In This Caravan Of Life

In this caravan of life people come and go but seldom one touches the soul
Who'll hold a candle in your darkest hours and stand by you in your lethal wars
Solving the complex riddles and the symphony of chaos & confusion in your head
The caravan of your life taking its bearing and course on words they have said

Alas she's none of it!!

She's the 'been through there' & 'done that and got bored' girl you'll encounter
So probably she'll unlit your little false lamps of hope & mock you as a jester
She'll add her own chaos in 'E Minor' to yours making symphony a rhyming rap
And all the bearings you took from her will have you ending up in Devil's lap

Alas she's not so evil!!

She rebelled against the world a long time before she even gained her senses
Claimed her independence from the society in which she pretends to be within the fences
All these million rules and laws lie shattered & broken in a corner of her head
If they read the minds she'd be outlawed long ago saying 'wanted alive or dead'

Alas she's not Che Guevara!!

She's as enigmatic as some Scorpio can be
Smiling at the lesser souls trying hard not to get preachy
Setting her own ways for sailing through life breaking free
May many more birthdays compound your joys and shopping spree


HAPPY BIRTHDAY RICHA SINGH!!!

Turning A Kid Again And Indian Comics Industry

To turn a kid again, innocent, simpler in this convoluted consumerist world is nothing short of a miracle. The mind now filled with thoughts, desires, regrets, past, future. It is difficult to push them aside and remember "I'm not my thoughts, I'm not my desires, I'm not my Mind"

Lately I have been a kid again - reading comics, playing video games, watching cartoons (from chotta bheem to  fullmetal alchemist) reading YA stories.

Vimanika Comics

Buying comics (indian and western) & graphic novels (indian, manga, DC) is no kid's play. I'm sure kids today can't afford these comics with their pocket money even if it's adjusted with inflation!! Maybe they can if they their father is a 2G Raja or they inherited a fortune as vast as Uncle Scrooge or Richie Rich.

Vimanika, Jump10, Campfire, Pop Culture Publishing, Raj Comics, Amar Chitra Katha, Holy Cow, Top Cow, Virgin Comics, DC, Marvel, Manga. I have been laying my hands on every kind of comics/Graphic novels I can lay my hands on. But at last the days of Indian comic industry look as bright as the sun shines on a clear day in mid-June over Delhi (The city which recently hosted the ComicCon India) at 02 00 PM. The only dark cloud that might come floating by is the 'Price Tag' of some of the comics and DC/Marvel graphic novels which might eclipse the bright sunshine but then these comics are also for adults like me.

a cutout at ComicCon delhi

It's not that the price deters people like me from buying but usually it's the new customers/fan who'd like to give it a shot but give it up after seeing the price tag. The comics to be successful has to reach the masses creating a cult like following.

The quality of the Indian comics(except some)  is undeniably at par with the west. The story line, the art, the concepts, the details, all is worth spending your time and money on. I have stumped to see how the Comic-industry in India has risen from the ashes re-inventing itself. Most of them borrowing from our own mythology but then we are the country of original superheroes. Krishna, Ram, Shiva, Hanuman and kick ass bad guys and monsters. We just need not to invent them!!

The disappointment however for me has been Raj Comics which after all these years have failed to move on the next level. More on this well another time.

Read comics. Support the talented Indian artists.

Time To Change... Accept Acceptance, Reject Rejection

We live in a world constantly rejecting it. Look around - we reject almost everything around us! Rejecting, rejecting and rejecting! In fact, rejection has become the root cause of all our displeasure, pain, and insanity. We reject our imperfections, our less than perfect bodies, our kids who can’t get 100/100 in every subject, our spouse who seems too self-centred, our politicians who are too corrupt, our society which is inherently flawed, and our bosses who are too insensitive! In short we keep rejecting every other thing in life!

If I could change one thing around me – I’d make people “accept” themselves and their surroundings. 


Accept acceptance. Reject rejection.

"You as much as anyone else in the world deserve your love and affection." ~ Buddha

Accept yourself - not just the good and the beautiful component, but every bit of yourself - the good, the bad and even the ugly. What you keep discarding merely keeps on going brawny. Accept the petite cunningness in your character as much as you accept your childhood innocence.

Your body is a temple for your soul. 

