Reading Books       

 I have been a very voracious reader (उत्साही वाचक) up until a decade or so. I would read whatever that I could lay my hands upon, be it in Marathi or in English.  In fact, in the beginning  I began by reading novels in Marathi. It was Baburao Aralkar's (बाबुराव अर्नाळकर -अर्नाळकरांच्या धनंजय - छोटू , काळापहाड आणि झुंझार कथा )  Marathi crime and thriller novels.

 I was a member of Ding Dong Library (now closed), and mt to and fro journey of 3 hours or so, enabled me to finished reading novel in a day or two. Mostly it was light stuff, James Hadley,  Agatha Christie, Perry Mason or some other  detective stiff. I was a privileged customer, I was allowed two books at a time. One book I would exchange in a day or two ( meant to be read during my train travel) while the other book was retained for longer period meant to be read at home leisurely and which was read by my sister and me, Heavy I have been a very voracious reader उत्साही वाचक up until some decade or so. I would read that I could lay my hands on, be it in Marathi or in English.  I was a member of Ding Dong Library (now closed), and mt to and fro journey of 3 hours or so, enabled me to finished reading novel in a day or two. Mostly it was light stuff, James Hadley,  Agatha Christie, Perry Mason or some other  detective stiff. I was a privileged customer, I was allowed two books at a time. One book I would exchange in a day or two ( meant to be read during my train travel) while the other book was retained for longer period and which was read by my sister and me, Heavy Reading category with likes of Lloyd C Douglas ( I was so obsessed by his Magnificent Obsession that read it many times during my  teenage), Thomas Hardy (his  Far from the Madding Crowd left a deep impression on me), William Somerset Maugham ( I have read and reread his Of Himan Bondage umpteen times) and many other English writers and also read Marathi literature, especially P L Deshpande and Achaya P K Atre. I have slowed down, may be my age and other things. Now a days I don't read much (books) and reading is restricted to net. 

  Currently, I am reading a book titled ' The Ultimate Cheatsheet On Goal Setting '.I has been quite sometime sessed since I had a book in my hand, with all my eye problem. Doctor is yet to give me number post surgery and I have to go for the check as well. I read using my old specs with magnifying glass. I find it extremely hard and I could but a few pages till now. The book is interesting, but I am rather apprehensive about such kind of self help books and this would certainly fall under that category. In our our days, we never had such kind of books, so never read these books. Reading books written by Bill Gates,would certainly not make you Bill Gates!  Have you ever read Self Helo books? 

 I asked this very question to my daughter in law  and and also to a friend of mine, Rashida and told her that shortly I am going to write on the subject.

 Rashida:replied, "No. I don't like reading such books either.

 Unfortunately I haven't read any book in a very very long time." 

My daughtrt in law hasn'i ever read such books.

 

Coming back to the subject of Self Helf Books, Iam reminded of this

 guy, Rajamamidanna. He is fantastic and his satire on the subject  is

 very funny and worth listening to. I will try to reproduce the same in

verbatim (शब्दशः) as far as possible. Rajamamidanna is on the stage 

and addressing young crowd.

"...but it doesn't matter. So I got admission inone college called 

 ...You ISB....No I didn't do it in ISB but did it in BSB, it is the 

parody version of ISB, which in Bangalore. I went there. There was t

this  Placement Officer who said ,' You will get there. Relax.' 

For me to get there I have to be alive also. With so much got one 

company  called Nandi Pipes. I am not kidding - Nandi Pipe. They

 had  eight rounds of interview, man. After that they didn't call.

 I had to do the follow up. I called up . 

Where is my job? I asked. 

' It is in the pipene , bro!'

When you go through all this you get depressed. And of the worst

you do... Ah, don't read those Self Help books. Anybody read

 these  Self Help books?"

Suddenly looking sharply in the direction of a

 young lady, he continues, "so maam, you read,

 don't be ashamed. You are here.which means it  worked.

   

These Self Help Books are... from thr author's point of view. For

 them they are helpful. It messes up with your mind.

One fried suggested a book called . Secrete'

 Millions copies sold insecrete, my friends read and got marks in

 secrete, I did' know their marks. But I was reading 'You can Win'

 and they got placent in secrete. 

And the motivational books mess up with your mind., you start

 believing  as if you sre greatest person alive, which you know and

I know, I am not you are not. .

There is another book called 'Monk who so his Ferrari, Robin

 Sharma wrote this book. If you are a monk where did the Ferrari 

come from?Who are you? Osho? The same fellow..the  fellow wrote 

another book called 'Who will cry when you die', that's the tittle of

the book, and  I cried after reading that book. My sister told me 'No

one will cry when you die'. I asked 'Why?' 'If you keep reading books

how will you make friends?' So I purchase another book , How to 

make friends.'

