“Karl, Aaj aur Kal”, Cyrus broacha’s debut novel. As hilarious as it can get. Especially “great party, eh” in chapter 3. Damn the critics.

“Karl, Aaj aur Kal”, Cyrus broacha’s debut novel. As hilarious as it can get. Especially “great party, eh” in chapter 3. Damn the critics.

Poem inspired by the book I bought over the weekend.
———————-
How do I make you little jealous ?
A book by the bedside.
Tea by the left.
And clock on the sleep ?
Currently Reading…
Interestingly the author shuttles between Boston and Tokyo. And I find it easier to connect with these two.
WITAWITAR (phew…) is one really good book and gives a glimpse into the mind of one of best writers of our times. And of course, following Murakami’s other books, it retains his style of strange naming convention…!!
Do read Murakami’s other novels if you can, especially “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle”. Its wacky, surreal, complicated and humerous at the same time!!!
On a different note, till what time you’ll be in Tokyo? I am currently in Higashimatsuyama. Maybe we can catch up sometime and discuss more about Murakami and Shinkansen.
sorry i could not come thsi weekend. had some plans here. btw, we are planning a Fuji trip (climb till top!!) on 19th July. Let me know if u are interested.
Cheers…
Finding English titles at a book store in Japan is uncommon. The rack space share of English books Vs others, is so small that you’ll not figure out rack location, till you ask the front-desk. When you find that rack, that little space has got just handful of handpicked titles . So finding these two titles was not difficult at all. Bought them at Ueno station’s Book store.
Curious Incident of a Dog in the night time – By Mark Haddon [ Aju had mentioned this sometime back ]
The stuff of thought – By Steven Pinker [ Aju would like this. Lingustics n blah blah ]
How are you getting along with “The curious…”?
I’ll check out The stuff of thought.
It’s more than a year that I have put a big pause to my reading habits. For no specific reason, I just haven’t spared any time for quality reading. Probably, work and travel has done all the damage. The phase of this dip in my reading interests seems to be getting over. What could have been better a book to reboot, than this. A classic of 1940s. Picked it up from Borders Book store in Nashua.
Page 25 has few lines, I quote here.
How is it that a French child would find the same meaning in Symbols “Le Chat s’asseyait sur le chapeau?” as an english child with “The cat sat on the hat” . Indeed, this discovery of meaning in symbols may be the most astounding intellectual feat that any human being ever performs – and most humans perform it before they are seven years old.
Discovery of meaning in symbols. Isn’t that amazing when you think about it ?
What’s interesting is that the title of your post and the image, in the image, display the same thing(meaning) – How to read a book!!
I have become an airport blogger. This time from Bangalore Airport. Can’t help. I am on the run. It’s barely a week that I arrived here to Bengaluru, after a hectic month at Seoul. When I am still gasping and breathing, am asked to be available at Boston by Monday. Customer trial related activity. Looks like am celebrating Year of International tourism
It was Boston and Cambridge in UK, during first half of the year. Then came Seoul and HongKong. Now it is Boston again. If I had a week more to get France Visa, I would have made Boston-Paris trip. Anyways, this is my iGoogle-gadget. Useful for time-zone travelers.
I missed the Indian kitchen during Seoul trip. This time am not starving. Carrying an exclusive bag containing MTR-Ready-to-Eat.
I bought this book just before Korea trip. The book is yet to be read. Hope I will find some time in this trip to flip through.
The brief period of a week in Bangalore was nice. Sujay is standing on his feet. My Sis ‘provided’ me nice food. Neeligang caught up for a overnight gambling.
Aru, enjoy world trip along with ur hardwork..Everyone will not get this type opportunity..HAPPY JOURNEY…!
Am in the process of reviving the abandoned work.Thanks for encouraging words from many of you. I received calls and messages from far-off places to finish the book. It’s a nice feeling.
I had a re look at the document. It looks I can rescue. Whether this work is going to see the light of the day or not, am going to get it to some shape.
When I was working on it earlier, I used to work in bursts;working on almost all the chapters simultaneously. This time I have split the big document into 15 smaller chapter documents. Will take one at a time.
Please pour your thoughts and comments as and when I finish and post the chapters. Thanks again.
Hi Aru,
Nice to know about your decision..
All the best for your plans…
This was my ‘underground’ project for two years. To publish a non-technically-technical book.
