‘The Sunday Haul (on 09-06-2024)

It had begun to rain in Hyderabad since the past one week or so driving away the oppressive heat of a terrible summer that never seemed to end. Though I welcome the rains I wish it doesn’t rain on Sundays because that is the day when I go to the second-hand book market in Abids. 

 

Last Sunday it was cloudy though but did not rain. It appeared as if it would rain any moment but somehow there was no rain as long as I was in Abids trying to find something good to take home and read. There’s an elderly person who is a crime fiction fan and tries to tell everyone he meets in Abids to pick this title or that title. I meet him regularly at Abids and sometimes chat for a while. Last Sunday he asked me to pick up ‘The Tightrope Men’ by Desmond Bagley. Though I was not very interested in buying it I took it as it was only fifty rupees and, besides I did not want to disappoint my enthusiastic acquaintance. 

 

Then I went on to Chikkadpally to look at what the sellers there had laid out. I spotted a nice copy of ‘Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire’ by William Dalrymple that was of a forbidding size. It was a hardcover copy that I got for two hundred rupees. 

Ten Years of the Blog

Ten years ago, I started this blog by putting up the first two posts in the last week of July, 2007. The idea of beginning a blog had taken hold sometime in January in 2007. It took me six months to overcome the hesitation, nerves and also a bit of laziness to finally begin the blog. Since I had decided to start the blog no matter what I hadn’t really thought about what the blog was going to be about. I had a vague idea that I would write about books, a bit of work and a lot about Hyderabad, and whatever that would result whenever I travelled. In the rush to begin the blog it did not occur to me that I should begin with a good post and ended up posting something about the Bata stores not stocking shoe horn and about Bonalu in the very first posts! As the months and years rolled by I realized writing about the books I found at Abids is the safest thing to do along with occasional posts on other issues. Regular readers of the blog would notice that in the past couple of months I have been posting only about The Sunday Haul. It is because I am not finding the time to write about anything else though there is a lot I have to write about. I actually think one can have a blog writing exclusively about the potholes on the roads in Hyderabad.

As the countdown to the completion of ten years of the blog began sometime in May this year or so I thought I’d be overwhelmed when the end of July came around. Now, however I am not experiencing any overwhelming feeling except for a vague sort of question that is buzzing around in my mind about how I could manage to persevere with it week after week. There aren’t many people following my blog and despite this I kept on with the blog posting every Friday with unfailing regularity. I still feel that I am not writing the blog for the sake of the followers but for myself, to get something off my mind. But I am glad there are people following my blog, occasionally leaving comments and I do think of them when I do not feel like writing the Friday’s post. Anyway, I’ve just realized why I have managed to keep the blog alive for a decade.

The only reason why I have been able to sustain the blog for so long is my passion for books. There is no other reason. It helped that my passion was so strong that I wanted to share it with others. I like to think that I have been modestly successful in revealing my love for books and reading in the blog. It has been a long journey but it has been rewarding. I have made a few friends along the way, wonderful people I meet regularly. The only thing I can say is that as long as the passion burns in my heart the blog will continue. The good news is that the passion seems to be growing stronger the older I become.

Thanks, everyone and especially the forty six people following my blog.

A Long Break

After completing nine years of this blog I thought I deserved a short break. I got a break from unexpected quarters. The Government (my employer) itself gave me a break by sending me away from home for two long weeks. Naturally I couldn't go to Abids for the past two Sundays and hence no posts here. I came home only two days ago from that strenuous duty bringing with me fever, cold and a nagging cough. Right now I am recovering from it all and promise to post something next Friday. Until then let me rest :)

A Small Achievement

This blog is at No. 12 on the list of 'Top 15 Book Blogs in India' put out on Baggout.com, an online shopping portal.

Here's the link: blog.baggout.com/2015/02/26/top-15-book-blogs-india/

I think it is a fluke and not much to crow about. (I did crow about it on FB, though) However, I realize that it is almost eight years since I started this blog and now someone else other than my friends and family has at last noticed it. Feels good.

