THE ADDICTION

I called up Arnab

--“I’m f*^ked!”

--“What happened?”

--“I bought IT”

--“Bought what?”

--“THAT”

--“Bought WHAT?”

--“Two hundred and five dollars. DAMN!!! What was I thinking!!”

--“ho-ho-ho”

 (after audibly swallowing rest of the laugh), “really? What now?”

--“They are shipping it..DAMN!!”

That was my reaction after ordering the Kindle from amazon.  No fist-pumping, no self-congratulatory back-slapping, no chest thumping. Just plain and simple acceptance of my insatiable addiction of reading.

Let’s face it. I love reading. When I was a child, I used to read everything apart from my text books, and that means EVERYTHING, including but not limited to from wrappers for jhal-muri to the newspapers that was used on wet cement. In those days I used to stay at different small town or villages. There were never enough reading materials to satisfy me. So, I used to read everything multiple times. If I ever got my hands on a newspaper (which was not very often) it would be read from the headlines to the printed-and-published-by line again and again.

I never formally learned Bengali. When I just finished learning the simple sentence construction, somebody gifted me a story book by Upendrokishor RayChowdhuri. I started reading it and within a few days it was finished and I lost all interest in learning Bengali formally. The result is, now I don’t know the whole of Bengali alphabet by heart (it’s true, I never completed learning it)

I read up anything and everything while growing up. I just couldn’t decipher the difference between good writing and bad writing. People used to say “that book is good, but that one is not”. I used to wonder, “Really? But they both tell an amazing story, albeit in a different way”. Why one is is good and the other is bad?

My reading addiction turned for worse in my 3^rd college year when I discovered the joy of ebook. Before that by ebook I used to understand the text files from Gutenberg, which while were definitely very tempting due to their rich contents, but were an absolute nightmare regarding page marking or reading pleasure. But still it provided me a pleasure-haven only mine, though taxing on eye and back.

By 4th year I have learnt to enjoy the pleasure while ignoring the back-ache and eye-strains. Those were the days when I used to read on my PC for 6-8hrs at a stretch and 12-14hrs a day. Those were days where I finished Lord of the Rings + The Hobbit in 6 days straight. I cried after finishing it. Not only because it was worth it, also because for all those days I was living almost all my waking hours with the characters. They became my part of my life.

Almost the whole of 4^th year and half months after it was spent at home. I lost count how many books I read during that period. It was a time of pure pleasure!! Me and my books…those  were the days.

Anyway, I am rambling.

What happened last month is that I heard about price-drop of Kindle. Just out of curiosity, I went to check amazon and Kindle had me.

THIS was the thing I was looking for all these years. Something which behaves as a book, doesn’t strain my eyes and let me read whatever I wish to.

I had to have it.

So, the addiction goes on.

Will update on next post my buying experience on Kindle.

Till then ciao!

Ganges at dusk

Smog filled Kolkata sky

While we were there we saw martians attacking Howrah at night in their golden suits

Something similar to previous one.

A few clicks from my roof

Ray of hope in Prison of Darkness

My bed.. 

Path of Thorns

Silhouette

My Solution to end the Babri problem

Dear friends, I have found the perfect solution to the Babri masjid-Ram Janmabhumi issue. Before I present you the solution I must warn you about unintended consequences of uncontrollable shock and would also strongly advise to remove all fragile things away from your vicinity, after all computer monitors are not made of Kevlar ...yet!!

My solution is presented the following format
1. Call representatives of both the affected communities to a field.
2. Call for a toss.
3. Who ever wins gets the first right to build their worship place by a government agency i.e. Common Wealth Games Organizing Committee(CWG OrgCo) under the glorious and magnificent leadership of Mr. Suresh Kalmadi.
4. CWG OrgCo will bring their all the finely honed expertise from the construction of infrastructure for CWG.
5. As just seen from the ongoing projects of CWG which are awarded to various contractors as judged suitable by the OrgCo, this structure of the toss-winning community's will also fall down within 3months or when it rains or dog barks or monkey jumps on the roof,whichever is earliar.
6. When step 5 happens the other community can start building their structure by following step 3 to step 5.
7. If the structure doesn't fall-down withing the stipulated time the concerned contractor will have to put actual cement instead of sand in all the other contracts he is awarded.
8. Step 3 to step 7 will keep on repeating until the country runs out of money or tax payers stop earning to protest (since it is impossible to stop paying taxes)


This path will surely help us to reach a stable and safe country where all people can pay there pay their taxes and see that their favourite god's abode is being raised every 3 months!!

