Love can happen a lot of times.... after all we all crave for love :).

A review for Ravinder Singh's second novel:Can love happen twice.

Title: Can Love Happen Twice?                                                                                                                           
Author: Ravinder Singh
Publisher: Penguin
Genre:  Love story
Price-125(Flipkart gives you at 88)
Madhu's stars: 3/5

Ravinder Singh, author of Indian bestseller, "I too had a love story-True story" , is back with  fiction this time. His previous novel was one painful read dedicated to his girl friend Khushi, who died a week before their marraige. His next book's title is apt for the story he has carried, and will be a interesting read for people who have had heart breaks.

The plot is simple but Ravin likes to add a sad flavor to his books. Ravin is still deeply immersed in Khushi's memories when he meets someone else.So will they fall in love? Will they get married? Will Ravin not feel guilty of loving someone else., when he loves khushi so much?Well read the book if you want the answers, but one secret which i can reveal is it has different sort of a setup. The whole book is actually a narration on the Radio by Ravin's friends on Valentines day.At a lot of places the story seems true and a lot of places it seems made up.

Personally i do not believe that love can keep happening a lot of times and also love can happen just once in life. Seems contradictory right? What i mean here is  if the other person has not cheated on you or has not died then it is difficult to move on. Since then its nobody's fault.But on the contrary if the other person does not give a damn about you then there was no love ever.   And one just has to move on and find true love. But we all crave for a little care, compassion and like to be made feel special and we are tend to fall again.

So if you think its time to move on, pick up this book, it might make you cry at the end or you might just toss it up in the air and say "what a waste of time", "How bollywoodish", but i think books of fiction are meant to be like films, they are meant to hold for those 200 pages and make you feel good. All in all, the book is very okay and the proof reading is bad. Ravin could have made it much better. The first novel was way better. This one seems too fake at times.

Image Courtesy:Google

Best and Safe Deal:

It was wise to read Wise and Otherwise :)

Title: Wise And Otherwise: A Salute To Life                                                                                          
Author: Sudha Murthy
Publisher: Penguin
Genre:  Life stories
Price-199
Madhu's stars: 3.5/5

Wise and Otherwise was a book which i picked up looking at its title and then when i came to know it's by Sudha Murthy, my interest in it deepened. Though i have not met her in personal life, when i read about her work and i developed a sort of respect towards her.

Wise and Otherwise is a collection of 50 really short stories in which Sudha Mam has brought about the various traits,colors of different individuals, has put on the table harsh and shocking realities of life.  Her language is very simple and the stories are about two-three pages at the max. Her stories are mostly her experiences with people she met during her social work, or professionally or may just her friends.

They are about how people just tried to take undue advantage of her dedication towards social work and expected her to donate money to come out of their silly problems, so much that in one of the incidents a lady threatens to end her life fs Sudha does not help. Also there are a couple of heart touching tales where a father is left behind by his own son in an old age home, and the son then disguises himself to have found the old man on the road, and he also shamelessly turns up to get some money when his father dies. Such stories bring tears to your eyes.

The best part of these stories are they all have something to teach us. So it's up to the reader if he really wants to takeaway a few of them.

About the Author: Sudha Murty   is an Indian social worker and author. Mrs. Murthy began her professional career as a computer scientist and engineer, currently she is the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation and member of public healthcare initiative of the Gates Foundation.^[1][2] In addition, she has established several orphanages, participated in rural development efforts, and supported the movement to provide all government schools in Karnataka with state-of-the-art computer and library facilities.^[3][4] Mrs. Murthy also teaches computer science and composes fiction

Kudos Sudha Mam.

Image Courtesy:Google.

About the Author:Wikipedia

Best and Safest Deal for the book:

Online shopping:A new horizon to window shopping

Flipkart,Ebay,Myntra.com,Fashion and You, Zoomin, India Plaza and innumerable number of sites are today used a lot of people to order items online. I was unaware of all of this and my dad always told that its not safe to buy anything online and that is what i firmly believed till i saw people ordering stuff online and getting pretty good things at comparatively very less prices. Being a girl i automatically got attracted to a lot of online websites for clothes.

 Everyday morning its a habit for me and a lot of my female colleagues to open these websites and keep looking through all the products on sale, right from kurtis, sandals to clutches and we have the site open so that the moment we feel bored of work and we can do a little window shopping and get refreshed. We end up spending around 2 hrs daily on this, though we don't buy much firstly because we find things we like overpriced and secondly because we are not sure if the kurta we buy will if fit it, whether suit us.