Milestone Post- 600 Posts in 4 Years of Blogging

After my novel which I’ve stuck to since seven years, it is the blog I’ve been doing for such a long time, that is, four years. I am surprised that I have managed to blog for four long years without too many breaks. It gives me an opportunity to tell myself that I am quite a determined person. I hadn’t exactly started out thinking I would be a serious blogger. It was something that was born out of a whim. Everyone was doing it and I too wanted to do it no matter that I did not have any idea of what to blog about. But I got started and kept on going with the support of a lot of people who read it. Though they have said I have got better over time I do not believe it wholeheartedly. There is a lot I have to learn.

Anyway, it was on August 1, 2007 that I wrote my first post. Four years down the line the posts have grown to six hundred. About half of them are about what I love most- books. Some of them are about what I love, and also detest- Hyderabad. Some of them are random pieces about some of my travels, things that have happened to me, and so on. There is no unifying theme in the blog but surprisingly I had a very small following of some really wonderful people who encouraged me with their comments. I am truly grateful to them. If not for their comments that I was sometimes funny, that I was consistent, that I was prolific, I would have given up the blog long ago.

I intend to carry on for at least another year so I could say I have blogged for five years. But before starting the fifth year of blogging I want to celebrate four years of blogging. I had an unintentional celebration the other day about which I will write later. Another item on my list of celebrations is to take a short break from blogging. I will return to the blog on August 12.

Back from the Break

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy goes the saying and as a dull government bloke I’m in danger of becoming more so if the pace of the work at the office is anything to go by. Since the past two months, especially in the past three weeks, I’ve been working non-stop on all days from morning until almost midnight. Needless to say, it includes holidays too. I don’t mind it but when I cannot go to Abids on Sunday something in my life goes missing. I haven’t been to Abids since god knows when from November first week. On one Sunday I managed to be there for an hour in the afternoon but it was barely enough to do a quick round and not surprisingly I did not find anything.

Not only did I miss my Sunday visits to Abids I missed a lot of other things too, like being with the family, the Hyderabad Literary Festival and a couple of book readings I badly wanted to attend. The only consolation was that I was able to make it twice to the Book Fair where I picked up a couple of good books. Ever since I had missed picking an old copy of Carson McCullers’ ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ I had been on the lookout for this book. At the Book Fair sometime last week I found a copy of the same that I got for a hundred rupees. Another find, also a second hand copy, was that of Elmore Leonard’s ‘Up in Honey’s Room’ which I suspect I had bought earlier. Nevertheless I picked it up for hundred bucks.

I had thought that during the break from the blog I would be able to catch up on my reading and also complete the revisions of my first novel. I was so busy at the office that I was not able to do either of these tasks though I was able to steal a few minutes to read a bit now and then. One of the best things I had read during the break was Edna O’ Brien’s essay in ‘Best Writing on Writing’ where she writes about emotions in writing. It was a beautiful essay that immediately made me resolve to read all of Anton Chekhov’s works. As for the revision on my novel I have just completed one rough revision and sometime in January I might begin to send queries to publishing houses.

For a long time I had been thinking of writing a post about the best finds of 2010 on the lines of similar posts I did in the past two years. But I haven’t been able to find the time do so. I’ll write only the names of the books that I think are the best ones I found at Abids and other second hand bookstores during the year.- ‘The Gathering’ by Anne Enright, ‘Lucky’ by Alice Sebold, ‘The Corrections’ by Jonathan Franzen, ‘The Art of Dramatic Writing’ by Lajos Egri, ‘African Calliope- A Journey into the Sudan’ by ‘A Place I’ve Never Been’ by David Leavitt, ‘What I Talk When I Talk About Running’ by Haruki Murakami, and ‘The Simple Art of Murder’ by Raymond Chandler.

Deccan Chronicle Sunday Supplement carried an article about what Chandrahas Choudhury, Anjali Joseph, Mridula Koshy, Advaita Kala and so on expect to read in 2011. There is no book common to their lists so there are quite a few books by known and unknown writers to look forward to. I too hope to read some of the books especially Joan Didion’s ‘Blue Nights’ that Tishani Doshi mentioned as one she was looking forward to read. I plan to buy Didion’s ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ before I read her latest book. I think I have her ‘White Album’ with me somewhere in my collection of books that I have yet to read.

More in later posts

Break!

I've decided to take a couple of weeks' break from posting on the blog. I shall be back sometime on or around December 15.

