Hari Iyer

My Journey to Australia – a home away from home.

Hari — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:27:53 +0000

I wrote this story for the Book - Journeys to Australia, published by the Hobsons Bay City council. The book is a collection of migrant stories from different residents and was released as a part of the harmony week celebrations. It details my journey from India to Australia, which is repeated hundreds of times every day in various hues by hopeful migrants coming to this beautiful land of opportunity.

My journey to Australia – a home away from home.

For nearly 20 years of my life Australia for all practical purposes was Terra Australis Incognita (“The unknown land of the South”). Remember these were the years from 1980s to the 2000s, the days before cheap telephony, Cable TV, high speed internet and Google street view. Australia as much as we take ourselves seriously now, is such a happy go lucky place that it’s never in the news overseas for anything. We don’t export terrorists, cuisine, culture, or for that matter much at all except for education and iron ore. We don’t cause trouble, we don’t go bankrupt, we don’t have revolutions and coups every few years, our leaders until recently anyway didn’t go around the world preaching economic gospel to other countries. We just go our happy way, living and letting live. So as far as the overseas media was concerned Australia didn’t exist.

My earliest memory of Australia was in geography lessons and world maps, where it was shown as a significant producer of dairy products along with and about as equally important as New Zealand. Slowly as the years went by and we learnt of countries and capitals in general knowledge, Australia was famous as a choice for a trick question in General knowledge as we don’t have our biggest and most famous city Sydney, as our capital, that honour instead going to Canberra.

Then came the cricket world cup in 1992 where Australia beat India in Brisbane by ONE RUN in a very close match. This was when Dean Jones and Allan Border became indelibly etched as legends in my teenage mind. As the years passed by Australia from a far, always seemed like a friendly country with some awesome cricketers, only in the news at New Years Eve fireworks or when there was India vs Aus cricket.

As luck would have it I happened to major in a university, where a lot of seniors had migrated to Australia. I was friends with senior who had migrated here a couple of years before and he guided me through the whole process of getting skills recognised, English skills tested and applying for migration. In about 2.5 years the whole process was through and I was ready with my bags packed.

At 25, life as I knew it was going to change big time, I’d never been on a plane, never even seen a plane from close quarters, never visited any country overseas and I’d just been granted a chance to change my life forever. I left Mumbai, on a direct Qantas flight from Mumbai to Sydney. On my way out through customs in India, the clerk upon realising that I was headed for Australia with a PR asked for baksheesh (euphemism for outright bribery), I refused, hoping vaguely that the days of giving bribes were now behind me.

I was travelling with a friend and it seemed to us like we were the only two first time fliers on the flight. Our flight over Australia was all during day time and we were reprimanded more than a couple of times by the air hostess to lower the blinds, lest the light coming in wake sleeping passengers. I was far too excited to be subdued by them. The whole journey over Australia, I and my friend were glued to the windows with blankets over our heads so as to not let light in and disturb other passengers. The novelty of being in a plane for the first time, seeing clean parallel streets, long roads and rural cattle stations and the dry outback and more importantly long patches of not seeing anybody on land from up above was like the excitement of a little kid in Disneyland.

The final highlight was of course when the pilot couldn’t get landing spots at the airport and we spent 20 minutes circling above beautiful Sydney. That was my first view of the iconic harbour bridge and Opera house, and both were as impressive as I imagined them to be. As they did for thousands of migrants before me, they were icons of a new world, a developed one and far too different to the still developing world and the shanties surrounding the Mumbai Airport I’d left behind. Australia represented the hope, reward and opportunity to establish a new life. A world where government is not corrupt, (most) ministers reply to letters sent to them, elections are fair, government employees don’t expect bribes, and there is hardly any poverty.

As migrants with nothing but the clothes on our backs and a few friends for support we did pretty well in the first few months, at least we knew the language and one other thing. Life was good and it was only going to get better.

For my first job in the weeks after we came here, I was out door knocking the poorer suburbs in outer Sydney trying to flog utility contracts from dodgy electric companies that have long since gone bust. No better way to learn about a new country and its people, than to be a salesman on the streets knocking stranger’s doors. While I’ve always loved dogs having a few set upon you by irate home owners is not the best way to meet them in a new country. Anyone who hasn’t door knocked strange doors trying to sell them something is missing a key experience, for us it was like a rite of passage in the school of hard knocks. Lack of cars never deterred us for long, as rides were far too easy to hitch down the end of an outstretched thumb, Australians we felt were far too generous. In memory to those days I’ve never turned a door knocker down without first giving them a hearing, or passed by an outstretched thumb if I am in a position to give a ride. As they say it’s all good for my Karma

Eventually I found good paying work, first temporary and eventually more permanent, long term and professional work based on experience and qualifications from overseas. Work that didn’t involve trying to sell strangers, things that they didn’t want to be sold. I moved around a few cities following work, and eventually settled in Melbourne. Melbourne has this amazing multicultural feel that is redefining what “Australian” looks like. In the past decades it was the Greeks and Italians and now it is the Indians and the Chinese. With such a large ex-pat population of Indians there is hardly anything missing be it in cuisine, places of worship or entertainment. The only thing that we still long for here is the people, the family and the old friends.

We are not without problems here for it would be too boring if we were satisfied with the status quo, but basic things that make life comfortable are such a given. One cannot truly appreciate the basic comforts everyone has here till we have spent many years living overseas.

I became a citizen a few years later and overtime somewhere inside my head a switch flipped in the way I thought of myself, still very much true to my Indian roots and feeling for the home cou
ntry but now with a very special spot for this faraway land that I now call home. I am waiting for some scientist to discover the spot in human brains, similar to the magnetic compass like spot they found in migrating albatrosses or homing pigeons where the place called home is etched. I have my guesses on this, I believe the spot is etched in human brains between the school and early youth where a sense of ownership, belonging to the community, knowledge and pride of local history blend together in the young impressionable minds to develop patriotic feelings for the country.

Australia today is bending over backwards at every government and policy level to make it more accommodating for migrants and refugees of all kinds, perhaps to make amends for past wrongs or decades of white Australia policy. I for one wish it was the migrants who had the greater responsibility of learning the language, culture and assimilating into the general Australian way of life not the other way around.

To this effect, Australia day and Anzac day are not just public holidays in our household but are days to celebrate the opportunity we got to become Australians, to attend the parades, celebrations and festivities all around us. To think of all the history that went behind making Australia what it is today, its Anglo Saxon heritage, its institutions, and the tolerant, secular and the civil society that gives us the opportunity to call ourselves proud Australians.

On a lighter note, one thing that is a bit more difficult to change than Nationality is support of sporting teams. When we went with friends to the MCG for the India – Aus T20 match last year, though us, parents wore Indian team’s T Shirts and colours, my son sitting on my shoulders sported an Aussie T-shirt and colours. I can’t wait for him to grow up so we can have the Bradman Vs Tendulkar argument.

Hari is an avid traveller, occasional cyclist, accidental writer, frequent reader, a good dad and an average husband who’s trying hard to get into his wife’s good books.

Changing the default for Organ donation in Australia

Hari — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:27:53 +0000

Here is just one reason to donate, one story of a life reborn.

If you haven’t already here’s the link to register to Give the gift of life.

http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/medicare/australian-organ-donor-register

I sent this mail to the Health Services Minister – Kim Carr regarding changing the default to Australian Organ donation law. I will update the post when he replies, You can write to the Health Services Minister Kim Carr here : senator.carr@aph.gov.au , minister@humanservices.gov.au,

This was my letter to him.

Dear Minister,

Currently Belgium, Poland, Portugal,Austria and France are the countries, where everyone is automatically an organ donor. Are there any reasons why you cannot implement the change in legislation in Australia by changing the default option on organ donation to IN. Whoever does not wish to donate can of course Opt OUT,

This could very well be done when people sign up for Driver licenses or Medicare cards.

Else at the very least how about giving priority for registered organ donors in case they or their immediate family need organs.

The current participation rates for organ donation are abysmally low, what are you going to do to improve these rates ?

You have the power to change this,

Thanks,

Here’s a longer and a more thoughtful and longer Ted talk on Organ Donation.

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Ron Chernow

Hari — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:27:53 +0000

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Ron Chernow

To put it simply John D Rockefeller was till date the single richest man in history ever, well now that requires a second mention THE RICHEST MAN EVER even when you compare the Pharaohs of Egypt, Bill Gates, or any of the Ancient Emperors. He was the first man to amass a fortune of close to a Billion dollars and that is in 1900 currency. To give you another comparison, John.D was earning more than a million dollars a month when the average American income was 19$ a week, and that is before the days of income tax.

So it is not surprising that his biography would be a best seller. The book paints a picture of a man of contrasts that was John D, His aggressive and ruthless monopolistic business attitude against his kind and generous that forever changed the face of old money.

Ron Chernow traces John.D’s start as a humble no name who never went to college and started trading in commodities, moved on to trading higher commodities petroleum and in Thirty years through brute force and gentle diplomacy built Standard Oil Corporation to one of the biggest monopolies in the world. Not very different from the Monopoly Bill Gates has over the Home Pc Market.

The book is not condescending of the man who is loved and hated at the same time by such large numbers of people. It brings into light some of the shadowy deals, and methods of work which made Standard Oil to the world’s biggest monopoly. It doesn’t give an aspiring reader like me a detailed insight into John.D’s methods of treating people but the book has a few examples nevertheless.

Here is the Wikipedia page on the John D. Rockefeller, Sr which also makes interesting reading.

Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. Daniel H Pink

Hari — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:27:53 +0000

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Daniel H Pink

My First impression based on the title and the subtitle was that this was just another self help pump up book, I couldn’t have been more wrong. This book offers an unconventional view on what drives us humans and argues vehemently about why traditional carrot and stick methods of motivation don’t work, or rather why they don’t work in today’s knowledge economy.

Daniel Pink argues that we humans are driven more by the innate need to do meaningful and creative work rather than just the general drudgery of monotonous work that we tend to in the factories of the 20th century.

The book quotes a lot of very popular economic studies and borrows a lot from other books like Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, by Levitt and Dubner, Good to Great by Jim Collins and others. To his credit Pink comes across as very honest and straight forward, giving credit where it is due and clearly outlining any disclosures.

The book professes what enlightened leaders know and have been teaching for ages, Money and material rewards can drive people only so far, beyond a certain threshold the effect of throwing more additional money doesn’t generate any more motivation, very much like the principle of marginal utility. Offering people the freedom and flexibility in timings and methods of work is worth more than just giving more money. The feeling of being part of something worthwhile will often dissuade us from jumping ship even when we might be worse off financially.

In fact offering money can in many cases be a negative like was observed in an experiment where potential blood donors were offered cash rewards for donation, and the actual percentage of donors who ended up donating was found to be lowered because the act of getting money somehow took away the altruistic feelings of a noble act like blood donation.

The best part was towards the end where the author has recommendations for businessmen (Books of further reading, policies to try out and implement, etc). Recommendations for individuals and parents bringing up children (Various schools and websites offering an enlightened educations based on the needs of the children)

All up I would whole heartedly recommend this book to everyone and anyone, especially parents , teachers and anyone who has an interest in leading people.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson

Hari — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 10:40:00 +0000

Bill Bryson – The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir

by Bill Bryson

Bryson is at it again ! I have been a Bryson fan for ages now, some of the other Brysons books among my favorites are here. This one is quickly rising up the charts of my favorite list.

The book is based in Iowa , Des Moines and follows Bryson’s childhood and teen days growing up in America. Well it could have been based anywhere in America or the developed countries and most of it would have still been true. The book chronicles Bryson’s teenage adventures be it trying to get entry into a strip show, or stealing beer cases , creating fake driving permits , trying to get lucky with girls , getting entry into “R” rated movies and all those things that people do when hormones are in play.

Standard Disclaimer – I am a sucker for Bill Bryson having read a lot of his other books so this is no different. Bryson lets you travel back to the 1960′s with him so you get an idea of how it was to grow up in America in the years gone by.

There is a lot of humor, sarcasm and that unmistakable Bryson stamp on this book where he lets you into his life and you come away thinking hey I could have been friends with a kid like that.

What Should I do with my life? Po Bronson

Hari — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 10:07:00 +0000

What Should I do with my life? Po Bronson

What Should I do with my life?
Po Bronson

The Book doesn’t answer the question in its title, It can’t , actually no book can. Life would be so much simpler, if answers to eternal questions like these were found in paper back novels.

The best any book can do in this regard is just to provide a few pointers or some encouragement, or maybe a prod here, a nudge there. This book does the same through examples, Examples in the form of short stories detailing incidents in people’s lives when a significant change took place. Some incidents that made them think of the big questions in life?
Click here to read 10 stories in this book, very generous of Po to make 20 % of the book available free to the public on his website.

The people described in the stories are not the ones who have necessarily found their answer to the question, nor is everyone unique or what one would call or extraordinarily successful in whatever it is that they do. But everyone has in some point of time or the other saw the meaninglessness in living life and tried to find an answer to the Big question.

The book is not as much a “how to guide” but is more like a chronicle of how different people tackled this question, the difficulties they faced and the experience in general. Of course the book can’t give you an answer to find your calling in life, but all it can do is to tell you that you are not alone in this quest to find out , ” What should you do with your life? ”

For me it just gave an idea of different experiences people have had, and he does this

He has a very interesting Blog where he writes about family, society, marriage, bringing up kids and other similar issues. Po also writes on Time.com and has an large loyal reader base who follow his blog and other writings. Marriage, divorce , and bringing up kids are topics of deep interest to him and he writes very authoritatively and interestingly on these things.

