No(i)sy colleague

What do you say when you have a noisy colleague sit right next to you, who shouts whenever he is on the phone, who eats at his desk all the time, most of the time food that strongly smells, stands in the passage often and needs to be reminded to give some space for others to walk by to their desk, who stares at your monitor whenever he is out of work…
Worst of all, he uses “ok fine” so many times that it annoys you to hell coz it is just not ok and just not fine.

Enid Blyton – An all time favourite

There was an article today in the paper (TOI) debating the literary skills, or the lack of it, of Enid Blyton. This has made me wonder whether recognition in the name of awards, peer praise, or critical acclaim is ever in its truest sense? Any of this is usually the opinion of one group versus another, and the group losing out is always going to feel wronged. If somebody did not get an Oscar, does it mean that person’s body of work is of no good? Is this how we should have felt about A.R.Rahman until he pocketed it last year? At best, these recognitions only help give the book or movie or album a global appeal. It does not make it any superior or inferior than it already is. If one has done adequate marketing of one’s products, it is bound to sell irrespective of the quality, atleast in the short run.

This brings us to the point if this debate is really necessary in the case of Enid Blyton. This author’s books are still popular and are stocked in most children’s libraries even today. Noddy is being discussed with the same fervour as Archie is. The characters of her novels may be alien to children outside UK, but she has managed to capture their imagination. Tales of ginger ale and short bread have caught the fancy of boarders world over, and in her own way she teaches that responsibility is a good thing. BBC might have made an error in judgement in the past in ignoring her works, but then who does not make a mistake. Inspite of all this debate, she continues to live through her works and cannot evoke mass hysteria to the point of hating and ignoring them. And thankfully, I can now stock up on her books for a re-read as an adult.

The three mistakes of my life by Chetan Bhagat

After my last Chetan Bhagat read (2 States – The story of my marriage), I had sworn off his books for sometime. Okay, sworn off buying them inspite of not being as heavily priced as some of the other non-authors. Quite coincidentally, I got an e-copy of the 3 mistakes of my life last week.

A thin plot around the true story of a state coming of age, the trademark masala mix of love, hate, religion, girls, egos, ambitions and Chetan has managed to produce 150 pages of it.Sometimes I wonder if many authors are languishing in us without being published, as we fail to see the obvious in making a best seller.

Post reading this, I am sure this and the next is not the last we will see of him. The business mind in him has realized it is not tough writing half baked storylines, mish mashing it with whatever is the flavour of the season (maybe swine flu or terrorism this time) to have a reasonably good seller of a book in his hands.

No wonder, he “gave up” working to write.

In awe,
Me