After the break I plan to focus only on books, and maybe, fountain pens which means I can post only once a week

Another Milestone- 3/500

Certain occasions often prove to be unnerving. Since the past couple of days I’d been growing panicky trying to come up with plausible excuses to explain away my inability to write a better post on this significant occasion. Late last night I realized that the occasion could itself be the excuse. Completing three years of the blog with five hundred posts on it is an achievement worth crowing about especially if one works for the government. But I am still unable to understand that I was able to do something like that. I’m still wondering how I spent three years writing five hundred posts as if writing a novel since four years wasn’t enough agony. The 500th post is going to be about the experience of blogging and other related stuff.

The single most important thing I have learnt in my three years of blogging experience is that it isn’t easy. At least, that has been my experience. No sooner than I finished putting a post that’s taken me a couple of days to write than the anxiety about the next post begins. It doesn’t help that one isn’t a particularly talented or experienced writer. It takes time and effort to write an interesting post both of which I seem to have in abundance except for the writing talent. When I started the blog in 2007 I did not expect that I would be still at it three years later. I’m still undecided whether to go on or put a stop to it. I’m going to think about it during a week-long break I want to take from blogging.


Even if no one were reading my blog I would have gone ahead posting stuff on it week after week without fail. But since the blog got noticed by a few regular readers (which I think of as nothing less than a miracle) I must acknowledge my gratitude to all of them for encouragingly lulling me into the feeling that I am a writer. Uma had once asked me to do a post on the readers of this blog. I really do not know much about the readers of this blog except that a little more than a dozen people read it quite regularly. Half of them are people I knew before I started the blog and half of them happen to be readers who’ve turned friends through the blog. Most of them happen to be in Hyderabad which is a happy coincidence because I get to meet many of them. And if what I’ve gathered over my occasional meetings with them is anything then I am understandably proud of my blog. All of them, without exception are people genuinely in love with books and reading with a taste in authors that is far, far better than mine. Needless to say they are all fine people and smarter than, who else, I.

As I wrote on an earlier occasion the biggest gain from writing this blog has been the priceless friendships I have made. I couldn’t have ever met them otherwise given my nature and also, if I might add, my job. In that sense the time and effort spent on blogging is more than worth it. The biggest drawback of blogging, one that I have stopped minding too much, is the time it takes away from my novel. Were it not for the blog I would have finished the book long ago but it is also true that were it not for the blog I wouldn’t have finished it at all.

There are many unfulfilled promises I made on the blog, about writing reviews of a few books, about writing about something interesting and such things that I have been unable to do. Either I forgot about them completely or I did not get the time to do what I promised to do. One also has to remember that I am a government guy which sounds like a nice name for another blog- The Government Guy.

I thank my readers once again. Thank you and please give me a break until next Friday.

The 400th Post

The four hundredth post should be better than all the posts written earlier, it should be long, it should reflect my two years' experience as a blogger, it should be somehow related to books, it should not have any silly jokes like those in previous posts, it should be something very good and leave the readers deeply impressed by the writing, it should be this, it should be that was what I thought when I realized I was reaching a significant milestone on this blog. But somehow I wasn't able to come with anything better than this post which includes news about a second hand books sale in Hyderabad. There were a couple of things that came in the way of writing a truly good 400th post.

One reason was a very minor emergency involving my kid, another reason was my orders of promotion coming through finally, and of course, the real reason was that I was feeling quite lazy. It isn't entirely true of course, because I had started on a post that sounded quite good but it turned out to be too short to be a post so I had to think of something else. After learning that I was promoted and posted to a place very far away from Hyderabad I realized that I wouldn't be able to sneak out any more to a bookstore and browse. I promptly sneaked out of office and at the Best Books Store saw a welcome notice.

The notice read that there would be a sale of second hand books at YMCA Secunderabad from August 1-16. I was quite excited since the sale is beginning at that time of the month when the wallet would allow such extravangances. I was also glad for the reason that at last one post on my blog would be actually of help to people who love books in Hyderabad.

So, the blog is two years old with exactly four hundred posts. I cannot claim that I am no wiser than I was when I started this blog but it has been a fantastic experience. The biggest and the priceless result of blogging has been getting to know more than half a dozen absolutely wonderful people who are now very good friends. It is for them that I continue to write on this blog or else I would have winded it down long back.

For those bloggers who like to know, till date this blog has got 11,902 hits and earned me the princely sum of $13.80. I would have been unhappy if I had planned to buy a Mercedes with the earnings on my blog but I'm happy. Keep reading.

