Finally – after years of reading Newspaper with a cup of filter coffee in the morning – I am breaking free from the thing called Newspaper.

The disillusionment started with Indian Express becoming more of yet another run of the mill Masala Newspaper. When the world was burning with Wikileaks – IE choose to look the other way.

“Tata Sumo turns turtle on NH-4”
“Mugging on ORR, techie loses mobile,laptop”
“Old Couple Murdered in Jayanagar”

I started feeling that it is a random generator which picks these news. Of course there were these moments of brilliance – when the editorial will go hammer and tongs against the establishment. But it was becoming less and less.

Then Nadia Tapes leak happened. With it Vir Singhvi – whose columns I used to love – was chucked out. Swapan DasGupta left IE long back to write for ToI. Gurumurthy and TJS George’s columns were coming very sporadically..they were getting old. IE could never find anyone to sit at their desks.

Finally I gave up – and switched to ToI for 2 months.

“Should item numbers be done by popular actress” – center page editorial debate.
“Strawberries good for health” – with an accompanying photo revealing all other details.
“Property News” – actually Ads – you can’t guess which is which anyway

And always the opening page – being sold to companies with deep pockets. It is like a coupon book the whole newspaper. There was no sincere intelligent editorial. Swapan Dasgupta’s editorials didn’t have the punch it used to have -felt very much tamed. The leaks, scams, Anna Hazare – all had a passing reference – something that should have been the front page news.

Finally with my disillusionment complete – I gave up.

Now I have filter coffee with a book in hand. It is so much peaceful.

And for the world and scams – I get them on my twitter & facebook feeds – can make my own judgments – I am grown up now.

I picked this book because the cover had Julia Roberts saying – “this is an amazing book and I gifted this to all my girl friends”. Before you start passing a judgement let me just say – I agree. It is not a smart way to pick a book.

But – I did and ended up reading this one. and I recommend it wholeheartedly to both boys and girls.

This lady, Liz 34 years of age, goes through a pretty messy divorce. She is an accomplished writer/journalist living in New York – like one of the New York movies ( wait they did make a movie out of this – with Julia Roberts ). Has an affair that does not go well either.

So she takes off on a vacation for a year – split in 3 parts equally – Italy, India and Indonesia ( Bali actually ).

In Italy she joins a class to learn Italian. And she hunts for great food. I was hungry all the time while I was reading this part of the book – every page will have some dish or the other that she relished to the core. That is all she does – day in and day out and puts a lot of weight.

Then she moves to India – to an ashram near Mumbai. She was to spend 6 weeks and then go around India – but she ends up staying the full 4 months and never leaves this place. There are some hilarious bits here – how she does meditation and how her mind keeps getting in the way. If you are a beginner in meditation you should read this part – you are not alone.

Then something magical happens during her stay. She experiences ecstasy – the divine one. Till date I have only heard of this – but she explains it beautifully. She gets over her messy divorce finally – and is at peace with herself.

Then the story moves to Bali – where she had a deal with a renowned medicine man who had said during one of her earlier visits ( she is a journalist – and keeps travelling to interesting places – and during one of her trips she had met him ) – she can come and live with him to understand things better.

However the medicine man does not remember – but accepts her and she learns interesting things. She finds a place to stay and from here it is like a fiction. She is to find the balance in life in Bali – between the pleasure ( Italy ) and divine stuff ( India ). She gets lot of insights into the medicine man – he has mastered various types of meditation and can visit Heaven and Hell apparently.

It was interesting reading on Bali culture – Bali babies never touch the ground for the first 6 months of their life – as they are still Gods. After 6 months there is a ceremony to convert them to humans. Also they have only 4  names – The firstborn is “Wokalayan” (or Yan, for short), second is “Made,” third is “Nyoman” or Komang (Man or Mang for short), and fourth is “Ketut” (often elided to Tut). [got this from wikipedia] The fifth kid on wards the names are repeated. So if someone tells their name you can easily place them where they are in the family.

The books ends well – she falls in love with a 55 year old divorced Brazilian and ends on a high note. I read that her second part of this book ( which I am not going to read – as 2nd part always suck ) is about this second phase of her relationship.


So that is it – got a nice mix of spiritual and meta physical, 2 interesting cultures ( Italy and Bali ) – all written very fluently and in an entertaining manner – good TP.


and for me – I have moved on to metaphysical stuff – I am conversing with God now for the third time – perhaps will write about it next.