But the worst book I read was 'You can Win'. It had a tag line

 Winners don't do different things they do things differently. Replace

the word Winner with anyone, say, Cab driver, and it will fit the bill.

Cab drivers don't do different things they do things differently.. Why

 are confusing in this manner? There is another guy called Henry

 Ford, who also confuses people in this way. If you think you can,

 you are right. If you think you can not, you are right. Just because 

we are listening....You will tell whatever you want to.

I also wrote a quotation, Hope is like a soap, use it daily.

These days the book tittles they come up with ... I went to the book

 store and there was this book -  am okay, you are okay', I didn't buy

 it because I was okay.!

Everybody must have read this book.Ah, ah (हां,हां .. orange colored f

cover ... ah , yes, yes..what setellite F#CK ( THE SUBTLE ART OF

 NOT GIVING A F*CK by Mark Manson). I don't know what is

 F*CK and this came up with another, a sequel  it seems, Every

 thing is F*CKED. Yoy are the one who told not to give F and now

 you say that every thing is F. I hate thsese sequels. In movies it is

 okay but why in Self Help books? There is guy,  

he wrote, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'.

It took me seven to eight years to cultivate those seven habits. After

 that he came out with 'The Eighth Habit' 

This guy is absolutely funny and entertaining. I have tried my level

 best to quote him and the entire show in verbatim.  But you must

  watch him (there is video on YouTube) to get the picture. The

 way he narrates the anecdote with the Placement officer, with his

 hand gestures, voice modulation, you can visualize the entire scene. 

The dialogue between them- the officer assuring him (he pats his

 own back, making you believe as if it's the officer) telling him ,"You

 will get the job man, relax?"  Later on, his  asking " Where is my

 job?" and getting the reply, " It's in the pipe line." The name of the

 company as ‘Nandi Pipes’, is done with  a purpose, and which

 synchronizes pretty well with ‘job is in the pipe line', and you

 simply  can’t stop from laughing.

 In fact the entire presentation leaves the audience in splits. 

The climax comes in the  the ‘F’ word book anecdote.  The way he

 tries to extract the name from the audience, encouraging them to

 come out with it with his intermittent interjections of " Ah, ah," and

 then  (spelling each alphabet as  F,*, C & K and then

 with  expression of innocence  on his face, asays, “I don't know

 what is that."  And then adds, "He was the guy who told us not to

 give F and now he says Everything is F  "

 

He has liberally used those interjection sounds  to good effect to

 express  his emotions. We are familiar with 'hmm', 'oops': woohoo:,'

 shh', etc.so  In English it is difficult to put it in writing the exact

 pronunciation of such sounds, but not so with our phonetical Indian

 languages. Therefore, I hace used  हां , हां . in brackets to denote

 thsese interjection sounds made.

 

 The last enecdote,, about  Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

 and The eighth Habit, he says '" In the second book, the first twenty

pages covered the acknowledgements why not remove them and

 put the Eighth habit in the first book itself? He then ends the

 presentation with this punch line...” in all these eight habits

 (ironically) Reading is not a ( good) habit." 

 

         I have always been apprehensive about these Self Help Books 

though I am currently reading the book which may well be

 categorised in the same class. Of course, at my age, I don't need to

 set any goals and no need for any self help books either.

Vinay Trilokekar 

Memories Triggered

 

Memories Triggered

 

Nikhil (my nephew) had shared a post and this is what I wrote to him:                                                                                                               Your forward, a tribute paid to Music Director and singer Bappi Lahiri, by late Nandu Bhende’s  wife ( her husband and Bappida were born on the same day, as mentioned in her post) brought back sweet memories of my childhood, आठवणी पुन्हा जिवंत झाल्या. Memories flashed before my eyes as though they had had happened just yesterday.

I had met Nandu for the first time when he must have been around five or six and I was 12 – 13 years,  I was going with Amber mama and Jaini mami (Amber & Saroj Kothare) to Gholvad. This was not my first time to go to Gholvad with them. But this time, the whole troupe or फड as you would say in Marathi (if not everyone from their team, many were there) of झोपी गेलेला जागा झाला'  ( I don’t know under what banner they would stage it.) had joined. We all taken the from VT station.

 Mahesh and I had watched this drama several times, sometimes with the other audience but mostly from the Wing. टुमदार घर नाटकातील सारी पत्रे आणि त्यांतील बहुसंख्या नटांची नावे माझी तोंडपाठ झाली होती.

