse on how to get value for my money as we roamed around the book store, checking each and every book. Here are the pearls of wisdom:

• Cover should be attractive. First impression is the last impression – this is what he believes in.
• Books should have a lot of pictures. Probably a comic book would be just fine. If you can’t understand the language, you can probably get the story watching pictures.
• Pages should be smooth and glossy. Should not be wooden and rough.
• Buy a thick book, and not a thin one. This saves money in two ways. First it is cost effective. Like each page should cost less than one Re per page. Cheaper is good. Secondly, a thick enough book would take more time to read and finish. Thus in a span of time in which two or three books would be bought, you end up consuming only one thus saving further bucks.
• Book should be by a prominent author. Even if you don’t get intelligent by reading the book, it will make others feel that you are intelligent by occupying a prominent place on your books shelf.
• You can go for a heavy book or a light one. Heavy ones will serve to press envelopes and light ones you can carry around while travelling. People with books often get respect in social circles.

Thankfully, I was in no mood to pay any heed to his suggestions, and another long search brought me to this book – Go Kiss the World by Subroto Bagchi. I had the book in my possession now, but the titles I have bought today made me smile. Check them, aren’t you amused?

Everything I Do ...

The sparkle in your almond eyes,
Like the Venus in the morning sky…
Beats the glitter and the gleam of the gold,
Dazes and leaves me lo and behold!

Those subtle movements on your face,
Your feline agility and your gentle grace…
The way you sit, the way you stand,
That’s how rainbows grow and bend.

The way you call me names,
I feel loved and love rains…
That cadence and music as you speak,
Sedates me and puts me at ease.

The way you dress, the way you do your hair,
You are perfect and not just fair.
That mole there beneath your lip,
Should I love you or should I worship?

And what should I say about that smile of yours,
As I search for words, it spreads more…
From its one end to the other and right through your chin,
You have wrapped my world in that beautiful grin.

Even if someone wants me to forget you,
Everything I do will remind me of you…
If this is not love than I could never love any being,
You are my end, you were my beginning.

Mosquitoes

In that gentle wind that blew in the night,
I try to fight mosquitoes with all my might.
But they are so many and I am just one,
And they have spears and arrows and I have none.

So when they hover around me humming a song,
I wish I was some King Kong.
With a growth of hairs as thick as rain,
A lot of my blood would be saved from drain.

So much money spend drinking pomegranate juice,
So many hours spend waiting for the juice.
As I fill myself up to the brim,
They come to me with a straw and a grin.

As I tilt my head back and look up towards the sky,
Through a cover of mosquitoes, I can barely see the sky,
I can see only them enjoying a lot,
Down below them is a battle I have lost.

Oh little devils, please have some rest,
Get off my face, get off my nest.
Let me also enjoy the peace of this night,
Let me also feel this gentle breeze blowing through the night.

Beware !!! - Total Crap Ahead ...

So here I am, what should I tell you about today? Well, I don’t know who ‘you’ is since I don’t know if anyone ever reads this blog. Those who I have hired to read the posts and put any comments have given me my money back. They were not so insolent initially – my condition that they should read the post before commenting on it was not so disagreeable to them at first. But while reading some said they felt ennui as never before, some had fainted even before saying anything and some just left – I mean they left me.

I pleaded a few of my friends to do me this favor. And then I came to know what a good acid test it proved to distinguish ‘a friend’ from ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed’. Some feigned ignorance of how to write comments; a few really good friends told me later that they were left speechless at the beauty of the writing, others having a good sense of humor said they rolled off their seats laughing and they laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed so much that they just went hysteric – speechless ones could not find any words and laughing ones said they didn’t want to fill up the comments section with just ha.. ha.. ha.. ha.. ha.. jumbo which they thought was their only emotion at that time. Some just sent a one liner sms saying that they loved all crap I have written. But no one really wanted to officially mark himself/herself as a person who might be reading my blog and all my friends shied away from writing any comments.


But a few people were benefitted too. I got a thank you mail from a long time insomniac. He has asked me very politely if he can refer this blog to his doctor who can further refer it to his other patients. He also talked about sending this blog for some psycho-literary research so that the underlying science and mysteries behind making people sleep can be unfolded. But I have to say no, because as you know I treat this blog as very personal. I do not want my sentences and my phrases to be put to dissection. May be sometime later I will donate it to the medical and literary society. But for the time being please let it be with me.

A few emotional people felt hurt too. They asked me what right I held to have put them to such mental strain. They asked me to fear God and keep my mouth shut. They send mails full of curses when I humbly told them that the words did not flowed out of my mouth but instead this all is a work of my fingers. Some prolific abusers mailed me with words I have never heard before. I marveled at the imaginary of their brains and dropped them a thank you mail for enriching my vocabulary. Finally I got a mail from a human right activist and some local political netas. I was told not to abuse the freedom of speech. Again I have to tell them that this is no speech. This is writing. Such illiterate bunch of people out there!

You my reader – you are right there – aren’t you? Oh what happened? Hey hey, don’t bang your head against the table. I am signing off...


[Updated: @5:56 today] look, a few comments have finally poured in. I had not cried in vain.