Accept your body - too-thin, too-fat, too-short, too-tall, too-plump, and too-skinny. Whatever it is – it is partly your responsibility and partly your genes. Celebrate the body but first accept that you want to change it for better. The perfect gym-toned body with perfect figure can only give you happiness if you first accept the body as the temple you live in. Your body is a gift to yourself.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” 
― Albert Einstein

Accept your kids - they have not been sent to earth to further your goals and desires or to achieve your dreams. They are not corporate acquisitions from which you expect and demand high performance and soaring returns on the shareholder’s value. They are little human beings of infinite possibilities and dreams. Don’t make a fish climb a tree nor ask an elephant to catch up with a cheetah!

Accept your friends - they may have taken not-so-good decisions, they might have wronged you a few times, but they’re only human... they have their own shortcomings and follies. Accept them like they have accepted you and then only can you realise the potent force of friendship and acceptance.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

Accept your rejections how many times were you left heart-broken, teary eyed by your love? Someone didn't accept you in their lives, rejected you. Someone threw you out of their lives after a seemingly prefect paradise relationship. Accept the rejection which may or may not have been fault of yours but it did happen and it can’t be changed. Only by accepting can you transcend it.

The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up.

Accept your responsibilities - towards yourself, your spouse, your parents, your country and finally to earth and humanity - in reverse order.

Love is a better master than duty.

Accept your spouse - he/she is one you have already accepted to your intimate core and in turn opened yourself for wounds and scars which can take eons to heal. Only by accepting the other person in all his/her profundity, complexity and darkness can you transform him/her and transcend the shortcomings he/she harbours deep in his/her psyche.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

Accept the society - it is what it is. It is because of the actions, inactions, choices of people like you and me who constitute it. It is a reflection of our collective consciousness. If it seems mad to you it is just reflecting collective madness of everyone including us. If it’s evil and corrupt it is because too many of us are evil or silent... indifferent and scared to fight against injustice.

And last but not the least…

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.” 
― Albert Einstein

Accept women - it’s strange to live in a country that worships Goddess Lakshmi for money and prosperity but burns its wives and daughters-in-laws in the name of dowry. We worship Goddess Durga but liken the girl child to an ugly demon, thus slaughtering it in the womb itself. We rape our own women! We adore Sita’s chastity and end up hanging our clothes in some dirty brothel! Even though we all came from a woman, we end up being a husband torturing our wives - beating them, killing them slowly... mentally, spiritually, psychologically and physically. We all were inside the womb of a woman for nine months and came from her - then why this anger and hatred against something that God gifted the power to create something as beautiful as life itself?

If I could change one thing around - rejection would be it.

This post has been written for Indiblogger's "Time to change! contest" - If you could change something around you, what would it be?. To participate or know more, click here.

to know more click here:

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Flipkart.com Vs. Bookadda.com

I first noticed Flipkart.com at World Book Fair 2010 New Delhi. They had a big stall of which I walked past by quickly glancing with the side of my eye since the stall, as far as I remember, had no books and it wasn’t a publishing house. Later I stumbled upon the website after reading a blogpost about it and discovered the unbelievable, plethora of books at rock bottom prices add to it superb packaging and FREE to home delivery.

The love affair with the much applauded and hugely successful website followed before it became the household name. Till recently almost all my online transactions had been through flipkart. The discounts were so tempting that I stopped buying books elsewhere. A person who loves bookshops more than anything turned into a tourist at bookstores. Noting down name of the books only to order them later through flipkart. 

When flipkart went multidimensional selling everything from electronics to books et al. it did pinch me somewhere. It killed the thought of relating flipkart as an exclusive bookstore fanning my fears that somehow it will dilute the book business. Going through books in the books section of say big bazaar is such a sham. It’s there for the heck of it. Colouring books rubbing shoulders with chetan bhagats , shiv kheras, chicken soups and other extremely popular titles. Superficial and skin deep.

Somehow I started ordering computer accessories from flipkart.

Some days before I had to order Samit Basu’s The Simoqin Prophesies for refrence purpose which was for some reason not available at flipkart. I Googled and found bookadda.com a miraculous site which had books cheaper than flipkart and that too by a good margin. It was a like discovering a talisman. A dedicated bookstore with cheapest books I had ever seen. It was then I did it… Ordered the book through bookadda.com on 21 Feb.

On 22 Feb I received the SMS from bookadda intimating me that my order had been shipped from their end through AFL Couriers (who are they?) It’s 29 Feb and I have fairly no idea where my book is.

