Books et-cetera

At last, the Book Fair.

There has been much hullabaloo over it. The regular organizers are only a side-organizer this time. But the spirit is all the same. A considerable crowd on the second day, same old ‘adda’ on the fair grounds, same ‘jhari mara’, and importantly, all the big publishers galore.
It happened all of a sudden. A long drive to the fair on a sunny Sunday afternoon, then book-hunting, and ( of course ) book-shopping to heart’s content. One of my addictions. Anirban-daa, a 3rd yr medico ( a ‘gola’ guy and a die-hard potter fan ) with whom I was doing all the combing, bought a combined LOTR ( although he has the e-books, having a hard-copy is above everything. Especially reading all the LOTR on the comp is quite a herculean task! ) And on my ‘recommendation’ he bought the Bill Bryson book, ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’. I think it is one of the all-time classics in popular science. For me, first of all, the book I was searching for a long time, ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’, a nice biography of Ramanujan by Robert Kanigel. No doubt a collective book. Then the perennial ‘Selfish Gene’, and if you get it, then make sure you read Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ ( as advised to me by a RS in the insti ). And I bought a book I have no idea about, JD Watson’s ‘Double Helix’.

It was the fair’s second day only. Many stalls still incomplete, many books unpacked or unshelved. I didn’t find Amir Aczel’s book on Fermat’s Last Theorem. Instead I got the Simon Singh one. But it has very less technical info, suited best for the lay reader. Another book, Michio Kaku’s ‘Hyperspace’ caught my eyes.

And, to end it all, a long drive back home, with the late evening chill brushing your face, stopping by for dinner at a roadside dhaba. Just the stuff weekend dreams ( or dream weekends  ) are made of.

Above average……..

I MIGHT NOT BE GOOD LOOKING BUT I AM DEFINITELY ABOVE AVERAGE ……….
Yeah, right you are, Amitabha Bagchi. This book has a pretty touching comment in this line of thought, ” Accustomed all our lives to being lauded as exceptional, we were all scared that the true measure of ourselves, our unremarkable selves, would emerge one day. ……. My fear of being unexceptional was inextricably linked to a deep desire to be accepted as ordinary. The averageness that I was ashamed of showing became my most intimate friend. I started thinking that those people who were in touch with their inner ordinariness even while they went about the business of self-aggrandizement, which was the business of survival itself, were fundamentally okay. Those people were, somehow, more likely to survive the the trials life was to bring. “
The author, AB, tells da story of a delhi-walla bengali boy, of his home, his own locality mayur vihar, of the IIT-delhi where he graduates with comp-sc, and a little of US where he goes for PhD. The center of gravity is in da IIT, of course. And more specially, this book is about da subtle chemistry dat flows among friends, especially in the college-hostel life. Probably dat is why I can connect with da characters.
Well, well, u also get a true feeling of the typical dilli-waale lingo, overflowing with expletives, and the special phrases used only by iit-insiders, like ‘palo’-ing, meaning lolling around in free time, and the (seemingly) very very unlikely antics of the iit boys. This book is about feelings, and da little realizations they sometimes bring to us. The author has been honest to his readers throughout, and this slightly largish collection of many a short nuggets of stories.

Don’t see Harry Potter, the movie……

Saw Harry Potter 4 last night, ……..the film’s completely a waste, if u dint read da book, u cant follow it, so much shortened and modified, almost like a summary ! Hagrid, Snape seemed like joker, Dumbledore had the humourous tone but lacked the gravity dat makes him apart. And what else, there was almost no Sirius, and no dobby, no winky, no percy. In some places da innovations went good, like the introduction of foreign students in Hogwarts. Krum looked good.

The book is a lot better, Rowling’s a class apart. The film can’t stand on its own.