Internet is fun - grid

Clues Across

Clues Across

Clues Down

Clues Down

The Answers

Come on now, you think I will give you the answers for this simple crossword?
You are actually supposed to know all the answers…

Just print the grid and start solving… I’m sure you will enjoy the crossword. You will then agree that the internet is actually fun!

This post is a part of the ‘Internet is fun‘ blogging contest on indiblogger. Contest is sponsored by Vodafone, that gives you all the answers you seek if you intend to have fun with internet on your mobile!

Arvind Passey
18 May 2012

Strange that I actually paused… it was probably a signal to warn me from taking that call… but I went ahead and even as the swipe was completed I felt a strange suction force from the mobile in my hands. I was still some distance from panic but the first thought to strike me was, ‘Can a mobile phone suddenly become a living avatar of a python and start sucking in humans?’

‘Ha!’ I said, ‘This happens only in fantasy thrillers and sci-fi flicks from Hollywood.’

‘No,’ said a voice, ‘this is actually happening.’

I could now neither speak nor shout nor even move my limbs. This strange suction force was increasing and my power was decreasing… I was sort of, already helpless and was slowly being pulled towards a phone that was only a fraction of my size.

My mind was now in a thorough state of panic. It was shouting some instructions but they all seemed too far away and very fast getting inaudible too. I remember my throat was dry and my eyes were getting droopier every moment. No, I didn’t want to fall asleep or unconscious and something told me that I must stay awake and alert and that even this moment of trial would pass.

Pass, yes the moment did pass… but not before it had made the mobile much much larger than me… or was it the other way round? Had my size been reduced to a fraction of what it was originally was? There was no way of ascertaining anything. All I wanted was the power back to my semi-paralysed limbs and my thoughts back to their audible and supportive position.

And then it happened. Suddenly… almost like strong gust of wind sucking you in… and I was… I don’t remember anything of what happened then. I only know of what must have happened later…

It always happens when the mind wants it to happen!

No headache. No droopy eyes. No enervated limbs. No suction anywhere. ‘Ah!’ I said aloud, ‘It must’ve been a wild dream.’

‘He’s awake!’

‘We have visitors,’ I thought and looked in the direction where the voice seemed to come from. It was a fairly thin creature that bounced more than it walked and had a face like a zero. Yes, it did look like a massive zero.

‘Who’re you?’ I asked.

‘I am what I am.’

‘Right,’ I said weakly. This conversation didn’t seem poised to go anywhere. This was when another voice entered this rather confusing scenario, and said, ‘Even I am what I am.’

This one was quite similar to the one that I had met earlier with the only difference being that it had a face that looked uncannily like a one. It was at this point that I asked, ‘Where am I?’ and then quickly added, ‘And please don’t say something as confusing as – you are where you are!’

There was silence for a while and it seemed that both my new friends were talking to each other. Then both turned towards me and just whistled.

And lo! I was literally drowned in a sea of zeros and ones… ‘This is madness.’ I thought, ‘Why am I being surrounded by what seems like millions of twins?’

‘Twins?’ I said aloud. The clamour stopped and they rearranged themselves into pairs of 0s and 1s and began dancing to this song that they seemed to like very much:

We are the twins, the twins, the twins
We are the famous twins! 

We look and we cook
In every possible nook
Because we are the famous twins! 

We rap and we map
And we love any app
Because we are the famous twins! 

We play and we slay
In the game that we play
Because we are the famous twins! 

We write and recite
With a bit and a byte
Because we are the famous twins! 

We are the twins, the twins, the twins
We are the famous twins!

‘Now do you know who we are?’ asked one of the zeros.

‘You said you were a bit and a byte,’ I hazarded a guess, and continued, ‘does this mean that you guys are what computer programs are made of? The zeros and the ones?’

‘What computer program?’ said an angered one, ‘We are the twins who also control every mobile in every hand!’

And then the chorus began again:

We are the file in mobile
And a band in a hand
We are the famous twins!

‘Ok! Ok!’ I protested, ‘Now I know that I am inside a mobile. And you are the friendly zeros and the ones who run all the apps and every function.’

‘He’s got it!’ said one of the ones.

‘He’s a hero!’ said one of the zeros.

They were certainly a friendly lot and I was enjoying being with them… and so I thought it would be great if I can learn some of the reasons why a mobile was so much fun!

‘So you guys are the ones that make a mobile so interesting?’ I asked.

‘Yes! We’re the ones,’ they chorused, and went on, ‘We are the famous twins!’

‘Listen, when you speak together, it creates a din and I get dizzy,’ I requested, ‘could just one of you please talk?’

‘One of the ones stepped forward and said, ‘I’m the one and let’s have fun!’

The zeros seemed rather crestfallen at this development until I said, ‘I talk to a one and have fun and I’ll also talk to a zero who’s a hero!’ This surely brightened them all up and our discussion began in earnest.

They told me that they were the people who worked hard running from one end of the mobile to the other taking messages that made it work. ‘We do all the work, and you humans say that your mobile works!’ they complained.

‘And I agree with you,’ I said, ‘because I know that every tap in a smartphone and every punch on a keyboard could never be alive unless your team went active!’

And they immediately broke into another verse singing!

We’re the one and we’re the hero
We give you fun and zappiro
We’re the twins, the famous twins!

‘Zappiro?’ I asked, ‘What’s a zappiro?’

‘Oh! A zappiro in our world is when you humans find what you wanted to find when you jump in joy and clap your hands, we say we’ve given you a zappiro!’

‘Isn’t that cute!’ I said, ‘you guys are giving everyone so many zappiros all the time all over! You’re the ones, you’re the heros!’

It was after they had told me about all the various ways they formed different formations that meant different commands and solved every little problem that was posed to them, that I asked them what they thought of internet on the mobile.

The net, the net, our pet, our pet
It gives you fun and it’s fun we get
We’re the twins, the famous twins!

‘Yes, the internet on a mobile is what we love most,’ said a one, ‘we simply love zipping out of a mobile to rush to wherever we are asked to rush and then we do whatever we are asked to do.’

