Come together

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

3 Books

After many days I went to my favourite bookshop Strand Book Stall, last Friday, and purchased 3 books:

• Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta


• On Beauty by Zadie Smith


• Saturday by Ian McEwan

All the books are in paperback edition. I have heard a lot about Maximum City, and has been highly recommended to me by my dear friend. The hardback edition was quite costly, but now it has come in paperback edition, but still at Rs. 395/- it is quite costly. Hope it will be good read.

The book which I am reading at present is White Teeth by Zadie Smith. I quite like this book. On Beauty is her third book and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

I also wanted to purchase The Outsider by Albert Camus, but its price was more than Rs. 500/-. Maybe I should have purchased it, instead of On Beauty and Saturday. I have heard so much about Camus, but have never read him.


The book which I wanted to purchase The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (3 Volumes in a Slipcase) which was at Rs. Rs.4850 is way beyond my modest means. As I was paying for the above three books, a lucky lady had purchased Complete Calvin and Hobbes and I overheard salesman informing her that it is the last copy of the set. What a pleasant surprise that Mumbai city has Calvin and Hobbes fans. Well, it is very very difficult not to fall in love with the Calvin and the Hobbes. For the time being I will have to be content with my two collections of C&H, The Essential Calvin and Hobbes and The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes.

And the book which I will be gifting to myself on my birthday, which is in the first week of October, is Out of My Comfort Zone: The Autobiography, by Steve Waugh. This is now available in paperback and the price of the book at Rs. 565 is quite affordable for me. Steve Waugh has always been my favourite cricket player. After his retirement from international cricket, I have stopped following cricket matches. In my opinion, there was no one like Steve Waugh.

Cross-posted from my other blog, Raju's world

Hang a Quote

I have been tagged, yet again, by my blogging dost Kusum Rohra. So here are five random quotes. May be you will like them.

I, Me and Myself

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." -- Oscar Wilde (1854 –1900)

Oscar and also said "The final mystery is oneself" and "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance". Enough said.

Happiness

"If you want to be happy, be." -- Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910)

People have different interpretation of happiness. Read this:

An American, a Frenchman, and a Vietnamese refugee had a discussion about the happiness of life. "To me, happiness is returning home on a Monday evening, having a wonderful dinner prepared by my wife, then slouching on the sofa watching Monday Night Football," the American said.

"You Americans are not romantic at all", the French injected, "Sharing a beautiful evening with my lover, walking along the Seine river, and having a romantic dinner on top of the Eiffel tower. That is happiness of life."

"You call those things happiness", the Vietnamese laughed, "then you two still don't understand life at all. Imagine this. You are sleeping soundly at night in Saigon. Then suddenly you hear loud knocks on your front door. You hear loud voices, 'Mr. Nguyen Van Binh, open the door!'. Quaking with fear, you rush out and open the door. Right there, you see two secret policemen ready to handcuff you. One of them says to you, 'Mr. Nguyen Van Binh, you are under arrest for your anti-revolutionary activities. You are being sent to the re-educational camp tonight!' Sweating profusely and shaking uncontrollably, you reply to them, 'Comrades, Mr. Nguyen Van Binh lives next door.' That moment is happiness in life, my friends.

Free Lunch

"In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them." -- Robert Lucky (1936 -- )

People of Tamil Nadu are getting Freebie television. Maybe in the next election Ms Jayalalithaa will promise and give Freebie computers. Nothing is impossible for the Indian politicians.

Life

"Reality continues to ruin my life." -- Calvin and Hobbes

Sigh.

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live.
-- Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Love

"Love is the delusion that one woman is different from another". -- Oscar Wilde (1854 –1900).

Maybe it is true from a man's perspective.

A woman's perspective about Love might be:

My own dear love, he is strong and bold
And he cares not what comes after.
His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
And his eyes are lit with laughter.
He is jubilant as a flag unfurled --
Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.
My own dear love, he is all my world --
And I wish I'd never met him.
-- Dorothy Parker (1893 -- 1967)

Let him stay, please

CNN-IBN reports:

A 100-year-old man from Pakistan is begging to be allowed to spend his last few days with his family in Kashmir. But rules require him to return to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

Please do not send back Nadeem Din (pictured left), who had crossed over to the Pakistan occupied Kashmir in 1965, and returned to India recently. A grand old man of 100 years should be allowed to spent the evening of his life with his family members.

Back

I am back at the blogosphere. It is good to be back.

The blogging break was owing to an important activity at my place of work. It is over now and I am back to my normal being, after being on my toes, literally.

