The perfume called BOOK

The smell of a new book, in fact the smell of a book itself has always made me go mad since childhood, It does till date. Every time I walk into a bookstore i can't keep my nose off one and the result is that I always walk out buying at least one. even though Flipkart has become my new bookstore but it's never the same just the way I feel an e-book can never replace the joy of holding the actual book in your hand.

I remember as a child I used to wait for the beginning of each year where in we would go to school a few days prior to the beginning of that session and get our books from school. oh the joy of looking at those books, smelling them and wrapping them with brown paper was always more exciting that the exams I had to eventually give thanks to those same books. I would always pounce on the books in my English course for the year and would have polished it off in a day straight. I already knew all the stories even before the year had begun and eventually yes i did get bored of the fact that i had to keep going through it again and again through the year but every time a story would end in class to go onto the next one i would look forward to that change and re - visiting it. Though the textbooks of other subjects never garnered such response from me except for smelling them, I never even opened them until the night before my exams. But the feeling would always be the same of welcoming a new book no matter what subject it was.

The obsession continues even today and thankfully today I read books because I enjoy them and not because I am forced to read them. and the fact that I can choose my own book to read also makes it more exciting. That is why a bookstore to me would never go out of fashion as that is one place that gives me ample scope to go wild with this obsession of mine :)

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There's no home for Singles

A phenomenon that has always existed in our country but becomes a life changing experience sometimes in a city like Mumbai..where you breath and your neighbour can feel your breath as we all live in such close quarters of each other.. the concept of privacy is a far cry in this city..

But my post is going to primarily concentrate on student (hostel) / tenant vows that one has to face in this city.. as a working professional few years ago i was glad to find a PG which at least gave me the freedom of flexi time and doing my own thing.. but yes even there we were not allowed to bring our 'boy friends' (the gender male) into our PG premises as people in the buildings around would talk.. since ours was an all girls PG.. it was automatically labelled the excuse my language 'Hore House'. And i never understood how such biased perceptions could exist without knowing any reality about those women.. The same was the case with my Hostel as it was an all girls hostel of about 500 women in a prime location in Mumbai and i remember when i was being sent there, my dad had got incessant calls from all his so called concerned friends asking him to re - think his decision because apparently my hostel was famous for a whole lot of 'absurd stories'.. My dad's reaction then was 'i know my daughter and i know she knows where to draw the line.. she will figure what's right'.. and thank god for that as i spent one of the best 3 years of my life amongst a bunch of few of my closest friends today.. The experience that hostel gave me due to it's sheer size, population and variety of people i could interact with, no other place has or maybe will be able to give me..

Other facets of the this phenomenon are much worse and painful.. In Mumbai when you take flats on rent, your neighbours automatically become your moral guardians. They start deciding as to who should and who should not walk out of your home and at what hour.. A lot of people do not rent out their apartments to singles as a rule.. but if you are married, you automatically apparently become human and normal and so it's all good.. this attitude has led to a whole lot of my friends leaving this city.. being thrown out of their houses absurdly.. to a point where a friend of mine never got his deposit back (and that's a hell lot of money) because the owner - a middle aged single woman found a reason not to give it back since the neighbours had complained about him and she was throwing him out.. and when he obviously asked for his deposit back she went to the extent of saying she would cry RAPE.. i was aghast at the extent to which people can do this whole moral brigade nonsense and then lose their own.. suddenly the society wakes up and complains for people being thrown out as they suddenly fear and Alien (note single boy or girl) take over their society.. Just keeps reminding me of the hypocritical society we live in..

Being Single automatically questions your conduct because you suddenly have girls and boys coming into your house and at absurd hours apparently.. i see no reason why someone can decide how anyone should live their lives.. yes i do understand considering the space constraint in this city the noise factor is a big one and so till the time a bunch of guys and girls are not disturbing you in any external way i see no reason as to why and what are you doing noticing his or her daily schedule and living or commenting on any of that..

India in the name of culture lives in this hypocritical society where they run a moral brigade when if we start looking in to each of these people's houses maybe they themselves will have a gazillion things to be ashamed of.. Why can't these neighbours (and i don't deny there are few people who definitely are like that) look at these students or working professionals as people who are living away from their homes and therefore need to have a life beyond what they already do. They have come here to learn to live life on their own and the least one can do is make it a little easier for them rather than question every move they make because their parents back home are there to take care of such issues and figure it out within their fold without needing any needling from unknown strangers.. Neighbours need to realise that they are as much a stranger to these boys/girls and Men/women and vice versa.

It's a long shot to hope in this city for things to change but i can only hope that people and slowly and steadily realise that they need to mind their own business and that's all it takes..

Censorship or Dictatorship on viewership choice

Off late it has becoming increasingly annoying to watch English movies on TV.. Suddenly it seems like Indian television is regressing rather than progressing.. Every second word seems to be beeped and whats even more annoying are the subtitles because i see more asterix marks than words there and sometimes i'm dumbfounded to see words like DUMB ASS being changed in the subtitles to either an asterix or stupid words like fool.. Who are we KIDDING here really? your kid's will learn those words even before you know it. This doesn't mean i support the fact that today's kids seem to be a little too exposed to abuses and many other concepts of life much before their age.. but movies. it changes the essence of the entire story sometimes because of those beeps and edited scenes..

