Departure

Every departure is small death. Converse is not true. Just as entropy always increases, so does departure raises loss of life moments. These losses are unknown. And unknown losses cause more grief than the known ones.

But unless you depart, how will new possibilities form? How will you witness new tale? How will we ever know the unknown? You lose some in the hope of some gain.

And hope is the greatest gift to humanity as told in Pandora's perilious tale. After all the sorrows and pain she found hope. So l must depart to find that new hope. I must leave to find a new tale.

(C) Anup Mayank

Book Review - The Unfrazzled-Kite

The Unfrazzled Kite by Kamal Panda
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a story of love, sacrifice and human values. Story revolves around a small place in Orissa. Author has beautifully woven a story of 3 generations. In fact there are multiple sub-stories along with the main course of story. I think there were several other POV characters who have their own side of story to tell, but has not been captured here. E.x. one of the main character Smita leaves a lot to yearn for her. How she endured all is kind of omitted. Nevertheless it is a short read for your enjoyment. Hope you like it.

PS: Author is a close friend of mine. So my views are slightly biased here, despite my attempt to provide an unbiased review. Hope he writes more books on varied topics in coming days.

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Book Review - Ghachar Ghochar

Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a perfect dosage of Sambhar with Coffee. A tale of how fortune changes the life of close knit family. The family is still close, but their values have now changed. To maintain this seemingly good life what all compromises and atrocities they commit both to themselves and other. Author has very cleverly painted the scenes of everyday battles in Indian households. It also shows how muddled our thinking is and we are unable to take a right decision and remain indecisive. Essentially we live in Ghachar Ghochar.

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Book Review : Olympus an Indian Retelling of the Greek Myths

Olympus: An Indian Retelling of the Greek Myths by Devdutt Pattanaik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am a fan of reading mythical stories. In that regards this book was a treat to me. I have enjoyed reading stories about several Greek heroes and their tragedies. Now I understand the phrase "Greek Tragedy". Devdutt has tried to draw parallels with Indian mythical stories. My only complain with author is that he has tried to cram a lot of stories in a short book. Thus it looks like reading notes for an exam. But nevertheless it is a good book to get a crash course in Greek Mythology.

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Book review : The Time Keeper

The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A good story on how we waste our beautiful days and nights to be in a hurry to do one thing or the other. We are increasingly fail to appreciate what we have got and running after what we don't have. I happened to pick this book out of library just by chance and I am glad that I gave life a chance here.

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Craziness behind Kid's education

Today I happened to watch a forwarded video of a very young child reading 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

It is horrible to see that mother (my presumption) is shouting at such a young kid and also slapping her. And to make matter worse someone was filming it and shared it to whole wide world. 

This again proves that phones are getting smart, even cities are getting smart, but people in general are getting dumber. What possible good will come out of it. Will the child appreciate it or start hating it. What about her crushed soul.

I am part of a whatsapp group of the parents of my kids class. This group is helpful in information sharing about school, missed classes etc. But again I see a disturbing trend that at exam time there is desperation and undue pressure on kids. Parents discussing exam at 1130 in night is definitely not a good sign. 

If you are a parent of any such young kid, please let him/her be a kid. By all means educate them. But don't put undue pressure on them. They need our love and patience. Not the crazy, angry scolding attitude. 

Staying away from facebook

Last weekend we made a sudden plan to visit natural beauties around Pune. And as it happens that during drive, you talk. So me and my wife were talking of life in general. 

One of the point we both agreed that mobile phone usage is increasing in the house. Even kids are getting hooked to them, which we universally agree is not a good thing. 

But the problem is that how can we stop kids if we are continuously looking at mobile phone for whatsapp or facebook or gmail. Out of these we made an immediate resolution is that we are going to stop facebook from that day itself.

Now it has been a week and both of us haven't logged in to facebook. It is tempting, to go and check on others. Especially looks like facebook is keeping a track of who is not logging in. We get an email from facebook saying so and so has added a pic or commented on this or that.

But so far we have not gave in to temptation. Well it has not completely eliminated all distraction, but it is a good start. I am hoping to keep out of facebook for a longer duration. Lets see how successful we can be. 

Three questions

(1) When is the right time to begin everything?

(2) Who are the important people to listen to?

(3) What is the most important thing to do?


These are the questions discussed in a short story written by Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy gives a very valuable life lesson in form of this story and I will encourage readers to go through this story and other such short stories.

However to satiate the query raised in above 3 questions, following is the answer

(1) There is only one time that is right- Now ! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.

(2) The most important man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else.

(3) Most important thing to do is, to do that man good. Help him, serve him best as you can.