‘We do what we’re told to do,’ added the zero, ‘and we get what we’re asked to get.’

‘You mean the same one or the same zero gets back to the same mobile?’ I asked a bit incredulously.

‘No, it isn’t that way at all. Our brothers are everywhere and we’re the same, as you see. A lot of us move out and a lot of us move in.’

Moving in, moving out
With a din and a shout
We’re the famous twins!

‘We obey your command,’ they said, ‘we let you play games with your friends in the other corner of the world.’

‘I know that,’ I said, ‘and I love it.’

‘We carry your voice, your photos, and even your video clips,’ another 0 chipped in, and continued, ‘your texts, your messages, and your feelings.’

‘Feelings? Now that surely is what you’re making up. It can’t be true,’ I said.

‘We do. We know it when you tap harder than usual. We know when a tear-drop hits the keyboard. We know when you’re in a hurry and we know when you can’t wait for the answer.’

But we do what we do
And we are what we are
We’re the famous twins!

‘And we love to carry your Facebook updates, even the naughty ones,’ said one.

‘And the tweets that are sweet and the sour and the dour!’ said another.

‘Your files for the dropbox are safe with us,’ said yet another.

‘What about chess moves and the flying angry birds?’ asked a timid looking youngish zero.

‘He’s still learning. Don’t mind him,’ answered a brighter one, and added, ‘the truth is that we have fun when you have fun.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ said a sombre looking zero, ‘we still rush out with all our sad packages that you want us to take and deliver, but we never like it then. We then wish you could be less sad and more happy.’

We love work, we don’t shirk
We don’t shirk ‘cause we love work!
We’re the famous twins!

It was at this moment that a booming voice announced, ‘It is time for the visitor to now go back to his world. We hope he tells everyone that the internet stores a lot of fun… and we make even work a lot of fun. We hope he would tell other humans that we also have a lot of fun in doing what we do for we are what we are.’

‘Who’s this voice?’ I asked.

‘Oh! He’s one of us who enjoys being a booming voice.’

Shaka-laka! shaka-laka! Boom! Boom! Boom!
We’re fun, we have fun. Bloom! Bloom! Bloom!
We’re the famous twins!

The moments spent with these fantastical creatures were lively and full of verve… and I was now without doubt that internet on the mobile is nothing but sheer fun. Even when it is work, it must be enjoyed… and then it magically transforms into a form of fun!

And then, just as suddenly as it had happened when I was to get inside the mobile, a gust of wind power appeared and I was literally blown out of the phone’s innards.

I opened my tightly shut eyes and found the phone lying on the table in front of me… but it seemed so much fuller of life. I looked at it, remembered the 0s and the 1s inside, blew a fond kiss and gently hummed:

The net is fun and thanks for your zappiro
I love the funny one and the hero that is zero
For, I know you’re the famous twins!

Now please don’t ask me if this is just a story… it isn’t. It always happens when the mind wants it to happen!

Inside a mobile!

This post is a part of the ‘Internet is fun‘ blogging contest on indiblogger. Contest is sponsored by Vodafone, that directs the zeros and the ones inside any device!

Arvind Passey
18 May 2012

‘Why do you guys say all the time that you’re having fun,’ I asked, ‘ and all that I ever see most of you do is pore into your mobile handsets.’

‘Yes, we do um… like to be with our smartphones,’ she replied, shooing away the ancient term ‘mobile handset’ with a grimace and an obvious tut-tut! ‘Every smartphone needs a smart connection and that is one combo I cannot do without, at least for now.’

She went on to show me her new Samsung Galaxy Y Duos that was able to have two SIMs, which was a boon to her, as she explained, ‘Dual SIMs help me keep one for net on my mobile and the other for just talking. And I also like the ‘Y’ here which means young.’

‘That’s reason enough for me too to go out and buy one,’ I said with a smile, ‘and then I’ll be connected to youth all the time.’

‘Sounds good. And I too keep the fun quotient up, I have with me the pug that jogs!’

I looked around in panic as I repeated, ‘Pug that jogs?’

‘I mean my vodafone connection. As I said, if the mobile is good and the connection is great, I can have fun to the max!’

I took her phone in my hands and in a matter of just a few minutes she had told me that it had a 3MP camera, ran Android v2.3 (the so well-known Gingerbread operating system) on an 832 MHz processor. ‘I can shoot videos at 24 fps too,’ she seemed quite knowledgeable and excited as she told me all this, and then added, ‘I type using swype, listen to songs, and send poems to my friends.’

‘Ah! Now that sounds fun,’ I said, ‘any new poem you sent to your friends recently?’

‘Sure,’ she replied and then deftly using a single hand she reached the right page on the browser in her phone and showed me her Facebook update.

I read the poem. Reread it. The words were lovely and yet somehow I had this uncanny feeling that I had read them somewhere.

The lines that were there in front of me were:

WILD nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury! 

‘Aren’t these lines by Emily Dickinson just lovely?’ she crooned, and went on as I was lost in the lines, ‘and during the nights I have my phone, my net, and I go really wild!’

‘Wild?’ I repeated a bit incredulously, ‘yes, that seems so err… exciting!’

‘And it is. This is what fun is all about. Sharing all that you love doing is what fun is.’

And I concluded that the S-gen or the smart generation knows that having access to a good mobile means a lot of fun… and if your mobile connection is net-ready, the fun quotient is doubled!! No wonder the S-gen also love to be called the S-fun peeps (and this is the new-age term for ‘people’ for the yet uninitiated!). So I took the next logical step and went out and bought a Samsung Galaxy Y Duos for myself… for much less than even ten thousand. ‘Fun does seem to be starting at a less price,’ I thought, ‘so many other smart phones are costing a bomb these days and if I can have almost the same fun with this one, well why not!’

I decided to follow my teenager friend to the hilt and went ahead and activated my smartphone with ‘the pug that jogs’… and then spent a few minutes thinking of how I might like to begin my fun-time with the internet on my mobile!