It was about simplifying the understanding of wireless communication. Ever since I started working, I used to look for books which would compliment and possibly enhance understanding of my work at office and things around in general. I felt there was a gap. We solved heaps and heaps of Fourier equations in text book. At work place we were reading just functional spec and design spec. We juggled with Maxwell’s wave equations for semester exams, but in our every day life, we don’t seem to understand, how a simple Radio works.
After searching for couple of years, I figured out those books which are already out there on wireless topics, are either written by a professor or a research scholar at a university or an expert in communication theory, people “who knew little too much”. There were hardly any books written with the intention of filling the gap I mentioned.
Most of the books were fairly technical in nature, written in extremely difficult language for a beginner. It is still fine, but they had very few illustrations. Needless to say, a book on wireless communication (a highly invisible subject) is incomplete if it does not paint reader’s imagination. Those which had, had Diagrams; those in tight geometrical shapes.
One evening, I happened to be there at Ankit Fadia’s book launch in Oxford Book store at Leela Palace. He is a young genius, security expert, etc etc. When I flipped through the pages that day, I said “Crap. If a book can be made out of this content, then I think I can deliver better”. Even you can. This prompted me.
I knew exactly how it should look when the book is finished. Fairly compact, easy in English, broad overview of the topic, hand-drawn illustrations and so forth. My language was OK. I needed to study more to keep it technically accurate. I wanted to do illustration by myself, but my sketching skills were not so great. ( I thought it is difficult to find an illustrator, who could understand a technical subject).
I worked incessantly for two years. I bought every possible book available in stores about the topic. ( Just to see what is that I hate about that book). Made tons of notes. Surfed like maniac. Revived my school time drawing traits.
Some days, I worked on it morning till evening, sacrificed several weekends. Also kept my notebook by the bedside. Sadly there were also days, I gave up completely, sometimes for weeks. It was difficult to imagine myself as an author. A publisher would really be interested ?? I don’t have a Ph.d or any history of publishing in IEEE journals. Some uncertainty.
I set personal milestones, to complete it within a year. By the year end it was in a good shape. But was still not ready to go to a publisher. I said “another six months”. Even after Six months, it still looked the same. There is so much more to do. I took yet another six months. I still saw it as “unfinished”. Meanwhile, my frustration grew and went out of the roof. If you ask me, it would have never looked finished, even after it would have hit the stands. I simply gave it up a year ago.
Just around the time when I was thinking of discontinuing the project, I approached Tata Mc-Grawhill. Just to see if I get some sort of a encouragement. They were not keen.
I finally kept that in a folder and forgot about it. Yesterday, nearly after an year, I felt this work should be unearthed. Even if am not going to work on it, let it benefit and possibly inspire some one out there. I am sharing this ebook in pdf format. It is in ‘as it is’ format when I left it. Half-done, Unfinished.
Feel free to download and share with any one else.
Almost Everyones guide to Wireless communication (2 MB )
If you think it deserves some pat, I have a paypal account.
Thanks
Hi Aru,
Nice to know regarding Unfinished Book.
As i have interacted with you since many years,I know about you. By this time this book must have been published.But I can understand it could not become possible may be due to work load at office / some other reason…No worries you have published e-book..” Hope we all can see in Printed Book as soon as possible”… Nice to know that you are sharing your Technical knowledge with all of us which has come along with your professional life/ lot of reading.. All the best for your Writing & to you…
Nettu,
You know what.. I never knew this side of yours. I am so thrilled to read the book. You should keep me as the motivation factor man. I am a layman when it comes to telecom technology, but I can understand English. Despite my curiosity in tehcnology, my MBA and my current job didnt let me understand stuff like this. I was searching for just this kind of a book all my life. keep writing and dont worry on publishing and selling it. I do sales
great work. finsih it and i will be the first one to read it , understand technology as shown by you.
The Black Swan – The Impact of the Highly Improbable is a book about randomness and uncertainty by epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Arv_Narin 12:52 AM on September 5, 2009 Permalink
If you’re still in Tokyo, try reading Yokai Attack!; saw it on Sony Style TV Magazine on AXN, couple of days ago.
A T M 2:15 PM on September 11, 2009 Permalink
Thanks for link. But this extremely busy schedule lets you go no where.