My Father doesn't like Reliance Fresh. Now I know why.

As a kid I would often accompany my father on his weekly trip to dhan-mandi(local market). I would sit in the rear seat of our good old Bajaj Chetak, with my arms wrapped around my father’s belly and my mind wandering in the chaos of narrow streets sprawling with hawkers selling bizarre things, stray cows having lost all sense of direction and poor customers finding their way in this pandemonium.

Today, I went to the market again with my father. This time we were travelling in our bike, the rest of the surrounding however seem to show no difference. My father has been a vocal critic of reliance fresh, big bazaar and other multi brand retail stores. It would often seem counter intuitive to me. Today I was to learn, why it wasn’t.

 The most surprising thing I noticed while travelling through the mandi was that my father was getting greeted by random shopkeepers along the way. Whenever he would stop to buy a thing, he would have the customary round of bargaining and a convergence on selling price (based on na tera na mera principle). While my father was dealing with an onion merchant, selecting the onions from a tokri full of onions, a tiny little girl nudged him from behind. She was three, maybe four and was the cutest little girl. She had coriander leaves (dhania) in her hands and she was pleading my father to buy a bunch of leaves for five rupees. My father looked at that girl and smiled for seconds at length. He and I exchanged looks. I promptly took out 5 Rs from my pocket and placed it on those tiny hands. My father started to ask “School nahi gayi aaj?”, but she had left by then, too busy to be bothered by such banalities.

We moved on to another hawker. She was selling vegetables. My father asked for 1 kg of ladyfingers and the lady said with much authority “Mai do kilo de rahi hun”. He had to beg her to put only 1 kg.  My father motioned towards the spot where that lady was sitting and told me that there was another lady who used to sit here(The lady who was sitting then was the niece of that lady).He always bought vegetables from that lady. She died of heart ailment a few months back. “Bahut dukh hua sunkar” my father said.

We kept on moving through the mesh of hawkers sitting on the floor and selling fruits and vegetables. While I was there I sensed a great loss which my generation and I are moving towards. We are probably going to miss out on a whole set of real friends while we are busy living our virtual lives and considering reliance fresh as our best alternative for shopping. What a shame. 

Books I read this summer

The following is a list of books which I read in that past few months. These books weren’t necessarily read in >30 degree temperature. Some were even read under a rajai ( all in 2011 though). I liked the title to be this way.

·        Tuesday’s with Morrie

Author – Mitch Albom

Genre – nonfiction, memoir

My rating – 4/5

A few months back I was talking with a friend of mine on her birthday and in the middle of the discussion she told that she wanted to call up everyone whom she cared for and tell them how much they mean to her. Further ahead in the discussion I found that it was Tuesdays with Morrie which had brought this desire in her mind.

Tuesdays with Morrie is a real life account of the last few days of Morrie Shwartz, a professor of sociology in Brandeis University, Massachusetts. Morrie is diagnosed by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and is destined to die a slow and painful death. The author, an old student of Morrie, hears about his condition and decides to pay him a visit. The author has penned those conversations which he had with his teacher before his teacher’s death.

The book is written in a much uncomplicated manner and touches one’s heart and one’s beliefs in a profound way.  This made me think a lot about how I want my life to be. And I kept thinking about these things even long after I finished the book. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to venture into nonfiction literature.

·        Long walk to freedom

Author - Nelson Mandela

Genre – Auto Biography

My rating – 3.5/5

I came across this thick book while I was browsing through the politics section of the library hoping to stumble upon something interesting. I was instantly attracted towards this book. I have a bad track record with long books. I still decided to read this book even if it demanded an extra effort.

It is a beautiful read. Nelson Mandela portrays himself as an ordinary man who grew over the years and started doing extraordinary things, one thing at a time. What is most striking about this book is the irony in the manner in which Mandela describes his childhood in a primitive society with linguistic brilliance in an alien language, English.

Sadly, I couldn’t finish this book. Library deadlines to blame.

·        Animal Farm

Author – George Orwell

Genre – Fiction

My rating – 3/5

A satire, this book revolves around the lives of an animal colony aiming to achieve utopia. Initially the animal farm is run and maintained by humans. However, the animals have a strong desire for freedom and self governance. They overthrow the humans running the farm and lay the foundation of self rule. What follows is a pig led tyranny.

