Some book reviews

Recently I have been reviewing a lot of technical literature for the purpose of my research. So to go with the flow I thought I might as well write some reviews of non-research related stuff I read recently.
Four books: One night @ the call center, Five point someone, The Hungry Tide and The Monk who sold his Ferrari. The first two were great. Fresh, funny, simple -stories you can relate to. I feel I have met the characters at some point of my life. The kind of output I would expect from an IIT/IIM grad of this generation. We need more authors like him, who can write about incidents and characters we encounter everday. Well done Chetan, looking forward to your next book.
The Hungry Tide by Amitava Ghosh was on the other hand quite heavy...rich with social and historical details, with myriad emotions and well sketched characters. It was tale well told, a book I could recommend. This was my first of Ghosh's. Heard The Glass Palace was good too. Thats next on my list.
The Monk who sold his Ferrari was not my type at all. Not that I dont like philosophical and spiritual inspiration...I liked The Alchemist and have read enough of Richard Bach. But this did not cut it. I felt I was reading stuff I already knew.
Other than that I read all the old archies, tinkle and tintin that were lying at home in my old book cabinets. I have the habit of writing my name and the year in which I read the book on the first page right hand side corner. It was fun noticing the evolution of my handwriting!

Greener pastures

Yes its been a long time... travelling, post-India trip homesickness, back-to-school-catching-up, figuring out the thesis and how to use Latex ( I hate it!) have left me with no time for things I like doing. Today was the I-had-enough-of-it day! So here comes some random thoughts ....
Calcutta was good, home was good too but some things have changed, don't know whether its me or everything else but there definitely were streaks of unfamiliarity...yes to the point that at one time I was craving to get back. Why is the grass always greener on the other side? Like for example months of subs and tacos had left me wanting home made rice and dal and then a month long of rice and dal aroused the craving for a baja chalupa with lots of fire (for those who have not tried it you are missing something). Or the traffic and those ambassador taxis and autorickshaws which I was longing to see did not retain its charm for long. Is it only me or does it happen with everyone, I wonder. Yes my friends did tease me because I mentioned the traffic was unruly and I know had I been in their place I would have done the same.... it just felt weird to be on the other side. Its like I belong there but some part of me pulls me here. God knows!
Anyway..... more to do with greener pastures ....
when I was interning I wanted to get back to school, now that I am in school I want to get back to work! I mean what the hell! Will this ever end? Does it happen with everyone, or is it just me?
My mind is kind of blank right now... have to write a paper, I don't understand why they make computer scientists write papers man! I think a demo with a readme should be enough... and as for the theory I am not made for it. I have been postponing it by doing all other things that I would not do.. cooking hakka noodles with tofu whichI knew would take forever, cleaning random things which need no attention at the moment, taking the trash out- something which I could wait till the neighbours start complaining :P, arranging clothes in the closet - my most detested chore, taking a long shower, browsing through social networks and forcing friends who are online to converse, replying to ancient mails which had to be followed up, making my desktop spic and span ..... and now that I finally opened the tex editor and jotted down a couple of lines of the abstract I feel like I am done for today. Maybe I will outsource this writing business ......
At this moment in my search of greener pastures I found the right spot! A game of Spiderman on the PS2 right now! (maybe the guilty conscience after the game will work)