As for the book and its question. I am yet to find my answer, after all its one’s own responsibility to find the answer.

PS: I like Po Bronson, for he bothered to reply to my email when I sent him a note of thanks and invited him over to Australia. Here is his reply:

Hi Hari,
You know, my UK publisher hasn’t sent me to Australia to promote my books since the paperback of my first novel, in maybe 1996. I’ve had a few other invitations to come, but family needs have always intervened. My cousin, with whom I am very close, lives in Melbourne, and I’m working on coming sometime this coming year. His family and mine usually take a trip each year. So if that works out, my publisher has said they’ll arrange a lot of publicity and events. (At least they say so). So, the end result of all this is … maybe. Maybe I’m coming to Australia this year.
thanks,

Book Of Questions by Gregory Stock.

Hari — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 09:32:00 +0000

Book Of Questions by Gregory Stock.

I saw this book for sale for 10 Rs(less than 30 cents Australian) on a footpath junk store in Mumbai. One of my favorite places in those cash poor times to buy books dirt cheap. Rummaging through other old books, outdated catalogues , medical journals and Mills & Boon novels, I saw this pocket sized book with an odd title which was in surprisingly good condition . A sort of a misfit among other books there, on a whim I bought this and walked on to meet another friend who was to see me in a little while.

As I flipped through its pages filled with one line questions, I knew I had picked a gem. That day on the train back home and later that night I and my friend discussed and debated the questions in this book till early hours of the morning with sleep nowhere in sight. The same pattern was to be repeated over all these years that I have had the book. It sparked so many intellectually stimulating conversations that for a long time I used to always carry it around in my backpack to read in public places, and then use the questions in it to strike up conversations with strangers.

The book as the title claims is made up of questions. Questions that will bring you closer to yourself, your ideas, thoughts, feelings, morals and opinions. This is another excellent review of the book. You can also browse through a few questions here. Have a look here to see how many people consider this book an excellent conversation starter.

I sat with an acquaintance one evening with this book and some snacks and by late night and we were friends by the time we finished the book. The same guy would then go on to borrow this book and use it to know more and get close to his potential girlfriends. I myself would eventually use this book to know more about my life partner. I have had countless exciting conversations with family members, roommates, friends, friends to be, strangers, co travelers on trains, waiting halls and in short anybody who would talk to me, all because of the book.

If there is such a thing called “ENDURING VALUE” for a book, this book has plenty of it. Of all the over 300 books that I have at my place in India this is one of the few that I chose to bring with me when I came to Australia. My only regret is that the a couple of weeks after this book I had a chance to buy “The Book of Questions: Love and Sex,” again by Gregory Stock, and I didn’t buy it as I was a little short of cash, and I have regretted it ever since.

Gregory Stock, If you ever read this page, Thanks for writing the Book of questions.

What you’ll never learn on the Internet by Mark H McCormack

Hari — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 02:12:00 +0000

What you’ll never learn on the Internet by Mark H McCormack

What you’ll never learn on the Internet
by Mark H McCormack

This is a sure fire page turner, coming from an astute business mind who actually knows what he is talking. Mark is a lawyer by profession who developed a sport stars and celebrity management business International Management Group from scratch. His company has managed the endorsements for the some of the biggest names in the international sports arena, big names such as Tiger Woods, Pete Sampras, Michael Schumacher, Derek Jeter, Charles Barkley and models Kate Moss and Elizabeth Hurley. Today IMG is the world’s premier sports and lifestyle management and marketing firm, with more than 2,200 staff in 70 offices across 30 countries. I was mad about his first book What they don’t teach you at Harvard business School? and picked this book up as the Author’s name was familiar.

Coming from a man who actually built such a dynamic and emerging business, the book is filled with simple and totally down to earth business situations. The first few pages are spent justifying the title, as to why you cannot learn these soft skills on the Internet which is a bit of a drag but then the book gets interesting where he starts giving advice in his unique practical style.

Every thing that he suggests is based on an experience that he has had in his company. Time and again he does on about small social niceties that matter more than many bigger things. He has divided the book into chapters for typical situations in business , say if you were recruiting someone, or if you suffered a setback or a demotion at work, typical business etiquettes and office politics and communication. A lot of what he says has got more to do with managing relationships and people, but well when you think of it, isn’t managing a business all about managing people ?

As for the book in general, it lives up to its somewhat odd skewed title this is indeed stuff that you could never learn on the internet(unless of course pirates put an copy of this book online;-)).

He died with a Felafel in his hand by John Birmingham

Hari — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 09:33:00 +0000

He died with a Felafel in his hand
by John Birmingham

“Shared accommodation” The type of housing that you rent and take up when you are not married and move in to a new city as a student or take a new job. Shared accommodation is what this book is all about, or to put it differently it is about the craziest , wackiest , nerds that you would come across if you moved around cities living in shared accommodation.

I myself have been living in shared accommodation and in boys hostels for over 7 years now, but never before did I ever think that it can get as interesting or bizarre as described in this book. The book is full of crazy incidents describing John’s experiences with flatmates moving around various cities in Australia.

There are times when you just can’t stop laughing your ass off on his stories, in fact the title itself is in memory of a flatmate of his who died with a felafel in his hand, and guess what John and his other friends do when they learn of their flatmate’s death? If you thought they would try to contact the poor guy’s family and let them know the sad news, Think again. They rummage through his stuff looking for anything useful, and finding a few hundred dollars in cash stashed away, they add these as the poor guy’s posthumous contribution to the room kitty.

Then there is another guy who stays in the room but refuses to pay the complete share of his rent as he has put a TENT in the living room and claims to be living in the tent. Yes, you heard that correctly. A guy who erects a tent in the room of the house and pays for only the floor space occupied by the tent. The book is about times when you would hold competitions to see who can go the most days without having a shower, or on who is wearing the dirtiest jeans, or when there is fungus growing between your toes as a result of not having a scrub in months.

Tent-dwelling bank clerks, albino moontanners, psycho fucking drama queens, acid eaters, mushroom farmers, brothel crawlers, hard-core separatist lesbians and obscurely tiger-throated Japanese girls are just some of the people you will come across in the book. Many of the times I felt the stories were just too weird to be true.

Overall this is a good book for a single read, I would give it a pass the second time. The book is also the root of a movie by the same name, click here for a good review of the movie. Not something of enduring value in my opinion.

The Lonely Planet Story by Tony and Maureen Wheeler

Hari — Thu, 31 May 2007 09:22:00 +0000

The Lonely Planet Story
by Tony and Maureen Wheeler

Part autobiography, part corporate history, part travelogue this is a book with a difference. This is written in a major part by Tony with Maureen pitching in with personal stories or anecdotes.

A very interesting fast paced book that takes you through the start of Lonely planet in a Rented Apartment in Sydney till today when the same Lonely Planet is a Multi million dollar company with a Brand so well entrenched in the traveler psyche that it has become completely synonymous with Travel.

For a book about a Travel company, there is hardly a 2 page section about the wheelers in which either of them haven’t been traveling to some place or the other. Flip open any page at Random and chances are that the Wheelers are in the middle of traveling to somewhere or have just arrived from somewhere.

It starts with Tony and Maureen, penniless and hungry in Sydney , and thinking of what to do next. They have just come to Australia after a RTW (Round the World trip), from UK > Europe > the Stans > Asia > to Australia. It is on this experience that they write their first book called “Across Asia on the cheap”. Then the tale goes on with telling us of the Humble beginnings of Lonely Planet, when the complete Stock of LP could fit into the boot of Tony’s car. He tells us how they then started with SE Asia guides gradually expanding and covering other bigger regions. How the marketing , folding , typesetting of the book was done in the initial days, by Tony, Maureen and friends.

From there on the book advances with the growth of LP and its international expansion, to Europe, USA and other places. There are amazing descriptions of real life travel adventures that he had while covering the regions for writing Guide books. The Book is also filled with little anecdotes by Maureen about certain incidents , one of my favorites being the description of how they met in a Park in UK.

The Later part of the book is filled with Advice for people interested in the Travel / Guide book industry and gives the reader a thorough feel of what it is like to run Lonely Planet or be a travel writer, its not as mushy as it sounds. As for the book i give my thumbs up to this ! This is a Page turner !

What would Wally do ? by Scott Adams

Hari — Thu, 31 May 2007 09:20:00 +0000

What would Wally do ?
by Scott Adams

I have been a fan of Comics for longer than I can remember. These are the the things that got me started into books, girls , better vocabulary , bad manners and I don’t even know how many more things. Starting with local Panchatantra the Indian folk tales, Chacha chaudhary and Sabu, moving on to Archie , Betty and Veronica and Jughead strips.

My all time favourite comic is always a close competition between Calvin and Hobbes vs Dilbert depending on which one of these I read recently.

There is something about comics that make them especially endearing, they strikes a chord deep somewhere. It reminds me of little perverse pleasures of those pre-adolescent times when, sitting on the last bench in a classroom sneaking in a comic book the day before your exams in between your school textbooks and reading and giggling to yourself while you are supposed to be studying.
Fortunately having grown up now , I don’t have to indulge in such stealthy behaviour to read comics. Because even if it takes such behaviour I am up for it because I haven’t had as much fun reading a book in a long while(and that was another Dilbert book)

As for this book in particular there is nothing distinguishing about this book as compared to other equally hilarious Dilbert books. This is a only Comic Strip book meaning it does not have any other funny text write ups by Scott Adams, just Comic strips of the Dilbert series, with one binding thread between them – “Wally” Follow the Wally link to get a complete bio of this Dilbert character.

Not all the strips in this book are new, meaning strips that I have never read elsewhere. I would say I had read maybe 30 ~50 % of the strips in this book earlier in other Dilbert books or on the Dilbert website.

I think all Dilbert books should come with a warning !

Do not read this book in public places, bus stops, trains or in front of anyone, if you do be prepared for the induhviduals to think you are an eccentric for laughing out so loud over a silly comic strip !

Don’t Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs, She Thinks I’m a Piano Player in a Whorehouse by Paul Carter

Hari — Sat, 26 May 2007 01:50:00 +0000

Don’t Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs, She Thinks I’m a Piano Player in a Whorehouse
by Paul Carter

Paul Carter attended courses in advertising and copy writing when he was in Sydney and not working on the rigs, the result of all those excellent writing skills gained is this hilarious laugh out loud book with an equally catchy and amusing title.

The book details some really amusing incidents in Paul Carter’s life in his various stints at oil fields around the world. Paul has worked on oil rigs around the world right from Brunei, Philippines, Cambodia, Nigeria , China , Russia , Japan and of course the Australian Outback.

So this book is not only a memoir of living in these diverse places but it doubles up as a travelogue giving us an account of his travels on cheap shit economy flights around the world.

There are some really hilarious fun moments in the book, like when Paul keeps a monkey in his house as a pet and the Monkey locks him in the toilet and runs away with the key. As it happens in times like these , this door happens to be a heavy duty one and opens inside, so breaking the door is not the easiest option out, instead he peels off the carpet from under the door , and tries a whole lot of things before finally coming out after taking off the latch with some crude tools.

Then there are accounts of his life in Nigeria , where you would see Ak47 s and hand guns as commonly as you would see mobile phones in Australia, and he goes on to suggest that for the African market Nokia should develop a HandgunPhone instead of a CameraPhone. Moving on there are accounts of diverse things like rowdy brawls in pubs around the world, running away from the police in China, the utter lawlessness in Nigeria, rampant mugging in Cambodia, Driving in the Australian Outback, Stoned out drunk backyard parties in Perth (where his electrician friends tape him to the floor naked with duct tape), Crazy betting on Big Scorpion vs tiny Mouse fights in Brunei (Where the agile Mouse beats the hell out of the poisonous scorpion by running around and cutting its tail off before the scorpion can take aim to sting), accounts of crazy deadly accidents working in oil rigs, and lots more.

I picked this book because of its title from a library shelf, I doubt If I would pick it from a bookstore. This is not the type of book with “Enduring Value” but is definitely worth a single read, and you better get ready to Laugh out LOUD !

Pleasure’s all mine – Confessions of a Professional Submissive by Joan Kelly

Hari — Sat, 26 May 2007 01:43:00 +0000

Pleasure’s all mine – Confessions of a Professional Submissive
by Joan Kelly

This was one in the series of sex related books I picked up this weekend. Started reading it right away as it was a fairly thin book say around 200 pages finished it by the second day. I love smaller books because that means I can get through them faster. And this one was lived up to my expectations in the sense that the book is fast not a slow dreary monologue but a fast moving account of how Marnie got into the business of Bondage and Submissiveness.

Different people different pleasures and this book raves on about the pleasures of Dominatrixes and Submissives or Dommes and Subs as they are known in the business. The book starts with Jean just breaking out of a Submissive relationship with her partner and attending a help group meeting for Submissives and Dommes. It then follows her life through when when joins Dominion a brothel for the S & M types. Eventually she leaves Dominion when prettier girls come to work there and she does not get enough business.

By then she is addicted to the lifestyle with easy money and has quit her day time job as a secretary, and she is one of those few in the sex industry who perhaps look at it as an easy way to make money. Having quit her “job” as an independent contractor at Dominion she starts working independently and strikes out big, flying between LA and New york and servicing clients on both coasts.

