Chapter 1: Commute & Conversations

It was a really long journey to the airport, taking over an hour by train, followed by 45 minutes by bus. Thankfully, the bus would drop me right at the airport. All I had to do was step through the door and get in line to pick up my boarding pass. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth going through this, in order to save a few bucks. In exchange for $20 - $30, I was using up 2 hours of my life, to get to the airport. In this instance, flying interstate would take me about the same time as the trip from the city to the airport.

I have always argued that I could read a book while I am on the train and bus, thus it was not a waste of time. I would get some R&R during my journey. Also, reading tends to make the journey seem short. All I had to do was sit there, with my nose in my book, and a little while later, I would arrive at the airport.

The flaw in my theory was that on this particular day, I could not read. I was very anxious. The airlines had stopped allowing online check-ins and insisted on closing the check-in counter 45 minutes prior to boarding time. This meant that I had to be at the airport, latest within an hour of boarding time. Making an allowance for delays and based on the train time tables, the entire journey from city to city (train, bus, flight plus all the wait times) was going to take me 6 hours! That was a really long time, even if I were reading a book. All for $30!

It was too late to change anything and I had to do what I had set out to do. Sitting in the train, unable to read, worried about a zillion things, including whether I would make it in time for check-in, whether the queue would be long, etc, I stared out of the window. I was not really looking at anything outside and there were a number of tunnels along the way, so I occasionally looked around me, inside the train.

At one station, as I watched people board the train, I saw a casually dressed girl, with a pleasant face, walk in. Her attire almost made her a non-entity but yet I had noticed her. I had picked her out of all those people who boarded the train and followed her trip from the door to her seat, with my eyes. In the next few seconds, I had forgotten about her and gone back to stressing about my trip and staring out the window. That was true, until I heard conversation in the carriage that was quiet until then. It was a rather loud male voice followed by a soft female voice.

A guy, seated opposite a girl at the front, was making conversation with her. She seemed to have been listening to music on her iPad and reading or playing but she looked up when he spoke. It was the same girl I had watched earlier. Apparently, the guy had received an iPad as a Christmas present and was excited about it. Soon, the conversation moved on from iPad to iPad games, to Christmas parties and various other events that happened across different states they had both visited over the last year.

It is amazing how a simple comment like, "I have an iPad too!" can turn into a long, incessant conversation. That is just what happened. Without realizing, I had been sucked into the scene that played before my eyes.

I must admit I love eavesdropping on other people's conversations in trains and buses. It keeps my mind occupied and I find it entertaining. Most of the time. So, here I was, listening to a conversation between a girl with a very pleasant face, and an equally pleasant demeanor, and a guy whose mind had not quite caught up with the rest of the body, age-wise. The conversation was rather interesting too. They probably knew I was listening, or were at least aware that one or more people in the train were, but they did not seem particularly bothered by it. A good thing too, that. From them, I heard about different kinds of music, the Big Day Out at the coast that I had read and wondered about, similar events in other parts of the world. I found out where the guy lived and the girl, who they lived with, where they were headed and why. All information that would mean nothing to me once I get off the train and head on my journey but made the journey pleasant, as conversations tend to do.

I did not miss my book for one minute of the journey. I did not even realize how long the train journey had been. As they both got off one station after another, the latter reaching his destination one stop before mine, the carriage got quieter. It hit me then that I still had another 45 minutes of a bus ride, to reach the airport. I figured I might have to read my book after all. Only, I was not particularly enthusiastic about it that afternoon and I did not. I chose to look out the window and get a feel of the route that I had taken so often in the past but never bothered to check out. It was not too bad. Maybe it was worth the trip, after all. I saved 30 bucks and had a new travel experience to write home about.

Eleven minutes of sex? (Paulo Coelho)

I love reading Paulo Coelho. I have found his writings profound, more often than not. One of my favourite blogs is his. Here is a piece I found rather interesting. (I would provide a link to it here and leave it at that but decided to copy the contents so it is easier to read than have to click and go)

The men she had met since she arrived in Geneva always did everything they could to appear confident, as if they were in perfect control of the world and of their own lives; Maria, however, could see in their eyes that they were afraid of their wife, the feeling of panic that they might not be able to get an erection, that they might not seem manly enough even to the ordinary prostitute whom they were paying for her services. If they went to a shop and didn’t like the shoes they had bought, they would be quite prepared to go back, receipt in hand, and demand a refund. And yet, even though they were paying for some female company, if they didn’t manage to get an erection, they would be too ashamed ever to go back to the same club again because they would assume that all the other women there would know.