 Nandu was almost of the same as Mahesh, year or two here and there. We kids, Nandu, Purnima, his sister , Mahesh, Mahesh’s cousin, Balam, who passed away recently and I, sat together abit away from the elders. But Mukund uncle (Mukund Kothate, who also played  the character of Mukund Kothare himself  in झोपी गेलेला जागा झाला), preffered to sit with us. I remember asking him, “ Mukund uncle, how can you keep on laughing for such a long time? Or is some prompter doing it from the Wing?”

“Ha, ha, ha! You are Mahesh’s cousin, बरोबर ?  आमच्या  नाटकाच्या प्रयोगांना तुम्ही दोघे येत असतात . अरे बाळा हसणं अगदी सोपे असते. हे असे”, so saying he started laughing.

In between those bursts of laughters,  he cracked jokes and  told us  and funny stories., and in between, suddenly he would say, “हे मुलांनो माझे नाव काय ? त्या दिनेजलालने माझ्या डोक्याचे हे काय केले ! मी सारखे हसत सुटतो का ? माहित नाही . माझे नाव काय ? हा ,हा !“  Suddendly pointing at Mahesh, he would say, “हाच तो दिनेजलाल !    मैं हूँ दिनेज...! Mahesh, I know that you do it quite well, common Mahesh!"

This would be invitation enough for Mahesh and he would burst out, "मैं हूँ दिनेजलाल, काम मेरा बेमिसाल   मेरे आँखोमे देख ..”  नट'महेश कोठारे बनण्याची ही नांदी असावी .

All this intermittent laughing, punctuated by jokes and stories, of Mukund uncle  continued till we reached Gholvad. 

In Gholvad, Jaini mami had a nice one storeyed , a small bungalow type, you could call it बांगलाच. It was actually जैनी मामीच्या माहेरचे घर.- a neat little , टुमदार घर. It was surrounded by many flowerin and fruit trees, of these these two chikoo trees,I distinctly remember.  Outside the house there was a big well and we, Mahesh and I, enjoyed bathing in the open while a maid or some servant poured buckets of cold water on us.

On the ground floor, in front was a nice verandah which opened into several rooms, including a kitchen and there was a passage at the end of which was a door which opened into a hall where the furniture, consisting of sofa set, a teepoy, and a cupboard,  all arranged in a semicircular manner.  Aadjasant,  समीप  to the passage door, on the right, was a staircase which took you to the upper floor, which had a bigger hall and some rooms. The ground floor hall with all the arrangements, resembled exactly  the one in the set of झोपी गेलेला जागा झाला. Baban Prabhu  would go around the entire furniture,  whenever he came down the stair case, and wanted to go in the ground floor passage, just as the way he did in his role in  the drama. He was king of farce, no doubt. झोपी गेलेला जागा झाला' हा फार्स बबन प्रभूंनी लिहिण्याअगोदर मराठी रंगभूमीवर 'फार्स' हा प्रकार रूळलेला नव्हता, तरीही त्याआधी फार्स लिहिले-केले गेलेच नव्हते, असं नाही. If you haven't watched the original one, you have missed something big in life. Subsequently many remakes have been made, even a movie, but they are all rubbish!  Both Baban Prabhu and Atmaram Bhende had great tunning. Their farcical enacting was fantastic, a treat to watch.  Even Asha Bhende was quite good actress and was also good in farcical acting,, but I did not know she was a good actress and was also good in farcical acting,, but I did not know she was a good singer. Later on I came to know that had Jewish lineage and her brother was a famous writer and poet.

Nandu did come to Gholvad, may be twice or thrice subsequently. I did learn that his real name was Sadanand.  But our childhood friendship never blossomed. As grew I did come to know that  he was  famously known for his rock, pop, soul and blue rock music genres in music.  On many occasions  I have attended  film line  with Soparkar (Vasant Soparkar, my brother in law) and met Mr Atmaram Bhende twice or thrice. Both, he and his wife were were such nice couple and very humble people.

Coming back to Gholvad, I also remember how Mahesh and I would run bare feet on those beautiful beaches of Gholvad, into the waters jumping on the rocks covered with live colonies of mussels and oysters.  At times, we would have cuts on our feets because of those sharp edges of rocks full of oysters (कालवांचे खडक), collect  those tiny crabs crawling on the beaches and feed these live creatures to stray dogs on the way back home.  It was such a fun.

Thanks for sharing the post.

Vinay Trilokekar 

Beyond Science

 Beyond Science

There was this argument going on between two ladies. “Don’t you ever give my child fish and egg together.  It’s a very harmful combination. I have done a course in ‘Nutrition’. …blah,blah,blah”, a young lady was telling (almost shouting at her) an elderly woman, who was at her wits end. The husband of the young lady too joined in and attacked the poor old lady. He told her to call any doctor to confirm what his wife was saying was true.