Setting up the phone to connect me to my Facebook page was a breeze and I also went ahead and set all the other online platforms that I am fond of… my twitterverse cannot be far away from me, my foursquare friends would want to know where I am, and anything interesting must immediately be there on my tumblr page or be pinned to my pinterest page or shared on my YouTube channel! Yes, I was now ready to have fun on the internet!

‘Games,’ I thought to myself and mumbled, ‘No, games aren’t so interesting ever since Facebook decided to do away with my all-time favourite Word Twist. After all, that was the only game I was able to remain ahead of everyone… always.’

‘Ahead?’ This was a stranger standing right next to me and watching me intently, ‘Better move ahead to a less crowded place unless you want to be shooed by the footpath vendor whose pricey space you’re standing on.’ I realised that CP corridors were actually a high business zone and yes, I must move to a better place.

Games were ruled out, social media updates were anyway a necessity for me, searching for Emily Dickinson’s poetry and passing the lines off as my own creative impulse was hardly my idea of wild fun… and there I was walking with slow deliberate steps in the Lutyen-created corridors of CP thinking of how a Galaxy Y and a blazing internet on my mobile could sublimate into my idea of fun! ‘Because anyway, fun it is,’ I told myself, ‘this enigma called internet becomes deadly fun when you mate it with a not-at-all-expensive smartphone.’

I then did what I always do when I am in a fix. I called my wife. ‘I’m in a fix,’ I began, and continued despite her exclamations and interruptions that had urgency embossed all over, ‘I’ve bought a smartphone and I have internet coursing through its veins now. I want to know why the teenagers and youngsters say that they are having fun with this combination.’

‘Another of your brilliant socio-tech experiments,’ my wife’s sigh was only too apparent, but she continued, ‘You’re already having a lot of creative fun on the internet on the desktop at home.’

‘Hardly an experiment,’ I protested, ‘I’m just trying to see if I too can have fun with internet on my mobile.’

‘Yes, you can,’ she said in a matter-of-factly voice, ‘when you do something that you love doing, you discover fun in it. Now, can we talk later? I have an urgent meeting at the Directorate.’

Though nothing tangible was suggested, my wife had given me the greatest clue anyone can ever give anyone. Do what you love and you’ll have fun! Well, I love playing with lines… the ones that words decide to construct and the ones that can create a picture!

‘Bingo!’ I said aloud, ‘I am going to create advertisements for the print. Ads that try and sell the idea of having fun with the internet on your mobile! This sounded like a real fun-soaked idea and I walked faster to reach the nearest Costa Coffee outlet where I could sit and ideate.

A cappuccino ordered, I sat in a corner chair and began my fun sojourn! I gently tapped the Play Store on my android mobile, and without even the slightest hiccup I was transported into a world that was full of android apps… this is one world where fun is not just redefined but it is often created with nuances that the human experiences haven’t yet come across. Even browsing the pages of such a store is actually having more fun for me at times. I have done it many times on my desktop and have always envied those who carry this great power in their hands… well, I have that power now!

‘I have the power!’ I must have said this a bit aloud because a few of the patrons inside gave me a look of surprise.

‘Watching some He-man video on YouTube?’ said one rather sweet looking Aunty ji.

‘No,’ I replied hurriedly, concluding that she may want to suddenly watch the clip with me, ‘No, not really. I am working.’

‘You do seem to be having fun,’ she said and nothing more was exchanged.

Yes, I was actually having fun… without even having been anywhere near to my decided target. Anyway, I searched for the right drawing application, activated it… and found that even though the screen appeared small, I could make it bigger and even write with my finger. Watching the rough sketch of my drawing making sense was quite exciting. I desperately wanted that Aunty ji or anyone else to again look at me and ask, ‘May I see what you’ve done?’

But no one did that… sometimes fun and having fun remain a part of your existence and even this is quite alright, I can vouch for that! Let me share the first of those sketches here:

The fun that began with a sketch! Now this surely is S-fun...!!

No, I didn’t want to play with the mobile version of Photoshop, but I did open the browser and searched for the right pictures and images for my ads. I then went on and wrote the copy and the action phrase. The punch-line was already done and was in the sketch.

Well, the truth is that I got so interested in this activity that I went on and created two more ideations and made them look as if they were a part of a single print campaign.

All I did next was to share my sketches and my texts with myself on my Dropbox. This again was actually a breeze… as simple as a few sensuous taps on the capacitive screen of the Galaxy Y and the job was done!

‘One really learns how to tap well,’ I said to myself, and it must have been audible because this time it was my wife who replied, ‘See, I’m here. That’s the magic of Foursquare!’

I then remembered that I had updated my status on Foursquare too and my wife must’ve decided to catch me at Costa Coffee in CP… so I told her it was good that she was here. ‘And now, will you be so kind to tell me how these ad ideas have come up?’

She agreed that the ideas were worth an attempt and so we rushed home and I did complete the ads on photoshop.

My wife had, in the meanwhile been fiddling with the Galaxy Y and had been exploring the world on the net and she said, ‘Now I don’t mind you hijacking the desktop.’

‘Well, let’s connect the PC and the smartphone now. I want to transfer the images on the phone.’

‘Why? She asked, ‘you can share them from the desktop itself.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I want to see how much fun the internet on a mobile can be.’

‘Ah! I almost forgot your socio-tech experiment!’

We tried a lot of ways of transferring the images to the galaxy… from the Dropbox route to the Bluetooth pathway, from a simple mail attachment to a transfer through Kies… and we found that all were equally easy.

And then, for another time, I tapped and saw the ready ad-images on the Galaxy… they looked so wonderfully quaint! Even my wife purred, ‘Hey! The images are looking just purr-fect! I too want this phone.’

Internet is fun ads_ad one. S-fun needs a smartphone and a smart net service!

Internet is fun ads_ad two. S-fun needs a smartphone and a smart net service!

Internet is fun ads_ad three. S-fun needs a smartphone and a smart net service!

