Ghumakkar's Diary

What have I noticed in all my not that frequent and extravagant but still give-or-take average air travelling hours? Definitely, I have learnt a lot through frisking, re-frisking, picking up thrice in a single day for (again) frisking, left and stamped bag tags, check-in queues, aisle, window and security door seats, hot and cold meals, coffee and a glass of water calls and what not. Then came to my delight this book “ Aisle Be Damned ” and I realized there’s still so much to learn about the   Art of Air Travelling ! Aisle Be Damned! Written by an   over worked and over traveled Corporate Executive Rishi Piparaiya  that too while waiting to catch the flights, clicking the tiny keys on his BlackBerry, the book talks about the nontraditional anecdotes to fly   safely ,   arguably intelligently   and   luxuriously . Though, I haven’t tried any of it,   and too shy to apply , some cheat-codes are reasonably tempti...

" What will you like to have on your birthday? A book!  Few months back I got this reply from my 10 years old niece. I gifted her Alice and Wonderland much to annoy her younger sister. It hasn’t got any pictures! Who reads these many words,   was her reaction to one of the Best children book ever written. Now this story had everything, a cute girl, an   out-of-this-world   set, extra ordinary league of characters – complete wow and awe factor! But, where it failed my younger ( 6yrs old ) niece? Definitely, problem wasn’t with the story, but the book – it was all just words, negligible cartoons and no color ( except the cover page ). This tells the story that though the kids like and devour those stories which have creative characters that may bring a wow affect in the story – it’s not worth reading if it’s just words! Not so sanely, but yes it could be analogues to the fact that kids tend to eat a sandwich or a trendy   roti-roll   stuffed w...

Theme for the Day 2 is Books. I have not shot much on this theme, honestly just a very few. So, it was a task for me to take a new photograph for the purpose. Easiest way out was to shoot my collection of Books with an objective, but then it was too simple to do. I took that pic, however, and learnt correcting Lens Distortion (thanks Kenrock ). But, it wasn't satisfying me - it was easy to take, though editing (Photoshop and Picasa) added flavour to it, still. I wanted to do it with an objective, and then came in my mind 1st lesson of our TruePixer's workshop, Photography is not just an Art, but Fine Art . So, here is the pic... Photography is not just an Art, but Fine Art I shot this pic of Old Oxford Dictionary aptly matched with a Brush that I recently bought to clean the mirror of camera , with my LG Optimus mobile-camera, and done a little auto-correction thing. 

सहकर्मी बिनीत के सुझाव पे ये काव्य-संग्रह प्रकाशन के पहले ही हफ्ते में मैंने मंगवाई. बिनीत न केवल मेरे सहकर्मी हैं, बल्कि मेरे साथ फूटबाल भी खेलते हैं (हमसे कहीं अच्छा), और पुस्तकों पे विमर्श भी करते हैं. फेसबुक पे यदा-कदा हिंदी प्रसंग और कवितायें पोस्ट करना उनका शौक भी है. उन्होंने सुझाया तो लगा शायद उनकी हिंदी कविताओं का स्रोत मिल गया है. आजकल के आनलाइन पुस्तक-विक्रेताओं को धन्यवाद, ३ दिन के भीतर ही पुस्तक की हस्ताक्षर-प्रति मेरे हाथ में थी. मैं कोई आलोचक नहीं हूँ, ना ही उतनी हैसियत रखता हूँ, पर जो अच्छा लगे उसकी तारीफ करना तो बनता है ( हालांकि तारीफ करने में मेरे हाथ थोड़े तंग ही हैं ). पुस्तक:       ख़ैर...छोडो कवी:        विश्व दीपक प्रकाशन:       हिंद-युग्म पन्ने:        १४४ सबसे पहली बात जो मुझे अच्छी लगी वो थी कविताओं की सूक्ष्मता और सुगमता. कवितायेँ सतही कतई नहीं हैं, पर फिर भी बहुत ही सहज हैं. हमारी प्रायः की सोच को ही बड़े ही कुशल से शब्दों में ...

I have never been a dude or with one, so a language with swearing more than speaking doesn’t go that well with me. None of the guys with whom I grew up learning and playing speak that way. Even very few,  in fact just one in my extended closer circle , who toke – speak the  stoned language  talked about in this book. So, as I started reading it, I found a sort of disinterest swelling up inside me. That grew up further as I had to try a bit to cope up with the speed with which the story was unfolding. I took some time to take the account of what all was happening, but after reaching the level of comfort, I started finding it easily able to push me to the next page as I approached the end of each page. The Book Toke is a book written by Jugal Mody , who believes in fiction and writes to feel like a dog sticking its head out the window of a moving car. As Google defines,  toke  /tōk/ Noun:          ...

" Great soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India ” by Joseph Lelyveld, is the recent entrant to the List of banned Indian Books . What’s interestingly peculiar about this Pulitzer prize-winning author’s book is that probably none, who justified the ban, have read the book; and this imposition is all based on some British tabloid review. I haven’t read the book, but a few reviews of learned Indians who read it, plainly talks about a homoerotic relationship between Gandhi and Kallenbach as seen by the author through Mahatma’s letters. To some, the term may appear as a gamble of words, my question is what’s wrong even if Gandhi ji was a bisexual. Now, when we are changing into a nation that allows homosexuality, wouldn’t it be dramatically non-sense to question Gandhi ji’s inclination ? In fact, don’t we adore our same-sex friends for their beauty, figure or physique? Does all that mean we are sexually inclined towards them? Bullshit! Regarding the racist comment,...

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth... Few days back when I came to know about a book on an Indian Business Barron on the Banned Indian Books’ List, the first thing that came in my mind were the lines from Tagore . What an irony, we live in a country, whose forefathers have dreamt about a nation without fear, about a nation with right to speech, right to knowledge; and where the Government enjoys the “privilege” to “freely” ban the books, censor what it feels offensive! Wikipedia describes Banned books as the books whose free access is not permitted. Further it says that the practice of banning books is just another form of censorship, and often has political, religious or moral motivations. In our country, banning books have got its history since the British rule days. In fact, few of the Books ...