How I read 100 Books in 2018 and counting!

Any avid book reader knows how it is when one starts to read a book and the feeling when one finishes the book.

I can not vouch for myself that I am a voracious reader, as my genres are limited and I have not read Sidney Sheldon, Agatha Christe or other famous authors. 

At the start of the year 2018, Goodreads presented a book reading challenge for the year as always. Last year, it was 50 books reading for me. This time, I kept the count to 45 as I thought I would only manage to read less. 

However, it was not to be!

Gradually, I managed to go past 45 books in 4 months, 50 books in 4.5 months and then it reached 80 in August. Today as I write this on 9th November, 2018, I have managed to go past 100 books reading.

Which genres did I manage to read?

1. Health & Spiritual
2. Light novels
3. Business and management and 
4. Couple of Computer language books.

I will write down the books I read below and found interesting to share from the beginning of the year and a brief intro, if the book is worth a read if anyone is interested. 

1. Krishnayan-Kajal Oza Vaid. (Spiritual-Worth a read) 
     A book in Gujarati about the possible unseen aspects of Lord Krishna's personal life with his queens, Childhood Friend Radha and his clan.
Worth a read.

2. Bhangarh to Bedlam-Deepta Roy Chakraworthy (Haunted)
   A book from the author recounting her experiences at the notable haunted location in India's Rajasthan. 

3. 7 Karma Codes: Heal the Storm Within. -Suzy Singh. 
         (Spiritual-Worth a read) 

 Everyone wants to know and explore the karmic codes and knowledge. The author takes you through the intricacies of why things happen and what you can do to transform your relationship with yourself and others. 

4. Supersurvivors: The Surprising Link Between Suffering and Success
       By- David B. Feldman and  Lee Daniel Kravetz. (Motivation)

 A great read. I personally recommend this book for anyone who has suffered a personal physical setback and wants some motivation to win life and challenges. The book highlights the lives of people who suffered physical strains and how they won the challenges!


5. The Present: The Secret to Enjoying Your Work and Life, Now!   
    By- Spenser Johnson. (Motivation) 

This book is for everyone of us who can not stay in the present and rue either the past or the future and stress about life, work and more!

6. Kundalini: An untold story-  By- Om Swami. (Spiritual-Worth a read)

In this confusing world of spiritual mis-information and fake people claiming to raise Kundalini power of anyone, this book provides a personal account of a renunciate who gives the genuine knowledge or information about what a Kundalini is and what a seeker can do to progress in his spiritual quest without anyone's support to raise his Kundalini. Do it Yourself!

7. The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americas Wealthy

      By- Thomas Stanley. (Financial Knowledge)

  Ever wondered how the rich get richer and have more money? This book gives an account of the habits of the multimillionaires in the United States and what they do to increase their wealth.

8.  Mudras: 25 Ultimate techniques for Self Healing. By-Advait. (Health)

  They say that the secret to health is in our hands and no one else. The book simply and effortlessly illustrates how one can remain healthy through certain hand postures or Mudras and keep the energy flowing in the body. 

9.  Explain the Cloud Like I'm 10  By-Todd Hoff. (Computer)

Ever wondered what the whole noise about cloud computing is all about but overwhelmed with technical bombardment of information?
This book very simply lays out what cloud computing is all about in a very detailed but interesting and simply manner that everyone can understand.

10. Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?  By-Todd Hoff. (Entertainment)

Who doesn't know Netflix? Everyone does as it has taken the entertainment world by storm by placing excellent movies before us! But what goes behind the scenes? This book by the author explains us about what goes into the Netflix website when you play a movie or scroll through the movie list. Interesting!

11. The Healing Properties of Water. By -Chidebe Achunine (Health)

 Water can heal! Yes, the water we drink has the power to heal our body. If only we know how to drink. A worthy read for sure!

12. Indian Spices & Condiments as Natural Healers - By H.K. Bakhru. (Health)

 Sometimes, the ingredients to health lie in our own kitchen. The book demonstrates the various spices and food that we consume daily come to our help and heal our body.

Although I read more than 100 books, I felt that these 12 books were worth mentioning about. I read about 3 books every 10 days. That makes about 9 books a month. Did I do speed reading? 

No. I just read books when I was free for few minutes or waiting for someone or something outside home, before bed and after I woke up, whenever I could. 

Books are best friends for sure!