‘I’m the one who should feel ashamed for being unable to arouse them, but, no, they always blame themselves.’
To avoid such embarrassments, Maria always tried to put men at their ease, and if someone seemed drunker or more fragile than usual, she would avoid full sex and concentrate instead on caresses and masturbation, which always seemed to please them immensely, absurd though this might seem, since they could perfectly well masturbate on their own.
She had to make sure that they didn’t feel ashamed. These men, so powerful and arrogant at work, constantly having to deal with employees, customers, suppliers, prejudices, secrets, posturings, hypocrisy, fear and oppression, ended their day in a nightclub and they didn’t mind spending three hundred and fifty Swiss francs to stop being themselves for a night.

‘For a night? Now come on, Maria, you’re exaggerating. It’s really only forty-five minutes, and if you allow time for taking off clothes, making some phoney gesture of affection, having a bit of banal conversation and getting dressed again, the amount of time spent actually having sex is about eleven minutes.’
Eleven minutes. The world revolved around something that only took eleven minutes.

And because of those eleven minutes in any one twenty-four-hour day (assuming that they all made love to their wives every day, which is patently absurd and a complete lie) they got married, supported a family, put up with screaming kids, thought up ridiculous excuses to justify getting home late, ogled dozens, if not hundreds of other women with whom they would like to go for a walk around Lake Geneva, bought expensive clothes for themselves and even more expensive clothes for their wives, paid prostitutes to try to give them what they were missing, and thus sustained a vast industry of cosmetics, diet foods, exercise, pornography and power, and yet when they got together with other men, contrary to popular belief, they never talked about women. They talked about jobs, money and sport.

Something was very wrong with civilisation, and it wasn’t the destruction of the Amazon rainforest or the ozone layer, the death of the panda, cigarettes, carcinogenic foodstuffs or prison conditions, as the newspapers would have it.

It was precisely the thing she was working with: sex.

in Eleven Minutes

Men Smart While Working With Smarter Women

A classic example of digression. When I clicked on this link, I expected a bunch of wise-ass comments from a number of men and women alike, possibly a meaningless debate and some arrogant comments, as are normal in most Man Vs Woman discussions. No matter what the topic is or how defined the agenda may seem, it inevitably strays into a Man Vs Woman discussion, mostly inconclusive and goes horribly into another tangent.

This write-up was not really an original article. It was what someone defined as an "interesting research" and contained a few comments from men who have worked with women bosses. Why a topic about men working with women consisted only of men with women bosses is beyond me. What I found even more baffling is that whereas some men spoke of difficulties and some others said they didn't mind working for a woman boss, I did not quite see anyone say nice things about working for women (I refuse to accept that this article is about working with women). In a write-up, is the author not supposed to present both sides of an argument? Don't tell me it is because the title has something about "men smart"ing when working for women. Even then, I repeat, the article must make a reference to some men who might have had an uneventful, if not pleasant, experience working for/with women. Wait, does he mean to tell me that no man ever worked for a woman and happily so?

I do not think that the article itself is bad. It bothers me because it seems a bit lop-sided. It is not something I might want to share with others, for I am not fully satisfied with the content. So, why am I sharing it now? It's not only the article that is "interesting" but the comments that follow. There are some very entertaining ones. Also, the comments are in horrible English, awful spellings and full of dyslexic typos, which make the reading more fun.

One guy thinks that a woman's smile reduces the pressure in him (blood pressure or the one you sit down for every morning?). Another guy wonders how you can put a man and a 'suitable' woman in a "cosy room" and expect them to work! His office is a cosy room? So, he wants to take her to bed! There's comments not just on a woman's mood-swings but also how you cannot have an argument with her because you can never predict how a woman behaves (laughing out loud). One guy writes a sequence of events that could occur in case there is a female boss and a female colleague in the team (kudos to him for being the first to talk about a female colleague): Step1 - They become fast friends, Step2 - They become stark enemies (he says to ask your wife why they do that, he doesn't know), Step3 - You are the go between, where the colleagues bitches about the boss and the boss is watching you to make sure you do not help the colleague.