That young lady did not have science background, neither did her husband, though she claimed that she had done a course in ‘Nutrition’. My contention is why are these people, who no science background, allowed to science based courses. 

So this is what I wrote to all my doctor friends, doctor cousins and nephews and nieces:

 I am writing this  to all my doctor friends, my cousins and nephews and nieces, who are in Medical profession. Some nutritionist claims that eating fish and eggs together is harmful and they should never be consumed together. What do you say. I don't agree.  My take on the subject is this:.                      

  Both fish and eggs are proteins ( soft) and there can't be any possible chemical adverse reaction taking place in our stomach. In fact, it's the combination of two excellently healthy proteins that makes it work wonders In fact, the amino acids in eggs help the body to metabolise protein so combining protein-rich eggs with protein-rich fish creates a major protein hit. 

Do reply, and correct me if I am wrong,

Many doctors were very kind enough to  send in their prompt replies in spite of their busy schedule and some even called me to have detailed discussion. 

A heading the Cardiology Department in a reputed rubbished it and called it utter nonsense. While talking to me on the subject, he asked me as to why do the so called expert in alternate have approach us, even leading to  medical emergency at times, seeking medical help. Why can't they use their own expertise then?

A niece of mine, who is a doctor in a Super Speciality Hospital, in Mumbai, wrote to me, " Vinay mama, I totally agree with you."

Dr. Ronnie Coutino, my school classmate, who now practices in US, wrote , "My opinion is that eating fish and eggs together is not harmful. Honestly, I haven’t read anything about this combination being harmful"

 My cousin, also a doctor, sent a photo copy of a pamphlet and wrote a foot note  below it, 'Probably, the person read this',

My cousin alsovcalled me and said, " Gglancing at that chart and goingwill find  it very difficultto eat anything with anything. " 

I had drawn that conclusion much before he called.

  I am reproducing the same over here: The pamphlet says the things written in Capital Letters are the most difficult and dangerous to eat with the given combinations.

To make more readable I enlarged the font of the  chart/ The charts shows  what is not to be eaten with what. 

S.No.	Not to eat	With
1	Beans	Fruits, cheese,eggs,fish.milk,meat,yogurt.
2	Eggs	Fruits (melons, ),beans,cheese, fish, kitchari, milk, meat, yogurt.
3	Fruit	Anything, exception certain cooked combinations as well as dates and milk, which have the same rasa avirya  and vipaka.
4	Grains	Fruits, tapioca.
5	Honey	Ghee
6	Hot drinks	Mangoes, cheese, fish, meat, starch, yogurt.
7	Lemon	Cucumber, milk, tomatoes, yogurt.
8	Melons	EVERYTHING
9	Milk	BANANAS, bread containg yeastfish, meat, yogurt, cherries, kitchari.
10.	Nightshades (potato, tomato)	Melon, cucumber, dairy products.
11	Radishes	Bananas, raisins, milk/
12	Tapioca	Fruit (banana, mango) jaggary, raisins, beans.
13	Yogurt	Fruit,cheeses,, eggs, fish,, milk, as above.

Now item number 9 Milk  combined with BANANA, would be highly difficult and dangerous to eat. My grand mother used to me this very mixture of bananas and milk ( श्रीकरण ) since I was four years old and I loved eating it with chappati (चपाती) and I still do. Now instead of milk I eat curds and banana. Neither combinations (milk with banana or curds with banana) has harmed me anyway. 

Item number 2 Eggs with fish / meat  as staed above In fact, the amino acids in eggs help the body to metabolise protein so combining protein-rich eggs with protein-rich fish creates a major protein hit. We eat them together quite often. It hasn't harmed us in any manner. 

 Item number 7/ 10 Nightshades, especially tomatoes- we have been eating tomatoes with cucumber, with or without  liberal use of lemon juice in various salad recipes (कोशिंबीर)  and a dish we call (खमंग काकडी) made of cucumber, grated coconut aand crushed pea nuts with or without curds. Needless to say, eating these salads harmed us.

Item number 5, no puja will be complete withot पंचामृत or पंचांम्रुत or Panchamrit , which is a mixture of five foods ( 5 Amruts)used in Hindu as well as Jain worships and pujasand Abhishekasand as offerings during puja. It is distrbuted post puja  and even served during wedding dinners and lunches,  The five ingredients, accoding to Ayurveda , should  be sugar, cow milk, ghee , curds and honey. 

I am keeping this write up of mine open as I am expecting a few more responses from medical professionals.

But this unscientific claims by these so called nutritionists is beyond my imagination and certainly Beyod Science!

                                                                        Vinay Trilokekar