THE END

Life is a collection of different phases. One ends and another begins. Some are pleasant, others are not. In some, you meet new people, interact with them and soon develop a strong attachment. While in others, you drift apart from your close ones and who were once a part of you.

Just like every story has an ending, similarly this blog of mine too has reached its end. ‘STEPS’ has lived its life, served its purpose and delivered what it was intended to do. Now it stands with its back towards me, all bags packed and ready to go. I didn’t ask why, just blinked my eyes to say goodbye.

 This blog started as a random thought that occurred to me one day. I decided to give it a shot, not sure whether I’ll be able to pull it off. But within days I was writing furiously, jotting down every thought of mine. It gives me immense pleasure to write something creative.

With this blog I have shared some moments that have touched me, some lessons that meant a lot to me and some questions that provoked thought but couldn't find the answers. I will miss this dear friend of mine who made me think each day in a different way and has kept me awake late in the night trying to get that ending right.

As the last day of the college ends, this blog takes its last breath. Soon a new phase will begin. A different scenario will be opened up with new things to learn. I’ll proceed with whatever I have learnt during the 4 years of college life.

One day I made a pledge,

to live life on the edge.

I won't escape the excruciation,

even if it led to my double differentiation.

I know that there would be mistakes, 

but they’ll only raise my knowledge stakes.

I’ll give the odds a good fight and in the end,

I’ll have my bite and would break the fast late in the night...

The Book Shop

There is something about bookstores that attracts me. Probably it’s the childhood fascination which still has a strong hold on me. Last month I happened to visit a particularly old bookstore in Connaught Place, New Delhi. As a child I used to come here often. Then I grew up, and physics and chemistry textbooks replaced comics and novels. 

As I entered the shop, an old woman was sitting at the cash counter. I smiled at her and she nodded back in acknowledgement. Over the time I have realised that these simple gestures of courtesy can give you access to 15 to 20% discount on your purchase. I, being an opportunist, didn’t want to lose any chance of getting one. I noticed the long wooden bookshelves towering over me from all sides and went straight to the fiction section. “Chanakya’s Chant”, I read the name of the book and picked it up. After going through the overview I decided to go for it.

Going through the shelves I came across biography section. Now this is one area that I am not too fond of. Try as much as I could, but half way through someone’s biography or autobiography and I run out of patience. I have read Mahatma Gandhi, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Khushwant Singh, Lee Iococa, Warren Buffett and Richard Branson. In each one of them I ended up skipping the latter half. With full enthusiasm I used to start these books but in the middle they would get so slow and boring it would make reading each page impossibly difficult.

There was a little girl with her father in the children section. She was picking up books from the shelf and her father was holding them for her. With a pile of books resting against his chest and supported by his arms, he proceeded towards the cash counter and the little girl trotted behind him. Memories from the past flooded me at that instant and I flashed back to my childhood days when I used to get Rs.200 as monthly pocket money. Back then Goosebumps, Famous Five and Hardy Boys were my favourites. Each used to cost around Rs.100. So I had to save that much amount of money by month’s end in order to buy one book. It means I had to limit my spending to Rs.100 per month. Considering the cost of one cadbury dairy milk chocolate to be Rs.10, I could afford only 10 such chocolates in one month. It was tough, fighting against one’s desires. I had a fairly decent collection of story books back then. Me and my friends, we used to exchange our books on a weekly basis and read.

Moving on I came to the classics section. Two old men with white moustaches were sitting on the chairs kept on one side. One of them was wearing a hat, had a walking stick in one hand and a P.G. Wodehouse book in the other. He looked like a retired army colonel to me. They were discussing about books. I couldn’t help but over hear them. “The best part about books is that they never perish. People may come and go but books are passed on from one generation to another. They never fade away, they become classics”, one of them was saying.

I went to the cash counter with my book. “How much for this book?”, I asked. She took the book from my hand and saw the price which was Rs.200. “Rs.120”, she said. I gave her the money and came out of the shop. She had given me 40% discount. I turned to face the shop again and saw a banner on the side glass that read:

“Closing Down Soon

 40% OFF on all books.”

 I looked inside the shop and saw the woman sitting. It was only then that I recognised her. She was the same woman who used to be there when I was a kid. She looked at me and smiled. Probably she recognised me or probably she didn’t.

Revolutions 2020 – Book Review

Whenever there is a mention of Chetan Bhagat, every Indian reader’s ears are likely to pick up for a second. Like his previous novels, in Revolution 2020, he takes up an issue that is concerned with youth of India. This time he has probed into the lives of students preparing for IIT and AIEEE entrances.

Set in the heart of Varanasi, this book does manage to get the readers hooked from the beginning but gets highly dramatic towards the end. The pace of the novel is fast with twists and turns coming every now and then. Such is the Chetan Bhagat style of writing that he makes sure every Indian is able to relate to his characters somewhere or the other.

The protagonist, Gopal, is a person from lower middle class family, has a girlfriend, Aarti, from a much higher status and a close friend, Raghav, who is much better looking and more intelligent than him. The plot unfolds when all the three are preparing for their engineering entrance exams and proceeds forward explicitly giving an account of their emotions and thinking. As always, Chetan Bhagat has chosen an underdog as his lead character. Probably he does it so that the majority readers could relate themselves to him. But this time around he portrays the central character in a grey light. Gopal is shown as ambitious, impulsive, immature and corrupt, which can make some readers averse towards him. Many hot issues concerning India are taken up, such as corruption, scams, political pressures, etc.

The starting of the novel is good, where he writes about the love life of Gopal, problems associated with it, and the troubles of a student life. But when he tries to strike the patriotic chord of the reader by mentioning the situation of India, he falls back.  And in the end he screws up when he adds the melodramatic twist for no particular reason. Chetan Bhagat has given all the right ingredients for making a saucy Indian movie. Hopefully we’ll be watching this book turned into a Yash Raj movie sometime in the near future.