In Paradise

 What else is there if there is no music. These days I am hooked to the music of Passtime Paradise and Gangsta's Paradise. It has a trance effect and can keep playing in backdrop.

Stevie Wonder's Passtime Paradise

Coolio's Gangsta Paradise

The year of Istanbul

 Things happen by chance. This year I started with watching Netflix documentary series on how Mehmet Pasha captured Istanbul (then Constantinople) from Roman rule. It is a fascinating tale which I was unaware.

Later while coming back from my Norway trip, I got a chance to spend some time in Istanbul airport. To memorize this event, I got some Turkish delight.

Finally by chance I laid my hands on Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk's book "Silent House". This is a very interesting story with 5 POV characters spanning 3 generations. A very gripping tale of humanity.

Sweet Failure

 Today I failed to secure my first position despite having it under control till last 45 minutes. It was fun and learnt good lessons in German language. Looking forward to being first in Ruby league 

Sticking to the point

 “You don’t care to have somebody stick to the point when he tells you something?”

“Oh, sure! I like somebody to stick to the point and all. But I don’t like them to stick too much to the point. I don’t know. I guess I don’t like it when somebody sticks to the point all the time.”

…

“But what I mean is, lots of time you don’t know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn’t interest you most. I mean you can’t help it sometimes. What I think is, you’re supposed to leave somebody alone if he’s at least being interesting and he’s getting all excited about something. I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It’s nice.”

Excerpt From

The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger

After death

“Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”

Excerpt From

The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger

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About night clubs

 There isn’t any night club in the world you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get drunk. Or unless you’re with some girl that really knocks you out.

- The Catcher in The Rye

A visit to barber shop

 Today is Saturday. Rohit was planning to get his hair trimmed for past one week. It has grown uneven from all sides and high time to get a hair cut.

He decided to visit the nearby hair salon. Recently he has found out that this salon charges much less that the other salon. Being a spendthrift he is it suited him perfect.

When he reached there, he found that instead of the regular middle aged barber a boy was sitting there who must not have been more that 20 years of age. He had seen this boy in his previous visits and thought he must be his son or some other relative. With the customary question of how he can help, to which Rohit answered by saying he needs hair cut, boy asked him to sit on the chair.

This was the usual chair where he used to sit in his previous visits. Boy asked him whether he will like hair cut by machine or scissors, Rohit replied that he can go with machine. Even though there was some doubt in Rohit's mind that whether this boy is any good with job or not, Rohit decided to give him a chance and especially he is not very particular with how his har should look perfect.

Boy was attentive and meticulous. He progressed well and asked for more inputs on whether back of hair should be straight or cut, which was again an amusing question to Rohit as he never cared. Eventually the job was done and it was not a bad job after all.

When Rohit asked how much to pay, the boy said Rs 130 which was much cheaper to Rohit's delight. Boy asked him if he can pay him by cash insted of mobile pay, Rohit told him that he doesn't have change and showed him his Rs 500 note. Boy took his money and said that he will get it changed.

Now it was waiting game for him. As minutes started passing, he began regretting first for wasting his time. He could have insisted on paying by mobile and would have been in home by now. Then he started doubting. Has the boy ran away with his money? It must be an easy money for him. Do I even know this boy? How will I get rest of my money back. Shall I come back later. But will barber shop owner even aknowledge my claim? What will happen if he refuses to recognize this boy. Oh man, I should have never trusted him.

Then he saw that a phone was lying there. He thought if the boy doesn't come in next 5 minutes he will simply grab the phone and leave. Of course this phone must be of some value to anyone and he has a chance of getting rest of the money back. But at the same time it didn't feel very right to grab some one elses phone. In this conundrum another 5 minutes have passed. There was no sign of boy on the street. Rohit was getting restless. He had almost made up his mind to take the phone and leave for home, when the boy came running up the stairs to shop. He gave him Rs 370 back and started serving other customer who was waiting.

Rohit felt little bit guilty, little relieved. He wanted to tip, but then hold back thinking that this fellow had made him wait unnecessarilty and went home.

(c) Anup Mayank

Enjoying food during Ramadan in Hyderabad

 Hyderabad is a place to be if you want to enjoy good non vegeterian food with generous servings. During Ramadan, you can get Haleem and many varieites of delicacies. We went to visit Charminar area and below is the scenery from eatery of Sonu Kebabs

Mental health and well being

My thoughts on recent tragic news of an IIT, IIM graduate employee suicide. 

 

Book : A Wild Sheep Chase

 How will you react if someone says that a "Sheep" has entered me. Well for followers of mysticism and believers of supernatural it is totally plausible. But in the society of scientific minded people it will be hard to digest.

Author Haruki Murakami doesn't disappoint with his dual mode of writing. It is both commonplace and bizarre at the same time. The main character of this story is forced by powers of much importance to find a particular sheep in a months time or else his life will be destroyed. All this because he has a picture of a flock of sheep which contains this peculiar sheep.

A story of absurd notion. Where will someone find a sheep in any city or place based on a picture. However it is all possible in Murakami world.

My other writings on book  are here

Flying man and artist robots

 These days we are living in a strange and exciting times. Past one and half years have been buzzed up by the capabilities of AI where machines can answer any question you ask, write a story or poem for you. They can paint you a picture and even create a movie. It truly looks like Genie is out of the bottle. Will it make us superhuman or will it subjugate us?

Now it begs the question, what is real or what is unreal? Is a content generated by machine authentic for human taste? If not, then why not? Why is a story by another human imagination is better than machine imagination (or hallucination). With growing automation, it was predicted that humans will do more of humane things (aka search of knowledge and creativity). But even that is taken away from them, then what next?

It is not as if humans are not doing anything. Straight out of movies, men are flying around in jet packs. Can this become the main mode of commute in a condensed city of future world.

उस रात की क्या बात

 फरवरी का महीना और वो चांदनी रात 

उस रात की क्या बात 

पेड़ों से लिपटी हुई मदहोश हवायेँ और

तुम से होना पहली मुलाकात 

उस रात की क्या बात 

फक्कड़ से घूम रहे थे हम, कुछ सकुचाती हुई आई तुम 

दिल में उठे जज़्बात 

उस रात की क्या बात 

शायद तुमने देखा भी न हो,  फिर मिलो अगर तो पहचानो भी न सही 

लेकिन मुझे रहेगी ताउम्र याद 

उस रात की क्या बात