Well, I went on and used the internet on my mobile to share the images on the social networks… tweeted all my friends how I was having fun on the net… and quietly and on the sly, opened one online store and ordered another Galaxy Y for my wife.

And yes, as the title says…
S-fun is… funADs on the move!
Let me add…
S-fun is… doubled when you swype your blog post on the mobile and share it online with your wife!

Yes, S-fun is now the buzzword in our home.
What did you just ask? What is S-fun?
Well, how else would you call something that is smart?

All that you need for S-fun is a smart phone and a smart mobile connection with the net activated! This post is a part of the ‘Internet is fun‘ blogging contest on indiblogger. Contest is sponsored by Vodafone, that gives power to you!

Arvind Passey
18 May 2012

Despite being thoroughly non-descript and devoid of either realism or fantasy, there is one discovery I made because of this book. I stumbled upon the fastest way to read trash! Hold the book by its spine in your left hand and let your right hand start releasing the pages at a regular pace. Stop when your eyes protest at being subjected to read words that create no gyrating metaphors. Stop when your brain protests at being compelled to read words that make no logical sense. Stop when your right hand sighs and protests at being made to act like a terrorist for the eyes and the brain. Stop, if you must… and then resume. You will surely finish reading this novel in a record time… and then I’m sure you’ll mutter: ‘Please God, don’t extend this torture and be made into a movie!’

Tapan Ghosh was probably in a state of delirium when he was penning this novel, and to compliment his work I have created an image that tells you all there is in this novel of 239 pages (with a large than usual font!… which is the only unusual thing that I came across).

A faceless mess...

The story takes us through some inane mess-ups of Shom and Khush, their ludicrous escapades and rather low-brow sex-capades. The language shudders and stutters, the plot hobbles along, the story-line is like the hair-line on a bald pate, and the dialogues are mundane and forgettable. No wonder then that a fellow blogger pri too has written in a review:

‘It seems like somebody misguided the author with the not-so-secret formula for a B grade hindi flick—characters singing songs at the drop of a hat, trashy hindi dialogues and lots and lots of sex scenes…

…thus “Faceless-The Only Way Out” came into being.’

Another reviewer, Nikhil, says that ‘his portrayal was eccentric and not something one can easily relate to.’ Let me make you go through some of the utter nonsense that I had to hop, skip, and jump through…

This first example tells me that Tapan has tried to create a world record in character development by using the fewest words. Read and you’ll know how miserably he has failed.

He allowed his wife total power. He believed that a man who was the boss outside the home wouldn’t mind his wife being the boss inside. Being an August born, he was a born leader, a Lion at heart. However, at home, he was only a Circus Lion and he had submitted himself to his wife in every respect. She was the ringmaster. This went against his basic nature. He was dying a slow death. Poor rich man, everyone wanted a piece of him.

I am confused. Where exactly does the lion fit in? And Tapan, nobody can give power, as power is something that arises out of a personal and intrinsic charisma.

The next two examples are taken from different parts of the novel and again we find that Tapan writes a sentence and wants his readers to imagine the rest. For instance, if I write a story that begins with this sentence: “He came to Mumbai with thirty rupees in his pocket and in three years became a millionaire. He loved to travel and now had an airplane that he could fly himself. He could just hop in and rush to any part of the world whenever he felt like doing so.” Does it make any sense? Tapan did it with sex, with love, with lust, and with emotions…

All we enjoyed were several ways to kiss, smooch and stimulate each other. Aruna managed to look up a book on sex from her brother’s room. She was very careful and did this only when she was alone at home. One day she called me to her house to get some class notes and the homework for the day. She had been absent from school and supposedly was not well. She taught me all about protective sex after she stole a condom from her father’s huge stock.
**
He could not resist it any more and pinned her down to the bed. What followed was prolonged enjoyment and ecstasy that came from the release of pent-up energies of both the participants.

The writer has gone ahead and messed up the ending too bringing in outlandish actions without having subjected them to any plausible reasoning. One blogger aptly writes: The climax seemed to be inspired from the famous Indian Movie “A Wednesday” but the author failed to justify the conditions to introduce the sudden change in the protagonist’s purpose of life. Even a third rate Bollywood action flick will feel proud to have more sense in it than having one of the inexperienced protagonists go around killing trained and committed terrorists and also romp away to destroy explosive dumps single-handedly! Even 007 would kowtow to such heroics! But Tapan, you must know that a reader isn’t a silly secret agent in another novel, he or she is a living person who can think and deduce. Why would a reader tolerate bunkum like what you’ve written?

Khush was so proud of his friend, as one dreaded terrorist was found dead on the streets. The police had no clue and they wanted the rival group responsible for this to surrender but Shom had no respect for this corrupt system and he continued on his rampage. One more terrorist was found dead on the streets and finally a huge underground dump in Sewri, supposedly full of explosives, exploded with a huge blast that continued throughout the night, causing all the fire brigades to work round the clock for days.

Strangely, when I read Tapan’s own review and justification of his novel, I found that though he talked a lot about plunging into the depths of a character’s personality, while writing he probably missed out this vital step. Tapan writes:

‘…he was curious to know why being faceless was the only way out. This question to my delight prompted quite a question-answer session in my blog. If you have something to add, be sure to join in. To answer this, I will have to plunge into the depths of Shom’s personality and dilemma.’

The writer goes on and gloats that ‘Faceless like Devdas is the story of a love beyond all else, even life. It is the saga of a man who loved, loved and simply loved.’

Well, the saga sags, and love its way because of ill-conceived characterisation. The story is faceless, the plot is faceless, the characters are faceless… but considering the great rush of pre-mature novelists, there is nothing unusual in this.

Faceless - Tapan Ghosh

Book Details:
Title: Faceless – The only way out
Author: Tapan Ghosh
Publisher: Frog Books
ISBN: 978-93-81115-98-5 

Arvind Passey
16 May 2012

The secret letters of the monk who sold his Ferrari

If you like to travel, you’ll like this book. This book takes you all over the world to some really wonderful places and you’ll enjoy reading about those cities and the way they’ve changed over time. The author takes you to different locations all over Europe, Asia, and North America… and the travelogue part of this book is as gripping as the wait to see what message the next talisman has!