Whaddya say?

An adventure with my stupidity

WOW!!! It seems like I am writing something down after 3000 years..Its been so long since I wrote something…

Anyway…this is something I couldn’t stay without writing ….

It all happened on a lovely Sunday (lovely only because it was a holiday, a rare commodity otherwise in my so-called uselessly busy professional life). The morning started harmlessly enough…slept till 7.45(which is a lot late considering a wake up at an ungodly hour of 6am). Arnab called last night and he was in a unique problem, namely, how to connect a 4.1 speaker in a 2.1 port?

I did the following

1. Thought about the problem for sometime and then decided to trust Google

2. Woke up my comp (which was running throughout the night and hence, was in a bad mood)

3. Played MAFIA WARS

4. Watched SALT (nothing worth watching except Angelina Jolie and her action sequences)

5. Read a chapter of ” Hanif Mohammed- The case of exploding mangoes” (see, I am a very busy man ,so I read a single chapter everyday)

6. Had breakfast

7. Called Arnab to give some free advice but went on a deeply intellectual discussion about motherboard configuration and architecture

8. Had a brilliant flash of idea of cleaning my computer after 2years of delaying it and thus started my adventure.

Things started to go wrong from here. After opening my computer the first thing a noticed is a ton of dust deep black in color and almost covering the whole inside. No wonder that machine used to make such a generator like sound while running, I thought.

Being the mighty brave person I am the first thing I did was give a mighty blow (of air,not the physical blow,though which might have been my subconscious intention) inside the cabinet. For a moment I thought I lost my eyesight, It was pitch black everywhere with a incredibly suffocating feeling!! After few seconds the dust settled down (where else, on me and the just-cleaned floor)I thought for a few seconds and then decided I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. SO this time I tried with a piece of cloth…it was going well until I noticed the inside of the processor fan. It was thick with dust and wasn’t accessible by the brush I had.

Being the uber-genius, I promptly brought a screwdriver and opened the processor from motherboard and cleaned it for a long time. The cabinet was looking like an animal whose innards have been spread around for examination. This is the point where things went totally out of control.

Firstly the processer would not screw back…there were four washers to attach the screws..they were a bit loose ( they weren’t loose in the first place, in my enthusiasm I managed to make them loose to take out the processor) So, as long a s the washers do not come in alignment the screws wouldn’t fit it..and they, just like our political parties, simply refused to come in alignment. After much cajoling and fighting finally they came together but not before making a dent the motherboard. But then another problem has cropped up. The cords for my two drives have been opened up…and I forgot which one was for whom!! Trusting my luck just managed to get them attached and thought 4 wires means 4 possible combinations…will try all of them..until something works!!

Everything attached, I switched on the comp and it started with a whining….5 seconds and it shut down it self…

I scratched my head and again went the insides of the cabinet …then I found it…RAM (Ramji as some people call it)..was stuck in opposite end..corrected and tried it again…

5sec…10 sec…its working…so I shutdown it again and attached rest of the cables and then started it again for a final inspection. The system started…but wait!!! There’s no display on the monitor and the keyboard is not showing any power!! I scratched my head some more and then decide to go through the innards of the cabinet once again.

I did whatever was my knowledge in these matters…pressed everything in their places so that nothing remains loose…took out the RAM cleaned it with a eraser and attached it again…still nothing…..after a few more tries I finally threw up my hands. It was beyond my skills (or whatever I was passing as skills to unsuspecting peoples).

The rest as they say is history. I had to ask a technician to come, he was to busy , so next day it was taken to the original assembler who fixed it by rubbing the RAM on his head….yes on his head!!

Who the hell rubs RAM on head? I mean I have heard about RAMs being rubbed by eraser but …head???

Seriously!!

My comp wiz friend Debankar said may be it’s the next level of action in the chain of maintenance procedure for systems. All I know is that my comp is up and running again…and waiting for my next adventure!!

To infinity and beyond!!

HE WEAVED HIS MAGIC AGAIN

Chetan Bhagat is back and this time not with a bang but with a ripe, matured love story but not unlike The Five Point Someone (FPS), One Night @ Call Centre (ONCC) or 3 Mistakes of My Life (3MML).