Another Milestone

I had not really noticed it but a few posts back I crossed the 350 posts mark on the blog. It doesn’t seem such a big achievement but I think it still is something worth celebrating about. Another three months and this blog would be two years old. It had been my original plan to do five hundred posts by the time the blog turns two. But somewhere in the middle I realized producing quick posts isn’t the way to do a blog so I gave up on the plan. Even if I do three posts a week I may not be able to reach the four hundred posts mark. However, I might try going for the goal of four hundred posts in the next four months writing as many posts (good ones) as I can.

Even though I have been at it for more than a year and half it doesn’t fail to amaze me that I am writing this sort of stuff that some people (generous ones) are reading quite regularly. I hardly get twenty hits on the blog daily which isn’t something to boast about but what I can boast is that there are a few people who visit this blog unfailingly. I don’t have any software to know who they are but I know since they themselves have written to tell me. I am naturally grateful to them for sparing a few minutes to read the stuff I am putting up on the blog. I am encouraged by their attention and also by their comments, to improve my writing which no matter how many books on writing I read, doesn’t seem to be getting any better than this.

The biggest bonus of writing a blog isn’t something tangible. It improves one’s chances of finding good friends. I have been extremely lucky to make friends with the sort of people I normally wouldn’t come across in my bureaucratic life. Some of the friends I made through this blog have turned out to be truly amazing, highly intelligent and extremely warm individuals. If it hadn’t been for this blog I would have never met them in my life. For that reason alone, I like to applaud myself for having taken at least one bright decision in my life- that of doing this blog.

There had been several instances when I felt like giving up writing this blog. Those were moments when I was disappointed and in low moods. But when I recollect that a lot of people (less than twenty, exactly) would be disappointed at not finding my blog I overcame that feeling and went on writing the posts, good or bad. It is sort of addictive, blogging I mean. One is always on the look out for ‘blog moments’ which can be converted into posts. I am lucky in that I love books and reading which alone is enough for me to produce posts on books, authors and so on. But I also (though I am quite a boring bureaucrat) happen to have developed the habit of keeping my ears and my eyes open all the time which has led me into some fairly interesting situations that I can write about.

Next Post on Monday: Getting Trained for the Elections

300 Posts

I had not realized it when putting it on the blog but the previous post was the 300th post. However, it wasn’t something to be very excited about. Blogging has become a routine now after nearly a year and half at it. It has also become a source of worry. I begin to think of what to write next as soon as I post something here. It is another worry in addition to those already teeming in my mind all the time- Is there enough petrol? Is it going to rain? Is my head going to come off if I take that pothole at sixty? Are we Hyderabadis really that dumb? And so on.

When I had done about 280 posts in October I thought I’d try to do three hundred by the end of the month and try to do fifty more to touch three hundred and fifty by the end of the year which would have been a rather neat way of ending the year. But a post a day seemed daunting and besides, there’s the fact that there aren’t many people exactly dying to read the posts here. So it didn’t seem worth the effort.

Also, a post a day would take too much time away from my work and the revision on the book. So I gave up the idea and spared a few people the daily bother of checking what I had come up with since the last time they had been on the blog. I guess I might be able to reach three hundred and twenty three posts or so by the end of the year which is just as good as 350 considering no one out there is handing out awards for prolific bloggers, especially to those from Hyderabad.

In the News Again

The day before (on Monday), the Hyderabad edition of ‘The New Indian Express’ carried an excerpt from this blog on the front page just like it had done a couple of months ago. I got to know about it after a friend, Kiran, called me to tell about it. Since I normally do not read that paper I went out to get a copy from the newsstands to see for myself. It was indeed true, that my blog was featured on the front page but my joy on finding my name in the paper was overshadowed by something else on the same page.

There was a picture of a man carrying the body of a boy who had drowned in the recent heavy rains, along side on the front page. I couldn’t look at that distressing picture for long as the eyes had already started to fill up. I have a ten year old son and I cannot bear to watch anything of that sort happen to any kid of his age. For a long time I was numb with shock and grief at the heartbraking image of that lifeless boy, and that picture still haunts me.