If you like to read small inspirational messages, you’ll love reading this book. You’ll be in the company of nine small amulets, and as Julian says: ‘Individually they are just symbolic tokens, but together they hold extraordinary transformative powers.’

If you’ve read Robin Sharma’s earlier books, you’ll love this one too. No, I have never read this author before though I had bought one of his earlier books a few years back. It was strange to read Julian say: ‘A story should be told only when a listener is ready to hear it.’ Well, Robin Sharma told me this story when I was ready to hear it, so to say.

The story, in a nutshell, tells us about Jonathan Laundry, a man who is busy building his net worth without realising that the real value and happiness in life may not be in the inescapable rat race. It is a call from his uncle (the original monk) in Buenos Aires that begins his adventure with transformation! He has to travel the world over and collect the nine life-saving talismans from safe-keepers and his acceptance to complete the assignment launches him into a journey that reveals all that his professional life so far had kept him away from. His gain isn’t just a turn-around of his failed marriage and a disappointed son… but also a realisation that there is more to life than what is obvious most of the time to most of us.

This book is all about the importance of the conversion of net-worth to self-worth and the messages in the talismans give the reader as much insight as does the interaction that Jonathan has with the safe-keepers in different cities of the world. In just a few pages Robin takes us along to discover not just human potential but also the way happiness is linked to art, architecture, history, nature, and development!

The adventure begins with Jonathan asking himself if he’d actually want to choose what Julian was offering him. ‘…what did one foolish choice matter? After all, in the past I had always made what I thought were great decisions at the time. And where had that got me?’ He decides to accept the talisman-assignment and embarks on his journey as Julian messages him: ‘Life itself is a journey after all, and what matters most is not what you are getting, but who you are becoming.’

Jonathan’s first interaction with Ahmet in Istanbul confronts him with wise reflective thoughts. Ahmet tells him that ‘the saddest thing is that… so often we live our neighbour’s life, instead of our own’ preparing him for the first talisman that carries the message of ‘the power of authenticity.’ The first message asks him to ‘explore the deep-seated, unseen hopes, desires, strengths and weaknesses that make us what we are.’ And then when he is going back across the river with Ahmet, their discussion gets to the crux of the message…

Despite the early hour, the sun was blazing in the sky. The villages, the green hills, the water – everything seemed bright and clear, sharp and vibrant. It was stunning, but the myth and mysteries of the previous night had evaporated. “It all looks so different,” I said to Ahmet. “Beautiful, but different.”

‘Yes,” said Ahmet thoughtfully. “I often find that myself. Night hides many things, but reveals others.”

“It happens in cities, too,” I said. “Some often look magical at night but humdrum during the day.”

“And yet both versions are equally real.” Ahmet paused, and then added, “I suppose that is why it is never a good idea to make quick judgments about things. It takes a long time to really get to know places, people, even ourselves.”

No, I’m not going to tell you all about the messages that the other amulets hid in their selves except the fact that reading this book has been liberating because as I read I also discovered that ‘we grow fearless by doing those things we fear.’ Which, of course, means having the courage to lift yourself from being a chained conformist all your life, coming out of your comfort zone… and ‘stepping into the discomfort of growth and progress’.

Thus, as Jonathan hops from Istanbul to Paris to Osaka in Japan he gets into a different thoughtful mode. We, the readers, realise that it isn’t just the messages that are important but also the way people live their lives that can be quite meaningful too at times. It is Osaka that he understand the real implication of a mere word – itadakimasu – which, when translated, means ‘I humbly receive.’ And so, as we read on we keep receiving little nuggets of wisdom in this book.

I have never been a fan of books of this genre but this is one book I would never regret having read. It is not the messages that may sound mundane and full of multiple interpretations that even Robin may not have stumbled upon when he wrote them down, that are everything in this book. As I said, I loved the way different cultures are described and the way different actions are interpreted. Ayame’s interpretation of handshake is one example.

Each talisman has a tag-line of its own and all of them combined may read like a rather commonplace list than some life-saving mysterious messages. There is hardly anything intriguing or magical about this list…

1. The power of authenticity
2. Embrace your fears
3. Live with kindness
4. Make small daily progress
5. To lead your best life, do your best work
6. Choose your influences well
7. Life’s simplest pleasures are life’s greatest joys
8. The purpose of life is to love
9. Stand for something bigger than yourself

Well, surely there is nothing in the list that anyone wouldn’t really already know. Lots of motivational writers and speakers have some similar sounding list that they keep selling across the globe… what matters though is that this book isn’t just a detailed explanation of the list. The author leads you to each of these through interactions. And these interactions take place in different cities all over the world. The book then becomes a mini travelogue without pictures and more meaningful as it weaves small endearing messages through the dialogues! This book isn’t a dull interpretation of the nine messages… it is a lively interaction with cultures and moods and attitudes. This is what makes the book readable.

Details of the book reviewed:

Title: The secret letters of the monk who sold his Ferrari
Author: Robin Sharma
Publisher: Jaico Books
ISBN-13: 978-81 8495-292-6
Pages: 223

robin_sharma_review

Arvind Passey
15 May 2012

The Japanese thriller phenomenon -- 2 million copies SOLD!

Yes, this one is a murder story. The first forty-eight pages hold your hands and take you around this little town by the river Sumida. They build an image within you that you cannot forget and at the same time rapidly build the characters of Yasuko, her daughter Misato, the Math teacher Ishigami, and Togashi, the man who is murdered.

Yes, the pace never slackens and the reader simply jogs along with the writer through Benten Tei, up and down the Shin-Ohashi Bridge, crosses the Kiyosu Bridge, into the heart of the unexpressed, over the spikes of mathematical deductions, and straight into the lap of a novel that simply doesn’t stop!

