2022 – A year in books

So, another eventful year comes to an end, and it’s time for my review of the books I read this year! Thanks to Goodreads, I can properly keep track of them, so here’s a little infographic detailing the 50 books I read this year and stars I gave them:

Yeah I read two whole technical books this year, and added them here to fulfill my challenge. But didn’t rate them because really, which self-respecting bibliophile would rate books about automotive jargon?!!? 😀 😛 You can view more details on the challenge here, or by clicking on the infographic. Surprisingly, I read many non-fiction books this year – 11, not counting the work-related technical ones! I am not a non-fiction reader, and even though I am making a conscious effort to stomach them more, it hadn’t really happened – until this year!

In fact, 2 of my best books of this year were also semi-fictionalized! Which brings me to listing those! Now, until 5 days before 2022 ended, the books I liked best this year (in no particular order) were:

  • The Complete Maus (Art Spiegelman) is a semi-fictionalized biographical graphic novel about the author’s grandfather’s experiences during the Holocaust (see review).
  • When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife (Meena Kandasamy) is a semi-autobiographical account of the author’s life with an abusive husband (TW: sexual violence, domestic abuse). The thing I liked the most about this one is that the author is hardcore raw without being voyeuristic. Must-read book, this one is!
  • Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good (Louie Stowell) is a fictional (obviously!) novel about Odin being fed up of Loki’s antics and sending him to earth as a mere mortal school student to serve out his punishment until he can be good! I initially picked up this book to pre-read before my 8-year-old could read it, and ended up loving it more than she did – go figure! 😀

Then at the end of the year, I read this very new book called “Brotherless Night” by V. V. Ganeshnanthan. And by very new, I mean that it’s releasing on January 3rd; and I got its Advanced Reader Copy through NetGalley.com. You can read my brief review about it here. Thus, while it’s not technically a 2022 novel, I read it this year, and simply LOVED it! So yes, that too, features in my list of best books of this year. Just like 2 other of my favorite books this year, this book is also very serious. Tread lightly, dear friends; for civil wars and genocide and human suffering can drain you! But if you can handle being drained, these books are much worth your while by being absolutely insightful and enriching.

Of course there were several other books that I simply loved, and you can read about them on my Goodreads page linked above.

What were your favorite books this year? Do let me know in comments!

Last year, as part of my end-of-the-year book update, I had made a list of books I wanted to read in 2022. Here’s my update on them!

  • Sapiens : a graphic history. volume two, the pillars of civilization (Yuva Noah Harari): Done! ✅ Didn’t love as much as Part 1, but was worth reading nevertheless!
  • The Glass Palace (Amitav Ghosh):  Done! ✅ Didn’t love as much as his other books but some parts were very interesting!
  • Caste: the origins of our discontents (Isabel Wilkerson): Done! ✅ This book must be made mandatory reading in school and colleges! And it prompted me to add a few more books to my next years To-Read list.
  • 1984 (George Orwell) : Done! ✅ Can’t believe I hadn’t read this all my life! Was amazing, but left some questions unanswered!
  • Violeta (Isabel Allende) : Done! ✅ Didn’t read this book for a year after getting it as an advanced copy, but read it in 2 days flat once I started. A beautiful book, this one!
  • Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami) : Abandoning this book for now.
  • The Overstory (Richard Powers) : Couldn’t finish this one. Generational sagas have never really been my cup of tea. Abandoning this.
  • Manufacturing Consent (Herman and Chomskey): I just couldn’t get through this book, as many times as I tried. And no, it’s not because the book is bad, but the subject just doesn’t reel me in enough. I think I am going to abandon it for now, and may (or may not) try to revisit it some other time. Am not even going to include it in the to-reads for next year! Sighh…
  • 1Q84 (Haruki Murakami): Wasn’t able to read this one in 2022, but will do so in 2023 for sure.
  • Anxious people (Fredrik Backman): Unfortunately, I haven’t even started the re-read of this! Hopefully this year I will!