2 States - The Story Of My Marriage

is everything what FPS is not and its everything what FPS is about. If FPS was the best engineering campus-story ever 2 SSMM is more of a matured love story. And the funny thing is the story follows the storyline of Shyam of FPS (though his name here is Krish Malhotra). The similarities just start here; it has all that has become staple diet of Mr. Bhagat. An aggressive woman who always makes the first move, a seemingly loser boy (definitely not hero type), love, fun, complication, betrayal, tears and an almost bollywoodish and big-bang climax with odes to the youth of the country!! 2 States has it all in varying degrees and yet it is different.

The story starts with Krish with a psychiatrist going on a confession. The story of Krish is remarkably similar to Shyam’s…..same bad grades at IIT-D, affair with daughter of Professor, a dominating father at home,an ex-army who beats his wife etc….The story starts at the first week of IIM-A where Krish and Anjali meets. Anjali Swaminathan….smart, talented, beautiful tamil Brahman ( I heard they are called tambram…confirmation, anyone??). The first act follows typical Chetan Bhagat path. But it is different from the second act. Now thay have to make their families accept each other. That’s where the fun begins. An ostentatious Punjabi woman who thinks her only son is the best jewel of the whole world and everybody is out to steal him and a quite, orthodox tamil family who believes in knowledge and absolutely hates show-offs……sparks are bound to fly!!!!

The rest of the story is how Krish tries to find acceptance in Anjali’s family and Anjali in Krish’s family. It seems tough?? Well, compared to what to come….it was nothing. Now that have to make sure the families like each other and faced with instant cultural clash and suspicion it’s an improbable task!!

Unlike his other books, this one moves over the whole country and lots of social observation. It also doesn’t have Chetan Bhagat getting the story from someone and then asking him to complete it. It also follows up to his traditional style. FPS was a (I don’t know what genre it was..College romance??college life??coming of age story??...I don’t know), ONCC was a workplace romance story which was going good until that call from god and then that horrible harebrained scheme to dupe thousands of people to save jobs, 3MML was predictable from first page though the concept was good. 2 SSMM is not any of these genres; it has its own place. For the first time he asks questions about out strange social practices without making anyone look guilty. Romance or not, its definitely his first social novel.

I immensely liked this book. It has that same quality that makes you identify yourself with Shyam in FPS. He feels just like you….its almost like you can feel his emotions or what he is thinking and then you sit straight and realized you would have done the same thing in his place!! That’s why FPS was most loved book across the college campuses. 2 SSMM have the same quality that makes you identify with Krish Malhotra, be it his helplessness in fight between his in laws and his mother or his boredom with job or his pain of heartbreak. Chetan Bhagat has definitely reached another level with this novel. Makes you stop and think again about your life and what do you want in life!!!

My Rating

IF

Five Point Someone - What not to do at IIT-10/10

Then One Night @ the Call Center 6/10

The Three Mistakes of My Life 4/10

2 States - The Story Of My Marriage 8.8/10

Its an Earthquake!

The first earthquake I faced was when I was 4-5 years old. Well, the truth is I heard that I faced the earthquake, but I don’t remember anything.

At that time I used to live at Raigunj, North Dinajpur. I was taking my afternoon nap. My father’s friend Maity uncle was supposed to come to repair our TV. Later I heard that there was an earthquake that afternoon and while everybody was busy screaming and being stunned Maity uncle carried me out of the house into the courtyard. Being a very sound sleeper I naturally don’t remember anything of it. But everybody verified it to be true…so it must be.

The second time I faced an earthquake…….well I was sleeping then too. But this time I had the decency to wake up with the quake (I guess I am getting old, I don’t sleep such soundly anymore).

It was around 2-2.30 at night, I was sleeping after a long and tiring journey. I was also suffering from fever, though no one knew that at home! I was on the bed and my parents were sleeping on the floor, when I felt the bed shake. Now, I’ve felt beds shaken many times before thanks to my upbringing in many different places. There was this place at kalyani where the whole building used to shake when any heavy truck moved by the Highway beside.

So, when I felt the bed shaking beneath me and I woke up, I couldn’t decide it was a just a bad dream or realty. It took me few precious seconds to realize that it was for real. By then the quake has stopped. I thought about getting up and enquiring but then decided to finish the sleep first!! Just before drifting to mind-numbing sleep again, I heard father asking our neighbors if they felt anything.

Next morning news told us the details, that a heavy intensity earthquake has struck at Indonesia and what we felt was just a jolt! I later wondered, if a jolt was powerful enough to shake a three-story building like a cheap wooden table then what the real deal would have done!! I really don’t want to know that!