100 popular books

List of 100 popular books by Guardian for World Book Day in 2007.

Bold - Books I have read.

Italics - I have watched the stories in movies/plays.
1 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
=8 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
=8 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
11 Little Women Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
13 Catch-22 Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare William Shakespeare (at least more than 70% of the works abridged)
15 Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia CS Lewis
34 Emma Jane Austen
35 Persuasion Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin Louis de Bernières
39 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh AA Milne
41 Animal Farm George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney John Irving
45 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies William Golding
50 Atonement Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi Yann Martel
52 Dune Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
62 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist Charles Dickens
72 Dracula Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks
94 Watership Down Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
100 Les Misérables Victor Hugo
So , in total 36 books read and 5 watched. Not bad i guess.

Experience It!

2008 had its share of To-do-before-I-die ideas. We had the Bucket-List and then its desi version in Dasvidanya. Not really sure how many of us have a similar kind of a list. But, if you have one or will have one in the future, I have a suggestion to make.

At least, once in your lifetime, go and run the Mumbai Marathon.

One would obviously ask what’s so special about it, well here it goes.

The first and the most obvious reason would be that you get to see the “Stars” from Mumbai up-close. There is a catch here though; it works well only for Dream Runners (the 7-km run). If you want to catch the big fish instead (read Ambani) you might have to push yourself a bit and run the Half-Marathon (21 kms).

Well, all this would surely make anyone’s day, but if you want an experience of a lifetime, then, go, run the marathon.
Why Mumbai Marathon specifically? , because it’s the biggest one in India and provides a memorable route to run (and also because that’s the only one I have run ;))

The day started of with a too-early-to-be-up local train ride to CST (previously VT) station. The spirit of Mumbai was evident from such an early hour itself, half the compartment was filled with runners (all trying to be just-in-time for the start) with their bibs on them stating what targets they had set themselves. Most of them were trying to complete their targets for the first time and their nervousness could be read easily from their faces.

(Travelling early morning with the compartment full of runners)
We reached the enclosure and the lines for security checks were a grim reminder of what had struck the city a few weeks before. We started at about 7AM, about 40 minutes before the professional runners start.

The energy was just unbelievable, there was loud music, loud cheers, loud shouts, everything that was happening was loud and brimming with energy, the sound of footsteps made me realize the power of a charging herd, everybody were tearing away from the start line and flying away. Then we reached a turn and lo and behold we were running on the famous Queen’s Necklace- the Marine Drive. Running with the sea alongside is a sublime experience. You have people in the thousands moving along on one side and then on the other side is the morning sea – serene in beauty and unperturbed by the high activity alongside. There were bands along the embankments and a middle aged runner who was dancing on the road to the bhangra and later went on to complete his Half. And then in the crowd I saw a shirt, there were a lot of shirts around pledging their support to their charities, shirts with motivational slogans, shirts with humorous writing, some were personal messages and some of them were declaring that we wouldn’t cower down to terrorism , but the shirt I saw was different, it said.

“Dr.Roy
Born 1932”

It was fantastic, that someone of his age could actually run a long distance; I saw the senior citizen tag on his bib, so he was most probably running the senior citizens run of 8 kms. Just awesome!!

My friend Kela who was running 21 acted as a pace-maker and I tagged along and just as he was about to turn back on the return leg, who should come alongside but the eventual winners! , they had covered the 11 kms after starting about 45 mins after us, WOW!

After the turn-back for the Half-Marathon runners, the crowd suddenly vanished and all who were visible were spread out in a thin line along the road. And it was here the real journey started, with me alone and very sweaty.

Tried to keep up the speed with people who were passing me, also had to placate myself when I saw the pro’s finishing their 28 kms when I was struggling at 18. The heat was starting to tell and the knees were pleading, 19 ..20 ….21 and now for the first time I was stepping into unknown territory that of running another 21kms after finishing one round already. Slowed down the speed considerably as another 21 seemed a long way and the energy levels were very low. The pep-up at this point was when I reached the turn around point at about 23 kms at the Bandra reclamation (made famous by the Amitabh Bachchan ad for Lead India).It felt good that I had reached the extreme point of the race and there were people here in groups cheering the runners along.

