oh the guilt

smell.what do you like to smell? fresh coffee beans? filter kaapi? chocolate?strawberry? rathna cafe sambhar? dead frog?

or maybe freshly mowed grass?? manvaasanai?(first drop of rain on a dry dusty sand land..)..old books?? new book?? maybe books are the only thing that smell good-old or new..

as a kid i used to read decently.even before the potter movie and mania came to be,i was reading them.tinkle,champak and a bit of rd were regular reads.and every amar chitra katha that came out.and can i nominate uncle pai for nobel prize for lit..anyways i progressed to archer,sheldon and all during 9th , 10th stndrd and all.better authors followed.and then i made a mistake maybe.i asked my appa for a book suggestion.for the next half year i sat with that book,dint understand it and lost interest with reading.then i started too many movies.metal.

and this time i was coming home for pongal. the raipur temperature being 8 degree(thats like -2343432 when youre from chennai)..i get up 20 mins before train departure time.going in a bike at 40 kmph speed felt like ice diving.numb.train late by 5 hours.problem is i had my connecting train in 5 hours.thankfully that train to chennai was late by justu 13 hours.so as it has become the norm these days i was struck in nagpur yet again.for about six hours.thankfully room mate for company.we hit the usual civil lines,haldirams chat ,more food.with nothing else to do we decided to go crossword for dvds.the next three hours were pleasureably spent browsing book.ah the smell.new books.the whole joy came back.

damn i have wasted the last four years without proper reading.i have never read all this high level books.that try to tell you how to live.philosophy.or of stories that try to tell you something all the time.i like simple stories.which are just told.so yesterday i went to spencers and without eating at all(athisayam) i went landmark and browsed through. decided i going to try out new indian writers.debut ones.and i picked up "madras on rainy days" by samina ali.then one more . searched for chennai based stories.dint get that many.there was this one-no onion,no garlic.but i dint have enough money.and somehow the spencers landmark doesnt have enough books.so today i went to the nugambakkam exclusive one.nice four hours.bah i have missed all this for four years.

one more book-cloud nine minus one,is also added on my shortlist.i will buy them both tomorrow .hopefully.and i am confused by this whole feminism thing.so i am looking for such books.by female authors.indian ones.in my opinion only a male author can fashion a really strong female character.

and tanja tzarvosk.whatey talent. and too many people seem to be going gaga over the jaipur festival.let me see what happens.i guess those festivals are not just meant for people like me.so i want to attend it.hopefully next year.could have gone this year.but financial crunch.and susheela raman is performing there it seems.i like her a lot.hopefully next year i get to attend. it would like a nude pauper going to the city of gold.just to see how much gold those people actually have.

and a small suggestion-just dont start indian philosophical books during your 11th.and dont try to learn sanskrit just before your boards so that you could understand the verses in the book.you will never understand the book.and you will flunk your 12th.

free

ps-hate e books.dont care about trees or abhishak bachan shaped ents.i love paperbacks.lying down and reading-thani sugam..