And here’s my new list of books to be read in 2023:

  • Go Set a watchman (Harper Lee): I’ve been meaning to read this one for way too long! I am a huge fan of Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” – have read it thrice and made everyone around me read it. So I was excited when this book was published – but was put off by all the discussions about Atticus Finch turning out to be a racist. Now that Isabel Wilkerson, whose Caste book I read and loved, also mentioned this in the book, I think I have to go check it out for myself.
  • Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell): Same story with this one! I love this book – and Scarlett and Rhett are 2 of my favorite literary characters, but of late, I have been hearing a lot of comments that the book glorified racism. As always, I want to see (read) that for myself. One of my friends and I may also do a bookathon of this.
  • Scarlett (Alexandra Ripley): I haven’t read this one, but want to see how another author approaches this whole issue, too.
  • Bahut Door Kitna Door Hota Hai (Manav Kaul): Yikes this book has been on my Goodreads for so long!! Will hopefully read it this year!
  • The Malazan series: This book comes with the highest praise from my cousin, and while I don’t see eye to eye with him on many an ideological level, I do agree with some of his literary views more than most people, so have added this one.
  • The Tomb of Sand (Geetanjali Shree): This is going to be a challenging one! I bought the original Hindi version of the book whose English translation went on to win the International Booker Prize of 2022.
  • Gravel Heart (Abdulrazak Gurnah)/ The Books of Jacob (Olga Tokarczuk): Remember I had decided to read at least 1 book by every Nobel prize in literature winner ever? (yes, this is a question for myself!) These 2 books will be my feeble attempt to get back to that lofty ambition.
  • Parva ( S L Bhyrappa): I have borrowed this book from a friend 6 months ago, and I am yet to touch it. Hence it will be on the top of my reading order in 2023!

The one thing I missed mentioning in my post last year was at the crack of lockdown, my friend Divya started a book club – actually, a books and movies club. We ended up mainly discussing movies, but discussed 3 books: Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw), A Damsel in Distress (P.G. Wodehouse), and Little Fires Everywhere (Celeste Ng). I thoroughly enjoyed discussing these. At times, I felt that these club discussions were the only times I felt truly engaged! This year we have decided to do 4 books, 1 for each quarter:

  • Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)
  • The Psychology of Money (Morgan Housel)
  • The School for Good Mothers (Jessamine Chan)
  • The Palace of Illusions (Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni)

In addition to these books, I’ll of course read many more books that catch my eye. I am hoping to set myself a challenge of reading 50 books again in 2023, and also think that I may finally have to learn to like audiobooks, given how I am going to have to commute to office next year!!

All in all, I am very excited for a year full of wonderful wonderful, hard-hitting, tears-and-laughter-inducing, insightful, stress-relieving, eye-opening, but also real-world-escaping reading! Hope you have a great year of reading too! Cheers to 2023! Happy new year!

Movie Review – The Great Indian Kitchen

[This post was originally published in a Marathi magazine called Palakneeti, published from Pune. You can read the original post on the magazine’s free online version here]

Once upon a time there is this beautiful girl – educated, trained in Indian classical dance, an expert at cooking; and as she grew up in a gulf country, street-smart, too! Because of all these qualities, she is deemed to be a perfect arranged match for the son of a renowned family in Kerala. The prospective bride and groom meet and talk (well, it’s more like stare shyly/ awkwardly at each other and exchange pleasantries –Are we shameless or what to get over-friendly on our first meeting!), while the guests are entertained with mouth-watering snacks (all made fresh and from scratch, of course!).

Everyone is happy about everything, and thus, the wedding happens in great pomp and ardor. The new bride enters the big, traditional family home of her husband, complete with a tiled roof and a courtyard, and gets to know her abode and her world. It’s the first day, and everything seems so nice and new and gentile.

From the next day begins The Great Indian Kitchen! The husband enters the kitchen to have his morning tea, and flirts with the new wife, showers praises on the hot cup of tea she hands him, and leaves the empty cup for her to wash and walks out.

The elated wife washes the cup and leaves it to dry. Afterwards, her calm-and-composed, hardworking mother-in-law starts her training. They start at the beginning – breakfast! On the menu are hot and crispy Dosas with Sambar – along with a coconut chutney made from scratch, on a grinding stone okay! Those stupid mixer-grinders and ridiculous electric tools can never beat the authentic taste of the traditional stone! Then they proceed to lunch: the menu is pretty simple, just everyday fare, but made fresh and flavorful. And yes, rice cooked over an open flame – oh it is so tasty! How can we serve that mushy pressure-cooked rice to our men? And for dinner we have to make Rotis! After a long day at work, don’t the men deserve a delicious and filling square meal! In addition to this, the mother-in-law also initiates the daughter-in-law into dish-cleaning, table-wiping, sweeping and mopping, and other sundry rituals of the family. At the end of the day, after performing all these chores, the poor exhausted girl still satisfies her husband’s needs before falling asleep. Can the life of an ideal Indian woman get any more fulfilling than this??