It gives us an account of what happens in a typical sub’s transaction with her Master. Interesting stuff that I would rather not write here. I would recommend you to read this only if you are curious or interested in the B& M lifestyle. This book is just erotic enough to maintain interest at the same time short enough to not make it monotonous.

Piercing : a modern anthology by Housk Randall

Hari — Sat, 26 May 2007 01:30:00 +0000

Piercing : a modern anthology
by Housk Randall

What is the first picture that comes to your mind when you hear Piercing , a pierced earlobe ? nose ? ear rim? navel ?

Well there’s more to it than I ever thought, there are piercings for the penis, its head(Yes right a hole through the head of the penis) , foreskin, Labia, clitoris, nipples , scrotum , lips, tongue, chin, eyebrows, testicles and practically anywhere ever else on the skin.

This book is a pictorial , meaning it is full of excellent photos of people with the strangest of piercings imaginable accompanying with their own description of how they got initiated into piercing. How it eventually became an addiction in these people so much so that they wouldn’t feel complete with these accessories.

What struck me the most in this , and partly the reason why I picked this book is the kinds of people and the reasons why they do piercings. I mean there were a fair share of goths, and maniacs with crazy spikey hair. But many were typically mainstream whom you would never ever doubt, for example the 55ish looking accountant , buttoned up in a 3 piece suit. You would wonder what he is doing in a book like this until you look further down to see his zip open and see him proudly displaying his pierced pecker. Or the pretty Pakistani born Designer in London, who started piercings from the bottom up (meaning starting with the clitoris, Navel , and went on to pierce her lip and nose).

There were people whom you wouldn’t ever doubt of doing something this naughty unless you see them here, obviously in delight with the thrill of hiding a secret, of being a vixen in sheep’s clothing. This is what drives so many mainstream people into piercing. Nowadays of course it is so common that piercing is loosing its edge as a point that made people stand out. As one of the people in the book said. “These days everybody and their mother has their nipples pierced”
Looking at all the reasons why people did piercings and subjected themselves to so much pain, the only common reason I could conclude was they wanted a feeling of difference from the normal, trying to be and do something different. As for the book, it is pretty graphic not the sort of the book you would want lying on the coffe table with kids around, but definitely worth a look at other times.

Moeibustrip – digressions from India’s Highways by Giti Thadani

Hari — Sat, 19 May 2007 00:37:00 +0000

Moeibustrip – digressions from India’s Highways
by Giti Thadani

For those to whom the title of this book sounds unfamiliar, Moeibustrip or rather Moeibus strip , is a strip of paper with neither a beginning nor an end.

And it is in a way apt for this book, because this book is not just an account of traveling on India’s roads. This book is more about metaphysical aspects of such a journey undertaken by Giti Thadani. I loved the tagline for the book “Digressions from India’s highways” wow what a lovely phrase, because that is essentially what the book is.

It follows Giti’s travels on road in her 4WD gypsy, to far off places , temples in ruins, archeological sites, museums and everything in between. In fact, I hardly found any “normal” tourist places in the book, apart from The Khajuraoh temples. Giti quite naturally hates the tamasha that that goes on in typical Hindu temples and goes to depths on this topic, explaining each and every little nuances of the Brahmins and their ploys to swindle money. She also delves in deep explaining various bits and parts of stories in Hindu Mythology and the metaphysical meanings of the rituals and traditions, some one completely unfamiliar with the Hindu pantheon might not find this very interesting.

From the book it is obvious that Giti has a extraordinary interest in Etymology, and she is very good at it. The book is liberally sprinkled with Sanskrit words and explanation of their etymological origins and their meanings. These pages were all the more interesting for me as I hope to some day be proficient in Sanskrit and understand the language which according to many sources is one of the most Etymologically structured and object oriented languages of all time. I just loved some of the Sanskrit words that she explains in her book. for exp
rit = pulse of life, its throb
M + rit = death, M (indicates reversal of the meaning) Mrit
A + mrit = eternal, elixir (a indicates negation)
S + mrit(i) = Memory (s indicates preservation, keeping alive)
yog = fusion
ini = female ending
yoni = vulva, origin , waterfall, cave , source
Maheshasur derived from Mahesh = Maha or great, ish = god , asur = demon
Feminine/ Masculine : Kali / Kal (without matrika / vowel i) , Shiva / Shiv (sh(a)v – corpse – without a), Krishna / Krishn, Kumari / Kumar

The book is filled with metaphors, so much so that at times the you loose track of the real passage imagining the metaphor. Apart from this there are hundreds of words there which are either in Hindi, or colloquial in use that some one with limited exposure to Indian culture / Hindi would have difficulty in understanding. Fortunately that was not the case with me There are also many passages devoted to Giti’s personal life , her family and experiences, which are just as interesting as some of the places she describes.

To conclude the book is more close to a writeup on Indian present day culture / life than it is to a travelogue.

The Dilbert Future Thriving on stupidity in the 21st century By Scott Adams

Hari — Sat, 19 May 2007 00:35:00 +0000

The Dilbert Future Thriving on stupidity in the 21st century
By Scott Adams

Let me confess as I start , I like Scott Adams. I am a big fan of his work and mad about Dilbert strips.

A couple of years ago when I sent him a mail on his very very public email address Scottadams@aol.com and thanking him for his book and saying that I enjoyed it,
and Lo behold of all the thousands of emails that he gets he found time to reply for my short email, it said

Thanks for reading it, Hari.

Scott

At first thought it doesn’t look like a big deal, aren’t writers supposed to respond to their readers, but well you would be surprised how many don’t, Believe me I try and write to each and every writer whose work I read. And this response floored me. Here is an internationally syndicated writer whose cartoons get published in in 2500 newspapers worldwide in 65 countries and 19 languages with over 150 million readers with 26 books to his name and he finds time or cares enough to a poorly written email thanking him for his book, Now even if that reply was sent by someone in his office it still means he is bothered enough! This is much appreciated Mr. Scott Adams !

Of all the things I read, Dilbert is one from which I can get a guaranteed laugh every time even on every repeated reading. I am a self proclaimed member of the D.N.R.C (Dogbert’s New Ruling Class) the official Dilbert Fan Club or rather a member of the group which will form the new ruling elite once Dogbert conquers the Earth.

Countless times I have spit out the food in my mouth , or jerked violently holding my stomach trying to control my laughter while reading his books. This one is no exception ! This one is a standard Dilbert book with a fair sprinkling of Comics and accompanying text giving on the theme of Dilbert’s take on Future.

I have to agree that many of the chapters do not quite live up to the Dilbert Gold standard of wit and humor, nevertheless this is still a good read. The strips are just as humorous only the accompanying ramblings get a little dull at times. Again this is because I have excessively high expectations of his rambling having read The Dilbert Principle some years ago.

The unique thing about this book is the last chapter, “A New View of the Future” For this section Adams “turned the humor mode off” and discussed his personal philosophies on life , auto suggestion , ESP , gravity , and some of the other things which are way off topic in a typical Dilbert book. This chapter has enough food for thought and many would think that chapter alone would make the book a worthwhile buy. This would not be the funniest Dilbert book that I have read by a long shot but it is not what I would call disappointing.

Many readers would be surprised that Scott is even capable of writing something so off topic and serious like that, and believe me he can write well. In fact I would strongly recommend another serious novel by Scott Adams which is available free as an Ebook The God’s debris.

Who we are – A miscellany of the New Australia David Dale

Hari — Sat, 12 May 2007 05:11:00 +0000

Who we are – A miscellany of the New Australia
David Dale

The cover of this book shows a map of Australia with a pair of worn out slippers. In many ways an international symbol for the Aussie Backpacker.

I love statistics and numbers especially when they are presented in a way that makes sense, and this book is filled with such interesting titbits and pieces of information that help us decipher “Australia”

For exact statistics on any topic about Australia have a look here > the website of the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This is where most of the info in this book is sourced from.

The Book is full of numbers and percentages, on topics right from Population to demographics to languages spoken , religion, qualification , smoking habits , to cars , credit cardsdiseases, causes of death, top products used in households, most popular movies, books, music, world records, important dates, animals, inventions , periodicals and every other thing that matters.

To present some interesting numbers from the book,
85% of Australian population lives within 50 Kilometers of a beach ,
1% of Australian population lives on a Farm,
43% of the all marriages are likely to get Divorced
87% of the population are Mobile owners
60% use the internet at least once a week
75% live in a home with three or more Bedrooms
Newzeland , China and India are the biggest source of Migrants Now More info on this here
Cancer Causes 29% of all deaths in Australia.

Apart from plain numbers , there are good facts about Australia, like the defining moments in Australia’s history, Important speeches, national anthem etc. There is also a small essay where the author describes a typical day in the life of an Australian family in terms of the products they use.

In all its a very good read and gives a quick snapshot of Australia as we know it.

Around the world in 80 Dates by Jeniffer Cox

Hari — Mon, 07 May 2007 09:32:00 +0000

Around the world in 80 Dates
by Jeniffer Cox

Well this is another perfect example of “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. On the cover you have a catchy title and the image of the pretty author lugging a briefcase and setting off on her oddysey(that’s what she calls it). On the Inside you have a dreadful monologue of how she meets or dates 80 or so men, cutting them off her list one by one in a desperate urgency to get the numbers out. If you see this book take my word and give it a pass, It is so bad that I couldn’t get myself to finish this book. Firstly I don’t quite agree how can you decide on one meeting of a few hours that this person is your “true love”. She repeats “True love” so many times in the book that I had to end the book half way thinking reading anymore would change the real meaning of the word “TRUE LOVE” for me.

I agree this is a very personal and touchy topic but I really can’t quite come to terms with the idea that you can find your “TRUE LOVE” by going around the world dating people. I mean all these dates except for one lasted less than a single day, how much can you find out about a person in a day? and what can you decide with what you know in a day? And for God’s sake don’t keep repeating the word True love over and over again.

Many a times in the book you get a feel that she is not out to find love, but just to go around and complete those 80 people so that she can write the book and get the money promised by some publisher. At one place things seem to be going good for her with a guy(number 20′s I think) in the burning man festival. She spends a couple of days with him and gets to know him better than the others before him but in the end she decides to go ahead and look for what else might be in store for her in the remaining 60 guys. And truly in Hollywood style the understanding guy agrees to her going and dating what’s left of the 80 guys to decide if he makes the cut. She justifies this saying the other people with whom the dates had been prebooked also had feelings and she should give it a shot. It is at this point that I found the book way too ridiculous.

There is another time when the author participates in Speed dating and finishes off 10 or so people in one go in less than an hour, and then has the guts to justify these as legitimate dates in her “Quest to find TRUE LOVE”. I don’t know if she even understands what is meant by”TRUE LOVE”? not that I am an expert at it , but at least I am sure that you cannot find one sitting together for few hours in a coffee shop. The only mildly entertaining part was the relationship resume where she wrote a history about all her previous relationships and why they failed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Author has broken up again and is still looking for her second “True love”

Yakety Yak: Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle By McGilton Russell

Hari — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 08:25:00 +0000

Yakety Yak: Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle

By McGilton Russell

Russell McGilton, You are bound to like this man by the end of the book, I have been searching the net for ages looking for ways to contact Russell to thank him for writing such a hilarious travelogue. As usual it got to my reading shelf being a travelogue with a difference, Bombay to Beijing on a bicycle, well technically speaking he did not do the complete trip on a bicycle, but frankly speaking I don’t think it would matter unless you are one of those who go back an verify every little thing that they read.

Read the initial introductory pages of this book which explain why Russell started on this trip here.

From there on the books gets even more interesting as he actually sets on his trip and arrives in Bombay. On the flight sitting next to him is an inquisitive Indian who doesn’t understand why must one cycle when there are trains, while Russell learns that the local politicians had just changed the name of the city from “Bombay” to “Mumbai” and along with the old name plates go his dreams of the title of his planned Book, “Bombay to Beijing”. Once in India just like all foreigners he is dismayed by the poverty and difference in classes, the crazy honking traffic, pollution and the general hustle bustle of Bombay.

Hailing from India it makes it all the more interesting for me to read about my home town when viewed from a different perspective. Especially when no matter where he goes he is pestered with a single question ” Hello Sir , Which country?”

The book then moves on a swiftly , with Russell’s experiences as he meets another cyclist and they join to cover the route till Kathmandu together. In Kathmandu he is joined by his beautiful blonde girlfriend with whom he then cycles to Ladakh. On the way things don’t quite well and the stress of the journey and the pressure of Indian pestering takes its toll, with Russell breaking up with his Girlfriend. Then he moves on by flight to Hongkong and from there rides on to Beijing.
In between these pages are hilarious accounts of his experiences with villagers, bad hotels with peeping toms, cycle breakdowns, friendly people to assist in roadsides, frustration over his inability to find a single private moment in a country crowded with a billion people, fighting freezing cold and snowfall on roads in China. In China is when Russell gets lucky again and hooks up with another petite babe who takes his nude picture on the great wall of China.

This is a very fast moving humorous book , especially when coming from a horny and pervert author:) He paints a factual not so pretty picture of India as it really is, I recommended it to another cyclist and he got through it in less than a week and came back with genuine compliments for the book . In all an excellent, hilarious, must read book !