In the midst of all this, there is one guy who replies to a girl's comment asking if he could be friends with her (clutching my stomach, can't stop laughing). Add to that, an unexpected series of comments (unexpected, inspite of all those email forwards which talk about how you can find a mallu wherever you go, even on the moon). Then there's a response to comment, by a Malayalee (in English) which is followed up by another guy who agrees with him (in Malayam) and a further response to that by a third guy who says something on the lines of "Ah, you're both malayalees aren't you? No wonder you share this opinion". By now, I am rolling on the floor laughing.

Have a read, make sure you get to the end of the trail of comments...

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Men_smart_while_working_with_smarter_women-nid-60454.html

I found this link at work, among a few others that were posted on a sharepoint, as part of Women's Day activities. I am not sure it was entirely appropriate for Women's Day (even though the title might sound like it is). Given the nature of comments, I am not even sure it was appropriate to be posted on an office website. Whether it was right nor not, all said and done, it made a woman laugh (me, me, me). A lot. Happy Women's Day.

Yeah, yeah, I know it is on 8th March. Happy Women's Day, in advance!

I Love My Books

The husband and I are big time book-lovers. We are the kind who walk into a book store and stop a moment to take in the wonderful smell of books. Staying in Bangalore, there aren't too many places to go to, in the city. Movies, malls, pubs (yeah, we are the pub city, remember?), food joints and more recently book-stores. We nearly always pick the last two. Between the two of us, we invest thousands of rupees every month, on books. The huge wall-to-wall bookshelf in our house (my little library - yeah, yeah, turn green) is overcrowded with books of all colours and sizes, science, fantasy, fiction, romance, thrillers, math, management, there are so many with barely space for more.

I am pretty sure that my gold medal in school (ok, ok, you may stop clapping and sit down now) was simply due to my love for reading and books, not so much my intelligence. My school books were crammed with notes wherever there was a white space in between lines, words and around the page. When I studied for the exams, I'd feel compelled to read the notes scrawled across the pages, which most of the time was pretty much the same as the text and explained in different words by the teacher. In effect, I read everything twice. That was my advantage over everyone else.

I digress. The point I am trying to make is, by the end of each year, my books would look used (abused is a more appropriate word) and there was hardly a point in trying to sell them off to second hand book-stores. I never wanted to anyway, it was my parents who would force me to part with my books... I'd fight tooth & nail for them but in about 4 - 5 years time I would have never looked at them and that would be the classic argument that led to my downfall & my parents' victory.

In my final year of college, I met my husband. He was absolutely delighted to find out that I loved books too and was eager to lend me some of his own. The difference lay in the fact that his love for books also meant that the books looked as good as new for years after he had bought them and read them numerous times. No creases in the spine, no dog-ears, no sign that the book had ever been opened, let alone been read!

The first couple of books he gave me went back looking about 5 years older. One of them was all wrinked at the spine, slightly folded around the edge whereas in the other, there were a few loose pages. I never realized it back then but it chills my spine when I think of it now. Poor guy. It must have nearly killed him to see that! He never said a word, back then. Talk about love being blind! As months rolled by and the blindness receded (the love didn't, I swear), a dog-ear on a page or a line of crease would kick off an episode of books flying and hitting the walls, doors slamming and banging tables.

Thanks to the intensive training (yeah, he'd want me to read a book he really liked and I'd better return it looking just like it did before I started), I now keep my books in pretty good condition too. Since I mastered the act (never open a book fully, always read them opened in a V-fashion to avoid creases; use book-marks), my books are in pretty good condition too. I don't cram notes on my books anymore (except an occasional underline or a reference note) and I use book-marks. I like my books in good condition. I never lend my books unless I know they will be returned and in good shape. Fortunately, I've managed not to reach the point of sufferance where a crease would upset me for days on end.

I was reading A Cup Of Comfort For Friends while on the toilet this morning (in my defense, it's a book of anthologies, each spanning 4 - 5 pages max & I can easily read a story or two, in the time) and my heart skipped a beat, right in the middle of a short story. There was a crease right in the middle of a page. A sharp one, with a small cut at the top. A slight tug and the page would split into two. I took a sharp breath and continued to read. Turned the page and the same on the next sheet. I couldn't read anymore. Forced myself to finish the story. It hurts. This wasn't one of my favourite books because I am not so hot on anthologies. However, some of the the stories in this book are not bad and they make perfect reading for my mornings in the bathroom. That's not important. My book. Torn. Well, almost. Why didn't I check before I bought it? Ah, it hurts.

