A See-saw of Democracy

Black swan(book i'm now reading) is quite difficult to understand, especially for someone like me whose only knowledge of philosophy is limited to the syllabus i studied in the moral science books during my school years .I wonder if moral science is categorized under philosophy, because all i remember reading in those books are anecdotes describing how good deeds are rewarded, how to imbibe good values within oneself........ etc,etc.
While reading The Black Swan i came across two philosophy terms-Mediocristan and Extremistan,which i am proud to claim to have understood them(at least superficially). Black Swan illustrates Mediocristan as "When the sample is large no significant instance will significantly change the aggregate or total". Mediocristan refers to the Indian middle and lower class  which outnumber the remaining and overrule any singular event which is executed with an intention to impact the masses in a bad/good way. In other words the effect imposed by any element which lie outside the periphery of Mediocritanism is very subtle and can be easily mitigated by the masses which have major contribution to overall average.For example, events  like 26/11 which was a singular and major event perpetrated to destabilize the nation did not have lasting effect as they(perpetrators) had wished for, after a couple of days of mourning the entire city of Mumbai got back to its daily routine,this is where Mediocristanism played its part.
Extremistan is exactly opposite. According to the book "In extremistan, inequalities are such that one single observation can disproportionately impact the aggregate ".Best example of Extremistan is Indian government's yesterdays decision to increase the fuel price, this although a singular event had a huge impact on the aggregate i.e Indian public.Another example is 9/11 ,a singular event but had enormous after effects resulting an altogether shift in paradigm as far as issue like security is concerned.
One positive trait of any democratic nation is its ability to switch between Extremistan and Mediocristan attitude.For instance, when it comes to increase in fuel prices we adapt to extremistanism and accept that  increase in price was done out of necessity owing to decrease in rupee's value as opposed to dollar.We allow the price hike to affect us until we get used to it and the new rate of Rs.71.83 per litre becomes a new normal.
But when it comes to social/security issues -Mediocrity rules.I have already explained how we switched over to mediocritism when dealing with 26/11 after math.But what about issues like corruption,which side do we switch to?Remember the Lokpal saga?, when Anna Hazare protested for the Lokpal Bill we switched over to Extremistan and collectively made ourselves vulnerable to be impacted by this singular event(Anna's 15 days fast).When government made a blunder by arresting Anna,which was against the basic rights offered by constitution we felt the unbalance created by the governement between mediocristan and extremistan.This aggravated the scale of protest and government had no option but to relent before Mediocristan.Mediocristan Rules!.
My point is, democracy is like a game of see-saw between Mediocristanism and Extremistanism where the people have to be aware of the issues they are facing and not allow any trivial issues to affect them.Also they should switch over between these two categories wisely for the purpose of greater good.
   

Going Shopping? Beware of the Decoy

'Dilemma', that's the state a marketing person always tries to infuse inside the mind of a customer. "What should i select?All the options sound reasonable" this is the question every salesperson awaits to hear from his customer.Cause once he gets hold of customer's mind swirling around all the reasonable options presented before them he easily manipulates their mind to focus on one specific option which he(the marketing guy) wishes to sell, which i bet he does and at the same time receives an appreciation from his customer for ushering them out of the mess and helping them select the best option on the table.Little does the humble customer know that they have fallen prey to a very simple but efficient marketing technique---THE DECOY EFFECT.
Decoy effect works on basic principle of comparison , we humans have a tendency to compare everything.When it  comes to buying a product we compare it in terms of price,quantity and quality.

fig.1

fig.2

Suppose the customer is confused between two products,lets say A and B.Both have same attributes in inverse proportions(refer fig.1) which makes them quite appealing and reasonable.But the sales-guy is interested in selling you product A.Now that the customer is in confused state weighing both the products 50:50,the salesperson from his arsenal of marketing weapons deploys a decoy.He simply slides on the table another option --product A- .This product has a lower grade in terms of attribute as compared to other two products(A and B) but most importantly it is similar to product A(refer fig.2). Introduction of A- on the table makes comparison of A and A- simple (which the customer was in need of) and concludes that A is not only better than A- but also better than B.

At the end of the day, the salesperson sells what he was supposed to and the customer buys what he thought he deserved thus concluding the entire transaction on a happier note. UNLESS.................Unless the customer stumbles upon the decoy effect and realizes what an ass he was succumbing to the dilemma and leaving his instincts bare open to be manipulated by a sales-guy!!!.       