It was on my mind to write about the anguish parents of young children experience when they see other kids suffer. The anguish is more acute when the kids are of the same age as our own kids. It is as if our own children have suffered and images come to mind of our reactions. It is not possible to describe the agony parents undergo when confronted with such scenes. Last week the papers were full of pictures of tragic deaths of kids in the fire in a train in AP, of school kids drowning elsewhere, and such horrific news of cheildren dying. It makes me wonder why kids have to suffer such a fate. One cannot imagine the plight of parents who lose their kids. It is something very can few bear with fortitude.

My joy of seeing my blog in the paper seemed completely meaningless and totally insignificant compared to the anguish of the parents of that boy who drowned. Life can be sometimes very cruel.

A Year of Blogging

It feels great to know that my blog is one year old with two hundred and fifty posts on it. I have had a terrific time blogging and to tell the truth, though it was a bit of a chore sometimes, I enjoyed writing about the books I bought, the pens I write with and other things which I consider worth writing on the blog. I have had some truly amazing experiences blogging here and I will write about it shortly on this post.

Completing a year of blogging with two hundred and fifty posts is the second (third, actually) major writing achievement of this year. The first and second of course, are finishing writing my first novel and typing all four hundred pages of it, and the third and no less important, the two hundred fifty posts on the blog during the one year I had it on. That's something to be proud of.

I had first learnt what blogging was more than six years ago and since then I had it in my mind to begin a blog of my own. For some time I convinced myself that I did not know how to start a blog and run it. For some more time I told myself that I had nothing worth blogging about and that no one would read it even if I started it. So in that manner I kept postponing beginning this blog until one day last year I decided to register on Blogger and here I am. I had the same experience trying to start my novel putting off beginning it for a long time until one day I simply put pen to paper and wrote the first paragraph and wrote on for three years till I finished the book in March this year. The point is that beginning anything is always the hardest and the only place many remain struck for a long time or forever, in some cases. Luckily I took the leap and am glad to say I have landed somewhere safely.

There have been many surprises while blogging. I made a lot of friends and remain in touch with many of them. I have actually met a few of them who turneded out to be some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. I think a blog is the easiest way of making good friends with similar tastes. My blog was featured in a newspaper, it also won a prize in a local magazine which led to a fantastic experience in form of a lavish dinner at a swank hotel. I had two or three VIP visitors to the blog. I sent some books to people who asked for them. In short, I had a great time last year writing this blog.

When I started I had only a handful of visitors but now, a year later, the daily average is around twenty five which is not such a great figure. But I am happy about it. Some posts have attracted scores of visitors like the one I did the day before yesterday (30th July) on Hyderabad Traffic Blues which attracted 48 hits. The highest number of hits was fifty eight on a single day. I am not aiming for thousands of visitors though I would love to have so many visitors daily. I am blogging just for the fun of it. However it isn’t so easy but I have got used to daily posts which I began after I crossed 150 posts. I took a challenge to do a post every day for hundred days so I could have two hundred and fifty posts by the time the blog was a year old. I am glad I could achieve it.

I thank all the regular readers who visit my blog almost every day and read what I have written, whether it is good or not. If it weren’t for them I would not have lasted this long. So, looking towards another year and another two hundred and fifty or more posts. Thank you.

I will be reverting back to my previous schedule of alternate day posts from today. There will be more pictures, more reviews and some really good stuff, I promise.

The 200th Post

It is a great feeling to reach major milestones on the way to achieving a major goal that you’ve set for yourself. In these two days I have crossed two major milestones. The day before, I finished typing the hundredth page of my manuscript (which runs into 400 pages!) and it felt great. Today I cross another milestone with this post which is the 200th post on this blog. I have fifty more to go to reach the self-imposed target of 250 posts by the time this blog is one.

When I started typing the manuscript finally after about a month’s break, I began slowly, doing one page a day on an average. It took me forty five days to type the first fifty pages. Then in the next eight days I was able to type the next fifty pages and reach hundred. I am able to type about six pages a day which I plan to push up to eight or ten pages a day. I plan to complete typing the entire manuscript by the end of July, which is my deadline. So it is a rush for the next fifty odd days typing the remaining three hundred pages.