Obviously, the images in this blog are courtesy Google search. While I'm at it, here are some pictures of what I'd really like. A home library. A large room full of books. Shelves filled with old and new books. Ah, I dream on...

Chick Lit & Dude Lit

I read and love chick lit. I can't remember where I got that word from, somehow I knew it when I picked up one book in that genre. From answers.com: Chick lit is a term used to denote genre fiction within women's fiction written for and marketed to young women, especially single, working women in their twenties and thirties. The genre sells well, with chick lit titles topping bestseller lists and the creation of imprints devoted entirely to chick lit. It generally deals with the issues of modern women humorously and lightheartedly.


The other day I picked up a similar genre of book but didn't know what to call it for it was guy stuff, instead of girls. I wondered what that would be called. Guy lit? Men lit? Finally, I searched for 'dude lit' on an impulse. Answers doesn't really have anything for the term but a few sentences cropped up in my search with 'dude lit' used in the context. So, I guess that's it then.

Here's some dude lit for interested people - http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/07/13/guylit/index.html


I'm currently reading 'A Brand New Friend' by Mike Gayle. As much of a fun read as a chick lit, no less. I love it. Looking for some light reading? Fun? Love chick lit? Try this. A guy's perspective and how differently they think, it's all there for you.

Calvin & Hobbes

Love the way he goes about this.

http://progressiveboink.com/archive/calvinhobbes.htm

My fave are the last two... never seen the sentimental side of Calvin before, how did I miss that?

Free eBook Library

http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/digilib/

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Read 'The Lost Symbol'. Had to finish it in one sitting, not because it was so good but because I did not want to give the book more than one day of my life.

I did not enjoy it at all. It was too descriptive, there were fewer dialogues and more of explaining the scenes. It came across to me as being very movie-ish. I would suggest one to give the book a miss and wait for the movie instead. It might look a lot better and there will definitely be more clarity of picture. There's more to be enjoyed with the visuals than there is to say or read.

It's not too different from his other books - the strange symbols, ancient history, the usual stuff. At the end of the quest you find out that what everyone has been searching for was right there and was something pretty obvious/uncomplicated. Think of solving puzzle after puzzle, putting your life at risk, crossing difficult hurdles and then ending up where you started, only to watch the sunset or something equally 'normal'. The book is something on those lines.

Priced at Rs. 650, give or take a few bucks, I did not think this book was a good investment.

Veronika Decides To Die

Read 2 books this week. The first one was a gift - Veronika Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho and the next was A Place Called Here by Cecilia Ahern. Kind of abstract books, both! This isn't a very good review of either book, merely a brief summary of both,
simply for the sake of writing about each. Read them to find out for yourself, if they are good.

Veronika tries to take her own life with a few pills... for no reason other than she's tired of the mundane routine in her life. Somehow, she ends up in a mental hospital instead. She's treated by a Doctor who makes her believe that she has only a few days to live, with heart-attack like symptoms inducing medicine. She begins to appreciate life at the mental hospital, meets a supposed schizophrenic and then doesn't want to die anymore! The doctor is pleased for a successful experiment of making people want to live by bringing them close to a feeling of death. Well-written but not a new concept. Can't say I enjoyed it immensely but didn't think it wasteful reading either.

Cecilia Ahern has magic in her books. She paints beautiful pictures with her words. This book's again of a woman, not so normal. Obsessed with the need to 'find' missing things, she ends up in a place called 'Here' where all missing things go, after twenty four years of searching. Once she's found everything and returned home (in the same strange manner she landed in 'Here' in the first place), she's cured and comes home happy. She ends up together with her doctor-counsellor of many years.

I noticed a striking similarity between the two books - even though one was slightly dark and heavy whereas the other was angelic white and light. Both had women protagonists, strange women that no one understood and both had a happy ending. Both women turn out 'normal' in the end. Both stories were slightly far-fetched yet believable in a weird sense.

I'm wondering if I ought to read Sudha Murthy first or hit another Coelho. Got a few hours to decide, let's see!

BPO-Sutra, Another Wannabe Money-Making Attempt

Each Indian English author I read these days pushes me one step away from picking up another one! Funnily enough, it's only the male authors I pick up that turn out to be wannabes. I've read a couple of chick lit and they're not too bad.