After a while, the mother-in-law shifts abroad to help out her daughter after the delivery of her child. All the chores of the house are obviously left to the daughter-in-law. And no, we don’t believe in hiring help – firstly, how much work can there be with just 3 people in the house? And of course a maid can never perform her duties as well as the woman of the house! That’s why we have also kept the washing machine in storage – imagine spoiling our good quality clothes using a washing machine! We are rich (we straightaway told the hopeful daughter-in-law that she can’t get a job because we are well-to-do), but also conscientious – money doesn’t grow on trees, after all!

However, we are SO very understanding during the daughter-in-law’s menstrual cycle! Not only do we not make her do any housework, but we also don’t even see her face or disturb her during the 4-5 days! Talk about her sheer fortune, huh!

The movie then goes on to show what happens later in this very fortunate daughter-in-law’s life (kitchen). If you have gotten the sarcastic tone of this review, know that what I am saying next is very sincere: I loved this movie! It has been a while since I watched such an entertaining but though-provoking (and chilling) Indian movie. It is hard to underline the disbalance of power in Indian society using simple day-to-day routines, but the director, Jeo Baby, has managed doing it quite well. This particular film unfolds in Kerala, but substitute Dosa with Chhole Bhature or Kande Pohe, and it represents any and every region of India. Even urban women employed outside their homes, who have modern mixer-grinders, ovens, air-fryers, and any such equipment at their disposal, go through the drama of “The Great Indian Kitchen” regularly. “You are free to achieve whatever you want, as long as your home comes first” is a motto forced upon women working even at the very highest positions and ranks. We are divided over religion, region, caste, economic status, and whatnot, but we are united in claiming that “nothing can surpass the taste of the food cooked by our moms!” And we do so with pride, never once thinking about the pressure we put on them and all our female relatives, and the difficult positions we put them into.

Without giving away any spoilers, I would also like to highlight the role of a bride’s parents in ensuring her “smooth” transition into these great Indian kitchens. Really, parents? Really? You raise a daughter with all your heart, only to do this?

The acting in the movie is top-notch, and the actors seem so natural that the movie might very well be happening in your neighborhood. The music is very effective too. When things come to a head in the movie, they have the backdrop of a religious ceremony where a very haunting bhajan is being sung. The pitch and tempo of this bhajan increase along with the daughter-in-law’s patience, and it all comes crashing down, together. Very apt!

If I had to criticize something in the movie, it would be its initial pace. To highlight the everyday gargantuan routine, similar scenes have been repeated quite a few times. This might even be intentional – we get bored watching a few minutes of these scenes, but women do it their whole life, don’t they!

And thus coming back to the movie, of course women handle house-hold duties all their life, and triumphantly at that! So what if this woman couldn’t handle them? She was undeserving of the honor of being the daughter-in-law of this family anyway! This is what happens when girls are raised abroad and are given undue freedom! Good riddance we say! Our son will have a hundred alliances lined up; and he will be married before you know it.

A better bride will arrive, the son will praise her tea too, and leave his cup on the counter. The new wife will happily wash it. Or will she? To find out, be sure to watch this movie and obviously the great Indian kitchen saga!

Soothed by Thrills…

Have you ever felt thrilled and soothed at the same time? Well, I tried skydiving a few days ago. Although the experience merits a whole separate post, there is one thing I’d want to distinctively mention here.  The skydiving experience was by far the most thrilling AND the most soothing experience that I’ve ever had!

IMG_6787 - CopyWhy thrilling? That is easy to explain – the adrenaline rush that I felt as I stood at the open door of the plane,  ready to jump; the goosebumps the size of elephants I got when I saw people before me jump and hurl spirally downwards; the anticipation I  felt as I was about to jump off into the huge space of nothing; the jolt of excitement I felt the moment I jumped; and the whole idea of being 14,000 feet above the ground with a just parachute and an instructor –  thrilling to the core!