  

Making the right choice

How good are we at making choices?.Are they rational enough to lead you to a desirable conclusion?

Well, at the end of the day if we get the thing we want, in the state we want we say the choice we made was right.If we end up getting an undesired result we think our choice has not been rational enough or the choice we made was perfect but some other unintended factors tucked their heads out and altered the path of the result which was heading our way.

Ok, to get to the point the reason why i'm babbling about decision making stuff is because i happen to read a book on behavioral economics--Predictably Irrational. BTW Behavioral Economics has nothing to do with the stock market or the bond market or any other kind of monetary jargon and can easily be understood by anyone.As every other behavioral economics book this one also digs into thought process of decision making but not so deep so as to enter its philosophical aspect. Rather it studies the external parameters which affect this decision, varies them(the parameters) freakishly until the decision-maker takes a u-turn and selects an option which previously sounded completely irrational or in some cases never even thought of.

Here are some books I've read/reading/to read on the same subject:

      
  FREAKONOMICS
 This one's a best-seller written by an economist who hates maths! and digs deep into massive amount of data to
find a hidden parameter which acts as a decisive factor in the entire transaction.

SUPERFREAKNOMICS

 This book is sequel to Freaknomics, contains more anecdotes supported by the data posing crazy questions like-Can Kangaroos save the planet!!!

So go ahead, grab one of these and learn to make choices the right way!

Lokpal Bill-Everyone Interested

The lokpal bill issue seems to have gained international attention,U.S as always has fiddled in others' affairs on grounds of humanitarian issues and has suggested the Indian government to excersise "democratic restraint" while dealing with the protest.Don't know what prompted the Americans to make such statement ,its not that our government has resorted violent means to curb the protests. Except in case of Ramdeo Baba where couple of fires broke out at the place where the rally was being held and baba gave a slip to police disguising himself in saree, I wonder if Americans are referring to that as inhumane.Anyways the point I intend to make is,when nothing has occurred which does not adhere to democratic principles on the part of government why Americans seem so interested in our internal affairs.
Leave aside issues like the government or civil version of lokpal or the content of lokpal. Our astute politicians have created a new issue out of this, the BJP now wants an answer from the government as to why are Americans being allowed to interfere, I wonder what answer could the government possibly give?
Meanwhile team Anna is welcoming the American interference under the context of international pressure being applied on the government to pass the right version of bill. Good thing for them if they take it this way, but do the Americans really intend to focus on humanitarianism while dealing with this issue or is it just being used as a pretext?(recollect the Jasmine revolution!).
In my view,U.S should first get their house in order which if not done may have serious implications on them and rest of the world. We as the largest democracy have enough political and civil will to look after our grievances and don't need anyone else to dictate to us the principles of democracy.

State of Affairs---Indian way

Look around everything is lying in a haphazard way, it ain't gonna work this way.

First of all lets get our things in order, but before that lets build a support structure to arrange them in order.Hold on, the things needed to build the support are not present, 

Prepare a tender to acquire them.

Waiting for tender to get a sanction............

Someone has raised an objection.

Waiting for it to be overruled.........

Waiting for the final delivery.........

Now that we have things required for the support,lets build the support.

Oh wait,in the time that passed by it seems the things for which support is to be built have multiplied themselves by many fold.

We need a new structure to stuff in the increased number of things.

BACK TO SQUARE ONE

Prepare a tender

Waiting for tender to get a sanction............

Someone has raised an objection.

Waiting for it to be overruled.........

Waiting for the final delivery.........

|
|
|

State of Affairs remains same yet again,thanks to ever increasing population and slow decision making.

  

Brushing up your Science

Some people are never satisfied with all the knowledge they have gained and are hungry for more.One such person is Bill Bryson, by profession a journalist,an author of over half a dozen books this person was not satisfied with the knowledge of science he had and felt was not delivered in a proper way in high school.This prompted him to leave everything aside and study the study of everything in science and probably everything inside the universe,yes he studied the study of everything since he has not discovered anything but has simply tucked in the findings of all the actualities together in 500 pages book in lucid way so that a commoner can understand them.

Also in some way he seems to indirectly taunt the high school science teachers "Look this is the right way to teach  science" by making science as interesting as possible, and by giving accounts of the great brains behind discoveries(and believe me they are worth reading).Speaking of Discovery a regular science stream student might find it reading the transcript of a science show on the Discovery Channel(although its not that way literally) but what makes this book special is Bill Bryson's special writing skills all utilized to make the inexplicable as comprehensive as possible.      