But the excitement was short-lived as my legs started to protest the unprecedented and continuous torture they were being subjected to and the belly was also trying to make its presence felt. Had a few ml of orange juice in the morning, so I was depending on my last night’s dinner to fuel my run. Unfortunately, the calorific value of my dinner fell short of the requirements by a long way. I was feeling light; all the fat around my tummy had just melted away in a few hours.
[The weight loss advertisements that we see promise loss in a few weeks or so. I have found a new technique, let the dogs loose at your clients after promising them results in one day and that too doing it in the natural way!!:) , no machines, no chemicals involved, hehehe!!]

I noticed a guy running along with a small girl probably of 10 years, I did not have the words or the energy to say anything, a nice hi-five did the job of acknowledgement. There were people along the way who were offering biscuits to runners and I was very much tempted to jump into a shop for some instant energy giving chocolates or a restaurant for some quick breakfast, but I reminded myself that in the true spirit of the Marathon I wouldn’t consume anything that was not provided by the organizers or shared by the runners. [Later I had half an energy-bar shared by a runner, it didn’t help much, but the incident made me feel good about the camaraderie between runners.]
I slowly trudged along weary and tired, people just kept passing by me and my spirit was fading along with them. I just reminded myself that all I had to do was to count from 1 to 42 as simple as that [had to wait till I completed a kilometer every time to increment the number though].

Then as I was returning back, it was an amazing sight the streets were lined with kids. For them it must have felt like a carnival , a couple of them tried to pace me up too, one guy was kind enough to remind us that he being just 4-5 years old was able to run faster while we able bodied men were running so slow , to which Balu commented “IF ONLY THEY KNEW…”

I met Balu at around 26-27 kms, he was nursing an injury to his right leg and so was very much off his natural pace. I recognized him as a RFL member from his shirt and we pretty much tagged along from there.
The company and the chatting took the mind off from worrying about the pain or the distance, but the time we were taking to finish was always being marked. We had left all pretences of running and were walking along as fast as we could, having set a target of about 10-11 mins for every kilometer. I wanted to reach the line before 1 pm and have my run timed.

So, along the route we discussed how and why we started running and Balu was running his 2nd marathon after debuting in Hyderabad in August. I remember watching the Bourneville advertisement on the hoarding and commenting that ‘Well, we have proved ourselves worthy for a life-time supply today’. As we continued on our trot, we were passing by the race-course I guess, when I heard a familiar breathing, I could distinguish it because of the effort that was being put into it and who should pass by? But Dr. Roy, who I assumed was running 8 kms, was over-taking me at 35 kms; I was dumb-struck when Balu shared some information to alleviate this absurdity of a situation. Dr.Roy or specifically Dr. Ashish Roy is considered a legend among runners in India and he was running his [hold your breath] 77th Marathon that day. I decided then and there that all I want from my life would be to run a Marathon on my 75th birthday.

I saw a lot of awe-inspiring sights that day; one runner was just back after a heart-attack, one suffering from spondylitis ran with a neck support and his back must have been hurting like hell. But Dr.Roy takes the cake.

At around 37 kms, I left Balu as I wanted to try and make a last ditch effort to finish before 1pm. I ran along for about a kilometer or two and could do it no more, I had to cover 3 kms in 15 mins and my tank had been empty for a long time. I decided to just take it easy and walk to the finish line. But it wasn’t the end of surprises that day. As I walked along the Marine-Drive road, found a regular chap was walking alongside me; I was getting stares from the people on the road as the event had long been wrapped up and the traffic let on to the roads, and there I was walking in my shorts at noon!.

The guy asked me for the time, and we just started talking about the run. He was excited about the event and then he said that he had got up in the morning and saw people running in front of his house. His curiosity took over him and he started walking to find out where all of them were running to. His house is in Bandra and so he had trudged along in just his chappals for around 17 kms and would finish 19 kms with me!!! And that’s why I love Mumbai and its Marathon, the spirit generated is just infectious.
I told him about the whole process of getting registered and he was downcast when he realized that he had to pay for it , but when I told him about the goodie bag , there was a broad smile on his face.

