Book Review: Revolution 2020

This latest book by Chetan Bhagat is the story of how an engineering-entrance-exam-failure gets rich using a corrupt system and how a friend of his tries to fight against the system.

‘Revolution 2020: Love, Corruption, Ambition’ is

80% about Love - the crappiest love story I have ever read.

15% about Corruption – All that is mentioned is how bundles of cash are passed on to get things done, I think corruption has many other forms and many more consequences than what are mentioned in the book.

5% about Ambition – that is Ambition for the right reasons.

The story is so clichéd, there is no element of surprise at all. The style of writing is so bland…it could have well been the essay of a school goer (minus the ‘love story’ bits of course).

The characters are very poorly etched, you can hardly connect with any of them.

The lead character is so forgettable, you feel nothing for the character while reading his trials and triumphs and sacrifices.

The characterization of the girl in the story is pathetic. Worse still, he goes on to make too many over generalized statements about girls. And the girls in this author’s books seem to become filthier by each book!

The only sane character is shown to face difficulties for his sane-ness and is often shown in poor light, except for his passion to bring change.

The author had written about engineering days in ‘5 Point Someone’ and about the IIM days in ‘2 States’. This latest novel goes on and on about AIEEE and JEE coaching and Class 12 days! 

What next? School days and then Pre-school?

The book was such a waste of time; it is neither humorous nor serious. It does not convey any message or have any impact.

Good Old Days - Music

Flashback:

Just when I had entered high school, the music bug had bitten me. 

Knowing the latest pop songs was the 'in' thing and watching music channels was my fad.

I remember I used to come back from school by 4:30 and start browsing all the music channels right away. I usually had a deadline of 7:00...that was when my grandma used to conquer the TV remote and start watching a series of somber soaps.

So, 4:30-7:00 was my most revered time of the day, the time of the day I anxiously awaited. God forbid, if there was a power or cable connection disruption during that time, I would start abuses on the TV.

The music channels coolly occupied the convenient slots of 1-9 on the TV and I used to go jumping from one channel to the other to find a song I liked, till my fingers and/ or my eyes hurt. After like 30 jumps of channels or 1 to 1 and a 1/2 hour of channel-surfing, I used to like a new song or get to see a favorite song - THAT used to be the best moment of the day, and well worth the painful wait! On an average I used to get to see one favorite song, and if I was lucky, maybe two...or even three if that day was blessed!

I used to hum the song/ songs till I failed to recollect how the music in a part of the song goes and jump up in excitement when I could faintly catch a favorite song when played by a neighbour. 

The list of my favorite songs kept growing and they remained favorites for 8 years. 

Present:

I like a song on TV/ Facebook/ Google+/ Orkut or listen to it faintly from some car when at a traffic signal or from a neighbour and Google the few words I manage to catch from the song. Or I like some music at a restaurant or shopping mall and Google the same. Voila! I now have 24x7 access to the song coz I can download it, sing-along with it by Googling the lyrics, and watch it again and again and again...till I get so sick of the song that I wouldn't want to hear it again for atleast another decade...all this in a matter of a week, or a couple of weeks if the song is really lucky.

What's my favorite song now? ...Uh....um... :D 

Performance under pressure

Yesterday, we decided to make biryani. But all we had were three tiny cookers, so we had to use all three to make a good quantity.

But these three cookers were not alike...

Cooker 1: It was a tiny cooker with no plastic handle, the valve was damaged and it was totally screwed up

Cooker 2: It was the same size as Cooker 1, but it was intact and properly functioning

Cooker 3: It was slightly bigger than the other two cookers, intact and properly functioning

Naturally, we had high expectations on Cooker 3, moderate on Cooker 2 and no expectations from Cooker 1.

So we put 3 cups rice in Cooker 3, 2 cups in Cooker 2 and only 1 Cup in Cooker 1.

After lots of whistles (not from Cooker 1 of course) and some time, we opened all the cookers and to our surprise we saw that

Cooker 3: The rice wasn't perfectly cooked

Cooker 2: The rice was ok

Cooker 1: The rice looked amazing, white fluffy and so yummy!

So we thought that the moral of the incident is

Good performers might break down when there is immense pressure and bad performers might perform exceptionally well when given the space and time!

Sounds like a Management lesson?

Nah!

We checked the cookers properly and found that

Cooker 3: The rice was uniformly cooked

Cooker 2: The rice was fine throughout

Cooker 1: The rice stuck to the bottom and quite a quantity was wasted

Next lesson: Good performers might break down, but their performance is of high quality;

bad performers always screw things up? or is it better to be moderate and stay out of the debate?

Nah!

Good or bad we ultimately ate all three types of cooked rice...

Sometimes u may perform well, sometimes u may screw up a lot...

Ultimately what matters is Chill!!! Be cool!!!

There are many external and internal factors for everything, no use breaking your head and trying to make sense of them!!!