A Dumb Important Idea

Every-time i read the hitchikers guide to the galaxy i get weird ideas, sometimes they are so out of this world that if i by any chance try to convey it, you will definitely become vulnerable to all kinds of mental disorders and if you  ponder over a longer period of time on the same stale idea there's always a possibility of you having to book your place in the mental asylum. No therapy,no medicine nothing will come to your help, the only way to come back to sanity is to dwell deep into the same idea which sent you there in the first place and discover in that idea something which no one has ever discovered before,something sane,something rational,something not worth causing insanity.Resting on your bed in the asylum staring at the ever creaking ceiling fan and thinking on the idea you will soon find that person resting next to your bed is also staring at the same ceiling fan(assuming your are disposed off in a public asylum having only one ceiling fan serving 10-15 beds) which is an indication that even he is thinking over the same idea and soon you notice not only your neighbour but the entire ward is staring at the ceiling fan!.

Now time to convey the idea,but before that-
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!. THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL IS MEANT FOR THOSE WHO HAVE READ THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH CAREFULLY AND AGREE THAT THEIR MENTAL STATE IS MATURE ENOUGH TO GRASP IT'S CONTENTS WITHOUT HAVING ANY SIDE EFFECT ON THEIR BRAINS.ON OCCURRENCE OF ANY UNDESIRABLE EFFECTS THE AUTHOR OF THIS BLOG HEREBY EXPRESSES THAT HE WILL IN NO WAY BE RESPONSIBLE AND SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO ANY PROSECUTION LAID ON BY THE AFFECTED READER.

Here's the idea-
What is one thing common among all the wrongdoers,the corrupt politicians and the terror mongers?They all strive hard to gain importance.To corrupt politicians achieving money and power is the way of gaining importance cause once you have that people respect you,people consider you important.To the terrorist creating massive bomb blast with maximum possible casualty is the way of achieving importance ,once they do that they are not only revered in their own jihadi circles but feared by rest of the world and in some cases they also get the honuor of having their name listed in TIME magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.So the root of all problem is this desire of gaining importance.
What if remove this desire from them once n for all.
How to do that?the answer is TOTAL PERSPECTIVE VORTEX (TPV), TPV is mentioned in the hitchikers guide to galaxy-part2.Its main function or rather intention is to make you feel small,make you feel unimportant.
Installed inside a huge metallic dome a person entering the TPV comes out crying and cursing himself for either entering the TPV or being in category of person who cry out loud in TPV or many times both.
Regarding the category of persons who cry out loud in the TPV are those who think they are very important like some mentioned above(corrupt,wrongdoers etc.).
No, TPV does not hurt them instead it shows them,it shows them an entire visual of the universe in one frame and in one corner they see a small arrow pointed at a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot with a text beside it "YOU ARE HERE" on seeing which they feel aloof n unimportant in this vast universe.All their deeds they had done or should have done to achieve importance all suddenly become like a piece of cake!.Again,this happens to only those who have the utmost desire of becoming something important.
Idea of TPV is great what's greater is that TPV should be used as a mode of punishment for all the wrongdoers.This will also keep the human rights folks happy.
But there's a big problem, a massive problem ,a problem which has the potential of making this entire article unimportant-TPV hasn't been invented yet!!!

A lesson learnt...

I am totally, utterly and bitterly confused,which book should i read???now reading 'the firm' nice book but the usual hollywood plot-a smart hero helping the fbi tryin' to take over a mafia.Although it's a fast paced,hold on to nerve kind of experience read but the problem with this kind of genre is that after u fifnish readin half the book u begin to wonder ,why am i reading this?Aren't the books there to enhance ur intellectual thinking(sounds too orthodox),this is exactly the thought that came to my mind when i finished reading more than half the book.Having no motivation(motivation?u don't need motivation to watch tv) i stopped reading it when the plot had got actually interesting, never mind i said n thought of reading a book which scholars read(what a stupid thought!).With this thought in my mind i went to bookstore n purchased 'The dialogues of Plato', a book on philosophy(philosophy n me! think about it n i'm sure that will be the end of ur thinking process).Ok, so i purchased it,went home,read it n closed it(200 rs wasted).My brief encounters with plato's teaching might not have taught me anything about philosophy but it taught me never ever deal with anything which is outside the realm of your understanding.Anyways i'm back reading 'the firm' n enjoying it.So long to all the philosophical kind of stuff n the 'intellectual' thinking that book enhances, for me reading is only n will always be about pleasure. 