Why soothing? Well, for three reasons… One, after I jumped and hurled downwards and posed (tried and mostly failed) for photos mid-air, I felt the parachute actually open! That is an extremely soothing feeling, I think you all will agree! The other possibility is harrowing! 😛 Two, after the parachute jerked open, and I adjusted my body and my safety straps, we just floated slowly in the air. I got to experience about 10 minutes of serene silence and beautiful panoramicIMG_6818 - Copy views until I landed. Viewing the amazing landscape (we were in Florida!) while slowing descending felt surreal, and very soothing. And last but not the least, when I took off the all the jumping gear and sat down (yeah, sky-diving is exhausting!), the success, the feeling that I had finally done what I always dreamed of doing, made me feel so content, so happy! Not to mention, the relaxed air pressure after about an hour in air was heavenly. It was like a perfectly soothing balm on all my aches and worries! 🙂 And during all this, the thrill of the whole experience didn’t leave my mind for a single moment!

Truly, sometimes feeling thrilled and soothed are parts of the same experience. Like someone said,

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I open my window, drops of rain fall on my face

I am soothed by their touch,  and thrilled by the freshness…

When a  cold gush of wind blows into my hair,

I am thrilled by its suddenness and soothed by the cool air…

Like a girl in a ballroom,

Waiting long to be asked to dance…

Arrives the nicest guy and chooses her,

She is both thrilled and soothed by the chance!

Jumping in the pool on a hot day in summer…

Climbing a tall mountain and looking down from it,

Winning a prize you have been missing out on for long

Oh, how thrills and soothing together belong!

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Have you experienced anything like this? Do let me know! 🙂

The Sense of Smell, Part 1 – My Favorites

The smell of mud as it starts raining…ahhh…It enhances the wonderful pleasure that is called the rains.  I wish they could bottle it so that we could enjoy it year-long! This post about my favorite smells in the world couldn’t have begun with anything else. 🙂

The smells of new books and new raincoats…woww…they cannot be described in words and yet, are so irresistible. I used to love them as a child, and I love them as an adult!

Coffee, well not the typical Indian mix-it-in-milk type, but actual freshly brewed coffee! The bitter-sweet aroma gives you a feel of the rich brown color and the comforting warmth, even without tasting the coffee. (Which, by the way, works to my advantage, as I don’t particularly like the taste of coffee, I just love its smell!) Just holding a cup of aromatic hot coffee on a cold winter morning/afternoon is so soul-soothing, or should I say, olfactory nerve-soothing… 😛

The smell of sizzling Goan rava-fried prawns… that is one of the very few things that have almost made me give up my vegetarianism!

Creams, lotions and scrubs used during a facial… what wonderful fragrances they have as they are applied on your face one after another! Lavender, orange, Multani Mitti…Who cares about the chemicals , or even the actual facial (its ‘glow’ starts fading in a couple of days… ) but that hour with the wonderful smells refreshes me altogether.

The salty smell of the sea, the sweet smell of jasmines, the slightly pungent smell of acetone or spirit… they are smells, yet they are tastes, and I love them!

This article is the first in a series of Senses: The Gateway to Our Minds

Perspectives, perspectives……… (3)

Many people think that belonging to a middle class family is a disadvantage; because you can’t climb the ladders of success as fast you would have, if you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth………

I beg to differ….times change, riches can go away in a flash; so belonging to a middle class family is an advantage; atleast you will still feel at home when they do!! Provided you remain rooted; however high you leap!!!

 Different people, different perspectives!!!! 🙂

Perspectives, perspectives……… (2)

pic16963.jpg

Just remembered a conversation I had some time back with a friend. He had forwarded me a pic of  10000 galaxies, captured in 1 image using some high-fundoo telescope. And I replied saying it was an ammazzing pic. Not stopping at just that, I went on to add that when we see pictures like this, we start feeling how small we are as compared to this huge huge universe!! Dwelling further on it, I added, that at the same time, we should also feel really big, since we can see all these galaxies, so what if only in a photograph. After all, we invented the camera!!!

Ohhh…perspectives!!!!!!!

Angry? Don’t count till 10, count the prime numbers!!!

An age-old practise says, that when you are angry, do not react immediately, wait and count till 10….. as counting till 10 gives you the best thing to prevent anger….time! Once you overcome that one moment of anger without reaction, you realise that the situation did not really need any reaction.
Hmmm, quite a true saying,but does it really work? For one, its too old to keep implementing time and again. Two, its too short, takes approx. 5 seconds to complete, which is too short a time period for certain people(sometimes like me..hehe). Three, its boring, and all the more so if you increase it to 100 for getting more time. I in fact even tend to brush through these numbers so fast, that they are barely comprehensible.. Now, it’s not that I need to revise my numbers and so have to say them slowly, but then just the real purpose of counting vanishes!!!

