Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata by Devdutt Pattanaik

Jaya : An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata, is a beautiful condensed story of our great and one of the longest epic  written in very simple and easy writing style by Mr. Devdutt Pattanaik, Chief Belief Officer of Future Group. Devdutt had managed to hook the reader throughout the novel by his art of storytelling. It is my first read of the Devdutt and I am looking forward to read more novels.  I have already buy Myth = Mythya. I came to know about him in our Management class of Organization behavior by our faculty. 

I would say it a must read if you have never been introduced to Mahabharata. It is good for the starters who sometimes shy away from the book considering it very long. Even if you have watched the serial on Television, it would be a good read. The best part about it is that it includes a lot of small regional stories which are not included in the other similar novels or TV serial. And also, the scope for the confusion is minimized by mentioning the different beliefs systems or different stories in the different parts by mentioning it explicitly. Also, it entails a lot of information through bullet points which are at the end of every chapter. In my case, as soon as the confusion arose, I referred the bullet points and it was solved. 

I have also read the Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor which is about comparing the epic with Modern India. Different characters like Gandhi, Nehru, Bose are compared with different characters of Mahabharata.

The part of Mahabharata in which Krishna gave the Geeta was bit short in the novel but that is okay as that was complete book in itself. One of the best dialogues I like is Krishna is wisdom and Arjuna is action and both of them are present inside us.

I am also planning to read the book on Mahabharata by Gurcharan das, the difficulty of being good.

To conclude, I would say you can read this if you are a starter or less than 30 as the novel is full of cartoons and pictures which are to impress the youth or attract the children but if you have really read Mahabharata 2,3 times by different authors, then I doubt if you will be moved.

Learnings of a Travelling Bag

Courtesy: Google Images

Some travelling tips, I would like to share with all of you as per as my recent experiences. Although, you will get lot of tips on web but these tips are bit different and shared to enhance the travelling experiences and apply to those only who are real travel freaks and who does not believe on planning and booking the things in advance but start without any preparation with not so big budget. And yes that is obvious one cannot follow such carefree attitude at all the places.

·         Never land anywhere after 7, 8 pm because you have to bargain very hard for accommodation then.  At such hour, you are in hurry to get the room so as not to waste the night and this is what the people take advantage of. We once went to Alibaugh at 11pm, everything was closed and we ourselves are not comfortable enough to look for a cheap cottage. We finalized the one quickly and ended up in paying extra money which we have saved if landed 2, 3 hours before.

·         Take risks and make mistakes because at the end of the day, everything would be fine. Go on wrong routes deliberately and enjoy these risks to the fullest.

·         Try to spend more time at less places than to spend less time at more placesè keep it inch wide and mile deep rather than mile wide and inch deep for the better understanding of the place and culture.

·         Break your journey: If your journey is more than 7, 8 hours at a stretch, you can always have the option of splitting the journey and cover more parts provided there are more tourist spots nearby. When we went to Goa from Mumbai, we stayed at Ratnagiri for 1 night which is a very good place and break our 9 hour long journey into 6 and 3. In this way, travelling is much more stress free and rewarding at the same time.

·         Concentrate less on photographs and more on experience:  This is personnel view because some people travel exclusively for capturing some amazing photographs. But some people even I had travelled with them never switch off their camera. It is good if you are capturing some statue or landscape or beaches but there is no point in posing yourself again and again in front of them and then asking people, please take 1 picture.

·         Prefer small group that cannot be sub grouped to avoid the conflict of ideas at small little things and also to avoid stress. When the group is small, you always have the options of saving a lot of unnecessary time wasting activities like follow ups, waiting and calling each other asking where are you, when you will come and so on. Believe me, so much time is saved in smaller groups. In large groups, even when you eat and drink at a Restaurant, it takes a hell lot of time.

·         Travel in Local buses or local vehicles there rather than your personnel car or radio taxi to enhance your experience and knowledge about the culture of the place.

·         Log off your mobile and facebook accounts to enjoy better instead of sharing every place you visit at facebook and then expecting comments.

Memory: The Last Leaf

I was feeling quite bored, had nothing to do on this weekend. It is Saturday. I went into balcony and started watching the nature. I don’t know how this thought of the short story ‘The Last leaf’ by O. Henry came in my mind. I had read this story early in my school life. I still remember the day when I read this story, it was raining heavily. Also, in one of the scene of the novel, it was raining heavily. Somehow, it became a part of my memory. After 15, 16 years, I still remember this beautiful story.

Sue and Johnsy were 2 girls and one of them fell ill. A failed artist also lives in the same apartment. He was failed in his life in achieving what he wants but at the end, he painted a masterpiece which saves the life of the girl. I am not sure which girl. 

Let me read the complete story on Internet again. 

If you haven’t read it, check it out, you easily find it on the net. It is a must read.

Life at NITIE

NITIE, another name for life and luxury and heaven. Its location makes it like another hill station and its ambiance gives it an air of tourist spot. The only difference being that here the tourist comes for 2 years, a long holiday span by any measure. Life here is so chilled out. Less classes and happy go workloads will make you a lazy guy whose sleep appetite will gradually increase and can even go to up to 15,16 hours; there is no big deal in that. There is something in the air of NITIE and on the top of that; there is good weather and 4 times food in the mess which are responsible for these ‘not so shocking’ episodes of narcolepsy. 

Without any doubt, these 2 years are the best time of everybody’s life and with each day passing so fast and bringing us near to next corporate phase is simply brings dismay. This is the perfect time to live your passions, to do anything you like. Besides common passion of sleeping, tasting new whiskies, reading the classics, learning photography, learning Guitar, blogging, exhaustive travelling are some of new emerging passions at NITIE. Life cannot be better. Every time, I interacted with any senior who had passed out from NITIE, he always have one advice for me and that is to live your life fully, enjoy everything because time flies at NITIE and once you join corporate world, you will never get the time and miss the every moment you spend in NITIE. 

Yesterday, I was at the Nescafe, college canteen at around 2 am and the ambiance there was perfect to give me the feel of mall road culture in hill stations during peak seasons. There were more than 50 students enjoying sipping coffee, eating Maggi and gossiping and laughing looking more like tourists. Each one is in a celebrating mood without any occasion. 

Courtesy: Feelings as less than 50 days are left for this 2^nd and last episode of college life.

How to deal with Bigmouthed people?

How many of you are happened to be the victim of free advice given by those who doing except talking. Such species are present at every corner of the world especially in India. How hard you can try but you cannot escape from them. I wonder from where such nincompoop appears and what is their purpose of life. 

The things that irritates me the most is when you are busy doing something and somebody obstruct you in between and say, Do it this way. I keep nodding without giving any attention to them and praying for them. Many times, people give you advice just for the sake of talking and to let you know that they also have opinion about this, however, they also knew about the pathetic piece of advice given by them.

“Have I asked you”, is the most common reply given by the short tempered people. The irony is that even such questions didn’t stop them and they began to give excuses like I am trying to help you.

Let me tell you the best way to deal with such blabby personalities. As soon as they start talking, just tell them that their mouth is smelling. They appearance suddenly changed to very innocent person and they say they have wash their mouth in the morning and don’t know from why this bad odour is coming and you are done. Still, if someone is not stop, tell them their teeth are looking yellow. They will suddenly close their mouth and try to clean their teeth using their tongue and forgot about what they came to talk. I am sure they will ask you to excuse them in a moment.