The first forty-eight pages take you through a gamut of emotions that include the brave stances of a single mother, fears that the hunted often display, love that is discernible even in silence and downcast eyes, foxiness that makes a person insensitive, and then the deadly combination of frustration and anger that finally explodes and results into a murder and a dead body!

No complex theories. No unnecessary words. Even a seemingly commonplace conversation between Yasuko and Ishigami tells us that it isn’t a mere cockroach that has been killed… and yet the murdered person was regarded as no better than a roach!

Yasuko’s skin was on fire. She said the first thing that came to mind. ‘It was a bug. A cockroach.’
‘A cockroach?’
‘Yes. A cockroach on the wall, and I – my daughter and I were trying to get it. I’m afraid we made quite a ruckus…’
‘Did you kill it?’
Yasuko’s face hardened. ‘What?’
‘The cockroach. Did you kill it?’
‘Yes… yes, we did it,’ Yasuko said, bowing her head with each word. ‘Killed it good. Everything’s fine. Thanks.’

Soon we find ourselves in the company of Ishigami who has powers of deduction that one feels so happy to meet… even Yasuko Hanaoka immediately concluded that this fellow was ‘terribly levelheaded and smart’ because he had ‘accurately reconstructed such an elaborate scenario after only a glance through her front door’… read this first of Ishigami’s deductions in this thriller and you’ll agree:

‘When I knocked on your door a few minutes ago, I smelled cigarette smoke. Figuring you had a guest, I looked for shoes by the door, but I couldn’t see any. I glanced into the room, and noticed it looked like someone was under your kotatsu, and the cord was pulled. But if someone wanted to hide, they could’ve just gone into the back room. Which meant that the person under the kotatsu wasn’t hiding there, they had been hidden there. When I put that together with the thumping noises that I had heard, and the fact that your hair was unusually dishevelled, it wasn’t hard to imagine what had happened. Oh, and one more thing: there aren’t any cockroaches in this building. I’ve lived here several years now and never seen one.’

As I went from one page to another I realised that this is one book in my hands that is not just a thriller but more than that… and it isn’t surprising that more than 2 million copies have been sold so far.

The devotion of suspect X gives us a lot...

You as a reader know that a murder has happened, you know who the murderer is, you also know what the reasons were that compelled a timid Yasuko and a fearful Misato to land with a dead body in their home… and yet you want to follow what Ishigami deduces, what the policemen like Kusanagi methodically conclude, and the way Yukawa, and equally gifted ex classmate of Ishgami, too uses thought. You, as a reader, love the experience of riding the thought waves that the novel generates and love the way everyone in the pages intently using them. No, this is surely not a dumb thriller where knives slash and gun-shots reverberate… it is thoughts that weave a magic of deception and intrigue that stays with you long after you’ve turned the final page.

There are no cars chasing black sedans, no footsteps rushing up the stairs to find an empty room, no police cordons everywhere… just intelligent summation pitted against more intelligent summation! As Ishigami says at a point… ‘you have two options: hide the fact that anything happened, or hide the fact you had anything to do with it.’ Could anyone else have been more precise about it?

You almost wish the novel hadn’t ended… not just because the thrill of deductions was fascinating but also because of the twist that you knew would be coming any moment. The twist that weaves in gentle love swishing in and out of the heavy shelling of mathematics and physics and a scientific temper! Love happens anywhere… and when it happens here you stop and sigh and shake your head with disbelief! Even love doesn’t make its entry without a lot of intriguing pages… and the most interesting thing is that everything happens on the pages and it is the reader who keeps concluding and defining.

A fascinating thriller!

The devotion of suspect X

Sign up for the Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. and get free books! Participate now!

Title of the novel: The devotion of Suspect X
Author: Keigo Higashino
Publisher: Hachette India (www.hachetteindia.com)
ISBN: 978-0-349-13873-2
Pages: 374

Arvind Passey
15 May 2012

Who cares for grammar if I can
Go from here to there and scan,
Taste and feel
While the wheel
Takes me everywhere and where I began!

The tweet that I read before I could read others did give me a fair insight into the truth of a biker… no, it has nothing to do with literacy or education, but everything to do with an indomitable will to go where no ordinary mortal ever dares to go! Yes, bikers, I found during this search, are a brave lot who have the courage to stand before you without resorting to subterfuge and ask you to accept them as they are.

A fine emotion, I said to myself. I love it.

The twitter world was again spun like a Buddhist prayer wheel and, as prayer wheels always do, came up with yet another insight. This time it was from castrolbiking:

Bikers, I knew, were always reaching out to seen and yet unseen corners of the planet and were almost like the explorers who wanted to be there to later tell us all, the ordinary mortals, of the safety of going into the heart of the unknown!

Tweets like this one tell us that bikers are down-to-earth about their interactions with all things tangible and intangible… and they love the food that has a local flavour. No fuss there at all. I’d say there is an intrepid scientist within each genuine biker who spurs him to go ahead and seek out the truth everywhere, on every turn.

And as they move from one place to another, the bikers are surely never averse to lending a helping hand.

Every biker knows how hurting a PMS or a Parked Motorcycle Syndrome can be, so they rally around and make sure that even a stranded stranger is able to get going as fast as possible. Bikers know that it is never the terrain inconsistencies, that is, an unhelpful geography that can debilitate, but a human overlooking the dilemmas of another can quite break the toughest!

Bikers, of course, face all sorts of complaining rants with a lot of stoicism and despite such obvious stances move to win hearts by their spirit of adventure that meanders through an always-ready-to-help attitude. Some of the tweets that went on and on and on about real or imagined inconveniences that the non-biking populace continually imagines and links up with the biking community can cover aspects from a simple ‘noise pollution’ and ‘traffic hazard’ to ‘odd sense of dress’ and an ‘unwholesome arrogance’!

I remember an interesting conversation I once had with a friend from Delhi Police who said, ‘There a lot of misconceptions about bikers in the public.’

‘What sort of misconceptions?’ I asked.

‘You know, that they’re rowdy and that they create a nuisance on the road and also that they are responsible for a lot of crimes.’

