One of my friends suggested that this book might be a good read as the movie based on it was hilarious.
This book is written by an IAS officer himself so maybe I was expecting too much.The plot looked promising as well...A rookie IAS officer moves to a small town called Madna and experiences the corruption, bureaucracy, difficulties in running an administration first hand. (I am simply fascinated by Indian Administrative Services. At some point I wanted to become a part of it. Given that I am 25 I still have 3 more years to take the plunge if my current profession gets too boring!)
It is a known fact that bureaucracy can lead to pretty hilarious situations...Yes Minister or The office lovers please stand up!But instead this book gave me an impression an IAS officer who is no less than a king in a small town completely ignores the welfare of people and drinks whiskey,smokes marijuana during daytime to compensate the cultural shock of suddenly moving to a small town from a big city...Maybe after first 150 pages(that's when I stopped reading it) the rookie gets out of his depression and every page in this book is filled with witty remarks and funny situations but I could not stand it...
Yes, we did it! Three movies back to back in a theater!
My mom was watching an English movie in a theater for the first time and she made her “debut” really memorable with a hat trick!
Obviously it was impromptu. First one we watched was Wall-e. Frankly I don’t get what the hype is about. My friends called it extra-ordinar-e. I agree that it’s a brave attempt on Pixer’s part to produce a movie
Next one was Hancock. I think Will Smith (hero as well as the producer of the movie) should have spent a little more time/money to rewrite the story to make it more appealing. Even though a super hero story line has become a cliche’ recently, I thought it’ll be a fun movie after watching trailers. But after the first half an hour, the movie lost its grip. Will Smith should get an Oscar for keeping a straight face for the entire movie. I have no clue why on earth a talented actress like Charlize Theron would spoil her reputation by accepting such a lousy role.
Fortunately to wipe out these bad memories came the icing on the cake – Dark knight. What a movie! Awesome! Brilliant! People were lined up outside the screen well in advance to get a better spot and some of them were even dressed up as Joker. As I am writing this it is enjoying its numero uno position on IMDB for the best movie of all times. I never read any comics when I was a kid and this was my first Batman movie ever so I wasn’t too excited about this movie. It has a great story and every actor has given his/her 200% .The one who stands out the most is Heath Ledger. His joker is one of the best of villains ever on silver screen. It’s so sad that he is no more :( Minu was probably bored by this time hence wasn’t paying much attention and mom was trying her best to understand whatever was going on the screen so I had to update them from time to time about the storyline. After a while an irritated lady sitting in the front row started giving me glances so I had to stop my commentary :) The crowd enjoyed the movie so much that everybody clapped in the end.
We emerged out of the theater after almost six and half hours. I’ll have to try really hard next time to break or even match this feat :) What a fun day!
Flashback - When I was pursuing undergrad in Computer Engineering in Pune, one of my friends bought the book series "The art of computer programming" by Donald Knuth. Those were the days when we used to study only during PLs (preparation leaves) so when everybody found out about this we started calling him "Knuth" just to ridicule him. We still call him by the same name!
Current - While browsing through SCPD's website I came to know that Donald Knuth is going to talk about "fun with Binary Decision Diagrams" and I jumped at the opportunity! Not that I am interested in listening anything about binary decision diagrams I just wanted to see him. He's one of the icons of computer science who has shaped the way people think while designing an algorithm.When it comes to computer science, Knuth is no different than a GOD. He is almost 70 years old and he seemed too passionate about his work.He is currently working on the 4th volume of the book series. It's the same content look that I see in my grandpa's eyes when he is with his grandchildren. For Knuth bits and bytes are his family and he seems to really enjoy their company.
Ever since parents have taken the charge of the kitchen me and Minu are relieved from the cooking duty. The free time is well spent in reading!I have been thinking for a while now about using public transportation to commute to work so that I can read a little more. Lets see how that goes.
Here's a short review of books that I've read in past two months -
Managing Humans - **1/2 I am a big fan of Michael Lopp's (Rands) blog.Most of the times he writes about things that are really useful to survive/perform better in a corporate environment. But then he also writes about a lot of useless stuff and moreover all the chapters are derived from blog posts. So I will suggest you saving some money and reading blog posts online. It's definitely NOT "the best book on management out there" as Joel Spolsky says. Here are some of my favorite posts
Ninety days -I finished first 90 days at my job a couple of weeks back!
Avoiding the Fez - In first 90 days at work I have seen an example of a Fez diminishing into nothingness in front of my eyes. Believe me it is scary.Silicon valley is all about "The survival of the fittest!"
Thousand Splendid Suns - ** This book is such a disappointment! I tend not to read two books of an author back to back so I waited for a long time after reading Kite Runner.But the characters in this book are portrayed poorly and it seems like a listening to a documentary on Afghanistan. It got so depressing that I had to stop reading it when I was almost 90% done. Sometimes even though I am not enjoying a book I keep reading it in a hope that it will get better. When I gave up on this one the protagonist in the novel - Mariam had become 40 years old (the novel started with she being 5 yrs old or something) and I cannot recollect anything pleasant happening to her even once! That's too depressing! Minu and I had a hearty laugh when I narrated the story to her and she was wondering why I kept reading it in the first place:)
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