How To Lose Friends By Reading Books!!

Call this insane. But I have seen this happen with my own two eyes. You can lose friends by reading books. Not that you SHOULD. But I digress. Here is how you tend to lose friends as you read books:

• Books on your to-be-read list outnumber the friends you currently have in your life.
• You’d rather curl up in your bed or couch with a comforter, book, torch and coffee/tea than go out with friends on a weekend.
• When someone attempts to snap you out of your reading phase, you mentally cut them off, even if its only for that very instant.
• You love the smell of books – old and new, more than you love the smell of people!
• You don’t dream of matching curtains and bed covers. You dream of a room full of books and reading nooks.
• You gravitate towards people who are as obsessed with books as you are.
• You often judge people based on your current read or a book you read in the recent past. This doesn’t go down well with them I suppose!
• Nobody can understand bookspeak.
• Books are your BAE. Period.

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The Mills and Boons Story of the Unexpected Kind!

NOTE: I know you all must be confused as to why I am posting old posts now? Well, these are posts from my erstwhile blog (sounds so royal) and I have had people read them last year. But to my new readers, these are fresh posts and I don’t want them to miss out on any book related posts 🙂 So I will be re-posting random blogs, which some of you might have already read.

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Not very long ago, my friend visited a quaint little bookstore in Allahabad, UP. She mentioned that she was really surprised at the sight of the store selling all sorts of new and pre-owned books and that too at hefty discounts. Being a booklover bookhogger, she dashed straight towards it like a Zombie in search of brains or Vampire in search of fresh blood 😛 😉

She bought all those books that I promptly forgot the names…and talked to me animatedly over the phone like a little child clutching treasures in her hands. What she also added was this incident at the store, where a group of local chaps were circling around the store and obviously, they were not there for the books! Guess what, they ended up cornered in the “Mills and Boons section” in the store. 😛

X: Arey…yeh dekho…yeh badhiyaa books hain. Tumne padhi hai? (See the books? These are excellent. Have you read them? )

Y: Bilkul padhi hai. Badi achchi hoti hai. Main aksar khareedta rehta hu yehi se.(Of course I have! These are awesome. I keep on buying them from this store)

X: Haan…yeh wali “insert any M&B book name”. Yeh badhiya hai. (yes..this one..this is great!)

Y: Bilkul. Aur yeh bhi. (yes..and this one as well) picks up another one from the counter 

My friend and another girl were by this time making payments to the shopkeeper. Both of them glanced at one another and could barely suppress the fits of laughter. Because they knew that obviously, the guys had no clue about M&B and it was doubtful that whether they had read any other book as well!

Suddenly,  the other girl spoke up – loudly, so that the “booklovers” could hear her.

“Nice books na…? Girls read them a lot but the numbers are dwindling day by day!!”

To which, my friend replied (with a fictional answer made on the spot) “Yeah…my fifteen year old niece is a die-hard fan. I recently bought some for her.” (her niece is a toddler of barely two years 😛 )

The store keeper couldn’t resist laughing out loudly and the chaps…they quietly moved away from the M&B section and eventually fled the store. 😀

Things that people do for making an impression on strangers !! 😉

P.S. I do not want to state that M&B reading is a girly thing or that guys can’t read it, through the post. It is just to highlight what happens a lot around us in the name of “being cool” or to “impress” chicks 😛

Utterly Nonsensical Reasons Why I Refuse To Read Some Books After Page 1

NOTE: I know you all must be confused as to why I am posting old posts now? Well, these are posts from my erstwhile blog (sounds so royal) and I have had people read them last year. But to my new readers, these are fresh posts and I don’t want them to miss out on any book related posts 🙂 So I will be re-posting random blogs, which some of you might have already read.

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Dear Writers Of Books I Wanted To Read But Couldn’t,

I am a reader. I want to be an voracious reader once more and I do have the potential in my bones you know. But I can’t. I can’t just go beyond page #1 even though I try hard to !!!! I will not blame you because I do understand. This is why, it is I who is on the wrong side of things. The reasons are nonsensical.

The names seem fake: Some authors (I won’t reveal) love naming their characters as if they are going to name their future brood of kids. Exotic names. Really really exotic names. Now it can be understood that some names do suit the character and the setting. But puhleeeseee….sometimes they just stick out like a purple tongue. Okay, if the name is short and fairly simple, I can still proceed a bit. But lengthy names with cropped idiotic shortened nicknames…I am sorry. I can’t relate to your story at all.

Beating round the bush: Of late, I tend to close a book the moment I find that the author is doing nothing but beating round the bush. Unnecessarily. I read this book in train while going to Chennai and because I had no other backup option to entertain me, I had to struggle through it. The author was just going on and on about things that kicked me into a different universe every now and then. Bumpy ride. Ouch!! Brain-hurt alert!!

Bad endings: I am kind by nature. I happen to finish some books if I really go beyond page 1 through 30. Only to find that the author has stabbed me at the back with his/her pen ruthlessly. How? By penning a bad ending. Not cliffhanger kind of endings you see. But confusing, meaningless endings. Sometimes the endings seem to be torn out of a totally different book! What hurts more is that I lose hope of reading another book of the same type in the future.