‘Well, what do you have to say?’

‘I too ride a bullet. I too ride when I’m not in my uniform. I too have a small group of my own and we go out on long biking trips whenever we are able to plan one,’ he replied with a smile, ‘and I work against the criminals. I am there to help when I see trouble anywhere. I have no arrogance about the powerful bike that I love controlling!’

‘So I know,’ I replied, for I knew this friend and this friend’s friends and I knew that they were excellent and warm-hearted bikers.

No wonder then that I found a lot of tweets sent by bikers attempting to wipe the kind of stigma we’re talking of here. Which, incidentally, also means that bikers are not quite techno-challenged though sometimes their expression may allow you to presume that they are. But that probably is because they are a carefree lot and hardly try to edit their visible selves and always present themselves as they are. What you see is what they are, so to say… no subterfuge or camouflage there!

While analysing these tweets I realised how much perception has to with opinions generated, expressed, and shared. Just look at the unreasonableness of even the basis of tweets like these:

However, just read this tweet and you’ll know what sort of friendliness stays put inside a biker’s heart…

There is love and romance
And a lot of happiness
That will come and dance
If you un-stress
And go and feel the breeze
Play with your hair
It lets you unfreeze
Making life so fair! 

Bikers are certainly a careful, intelligent, self-learning, self-correcting, friendly, and carefree lot and a lot amongst them have written witty one-liners that most other bikers the world over read and decide on their own code of existence. Of all the one-line witticisms that I came across on the net, I’ve selected ten of them and present them as the 10 commandments that even non-bikers can pay heed to:

1. Bikes parked out front mean good chicken-fried steak inside.
2. A good rider has balance, judgment, and good timing. So does a good lover.
3. Routine maintenance should never be neglected.
4. It takes more love to share the saddle than it does to share the bed.
5. Don’t ride so late into the night that you sleep through the sunrise.
6. A bike on the road is worth two in the shed.
7. Well-trained reflexes are quicker than luck.
8. The twisties, not the superslabs, separate the riders from the squids.
9. It didn’t look that far on the map.
10. Don’t argue with an 18-wheeler.

‘Let’s go for a moonlight mile,’ she said one day as I came back from work.

I looked at her with a question that radiated through my quizzed pupils and she simply murmured, ‘Well, a moonlight mile is a short adventure with a lady friend away from home.’

I had always prided myself as having gone deeper into the dictionary than most of my friends and acquaintances but here was a term that I had not read anywhere. Expectedly, I was unsure about the correctness of the term until Specky handed me a few type-written pages with a list of words that was all Greek to me.

‘What’s this?’

‘An interesting compilation of biker’s terms,’ she replied, and then added, ‘we love our bike, don’t we?’

Well, we weren’t like the typical American biker that I too had often read about in newspaper reports and some sundry article in some magazine and I told her so. But she insisted that ‘what you do’ must necessarily be accompanied by ‘what you know’ and I had no choice but to agree with her.

‘So does a moonlight mile necessarily have to be a ride in the night?’ I asked a bit apprehensively.

‘No,’ she replied, and went on quite confidently, ‘we will do a Delhi – Mussorie trip with a one night halt there. So a weekend with one leave will do.’

‘Great. Let’s go tomorrow.’

Thus began one of the greatest and the most memorable rides for the two of us. The ride began with an early morning rear wheel puncture even before we had touched the highway near Sahibabad. As we sat watching the road-side repairman do his job, Specky opened her back-pack and took out a sheaf of papers.

‘You want to read on the Number Theory on the highway,’ I asked with a smile.

‘What’s that?’ she pointed to my helmet, and had apparently no intention of replying to my punch.

‘My helmet,’ I said and pointing to hers, added, ‘And that’s your helmet!’

‘Well, bikers don’t call them helmets,’ she informed me, ‘it is a dome or a lid or a skid lid. And if it is one of those small beanie-styled ones, it is a brain bucket!’

‘Interesting,’ I said, ‘hey, why don’t you keep updating me on words from this list of yours during our ride. I’ll start talking like a pro-biker by the time we touch Dehradun.’

So there we were, our trip now poised to be laced with a lot of interesting words. The first one was fired at me even as we were about to resume our ride once the mechanic was done.

‘These mechanics over-charge!’

‘Yes, but real bikers call them wrenches, and remember that in future,’ she said, and then asked, ‘Bikers normally ride in groups, but we’re riding alone. You know there is a term for this too.’

‘Let me guess. Would that make me a lone wolf?’ I hazarded a guess. Specky patted my back and replied, ‘You are a good guesser because a lone wolf is indeed a biker with no club affiliation,’ and after a pause, resumed, ‘but we’re running 66 and it wouldn’t be incorrect to say that we’re riding incognito!’

‘With our full-face helmets we’re surely unrecognizable!’ I said and laughed out loud.

‘And probably end up with fanciful helmet heads by the time we reach anywhere,’ Specky added, ‘which means…’

‘I know that one,’ I interjected, ‘isn’t difficult to guess what a helmet head could mean.’

‘But you cannot even guess what the biker slang is for a rider who doesn’t wear one.’ I honestly tried to guess this one by coming out with terms like ‘cop favourite’, ‘wind lover’, and ‘hair care’, and was genuinely appreciative of the correct term for its deep insight, for one who doesn’t wear a helmet would be called an organ donor! Phew! That was a bull’s eye!!

As we sped through the truck- and bus-intensive highway crossing Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Roorkee where the drive was, at times, rather chancy and full of surprising appearances of man, animal, and slow-moving vehicles, Specky was busy feeding me with juicy terminology that was full of biker-isms! When I was speeding, she said I was flying low, sections with a lot of turns were twisties, and a fast ride on these twisties was canyon carving! Surely there was no canyon carving on the flats here but would be there in the Dehradun – Mussorie stretch, I reminded her.

You be careful, this isn’t your backyard,’ was the sentence she spoke most often until I told her to stop and that I’d remember this forever. Obviously, a backyard is a stretch of road where you ride often… and the highway wasn’t my backyard!