State of being---Confused

Chaos,Confusion these words are so deeply rooted in our veins that knowingly/unknowingly it rules our everyday decisions.There's chaos among masses during election who have no idea for whom should they vote and vote for someone who leads them into more confusion, there's chaos among brokers on which/how much stock to buy and which to dump,chaos among poor on how to earn money and among the rich on how to spend it!

Instead of giving all the above illustrations if u still think that I'm exaggerating, let me explain how chaos ,confusion is deeply rooted within us.
We are composed of atoms,or rather every matter is composed of atoms.These atoms having no sense at all on how to move around inside the matter are the main source of this universally embedded confusion,Scientist have found out that u cannot differentiate one atom from another and now they have come up with a new theory altogether that there is always a possibility of an atom being present at two different places simultaneously ,now how is that possible?
Atoms aren't distinguishable so there is always a chance that u are looking at two different atoms at two different places and claiming them to be same.Scientist say they have reasonable evidence to prove this.Scientist and atoms both seem to be doing there jobs ,so who is to blame for this confusion???

Never mind let's stop blaming these indivisible particles and let's be honest and take the blame on ourselves.It's us humans who are responsible for universalizing the chaos.Remember the big bang theory.It states that universe was formed as a result of a massive explosion which took place out of a small clustered matter which contained dense atoms reverberating randomly in form of CHAOS.There u go,again evidence suggest that atoms are responsible.When things had spanned out so well and blame had entirely shifted on atoms we humans or rather some among us stepped into the ring and speculated the big bang theory,was the exact timing of formation before the bang or after???More chaos into already chaotic phenomenon.
Well, out of this chaotic and trivial subject we at least seemed to have reached a reasonable conclusion-
That atoms are the source of chaos but we humans are responsible for universalizing it.Or is it the other way round?Still Confused!!!

A Timeless Reader

Books on my Head

I listen to Books and I talk to them.

I breathe in the Alphabets and exhale out the Words.

I don't look anywhere else

since

Everything that I wish to see is right here in front of me.

I read the Past

and

See the Present, to visualize the Future which I may never see.

cause

All the while I have been reading

I never realized that Future slipped away right past me.

Epitaph of Bin Laden

Claiming something for the price of something is rationality, claiming nothing but still thriving on others expense is begging.Here's one more rare phenomenon--to claim everything at the expense of other's sacrifice, what name should be given to this act is to be decided by those a few who practice it.And the hope that this act will ever be christened is also fading because a few of those who practiced it never lived long enough either to experience it or to name it.The last person and hopefully the last one to practice it after Hitler was recently
Shot dead and the real irony was that he remained in oblivion for a decade from the world which he wanted to claim for himself .So all those efforts, the planning of death and destruction , of claiming someone elses life to claim everything all gone in vain.Or rather gone to the unfathomable depths of arabian sea never to be reclaimed and never to be remembered.Sleep in peace with the fishes!!!

No Respite, Only Dispute

“It was the best of times, It was the worst of times” wrote Charles Dickens. Apparently it is not the best of times , look around you to notice some of the worst imaginable situations prevailing, not only prevailing but fuelled and thrived upon just to safeguard a vested interest of a small faction. A small faction of Dictators, whose sole purpose is to stick on to the power no matter how worse the conditions faced by their subjects, no matter how strong and resolute the desire of the people to oppose them and no matter how powerful the opposition to overthrow them, these factions will stick on to their throne like a thirsty bloodsucking leech on human body. No, not a leech, using leech as a metaphor is too good for them. A leech sticks on to a body to suck out the impure blood, but these dictators stick on to their throne for decades and putrefy it. And putrefy it so badly that the real difference between good and bad, rational and irrational becomes so thin that even a highly moral person feels that committing an immoral act is the only moral thing to do, and that if he fails to perform this ‘moral’ act he is bound to be charged for committing an immoral act. A more closely relating metaphor for these dictators is comparing them to a character named Gollum in Lord of the Rings.