I have ordered a couple of things online and they have turned out to be good. And i trusted these sites because my colleagues had also bought stuff from there, first one was pens with your name engraved on it, (http://www.indiaplaza.com/luxor-aura-metallic-pen-with-free-engraving-stationery-stat1910201103lux01-10.htm) and photo book with your pictures imprinted on them in a nice and colourful manner (http://www.zoomin.com/). I would personally recommend the second site for photo books because not only is the product good but the product is shipped within 2 or max3 days.

One of my friends Rachana, ordered a Jhola bag which looked at its best on the site but when she finally got it after a wait of a long month, it was nothing bigger than a palm and was dull in shade and absolutely nothing close to the one on the site. Today i had a tough time with the Fashion and you site, i tried ordering a kurti for my mom for her birthday. So what happened was, i added the kurti to my cart and tries to check out, it asked me for the billing and shipping address, i gave it for 10 times and it still it would come back to the same page again, and at the end the sale got closed and i could not buy the kurta, and since i really liked it i thought il contact the customer care for help, but ended up finding some very shocking feedback about the site, i would not like to comment much on this but give you link a few links, (http://www.consumercourt.in/other-product-services/41378-fashion-you-website-fraud.html) ,(http://www.weekendramblings.com/2011/04/how-authentic-is-fashion-and-you-as.html) for the benefits of my dear friends who are big online shoppers (Swathi, Rachana, Divya, Ramya).


All in all i think trust these sites when you are sure of the product and don't end up spending more than a limit, because money once gone will not come back, do not let these them lure you.

Be a smart shopper. 

Lets help the "not so lucky ones" Please

I have always loved to teach, be it my classmates or friends or my siblings. But very recently, did i realize the true happiness one gets out of teaching, when i went to a government school called "Sarvodhaya vidyalaya" in in malkajgiri in Hyderabad. My companies runs a program to support many social causes,under which employees go to schools, orphanages to teach little children for a few hours in the weekends.  It is not mandatory and is done by some of them out of their interest. I jumped to take part in the program when i got to know about it. It was one of my best choices in life. I went to the school and was assigned the 5th standard. I was a bit scared initially thinking such noisy children would trouble me so much, but things turned out just the other way. I stepped into the class and they all(about 50) got up and greeted me with their sweet voices telling "gooooddddd mooorninnnggg madammmmmmm" hhehehhe, yes this is what they told me. I got very happy and i was all charged up. They asked me which subject text book i want and which subject i wanted to teach but this was not my way.  I asked each one of them one by one to step forward and introduce themselves to the class and me. I taught them the right way and gestures of giving ones introduction so that they would be able to put it use someday in their lives. That day ended that way and i decided from next time il be prepared and impart them all the required skills. So the next time i taught BODMAS, next time it was application of physics in real life, next was drawing and painting.. and it went on. I have ended up being one of their favorite teachers, and i am really proud of this position.

It gives a lot of pleasure, and I am sure a lot of reading this blog of mine many of you are relating to me. So buck up and reach out to the nearest government school and give happiness and get true love in return. After all they are all like you and me, but just a little less lucky.

Kuch toh log kahenge, logo ka kaam hai kehna phir bhi i don care

Beautiful lines from the song of the movie Amar Prem, how true were these lines. How many of us live our life just like the way we want to, and don't care about what the world thinks and are indifferent to the what the society says. In this blog i want to put across when should one care and also about the don care attitude of people.

It all started bothering me when my friend was scared to go to hangout nearby his house with me, lest his relatives would spot him and cook stories. Please stop this crap and give me a break. Going out to eat something is not wrong, then he told me that not everyone would think how you are thinking, that got me thinking if we really change our world the way the world likes it.

Right from when our day starts till when our day ends there are so many situations when we think "if i do this what will people say" at least for me this happens many a times, my actions are triggered and catalyzed,most of the times  by the comments and thoughts of what people around me would say.

Lets say you am wearing a bright top and someone just tells you, your t shirt color hurts my eye, even if that guy is not from your near and dear, i can bet that you would avoid wearing that top and even if you do, you will always be cautious. Some people might argue telling that i don give a damn of what some X thinks of my clothes, i like it il wear it, but do we really stop caring?

For another instance, you are meeting your friend, going for movie, lunch and shopping, how many of us confidently tell at home that "Mom i am going with him to see the movie and will finish my birthday shopping also, (if you are a she), he would pick and drop me, so you don worry", how many of our mothers will say a happy yes to it? Not many, we all agree we are in the 21 st century but still we all care what the society will say, what your neighbor would presume if you are on a bike with a guy who is genuinely just a friend?