Desperate Indian writers: Taking a cue from one of the so called bestselling authors, some Indian writers have totally gone berserk in churning out “Bestsellers” or you can say, cheap novels that cost about a hundred INR or so. I occasionally pick one or two up out of curiosity and to check how similar they are in terms of plot line and language. They never disappoint me. These are the books, I gladly give away to Fans of such Literature. Here is an article that will speak more than I can in ten such write-ups.

Not doing justice to the genre: A crime novella that looks more like an Indian daily soap’s sob story. A horror story that tickles the funny bone on a dark and stormy night. A story about bromance without any signs of the same. A supernatural creature novel that gives you goosebumps and cold sweats by thinking how could this trash get published. Brr….

Parting note –  I have taught school kids of grade 3 and 4. They are better writers.

How I Evaded my Homework!!

I have a confession to make. On a public platform, yes.

You might have already guessed it by the spoilery headline and here I go.

I was always a good student. The one who got the great grades, tried to obey teachers and toe the line. Tried to stay away from mischief (but mischief would always come running towards me with open arms). Gave all the answers in class like Hermione. Apart from getting chided from the teachers, my only unforgivable sin was – Not completing my homework.

Having been a teacher in the early part of my career, I know and I understand the importance of revising lessons at home. But try telling that to a student and he/she will look like you are taking away their basic rights!

Me for instance, hated opening my books as soon as I reached home. My mother used to help me study till I was in grade 1. Grade 2 onwards, I was completely independent and that is when I started taking liberties with my homework.

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Image Source: Flickr

Well, it is not like I had no inclination towards studies. I loved school. I wanted to go to a school as soon as I started speaking. Other children packed in school vans and buses in neat uniforms and bags made me green with envy. The day I joined school was the best day of my life. But then, the monster called Homework ruined it for me.

While I loved doing my English homework and to an extent my Science homework, I loathed other subjects especially Maths. I somehow managed to wrap it all up before going to play with my buddies. But then, not everyone had the same schedule. They all were more lazy bums and took longer time to complete theirs. As such, I got very less time to spend playing outdoors with them.

I also hated the fact that every year, with a new academic session, the pile of homework seemed to increase steeply. I could literally feel myself sweating with all the pressure. Homework did not allow me to enjoy my summer, autumn and winter holidays, which I would usually spend at my relatives’. Homework kept me exercising my grey matter when all I wanted was to play and read my story books and novels. Homework made me cut down my TV timings and it cut down the time I could spend in the company of guests, who frequented my home.

Homework was Voldemort to me. Homework was The White Walkers. Homework was the Disease. I hated it with all my might.

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Image Source: Flickr

I had a nice study table. With drawers of course. The drawers had comics, children’s magazines and my beloved novels and drawing supplies. So all the while I was supposed to be sitting and completing my homework, I was having a whale of time procrastinating with reading. Cheating on my textbooks with fictional tales of weird looking comic characters or learning who was Elizabeth Bennett interested in.

By grade 7th, I was a pro in procrastinating. I was a pro in not doing my homework. Or doing maybe the half of it and completing the other half in between all the lectures I had the next day at school. I would do my Maths homework in English class, Social Science in Hindi and Sanskrit in Social Science. Wasn’t I a great multitasker? I was indeed. And an ace actress!!  And Friday was my favorite day of the week. Because – NO HOMEWORK for two days at a stretch.

By 9th grade, I had a whale of time evading all the homework. I had a best friend who would be my partner in crime. We hated the same subjects and loved the same ones. So we would roll up our sleeves and utilize the time before morning assembly to rapidly finish the homework. It was the last moment thing and completing it in time gave us an adrenaline rush.

Many a times, we were bold and did not complete the homework. But because we were the class toppers, teachers were very lenient with us. Also, because our names started with an alphabet that falls way behind other names, we escaped the first batch of ‘notebook corrections’ and that bought us more time and more relief. Also, we were pro in English and good with words. That made us experts in elaborating what could have been written in 3 lines to 7 lines and shortening 7 lines to 3 lines. Such bliss.

We did get punished sometimes- when the teachers were atrocious and vile and just couldn’t understand why we didn’t submit our work dot on time, even though our classwork was the best in the history of the entire school.

A very funny incident that I ought to share here is that we were always ahead of the class in English. Our English work shone and sparkled bright. Neat handwriting and all that. The teacher knew us well and was very fond of us both. He was strict with homework, but we didn’t have to worry. We were super duper efficient. Always completed the homework before the bell rang for the school to get over. He used to smack others on hand with wooden ruler (not very hard, just as a punishment). Once the entire class got the punishment except us two. The very next week, we both genuinely forgot our English homework for some valid reason. The whole class was shocked! The teacher was shocked too.

He knew ours was a genuine reason and asked the whole class, should he forgo our mistake for once? The classmates knew us and we were popular, so they said No in unison. There was giggles…and we couldn’t stop giggling ourselves. The teacher said, rules are rules and punishment is the same for one and for all. We accepted it as well. But what was more hilarious is that he was shaking with laughter as the ruler came down on my palm and my friend’s the next. It was as if we had won a prize or something. We had smiles on our face 😛

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This was the core of my homework story. Have a similar experience to share? I would love to listen 🙂

Haiku : The Worst Pain

What is the worst pain?
For me, it has to be LEGO
Tiny bricks that shock!