And time passed and finally I reached the finish line, there was no huge cheering or music, but just Kela and his friend waiting for me. They had finished their Halfs around 9:30 and had spent time around the area to receive me at the finish line. Drank a bottle of juice and it just felt good, 42 kms were behind me and my mind had driven my body all through it!!!
We all went along for a nice lunch and a had a deserving nap for a few hours afterwards and then went visiting some friends. Next day I was back to routine.
(Happy to take a sip with the finish line behind me!)
It was a very satisfying experience, one which I intend to use this as a strength in times of need. Never ever had I witnessed and felt so much in so short a time. I had not prepared an iota for this run and had to struggle through it, next time I intend to complete it in less than 5 hours. For the record, I completed my first Marathon in 6 hrs and 10-15 mins.

My Attempt @ Micro Fiction --Reviews

Have been busy these past few days, man has it been a emotional roller-coaster these past few months, high and low and high and low and low and low , hopefully the cycle ends with a high.
Finally back to Pages and here are the reviews.

K: Mars is alive dude:

Good imagination, awesome in fact. But I am not very fond of space and sci fi. though yours isn't proper flying saucer sci fi. Sorry man, not in my area of interest. far from my Lspot

R:
the end of the story was strange and way too fictitious. Mars is no way liquid from anywhere. Anyway it is not science that we’re discussing here. Martians are more popular that liquidity of Mars, that would’ve been better option I believe. But still it was a nice read.

Ri:
Another view of future. You captured the details of space-craft landing in such short-piece, nice. The end was kind of predictable though.

A:
A predictable piece, but it did show potential in bits. Your writing is decent, your style adequate. Mediocre is not a nice word to use, but a little more style in the narration could have lifted it beyond the ordinary.

N:
I liked it. A twist in the end is the most conventional thing to do when you think of micro fiction. I wish you had tried something else.

Ab:
Somethings in your piece didn't rub me right. Why is the chinky "Squadron leader" because there doesn't seem to be any squadrons around?

Apart from that, I think this piece got hit by too many projectiles to successfully complete a perfect landing. First there was the slightly humorous scenario of coming up with something momentous to say.

Second was the history of what the hell was going.

The third was the Mars killing man on Mars scenario.

In my opinion, the first scenario would have been acceptable if this was a longer piece. Or maybe it could have been interjected into the third scenario as the dialogue that never happened. Either way because you hardly had any room to manoeuvre, slightly better planning should have been ventured.

My view about the review: Sci-Fi isn't really high on people's preferences as literature and readers don't like it when you ask them to fill in a few dots on their own:) .Need to do a lot of rework on what I write cause the guys who review aren't going to leave any flaws alone.Final result , couldn't muster even a single vote:(.

The Landing

[My first attempt at Micro-Fiction (less than 150 words) , will post the comments (if any) from the contest next week]

"One small step for man...".

Oh! man , did he really have to say that, now they expect me to come up with something better.

... in a few minutes with the Explorer in orbit, the Rover carrying astronauts Wing Commander Rakesh Chawla and Squadron Leader Hun Tse-tung will descend on to the red soil, the same soil which has captured the imagination of humans for generations. Today, we may or may not discover life on this planet, but we will see life on it , life ... from Earth , its a momentous occasion for mankind.....

Rakesh: Systems Check.

Hun: All operational.Initiating descend sequence.Here we go, Commander.

... the Rover is now using the thrust reverser to slow down its speed and land softly on the surface. The engines are shut off and the Rover has land.... Oh! my God!, its sinking in..

"Mars is alive and I am dead."

You want to run a marathon, but you know you cannot , so what?

When you take stock of reality and realise that you wont be able to do something, there are two options left.

1.) Accept the reality and rest easy with the fact that you can give it a try another time.

2.) Be stubborn , ignore all facts and just go around with one thought in your head, that of completing the task you have set out for yourself.

My experience has thought me that more often than not , the first option is always the best and is more prudent.
But there is a catch in the statement above, in cases where the first option isn't probably the best one , i.e in the less often cases , following
the second options reaps rewards more than expected.

I was stubborn that I had to run the marathon , no matter what. As they say "Ignorance is Bliss" , but when you have already realised the
futility of the exercise, you cannot seek solace from ignorance.