The scarier part is recently i was watching the movie HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU on one of the channels and it was one of those prime time 9 o'clock slots and the film was edited immensely. The movie has nothing more than few kissing scenes and believe it or not all and i mean all the kissing scenes were deleted from the movie.. after a point you just would not understand what was happening in the movie because it would randomly jump into another scene.. for heaven's sake it's a romantic comedy, what do you expect? people sitting across tables and talking. absolutely nothing vulgar in that movie and still had to go through that fate in the name of censorship.. aren't suddenly a bunch of fools therefore sitting and deciding the choices for each one of us? it scares me because suddenly i feel i am going back in time rather than moving forward..because i was used to watching movies in their proper shape size and language and suddenly there seem to be this moralistic group of people who walk into our lives and decide what we should and should not watch..While i know channels also want viewership and therefore adhere by the censorship rules but give me a break.. please do not decide what i need to watch and how to this extent where TV viewing becomes a painful pastime.. It's completely understood that there are certain things that need to be censored but this is way too much..

Channels should be given the rite to label it above 18 like it used to be in the old times on all the channels and play the movies as is.. and if need be let these movies be late night bands not that it would stop any of the kids in our country from figuring out their knowledge data.. in the world of Internet i don't think any kid today is away from trash exposure and so it's best left on parents to be friends with their kids and explain things to them rather than such petty and small ways of trying to guard them..there are gazillion munni badnaam's and shiela ki jawaani's to which kid's will be made to dance away to glory across the country because parent's are so proud to see their kids dancing then why this bias towards English content.. let's be adults and accept that every place in the world has their own culture and therefore it's best respected rather than questioned..

The censorship board for television needs to realize this and STOP ruling our lives.

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Memories re - visited..

Moments and memories long gone..ones you barely think of in your busy life.. work, home, family.. and the day is over you think.. but one meeting with old friends and it all comes fleeting back to you..

Today was one of those days for me.. I finally made the effort to meet few of my old school juniors / friends who happen to be in the city and who i in my busy schedule just never ended up meeting earlier.. it was a pleasant 3 hours.. over beer in Gokul and some great cheap food in Baghdadi.. conversations ranging from whats happening in each of our lives to what million other common friends were up to and where were they..some i have lost touch with and some they have but collective information finally all on one table.. teachers and memories of various school time punishments and notorious activities that in used to make us proud..

At the end of it all i came back home beaming and unloaded my husband with the million stories we discussed this evening.. and it made me realize the importance of taking a break.. keeping in touch with the best memories of life.. because it only makes the present far more valuable because days back have a big hand in making you what you are today.. it's worth the effort to stop and breath instead of the constant run we are on otherwise in our day to day life because apparently we have GROWN UP.. :)

flip flip with flipkart

My affair with Flipkart started about two years back. I have always been an obsessive book buyer and it wouldn't do much to my pockets by the end of it because every time i would walk into a bookstore i would definitely walk out with a book or two and i still do but to keep pace with my book buying habit and depleting account balance every month, the discovery of flipkart one fine day while browsing in office came as a welcome boon in my life. I introduced many to the website before the latest ads even came on TV recently.

I have tried many an online bookstores like Coinjoos, Landmarkonthenet, Crosswordbookstores, Indiaplaza, Infibeam but the service that i have got out of Flipkart has always made it the hero in my online purchase. My first online purchase was on flipkart and considering how till few years back ordering online was always a question mark in your head, i had finally taken the plunge with flipkart.

Since then flipkart supremacy in the book selling business has in many a ways given re - birth to the many staid and old websites of various bookstores and they all seem to now get the idea as to how flipkart has in a single handed manner changed the entire book buying business and moved a lot of people from bookstores to the online buying habit and they are therefore aggressively moving into the business as well. But having said that and having tested many of them flipkart continues to rule everyone's mind because their service is top class and the sheer length of their collection. a quick tick on the great stuff about flipkart

• The most important fact is their collection and that anything and everything that you can possibly search or look for and 9 times out of 10 will never find in your local bookstore will always be available with them. If not available you can always leave a request on their site and they very very promptly get back to you as they have it.
• They have great prices to offer. one of the first few guys to offer cash on delivery along with the regular modes of transaction.
• Upcoming launches always land on their website first before any other.
• impeccable service, never any delays in any deliveries and if any then very timely information sent to the customer.
• customer service is available, helpful, not cranky and seems to sort out issues in a very streamlined manner.
• i also happened to get a wrong book once from them and it was a little harrowing to call them many a times but they did finally after many apologies get it picked up from me and refund the money in my account so i could order the right one.

All in all for me flipkart's been like a magic wand. This in no way indicates that i have stopped going to a bookstore. Visiting a bookstore and spending time amongst books has always been one of my favourite pastime and it will remain so but yes it does help to save a hell lot of money and also play with the range of books they have.

Off late they have forayed into other categories but i do feel that it's going to be a while before they get at par in those categories compared to other websites like Indiaplaza and all which have been older and specialist websites for things like electronics, etc. But their book business is commendable.

Cheers to Flipkart and i hope you guys keep up the good work...

Image courtesy: Google