Kavya Vishwanathan, the creator of Opal Mehta (the nerdish heroine of  the much-talked about book “How Opal Mehta got kissed, got wild, and got a life..”) gave me another alternative to this, and a nice one, too! When Opal Mehta got nervous or anxious in the book, she made her rant prime numbers, until she calmed down again…. Too nerdy you think?? Naah…. I gave it a try, and it really works.
One not so fine day( 🙂 ) , I was really irritated and wanted to burst out on somebody. Luckily, there was no one around, so I had to look out for some other way. I saw the copy of this book in front of me, and remembered Opal’s technique. “Why not give it a try”, I thought. So i went, 1, “No..No..Wat nonsense, 1 is not a prime number!!”, I laughed. The first ounce of anger dissolved. Then, 2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31, ………………………. 37, 41, 43, …………………………………..53, 59……………………………………………….., I went on scratching my brain. Just in a minute or so, I forgot why I was trying to recollect prime numbers, and got immersed into the task of rcollecting them.
The mercury levels of my hot hot brain dropped to normal, and I realised I was really enjoying this task of recollecting prime numbers. It was like a challenge to me, I wanted to see how much I can stretch myself….Yeah you do get bored after some while, but your purpose is very much served!! The flip-flop of your mind gets reset, and ready to dive into some other more important thoughts!!(Other than the reason you got angry for, not just other than prime numbers…heeheehee.. 😀 )

Looking at this whole situation, don’t you think that the depth our feelings is just a measure of how much importance we assign to it? Or how much of other important stuff is happening in our lives??

The see-saw of the human mind..and tendencies too…

The minds of human beings are so very fickle…. a sudden incident can make a sad mind happy, and another sudden one can make the opposite happen…. This incident happened today morning…I was travelling by my office transport, a little sad, a little lost… the bus was pretty slow because of the traffic. Suddenly, it came to a halt. “There’s a live crow on the road”, said the driver to his assistant. I was wondering whether he would carefully drive over the bird so that no harm could come to it; but no; something else happened! Another man on the road came forward, and asked the driver to wait. He went to the bird, picked it up, and got off the road. Now why would a driver stop a bus to protect a helpless bird? Why would that man, who obviously must have his work to do, come forward and take the bird safely off the road?? Aren’t these men of the same species of men who run their cars over innocent human beings, who leave alone dying accident victims on the road, while touching up their make-up that they so carefully put on to attend a party?? This does let in a thin ray of hope in my mind, that yes! Fellow human beings are still compassionate, caring, empathetic!! And it swings my mood to the brighter side! 🙂

India is a tolerant country!!!(Is that a matter of pride btw??)

I’ll start this one with a real  life incident that I happened to witness of late.

Our office transport vehicle stops outside each office, and collects passengers, and drops them home. Outside the Rajashri office bus stop, is a Rickshaw stand. For some obscure reason, the rickshaw drivers have a problem if our bus stops there. A few days back, they threatened our driver that they’d break the bus if he continued to stop there. The bus driver willing- or unweilling- ly obliged. For two days, the passengers getting in at that office complained that the bus stopped away from the proper bus stop. They even screamed at the driver for doing so. The driver told them the situation. On the third day, it was assumed, plus announced that the bus stop has changed.

For ages, and generations long, while stating the positives of India, we have been saying that India is a tolerant country; that it embraces everyone with its arms wide open….

Come to think of it,  is tolerance a virtue? or is it a limitation? If we adjust ourselves to something that should’t be so in ideal cases, is it called tolerance? Or is it called cowardice???

We chant ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ and welcome thousands of immigrants from Bangladesh to our country, and burden our already taxed system…

We allow politicians, and other big shots to rule our countries, states and lives….

We accept our loss, and do nothing about the different forms of corruption eating away into us…..

And then we give it a ‘grandiose’ name like tolerance! Till when is such a mockery of ourselves going to continue????

Is money equivalent to Happiness?

       good-one.JPG

So true is the above sentence, isn’t it!! just happened to see the above picture stored somewhere on my PC, and it started a chain of memories in my mind. Just jotting down a few of them here.

When i was in my 3rd year of Computer Engineering, We had a debate in my Principles Of Economics and Management class, titled “Money motivates!” We were supposed to refute the argument, so my main argument then was…

“Why does one want money, to buy luxury, to feel the prestige, and such things, all basincally leading to what? Getting Happy!!! So the main motive in one’s life is not getting rich or earning money, just for the sake of it…If he could get happy by some other means, he would very well do it, and not care a damn about money!!”