Expressing indignation through blogs, through social network and all other kinds of public media is the only way of oppression against these dictators. Cause the real forces who have the potential to overthrow these dictators in a snap are actually sitting in their headquarters arguing among themselves on an action plan to overthrow this dictator. I’ll narrow down my views from ‘these’ to ‘this’. And to be more specific I am referring to Muammar Gaddaffi and the force trying to overthrow him –NATO. Nato militarily so much powerful cannot overthrow one dictator. Constantly arguing over their action plan on Libya they are making room for Gaddaffi to become much more powerful than ever before. Check this Out--- majority of African nations want Gaddaffi to stay in power, reason---he is the only person who stands resolutely for African reforms and interests , to put It the other way Gaddaffi helps the dictators of other African nations to stay in power by supplying them with tons of cash and thousands of mercenaries. Looking at this scenario another nation named Syria is following suit. Their head of state when on the brink of getting overthrown by the opposition backed by the masses played bloody politics and now a situation where there is high probability that opposition party might sacrifice public wishes for political gain is looming over them.

 So much for all the blood, sweat and tears of the Common man. None of this is new or unusual, it has happened before in the book “LORD OF THE RINGS” where for pursuit of one ring the entire middle age had to face dire consequences of war. Here are the famous lines relating to pursuit the pursuit of power by these dictators from LORD OF THE RINGS where ring is analogues to the throne that these dictators hold on for decades.

                                      
                                      One Ring to rule them all,One Ring to find them.

                                      One Ring to bring them all and in darkness bind them.

Lets now allow them to get hold of the ring and bind their subjects in darkness.

Irony of Life

To write or not to write that is the question,with so many things happening around

you there is so much to hear about ,so much to read about but nothing to write about

because many of the things that you wish you'd have wrote have already been

written.So many things you wished no one had read before have already been

read.All that is left are the things that no one writes about nor even thinks to write

about.To think about whether to write which has never been written before  also

implies that someone else must have had given a thought to that thing which you

now wish to write and would have come to a conclusion that it is not worth writing.

To put it the other way ,you spend hours toiling in vast uncomforting space of your

mind where hundreds of thoughts are showered by so many things happening

around you, you don't allow it to drift away to think of some other thing and try keep it

firmly focussed on one thing that you wish to write about.But suddenly after all the

hard work when you are about to ink a final full-stop the thought that someone else

must have had thought of the thing before and trashed it comes to your mind.

Then starts the downfall,then starts the reluctance, then starts the despondancy and

you never ink the final full-stop.Days pass,months pass,years pass and you happen

to read the same thing written by someone else which once you had thought of

writing.You look back and think about the moment when you were so close to

achieving something but in a split second you let your mind drift away and the rest

was history,and will remain history which no one will ever know, no one will ever read

cause the real winner has been declared.The real winner who never ever gave a

thought to anything else other than writing that thing.And that thing became the story

of his life.You then think this probably would have been your own story but now its too

late for you, it has become an Irony of your Life and will remain so if you don't start

again from scratch and think about a new thing to write.

BATCHA'S death described by THE HITCHIKER'S GUIDE TO GALAXY.

Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy(HGG) is very very weird, so weird that if i describe it, my description of the weird matter would be so weird that this weird description would override the weird description in the book and eventually the weird part which i am suppose to describe would be left out(effect of reading the book twice).Nonetheless i have to keep this blog alive and not allow it to drift away in the vast void called "Internet" and to do so I have to describe some of the most weirdest parts of HGG no matter how weird it would sound but very meaningful as you will later find it.
The HGG says, the world as percieved by human beings is not the way it is,that we are not the most dominant and intelligent species on the planet Earth, leave alone the universe.In fact we human beings are a small part of huge matrix which is a subset of a huge computer program called EARTH.The Earth is designed to find the answer to ultimate question "WHAT IS LIFE,UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING?".To teach human beings how to thrive in planet earth they(i still don't know who 'they' are?) sent hyper-dimensional creatures to planet earth called MICE.
Heres how those mice proved smarter than us,we human beings so proud of our pre-concieved presumption(i.e humans are the most intelligent species on the planet) captured mice thinking that their brains very closely resemble to those that of humans.Human beings carried out various kinds of test on mice in the laboratory and learnt the behavioral patterns in mice when exposed to various tests.But mice were way smarter than us and taught us how to behave by performing some weird actions inside the glass cubical.So the fact that every human being spends his entire life working hard incessantly to earn money and eventually dies carrying nothing with him was derived from mice's actions of running inside the wheel to get out of the wheel.(weird huh???)
So HGG indirectly says mice taught us to run behind money.To put it in a HGG'S way ,mice taught us to run behind,to cheat,to commit fraud for a small something by something inch piece of paper.
And the repercussions of these mice's teaching are still being faced by Human beings and will continue to affect them.Heres the most recent effects faced by an earthling called BATCHA (A.RAJA'S SECRATARY).Baccha was secretary to a human being who commited fraud to earn millions of those something by something inch pieces of paper and he earned it.BATCHA thought even he had chance of earning those pieces of paper along with his master in this deal and he did so.But it turned out that the human beings who according to Batcha and his master who were not supposed to know anything about their wealth t came to know about it.The result of which Batcha hung himself or was hung by someone to the ceiling fan and died.So thanks to Batcha and the training imparted to humans by mice the computer program called EARTH was able to find out an answer which would never be an answer to the ULTIMATE QUESTION.