The only way you can carry out a herculean task is to just blindly believe in yourself and root out any misgivings or doubts one might have.And
since you have already determined that the task cannot be carried out logically , one has to then boost up one's confidence illogically.

Booster Shot 1:

In the rarefied atmosphere above 2500mts , I trekked up a Himalayan mountain pretty comfortably. It was a climb of 16 kms for about 5 hours
, with the temperature hovering below 10 degrees Celsius. A good exercise and especially good way to judge if your lungs are ready to puff along
for a few hours. So , this was one huge boost before the big race. The legs did not pain , neither my back.Thoroughly enjoyed the pristine beauty
of the Himalayas and no sign of the shooting pain in the knee.

What's Illogical in this you ask.

Well , walking up a Himalayan mountain might be a good exercise , but it does never strain your legs. When you walk the stress you put on your
feet isn't the same as the one you do while running. So , taking heart from this trek and believing I was ready for the run was illogical.

Booster Shot 2:

The Race day is just 5 days away. I have not run for more than 600 mts in the last 6 months. I had to start running some time before.
But as always laziness rules!!!. And as always when the looming punishment for not doing my job seems to be more threatening than the
rewards of laziness, I get up at 7:30 (before I slept the night before, had decided to start running by 6 , there's always a pound of flesh to be extracted)
and start running towards Marathahalli. I wanted to check if I could run constantly for an hour. But , as soon as i started to get to my maximum speed,
my good old friend called pain in the ..... knee visits me. I slow down to a speed little more than a fast walk and continue.
People coming out on to the street , all ready and primed to go about their days work and there goes along one bespectacled guy dodging traffic and stares.
Is this guy nuts ?? running at this time in the heat.

I say : Marathahalli is too far ;).

So, I kept going , crossed my office (if only i got my swipe card along) and then onwards , found a couple of people coming back from their morning jogs.
It means, there are people who run around here. On the way, saw an athletic guy, (you ask how I got that, he wore a university athlete's shirt) , but had no stamina,
would run along for 20-30 mts and then start walking , phew.... over took him with my slow run and then climbed up the bridge to reach the point of turning back.
One of the most pleasing event when you run long is at the point you turn back in the loop. Half-done already so completing it in full is no problem.
This thought always goes through my mind every time I run long.
I get back to my room , have been on my feet for 1 hr and 20 mins straight (even though covered only about 9-10 kms).That's good for a first run after 6 months, but the big one is
just 5 days away.

What's Illogical here ,you again ask.

Lets say , the effort you take to complete a 5 Kms run can be provided by 20 biscuits.
For 10 Kms , it will be 40 , for 20 kms , 80 and so on as its proportionate to the distance
being run. Applying math , one can extend the 1 hr 20mins and say that in about 5 hrs I would be completing the Marathon.

And that I say is Illogical.It's only logical if you are a machine or a trained professional athlete.
The reason being, there is are limits for everyone.One physical and one mental.
I had never reached my physical limit of running continuously , neither the mental one, when running half-marathons.
I believe that I was almost at the limit when I finished those runs and so extrapolating my performance over another 21kms is not logical.

Yes, these were the big two Booster shots used to shoot up my confidence, they weren't miracle causing medicine, just placebos.
But they do their work well in the right hands;) .

Planning on running a Marathon? , never put yourself in this position

Well, any site on the web or any professional long-distance runner has one advice for the amateur runner who wants to experience the out of the world journey
of completing a marathon. Start preparing three to four months before the race. Have a schedule set up for each week with designated days for rest each week.
Do cross training, i.e do something else than running on atleast one day of the week.Keep increasing the distances you run every week.
Follow a low-high-low pattern of running distances.

For Example:
Week 1:
Monday : 5 kms
Tuesday : 6 kms
Wednesday : 7kms
Thursday:Rest
Friday :8 kms
Saturday :12 kms
Sunday: Rest
Week 2:
Monday : 7kms
Tuesday : 8 kms
......and so on.

Well these are the do's of preparing for a marathon.
Can someone give the dont's??
If there is some way to go about doing normal things in a crazy way, you bet there will be a person crazy enough in this world to do it.
And to do the honours this time, we have ( with utmost surprise and shock ) me !!!

