Some Sizzling Scintillating Speculations

  19 03 24 For some reason, the memory section of the brain always remember school days well, but, jog it to recall what I had for lunch or what I wore yesterday, and I have to strain . heh heh. Since I mentioned one of the unusual guys from class, in the Reading related post recently, here’s some more memories on similar fun people. To start off, let me recall people who really use to make us smile/laugh/guffaw in school days, by their remarks, innocent or otherwise. (Names shortened to initial, to maintain privacy) 1. There was this guy, D - he used to deliver gems of information every now and then, and he'd end with 'You see, Idea is India'. 2. There was this other guy, P . We used to have morning assembly, as all schools do. One of the prayers/anthems each week would be 'India is my country. ( https://www.indianmirror.com/geography/geo7.html ) All Indians are my brothers and sisters'. Well, this guy would always add, in a louder-than required voice,...

  Being an avid reader in those days meant that I would look for all sources for getting books and comics to read, on returnable basis, and, then, return, and borrow again after a few days and return… and so on. And, being an avid collector of these, meant that there would always be friends or relatives wanting to borrow some of my precious collection from me. First, the borrowing part. These used to be mainly school friends.. I remember borrowing Laurel and Hardy comics, Hardy Boys books, Tintin/Asterix (the ones I had not got yet from my friendly neighbourhood second hand books guys)…before returning, in a couple of days, each one would be literally ‘devoured’ page by page. Now when I get these gems in pdf form on the net, I wonder how life would have been if today’s advanced technologies had been available then. Wow. One thing I’d always make sure – the borrowed material would always be returned in the same good condition that I had taken it. Sadly, not so the other way roun...

  More than Phantom or Flash Gordon, I used to (still read) love Mandrake the Magician and his friend Lothar's adventures. A favourite daydream(Piscean trait, of course) for me, would be to imagine doing such magic/illusion/hypnosis, on friends/ enemies. heh heh. One of the most famous friendships on earth- Mandrake and Lothar. (As they say in the tales) Mandrake- a magician par extraordinaire known for his mass hypnosis feats. Lothar-the strongest man on earth, King of 12 nations. Brings an ice machine when Narda asks him for ice cream. Picks up a car when Jed's cufflink rolls under it, rather than going under the car like us ordinary mortals would do. Narda-another Princess, Mandrake's fiancee.(I forget the name of Lothar's fiancee-she came into the picture later) Jed- head of Inter Intel-short for International Intelligence, which has a robot as it's big boss(above Jed). No-one thinks that there could be a human being behind the robot's voice which is disguis...

  14 03 24 Hobby: Reading Part 4: Adding to the list of eminently readable material Sometime in the late seventies, I began engrossed in reading magazines, besides the craze for books. And, at the same time, there would be great fun in writing Letters To the Editor, entering competitions, and so on. Letters to the editor: It was such a delight, after waiting between magazine issues, to get a new issue and quickly go to the letters page to see if my letter had been selected. And, added bonus, if it won the best letter prize. This happened a number of times, and, soon I was writing around to around 40 magazines and newspapers every month. Made a lot of good friends  courtesy this very inspiring hobby, including editors of some magazines, whom I also had the pleasure of meeting. (that is a topic for another day). The magazines would be everything from youth mags, to travel mags, from movie mags to readers digest… the one topic I strictly avoided (unless there was humour), was pol...

  Hobby : Reading Part 3: Second hand books (Pics in this post are for illustration purposes) There were a few people near our city home in those days, who had become quite ‘valued’ for me, since they were a good source of second hand(read’near new’) books and comics for me. The best one was the one who would sit outside a closed restaurant door, on it’s tiled surface , next to what used to be Kalamandir talkies. He would always call me Bhaiya and, seeing me walking towards his , err, stall, he would pull out the comics and novels he would have stashed away to safety, for me. (I used to get the first ‘right to refuse’, so to speak . heh heh. ).. one of the most prized collections that happened 80% courtesy him, was my Tintin books. There was apparently some guy, who I could identify vide the pen scroll he would make all over the first page of each Tintin comic, before giving it away. And, this gent would invariably get it and keep...

  In those days (Seventies) , buying new books used to be quite an expensive hobby. With God’s Grace, I never had a shortage of books to read, courtesy the many sources that were ‘made available’ (so to speak) ... even today, the charm of a real book far exceeds that of a PDF/scanned copy / online kindle read. One method of adding to the collection, would be to select my ‘most wanted’ books as my birthday presents ‘in advance’. At the Noddy age( 6-8/9 years) , I would select the Noddy books which I did not have, at Allies’ book stores, and inform each Uncle one of the serial numbers from 1 to 24 accordingly. (We couldn’t afford to buy them all-they cost a princely Rs 4 to Rs 8!). I would look suitably thrilled when the books were given to me, duly signed and marked ’With best wishes from so-and-so Kaka (Uncle in Gujarat terms) / Bhaiya(cousin) ’. In the coming years after the Noddy age passed, I would select Famous Five/ Five Findouters/Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew/ Three Investigato...