Spotted in France by Gregory Edmont

Hari — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 02:54:00 +0000

Spotted in France
by Gregory Edmont

I just finished one book on France, and this is the next in line. Picked it from the France section in the library mainly because it is a Moto-Travelogue with a difference, The cover showed that Gregory on a Vespa Scooter with a Dalmatian and I could make out that this was an on road journey through France. If you don’t know the French just Love DOGS and this books makes it all the more evident. The book is filled with hints on how much the French love their dogs, Did you know that the French have mating shops or to put it more crudely animal brothels where one can take his pet to be “trained” just in case if breeding does not come naturally to his pet. Did you know that French dogs eat out at restaurants with their owners and are often given their own chair at the restaurant table, with their own dish.

Having just finished an Excellent book on the French last week I was hoping this one to be just as good and it was. The book starts with “I knew my life was missing something . . . I just didn’t know what, ….” I always wanted to have a pet dog and this book just gave me a hundred more reasons why I should hurry up. You can read a brief outline of the story in one of the reviews here which broadly give you an idea of the story.

Gregory’s life truly changes for the better with the dog, everywhere he goes people are more friendly , strangers come and talk to him and compliment him about the dog. He is invited into homes, fed and treated well , offered assistance , showered with innumerable smiles and the like just because he and his dog strike a gentle chord in people’s hearts wherever they go.

In the 2 years Gregory also gets too attached to JP as he calls his dalmatian, and they share a lovely relationship. The book is filled with cute one page hand sketches of JP and the environment of the chapter which are sort of a prelude to what’s in the chapter and really add a sort of a suspense and good feel to the book. This book is very well written in a simple and lucid manner, and can be easily read in a few hours. Apparently there is a movie in the making on the book, I’m looking forward to the movie now.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Hari — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 02:50:00 +0000

A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson

This is one of those books that deliver, on what it promises on the cover page. A Short history of EVERYTHING. “Everything” is highlighted in the last sentence for a reason, because the book is indeed so exhaustive that there is hardly any area in the Physical sciences whose history and present state is not quite touched by Bryson.

From cosmology, physics, oceanography, chemistry, biology, geology, anthropology, paleontology, climatology, botany, and evolution he covers all of these and much more.

I would not attempt to write a complete review of this book as I don’t quite think I can better the one written here.

You can also have a look here for a transcript of good Q & A interview with Bill Bryson on this book.

One repetitive comment that you would see in all these reviews is on the ease and manner in which Bryson conveys SCALE, be it the scale of time /life of the earth, or interplanetary distances, or intermolecular/atomic distances. Some of these examples of scale can be seen here.

As usual this book again follows the Bill Bryson standard of not using any pictures at all, I guess when If you as as comfortable using text, you don’t need to use pictures to illustrate what you mean. Words themselves crystallize into pictures. Amazon has some 45 overwhelmingly positive reviews of this book, by far the most I have ever seen and its not as though he is writing about some more interesting topics like “Sex”.

This is a book with ENDURING VALUE, meaning there is so much interesting and relevant info in it that it can be read over and over again.

To put it in one sentence, If textbook writers could write science as well as Bill Bryson, I would have become a scientist!

Notes from a Small Island By Bill Bryson

Hari — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 02:45:00 +0000

Notes from a Small Island
By Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is what I was looking for , I am smitten after reading his excellent travelogue about Australia and was looking for more of his books. The fact that he is a very popular writer is clear from the fact that this book has 256 reviews on Amazon.com and believe me that is something !

If you have read any of his travelogues before you would know he has his own distinct style of humor and that is visible in every page in the book. It is his interactions with strangers and his descriptions of people that I like the most. He has the ability to bring out laugh out loud jokes in seemingly mundane everyday encounters.

Also he has a penchant for picking up details about history that you would not normally hear of from other sources or read in typical travelogues, stories like the a psycho duke who had a fear of people so severe that his servants would communicate with him in letters. Or the Crazy man on the train who bored him to death with details about Engines used in trains, their piston sizes , manufacturing sites, model year details and stuff like that. I especially loved a sentence where he says “and then the man took off to count rivets on trains”. Another exceedingly humorous passage is when he describes in not so polite words the “Vodafone man” who makes pointless calls to tell people he’s on the mobile, on the train and will be home in so many minutes (1995: 187). There are many such funny / witty instances in the book like the time when Bryson was a journalist when Rupert Murdoch buys the company and the printers and typesetters go on strike. There are picketers everywhere blocking roads and terrorizing people and how Bryson barely manages to escape from being kicked in the ass by some picketers.

He did this journey throughout England primarily on public transport going to places with strange names that I have never heard of, most of which (place names) I managed to forget before turning the page. Well I must admit I know very little about places in England and of all he describes except for a few city names, Stonehenge was the only tourist place I was quite familiar with.

It is his idiosyncrasies that make the book interesting , this book does not have as much factual information or a lot of lasting value as a guide book but it is just one of those Non Fiction books that can be read once for a decent laugh. To say it shortly he sums it up as “British towns are a deck of cards that have been shuffled and endlessly redealt–same cards, different order.” Throughout the book he complains consistently about bad architecture ruining the Victorian or traditional look and feel of the cities and when he complains he does not restrict himself to architecture, very often in a timely manner he has enough disdain for everyone right from public transport authorities, fast-food check out clerks, Ticketing clerks, to poor old men with hard hearing.

Overall I would read this book once and that would be it. It did fall short of my expectations in the sense that I am not a lot more knowledgeable about England having read this book unlike what happened before when I was enlightened with information about Australia last time. On the back cover of this book was a one line review that said “This book has as much Bill Bryson in it as much as it has England.” I could not agree more.

A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke

Hari — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 04:22:00 +0000

A Year in the Merde
by Stephen Clarke

I found this book about a Brit’s impressions on life in Paris, very very entertaining, Its a genuinely laugh out loud kind of a book with written in style by Stephen Clarke under the pseudo narration by a character Paul West. For those who don’t know Merde is not the name of some posh suburb but actually is the french translation for “Shit”

I picked it up because it promised humour starting from its cover, the back cover said “A Year in the Merde is an almost-true account of things that may or may not have happened to him in the ten years he has lived in France, depending on who is asking the question. He originally published the book in an edition of 200 copies, with the intention of selling them through his website, giving them away to friends or offering them as fuel for his neighbour’s Bastille Day barbecue.”

Well I can’t really write anything better than what has been written about this book in so many places, to get the hang of the storyline see this or go here to read a better informed review on the book.

For my part I just enjoyed the book thoroughly, the way he takes potshots at the French and their language , work(or actually Strike) culture and their little idiosyncrasies. For someone like me whose idea of night life is a good book or some good company , he paints a good picture of the hot an happening night clubs in Paris and his sexual misadventures. In all I found it immensely entertaining and can be a good read if all you are looking for is a hearty laugh.

The Street 2 : Confessions of an Undercover cop Lachlan McCulloch

Hari — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 01:34:00 +0000

The Street 2 : Confessions of an Undercover cop

Lachlan McCulloch

Lachlan McCulloch was an officer with the Victorian (A state in Australia) For all those crime thrillers and detective serial addicts, this is a book that you have been waiting for. The author Lachlan McCulloch is a copper. The Good guy fighting and bad guys on the relatively peaceful streets of Melbourne. Frankly speaking I am amazed at the peace and absence of crime in this city. Perhaps the credit goes to officers like Mr McCulloch.

This is a fairly small book less than 250 pages, and is very fast paced, with every chapter denoting one particular case in his life as a police officer. These are real accounts of his experiences, each different and captivating. Sometimes you can have the best of experiences but that does not necessarily translate into excellent writing. Bad writing can convert even the best of experiences / subjects in to clumsy, dull & bland monotones. For example Indian writers writing about sex. For an example of how good writing can convert simple and mundane into really interesting, have a look here where Waiter writes about a simple bus trip and moves you.

In these terms I would say the book is very well written since the author writes about a live experience and gets life into the words so well that we can see what’s happening. Also each story/case is normally only a few pages long so you can start and end a story relatively in a short time, very useful when you read the book in bits and parts.

Googling around you can see that the Author has had his fair share of accolades for the work done, and the book has some very good examples of the creative strategies used by the author to combat crime.

He used to roam on the streets as a vagabond homeless hanging around typical street corners, staying close to where the real action was. And this according to him was the most effective way to get information on what was happening on the crime scene, and do some real time espionage.

Another example of his creative skills was when a few areas are troubled by a spate of break-ins and burglaries. On investigation they found that the method used by the burglar/s was to climb on to vacant apartments on the 2nd and 3rd floors through the drainage pipes on the outside and enter the houses breaking windows. Most Melbournian houses generally do not have grilled windows / rods to prevent burglaries.

The complete police department is pissed off at this, but is unable to identify or catch the culprit. When Lalan’s boss offers every one 1 week to vacation to catch this criminal. Lallan gets serious about this particular guy and starts working on this case, instead of other officers who work at night scrounging the streets looking for him. Lallan gets a ladder and works only at day time. 2 days later he leaves a message for the ambulance service to alert him whenever there are any emergency calls in a particular area.

True to his prediction there is an emergency call 2 nights later and the man admitted to the hospital is arrested by Lallan as the criminal, and all the stolen stuff so far is later recovered from his house. If you are wondering what was all this about, here is the clincher, When Lallan starts working on this case he is sure that it would be fairly impossible to catch this guy dressed in black in action in the darkness of the night. So he does what only someone like him could think of .

He buys 2 big can’s of Vaseline and takes a big ladder, working in day time, single handedly goes around applying Vaseline to all the drainage pipes in the area. Then he waits for the thief to slip from one of his Vaseline’d pipes and call the ambulance, which is just what happened.

I hope you are convinced about the quality of the experiences he has mentioned about in this book by this example. I’m convinced it’s a good read.

Real Estate Mistakes : Neil Jenman

Hari — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 01:27:00 +0000

Real Estate Mistakes :
Neil Jenman

Excellent book that I have referred to many others before. And not only me those whom I referred it to liked this as well. The book is fairly anti real estate agents and well as it should be, Real estate agents and lawyers are very few of those universally hated professions where mistrust and acrimony runs deep till the bone. And the author takes a good stab at both.

He describes the malpractices used by real estate agents in fairly good detail and suggests steps and ways for house sellers and buyers to avoid these mistakes that agents do. He has compiled an amazing list of statistics in which he convincingly argues his case against the agents, and of course the agents hate his book. For example one of the statistic he gives is that more than 80% of the people are so stressed out and disappointed by selling a house through their agents that they say they would never use the same agent again to sell a house.

For example according to the book, one of the biggest malpractices that agents use is selling houses by Auctions! Here again contrary to popular belief he argues that auctions are a harrowing experience for the buyer and seller alike. The only person who gains in these is the Agent. Which if you think of it is reasonably true. Also have a read through his very informative website and see a snippet of what he has to say.

A typical scenario described in the book goes like this, lets say you put up your house for sale and there are 2 buyers, Your agent’s job should be to get you the maximum price that the buyers are willing to pay, but this is not actually what happens at the auctions. Lets say you decide to go for an auction and on auction day in the final moments you have 2 possible serious buyers who are bidding against each other.

Now consider this for a moment, every buyer when he has inspected the house has a certain set price in mind that is the maximum he might be willing to pay for the house. Lets say for the sake of the argument that the the two buyers have their maximum price 50,000 $ apart, meaning for your house the Buyer 1 is willing to pay 300,000 whereas buyer 2 is willing to pay 350,000.

This is what will happen on the Auction day, when the Bid reaches 300,000 , Buyer 1 will stop bidding and Buyer 2 will bid for 301,000 $ and buy the house. So that is effectively a waste of 49,000 $ for the seller. This he says is the biggest problem with the auctions. Now instead of an Auction , if the agent had negotiated individually and got their maximum buyer’s price without revealing what other parties are willing to offer. The seller would not have lost such a big sum. Have a read in the author’s own words here.

There is a caveat in this that the author comfortably ignores that at many times in Auctions , the heat of the competition encourages people to bid against each other and over shoot their budgets, and they end up paying more than what they would if they had thought with cool heads in the comforts of a negotiating table or on telephone.

The book is also gives some good tips on selection of good agents, tips on how not to advertise your house and stuff like that. He tells you the questions a buyer should ask, some basic checks to be performed, why not to do open inspections and stuff like that. In all I would say its a very good book and a must read for people planning to buy / sell their home. The book is definitely worth its ~ 20 $ price and if applied correctly can end up saving hundreds of dollars. If nothing else I am wiser for having read it , and perhaps better prepared for when I have to buy a house.

This is what a friend (who is about to buy a house) had to say after I had recommended this book ” I just started reading it this morning and am already impressed. Its the sort of book I need to read at this point. Cheers for the recommendation.”
You can perhaps guess how good the book is if some one is impressed in less than 1 or 2 hours.

The year of yes : the true story of a girl, a few hundred dates, and fate. by Headley, Maria Dahvana

Hari — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 01:24:00 +0000

The year of yes : the true story of a girl, a few hundred dates, and fate.
by Headley, Maria Dahvana

Now this is one of those books where a cute dumb blonde is unable to find love and hence goes sleeping around / dating with every moving thing in the town. Right from Cab drivers to tram drivers to homeless vagabonds to actors, writers, old retired men, Lesbians, Gays, and whatever other kinds there are.

The book is entertaining in a strange way that you get to see some one else’s life standing from the sidelines. Though her sexual and other exploits are fairly adventurous, I wouldn’t be tempted to go so far to get whatever freakish pleasure she got by dating around so many guys to find “TRUE LOVE”. It gives a nice picture of the Big city night life (the book is set in New York), if you are interested in that sort of thing.