Here goes the What Nots :

1.) Never get up on a day and suddenly realise that you had made a credit-card transaction some months ago to pay for the registration fees
of a marathon which is just a few weeks away.

2.) The worst possible scenario at this point would be to realise that you have not run a kilometer straight in the last 6 months.

3.) If that was not enough , there was nothing done in teh past few months that could be mistaken as cross-training , no activity that could atleast strength your muscles or lungs or heart or brain(do you think just legs are enough???)

4.) The worst can become worse when you realise that the reason you did not run for the past 6 months was that you carry an injury in the area around your left knee from your last long distance run.

5.) If the situation isn't already bad enough , the first time you take your legs out to try them on, you discover pain shooting along the path from the back of your left knee to your thigh.

6.) The speed you can run is atleast 3kms/hr below your average speed.

7.) You have no running partner , to go along with you over such a long distance (atleast there should be someone nearby , handy enough to resuscitate you ).

8.) You know of nobody who has done the marathon in the position that you are in.

9.) You realise going by your logic and the reality of pain that this cannot be done.

24 !!

I turned 24 last week.
Looking back on the last 24 years and at how i would like the next few years to be, i have drawn up this list to be worked on and hopefully done by the time i am 25.
1.) Get out from this frakking job and find something to do in which you are really interested.
2.) Learn swimming and driving , these two still remain your Achilles heels.
3.) Get rid of the fear , the fear of the unknown.
4.) Go out and explore new things , maybe start playing tennis, just go out and try something new every month.
5.)Spend some more time writing up stuff , whatever might be going thru your mind.
6.) Complete a full marathon.
7.) Find something you are really passionate about and pursue it.
8.) Get structured , your current way of living is much too haphazard.
9.) Keep taking a good and careful look at your finances.
10.) Build up your confidence to a higher level.

Message to vathsav@24: All the Best!!

Message to vathsav@25 : If this guy doesn't keep up his end of the deal, throw him off the roof.

Meeting !

Finally after a long series of setting up and postponing meetings just like the normal court proceedings albeit for very real and pressing reasons, and after about 9 weeks had lapsed, at last it was time to meet. In a way it was going to be a new experience, I had never met anyone before whom I knew only from the Internet. Just remembered all those funny incidents when a few of my friends were called up to meet their choo-sweet chat friends and the unsuspecting victim after somehow lying and escaping from the questions of his friends would end up waiting at the appointed place for what seemed like eons, and on his return back would be welcomed with that all-knowing smiles on his friends' faces:),it's cruel to have friends like those;), hmmm..... was it really that long ago??

Back to the meeting, yeah, I had no apprehensions, the person I was meeting was genuine. I ended up reaching the appointed place a few minutes late due to the omnipresent Bangalore traffic.
Gave a call.
Yeah, I will be there in two minutes
And then we finally met.
We just started talking about random stuff and then she mentioned that i am one person she is really scared off, honestly , I still can't figure out why?:).

We just talked about her job, difficulties with getting some good work done and yeah the funny part:).
It went something like this.

Some of the IT Guys are so ignorant/arrogant that they think they know everything and they are like 'what don't we know about taking care of the environment that we need a session to understand '. And I ask them just one question... then ... .

"Sometimes people think that being educated implies they know everything"

Yeah, these IT people are.....

"(hmm..)I think you don't know this..., but I am an IT Guy too!!!"
(No animals or people were hurt during this conversation.)

We talked about politics and other stuff, exchanged some more info about ourselves, took pics and finished some paneer , juice and dosas along the way. Oh yeah!, I offered a quick crash course in Kannada to survive the demons of the street (read autowallahs) and what a superb learner , the pronunciations were perfect!!!.

As I had discussed with Chintu sometime back, the way we go about leading our lives or in fact the way we have lived our lives till now , we have been more often than not surrounded by people who look at things the same way and share the same view-points.This may aid us in achieving what ever we have set out for but in the long term makes us myopic.
With regards to this context , this was a very refreshing experience.

QTS : Hmm.. why do i go deep when I blog??? Telephone came down to history and meeting came down to different view-points... maybe its time Rushdie took me as his understudy:).There I go again ,clear proof that I can't hold a single line of thought for long I guess;).

Coming back to the meeting.