The AFL website gave nothing to my tracking id telling me nothing except that my courier has not yet been delivered. I called bookadda.com customer helpline number which was few times busy, sometimes unanswered. Finally I could get through the helpline chakravyuh. The call attendant was very professional though and took personal interest in my query. She called back after updating the status of my order with the courier company.

I formally wrote this on the customer feedback section on their website and a string of emails followed :

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 7:36 PM, <customercare@bookadda.com> wrote:

I ordered Samit Basu's book from your website which was shipped shortly but unfortunately the courier company AFL has not been able to deliver the shipment promptly.. i had posted about your website on my FB wall and recommended it highly to my friends since it offers better deals than flipkart.... that too after many years of ordering through flipkart.. i cannot receive my shipment details too through AFL courier website by the tracking number which only tells me that my courier has not been deliver (which of course i already know) it's advisable if u your courier company can be prompt and informative it'll help the customers and inspire confidence to order more books on a regular basis. thank you.
User Order Id - 
from email - parv.kaushik@gmail.com

Feb 28:

Dear Customer,

Greeting from Bookadda.com !

Thank you for your mail and order with Bookadda.com.

As per your mail , we kindly request you to provide us the transaction reference id so that we may check and followup with the courier people for the same, as we are not able to track the order through your mail id.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Thanks 

Customer Support Team

Feb 28:

My AFL tracking id is 81592712561172

Feb 28:

Dear Sir,

Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused.

We expect you to get the book by today.

We value your feedback & have taken corrective action against the courier company.

While we strive to provide good services, sometimes we get constrained by the logistics eco-system available in the country.

We hope to provide better services to you in future.

We look forward to having you as our customer soon.

Thanks.

I got their sincere apologies but not my book despite complaining. The courier company has taken some corrective measure (pun intended) with now the Status is showing “With Delivering Courier” as if the guy is out there with my book on his way and will be reaching me anytime while in reality the book might be rotting somewhere in their warehouse.

It is sad to see such appalling service in a fiercely competitive market. It might be that the perfect business plan of bookadda.com is being anchored by poor delivery mechanism or that by cutting on price they are compromising on courier provider. Whatever the reason the bottom line is..

WHERE IS MY BOOK???

You Rock Richa Singh!!

It's a supposedly happy event and a extravaganza when your friend gets married. Apparently in this case it does not appears to be so because for me a friend married indeed is a friend lost!

With my dearest friend Richa Singh entering the holy matrimonial phase of her life I stand to lose a mentor, guide, philosopher, counselor (career, relationships and otherwise), fellow party animal, comrade-in-arms, future political rival and business associate. The last two very probable to happen! :)

Richa Singh and I started with an entrepreneurial venture- a youth magazine called 'Sub Zero' in NCR but as fate would have it we two outcast-ed creatures in socially awkward college setting teamed up to preserve our intellectual and moral sanity resting on the pillars of our schools La Marts and CMS GomtiNagar respectively (she hated my school, she still does but it was better any given day- except the girls!!) resulting in a secret war against our social environment.

Dearest Richa Singh is tying the knots today with Vikas Agarwal and I'm not there for her at this important event of her life. She's not talking to me at all. I'm waiting for her to calm down and slander me filthiest insults in her vocabulary followed by a fierce hated speech on my misconduct and unbecoming of a friend and eventually forgiving me for the unpardonable sin I have committed.

Then one fine day we'll be chatting about anything and everything that has happened in our lives. crossed our minds, some news we have read, some opinions we have formed, some philosophy, some books, some movies, some memories, some future plans but alas! I guess she'll a married lady now. Now is there DO'S and DONT'S on how to talk to former best friends and now married lady? On what topics should I talk?

"Who does the dishes when maid is not there?"

"Did maid come today?"

"Ummmm... Are you happy?"
(For the record me and Richa Singh are never too happy- our standards are too high for mortals and earthlings!!)

Lucky Dearest Richa Singh has found a wonderful husband and him a wonderful soul mate and companion for life. May God bless you both with health happiness and wealth(also friends like me ;) )  and as you walk around the holy fire swearing love and companionship for next so many births once again may God bless you both!

"Chutti nahin dete apni company main bula le yaar!!!"

You Rock RS!!

Blues And Book Stores

We all escape our pain, our emotional wretchedness and sentimental over weariness.. Yes that's exactly what we do.. escape our pain.

