The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner, the book which I finished reading recently.
I can say it's definitely one of my favourites.
Few excerpts which I liked (especially of Amir's father's dislike towards the American way of life)...

"But the Bay Area's smog stung his eyes, the traffic noise gave him headaches, and the pollen made him cough. The fruit was never sweet enough, the water never clean enough, and where were all the trees and open fields? For two years, I tried to get Baba to enroll in ESL classes to improve his broken English. But he scoffed at the idea. 'May be I'll spell 'cat' and the teacher will give me glittery star so i can run home and show it off to you', he would grumble".

"It turned out that Baba had had no money on him for the oranges. He'd written Mr. Nguyen a check and Mr. Nguyen had asked for an ID. 'He wants to see my license,' Baba bellowed in Farsi. 'Almost two years we've bought his damn fruits and put money in his pocket and the son of a dog wants to see my license!'".

"I wanted to tell him that in Kabul, we snapped a tree branch and used it as a credit card. Hassan and I would take the wooden stick to the bread maker. He'd carve notches on our stick with his knife, one notch for each loaf of naan he'd pull for us from the tandoor's flames. At the end of the month, my father paid him for the number of notches on the stick. No questions. No ID".

It's funny the way Kannada movie advertisements are posted in news papers...
After the title, they always want a caption in English...
And to describe a hero they need English words such as 'power star', 'crazy star', 'challenging star', 'hatric star' and so on...
In the end they speak of saving Kannada language.

Pondering...while in the hospital

* Learning to change the saying 'Health is Wealth' to 'Wealth is Health' or 'One that is wealthy (or the insured)can afford to get health care'...
* Getting few good news on my health side:)
* Cursing all the Doctors who diagnosed me incorrectly; for having made me swallow those bitter pills for one whole year; for preventing me from having some delicious food items for so long...
* Looking at my daughter from the fifth floor window...
* Listening to her speak new words (umbella for umbrella and Hydabd for Hyderabad)over the phone...
* Watching cookery shows just to increase my food cravings...
* Fighting with the sisters and canteen boys to get a cup of Horlicks (my condition was never so pathetic)...

S bought flowers for me today (to say 'get well soon')...
He has of course bought flowers for me many times but this time it was special. Why?
He argued with the hospital management to get those flowers inside the premises as it was not allowed.
He also gave them a valid reason for doing so...that being "Hospital management entertains a flower shop inside its premises at same time puts up a rule inside the hospital that flowers are not allowed into the wards".
With this point being raised, even the management laughed and said he would do something about it.
At first I was angry on him but once he explained the whole story I felt it was very sweet of him.

For Granted

While I was lying on bed this weekend sick with fever, I went back to the days of my high school and college days or rather call it 'days when I was matured enough to think about others and not just myself'.
Then, whenever my mother was down with fever I never helped her. Even if I did it was after she told me to do so but not by self.
I knew I shouldn't be doing that yet I couldn't get myself up helping her.
She would just tell me once and not insist or complain about not giving her helping hand.
Lying sick in bed this time I realized how mother would have felt- so tired and weak yet carrying out the responsibility as usual.
For me at least, I had S who took over all my job while at the same time looked after my little brat.
But my mother wouldn't tell anyone...
I still take her for granted for so many things and I think even after realising this I will still continue to do so just because she is my Mother.
And I also know that she wouldn't complain in future too.
May be one day my girl too will start doing the same and I wouldn't complain.

Bribery v/s Reinforcement

I always considered bribery and reinforcement were one and the same...
...Until I entered my master's.
It was then that I exactly learned the differences between the two.
And the basic difference being that: in bribery you give the reward even before the work is done and in reinforcement reward is given after the work is finished so that the individual performs the act again wanting to get the rewards continuously.
These two terms entered my mind while listening to the song of 3 idiots...Give me some sunshine...wherein he says 'rishvat dena to khud papa ne sikhaya, 99 marks laoge to ghadi varna chadi':)

Of course, the subject under which the reinforcements were taught (Behaviour Modification) was one of my favourites and I had mastered it very well which proved to be useful later too.

Charminar

I never get bored of watching some of the old comedy movies such as Chupke Chupke, Khoobsurat, Angoor and Golmaal...
They carried humour in such a natural and easy manner.
And they successfully catch our attention even today.

Another weekend adventure

Last weekend we were lost and this weekend it was our turn to go shopping without our wallets in the pocket.
Good that we had not yet started our shopping before which we realised the situation.
But luckily, we had some food coupons to spend on eating and filling our stomach after all.
We swore never to repeat the mistake but all the while I thought to myself "we have a saved a lot this weekend"!

I've always hated the very sight of Farah Khan and her brother Sajid Khan.
They criticise and degrade people to the fullest extent possible.
And they consider themselves to be the finest directors of Bollywood which is utter nonsense.
I especially remember last year's award function (don't remember which award) wherein they both anchored the programme and did not miss a single chance to humiliate the best of directors.
They even insulted the debut director of the movie 'A Wednesday' for not having worn a suit for the function to which he remarked after winning the award that he would certainly get a suit stitched for himself as he had won the award!
Ashutosh Gowarikar later blasted them for being so critical for which the sibling duo didn't apologize because they considered it to be humourous.
May be it's wrong on our side to expect such a good behaviour from the Great Directors of the movies such as 'Om Shanti Om', 'Main Hoon Na' and 'Houseful'

Getting Lost

Getting lost or taking a route that is exactly the opposite may be quite frustrating, we may find lots of reasons to blame each person for not preparing ourselves to go in the correct direction.
Even more frustrating could be the fact that, there is very less fuel and no petrol station nearby.
Even worse, when you are hungry!
But the same situation can become humourous when everything is solved.

A Rajasthani shopkeeper at Dhola ri Dhani resort, Hyderabad.

Magnanimous Golconda Fort

One thing I must admit about visiting this place is that, me and S (he carrying my daughter too) had to climb up 365 steps to view the complete fort and we were completely exhausted at the end. And we were worrying about our condition for the next day as our muscles would remind us of our previous day adventure (which usually happens), but both of us were as perfect and painless as we would be everyday!
Call it the miracle of the fort and its structure.
Here is a picture of the beautiful fort...

Whenever I start reading a new book I will be compelled by the idea of turning it back and looking at the total number of pages of the book.
Not that I am scared of big fat books or the number of pages but it's just an old habit which I find it hard to get rid off.
Not only that, even after finishing each chapter I look to see how many pages the next chapter contains.
Weird it may seem but it is true.

Paulo Coelho

I had thoroughly enjoyed reading Paulo Coelho's Alchemist long time back.
With the same expectation I read his other books- The Witch of Portobello and Eleven Minutes and it didn't impress me much.
Though the stories start nicely but they fail to hold the attention till the end.
Here and there his philosophy about life and dreams is good. But at the same time, his explanation about some ritualistic practices is hard to understand.

Here are some excerpts from his books which I liked:
From Eleven Minutes- "Dreaming is very pleasant as long as you are not forced to put your dreams into practice. That way, we avoid all the risks, frustrations and difficulties and when we are old, we can always blame other people- preferably our parents, our spouses, or our children- for our failure to realise our dreams".

From The Witch of Portobellowriting about 'Ants' he says "The guards are genetically prepared to to sacrifice themselves for the queen, the workers carry leaves 10 times their own weight, the engineers make tunnels that can resist storms and floods. They enter into mortal combat with their enemies, they suffer for the community and they never ask 'Why are we doing this?'".