At the end of the day in Doogie Howser style.

Dear Diary,

Today I met a person for the first time, but we already knew each other and got to know more about each other.Today I met a person pure at heart with passion and belief in her work. Makes me wonder when will I find something .... that something which is my elusive passion. I met a good friend today, and that made my day.......
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ (cursor blinking on the screen)

[Roll Credits]
[Music]
Tha na na na tha na na , thik thik th...........

Who invented the Telephone??

Its kind of a "who hits the buzzer first" question, the answer is as well known as the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Imagine my surprise when i discovered that the answer isn't true anymore. I had undeniable proof before me, so there was not much time to dwell on dis-belief. Yes, it was a shock that something that has been accepted by people for a century isn't true.Just got an understanding of how History actually works, the truth of the past that we call history is something written for winners. It being true is as good as the reality shows now-a-days , and the facts (i am sorry!!, they are tales that we treat as facts) are either considered as truth by the generation of the period when the event happened or further generations which just want a simpler form of the past.In short , history tweaks the truth for general consumption , diluting the essentials and just leaving an essence for people so that they have a satisfaction of tasting the past.

It ain't about which year the battle took place ,or which king ruled what part of the earth, or the number of queens in a king's harem or the number of children the king sired , it really ain't about the riches of the court, the jewels , the untold and
uncountable wealth that once was the property of a ruler. Yes , i agree they may be facts , but all these are just numbers , which are of no use to anyone , except for winning points in quizzes. We have a history of 5000 years, but what have we learned
from it??. At the drop of a hat , any time, any place , when-ever we discuss about our history , our eyes gaze in amazement at the bygone era of planned cities, generous kings, spiritual personalities, material wealth which we once had, our imagination runs wild when our ancient lands are described in exquisite words by travelling foreigners. But , one question always creeps up on me, what have we learned??. They were genocides in the past and genocides can still be found plenty all across the world,what have we learned?

Of what use is knowing history , one filled with facts and figures, if it doesn't help us in recognizing symptoms of the diseases(none of them having a connection with medical health ) which have appeared through out human history and occur in a cyclic fashion.

When will we capable enough to understand that we can stop History from repeating itself??
Oh oh!! got a bit serious,:), it all started with the telephone, hmm ... lets see what the guys think when i tell them that the sun doesn't rise in the east.

What Can You Do?

Completed the hyderabad half-marathon about a month ago along with sai and sp. It was an enjoyable trip and so was the run. Sadly , even after a month i haven't recovered, Urban Stampede was out of bounds cause of cost-cutting , guess that's the way everything is going these days, Ultra is out of question, so only thing that i can run is the kaveri trial marathon, will try another 21kms if my ligaments decide to heal up in time.Fingers Crossed

STOP!!

STOP!!.
When will you ever say Stop!, this is my Stop.
This is where i stop.
I am tired and weary from all the travelling,
tired of all the wonderful cities with their
magic and monuments, energy and enthusiasm,
and of people always pleasing and perfect.(chintu)

STOP!!.
When will you ever say Stop!, this is my Stop.
This is where i stop.
This is where i will find my ground,
a place where i build my home with my own hands.
Where i will grow my garden of flowers and fruits
and of course plenty vegetables.(need to find one here)

STOP!!.
When will you ever say Stop!, this is my Stop.
This is where i stop.
Where i will my find my favorite spot on the hill
over looking the awesome waterfall.
Where i sit there irrespective of it being a work-day,
writing down my imaginations of dreams, heroes, witches and dragons.
Where along will come a flying saucer and i become the
first ambassador of human-kind.(guess who?)

STOP!!.
When will you ever say Stop!, this is my Stop.
This is where i stop.
This is where i will find my peace.
This is where i will find my girl.
This is where we will grow two more.
Until as they say 'death do us apart'.(ghurram)



(This started as a Rhyme when i was getting down from a bus to get home,started with-- Stop, This is my stop, this is where i get down and walk home.And that was it, but some neurons made some more connections and then it became weird and so it found its place here:), the credit for this weirdness can be attributed to discussions with a couple of friends )

My Workout Plan -total review

Had started this plan on Feb 16th.
Goals set were:

March 15:Run 5 kms in under 30 mins.
March 30:Run 10 kms in under an hour.
April 19:Run 20 kms in under 2 hrs.

