What you pick from the book shelf can reflect the state of your life! Well, not always but presently* in my case it does!

Why is it that you have to answer all these questions in life? Why is it so difficult to have a life without indecisions - life where you don’t have to grow up?

On my last 2 visits to India every person I met either asked me the same question or their eyes did the questioning for them. Being a 28 year old desi (Indian subcontinent ethnicity), born in a typical (sort of - if my extended family is counted) marwari family, with a steady job - you are posed with this question more often than you can imagine.

The big question -

‘WHEN ARE YOU GETTING MARRIED?’

- humm .. well, when I feel like getting married, I will!

‘Everyone around you is getting married! All your friends are married or engaged, why wouldn’t you?’

Why wouldn’t I?

Makes me wonder - is it because I have a problem that I cannot decide? Or, is there something beyond that. Wasn’t life better when someone else took decisions for you!

While someone I know likes growing up, I don’t! I liked it more when all I to decide was between ‘5-star’ and ‘Perk’, not the question that I buy it or not!

‘Indecision’ by Benjamin Kunkel is the book, read it if the title is something you can relate - to get a kick of humor for the indecisions in life!

*presently - this post was drafted some time back when I was reading the book, situation has changed since then, but the questions are still the same!

Set in Kabul, Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion and the Taliban insurgency following that, Kite Runner is a story about Amir and his hazara friend Hasan (son of their family servant) and the journey of guilt he goes through after he betrays his friend through a series of incidents. Hosseini takes you inside the character of Amir so well that you start feeling you are Amir, the guilt surrounds you and you feel like making things right for Amir (for yourself).

This is Khaled Hosseini’s first book, I borrowed it from the library after reading about the delay of the movie based on this book. I feel like my bookshelf is incomplete without a copy (hint:gift idea :)). Definitely a must read!

I can’t wait to get hold of Khaled’s second book ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’

Before taking my flight to India, I called a friend for a recommendation on books that I read on my 20+ hours flight. While I don’t read many books, I find PG Wodehouse as a decent companion (if that is the word I am looking for) through these journeys, he suggested that if you like Wodehouse you will like Tom Robbins, pick up ‘Jitterbug Perfume’ and so I did!

And as the title suggests, its anything and everything related to perfume, the sense of smell, the meaning of smell, how smell is related to religion, to love, to sex and to just about everything around us! It is humor at its best! A simple vegetable like beet is treated an entity that connects through the three stories running in parallel at different times and at the same time, well yeah that is exactly how it is.

I will be browsing through more of Tom Robbins in the library bookshelves from now on :)

I had been thinking for a while, what will it be like to wake up one day, pack a small bag with essentials and head out - out in the wild. Without telling anyone, no credit cards, no cellphones, no way to contact. Just travel around! I will be able to survive doing odd jobs around the countryside. Surely, lot of people think about it, right? Thats when I picked up “Into the Wild”

Few are impulsive enough to actually do it - “Into the Wild” is a true story about a guy who graduates from college, donates the money he had from some funds to a charity, packs his bag and heads out west without telling anyone. He wanders around for over 2 years, and later his decomposed body was found in an abandoned bus in Alaska. It was said that his body started decomposing while he was still alive, he was so weak that he could not move to fetch food. Krakauer, follows his footstep to trace those 2 years that were lost of his life and takes you through the journey in the wild forests of Alaska. It is at times gripping and makes you wonder how insane do you have to be to head out in the wild.

(borrow it - you might buy it after reading)