The latest I'm reading is called 'BPO Sutra' by Sudhindra Mokhasi. So, he worked in a BPO for some years. So, he heard some stories from his fellow BPO friends at lunch or coffee or drinks or wherever else in hell. Instead of writing a blog which everyone reads for free, the smartass compiles a bunch of anecdotes into a book and is trying to sell it to gullible readers like me, who are desperately trying to find some good Indians who could write something that make their reading time a well-spent hour each day. I would probably find a needle in a hay stack!

Did this guy chose not to write a blog because then nobody would let him steal their stories? On the other hand, you tell people that you'll print their stories, they will willingly pour their heart out and not even charge you for it. Some are just happy to see their tales in print and you cash in on that. He even says in his book that you can email him any quotable BPO narratives you have for him. Hail, hail!

By the way, what's with the BPO hang-up? So, Chetan Bhagat wrote a book called 'One Night @ The Call Center'. Do I need more books re-iterating the same scene in the form of different repeated unrepeatable stories? The book doesn't even have a proper order in which the stories are lined up. Dude, don't you think you should have done some work atleast, instead of just stringing your day to day life at your workplace, page after page? For the 150 bucks I paid, don't you think you could have put in about a couple of hours worth of your own sweat into the book?

He's got a line out of Chetan Bhagat (who I like, incidentally) printed on the top cover of his book. It goes something like 'Not 10, Not 20, Not 50 but 150 stories from BPOs and Call Centres'. That should have been enough to tell me not to buy the book... why wasn't I concentrating? Note that Chetan says nothing about the content of the book... well, if you ask me, there really was nothing to say except what he has!

So, that's it! No more Indian English authors for me - not men atleast, not for a long time.

Let me see if Paulo (Coelho) can fix my mood... I've got his latest. Hmmm... think I ought to finish his earlier one before I start on the new book? Maybe!

Shit hit the fan

I slept in today. Till 4PM. I'm having one of those crappy days when all I want to do is go out and have fun but all I can do is lie in bed and unwrap all my sad memories one by one. Missing my best friend, having a sick dog for company and waiting for somebody's email is not helping at all! I don't know where the husband is... off on one of his cycling trails, I believe.

What better way to make the day worse than by reading a wannabe Indian author? Well, he sure seemed like that. I never understood Indian-English writers who use Indianisms liberally in their books. What are they thinking? Indianism is not a bad thing but one should know when to stop! I've enjoyed R K Narayan's books and he has a fair deal of the local flavour in his writing. But when someone starts saying, "Like that only" for a question on why he was doing something, it irritates me. That was lingo I stopped using in my 1st standard! And it's not cool!

I won't name the author for fear of being sued for money when he reads this. Okay, he may never read this but just indulge me a bit here alright? I'm having a really crappy day. The best moment I've had so far is when I was day-dreaming as I waited for my laptop to boot up. I imagined that I was sitting down to write a master-piece, pasta on my spoon and a glass of Bournvita next to me, and that I was going to become famous when people start reading this write-up! Of course, Windows announcing that I've logged in brought me out of my reverie but I didn't let go of the moment.

Now, I just had a sip of the Bournvita and the moment jerked out of my fingers and ran away. Well, there is no milk in the house, so it's just some brown powder and boiled water. How comforting can that be? Buying groceries was on my To-Do list this morning but I've been too busy napping and reading about somebody's friend Sancho, so the fridge is empty but for some of yesterday's rice and sambar.

I'm still angry with the book and it's creator, so I'm going to beat him up some more here, bear with me. His book review on the back of the cover has a line that says he masturbates 11 times a day. Eeewww! Not surprising, though, if you see his picture on the back of the back cover of the book. He goes on to say that he was exaggerating, which makes me think he's a despo of some sort. He's a journalist in real life and one in the book... makes me wonder if he decided to pen his frustration and make some money out of his own misery. What does that say about the kind of person he must be?

I tried my hand at some witticism today, hoping to make some money on the Twitter Tees contest. More than half the people voted 'Hell No' on my wisecracks.

Mom's nagging me now, for all the 100 things I haven't done since I was born. Hell, I wish I'd just stayed in bed! Dad's just joined her and they have both successfully managed to kill my imagination. I'm fumbling for words and struggling to sequence them into meaningful sentences.

Well, life is... like that only. What to do? Ufff!