Did not go according to plan, as i was able to run 10 kms under an hour only on MAY 18th , but took a huge leap by running 20.8 kms in 2hr 6 mins 31 secs on June 1st. So, finally even though late i met my goals and along the way lost 5 kgs , rediscovered running and found a group to continue this habit. Will be using a Run Log to track my runs from now, so only major events will find a place here.

Goals for the remaining half-year:
August
Hyd Marathon -- 21 kms looks easy, if i can pump myself up and based on other commitments will go for full marathon.
Urban Stampede -- Get the team and haunt everyone including myself to finish 5 kms in 25 min.
Kaveri Trial Marathon --try for under 4 hrs.
Ultra-Marathon --- will run it for sure(if it doesn't clash with CAT ) , have to decide the distance, right now fixing 52 kms as the minimum.

So, at least 2 marathons by year-end :) , uff!! going a long way from a weight-gainer(by leaps and bounds) to marathon aspirant;)

My Workout Plan -review week ending 09/05/08

Did a good thing this week, joined a run club of a sports apparel brand , they have been organizing runs for some time now for the 10 k run, went early at around 6:00 am on Wednesday and was truly amazed to see people of all ages warming up for the run.

The track was a 2.5 kms stretch inside the famous cubbon park and it was a good sight to see so many people out for their morning walks, some laughter club too was conducting its session:), anyways the run started and there was a group of 10 -15 people who just galloped off and i am not one who wants to be left behind so i just sprinted off behind them and run along for around 200-300 Mts. and that was that for the day:), started a sprint-stop-walk style of running.
Had kept a target of running 10 kms before i started and i was just blown off in the first 2-3 kms itself somehow completed 2 rounds and was wondering if i could complete 10kms and just as i started off the 3 round saw someone (no. 376 or 378) in the same situation as me, so just joined him and we kept jogging for sometime, and i started getting a rhythm going and just when i thought of increase the speed, the guy fell back(have to thank him for hitting a rhythm ) , i continued at the same pace and completed the 3 rd round peacefully ,in the 4 th round i was tempted to again increase my speed but somehow i decided to just keep going and reached my 10 kms target in probably 1hr 10 mins , but i didn't stop there:) just kept going for another round and so completed 12.5 kms in 1 hr 25 mins.

Although the timings aren't that good it felt good to hit the roads after such a long -time and the organizers took care of the fluids with the electrodes, bananas and biscuits.Looking at how the legs did not complain much, feel confident about running longer distances;).Anyways i still have the target of running 10 kms within an hour on race day which is just a few days away , so its time to hit the road again!!

My Workout Plan -review week ending 02/05/08

Again work comes in the way, so tried out to run something on May 1st a holiday, hadn't had anything much the day before or for breakfast and it showed , struggled to make it to 3 kms and then somehow put in the whole lot of energy left to reach 5 kms in 30 mins 30 secs. Puts a lot of suspicion on my stamina but hopefully i will answer it well:)

My Workout Plan -review week ending 20/04/08

Instead of the normal weekly review , it's the review for a month :), and nothing to report after the office getting moved to a far off location, my routine and time available has taken a hit and adding to it is the hectic work that's being forced upon me which doesn't really help in keeping my spirits up for indulging in any activities after work, anyways as always going against the tide i ran 5 kms in 29min 30 secs today which after a month of just parking myself in chairs is i believe a good effort even i though i wished i could have run 10k today.

I registered for Sunfeast 10 kms Bangalore Run which was scheduled for may 25 but cause of elections was first postponed to june 2 and then i got a mail to inform that it was advanced to 18th may :). For me it doesn't matter when it's scheduled, it just lessens my waiting time. Looking at the run today i can honestly say Bring it on!!!!.I am absolutely sure of running it well within an hour and to keep a record of that will take the chip timing.So, come on baby , i am licking my lips!!!

Another observation: running bare-foot on a treadmill isn't such a good idea leaving aside the fact that it brings down your timing, after the first 2 kms, it just started feeling like i was running on hot coals, and after the run i was left with a lump below my left toe , which i hope doesn't turn into a blister, so from now on shoes it is.