At times it just appears to weird to be true, and now I don’t remember whether it was non fiction/ based on her real experiences or if it was just pure fiction. Either way the book is worth a read, it is indeed entertaining but falls somewhat short of the standard set by books like “Does my bum look big in this” which are of similar nature.

Towards the end after dating every possible candidate on New York city, when Maria finds her so called “true love” it is a divorcee, a Pulitzer prize winning writer whom she meets after a long Gap. Given that she devotes so many pages to other men, I would have preferred to know more about this final guy and whether it did actually work out for her with the writer, her so called “True Love”. This detail is actually missing as the books ends on a note and maybe she wants us to assume like the endings in typical Bollywood movies… “They married and they lived happily ever after”

Overall, the book is entertaining and has decent humor in its pages, reading it in Public trains and buses, I have been stared at more than a couple of times having burst out laughing loudly while engrossed in it. But finally I wouldn’t buy it, I buy only those books at full price which can be read over and over again, or which are of enduring value. IMHO, this book does not meet that criteria, its not worth buying, though it can definitely be read once. (For the uninitiated IMHO means “in my humble opinion”)

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson

Hari — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 12:08:00 +0000

In a Sunburned Country
by Bill Bryson

This book was given to me by an American friend; I mention this because the book is not available in the said title outside America,
My friend said it’s a very good travelogue about Australia and anyone new to Australia should read it, so he read it and handed over to me to read it. I looked up Bill Bryson online and found that he was an American, Frankly speaking, I was a bit let down when I learnt that the author “Bill Bryson” was an American, In fact the last time I had seen his travelogues in the library I did not pick them. After all Americans in general aren’t really known for their knowledge and appreciation of world culture and history. Have a look here to see what I mean. I have tried hard to get rid of my set prejudices about America, as none of the Americans I have met personally are the snobbish; I am better, richer and hence better than you types. Every American I have met personally has been polite, friendly and fairly knowledgeable about external affairs, but the stereotype still remains. I guess it’s just that the country as a whole that displays that rude image but individually the people are just as just as likeable as anywhere else.

Anyway now coming back to the book , I started this book with a strongly biased viewpoint and Bryson was initially living up to my expectations, of Americans being snobby , self centered, and indifferent to the rest of the world, have a read through his first chapter here and you will see why. He starts the book saying how he again forgot who Australia’s prime minister was and telling us how little Australia matters to America and hence to the rest of the world. Saying that the Australian Economy is about equivalent to Illinois and that China grows its population by about 1 Australia every year. He gives statistics explaining the abysmally small number of articles about Australia that appeared in the American media in the past few years. And By taking the number of articles in newspapers as a benchmark for importance, he says Australia is about as important to Americans as Bananas but not nearly as important as Ice-cream. And Imagine reading all this in the first 2 pages with the prejudices I have, it was just getting enough for me to put the book down.

Well , luckily for me I did not put this book down then because he tries to highlight this as an issue to put things in perspective, to highlight where “Australia” stands in American minds as a subject. He exhorts the reader that things shouldn’t be this way because he finds Australia a lot more interesting than what is currently projected outside. The next few pages are devoted purely to tell us why Australia is so much more interesting than the media would have us think. He mentions so many interesting facts about Australia that I doubt even a lot of Australians wouldn’t know of. Say for example facts about the Australian Wild life , Did you know that, of the 10 most poisonous snakes in the world all the ten are native to Australia, There are has more things in the Australian wilderness that can kill you than any other place on the earth. 80% of all the wildlife that exists in Australia is so unique to itself that its not to be found anywhere else on the planet. Australia is a place so arid, so flat , so hot and so deserted that there is no other place on the planet except Antartica that is perhaps more forbidding to life, in spite of this, it has perhaps the largest inhabitation of yet to be discovered species of insects, animals and wildlife anywhere in the world because it is so huge that there are just not enough scientists / biologists around to cover it all. He made such an interesting case for Australia that I had shed all my initial inhibitions and in the first few pages was glued to the book.

From there on the book follows his journey across Australia, by train, car and on foot. Bill can be incredibly funny when he wants to be and there are so many moments where you can literally laugh your heart out on the incidents he narrates. He goes on describing his stay in Sydney , Melbourne, various other road trips and train ride on the INDIAN PACIFIC RAIL ROAD (Called so because it reaches out from the Indian ocean all the way to the Pacific ocean) running across Australia connecting Sydney on the east coast to Perth on the west coast across over 4000 kilometers, second only in length to the Trans Siberian railway.

The book has a lot of history about Australian Exploration starting with James Cook(the first western sailor to land on Australia in recent history, for the record he was a Lieutenant not a Captain when he discovered Australia), and then going on about other explorers who dared to go into the arid inland, he gives us detailed accounts of their experiences and what they found and faced in the Australian “Outback”. He writes about various other Australian adventurers like Kingford Smith and people and incidents in contemporary Australian history.

He covers all the major Australian cities, starting from Sydney, Canberra (ACT), Melbourne, Perth, Alice Springs, Darwin and many other smaller towns and paints an interesting picture of each of them. He also does long road trips across the outback and the coastal roads in Australia.

Frankly speaking I haven’t read a better travelogue than this ever. Mind you this is not a book with lists of places to / see / eat / buy stuff. This book is about seeing Australia through Bill Bryson’s eyes. Reading it is like experiencing the country for yourself and doing a short course on Australia with hard facts and detailed glimpses into Australian History, Geography, Botany and even some current affairs.

Then he tells us about the stolen generation and goes to depths devoting many pages to the cause of the Aboriginals and the injustice that was done to them in the past, the book has indeed a very poignant description of the atrocities done upon the Aboriginals. Since this is a shameful part of Australian History like the White Australia policy that you don’t read or hear a lot about it, so this makes it even more interesting.

Towards the end there is an Appendix with about 10 articles that Bill wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald, while he was invited over to cover the Sydney Olympics in 2000. These few pages are like a bonus to an already very interesting book, and are good read by themselves.

The Book does not have any photos within its pages, only 2 pages of rough maps showing the route taken by the author. For me this is a big thing in itself as it’s the first travelogue book that I have read without even a single photo. It shows that the author doesn’t need the photos to lean on to help the reader visualize what he describes.

In all I have to agree with my friend who gave the book to me and said, “Any visitor to Australia MUST read this” and I AGREE!

Hats off to Bill Bryson.

Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson Mitch Albom

Hari — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 09:03:00 +0000

Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson

Mitch Albom

This is one of those few books that I have read more than 50 times now in the past 2 years, and every time I read and re read it it makes me think. It makes me enjoy the little things in life so much better, I feel when I am reading or thinking of it , I take time to look around and marvel at everyday sights around me. Life becomes slightly more enjoyable, I feel grateful that I have a healthy body and for all the little things that I don’t notice normally.

I remember the last time I was reading this book at a bus stop early in the morning peak hours. For some reason there was a delay in buses and we were waiting at the stop for more than 25 minutes without a bus in sight. I was so engrossed in reading the book that I didn’t notice the delay. And after a brief gap when I looked up the delay showed on the commuters faces, Everyone was alternatively looking at the road and back at their watches. It was not the perfect way to start a day 25 minutes late, and it showed on people’s faces.

Me, Oh I was just glad it gave me more time to read this book the fiftieth time, and think about bigger things, not just sweat about mundane things like bus delays and work meetings. I was perhaps the only guy with a smile on his face in the bus that day, and all because I picked the right book that morning.

When I get lost in the mid numbing rat race of work-eat-sleep-work, this is the book to put things back into perspective, to keep track and bring back focus into the things that matter most. It becomes a lot easier to accept your own mere troubles when you read about a man whose body is freezing from the foot up but who still faces death with a smile on his face.

The books draws a very vivid image of the Morrie‘s personality as to how different and interesting he was. Here is a man who enjoys dancing, friends, conversations, teaching, relationships and who couldn’t care enough about what are today established social norms and lived life by his heart. The Book is filled with his discussions with his student (the author Mitch Albom) when they talk about a wide range of topics like family, love forgiving, culture etc.

One particular example demonstrating Morrie’s character struck me hard and I remember it distinctly and will reproduce it here as it gives an idea of what kind of a person he was.

Morrie goes to a local College’s Basket ball game and is enjoying the game as it gets increasingly competitive. A group of students sitting in the stands supporting one team start shouting ” We are number ONE! We are Number ONE!” and slowly with the game the shouting gets louder.
Morrie who is watching all this sitting near the kids is a bit ruffled by all this, Suddenly in between the chanting of “We are number ONE! ” Morrie gets up and shouts “What’s wrong in being number two ?”
Suddenly giving his question a little thought and having no answer to him everyone becomes silent, and Morrie sits down triumphantly, smiling .

The book is full of instances (like his funeral held before his death, the way in which he teaches classes, his interactions with patients in mental asylum, etc) and others like these which create a personality that you can’t stop liking, and feel sorry for as you know here is a man who can see literally see and his life draining out of his body like sand passing through an hourglass. The Disease ALS, kills the patient bit by little bit starting from the feet going upwards, first cutting off motion / lower bods and then slowly progressing upwards as one by one the body is rendered useless from bottom up. The end comes when the disease reaches the lungs making each breath an ordeal till finally when the the person gives away. In spite of all this the way in which Morrie faces the situation should teach us all something about facing adversity.

In general its a very emotionally moving and well written book. I personally bought it 2 – 3 years ago and have recommended it time and again to friends. Best part of this for non readers is that this is a relatively short book i.e. less than 200 small size pages.

Also the very fact that I have read it more than 50 times tells something to you about it doesn’t it ? read it I am sure you will come back and thank me ! Try this for a good preview and summary, but if you have read so far, do yourself a favor buy this book.

Off The Rails. by: Tim Cope and Chris Hatherly

Hari — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:12:00 +0000

Off The Rails.
by: Tim Cope and Chris Hatherly

If you call long distance motorcycle travel as an Adventure , what would you call a similar distance
(10,000 Kilometers) bicycle tour.

“Adventure” is too small a word to describe Cycling 10,000km from Moscow to Beijing. Yes I have not added Zeros wrongly , they cycled TEN THOUSAND Kilometers through some of the harshest terrain and weather.
The Cyclists both have done a fair bit of adventure in the past, so they did have some good experience before starting off on such a journey. Tim has cycled around Australia and Chris was a member of a wilderness guide course.

The book is an excellent read and a real Mega adventure. The Guys cycle through Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and then on to China. Their experiences in such an epic journey are stuff of legend.

The book is very well written , at least reading it you can feel the pain and the difficulty of such a long journey. You can see the snow bogging down the wheels and the cold freezing off the toes. You can see the colorful personalities of the people they meet on the way. The pleasure of interactions with helpful and kind strangers and the pains of being arrested in China and being robbed in Russia. The best part here is their experiences with the Russian Babushkas, the motherly women in Rural Russia who take care of and feed the boys for days together when they are struck with frost bite.

Also the host of people they meet along the way , Mongolian horsemen, Chinese students, Russian drunkards , the Land Mafia, and a whole lot of policemen. All these profiles come alive with character as you read this book.

I think the judge of if a book is good enough is to see whether it rouses your emotions , do you feel being a part of whatever it is that you are reading. This is easier, if say you are Nancy Friday writing about men’s sexual fantasies, but writing about such a hard grueling adventure and keeping it interesting is tough. And Tim and Chris do very well in this.

They both have fairly different personalities and this is evident in their writing styles, the chapters are alternatively written by Tim and Chris, each with his own ideas and reasons for being on the road. Though at times they don’t get along too well on the road, I think it can be expected for they have been together for almost 2 years on the road, with only each other for company. They have petty fights and arguments over small things but the good thing is that they are honest about their experiences on the road. There is no effort to sugar coat their experiences in order to be seen as Politically correct (or in this case make a god impression)

The book overall is very very readable and I recommend it heartily to everyone interested in adventure travel. They also have a TV documentary Off the Rails.

In general a very good adventure travel book, though the book didn’t motivate me to pick up my push bike and start pedaling around Australia it did kindle the desire to travel far off , visit strange places, meet different people.

So, as they say in the biker’s world, See you on the road some day.

Two for the Road by Shirley Hardy-Rix and Brian Rix

Hari — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:43:00 +0000

Two for the Road
by Shirley Hardy-Rix and Brian Rix

56671 Kilometers, 27 countries, one dream is the enticing tag line of the book. I practically kissed the book when I found it just as I was browsing through the travel section Melbourne city library. I was so happy to have found the book that I read the complete book some 325 pages of it and their travelogue on the website in the next 24 hours flat. So that does say something about the book, doesn’t it ?

This couple has done the sort of a ride every biker worth his name dreams of but never comes around to actually doing. Shirley and Brian are a police couple from Melbourne, with Brian being a Policeman and Shirley a crime reporter / writer. They shipped their bike to England and rode it back all the way overland from London to Singapore from where they flew to Darwin and rode further on to Melbourne.

On the way passing through 28 countries and sending 350 days on the road. They have a good website which typically covers all the sections in the book in a little less detail. So its worthwhile having a look here before you decide to buy the book.

The interesting thing for me is that, this couple too was motivated by another US couple passing through Australia on their RTW on a motorbike: Chris and Erin. When Chris and Erin stayed in Melbourne with them. Chris and Erin must have motivated hundreds of people in their journey spanning 4 years , I know at least of one another friend of mine, Srinidhi, who was inspired by Chris and Erin when they stayed with him, and who is doing his own RTW now.