Musings from the Past Months

Sometimes, you have lots to explain or describe and sometimes you are at a loss of words. 

Only when you move around or travel, you see the double edged sword of life. You come across people who are living in much lower conditions than we and yet happily living life better than us. What is it that separates them from us in terms of satisfaction or fulfillment? 

Acceptance, I guess! or the ability to take one day at a time in life?

What is much better to have-Dengue or chickengunya?

One can say, both are worse. Yes indeed! Dengue gives you fever, headache and a life threatening situation. Chickengunya as I have learnt is not fatal, but leaves you irritated and exhausted. 2 Weeks before, my family contracted chickengunya, beginning with my father than my mother and then me. Dad recovered soon. For me, it was 2 days of the usual fever and rounds of doctor but it left my bones feeble along with irritating skin rashes. 

Ever heard of the Vishwamitri River? If you are from Baroda-the city where I live in, you probably have. For others, its a small river running through our city. A few days back, I read in the newspaper that in the earlier days, the river was used for washing and bathing and people actually used to drink water from it. 

Now?

Now, it is worse than a gutter. Literally! Even animals dont venture near the river, but yes, you will find lots of crocodiles in the river for sure!. I often come to think of what we humans have done to the environment. In the greed of money and power, we set up industries and put all the waste in the rivers and oceans. 

There were demons and monsters in the olden mythology times. Now there are humonsters as I call it. 

Just some thoughts.....

My Bhuj Diaries 2018. Part-1

Sometimes parents want to take a day trip some 500 km away for a particular reason or so. They don’t even prefer to visit the nearby famed locations even if there are 4 days of holidays ahead.

My Mum wanted to visit Bhuj-Kutchch and a famous goddess temple-Mata no Madh from quite a year now. I had some holidays lined up ahead and I was excited to again visit Kutchch. But as usual, my excitement was punctured by her.

” I only want to visit there for a day. Take me if you want to, otherwise I can go by myself”.

As all of my attempts to pacify her failed, I booked railway tickets at the last hour for just the two of us. The journey was fruitful.

We all know there are some ‘Characters’ that we find in the train in India. This story is about one of them.

As we boarded the train, there was an uncle in his early 60’s sleeping on the upper birth opposite us. One assumed that he was there from earlier station. He preferred to maintain his position till Ahmedabad came, sleeping merrily.

A lady came into the scene next and awakened the gentleman after prodding him at least 5 times. He awoke from his beauty sleep only to question the lady with:

She: Uncle, ye meri seat hain ( Uncle, this is my seat)

He: Oh, Ahmedabad Aa gaya? ( Oh, has Ahmedabad come?)

She: yes, Uncle.

He: Kab Aaya Ahmedabad? ( When did Ahemdabad come?)

She: 5 Min Pehle aaya. ( 5 Mins before)

He: Yeh aapki Seat Hain ( Is this your seat?)

She: Yes

He: When will the train leave the station?

She: (Getting Irritated) In 5-10 minutes uncle. Can I now please get the seat.

He: Yes.

That was the end of the episode. But the nature of questions he put before the lady looked stupid and irritating.

Some more anecdotes coming up in few days.

Kulls.

Instagram Irritables

Are you on Instagram?

I recently joined Instagram.

Not because I am a narcissistic guy. No, I like to click pictures and to improve or to take some inspiration of other great pictures taken by hundreds of others, I joined it.

I am glad that I did for I came across hundreds of examples of how I could improve my photography.

But, At the same time, I am little irritated of how people are using this medium to gain thousands of followers on Instagram, people are following others randomly irrespective of their storyline or subject and when the others follow back or don't follow, they unfollow them.

Then there are food bloggers or foodgramers. While some businesses understandably upload pictures of their delectable cuisine, other people upload food pics at random and expect people to like them.

Then there are inspirational quotes fanatics on Instagram. As if FB was not enough, these guys post these quotes even here.

Another type of guys I found are Narcissistic ones. They go to the gym, they click themselves, they go to work, they click themselves, they are on the way, they click themselves, repeat!

And then the travelers.

I am an occasional traveler myself, but I dont include myself in all the pictures. People want to see new destinations never seen before online, not you. Once, twice or five times is OK, but every-time?

And the last. These guys post nature pictures of sunsets and landscapes. Fine, good. But in order to reach out to hundreds of others, they over-edit the pictures. Too much saturation or use of colors make you think if a sunset over a landscape looks really this red?

Kuldip