And we loved our little adventure with the road-side vendors in the little villages that we passed as we rushed on this highway. We bought tree-fresh guavas from them and haggled for a yet lower price than the ridiculously low ones they quoted… and won! So we bought more guavas and distributed them among the little kids who were ogling at Specky in her tees and denim jeans!

It was near Roorkee where there were a lot of trucks rushing, that Specky fed me new terms related to it. Buffeting, which was all about the bothersome wind turbulence when following large vehicles and shimmying which was the wobble you feel on a bike at high speed!

The biker within me!

It was at one of the dhaba-breaks we noticed a couple of Harley-Davidsons and this made Specky take out her sheaf of papers once again.

‘Let’s see how many of these parts we can identify on the bike.’

‘Sure,’ I said, ‘it’ll be like a spotting test that we had in the Bio lab at school.’

Yes, we could see the buckhorns that were a style of handlebars that pull back toward the rider. There were the Buddy Pegs or the foot-pegs for a passenger and the Sissy Bar or the high passenger back rest! Just then we heard a gruff voice right behind us, ‘You like bikes, eh?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘though we’re on that bike.’ I pointed to my bike which was a far cry from this very masculine Harley Davidson, and continued, ‘We love the feel of the ground rushing below us. And the collar flapping and punching some unheard message from the wind… and the treacherous swishes and zips of other vehicles passing by. And…’

‘It means you really like riding hard,’ he smiled at us, and added, ‘let’s sit and talk.’ And he then told us how much he missed his chopper or his customized motorcycle that had taken various forms through the years. ‘I’ve driven a crotch rocket and ‘ave hated ‘em,’ he said, and then seeing our puzzled look, added, ‘Ah! A sports bike. But I love dirt bikes, that are off-road monsters and even the street fighters that are styled with minimum accessories for street racing.’

‘You like my leathers here?’ he asked, showing us his riding armour.

‘Awesome,’ said Specky, ‘I’d love to wear this.’ And she did, walked a bit and still remembers the strong emotion that filled her during those few moments. Our new friend then told us that car drivers were called cagers in their lingo and those who had only a temporary interest in bikes were nicknamed posers.

‘And a tail gunner is the last rider in a group,’ added Specky excitedly. She had been reading a lot and found this a great opportunity to show off a bit of her interest and knowledge, and so continued, ‘And you never call a tattoo a tattoo but ink and the tattoo artist an ink slinger!’

This made our new biker friend laugh out loud and say, ‘Not that bikers are any different from any of us. They speak the same language as you or anyone else and eat the same food, love the same bands, go for movies, have families…’

He paused before he continued, ‘…and they ride always with the shiny side up and the rubber side down which read anyway means they ride safe! They too have road rashes and monkey butts and love to protect their bikes from the gremlins!’

‘I can understand what a road rash and a monkey butt could mean,’ I asked, ‘but what are gremlins?’

‘Actually nothing,’ he said, ‘they are little mythical creatures who the bikers love to blame for any mechanical problem… just like any of us!’

After a few more minutes of such bikey banter and an exchange of phone numbers he said, ‘Let me leave my mark here and blip the throttle. Have to reach Delhi in less than 3 hours if I want to complete my iron butt now!’ he left and Specky frantically searched for the mysterious words that he had spoken before leaving.

‘Found them all,’ she exclaimed, and explained, ‘leaving a mark indicates the oil puddle on the ground where you parked your bike and  to blip the throttle is to simply accelerate fast.’

‘What about iron butt?’

‘Wow!’ she said, ‘this iron butt seems most interesting. Can you believe that it means completing 1000 miles in 24 hours!’ We were so impressed by this last term that we tried going faster than our usual speed and actually reached Mussorie in record time.

This bike ride was more than 20 years back and now that we have bought our own car, we go for long car drives… and no, we haven’t done the iron butt yet but the dream is still ON. Those bike lessons are still in the memory and now when I had to write about it for this contest on indiblogger, I thought it would be good to refresh some of those lovely terms and convert them all into a crossword.

So, here is a crossword dedicated to all the bike enthusiasts in the world!

The Biker Crossword!

Note: Every clue has the answer too hidden in the gap between the clue and the number of alphabets in the word. Just select that area and look at the answer.

Some of the words in the crossword can be found in the terms used in the post… but you’ll need to either be a real biker to know the rest OR simply find them in the various glossaries existing all over the net.

The writer is happy that Castrol decided to have this lovely biking-blog contest on indiblogger. You’ll find more information on this facebook page too… www.facebook.com/CastrolBiking.

Arvind Passey
29 April 2012

The radish mystery... an experiment that should not be attempted without adult supervision!

Radish

Ah! A radish massage can rejuvenate the grey cells!!

Radish

The pleasures of a radish inside your head!

Radish

What a sensual experience!

Radish

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This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Since my childhood I had been hearing a lot of stories of my father’s stay in Babina. This is a small town near Jhansi and is a major cantonment with a fair sprinkling of the Armoured Corps. I know this because I had a lot of friends in school who spoke a lot about tanks and black berets all the time.

Babina. Railway station as it is in 2011. just behind me is the small hotel where my father came for meals way back in 1956.

Babina

Babina. The present owner of that small hotel/ dhaba was a small kid then and still remembers my father with a lot of fondness.

Babina

Babina. Having tea and discussing memories!

Babina

Babina. My mother points out to the tree that was there even then... but the cinema is nowhere now! Only an open playground exists.

Babina

Babina. happy to be there at the location listening to my father recount some interesting stories...

Babina

Babina. The original site of our cinema is right behind where my father stands in the picture.

Babina

Babina

Babina. One of the barracks where my father stayed in 1956...

Babina

Babina. The house where my father stayed after his marriage! This place is now with 'badmash company' and my father was tickled by this name!

Babina

Babina. Walking inside the boundary of 'badmash cmpany' and going towards the area where the kitchen then was...

Babina

Babina. The kitchen with its standing chulah... how things have changed now...

Babina

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This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com