That Tower Symbol

The glasses of my specs have worn out reading documents. I am getting them from everywhere - The ones in My Documents, the ones in the Recycle Bin, and the ones lying in the dustbin. It has been almost three weeks and I have not yet started doing anything fruitful because no one here wants me to do anything fruitful because they have hired me to let me eat rice and drink fruit juice all day and at the end of the month give me a fat salary so that the result of my patience would not turn out to be a rotten fruit – thereby respecting that age old wisdom that the tree of patience bears fruits. Try to pretend busy like I have been trying to look for weeks – doing nothing but scrolling up and down that pdf, moving from one power point slide to next and then back to previous and then again to next and then ALT+TAB and start writing this post on a MS Word document, so that anyone who happens to be passing behind me can assert that I was busy taking notes.

Ok, enough frustration. Now the problem is that I am not given access to the system yet because these guys have not yet been able to create a login id for me. So I called up some IT helpdesk located in some part of USA. The guy on the other side gave me a login id and password and asked me to try my fate with it. As he spelled out the password in his American accent, I was very dumbstruck when he mentioned of a tower symbol. Now, I accept I am not pretty good with computers even after a six years experience in IT, but then even a five years kid these days is smart enough to know that there is no such sign. But still assuming that according to Moore’s law, technology changes at an unbelievable rate, or as an ode to renowned symbologist Mr. Robert Langdon, I thought there might be some new keys introduced in America. And anyways it takes time for any technology to get from America to India. Feeling very ashamed of my ignorance I asked him to provide me with a different password. But it seemed this guy was very fond of this new tower symbol as again he spoke of it. So I had to ask him what this symbol looks like. I guessed it was very appalling for him to accept the fact that this ignoramus person who he was talking with had never heard of the tower symbol. He blurted out – ”the tower is the money sign in US”. $. I felt stupid and relieved.

Anyways, those account details still do not work out because they say they are missing some ‘my boss-Knows-What-F****--document’. Crap man! Take a few from me. I have accumulated heaps of them.

It’s almost 7:00 pm now. I should better leave. I am very punctual although this statement holds for evenings only. I could never understand how people get up so early in the morning, other than to pee or something. And actually I don’t want to understand.

A grain of rice

I have never eaten so much rice in a single day in my whole life that I am eating in Chennai at a single meal. I am eating it by quintals. Am not averse to rice, actually it is helping in to fill up those hollows in my body which time failed to fill, putting up some coveted fat, inflating the wrapper around my soul.

I remember that biology class in my 8th standard where we were being taught about anatomy and the discussion moved to diaphragm. Our teacher was one practical man and he believed that raw theory does no good. So in his enthusiasm of giving us a very real view of the diaphragm he looked around and suddenly pounced on me. The very moment he summoned me to come to the podium, I knew what he wanted. I was tormented, felt very humiliated and as every single pair of eyes sat themselves on me enjoying my biological build up, I raised myself slowly, praying every moment for some Krishna to appear and save me from my predicament.

Girls in the front row started giggling and the back-benchers were thoroughly pleased. Everyone was amused except me. I wanted to kick that teacher in the butt, throw mud at him, have him disbarred, write a long letter to the home ministry, HRD minister or education minister or whoever can take care of that, and every concerned person, write to the editor of all the national dailies, wanted him to show his own diaphragm in front of the whole school and finally wanted him to apologize on national television - and in the process making my first grand appearance on TV. The last thought actually made me grin and added a tinge of courage and bravery to my already rocking image, which further amused the class.

Among all this, the teacher was still eyeing people and then suddenly I felt the presence of Krishna in the room. My prayers were answered – who says there is no God? I was asked to stay back and another victim was chosen. This young boy was shorter and thinner than me! And as he opened his shirt and took a deep breath making a clear display of that hollow diaphragm emphasizing every bone, I ducked into my books trying not to laugh at this naked warrior who saved my face that day.

Getting out of this reminiscence, Chennai is stuffing me with a lot of rice. It’s needless to say how I am craving for some daal, chole, razma grains on my plate. Still some of my inconsiderate friends keep quizzing me on the menu. Please find my feeling guys –

Mat pooch ki khaane main kya hai ae zaalim,
Mat pooch ki khaane main kya hai ae zaalim,
Bus ankhoon se aansoon ki ek dhaar bahi jaati hai

Blooming Poets

So here I am back in my room. This old college friend (friend is young, friendship is old) of mine is still buried among books and laptop. And I guess he is in the same state since morning. He had taken a leave from his office today to study and how jealous I felt to see him yawn as he had woken up but kept lying leisurely in peace on his bed and saw me getting ready and leaving for office. And the view of him poking his nose into books and concentrating hard enough to ignore the only door of that room open and close become the inspiration behind these two splendid lines:

Itna mat padh,
Ki har kitaab se teri boo aane lage.

(Don’t study so much, that every book will start reeking of your smell)

So these beautiful lines marked the entry of a new poet in the market. Or so I thought, until later in the night he craned his neck out of the books and replied with these other two significant lines with deep meaning and a whole history and career hidden behind them.

padhna hamari majboori hai,
aadat to kabhi ban hi nahin payi.

(I am compelled to study; it was never a habit anyways)

So two new poets find themselves burgeon in this sultry Chennai heat. Never did we know so much poetic talent had lied burying within us. Instead of searching Google for those romantic lines to throw at our female friends and girl friends (I am told these two words have a significant difference and one should never be taken for another, so applying caution here), if we had looked inside ourselves, we would had found much more marvelous and original results. And I am also told that throwing original lines at female friends turn them into your girl friends. So I will soon return to you with a few more of our poetic talents.