How do you chase the blues away? When things are not going your way... People are not reacting the way you want them too?? World crumbling down... hopes crashing... dreams tumbling... mental breakdown... thoughts collapsing into black hole of despair and nothingness. I know I have painted a gloomy picture but this is how you feel and may be a hell lot worse. Then you leave the little world behind and enter a world to forget everything leaving all dark thoughts in the rear view mirror.

Some go shopping, some go bar, some go long high-speed drives, some eat till their tummy explodes or wallet gives up doling out currency, others will torment their facebook friends by posting all sort of weird non-coherent updates. What's your escape?? We all escape our pain, our emotional wretchedness and sentimental over weariness.. Yes that's exactly what we do.. escape our pain.

I go to book stores.

Corporate book stores where the attendants are too busy/lazy/self-absorbed to bother you or ask if you need help. Bookstores are the only place where I have never been approached by anyone asking what I'm looking for. Tried walking into cologne section of a store? They pounce on you like vampires low on human blood supply, like wild rapists given a license by government to unleash their havoc! (More of that experiences in another post)

Book stores are my answer to wonderland of Alice.

Book stores are my answer to wonderland of Alice. It's a whole world of knowledge in a cave. so much so it overwhelms you with the amount of thoughts and ideas coming to you from all sides and directions. So many books on so diverse issues and subjects. Each book with it's magnetic pull attracts you to delve into it's secret and in no time you are surfing the ocean in a small kayak and letting the waves take you where they want you to go. So you start at top-sellers and navigating through strange channels you pass through new-releases, architecture, photography, Indian writing, self-help. comics, kids, romance, classics, fiction, non-fiction, management, biographies, computer, western philosophy, religion, on sale books, magazines, poetry, fantasy, chetan bhagat, health et al.

No world No time exists. It's me, my thoughts and my reason.

Each book each section drowning you in it's wealth, engulfing you, a universe in it's own with all the secrets unknown and truths waiting to be unlocked, and then your lost lost in thoughts, lost in philosophies, stories, fantasies, classics. I am lost to say the least and overwhelmed. You feel like a speck of grass in the vast constellation of stars.And yes I forget the pin haunting me, tormenting me, torturing me. I doesn't exist at all.. in fact for the time I'm in the book store there is no world outside the book store. No world No time exists. It's me, my thoughts and my reason.

What's your escape?

Midnight Madness.... Why Is The Sky Blue?

I was still in my teens in high school and infinitely curious about everything around me. Curious like a child who's in awe of the world around him. Startling at every new knowledge he gains of the world around him. It was like I'm a child again learning there is a sun, a moon, infinite stars and the earth revolves round the sun.

It was a phase when you are analytical, questioning and scrutinizing every piece of information fed to you. Puzzled at the facts of life inspecting all facts of life trying to decipher the mysteries of the universe. Why is the sky blue? Why do we sleep? Why are stars so far? How does a dog drink water? Why is donkey funny? Why do others have bigger houses and cars than me? Why can't i fight with girls?

It's like when you show a kid new animals, look at his eyes. His eyes pop out, he stares in amazement in wonder, in fascination. Seeing a monkey jumping across trees or a butterfly shuttling between flowers is nothing short of a spectacle for him, a stunner. Take a child to a zoo and he sees with all his being forgetting everything else in else, everything in his memory and mind fades away to nothingness. He shouts with the monkeys, runs with the deers, fears the python almost becoming part of their kingdom.

I was in a somewhat similar state of mind once. It was when I had discovered spirituality and was tampering with the enigma of mind. Nothing served me better than connecting with nature. It were the noises and voices in your head that prevent you to experience your true self in full divinity. It was then that I felt a strong urge to connect with nature. I spent  a lot of time alone on top of my roof with my own being connecting with nature.

In the morning I used to feel the soft sunlight warming the skin of my body. Absorbing the electromagnetic rays of the Sun or the photons (Quantum mechanics I know I know!!) taking eight and a half minutes to reach me produced by nuclear fusion process. The zephyr touching my hair and passing through me. The chirping of birds sending my spirit into trance.

In the night standing on the rooftop under the umbrella of million stars connecting with the moonlight and the twinkling stars. It's then in that moment when the memory and mind fade into oblivion and all the being comes to life making one aware of one's existence is the moment of truth is also the moment of madness.

It was my Midnight Madness.