In addition to typing the manuscript there is the post to be done every day. The previous fifty posts have been a great learning experience. I have discovered that it is not so easy to write a post daily. But I also discovered that I am able to do it though the quality of writing has suffered a little. I have managed to write on a variety of subjects and issues. But the greatest satisfaction has been from the several wonderful people who have left comments and those keep in touch with me. There have been amazing happenings which I will write about when the blog turns one. It has been a humbling experience to find that a handful of people read the blog regularly. Though the hit count isn’t much I am not unduly worried about it.

The Rewards
Since I have set myself rewards on reaching milestones I picked up a nice Luxor brand notebook for seventy rupees. It comes with a free Papermate ball point pen. The notebook is similar to the one I am currently using- the Bilt Matrix notebook which is almost filled up. This was the reward for the typing achievement.

Then, as a reward for the 200 posts I picked up a book at a bookstore in Abids. The book I found can be called a great find. It is the ‘Vintage Book of Indian Writing’ which features writings of almost all Indian writers. The book is edited by Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West. I got this whopper of a book (it is like a brick) for a hundred and fifty rupees. Now I can say I have the works of all Indian writers in English.

Making It To The Front Page, A VIP Visitor and 150 Posts

In The New Indian Express!

This is the 150th post on the blog and I have more than one reason to be happy about it. By a happy coincidence bordering on a miracle, today’s edition of ‘The New Indian Express’ carried an excerpt from a post on this blog on the front page! I was overjoyed when I chanced upon it by accident.

While on way to office I remembered it was Friday today, and of late I have begun to read the ‘Business Line’ on Fridays because of an interesting supplement called “Life”. At the newsstand, the new and attractive design of “The New Indian Express’ caught my eye and I picked up this paper too and came to office.

Until lunch time I had no opportunity to read the papers I had bought in the morning. While having lunch I looked at TNIE and got the shock of my life on finding the excerpt from my blog right on the front page. I almost fell off my chair with a cry. Incidentally, the excerpt was from the post about the dinner I had at Novotel a couple of weeks ago. Right from the day 040 magazine published a post from my blog good things have begun to happen. The post about the dinner too drew a good response. Right now I am floating on Cloud Nine.

A VIP VISITOR TO MY BLOG
Yesterday, the blog had a VIP visitor, an editor of an international publishing house. I was amazed she took time to leave a comment on my post about the coming deluge of three new books by three famous writers. I felt honored and privileged and, not to mention, lucky.

I felt I should begin to pay attention to what I am writing because you never know who reads the blog. I don’t think what I am writing is grammatically or syntactically correct so I plan to be more careful from now on. I'm going to revise and revise until I get it perfectly right.

100 POSTS IN THE NEXT 110 DAYS
I had begun this blog on the 30th of July last year, and the next day I posted my first post. In the eight months that passed I managed to write a hundred and fifty posts. After about a hundred and ten days (less than three months) this blog will turn one. It is long enough for me to do another fifty posts and reach 200 posts if I post at the rate of one post every alternate day. However, that is not what I plan to do. I plan to do hundred more posts by then and have two hundred and fifty posts on my one-year old blog. I don’t think it is impossible but it sure is difficult. I have begun to enjoy blogging so I can do it with a bit of determination.
Wish me luck

The Prize Dinner at the Square, Novotel

Sometime last Friday I finally managed to muster the courage to call the person at Novotel I was told to speak to about the prize dinner. A post from this blog was chosen by 040 magazine as ‘pick of the month’ and got me a free dinner. I should have guessed from the eager voice that answered the phone how the dinner would turn out to be. The PR person who answered the phone gave the impression that they were very, very excited to have my family at their hotel. I was more than taken aback at the way I was made to feel at the Square in Novotel. On Saturday evening I experienced the true meaning of the word ‘pampering’.

Right from the moment the car entered the gates of the hotel we were subjected to bright smiles by the hotel staff which we could not match either in terms of the warmth or the duration. They all appeared to be armed with dazzling smiles. The staff appeared very pleased we had come to the hotel and short of performing a welcome dance, they did everything to make us feel truly special. All through the evening they made sure we had the most wonderful evening of our lives. The Irani chai-and-chota-samosa guy that I was, I felt a little nervous sitting in that swank, fantastic restaurant but Venkat made me feel quite at home among the foreigners who outnumbered the rest.

The staff at Novotel just redefined the word ‘Attentive’ to me. It was as if the sole purpose of their life was to be of assistance to us in every conceivable way. Almost every thirty seconds someone or the other of the wait staff would drop by at our table to ask us with a bright smile if we needed anything else. As it is, we had our plates heaped to the full by the staff who plied us with almost every thing that was laid out on the tables. Not just a couple of tables, there were more than half a dozen tables groaning under the weight of almost everything on earth that could be eaten. Everything tasted wonderful and we just went on tucking in almost everything at the buffet.

I had been to a similar meal earlier at another swank hotel a long time back but there the staff had left us alone to eat our food. But, at the Novotel every one made sure we had not just dinner but the experience of true hospitality. I am not exaggerating because I got a free meal but I am writing from the heart where all the food and the attention ultimately reached. It was one of the best dinners I’ve ever had. Period.

Thanks Venkat, Chandan and S.Sriram of Novotel and to Rajeshwari and Allen of 040. My family is in awe of me, and the dinner managed to make me into a sort of hero to my family but the only problem is that they want me to bring them to the hotel again! I promised to take them to Novotel next year on exactly the same day. Amen.

Happy Side Effect of Blogging

Quite out of the blue I got a message yesterday through a comment in this blog that I’d won a prize of a dinner for two at a swank hotel in Hyderabad. The message was from Explocity people, publishers of ‘040’ magazine who chose a post from my blog as ‘Pick of the Month’. The dinner is at Novotel in faraway Madhapur.

It was a pleasant surprise later to read the post that was carried on the last page of the glossy magazine. The latest issue (March 2008) of the magazine looked quite attractive though not because of my post! I couldn’t find the magazine anywhere on the streets and when I asked at Odyssey they said they don’t stock the magazine. I finally got it at Walden at Begumpet.

This isn’t the first time I got such a prize though. Ten years ago I had sent my entry to a ‘Wittiest New Year Resolution’ contest in Indian Express. My entry got me the first prize which was a meal for four at the Grand Kakatiya. I took along three friends and we had a grand time hogging all that stuff. My friends remember that occasion to this day. For this dinner at Novotel, I plan to go with my family. My kid has already started planning the menu!

This is certainly one of the happy side effects of writing a blog. I will write about the dinner in a later post.

100th Post

This is the hundredth post and I am going to write whatever comes to mind. Over here it is actually the first of Jan already but as per Blogger it is still the last day of the year! I had planned to post this one yesterday itself but there was a problem with the server and I had to give up the idea. The post was about the books I had read in 2007.


I finished reading "Book Finds" and it is a very useful book to have. There is a lot of information about book collecting, first editions, how to take care of your books and so on, information that any book lover would benefit from. I am glad I found this book.


I was surprised to realize that though I have bought over 200 books during the year I have managed to read only 36 books. I had read somewhere that serious readers go through about 50-100 books a year. I don't think I can be called a serious reader by that count. I plan to read more in the new year. I should read more than fifty books in the next twelve months.

Another resolution I had made last night is to learn to cook. I am fascinated by cooking but I haven't found the nerve to begin learning it. This year however, I plan to learn at least one simple dish. I plan to learn to cook 'upma' which is the simplest dish to do. Apart from the resolution to listen to good music learning to cook is my second resolution. I plan to add another one which I have yet to think up. Meanwhile I will begin with these two resolutions.

100 POSTS BY THE YEAR END

Some time in October or perhaps early November the number of posts I had written on the blog crossed the fifty mark. I was pleased as punch about it since I had wondered too often if I would be able to maintain the blog. When I started the blog I planned to do a post every alternate day and it turned out to be a comfortable schedule for me. I am somehow able to think of an idea for a post and also write it in two days. Considering the fact that I am not writing anything dead serious about writing or books or anything, I have been able to churn out some simple posts. I know what I am writing is not perfect but I am happy with it in a way. So I thought I would continue to write at the pace of one post every alternate day.

But sometime last month it got into my head that maybe I should attempt to write a hundred posts on the blog by the end of the year. In the past week I have been posting at the rate of one post a day on the blog. It is the fifteenth of December today and I have written 82 posts so far. I have to write eighteen more posts in a fortnight. It means I have to do two posts a day on some days. I am confident I can do it. I have written down all the topics I can write about on the blog in the next fortnight. I have a couple of big posts that I plan to split into two posts.

It isn’t easy but it isn’t impossible.