:P

That's what I learnt :P

[This blog post evolved based on a discussion between DK and me]

Harry Potter and me!

Harry Potter...this name brings to me a flood of memories...which I'm now going to dump in the rest of the blog.

I think the world went gaga over Harry Potter sometime when I was in high school...

I remember seeing some of my classmates reading the novels in the class...with the book hidden below the table. My impression at that time of the Harry Potter series was that they were a bunch of kiddish-fantasy books, adding to it the size of the books - and no way!... I wasn't going to read them! ...my eyesight was bad enough already.

Soon HP movies were on the loose (:P) and a year later POGO - the new channel on the block, telecast the first movie. I TRIED, really TRIED to watch the movie, but couldn't help dozing off midway.

5 years later...

I just entered engineering and was 'trying' to make friends with the new classmates. I started conversing with a girl and she said she loves Harry Potter books. So what did I do? I LIED (:D) that I 'read' (ya, right!) the 1st book long back...and well she seems pretty impressed! (Hey all's fair in love and war isn't it? [Love as in love for friends/ friendship]) Well, we drifted off to other topics and soon we were quite good friends.

Another 2 years later...

...the topic of Harry Potter came up between my friend and me (Coz we had nicknamed a girl in our class 'Hermione' ...and that girl wasn't me btw) and I was like 'Err...umm...I did not read any Harry Potter book' and I still remember the look on her face :P We soon drifted off to other topics and I guess after two years of friendship, how the friendship started off doesn't matter :D

As for me, I am now careful not to blatantly lie that way....I make sure I know at least a little background first (so officially it wouldn't be a lie) :P :P

After a year...

A friend and I discussed books in general and I told her that the Harry Potter books seem to be the most hyped. She then patiently explained to me that it is not hype but it is the author's imagination that has made the books popular. Then I thought....'May be HP isn't that bad after all....have to watch the movies at least'.

After 2 more years...

I watched the first HP movie again with a roommie - she being an ardent HP fan and having read all the books, explained each and every character and concept in detail. It was then that I realized the true magic of Harry Potter and just couldn't wait to watch the other movies! Looking forward to watching the movies during evenings became the order of the day...

7 Harry Potter movies later, I even had a dream with Harry Potter in it last week!

Right now it's HP all the way...and no other movie seems to interest me ;)

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The day I set off a burglar alarm…

...ya, you read the title right…yet another major goof up which makes me go ROFL whenever I think of it, but scared me to death when it actually happened.

Last Sunday the wireless adapter of my laptop went kaput and I was running about the house and trying to get it to work...but it just wouldn’t. As it was already evening and the shops would be closed, I could do nothing further that day.

It was a long agonizing wait for Monday evening to rush to the shop to buy a new wireless adapter, and I couldn’t wait to get home after making the purchase; I walked as quickly as I could to get home and chose ‘The Shortcut’.

The Shortcut -  A store ‘TKMax’ is situated at the farther end of the Orchard Square shopping center. We can walk into the store, enter it and immediately exit through the other set of doors to save, well, almost 0 distance and 0 time. I have no idea why I feel it is a ‘Shortcut’ and always end up using this route.

So far so good till last Monday…

I approached the store – The Shortcut, happily swinging the carry-bag with the wireless adapter in it, when suddenly a guy overtook me. I was a bit annoyed but I continued walking into the store right after this guy. No sooner had that guy and then immediately I entered the store, than the burglar alarms went off and a Salesperson approached the guy. He immediately said, ‘I just entered the store’ and she nodded and went off. She did not approach me, but I had a gut feeling that it was something on me that had caused the alarm to go off...most probably the damn wireless adapter.

Fine, now I think that the adapter could’ve caused the alarm to go off; now how the hell do I get out of the store? I had assumed that the guy was also using the store as a shortcut, but he apparently wasn’t and no one else had gotten that great, amazing idea. Here I was, stuck in the store like an idiot, fully knowing that if I exit the store, the burglar alarms might set off again. I cursed myself a thousand times for taking idiotic decisions and just stood flabbergasted between the two doors, occasionally staring at the second door – my door to freedom!

A thought, with no apparent logic, struck me that maybe it WAS that guy who caused it, maybe I was scared for nothing…now my biggest fear was that since almost everyone at the store had noticed me entering it, if they saw me exiting almost immediately, they would probably say that using the store that way was not allowed and I would be forever banished from my beloved shortcut.

So now all I had to do was linger around the store for some time and then make way for the exit, so I just walked around the store, dazed, for about 5 minutes and made way for the exit and…

The alarm went off again.

This time, it was only me at the exit and I almost turned into a stone, facing the inside of the store, waiting for a Salesperson to come and start interrogating me. Of course a chant of curses on myself was running through my head.