“Point taken”, agreed many……

Well this also reminds me of another story that i’d read long ago in Marathi. Will attempt to translate it here. Its called, “Happy Man’s Shirt”

Once upon a time, there was a man who wanted to know the secret of happiness. He was ready to go to any lengths to do it. So he prayed, and meditated, and fasted, for a long long time. Finally, a holy sage appeared before him. “What do you want son?”, he asked. “I want to know the secret of happiness..”, the man replied. “Fine, I’ll tell it to you”, the sage replied,” but before that u will have to bring me a shirt worn by a man who is truly happy..” “Ok sir, that i shall do immediately….how long will that take!!” , exclaimed the man.

And lo, he started off…He went to his friends whom he thought were happy, and asked them if they were.. They replied in negative. He went to the rich and famous, but no luck there too….As a sharp contrast, he tried the poorer ones, but to no avail. He went to places, travelled to many countries and cities and towns, but he did not find anyone who admitted that he was totally happy!

Tired and frustrated, he was walking through a forest. A river flowed nearby. On the banks of the river sat a man, humming the most cheerful tune he’d ever heard. He played with the waves in water, he called out to the birds that flew past…Overall, he seemed very content, very HAPPY. Skeptical, yet somewhat homeful, the man went to him, an asked him whether he was happy. “Ofcourse, I am very very happy. I have no complaints about life.” The man was overjoyed, and just as he was about to ask the happy man for his shirt, he realized, that the man wasn’t wearing a shirt at all!!! He asked the man about it, and he replied,”Shirt!! well I never wear one at all!!” 🙂

Nice story na!! And worth giving a thought, too!

Well these are just a few thoughts that occured to me when i saw that pic…More about this, later!! 🙂

What’s in a signature????

I have always been a big fan of quotable quotes…and have liked collecting them since childhood… It may sound like I am bragging; but yeah, many people have told me that they look forward to reading the signature in my mails, that I change everyday! 🙂 Now for all those people who have encouraged me to use nice and new signatures everyday, here I present a collection that I have used in my mails….