This motorcycle travel bug is like an Epidemic, and spreads like wildfire when like minded people meet. I had felt so enthused when I hosted a Motorcycle traveler – Linda Bick at my residence in Pune. Good to see that Brian was motivated by Chris and Erin and set off. I really appreciate their guts to have left everything behind and take the step ahead to leave for an RTW, to follow his dream. I know most bikers dream of following in their footsteps someday.

The book as such is alternatively written by Shirley(writing a Major Chunk, the Impressions of the places , the people and stuff) and Brian ( writing the Bike part, its repairs, problems , navigation , procedures, etc). I found the writing pretty easy going good to read but at places very touristy.

They did have their fair share of interactions with locals, but the couple (being reasonably well to do, I assume) stayed most of the time in Hotels, resorts , etc . This luxury might have somewhat limited their exposure to the locals, but still the book is filled with experiences of hospitality received from strangers and some funny anecdotes and the like. The detailed description of the Race day at Isle of Man is too good, you can also have a look at their website to get an idea of what I am talking about.

The practical advice in this book would be really helpful for someone planning a similar trip, for example they describe in detail their battle with Singaporean bureaucracy and have One line of Strong advice for any one planning to ride on to Singapore ” Don’t do it ” the paperwork and the troubles to take the bike in Singapore is simply not worth it, one would be better off shipping out from Malaysia.

Today I got a reply for My email to the Authors sent from their regular email address, the other email address that I sent my mail to is fairly inactive (I guess since they did the trip a couple of years ago). And yeah I forgot the mention , Hardy Rix, owns a classic Standard Enfield Bullet in Melbourne.

Considering the authors are based in Melbourne, I hope to meet them for coffee some day, will update my post after that experience.

For Love and a Beetle – A tale of two journeys. by Hodge, Ivan and McGovern, Petronella

Hari — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:37:00 +0000

For Love and a Beetle – A tale of two journeys.
by Hodge, Ivan and McGovern, Petronella

Hundreds of people have done the overland journey from UK to India via the Europe> east Europe> Turkey > Iran > PAK > Ind > SE Asia > Singapore> Australia.

So what makes this journey special? Well many things,

1) Firstly this is the second time for the couple they did the same journey in the same Beetle in 1961, when it was newly bought in the UK and sold to his mother in Newzeland,
and again in 1996 when they shipped their old Beetle back to UK and repeated the journey from UK to India Overland.
2) They are both in their Sixties and so to speak on their Second Honeymoon.
3) They are doing a journey which is perhaps a legendary distance for a vehicle 35 years old.

The book is interspersed alternatively with their recordings of the 1961 trip and with their current travel experience. We get to see the how the same places have changed in the past 35 years , they have attempted to travel along the exact route that they traveled on 35 years ago.

My Favourite in this book is a page with 2 Photos which shows Ivan Hodge in Turkey with a watch tower and his beetle in the back ground one taken in 1961 and the other in 1996.
The caption below the first photo reads:

The Beetle My sweater , and a camel tower, Iran 1961
The second photo reads
Same Beetle, Same sweater , and a the same camel tower, Iran 1996.

The only difference in the photos is that Ivan and the tower show some effects of Old age , the tower being a bit weathered and Ivan with his old age paunch.

If nothing else this book should surely be read to see the spirit of adventure in a 60 year old couple having the guts to travel around the world.

A Tankful of Time by Michael P Fong

Hari — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:21:00 +0000

A Tankful of Time
by Michael P Fong

This books takes you on a journey from the concrete jungles of Singapore to the deserts of the Sahara by road and on a 1989 BMW 900 GS motorbike. Travel with the author on a road tour across the 3 continents , the book does not bother us with menial details like the formalities of border clearances and their difficulties, trials tribulations etc, difficulties with the bike , the journey , husband wife quarrels etc.

Instead This is more of touchy feely book with lovely profiles of places visited and people they met on the way. He makes an RTW(Round the world ) motorbike trip look very easy, reading this book you end up feeling just like as if the author was on a short ride on a long weekend.

The Author, Michael Fong comes across as the friendly guy next door , a very down to earth practical person. The book is very Motivating especially when he describes how he was initiated into motorcycling , when his school principal had arranged for another legendary motorcycle traveller passing through Singapore to address the students. If the purpose of him writing this book was to motivate others I am sure he has more than achieved the same.

You can follow the writer and his pics and travelogue here.

Doing It Down Under by Richters, Julia; Rissel, Chris

Hari — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 23:54:00 +0000

Doing It Down Under

by Richters, Julia; Rissel, Chris

The book begins with an introduction of the author Julia Ritchers who has worked for 20 years in the field of Sex research and the education. Perhaps her biggest shot to fame was the Condom project which included a World first – a Study to measure men’s erect penises to check appropriate condom sizes.

The Book in general is a result of a extensive telephonic interviews involving more than 111,290 phone calls to 19,307 Australians between 16 and 60, who agreed to reveal intimate details of their sex lives.

Read a detailed review of the book here or some additional details here.

The book is food for those who are curious about figures and statistics, when I mentioned to a friend on the phone that I am now reading this book, immediately came questions on statistics which I actually couldn’t bother to remember. All this in spite of the fact that the information he had asked was just a few chapters behind, and I had just read it all.

If you ask me today I cannot remember a single number in all those hordes of statistics mentioned, except for the fact that the current generations are loosing their virginity at an earlier age and they know more about sex and condoms than what their parents did at their age. And if you think of it , I shouldn’t have had to read a book to know this, its anyway obvious when you look outside.

Overall I reckon the book is worth a single glance or may be as a reference guide if Sexual practices of Australians is your thesis topic in graduation. Apart from that book has a kind of a research report flavour which it is actually. I must appreciate the very asexual and stoic manner in which such a raunchy topic is discussed in the book.

Retire Young, Retire Rich Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter

Hari — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 23:14:00 +0000

Retire Young, Retire Rich

Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter

I have been a fan of Robert Kiyosaki for a while now and so even before writing this review, I know which way this is headed.

Firstly I took a long time to read this book , this is nto a book which you can just speed read and leave it at that, the main purpose in reading this is to get something of value. Something that you can take home and apply to your life.

Even of I don’t get rich or retire young reading this book did give me a different perspective to things. Time and again he speaks about leverage. in fact if you see the Table of contents HERE. You can see that 11 of the 21 chapters have titles beginning with “LEVERAGE” .

This book basically shuttles between his varied experiences over the past 20 years investing in real estate and changes that he had to do in himself and his thinking (or as per the book “Context”) to get ahead in life.

I found the first half of the book very interesting, where he exhorts a possibility thinking, so that we do not limit ourselves by our context. I particularly like his way of putting things and dividing people into 4 classes depending on the stream of their income or cashflow> I.e the Cashflow quadrant > which defines whether you are an

1) Salaried employee 2) Self employed

3) Investor 4) Business man

Robert goes on explaining on why it is better to earn income from the latter 2 classes than the former, and why we must try to move to the latter two. Logically speaking he is not too off the mark but only if we had the GUTS.

In general I found this book pretty useful, and infact very motivating, especially some of the examples of real estate investing are really interesting. The latter part of the book was pretty DRAB, where he goes on to explain about the futures and options industry. Also he blatantly advertises his other books time and again in his writings.

If you want to read a Scathing review of Robert Kiyosaki and his books have a look here. I do not agree with whatever he has written but it just gives you a counterview.

Hannah’s Gift Lessons from a life fully lived Maria Housden

Hari — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:22:00 +0000

Hannah’s Gift
Lessons from a life fully lived

Maria Housden

People who know me would not believe if I say I ended up crying while I read this book. But believe it or not, this is the truth. I haven’t read such a emotionally captivating and moving book in a long while and I doubt if anything I have ever read or will ever read, will ever come close to this. This is a true story written by a mother of four, of how she faced the tragedy of seeing her daughter die and feeling helpless to do anything about it.

How can you not love the little three year old girl with the red leather shoes, Who thinks when she goes to heaven , she will become a butterfly.

What do you say to a child, who tells you she is not going to have birthdays after 4 ? What do you say as mother, when a child knows she is going to die and asks you , “Mommy, do children die?”

What would you feel for a mother, who has had her 3rd miscarriage in the morning and later in the day her three year old daughter is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of kidney cancer? How would a mother feel when she sees her daughter’s body go limp and pale with every passing day ? When the inevitability of death wins over all the love and prayers in this world?

Death, something we all know awaits us sooner or later but we don’t want to think or talk about it, as if by not talking we are pushing it further away. If ever there was a book which could cut through the layers we build up over the years and touch us where it feels this is it.

The books presents a vivid story of a little playful girl and her mother and how they face cancer. How the daughter courageously accepts the reality and makes the most out of the time left and the mother and family weep and suffer through.

Though the mother later comes to terms with her daughter’s death and moves on in life with a deep scar in her heart and an even stronger belief in god. For an atheist like me, this just gives another reason to question God’s logic, if at all there is any in this? God, I have another Axe to grind.

Why men can only do one thing at a time and women never stop talking. Allan + Barbara Pease

Hari — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:35:00 +0000

Why men can only do one thing at a time and women never stop talking.

Allan + Barbara Pease

Well to be put frankly, the book is nothing more than a collection of cliches and some men versus women forward emails that are doing the rounds
for example
1) the mail with differences about how men and women use the shower
2) or the jpeg about the sizes of various parts of Women’s brain(biggest being love / commitment) versus Man’s brain(biggest being S#*)
3) or difference between the telephone call durations between the sexes.

In fact you can flip open any page at random and you are sure to find some quote cartoon or the whole page that you have already read in an Email forward. I don’t understand the point in putting that into a book. I guess there are enough dumb people out there to buy these. If you see the author’s home page
you can see around six books on similar flimsy lines. I hope at least the content is different / better in those.
The book has a typical humor/comic feel to it and viewed in that context only it is readable. I mean what else can you expect from a collection of funny quotations and quotes. I would not buy this book and would not recommend anyone to buy it either. Luckily the book is only pocket sized and has around 100 pages with loads of graphics so takes only maybe two hours to read.

Maybe I was wrong in expecting Allan and Barbara Please to read as well as a John Gray book(of the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus fame). I wonder whether this book deserves a mention here , since the title of the page is memoirs of books well written, and the well written adjective cannot be applied to this book even by a stretch. Just putting it here so that others don’t get fooled into buying this

The Dick Smith Way by Ike Bain

Hari — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 03:51:00 +0000

The Dick Smith Way
by Ike Bain

After a long time I read an interesting business book organized in short snippets on various topics. For those who don’t know Dick Smith, he is the founder of a very large retail electronics chain here in Australia which has now successfully expanded into America. He also has two other successful businesses Australian Geographic and Dick Smith Foods. The writer was Dick Smith’s right hand man in all these businesses over a period of 25 years.

This book unlike typical business biographies does not follow the growth of business chronologically, instead Ike has organized this into a more of an advice / lessons kind of way at the same time without loosing its practical feel. The book is filled with anecdotes and experiences of Ike’s experiences as the right hand man of Dick Smith (perhaps think of him as Australia’s Richard Branson). If Richard Branson was knighted, Dick Smith has been given the similar Australian of the year award. Richard Branson went around the world in a hot air balloon, Dick smith too has similar achievements in adventure, In 1983 he became the first helicopter pilot to fly solo around the world and in 1995 he completed a second helicopter flight around the world, this time from east to west. In 1989, flying a Twin Otter, he completed the first vertical circumnavigation of the world, landing at both the North and South Poles. In 1993 he and a co-pilot completed the first non-stop balloon crossing of Australia.

Almost the same way there are a string of business successes to his credit, Among the various comments and snippets the one struck home base with me was a comment by Dick Smith in which he says he is confident that he can bring any business to success just by purely focusing on customer service and doing it better than the competition. Reading such books really pumps you up especially living in a free economy with unlimited opportunity. Want to start a business or work on your business back from the basics, this would be a good one to read.

Finally the Author rightly sums up his intentions behind writing this book

“I’ve written this book for business people, for those who might hope to be in business one day, and for people who might not have the slightest interest in a business career but would like to know why Dick Smith is so good at it. I hope you will be entertained by the sense of fun, enthusiasm and adventure that spills out of The Dick Smith Way
–Ike Bain, author.

Blink By Malcolm Gladwell

Hari — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 02:52:00 +0000

Blink By Malcolm Gladwell

“Blink” as per the Webster’s dictionary means “: A reflex that closes and opens the eyes rapidly” It is in what happens in this fleeting glance and a fraction of a second is what this book is all about.

For a moment close your eyes and imagine if you are in an interview, you go in and shake the hands of the interviewers and take your seat with the panel introducing themselves. Have you ever felt the vibe of a positive feeling that this meeting is really going to go well. Or conversely you might have felt Oooopps something is wrong. I have had this happen to me time and again, when I give an interview I am pretty sure in the first few seconds / minutes if I will be called for the next round / further discussions or when I have screwed up I know there is no point following up for feedback. Maybe its some little nuances of their facial expressions / the general tone of questions or something in the general pulse of the conversation.

This book is about all those times when you sub consciously assessed the situation in a very short time , call it gut feel, intuition, thin slicing, or any other fancy names. Blink is filled with anecdotes which are sometimes contradictory but nevertheless making a very good read about the varied applications of the subconscious process that goes on in the back of your mind.