The novel is a satire on socialist way of doing things. The book was insightful and the author very skillfully proves the pointlessness of a communist form of governance.

·        Tipping Point

Author – Malcom Gladwell

Genre – Nonfiction, management

My rating –2.5/5

Although this book has remained on top of the charts in nonfiction category, I was not impressed much. The book talks about how a few actions by few people at the right time can lead to massive change. The book tries to bring out the 80/20 rule in essence, which says that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. A corollary says 20% of the people are responsible for 80% of the work that happens in this world. This book puts forward good many numbers of examples to drive some point. However they are incoherent and long winded. I didn’t like the book much. Many others like it though.

·      Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy

Author– Douglas Adams

Genre – Fiction, Sci-fi, Humor  

My rating – 4.5/5

This is probably the most amazing book I have read in a long long time. It will be an offence to call it a book. It is the magna carta of modern day humor. If you have spent hours reading abstruse goose or other similar web comics you should definitely lay your hands on this book. Douglas Adams is a genius. Go grab a copy.

·        1984

Author– George Orwell

Genre – Fiction, Politics

My rating – 4/5

Big Brother, Room 101, Thought Police, Thought Crime, Unperson, Memory Hole, Doublethink, Newspeak. If you have ever read any of the above terms before, it is because it was mentioned first in 1984, a dystopian novel written by George Orwell. The most fascinating thing about reading this book was that I was reading a book written in 1948 about a fictional state in 1984, in the year 2011. The author imagines a ‘utopian’ society run by ‘the party’. It is a chilling book and would surely leave you restless and grossed out at times.

A compelling read.

·        The Slap

Author – Christos Tsiolkas

Genre – Fiction, drama

My rating – 2.5/5

I received this book as a gift from the Matrix club, BITS Pilani, for doing a book review. The book is about how a slap from an adult to a kid (who is not his own) leads to complications in various people’s lives. The novel is set in modern day Australia and has a very contemporary setting to the whole story. However the author has gone overboard with profanities and sex which was avoidable and did no value addition to the story.

·        Second Degree

Author – Prashanth John

Genre – Fiction, memoir

My rating – 2/5

This book came into the market during the post five point someone delirium. The author is an alumnus of the first PGPX batch of IIM Ahmadabad. The book starts from his admission into the PGPX batch and goes on till the placements at the end of the course. It has been written on the lines of other campus memoirs like Five Point Someone, Anything for You Ma’m etc however it lacks the much needed masala and humor to make this genre worth a read. The only reason I bothered to read it till the end was because it talked about IIM A and I am ready to read any nonsense about a place where I want to be someday.

·        Audacity of Hope

Author – Barack Obama

Genre – Nonfiction, Politics

My rating – 3/5

When our country was busy getting charmed by anything and everything Obama did during his visit to India, one of the television anchors mentioned  in passing about the book which he wrote about his life before he became the president(Letters to my father) and how good it was. It got registered in the back of my head, but I never remembered the name of the book. While I was browsing through the books on display during Basant book festival at Akshay this year, I came across Audacity of Hope and mistook it for that book. Audacity of Hope turned out to be a serious and OHT commentary about American Politics. Initially it was very difficult to make sense of the book; however, with grit and determination (boosted by the guilt of spending my money without confirming) I read some chapters and liked it to an extent. Obama has knack of summing up his arguments with appealing one liner. Obama is a good writer and I would definitely like to read his other books.

·        Chronicles of Narnia – The lion, the witch & the wardrobe

Author – C.S. Lewis

Genre – fiction, mythology

My rating – 3/5

I always wanted to read this book. But by the time I picked it up, I was definitely over-aged. The clear black and white nature of the story didn’t appeal to me. I am sure a 12 year old me would have loved this book.

·        Love Story

Author – Erich Segal

Genre – fiction, romance

My rating – 3/5

A friend suggested a few days back. A very thin book(76 pages), I finished it in a day. It is a classic love story. Boy meets girl. They have a tussle initially. Eventually boy falls for the girl and vice versa. What I find most appealing about the book was the relationship that the boy shares with his father. Read it if you have a few hours to kill.

Monsoon wish list:

·         Banker to the poor – Muhammad Yunus

·         Geek Nation – Angelica Saini

·         The World is Flat – Thomas L Friedman

·         Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

·         Diary of Ann Frank – Ann Frank

·         Catch-22 – Joseph Heller