  • Don’t attempt to run from the past, it is always behind you.!”
  • “A cigarette is a pinch of tobacco, wrapped in paper, With fire at one end and a  fool at the other!!.”:-))
  • “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”
  • “A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost……”:-)))
  • “The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to an idealized past.”
  • “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot!” 🙂
  • “Those who drink to drown their sorrows should be taught that sorrows know how to swim.”
  • “A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it.”
  • “Democracy is three wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper!!” :-))
  • “Vacation is what you take when you can’t take what you’ve been taking any longer.” :-)))
  • “Examine what is said, not who speaks!”
  • “Optimists and Pessimists equally contribute to our society….Optimists make the airplanes, pessimists make the parachutes!”
  • “Preach the Gospel at all times … if necessary, use words!” 🙂
  • Karl Marx’s Mother: “If Karl, instead of writing a lot about capital, had made a lot of it … it would have been much better.” :-)))
  • “How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise MY hand!” :-))))))
  • “In communism, man oppresses man. In capitalism, it’s the other way around. ” :-)))
  • “Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.”
  • “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”
  • “What the caterpillar calls the end, the butterfly calls the beginning.”
  • “If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we’d be so simple that we wouldn’t  be able to understand!!” :-)))
  • “If we’d confess our sins to one another, we’d all laugh at the lack of originality.” 🙂
  • “Learn from the mistakes of others…You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself!!”:-)))
  • “Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
  • “Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats!!!” :-))
  • People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
  • “If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy the civilization!!”:-))
  • “Scientists announced today that they have discovered a cure for apathy. However, they claim no one has shown the slightest interest in it.!!!”:-)))
  • “The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it!!”
  • “Always fall in with what you’re asked to accept. Fall in with it and turn it your way!”
  • “Did Noah include termites on the ark?”:-)))
  • “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”
  • “We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.”
  • “Software and Temples are much the same – first we build them, then we pray!!”
  • “Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.”
  • “Deciding not to choose is still making a choice!” :-))
  • “The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn.”
  • “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go!!” :-)))
  • “In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed!!”
  • “Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.” :-))
  • “Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely!”
  • “God is a comic, playing to an audience that’s afraid to laugh!”
  • “One good thing about being wrong is the joy it brings to others!!” :-))
  • “Don’t take life so seriously; u anyways won’t get out of it alive!!”
  • “I used to sell furniture for a living. The trouble was, it was my own!!!” :-)))))))))
  • “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
  • “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there!!!” :))
  • “Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.”
  • “Can atheists get insurance for acts of God???.” :-)))
  • “The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.” :-)))
  • “There are only 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.” :-)))
  • “No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.”
  • “After all is said and done, more is said than is done!” :-))
  • “I have learned that the Lord didn’t do it all in one day. What makes me think I can?” :-))
  • “That which you cannot give away, you don’t possess; it possesses you.”
  • “Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.”
  • “Wise people talk because they have something to say…. Fools talk because they have to say something!!” 🙂
  • “I lost 40 Pounds!!! Unfortunately, I was in England at that time!!!!”  🙂
  • Hope is the ability to hear the music of future….Faith is the courage to dance to it today!!
  • “If you can’t see the bright side of life, polish the dull side.”
  • “Confidence doesn’t come from having all the answers, It comes from being open to all the questions!!”
  • “There are two parts in my brain: left & right; right is having nothing left in it, and left is having nothing right in it!!!” :-))))))
  • “When u r falling off a cliff, u might as well try to fly coz u have nothing to lose!!”
  • “As I said before, I DONT REPEAT!!” :-))))))
  • “Doing nothing is very hard to do…you never know when you’re finished……. ! ” :-)))
  • “God give me patience and Give it to me NOW!!!! ” :-)))
  • “Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.”
  • “Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.”
  • “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” 🙂
  • “If you want a symbolic gesture, don’t burn the flag; wash it!”
  • “When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those who do.” -William Blake
  • “One thing you can’t recycle is wasted time.”
  • “The world is a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.”
  • “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”
  • “When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane!”
  • “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat !”
  • “One day, your life will flash in front of your eyes… Make it worth watching.”
  • “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
  • ” Just when I got all the answers of life, they changed the question!!” :-))
  • ” The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change, the Realist adjusts the sails!”
  • “Is it true that cannibals don’t eat clowns because they taste funny?”  LOL!!! :-))
  • “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm”
  • “Your problem is never really your problem; your reaction to your problem is your problem.”
  • “Never run from your fears. Because when they catch up to you you’re too tired to fight.”
  • “I’m tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That’s deep enough. What do you want, an adorable kidney????” :-)))))))
  • “It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don’t say it!!” :-)))
  • “A politician is the one who shakes your hand before elections and your confidence after.” :-))))
  • “2B or not 2B? I think it’s a grade of pencil.” :-))))
  • “After hearing two eyewitness accounts of the same accident, you begin to wonder about history.” :-))
  • “A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.” :-)))
  • “There’s a book that tells you where you should go on your vacation. It’s called your cheque book!!!!!” :-))))
  • “Life’s like a foreign language…everyone mispronounces it!!!” :-))
  • “Be yourself. Who else is better qualified?” :-))
  • “There are 3 sides to any argument….my side, your side, and the right side!!!” 🙂
  • “”Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.” ”  🙂
  • “Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important!” :-))
  • “Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.” :-))
  • ” Living on Earth may be expensive…but it sure includes an annual free trip around the Sun….!!!!” :-))
  • ” Most people want to serve God, but only in an advisory capacity.!!!” :-))
  • “If you are not living on the edge, you’re probably occupying too much space!!!”
  • “The problem with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it !!!” 🙂
  • “Expecting life to treat you well because you are a good person, is like expecting an angry bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian” 🙂
  • “Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on” 🙂
  • “Remember there is a Space between Stimulus and Response, and our Growth lies on how we utilize that Space”
  • ” It’s not true that nice guys finish last. Nice guys are winners before the game even starts. !” :-))
  • “The pen is mightier than the sword, and considerably easier to write with.” :-))
  • “You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
  • “Don’t cry because the Sun is setting at the end of the day…….. For the tears will not let you enjoy the beauty of the stars!!!!”
  • “Never be afraid to do something new……. Remember, amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic!!!!”
  • “When one door closes, another one opens. But often we look so long at the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us.”
  • ” A hen is only an egg’s way of making other eggs…. “
  • “A dead end is just a good place to turn around!!!!”
  • “If you are lucky enough to reach the top, its your responsibility to send the elevator back down!!”