Malcolm Gladwell the author has a really active and an informative website, he is a writer for the Newyorker and his website features all his old articles which has a fair bit of overlap with blink. To get an idea of what to expect in blink read this. Its an experiment conducted on the interview example that I explained earlier. The conclusion being that, the interviewers judge whether to accept or reject the applicant in the first 5 seconds and the rest of the half an hour is just a facade to justify the decision made in their subconscious mind.

Firstly I really appreciate the author for having opened up his blog for discussion on his various writings. He goes to great length to discuss his ideas and counter other opinions on his blog, in fact the comments section of his blog is perhaps one of the most intellectually stimulating conversations I have come across in a long time. Here is a very interesting debate about racism and an example used by Gladwell in his book. Please note that here is an author who takes time out to respond to the comments and discuss an issue till its end. and for me personally, he has taken the time out to respond to my mail as well so again he is as good and responsive as an author can get.

He has received fair bit of criticism and this is one of the most critical reviews Blink has received, though having read the book I don’t quite agree with what Judge Posner (the reviewer) has to say this review might give you a different perspective. Overall this is a very good read , and I have bought a copy of my own.

The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage

Hari — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 01:03:00 +0000

The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage
Now isn’t this a title that prods your imagination, when I first saw the book in the recently returned section in the library it caught my attention just as it is doing to you. I am not normally a reader of writings by distraught women writing against MCP (For the not enlightened that was (Male chauvinist pigs), but I just picked this book on a whim because it offered short stories of 5 – 8 pages and I find it convenient to read small stories at a time. Just so that you can skip those that don’t look pretty good and keep moving ahead hoping to find something better.

Fortunately I didn’t have to do that for this book, none of the 26 stories were so off putting to for me to skip them. The stories are what the title promises, no disappointments there, only the truth about Sex, Solitude, Work, ,,,,etc.

For all the Male brothers out there, pick this book because this would give you the other perspective of what it feels to be on the other end of the nightly consummations. What happens when a few years after marriage the kids and family take precedence over sex and romance. The book and its writers are based in in America so many of the examples (for example living in ) are not really relevant in the Indian context, but nevertheless the after marriage monotony is the same all over the world so it still makes an interesting read. Generally speaking Read it if you can get it from a library or borrow from a friend, I wouldn’t spend my money to keep a “Bitch” in my house.

McDonald’s: Behind the Arches by : John F. Love

Hari — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 00:28:00 +0000

McDonald’s: Behind the Arches
by : John F. Love

If you have ever wondered what happens behind the scenes at every Mc Donald’s restaurant this is the book for you. How does Mc Donalds have your order ready by the time you drive through from the order mike to the pick up window? What is the story behind the Clown Ronald Mc Donald and why is he so popular today (by some records he is second in popularity in the US only to Santaclaus) as the Mascot of Mc Donalds? This is the book to read.

The books starts when Mc Donalds was just a fledgling operation , a single store sun by the Mc Donald brothers who have discovered a better, faster and a more efficient way of running a Fast food Joint and then takes you on a Roller coaster ride of the history of Mc Donalds from day one till about 1986 when the books was originally published and Mc Donalds became the huge monolith that it is today. The evolution part is really interesting, for example why and how do Mc Donalds French fries taste the same all around the world, and what is the secret behind those french fries, with just the right amount of crispiness, the soft insides and the tasty golden crust. did you know the Mc Donalds fries are dipped in a light sugar solution just before frying to give that golden brown color.

The book gives you a good insight into the mind and thinking of founder of modern day Mac Donald’s – the indomitable Ray Kroc and the hundreds of suppliers and franchisees who made Mc Donalds the success that it is today. The author is of course unabashedly positive about the company and the people behind the scenes but I guess that is the compromise you have to make if you want the inside view of such a business. After all why should people speak to you if you are going to write a critical commentary of their business.
But critical or not, the book is an immensely good read and with 450 + pages in pretty much detail. Should be a must read for anyone entering into a franchising / food business.

For Marketing fanatics the pages present very good lessons in how Mc Donalds initially stumbled and how it got back on track when the chain expanded internationally customizing to just the right amount to local tastes.

PS: This is not from the Book , Also have a look at the regional Mc Donalds dishes and the amount of customization they have done here.

Being Indian by Pavan K Verma

Hari — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 02:47:00 +0000

Being Indian
by Pavan K Verma

“Ethos” as per the dictionary means “the distinctive spirit of a culture or an era” and the Indian ethos is what this book is all about. A true feast for Indians and foreigners alike, this is a must read for anyone interested in the Indian culture. The book describes precisely the inner workings of an Indian mind, why the Indians are the way they are?

I haven’t read anyone else describing an abstract concept like “Indian ethos” so very well. The book is filled with anecdotes and accounts of various glaring contrasts and contradictions that make India.

The Author, Pavan K Verma was High Commissioner for India in Cyprus and has held other assorted positions in the Indian Diplomatic service. Coming from such a very learned man of such high social standing the book is surprisingly down to earth. When you read, It becomes obvious that the author has had his ears very close to the ground. Personally I liked the book and I recommend to any one who seems interested / curious about Indians.

Best of all , I had written a small mail to Pavan, generally thanking him for writing the book, and he was courteous enough to reply back. I got a reply the very next day :

thank you hari for your appreciation for my book. i wrote as honestly as i could, and i am glad some people have liked what i have said. we shd certainly try and meet when i am next in mumbai or pune, best, pavan

Now this might seem a small thing , but well I am impressed. By the book and by the Author.

Hats off to you, Sir!

Callgirl: Confessions of a Double Life by Angell, Jeannette

Hari — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 06:24:00 +0000

Callgirl: Confessions of a Double Life
Angell, Jeannette

I picked this book because the cover design and the title looked interesting, and the book lived up to what it promised in the cover : Confessions of a Double Life

Reading it you have a strange feeling that the she is talking to you in person and challenging your notions about the sleaze and the sex industry. This book will change the way you think about call girls, ( i.e. if you think about them all the time, this is a must read)

An interesting look at the life of a woman leading a double life – as a college professor by day, and professional call girl at night. Provides some very good insights into why people do, what they do.

The most touching part for me in the book is where, she is with an old male friend to whom she confesses about her working as a call girl and looks forward to his support, and in the midst of the conversations out of the blue he lays down some cash on the table and asks her to give a B***J**. Now If you though she is already a Call girl, so whats the harm in giving another BJ. You ought to read this book, Big time!!!!

The description of what goes on in her mind then is really moving. Do you find Psychiatrists analyzing offering to analyze people in their free time ?? or Scientists coming and doing research when they go home??
Get off !!! my friend !! If you think call girls are nymphomaniac lesbians, you have been watching too many porn movies! Its just a Bloody JOB,,,, and they can’t wait until it gets over. If she screams your name in ecstasy , it doesn’t mean she’s enjoying it. It just means that she is being good at her job and that you are more likely to call her next time.

In all if the purpose of a book is to give the reader a different perspective, this book more than serves the purpose.

Rating : 7 out of 10

Kalyan – Pune (4-3-2006)

Hari — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 14:37:00 +0000

Bombay – Pune (or to be precise (Kalyan Pune > Via Karjat) (~ 150 Kms)

Well for all bulleteers this is not really a ride, and even for me now that I have done it atleast 20-30 times, but still there was a time when 150 Kms riding in a single day was a big deal for me. In reminiscence of those days, I am writing this ride report about my today morning’s ride from Kalyan to Pune.

Total Ride: 150 odd Kms (Can’t decide whether I can call it a ride)

Route > Kalyan > Through MIDC Badlapur > Karjat > > Khopoli >> Pune

Firstly as I said before this is not a BIG trip or a long RIDE as some might think. To some this ride might not even Justify a writeup but well since I have the words, you the time and blogspot the space, here we go.

Started Off at around 6 in the morning. Riding in the early mornings is an incomparable pleasure. The silence everywhere (except for the thump of the bull), the thick misty fog, empty roads, slight Chill in the air all add to the experience. There is a beauty in all these which just can’t be captured in photographs or described in text,(though my feeble attempt is seen here) you need to actually feel it. And for me the best way to feel this is on a motorcycle, with the breeze whizzing through your up turned visor, and the ground running fast 6 inches below your feet, with your body exposed to your elements , with you feeling every change in the environment, be it smell, dust, temperature, rain, heat anything et all.

As it is normally in the mornings, today too the roads were empty and I covered good distance in the morning. There is something about small village roads that endears me more to them than to the Big and smooth National highways.

Firstly you get to see a real glimpse of the countryside, the people out there in the villages and their supposedly simple life. The first time I saw a crowd today was somewhere near Vadagaon (a small Hamlet on the way) This was the opening time for a school 7:00 and there was chaos on the road like it normally is with Kids. Had a nice time giving lifts to kids/ locals in the morning. Village schools have a certain charm about them, a Small building, the Open Courtyard/ ground, complete with a Flag pole, oh and the cute little girls with their hair tied up in 2 small plaits, those school boys with their half pants. You can’t stop admiring them.

A certain part of this Kalyan Karjat road runs parallel to the Railway track and as I rode through the empty road I could see almost empty trains rushing towards the City of dreams with their obnoxiously loud horns. In just a little while all these Local trains as we call them in this part of the country will be Jam packed, with people fighting for breathing space. Having gone to work and school in those trains I know well what it means to travel in these trains. The whole concept of personal space does not exist in Indian locals, you should consider yourself lucky if you can keep your feet on the floor of the train. Fortunately I did not have to look for Floor space as the floor beneath my foot was racing past me at 60 Kph and I had my foot pegs to rest on. There are some moments where you feel really fortunate, though normally I would’nt pay obeisances to anyone. This time I thank the powers that be for having relieved me from the rigors of Daily life in Bombay.

After a while of riding and the usual regular breaks to take some snaps, take in the view around and to just observe the usual stuff that you see around on the road. I was running quite behind schedule. It was almost 2 hours since I left and I had covered just 80 Kms or so. Then, I came across a number of people wearing similar yellow T shirts, walking on a Tar road towards Pune (Many/most of them Bare foot). Further ahead in the Road I came across these guys carrying a Palkhi(as seen in the Pic, a procession where the replica of the God / Goddess is carried over the shoulders of devotees.) Chatted up with them to find out about the same, and they informed me that this was Palkhi was being taken to a Place called Ekveera (about 60 Kms Uphill near Karla Caves). Sadly for these guys, the Raigad district administration has taken the roads for maintenance now, so all over there is Gravel and Sharp stones lying all around. The road is so bad at places that I was worried about getting a Puncture and miss my office arrival timings.

But these guys are going to brave it all through these conditions Bare foot!

I don’t know what should I call this, as some wise man said: Religion is Opium for the masses.. Before I start giving them crazzy names, I say to myself maybe the same could apply to me as well. There are 3 trains running between Bombay and Pune in the mornings, all of which will get me to the office well before time, which are supposedly more safer, comfortable and definitely more cheaper. But in spite of all the obvious advantages I chose to ride to brave it all just to experience what is fun for me. Maybe it’s the same for these guys, just maybe it could be fun for them. But I still don’t get how can walking across a graveled road barefoot can be fun. But then again My Dad too does not understand how can riding long distance with all the obvious disadvantages be fun. I leave it at that, maybe some things are better left unexplained/ un-understood.

Pondering over all this I slowly make way to Pune, I cross the Ghats over and am riding at around 60 kph and slowly trying to overtake a truck also going at 60, which is taking its own sweet time to give me way to overtake. All of a sudden I hear this constant honking from behind me. I see in my rear view and see it is a Pulsar, a second look confirms – Pulsar 180CC Black, the rider is completely prepped up with Leather Jacket, riding boots and gloves et al. This guy is in a real hurry and keeps honking continuously, and I am shaken away from my deep somber thoughts and I come back to NH4 and overtaking the truck. Now the need is more urgent with Mr Pulsar behind me, prodding me to go faster. Finally the Truck driver relents and I zip ahead and surprisingly the pulsar comes right next to me and he is now in line with me. I check the Speedo we are both at around 90 KPH, speeds at which I am not very comfortable : – ( but now this is a question of My Ego, and I zip ahead speedo’s reach 100 with the occasional flash touching 110) I look to the side and the Pulsar guy is right next to me and steadily accelerating. For a moment I think of opening the throttle up further and giving the guy a run for the money, the max I have done is 120 on my bike and I think I might just be able to take him on, then again maybe he is indeed a better rider than I am. Given the fact that he is competing so hard with me on a bike that is supposedly less powerful than mine(180 Vs 350cc) already he surely is a better rider.

Finally I decide the Race and the Risk is not worth it and let him whiz past ahead while I draw back to come back to my regular pace(50-60Kph). Within minutes that Pulsar guy is a tiny speck far ahead and has already crossed many trucks ahead and disappears often while overtaking. Whereas I am lazing around going slowly looking around for a place where I can stop and soothe my hurt ego . I guess High speed riding is not for me, speeds above 80 – 90 Kph give me jitters and I start to slow down at even the slightest sign of any other vehicle ahead. Looking back the Pulsar guy rode really well, guess I have a lot to learn. And I am still looking for a place to stop.