And here's the answer:
LIFE,UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SOMETHING BY SOMETHING INCH PIECE OF PAPER CALLED 'MONEY'.
Thank You Baccha,Thank You mice,You have taught us a valuable lesson!!!
                                    

BACK 2 SQUARE ONE

The Hitchiker's guide to galaxy(HGG)-part2(Restuarant at the end of universe) has finally arrived.The GOOD part ---it has arrived earlier than i anticipated(courtesy---fast and free courier services) and the BAD part---an HGG freak says you need to go through first part again to understand the second one(back 2 square one) and the UGLY part--- i haven't yet finished reading the first one(reading lag continues).Anyways having nothing else to do i'll post some of the weirdest, funky but true phenomenons mentioned in HGG.

ABOUT BEGINNING OF LIFE:
According to the HGG------"A hole appeared  which was nothingth of a second long,nothingth of an inch wide and quite a lot of millions of light years form end to end.The nothingth of a second for which the hole existed reverberated backwards and forwards through time in improbable fashion.Somewhere in the deeply remote past it deeply traumatized a small random group of atoms drifting through empty sterility of space and make them cling together in most extra-ordinarily unlikely atoms. These pattern quickly learnt to copy themselves and went on to cause massive trouble on every planet they drifted on to.That was how life began on universe".Reading this I feel very sorry for those brainiacs at CERN who have spent billions of dollars figuring out the above phenomenon.

ABOUT THE STRANGE BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS FOUND IN HUMAN BEINGS:
One of the strange habit of human beings is continuosly stating and repeating very very obvious,as in Its a nice day , or You are very tall,or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a 30-foot well,are you all right ?
A theory formulated by an extra-terestrial being to account for this behavior:
'If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, their mouths probably seize up.'
After careful observation he formulated another new theory,
'If they don't keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.'

And then there's the most funkiest of them all------ "THE INFINITE IMPROBABILITY DRIVE"
and explaining that would be waste of my time and my blog space cause no matter how hard you try
the improbability of understanding the improbability drive is really infinite.But just to give a try here's a paradoxical statement relating to the above phenomenon "If you are in a  infinite improbability drive mode your probability of ending up anywhere in universe and doing anything at any time is infinite".
Now if you have nothing else important to do for the day i suggest you brood on the above subject,as far as my journey goes thats all i've encountered in my 100 pages long ride, now more 100 pages to go before i can reach out to the restaurant at the end of the universe.

My renewed resolution

I have 30 titles on my bookshelf waiting to be leafed out.Almost all belong to suspense,thriller,spy story genre.One relief is that number will be reduced to 29 this week cause i'll finish reading 'lustrum'.But this trying time doesn't end here, my impulsive action of ordering HITCHIKER'S ..........PART2 has just added to my desperation to finish reading all the pending titles ASAP,to add to it the book will come hitchiking to my door step the day i finish reading "Lustrum" which is 30th book from bottom.
                       To overcome this reading lag as i call it, i resolve to read 3 books per month.Now,suppose i keep the follow through i'll overcome the reading lag in 10 months. It is a daunting task taking into consideration that reading is not my full time job.Would i be able to keep up this renewed resolution of mine???Only time will tell......
                                      

Can't wait to visit the restaurant.......

 No i don't mean it literally.Just a while ago i ordered "hitchiker's guide to galaxy-part2 --restaurant at the end of universe".Its a widely accepted cliche' that either you love hithchiker's guide to galaxy or hate it.Now to which category i belong would take more of reading.Not only this but from the reviews i found the book is a satire which describes some of the most weird phenomenon in quantum physics in a very unusual,nontechnical kind of way,first part had many phenomenon of this kind --one being 'the infinite improbability drive'.