  Part 1 : Circulating Library Days Summer vacations approaching. Motivation to sail through the final exams…then, six weeks free. The biggest motivator: (re)joining ‘Rajesh Circulating Library’ in the station area, and get comics and books to read. There were three libraries, run by the same family, we usually went to the first one. The favourites in comics would be the Archies, the Richie Riches, Tarzan, Tintin, Asterix, Enid Blyton … each one would have a USD or UKP price written.. the library guy would charge the equivalent in Rs/Ps. For e.g. a 25 C Richie Rich, would mean 25   Paise reading charge(A 25 Paise coin doesn’t get anything now, hence, it was demonetized along with all other lower value coins in 2011) We were allowed to keep the comics for a week, I think.. so, we would pick 7-8 at least, and, read, re-read, re-read, re-read them to make sure we got the full ‘Paisa Vasool’. Around 7 th -8 th Std, there were also the Hardy Boys, the Three Investigator...

I still love reading Enid Blytons, every now and then.. however, when I spotted ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ at the flea market, I had no idea it was a children’s book. It turned out to be so much fun that I read it over the weekend, start to finish. It takes a dig at British politics, reminiscent of the series 'Yes, Minister'. It’s about this 12 year old boy, Joe.. he and his friend Ajay come to know that their favorite park is about to be closed to make way for ‘civilization'.                                                                              Joe, who knows the Prime Minister is coming to their area, goes to see him, and, shouts a lot at him, calling  the PM ‘dafty’, and telling him about other fun things the country needs, like doing away with alarm clocks so people wouldn’t...

  A phillumenist...a person who follows phillumeny...in simple terms, a matchbox label collector. ----- The matchbox has become somewhat obsolete, in these days of 'instant lighters' of the electronic type, which followed on the heels of gas lighters and the electric ignition cooktops. One click and voila, the cooking gas is on. Of course, I( as do most people who do pooja with agarbattis) still need a matchbox to light the agarbattis.(Incense sticks) for the pooja- hate to light those with a lighter that gives off a flame that could singe the eyebrows, right? ------ Dad has preserved all the labels from those days. Some samples: So, let's see now. as I said, the hobby began back when I was in school. Matchboxes used to be a lot of fun in those days. Dad had also brought back a lot of labels in 'mint'(Brand new) condition from his Russia trip then, and those were really what made me get interested in the hobby. ('Every other person collects stamps and coins, I ...

    I shared my first job experience some time back. The second experience, which, on looking back, is also a good example of the LOA at work without me knowing it . Here it is: In between the 14.5 yrs that I spent at my first Co : There was a time, around 1993 end, when the level of politics became too high.. my boss was kicked out, and, some silly incidents happened besides this too. At this time, I wished for a new good job everyday , and one fine day, I got a call from a Japanese Co for their local collaboration office in India. They had received my CV and wanted to meet me. I went there, a Japanese took the interview, and I was selected with a promise of a trip to Japan for training. Next day, I quit in my first company, and everyone was shocked, as they were thinking I was ‘just cribbing’, and would never quit.   Senior colleagues tried to convince me to stay, and appreciated my value to the company, and said that they would give me also an opport...

          Just sharing something which is a clear indication of how well the Secret works, whether we know about it or not. On June 15th 2021, I completed 33 years of working life. Back in 1988, I was having a vacation after college ended, in another city, and had left my CV with a friend, to apply on my behalf. Well, he applied, his own and my CV, along with 126 others.    The first interview, on 4th June, had me falling in love with the office location, and the genial office environment. I sent out a wish, that I be one of the people selected for the job. Well, this followed the second interview, and the 128 people were narrowed down to 64 and then 16 and then 4 of us. The final interview was on 8th June, and, I was the last one called in, and the only one selected. That was the first incident of The Secret working in my life.   During the 13.5 years in my first job, I can recall so many instances where the Secret worked, and, hel...

                                                                                I'm sure most of you would have done this in childhood.. whenever you wanted something, you would look skywards, or, pray, and send out a wish or wishes to the Universe or to God... and, invariably, you would be delighted when it came true.(And, if it didn't, there would be a reason, which you would realize now only, when you think about it)   I recall many such thoughts. I would look at circus posters plastered all over town, and imagine myself thoroughly enjoying the show in advance......When we would purchase tickets to the circus(Usually in the morning for an evening show) , which usually came to Baroda in the rainy season, I would be looking skywards i...

                                                                  This was an incident in XIIth Standard, treated as the ‘be all and end all’, for students aspiring for a good college degree, of which I was one. Prior to the Boards, there used to be a ‘prelims’ (Probably still is), wherein the school would set papers in a manner ’similar’ to the Boards. For some reason, I’d been pretty nervous, and, when the prelims results came, for the first time, I had failed in Chemistry, with 25/100. Having always been amongst the top five, our principal had called me and asked me what had happened… I just assured him that he would be proud of me in the final results. Similar was the case with Physics, where I had 56/100, not an ‘admirable’ score. With hardly three months left, I was in a bad sta...

  Memories of travelling in Blue Star days: -My first independent client visit, was to Surat.. at that time, we had a number of projects on the entire line from Baroda to , I think Kosamba(where Gujarat Nylons project was). I was told by two-three people to meet them at Gujarat Express, near the pantry car.. imagine my surprise when the train came and I sae that half the pantry car was filled with Blue Star people, some travelling from Ahmedabad, some from stations in between, and some from Baroda. I joined the merry team, and got a place to sit. As soon as the train left, the pantry attendant came up to take orders.. it turned out that people were allowed in the pantry car, as long as they kept ordering and eating… like, say, one order after each station. Finally when we reached Surat after two hours, I was, well, quite ‘fed up’. The first meeting went off quite well, and, I even accompanied the client from Essar Steel to their sponge iron plant in Hazira(though that was...