The lady asked me if I bought anything from the store…I spat out a ‘No’ and in a zombie-like way outstretched my hand with the carry-bag dangling between my fingers and broke into a sweat. The lady peeped inside the bag, saw the box and said ‘Oh! That thing might have set it off!’ and what she said/ did next were drowned in my relief. The next thing I knew, I was almost 10 feet away from the store, walking on the street.

I thank my stars that, that day I was ‘lazy’ enough and excited enough not to put the carry bag in my backpack, else…gulp!

Persistence

Persistence is good right? I too thought so. 

I now scoff and am oft irritated by that word…

…thanks to a few recent incidents which I have heard about or witnessed myself.

Scenario 1:

Guy1 needs some help, he calls up Guy2.

Guy2 is the helpful kind; he would never say no if anyone approaches him for help, especially a person in a situation as Guy1.

Guy1 keeps calling up Guy2 for the so called help; Guy2 keeps giving the gyan and advice required. As time passes the calls are more frequent and Guy1 even takes the liberty to drop in at Guy2’s place without informing beforehand and starts eating up his time.

And then the calls stop, coz Guy1 seems to be out of his problem. Guy2 heaves a sigh of relief. It so happens that once or twice, Guy1 and Guy2 pass by each other at the neighborhood marketplace, and Guy1 completely ignores Guy2, like he never even existed. Guy2 is hurt, but is happy he got rid of Guy1 anyways!

Then again, Guy1 lands himself in trouble and wants Guy2’s help. Guy2 has in fact no obligation that he should help Guy1, it was just out of kindness and so he helps him, but is now cautious about Guy1’s attitude. But unfortunately for Guy2, Guy1’s problem seems to increase by the day and so do his questions and the amount of Guy2’s time consumed.

Guy2 puts a full stop to this and tells Guy1 that he is willing to help, but not at the cost of his own work and so much time.

But, to no avail.

On a day when Guy2 has a wedding to attend, Guy1 ends up at his doorstep and seeks his help, or rather demands his help. Guy2 refuses. Guy1 persists. Guy2 says he cannot help as the wedding is too important…then Guy1 starts emotionally blackmailing Guy2, saying things like ‘If you do not help me, I can never do it and then I will be doomed. It is ok if you miss the wedding, but I cannot live if you do not help me’ and ‘It is YOU who got me into this situation’ although Guy2 knows there’s absolutely no truth to it, but is threatened by all the blackmailing and obliges…and loses his chance to attend the important wedding.

What does Guy1 do? Once the help required is done, he fails to even recognize our Guy2 when he comes across him.

Guy2 once calls up Guy1 for a favour; Guy1 says ‘I’m busy, I’ll call you later’ and hangs up the call…And he calls back Guy2 after 2 days…

Guy2 is shocked and in disbelief at such an attitude. He has never before seen such a person, even though he has seen a lot in life. And he is now scared to offer a helping hand to anyone :(

Scenario 2:

A girl (Gal1) is having a heart-to-heart talk with her sister on the phone; her sister (Gal2) lives with husband and children in another city, but the sisters continue to keep in touch regularly via phone.

Face to face or via phone, sibling rivalry is bound to happen. Gal2 says something and hurts Gal1. Apparently Gal2 is the more sensitive one and is upset very very easily, so Gal1 informs her that she is hurt and says she will call up Gal2 after some time, after she recovers from what Gal2 has said; Gal1 patiently says ‘Bye, I’ll call you later, take care’ and cuts the call.

Gal2 calls her and prolongs the topic and says she’s sorry, and still prolongs the topic. Gal1 is hurt further, but says she will call after some time, all she needs is some time to recover.  Gal2 is persistent, she demands that Gal1 should talk to her ‘properly’ right now, or she will be ‘upset’, Gal1 says she will call, but after some time as she is in a bad mood right now. But Gal2 demands again and again that Gal1 should speak to her ‘nicely’ at that instant. Gal1 is irritated and cuts the call. Gal2 calls again and again and gives Gal1 not less than 10 missed calls.

Gal1 relents and answers the call. She can almost feel Gal2 smiling with pride at her victory at the other end of the call.

Gal2 says ‘I will speak to you tomorrow’ and cuts the call, leaving Gal1 seething with frustration.

I was initially surprised that people can be so egoistic at times, irrespective of how much they are troubling the other person, be it a friend or a relative.  Some people want to have their say and get their things done and always put themselves first no matter what, even if they realize they are placing immense pressure on the other person.

I had always thought the word ‘Persistent’ was a good one, until I heard the word in the above two contexts.

Why such attitude? If it is out of ignorance, it can be forgiven…but the above mentioned Guy1 and Gal1 seem a far cry from ‘innocent’ or ‘ignorant’.

Has anyone else come across such people? Or is it only these two people who have been unfortunate to face such things?

Disclaimer: As much as I was frustrated and shocked by the above incidents, I do not wish to disclose the names of the persons involved or those impacted. I also modified the scenarios a bit to protect the identities of those involved without affecting the essence of what I wanted to convey.