Books, Work &

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I am so much into Twitter these days... bro calls it my new toy and I'd agree.... the good part about tweeting is that my obsession with fashion blogs has reduced considerably... :) I couldn't be more relieved... now I am an ABCD (A Bit Confused Dresser) coz I am experimenting with sartorialism... here's to retail therapy!!!

The weather in Delhi has cooled and after the 40degree summer, I think we are quite ready for it. Not so ready for the commonwealth, if the state of the roads is anything to go by... the traffic is so unpredictable you dont know if the journey is gonna take you 30 mins or an hour and 30 mins... am not a fan of delhi traffic so i dont pass up an opportunity to crib...

I did a 24 hour trip to Jaipur with hubby this month and the sad state on Indian Tourism saddens me. We had a long conversation about the places we have been to and concluded that India under utilises its potential in this area. Agreed that Incredible India is an Incredible campaign, but ground reality HAS to match up to the promises. Can the auto / taxi drivers stop trying to fleece travelers? Can information desks be more inviting? Can people help more? Can we get value for money? Can we have better trains? More frequent trains?

Speaking of trains, the journey began with unattended bag lying in our coupe. The mother of twins that shared it with us coolly informed us that the bag wasn't hers. A 20 year old boy left it there and went away before the train started!!! Can you imagine how we reacted? We got hold of the attendants, refused to sit there and demanded the TC (who never bothered to come there btw) We asked for the bag to be left at the next station. The attendant prob wasn't authorised enough but he was concerned as well. After an hour or so, the dopey owner of the bag saunters in, shaking to the beat of his ipod. We gave him an earful and he gave us a glazed look throughout... Kids these days! And the ppl around us were just not bothered. Probably thought we were over reacting. But what if that bag actually had a bomb? Wouldn't they wish that someone HAD overreacted? Whatever happened to being alert citizens and in times like these.....

What would you have done in such a situation????

My first Love - Books!

This is the top 100 books to read list from BBC. -

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman

4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling

6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling

23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling

24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling

25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

27. Middlemarch, George Eliot

28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving

29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck

30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson

32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett

34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute

38. Persuasion, Jane Austen

39. Dune, Frank Herbert

40. Emma, Jane Austen

41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery

42. Watership Down, Richard Adams

43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

46. Animal Farm, George Orwell

47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck

53. The Stand, Stephen King

54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth

56. The BFG, Roald Dahl

57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome

58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell

59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer

60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman

62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden

63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough

65. Mort, Terry Pratchett

66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

67. The Magus, John Fowles

68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding

71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind

72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell

73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

74. Matilda, Roald Dahl

75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding

76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt

77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins

78. Ulysses, James Joyce

79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson

81. The Twits, Roald Dahl

82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith

83. Holes, Louis Sachar

84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson

87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

89. Magician, Raymond E Feist

90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac

91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo

92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel

93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett

94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

95. Katherine, Anya Seton

96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer

97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez

98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson

99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot

100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

The ones in bold are those I have read and italics are on a must read list... 16 / 100 read is a bad score... :(

Sugar Free!!

Me: You added sugar to my coffee in the morning
Pantry boy: M'am this is sugar free, it will have no effect!!!

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.... :D

For those who don't know, I take no sugar in my beverages... i like them with the natural flavour

Juggling on a treadmill

Imagine starting to jog on a treadmill... a light, easy jog that allows you to carry on a conversation with your fellow jogger. That's the beginning of career for you. You may work the whole day, but you can definitely chat with others around you and not fall too far behind. You can always catch up.

Somewhere down the line, the treadmill tilts... you are now jogging on an incline - a rise in career. You jog faster, labour more to cover the same distance. Your work has become intense and takes more resources out of you. Some one hands you juggling balls... four juggling balls, your family, your friends, your own interests and hobbies and your health. You juggle these while the treadmill tilts more and more... as if that was not enough, someone yanks up the speed on the treadmill...! Not only is your work tougher, you also have deadlines (and sometimes insane ones).

As you move on in life, the pace just keeps increasing and the slope gets steeper... more juggling balls get added to your life... that's today's world for you!