A major slice of my life was spent in a factory colony. The person with the highest resident post on campus was that of the Joint Vice President, held by an obese gentleman named Bordia. He was know to indulge in the most unhealthy of habits and hence the couple of extra kilos.
At a certain time of the year, anually, he took a ritualistic fast. It was supposed to be a religious affair, to wash him of all his past sins, which I suppose he really did need.
During the two week period he only had water and lemon juice to drink and a diet of dried grapes, almonds, walnuts, pistachio, cashews and exotic fruits and nuts which would surely make him a bit more ship shape.
We always knew when his fasting began, because precisely at that moment, the factory provision stores were in short supply of all the available fruits and nuts they kept. The big man is going on a fast was the rumor. I guess that period of sacrifice did him a lot of good and extended his blessed life for a few more years.
Once the fast was over he went back to his usual ways until the period of cleansing the next year!
Followers
Categories
- airport (1)
- arab lands (2)
- attempted hijack? (1)
- automation (1)
- autos (3)
- books (6)
- bribe (1)
- call centers (2)
- Chetan Bhagat (3)
- college days (6)
- conductors (2)
- corruption (2)
- drivers (4)
- drunks (2)
- enterprising salesman (2)
- environment (2)
- expatriate (3)
- Extraordinary day (3)
- fisherman (1)
- fog (1)
- food for thought (8)
- fun (2)
- Germany (2)
- good deed (1)
- goons (3)
- government offices (4)
- hobby (4)
- home (2)
- humor (4)
- in the news (8)
- inhumane (2)
- inner beauty (1)
- Inspiration (1)
- kejrival (1)
- Kochi (1)
- language (4)
- malayalee (4)
- nostalgia (10)
- On poetry (2)
- perseverance (1)
- police (6)
- politicians (1)
- popular malayalee joke (3)
- railway station (1)
- religion (2)
- reminiscences (2)
- road travel (4)
- satire (11)
- scientific studies (3)
- Shashi Tharoor (1)
- smoking (3)
- sycophancy (3)
- thief (1)
- train journey (1)
- work (1)
Blog Archive
-
►
2015
(4)
- ► October 2015 (1)
- ► March 2015 (2)
- ► January 2015 (1)
-
►
2014
(3)
- ► August 2014 (1)
- ► April 2014 (1)
-
►
2013
(2)
- ► September 2013 (1)
- ► August 2013 (1)
-
►
2012
(8)
- ► December 2012 (1)
- ► November 2012 (1)
- ► April 2012 (1)
- ► March 2012 (1)
- ► February 2012 (1)
- ► January 2012 (1)
-
►
2011
(8)
- ► December 2011 (1)
- ► August 2011 (1)
- ► April 2011 (1)
- ► March 2011 (2)
- ► February 2011 (1)
- ► January 2011 (1)
-
►
2010
(14)
- ► December 2010 (2)
- ► October 2010 (1)
- ► September 2010 (3)
- ► August 2010 (2)
- ► March 2010 (2)
- ► January 2010 (1)
-
▼
2009
(19)
- ► October 2009 (1)
- ► September 2009 (2)
- ► August 2009 (3)
- ► April 2009 (1)
- ► March 2009 (2)
- ► February 2009 (1)
- ► January 2009 (3)
-
►
2008
(16)
- ► December 2008 (1)
- ► November 2008 (2)
- ► October 2008 (2)
- ► September 2008 (1)
- ► March 2008 (5)
My Blog List
-
5 months ago
-
5 years ago
-
7 years ago
-
10 years ago
-
11 years ago
-
13 years ago
-
14 years ago
-
My Travel Blogs
About Me
![My Photo](http://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjMAvs2LsjIL7xpV7Hg25MDkNLQFSMCQZRE-FrnyqnrxTRcckqI96JmQHXQZlhne4qevZmCEDo19jAcONiAuP1Z4y2pN9-_EX978mkrhvA5_EedL3yO1WGlbwkmOGfqw/s125/cuppajavamatttiz.gif)
- CuppajavaMattiz
- Matty Jacob - Avid blogger with interests in technology, travelling and writing.
Popular Posts
- A Black Christmas For A Black
- The Mallu Aunty and the Hyderabad Dudes
- Party Yuh Hi Chaalegi!
- MacLeodGanj And The Monk of the Himalayas..
- Of Love, Greed And Revenge - A True Life Story
- The Guide
- Socialist, Secular and Democratic Any More?
- Elegy on the death of a Cow
- Mission Kashmir - Part I
- Nehru's Tryst With Destiny
Total Pageviews
Labels: food for thought
Just a little time back a small news item made its way into local magazines. Reader's Digest was filing for bankruptcy and was on the verge of closure. It just made my eyebrows a little but I was not really surprised. Read it here.
Reader's Digest was my favorite reading material for a long time. It always motivated you, inspired you and made you think. It was not exactly a self help mag but what could rather be called a reality guide. It didn't ask you to do things to do better in life or even live a happier life, but told inspiring stories of those people who fought impossible odds and achieved all these.
I was so fanatic about RD that when I was in college I collected all past issues of RD dating back to the 60's from roadside book stalls selling second hand books. And I didn't regret spending my meagre pocket money on that.
Once I got hold of a copy there was no putting it down till I was through. The stories of other people in far away lands seemed to happen right in front of my eyes, so mesmerising the language was.
There were stories of people who had insufferable physical disabilities and how they beat the odds, ordinary people who achieved great feats or performed amazing tasks with just hidden inner strength as armor. There was entertainment too, with lots of word games, quizzes and puzzles and the inevitable jokes sections.
If anyone of you is/was a fan of RD I need not describe more.
Then I sensed the quality of RD declining. It was as if there was nothing more for them to write, or as if all the good writers had left RD lock, stock and barrel. The only stories they ever told was of people lost in some blizzard or some person fighting some animal in the Arctic wilderness, or surviving a dangerous avalanche or snowstorm. These stories I could not relate to, but RD kept repeating the theme again and again till you got dead bored.
I have never seen snow in my life and I could not visualize what agonies some person was undergoing in sub zero temperature. But what piqued me was that RD started having little variety from then on.
Late into my twenties I stopped reading RD completedy save for a copy or two a year, and even then I felt I was not missing anything much. RD had already dug its own grave.
And finally came the story of the collapse of the great RD.
Labels: books