                 This book was never on the 'next on the list ' category,i intended to read "spy who came in from the cold" but i'm facing something called genre wear-out.Presently i am reading a roman political thriller "lustrum".The 400 pages' long book has taken a toll on me.I need to come out of this suspense, thriller genre and read something which is out of this world, and does not require use of grey cells to understand but for that i need to visit the restaurant which is at located at the end of the universe......

DICTATORS BEWARE!!!

Shown here is a $25,000 suit custom made for the recently ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.Notice closely and you will find his name inscribed on every pinstripe of suit!.

So if you are a dictator or intend to be wearing this kind of suit in public places may prove to be a recipe for disaster.

Here are some points you need to note as a dictator if you don't wish to get kicked out:

1.Live an austere life, avoid staying in grand palaces cause its not symbolic any more and in no way shows how great or prosperous your country is .

2.Value your position as a leader, Work for the people this way you won't get bulgy and lethargic

and there won't arise a need to spend thousands of dollars to reshape you physically cause if you do so that would violate point 1.

3.If you have a son/daughter and wish to see him/her as your successor by giving them best education in an ivy league school, forget it!.Cause eventually they will end up plagiarizing their thesis.

4. Don't you dare ban social networking sites, if you hate it start using it.It is a great way to spread your propaganda among masses and ensuring them that you are following the above 3 points.

IF you still can't follow any of the above points then one final solution------Give up and let way for Democracy as soon as possible and if you don't do that people will show democracy the way in and you the way out.

Conscious about Identity

Is having sense of identity so important in contemporary age?This is an issue I wonder when reading Barrack Obama's "Dreams from my Father",the book describes Obama's endeavor to find his true identity in a society which was dominated by whites and in a way made him feel like an outsider in his own country.

This quest lands him working as a community organizer and living an austere life in southern Chicago,then one day a sudden visit from his long lost sister makes him realize that people who he can call his own are on the other side of globe in Kenya,he visits Kenya to meet the people of his origin and get to know his true sense of identity.I haven't read the entire book as of now so in what way does he get to know his identity I cannot describe.

In today's age this quest does not sound too relevant, may be because of the widely used metaphor "the world has become a small place to live in" and in many ways this is true.The technological advancement has indeed made this world a small place ,people care to attain highest levels of comfort rather than wasting time finding and getting to know their long lost roots.But here's the catch ---Obama went through this experience in 80s which was the era of commencement of modernism. All these facts lead to only conclusion that Obama followed his consciousness which majority of population never really does. His consciousness asked him to find his true identity which led him to work as a community organizer and made him aware the real problems of black community in a ghetto.He obtained his law degree from Harvard , gaining a fancy degree he had a choice of leading a life of comfort but then his consciousness took over and led him back to Chicago to work for his community.

Very few have led this kind of life, a life which is led by conscience rather than by pursuit of comfort and monetary gains. Leading a great life requires a tremendous amount of self introspection which must remain unfazed by lust of money and power.But in today's age where conscience is masqueraded by the absolute goal of reaching to the higher strata of society one needs to introspect this thought by Emily Dickenson-------

" To live life is so startling it leaves very little time for anything else"

CRIME NOVELS

Crime novel i guess is the most easiest and most hardest type of novel to write.Easy because you need not care for emotions, reader automatically feels the gravity of situation once he is introduced to the crime scene and hard because the author has to play with human phsyce every moment, keep the reader guessing till the last moment and at the end make a revelation which comes as a setback to all the superficial guess work by the reader and in someway makes the reader realize that solution to the mystery was before him right from the begining and would have guessed it if he/she had not succumed to the innocence or naivety displayed by characters.

                The fact that i am writing about crime novel is because i have finished reading Agatha Christie's "Murder of Roger Ackroyed". As of now i have read two books of her the other being "murder on the orient express",both the books are unusual murder mysteries but with same Christie's style of suspecting everyone till the last moment and then revealing the real culprit among those few on mere basis of reasoning.And i bet that no matter how much guess work the reader does he/she will never get it right and the revelation of who the culprit is will come as a shock.

                                             Crime novel more or less teaches us how to use our reasoning ablities and coming to conclusions which are logical and not emotional.This is the only aspect which defines great detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot.