E.Q versus I.Q

I am currently reading a book by Daniel Goleman titled ' Emotional Intelligence and working with Emotional Intelligence' which I picked up on my regular trip to the local Crossword stores. In hindsight I must say it was a good pick going by the few chapters that I have been able to read through... Few pages inside and I am totally hooked...

This book has a unique approach to it all and varies a lot from run of the mill books of this genre which tries to utilise mere motivational techinques in underlying the value of EQ over IQ... But this book is all different in its approach as it goes on to explain the scientific credibility of such a 'qualitative' aspect of human behaviour and attitude as EQ...

Till date, the book goes on to argue, much emphasis was given to the Intelligence level of a person (which is again measured by the well founded and proved IQ score) and people generally scoring high on the IQ scale found favour among job givers.. However, it was seen, and no wonder all of us have also seen it happen, that the most intelligent people are not the most capable or for that matter the one with qualities required to be able to work in a team and make things happen... hence to the frustration of top management these so called bright people floundered in their jobs while relatively 'mediocre' people excelled in being able to achieve success through mere Patience, hard work and team building effort... The author underlined the abilities of these people in having more of EQ than IQ which helped them survive tough situation and circumstances and come out right on top...

The author goes on to cite studies and real life incidence on how if a person is low on EQ, simple circumstances can hijack the advantage from his/her side... It goes on to explain that through evolution the development of the brain has been a 'bottom up' process i.e the spinal cord first developed, then the base of the brain and then the body of the brain and so on... primitive brain in lower animals down the phylum in the animal kingdom has shown much of the sensory and motor function being done by the spinal cord and a very primitive brain.. The author argues, based on scientific evidence, that the lower part or the base of our brain resembles close to that found in these group of animals... and rightly so, as the brain stem is, as we were taught in the med school, called medulla oblongota which was kown as the 'love centre' of the brain which processed emotional responses in man.. as these centres, like in lower animals, are attuned to either fight or take flight, on any sudden confrontation or situation, the first thing they do is to put up a fight or flee the situation.. this even before the rational brain (the centre of which is situated in the main body of the brain) has time to rationalise and take an appropriate response.. later when the person realises his/her response triggered by the 'love centre', it is too late to make amends...

It may have sounded a bit jargon ridden in the previous paragraph, but simply put it means that any response to man is first scanned by a centre which takes impulsive and irrational decision which if given some time will be processed through the rational centre and result in a more proper response...

The book also says that sometimes people find themselves in fits of anger in a given situation, where their previous experience combined with the immediacy for action, sends an emergency signal to the rational brain to stop all rationalisation and summon all energy to tackle the impending 'obstacle/danger' in hand.. at those time the rational centre in the brain also loses the ability to 'rationalise' as a state of 'emergency' has already been declared and it is 'forced' to sign up...

It is such an absorbing read that even after 9 hrs of office and 1 hr of working out at the gym, I still take some time out to read it every night...

Will keep you updated about the battle between the E.Q and I.Q... :-)

Scent of the Musk deer

I was gone home on a looooong holiday for a week.... (I know you must be laughing your head off on hearing 7 days as a loooooong holiday)... But that, alas, my friend is a reality for me as I had completely exhausted my leaves what with shuttling back and forth Bhubaneswar during the monsoon....

However, this one week was revealing to me in more ways than one... I got to do everything that i wanted to do (a la Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday).... The very 1st day I got to eat my favourite Alloo dum and dahibara - a local favourite... I got to visit old places of my childhood, slept like a log and just chilled out...

I also visited the local zoo (Nandankanan zoo) after long time... I think it was after my intermediate that I visited the zoo... my Bhanjas were agog and gaping away happily at anything that moved and was not human...

My week long break was also memorable coz I had not seen as much cartoon network and Tom and Jerry show in my entire life as my Bhanjas made us to see... I think I have seen enough to last even my kids for a life time ;)

But the most memorable thing that I will remember and cherish in my heart is the 'introduction' to a person whom I thought I knew all along but whose special character I was not able to know or able to appreciate it even till date...

He happened to be a relative of ours ( I have stopped keeping track of the lengthy spidery web of relations which binds me to infitesimal people and hence prefer to address others with the suffix Bhai, uncle, aunty etc)...

So you must be curious how I came to be 'introduced' to this Bhai of mine... It so transpired that his elder brother is married to my wife's cousin... The couple had invited us for dinner to their house.. Since their's is a joint family and all the brothers stay together, I had the chance to meet this charismatic person...

He is the youngest of all the brothers and at 45 he is still unmarried... He looks thin and sickly and has always been so due to a debilitiating asthmatic condition... I had known him to be a cheerful and jovial character who would give us children sweet and tell us all sorts of story... I also remember him for being the ever helping hand in case of any need and help...

What I did not know about him was about to be revealed to me that night...

We reached their house at about 8 in the evening and settled down to a nice conversation with the family... He usually used to be out of the house on work on ordinary days but made it a point to hang around that day so that he can meet the new Daamat ( Son in law) i.e read me ;)

Slowly slowly as I engaged with a lively discussion with him, out came the treasures of his life time... The cherished booty that he had created over the years... from the broken drawers, in the dilapidated cupboard and from the dirty cellars.. came out marching fine uniquely shaped bottles which looked like female heel shoes, baseball bat, snake, vultures etc etc... And with each of them there was a story attached.. A story of their life and a story which has been untold to the world...

As I was thinking that the collection has come to an end, out marched a note book inside which there were currency note of India from time immemorial with a pouch which had coins of historic value... all of it has been painstakingly collected by the collector from numerous sources - relatives, friends, shops, local flee market...

He also showed a rare collection of wrist watches and rare antique watch pieces some of which were pure gold...

All this he has collected all across the country, from people known and unknown to him...

When he was showing us the collection I could see the excitement in his eye... In that moment it seems that life has come to a stand still for him... As if this was the only thing that he was meant to do.. and that this is the only thing which has kept him goin in life..

He also showed photographs of him through the years on new year days when he dressed up as a fakir, or a doctor or a priest of various religion with just one message written all over his clothes and caps - glorifying the unity we have in diversity, preaching tolerance and coexistence and foremost the value of 'Humanity First' that he preaches to the world... He also makes it a point to donate blood on this day and encourages his friends to do so...

I looked at the person in awe and admiration... here is a person who has not had the best in life... but somehow his spirit is indomitable and he's attitude is so full of Sunshine... braving all the odds to collect all 'tinkers and junks' that he does with passion for which there are no takers and also which do not have a proper place to store.. showing humanity what it is to unconditionally love and have compassion for your fellow human being...

In childhood I used to hear the story of the musk deer and how it used to give out scent from its own body... All the other deer, including the musk deer itself will run all around the jungle in search of that scent unable to locate it...

As i left that night being 'introduced' to my ' musk deer', I felt an untold joy and happiness of having met a person who brought so much meaning to an ordinary life and immense joys to people around him...

My search for the scent has now ended having found my Musk Deer - at least for now....

The Way of the Bow

I was thrilled today to find out that Paulo Coelho is sharing some of his best creations on the web ! All for free for his readers and those interesed to read it... What a way to reach out to the masses and soothe their spirit with his balmy writings... I have just started reading the book "The Way of the Bow" and am compelled to share with all of you the following section...

The dialogue is between a master archer and his disciple on the early advice of the former to the later about the art of archery... The dialogue, as in all other Paulo's writing is more symbolical than real.. yet something which can be identified by anybody anywhere...

"The archer who does not share with others the joy of the bow and the arrow will never know his own qualities and defects.

Therefore, before you begin anything, seek out your allies, people who are interested in what you are doing. I'm not saying 'seek out other archers'. I'm saying: find people with other skills, because the way of the bow is no different from any other path that is followed with enthusiasm.

Your allies will not necessarily be the kind of dazzling people to whom everyone looks up and of whom they say: 'There's none better.' On the contrary, they are people who are not afraid of making mistakes and who do, therefore, make mistakes, which is why their work often goes unrecognised. Yet they are just the kind of people who transform the world and, after many mistakes, manage to do something that can make a real difference in their community.

They are people who can't bear to sit around waiting for things to happen in order to decide which attitude to adopt; they decide as they act, well aware that this could prove highly dangerous. Living with such people is important for an archer because he needs to realise that before he faces the target, he must first feel free enough to change direction as he brings the bow up to his chest. When he opens his hand and releases the string, he should say to himself: 'As I was drawing the bow, I travelled a long road. Now I release this arrow knowing that I took the necessary risks and gave of my best.'

The best allies are those who do not think like everyone else. That is why when you seek companions with whom you can share your enthusiasm for archery, trust your intuition and pay no attention to what anyone else may say. People always judge others by taking as a model their own limitations, and other people's opinions are often full of prejudice and fear.

Join with all those who experiment, take risks, fall, get hurt and then take more risks. Stay away from those who affirm truths, who criticise those who do not think like them, people who have never once taken a step unless they were sure they would be respected for doing so, and who prefer certainties to doubts.

Join with those who are open and not afraid to be vulnerable: they understand that people can only improve once they start looking at what their fellows are doing, not in order to judge them, but to admire them for their dedication and courage. You might think that archery would be of no interest to, say, a baker or a farmer, but I can assure you that they will introduce whatever they see into what they do. You will do the same: you will learn from the good baker how to use your hands and how to get the right mix of ingredients. You will learn from the farmer to have patience, to work hard, to respect the seasons and not to curse the storms, because it would be a waste of time.

Join with those who are as flexible as the wood of your bow and who understand the signs along the way. They are people who do not hesitate to change direction when they encounter some insuperable barrier, or when they see a better opportunity. They have the qualities of water: flowing around rocks, adapting to the course of the river, sometimes forming into a lake until the hollow fills to overflowing, and they can continue on their way, because water never forgets that the sea is its destiny and that sooner or later it must be reached. Join with those who have never said: 'Right, that's it, I'm going no further,' because as sure as spring follows winter, nothing ever ends; after achieving your objective, you must start again, always using everything you have learned on the way.

Join with those who sing, tell stories, take pleasure in life, and have joy in their eyes, because joy is contagious and can prevent others from becoming paralysed by depression, loneliness and difficulties. Join with those who do their work with enthusiasm, and because you could be as useful to them as they are to you, try to understand their tools too and how their skills could be improved.

The time has come, therefore, to meet your bow, your arrow, your target and your way."

Vande Mataram

Recently the fatwa (or a decree as it is called) issued by a body of 'Muslim' clergy making it somehow mandatory for the Muslims not to recite Vande Mataram has evoked mixed responses from all across.

Religious clerics as like politicians (the line gets blurred here as both these clans have so much in common irrespective of the group they belong to) love to brew such heady concoction which will ultimately lead to a national frenzy and result in the ultimate spot light shifting to them... These attention grabbers and seekers of cheap popularity forget that this could have been something which may have been a remote possibility in the 70s or 80s... But since then things have changed quite a lot in post liberalisation India... Now it is not the single message of the imam of a particular mosque (asking Muslim to vote for a particular party) which significantly sways the fortune of the party and ushers them in to power... The Muslim of present day have seen through the deceit and cunning game enough to be again lured in to such tactics...

Vande Mataram is a patriotic song which swung the nation in to patriotic fervour and led to the ultimate freedom of the Nation... It has its value in the history of the nation as much as the sacrifice of numerous patriotic Muslims who have laid down their lives for the sake of the motherland... Besides being a free and democratic country as ours, there is no compulsion or coercion on us to sing or not to sing a particular song.. For that matter we are so liberal that we are naturally not shocked at people who do not rise up on their feet for the national anthem too... (most of the time I have been laughed at for standing up for the national anthem even if it is on the T.V)...

However, the larger point here is : have the mullahs ( and it applies to all fundamentalists from all religions) ever issued a fatwa against pressing issues like health, education, livelihood, sanitation, housing and women empowerment.. I need not go on quoting statistics to underline the fact that one of the most backward group currently in this country are the Muslims...The major reason being the fact that these innocent people fall victim to the mullah.. starting from education to the type of health care they should seek out and the way they should live... Everything is dictated by the Mullahs in one form or the other...This very fact has been played to the hilt by our opportunistic politicians who are hand in gloves with these clergies and promise the earth to these poor Innocent people to romp all the way to power... All the promises fades to the background after the win and this section of the society is relegated to the background... The anger and frustration of poverty and helplessness of the people then becomes a favourable breeding ground for malice like anti social activities, crime and young men lured by vested interest in to activities of terrorism... Has any mullah taken cognisance of these facts and issued fatwa against them... How many Mullah have issued fatwa against Muslim household not sending their children for formal education, or marrying their daughter before the legal age or issued fatwa against household for not maintaining sanitation and hygiene...The answer is a resounding NO...

Muslim have been an integral part of the country since time unknown and have contributed to the process of nation building shoulder to shoulder with their fellow countrymen.. They are also a section which sadly lags behind others in term of overall development till date.. The time has come for the government to take cognisance of the fact that these issues can not be allowed to fester and left unaddressed.. Otherwise we may be troubled by problems which will be basically ghost of our past mistakes... Let us learn from the mistakes of mammoth proportion committed by the Big Brother in the West and neither take part nor be a silent spectator to the marginalisation and coercion of a community so much so that they fall easy prey to vested interest and go on a war which seeks to annihiliate the very humankind...

Muslim community simultaneously has to wake up and recognise the fact that the mullahs and vested interests wants anything but their welfare and decide that it is high time that they take the matter of their own development in to their own hand and walk quickly to be at par with the rapid stride of our nation with others...

Somebody aptly told me long time back a phrase which translates in to:

Islam was created by Allah but is deformed by Mullah (clergy)

Well this may not be the whole truth but then it is an indication of what the truth may be like...

Let my country awake....

The Bucket list

Watched "The Bucket List" starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. Its a sweet movie about two terminally ill cancer patient Carter Chambers (Freeman) and billionaire hospital magnate Edward Cole (Nicholson) both of whom meet in the hospital after both have been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Carter makes a "Bucket List" of things that he wants to do before he 'kicked the bucket'... This gets Edward Cole interested and he also adds his list of things that he wants to do before he dies... What ensues after that is an exciting trip of adventure and self discovery for both the men which left me half laughing, half crying...

The movie has a lingering effect on the audience in the sense that it compels you to think... 'that if it was your last day and you had umpteenth thing that needs your attention... things you always thought you could do but never could get yourself down to doing it.. the numerous thing that you wanted to say to your loved ones which has been left unsaid till now.. the piece of your mind which you always hoped to give your half sadist half paranoid boss before you kiss your job goodbye... et al et al...

Haven't all of us had such a long list of things which all of us wanted to do?

As for me its definitely a yes... So here goes my "Bucket List' of things that I would like to do (not necessarily in the same order) before providence decides to call it a day for me...

• Go on a world trip to all the scenic beauty I have seen only in pictures and experience them first hand
• Conquer my perennial fear in maths and become a maths genius
• Turn around the clock and be able to express my love to what could have been my 1st love
• To be able to experience just one golden days of my childhood if I could
• Have a villa at the top of the highest point at Mahabaleswar
• Own a black Scorpio with mind blowing music system
• Do my MPH at Johns' Hopkins (not that I can not but only if it is my last few days)
• To be known as a good human being even when I am gone

I know the list is endless but then can any body have a hold on the wishes that one can make... especially if it is your last few days of your human existence on this earth...

The best thing I liked about the movie is the conversation that Carter and Edward Cole has atop a pyramid in Egypt in which Carter says that the Egyptian have a belief that when they die and go to meet their creator they are asked 2 questions before they are admitted in to heaven:

Q.1. "Did you have joy within your life time?"
Q.2. "Did you bring joy to people within your life time?"

What a symbolic way of squeezing the entire life's existence in to 2 such simple yet loaded question... whether you got joy out of what you did and were you instrumental in bringing joys to people around you..

When I think deeply, that's what life entirely is... getting joy and giving joy.. and the foremost thing that ensures that you get joy is by giving joys to others which ensures that what you give away to others comes back to you in manifold...

Go kiss the World !

A brilliant speech delivered by Subroto Bagchi, CEO MindTree, to the Class of 2006 at the IIM, Bangalore on defining success; produced here in toto. Somehow I identify with him coming from a similar background and context....

"I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was, and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep, so the family moved from place to place and without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father.

My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system, which makes me what I am today and largely, defines what success means to me today. As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government- he reiterated to us that it was not his jeep but the government's jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days.. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep - we could sit in it only when it was stationary. That was our early childhood lesson in governance, a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do. The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix "dada". whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed, I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' very different from many of their friends who refer to their family driver, as 'my driver'. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe.

To me, the lesson was significant, you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.

Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha, an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was neither gas, nor electrical stoves.The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's muffosil edition delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson.

He used to say, 'You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it. That lesson was about showing consideration to others.

Business begins and ends with that simple precept.

Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios, we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios, alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses... His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant.

Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.

Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom.. She said, 'I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited'. That was my first lesson in success.

It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.

My mother began and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action.. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination.

Imagination is everything.. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.

Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember, when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, 'Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair'.. I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes. That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once.

Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, 'No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed'. Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes.

To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.

Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981.. Life took me places, I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world. In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him, he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe.

The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, 'Why have you not gone home yet?' Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self.

There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what the limit of inclusion is you can create.

My father died the next day. He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion.

Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings.

Success is not about building material comforts, the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the memetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of a ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world..

My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions.

In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.

Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said,

'Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world.'

Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity was telling me to go and kiss the world!

Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people.

It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.

Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and God's speed. Go! kiss the world."

Malgudi Days

Yesterday I went to one of the shopping mall named City Centre at Banjara Hills, Hyderabad (incidentally the only shopping mall which I have visited the max. till date). The reason for my oft drop at the mall is the "Crossword" shop which has an extensive collection of books, DVDs and C.Ds. Yesterday I went in for the first time with a deliberate intention of not buying any new books coz my list of unread books have gone up in the last few months as I have not been able to do any serious reading...

With such an intention I entered "Crossword" and immediately headed for the DVD et al section... I had planned for buying some cool Hollywood Action movie or some romantic movie which I can watch with my love... However there was not much that could really attract my attention and hold me interested as it was all run of the mill flick which I either have in my small library or can see over the cable... Disinterested I switched to the music category and found some great gazals from the movies by Jagjit Singh which I wanted to buy but alas.... it all turned out to be audio C.Ds whereas I wanted visual treat...

Disheartened, I moved to other Sections... Children Cartoons... devotional music... CDs of Television serials.. et al et al... That's where it caught my attention...

In the corner selves, stacked neatly were the entire collection of my favourite serial "Malgudi days" being brought out by Big Home Video... I just sat down there and then and began to rummage through the piles... Looking at the series and reading the episodes brought back nostalgic memories of how Swami and his friends used to be an integral part of our childhood and how we will all wait for the serial to be broadcast in DD (I think it was on a Friday)... Malgudi Days and the rich haunting melody of its title song still reminds all of us of the good ol' days...

So now I have a whole collection of "Malgudi Days" with me which I will start watching from today and be transported back to the golden era when I was still a child....

Till then the books can wait...