During the important event, 9 o'clock played a significant role. I used to come at 9 oclock bus (in the morning) and used to go back home at 9 o'clock bus (in the evening).

I am happy to be back. I will start reading my favourite blogs, soon.

BTW, today is Hindi Diwas . Happy Hindi Diwas to all.

Puchho Na Yaar

After being busy with various things, I got some time today to check blogs etc. etc. And I found video of one of my most favourite R.D. Burman song Puchho Na Yaar Kiya Hua, from movie Zamane Ko Dikhana Hai (1981) on You Tube . What a song! It makes me happy whenever I hear it, maybe it will make you happy too.

Blogging Break

I am taking a blogging break till Monday, September 18. I am busy with various things at office (place of work), the place from where I blog. Till then, be good.

1. Office employees will daily sweep the floors, dust the
   furniture, shelves, and showcases.


2. Each day fill lamps, clean chimneys, and trim wicks.
   Wash the windows once a week.


3. Each clerk will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of
   coal for the day's business.


4. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to your
   individual taste.


5. This office will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. except
   on the Sabbath, on which day we will remain closed. Each
   employee is expected to spend the Sabbath by attending
   church and contributing liberally to the cause of the Lord.

-- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872

Gandhigiri

Last Sunday I saw the movie Lage Raho Munnabhai. It is second in the series of Munnabai movies, the first one being Munnabhai MBBS.

First thing first --- I just loved the movie. It had given a new word to Hindi filmworld Gandhigiri which is just opposite of bhaigiri. Bhaigiri bole toh daddagiri and Gandhigiri bole toh vinarmata (humility). In one funny scene of the movie a character asks who is vinarmata. It is indeed very brave of director of the movie, Rajkumar Hirani, to make effective use of the Gandhian tools of truth, non-violence, satyagraha and make an entertaining movie out of it. After a long long time, I saw people clapping in the cinema hall. The movie was earlier named asMunnabhai Meets Mahamta, but eventually was named Lage Raho Munnabhai.

The story of movie is : Munnabhai (Sanjay Dutt) is in love with the voice of Radio Jockey Jhanvi (Vidya Balan), and takes part in a quizz contest on Mahatma Gandhi, so that he can win the contest and meet her personally. This contest he does win posing as ProfessorMurli Mohan Sharma with the help of real professors of history. Jhanvi is quite impressed with Munnabhai and asks her to lecture the inmates of old-age home, appropriately named Second Innings, on principles of Gandhiji. To keep his fake identify, Munnabahi, as suggested by his sidekick Circuit (Arshad Warsi) has no option but to study the writing of Gandhiji. From that point onwards, the movie picks up. Gandhiji (which is played by Dilip Prabhavalkar) appears only to Munnabhi, as he himself puts in later, due to to some `chemical locha' in his brain. The scenes involving Munnabhai and Gandhiji are the highlight of the movie. Munnbhai at first is skeptical by what Gandhiji tells him to follow, but those things starts showing surprising results.

I had not seen the first movie in this series Munnabhai MMBS in cinemas, but had got glimpses of it on telly. That movie seems to me to have some rough edges and the humour looked crude. This movie seems to have corrected this problem. The humour in this movie is quite good and often one wonders whether to cry or to laugh at the situation. In one scene, a old person callsMunnabhai, who along with Jhanvi had a show on satellite radio where people are advised to follow Gandhian methods to solve their problems, that he has not received his pension since he retired five years ago and is asked a bribe of five thousand rupees for getting his pension.Munnabhai advises him to follow Gandhian method and give in to the demands with vinarmata , of course. The old person goes to the person who has demanded bribe and gives him all he has got --- his wallet, spectacles, shirt, vests, belt, even trousers, telling him how much each item is valued. This shames the person who has asked bribe and he promptly signs the old person's pension papers.

It is good that younger generation will get to know about Gandhian idealism through this movie. I think Gandhiji would have approved of this movie and given it its nod of approval.

The name of my city Ulhasnagar gets mentioned in a dialogue of the movie. When due to their new method of satyagraha and non-violence, Munnabhai and Circuit are put to jail often and Circuit wonders if this frequent trips to jails will affect their reputations, Munnabhai tells him that on the contrary their reputation will increases and that roads and city will be named after him, like Gandhiji's, and Circuit says that like Ahmednagar, Ulhasnagar there will be Munnanagar.

There are speculation in the media that in the next sequence Munnabhai will get to go to USA and may meet Bush.

Link to official website of the movie.

Reviews of the movie are here, here and here.