And i would like to quote one final example of food. Imagine two situations, one you are eating in a hotel or a buffet with your family and another is a official lunch, how different will your conduct be in the both the situations. Right from how you sit , how you eat to even what you eat is sometimes decided by the people around.

Sometimes i wonder that people like me, who are still not out of their shell face dilemmas in the above situations but no matter how much one roams with the I don care board on his face, people care of what others say.

Personally i feel till the time one is doing right one should not be scared, one should really not care. Going out with a friend is perfectly fine till the time both of you know of each other's intentions, wearing any kind of clothes is cool and in vogue till you are comfortable and you know how to carry it, eating anything is fine even at official lunches because if you don eat well, you will sit hungry :). The thing is no matter how cautious and conscious we are about we do, log toh baat banaenge kyunki logo ka kaam hai kehna ;)

Not really revolutionary was Revolution 2020

"Love.Corruption.Ambition" are the words under the title of chetan Bhagat's most recent book "Revolution 2020". These 3 words were properly justified by him in his book but the title was not apt or may be i could not get the purpose of naming the book so.

It was 9th november when one of my favourite authors the man himself Chetan Bhagat was in the city of pearls, my city Hyderabad. I was thoroughly impressed by his first book "five point someone" and also read the rest of them. So i made it a point to go to Landmark book store after office to see him. After reading his book i just had one question for "why did you name your book so", he said both the male characters wanted to create a revolution.

The book is mainly a love triangle as the cover shows. The plot majorly revolves around a young 21st century girl Aarti and her best friend Gopal and her boy friend Raghav. As every novel of chetan, the girl is very pretty and undoubtedly both the guys have a thing for her. While Gopal does not make a career but still opens up a college through a corrupt minister, Raghav gives up a blue collar job after IIT and becomes a journalist to fight a war against corruption . Itna controversy kyun hai. Aarti initially does not have any feelings for Gopal and refutes his proposal many a times, since she liked Raghav, may be because he was then going to IIT but later when Gopal has a college and Raghav is a struggling journalist, Raghav ignores her and she falls for Gopal. Aarti appears to be a mean, snobbish girl who needs money to live her life and not love, but common lets be practical, like every girl she wanted someone who would give her a secured future and also love, to be happy. So when Raghav ignores her amidst his battle against injustice, she falls for someone whom she knows very well. Quite natural. Meanwhile the corrupt principal Gopal, and the fighter against corruption, Raghav develop a rift between them. After a lot of fights Gopal has a self realisation and feels that Aarti deserves someone better than him and not someone as cheap and corrupt as him, so he sacrifices his love to Raghav.

Though Raghav is the clean gentleman of the story, Gopal the bad guy emerges as the true hero of the story like all stories of Chetan Bhagat. All in all its just in lines of all other books of chetan,very predictable but yet holds you till the end. If you are a fan of love stories and bollywood movies you will like the book, but literary value is not much in the book. I personally like his books but yet think he could have given a better name to the novel. Read it on train trip or when you want to add a pinch of romance to life.

Fortune, opportunity and making magic in 3 hrs of exam gets you thru!!!

I am tired, frustrated and irritated with the fact that i secured very less in all the MBA exams i attempted. I would have felt a little better if my mind did not keep telling me that you could have done well, you worked harder than some who scored better. And these are verified facts. I started preparing for CAT from june and my exam was on Nov4th. Almost 5 months and outcome 73.19%

:( :(. And i prepared 20 days for SNAP whose aptitude is a cake walk as compared to CAT. But my bad luck was following me like my shadow, the logic section in SNAP which is supposedly the scoring part was tough and GK which is not my cup of tea at all had gone above my head. Got a score of 73 in snap... Ultimately screwed. Now this is my story.

Lets look at the study routines of my pals who scored whopping percentages ranging from 96 to 99. Let us assume my friends are A,B and C. A is gifted student and is amazing at aptitude, he worked, i would not say hard but yes there was dedication in his preparation. He scored 99.83, mind blowing is it not but still upset since his quant scores are not enough for a call from A or C. But yes rest of IIMs he has an assured call and also a seat, he is impressible. Now coming to student B who got 93%, he did not work hard at all. He suggested that 3 days are enough to crack CAT. But still 93 and 73 as compared to 3 days and 5 months and student C claimed to have given 2 full days of preparation and he got 96%.

PS: All of them attended parties, went clubbing, matches but still did much better than me.

Now the biggest question for me is where i am lacking in my preparation, do i have the potential or i don't have. Should i prepare again or leave it for a lifetime?

I might console myself for a few days by telling that i did my best but i had a bad luck but i know truth is my strategy, planning and preparation.. all backfired.