Going ahead there is a temple just off the highway near the turnoff for Malavalli station, the Place is worth a stop, Serene environment , clean temple, deafening silence and above all the temple has a good garden, so after riding for a while this makes it an interesting place to stop. Make sure you check this out > It is a Whitewashed South Indian style temple, on to your left when you are going towards Pune. About 10 -15Kms after you have crossed Lonavala moving towards Pune. The most distinct identity of this place is it is at a junction where there is a turn off for the Karla Caves and Malavalli Railway station.

I spent about 10-15 minutes there, chatting up with the priest about the temple ad the area in general, he has good patience for he answers all my queries with enough details and information to satisfy my curiosity. Finally I leave and get back on my bike there is still around 60 Kms to cover and I have to get back to work or at least get back to the place where I pretend to work.

Musing about whether this ride deserves to be written on a trip log or not I reach office around 10:30, and just as I enter I see my office buddies wave to me from the Balcony. Another work day begins, Time to shut the mind off and put the Body on Autopilot to work. As I put my Bike on the Parking lot in the company, thoughts of last week’s pending work come back. I give my Bull a final Wipe with the cleaning cloth I carry and mentally thank it for giving me yet another trouble free ride. Thank you Red Bull.

Ride far, Ride Safe, Ride often,

The Goa Ride (15 to 19 – 03-06)

Hari — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 03:44:00 +0000

The Ride
Pune – Goa – Pune ( Total distance covered ~ 1200 Kms)
.
The Rider
Hari and Prabu on the trusted Red Bull (Bullet Electra – 2003)
.
The Route
To >> Pune > Satara (National Highway 4 ~112 Kms) > Chiplun (State Highway 90 Kms) > Panaji(GOA -NH 17 ~300 KMs) – 15/3/2006 – Wednesday
And Return > Panaji > Kanakavali (NH17) > Kolhapur (SH 113, through Gaganbawda Ghat) > NH4 straight to Pune (280 Kms) – 19/3/2006 – Sunday
.
Problems with the Bike :
Surprisingly None at all. Maybe because I was prepared with a complete tool kit, 2 sets of spare accelerator / brake / clutch cables, a Spare tube.

Only topped up on oil after I reached Goa.
.
Welcome aboard flight MH03 – X5431, This is 5:30am in the morning on a pleasant chilly day(15th of March 2005) and this is Hari Iyer your Rider Pilot taking you on a ride to Goa. Written below is what is supposed to be my detailed trip report of the ride Enjoy and have a nice bumpy ride ahead!

The day started early with us leaving with all our stuff loaded on the bike and we were out of the city streets on the NH4 Bypass by 5:30 AM. Thanks to some planning in advance we had a nice comfy saddle bag (Courtesy : Munna) and by 6 were out of town. By the time first rays of sun came out to warm us, we were already out on the beautiful n smooth NH4 running away from the chaos n traffic of the city. Early mornings is by far the best times to ride and with an excellent road like NH4 there is not much more that a rider can ask for.

We covered some nice distance in the morning, stopping regularly at the Ghats and the roadsigns for photographs and to enjoy the views as usual. After all we were riding to enjoy the trip and not to set some distance time speed records ! Took a stop near Karad for a typical Highway Breakfast of Vadapav and Parle G + Cutting Chai. The road so far was as good as it can be except for the stretch just outside Pune near Katraj tunnel / ghats. Coming down from Katraj the road has been paved neatly with 2 lanes on each side till Bangalore. In fact certain sections in between (Satara to Kolhapur) have been completely paved with concrete. The only other vehicles other than us on the road were those ubiquitous TATA trucks like an endless line.

I found that the old saying about life is indeed too true( at least as far as highways are concerned), Life is like a busy highway, no matter how fast you go, there will always be vehicles ahead of you. This seemed especially true for us where on the highway no matter how many trucks we overtake there was always another one just on the horizon ahead. If you are riding just for Speed then this becomes a never ending race !

Note: It is very important to take sufficient rest the night before, as time and again both of us were feeling drowsy, even exchanging positions. Me as a pillion and he as a rider didn’t help much. On a straight road like NH4 there is not much that the rider has to do except hold the handle straight and the accelerator pulled. This is where after some time it gets boring and monotonous, and then you start feeling sleepy. Very careful, for us we had enough water to wash faces time and again and we took enough breaks.

Stopping for a Breakfast(Vada PAV)
By 10:30 at the leisurely pace that we were riding we had just reached Karad ( Kolhapur still about 80+ Kms away). Our destination still seemed a long way ahead. A few Kms down we left NH4 to take the supposedly more scenic State highway to Chiplun from where Nh17 will take us to Panaji.
There are two routes to go from Pune to Goa
1> Leaving NH4 at Umbraj (ahead of Satara) Through Koyna, Chiplun and then on NH17, atleast 100 Kms longer because for a certain stretch you are actually travelling north and then going down again. This route is supposedly more scenic, with good Ghats, Winding roads and one big Koyna Dam

2> Leaving NH4 at Kolhapur > and getting on to NH17 through Gaganbawda ghat near Sawantwadi. This is the more shorter and easier route as most part of it is on the NH4 – a 4 lane concreted highway. Sort of Bland / boring actually, but when you are tired / late / want to speed this is the route to take.

After some thought we took the 1st route, Luckily for us almost all the roads in MaharashtraAfter 4 hours of riding our bums were slowly becoming tough, so this was a break for our backsides to relax as we still had almost 6 hours of riding left.
Around 1.00 we reached the CHIPLUN and stopped for lunch. At the point where the State highway meets NH17 and stopped for lunch at this hotel called Relax.
Nice place with good food and decent ambience, the owner Datta Pawar(9371122140) was friendly and Quite knowledgeable about the area and spots around. There are nice shacks where travellers can rest for the night if requires and this would be very inexpensive too. The place is worth a stop if you are passing through NH17.
After a leisurely lunch we left to start on the next leg of the trip on NH17. and to our surprise just as we turned on NH17 there was this board telling Panaji /GOA was still 3 00 Kms away. I did a brief mental calculation : Even If we rode at an average 50 it would take us 6 more hours to reach Panaji.
this time we rode seriously , On NH17 you cannot afford being casual. No sooner than one ghat ends the other starts and this goes on till the end. Throughout the stretch on NH17 there was only one section which was straight enough for me to see about a kilometer ahead, the rest were all twisting turning roads, typical ghat types. This is a different kind of fun but nevertheless tiring. Throughout the while that you are riding , you just can’t afford taking eyes off the road unlike NH4 where you can actually doze off. Here the road is good but continuously winding and narrow at places especially inside towns. The road completely tires the rider out , at least that’s what it did to me. You cannot afford to be very relaxed every few kilometres there is this board >> CAREFUL GHAT SECTION AHEADg the bike on twists and bends and riding up corners gives you a feeling of achievement and of course fun (to speak nothing of the stunning views from the Ghats)

NH17 actually runs almost parallel to the famed Konkan railway route so the route is quite beautiful thick with vegetation and very very less traffic. In fact there were hardly any of those ubiquitous TATA truck that you see everywhere on highways. There is nothing that can spoil your ride more that dense traffic, and we were lucky in this regard. There were some nice warning signs on NH17 mostly in Marathi, very catchy slogans.
Some of them in English were >>
Safety on the Road is SAFE TEA at home.
Increase Speed – Decrease life. Well the Marathi ones were better,, maybe next time I‘ll come back with the Pics.

With 300 Kms to go I and Prabhu exchanged the positions often, after almost every 50 – 60 Kms. The Pillion seat on a bullet is extraordinarily uncomfortable, we had actually added foam padding under the Saddle bag but even that wasn’t of much use. After 400 Kms of continuous riding your bottom begins to feel numb , numb like frozen meat. There is no sensation, just a constant irritating Pain which is relieved for the first 2 minutes when you change positions on the bike, then the pain returns. Even standing straight was a relief, it felt as though our bottoms have calluses.
By the time we reached Sawantwadi (I think) about 50 Kms form Goa it was already dark, and I hate riding in the dark. So now we actually slowed down and rode very very carefully finally reaching Goa State at around 10.00 PM. Stopped to take Pics at the Welcome to GOA board

On entering Goa we were stopped at the first police check post. the Havaldar asked to see all the Bike documents / license and stuff which I showed him, On seeing we had all the necessary documents. This guy made asked us all police questions (Where from, where to , why , with whom, when , etc etc,) When nothing worked he shameless asked us outright > ” Khushiney kahi tari dya?” (Please give some cash, whatever you can) – I was infuriated and gave him that look (You Pathetic ASS****) and moved away and went back to take my bike. Couldn’t tell him anything back as we weren’t in a very good position, for no mistake of ours this Government employee could still give us lot of trouble at that place, so I just moved away took my bike and started it. I turned around to see what the police guy was up to now and he had now lost interest in us and was looking at the highway to stop the next bakra. Very sad indeed the pathetic state of Excise / Police departments.

As soon as we enter Goa state the difference in Roads is immediately apparent, the roads become wider,cleaner , lanes are marked , in most of the places there are dividers. Having the impression of a Lazy / merry go lucky place there is some things the Goans are doing correctly. Finally we reached Goa (Porvarim at around 11 .00 Pm in the night) seasoned riders would actually laugh at this, we took more than 15 hours to cover a distance of around 500 kms. But then we weren’t in a speed race, the purpose of the ride was to have fun and in that we did succeed.

I would spare you the details of the 3 lovely days spent in Goa, as those were some great times we had roaming around Goa, checking out spots / Beaches , catching up with old friends and stuff generally had a great time.

Few impressions about the City Panaji / GOA:
1) Streets as clean as they can be,
2) Intersections well marked, signboards / roadsigns / Distance markers everywhere.
3) Lanes neatly marked and for a change in India, traffic that respects lane discipline (except for one or two random outstation tourists, the locals follow traffic rules well).
4) Traffic signals that work.
5) Minimal traffic and smooth flow . Makes riding driving a pleasure

6) Saw this Different Three wheeler Enfield out there

The city has lovely tree lined sidewalks / good breeze (no need to say, coastal area) and the classiness of any European city. From what I heard the Public transport system is almost non-existent, we were lucky to have our bike around. It seems you cannot live without a private vehicle. Goa is the most preferred place for Bike hires in India. 2^nd hand bikes (Especially Enfields) are dirt cheap here. Day starts late and ends early, so much so that you can’t get petrol after 9:00 PM in the city the last petrol pump closes at around 9 and after that you will get only liquor of all the assorted types. Even in Mid level hotels you can get only drinks, the kitchens close at 11:00 in most places. (Atleast those main roads outside the city are in v good shape). About 2 Kms off the main road is the Koyna DAM. There is also a Nehru Udyan(Garden) built on the top of the dam, the place is really worth visiting if you are going with family as the garden is beautiful, very well landscaped and the place has some decent views to the Dam and the reservoir. In the interests of security , Photography is not allowed and to the best of my knowledge they follow it pretty strictly here. We didn’t risk taking any pics, Just lied down on the Grass and took a good break. but even with flash only the board was visible

The Indian tourist is worth nothing here and this is evident by the service (if you can call it service) you receive in the shacks / hotels everywhere. With so many foreigners around the Indian tourist with his comparatively limited money power and frugal means is sidelined everywhere unless you are of the type wads of cash to spend.

Return ride from GOA to PUNE

After 3 days of beaches , sun , sand , leering , fun , booze , etc , etc. We started off our return journey on 19^th March , Sunday. Again the ride started early morning at around 5 -5:30 and we covered some nice distance in the mornings. By 9:00 am in about 3 hours we had covered around 150 Kms. This time we took the route 2 for return via Gaganbawda ghat and Kolhapur. The roads this time around were also good. I think it was harvesting season in this area, where ever we went there were continuous lines of bullock carts and tractor trailers overloaded with sugarcane harvests. The Gaganbawda Ghat is a must see and this would look even better in the rainy season. Again there were those curves that riders love, zig zag twisting roads which you can see stretching endlessly into the Ghats. These are what makes riding interesting, what’s the fun in riding a straight endless road? Just holding on to the handle bars and managing to not fall asleep?

I was a slightly more worried about my tire going flat as any puncture here would mean pushing the RedBull to at least 5/ 6 Kms of Ghat roads before we can find some help. It was already dragging 2 people each weighing 85 + kilos each and our luggage in the saddle bag (With spares / clothes / bedding this was at least 35 kilograms)Also on the return journey the bike was more loaded with all the Goa stuff we had picked on (3 bottles Port wine / Feni / 2 cans of Cocam sharbat / etc).

Fortunately the bike performed immaculately giving us not trouble whatsoever.

We reached Kolhapur by afternoon around 12 or so. To go from the State Highway 113 to NH4 we had to ride through the centre of the city completely which in the mid day heat and the city traffic was not something I looked forward to. We decided to Skip lunch having already had a heavy breakfast and move ahead. It took almost an hour to cross the city and by 1:30 we were on NH4 again, the completely paved 4 lane

NATIONAL HIGHWAY

(Part of the Golden Quadrilateral project – Govt of India)

When you are on a highway like NH4 distance flies faster than time, you can comfortably do constant speeds of around 80 KPH without putting yourself at any risk. A totally uneventful return ride of about 250 Kms almost straight passing through Karad > Satara > Katraj . We entered Pune at 5:30.

End of a long memorable ride, bike performed perfectly. Our fair share of close calls While overtaking a truck on NH17. Surprisingly considering my history no spills / falls.

In all a great ride.

And Now If you have come this far, Thanks a lot for your Patient reading J Many thanks to fill in your Comments on the link below!