Dearth of Travel Literature - Real or Fictitious?

I have recently become a travel literature junkie (I am not sure if there is any word that describes this mania!)...I have realized if I cannot get time and money for a decent holiday, I can at least read about the various places all over our planet...While most reading seems to bore the hell out of me now-a-days (really strange!) but I voraciously chew down any and every piece of travel information that I seem to get off the internet...http://www.nytimes.com is an excellent source for this..But more on the internet feed later...
With this in mind, I have been browsing the Travel Sections across bookshops...While I admit my sample size is not significant enough but my observations may be bang on...
I get the sense that in India (again extrapolating from a few big bookshops in Gurgaon & Delhi!) travel literature primarily comprises of Lonely Planet, Rough Guide spanning the world...If however your interest tends more towards the story telling element a la travelogues, then what you will have are books on spiritual awakening of various foreign (and some Indian!) writers while traveling through India...Again mis-perspective!
If I actually want a good read on any other geography (and even about India!) I feel myself starved of just entertainment...Yes there is Bill Bryson to throw light in his unique way but sigh again that is the end...
While I do not confess to reading each and every book that is available, but for some reason what I see off the internet I can never seem to find it on physical bookshelves...

What did I learn from Happy Gilmore?

I watched Happy Gilmore on TV over the weekend...although I have seen the movie many times before and found it to be one of the staple formats which comes from Adam Sandler...the poor underachiever who realizes what he is made of by the end of the movie...normally accompanied by same actors in most of his movies...Honestly the only movie that I think is worth a repeat watch is 'The Wedding Singer' and '50 First Dates'. The remaining can be clearly relegated to days when there is absolutely nothing else to watch...

However coming back to 'Happy Gilmore', I realized the movie did have something interesting to say and it is summed up in one simple question - "What is your Happy Place?"

I thought to myself - how simple an answer it will be...and that's where it started to get complicated...My happy place or rather places became a jumble of lush, green fields with a quiet, peaceful river/lake flowing by, people that I wished I could meet, books that I so had my eye on but such a lack of time...Phew! it did get tiresome after a while...

And that is when it struck me - do we know what is our Happy Place?

Start of the Month

Have you seen the latest Cadbury's ad - it's quick and snappy under 30 sec commercial...no actors...just a voiceover reminding you that it is the start of the month and time for some celebration (in this case by eating Cadbury's chocolates :))? If you haven't I have a sense that you will not have to wait till next 1st to see it...

The USP of this ad is not about the actors, or the visual story that Cadbury excels in, it is in its ability to capture a universal principle in such a simple manner (and this commercial has been running since 12AM last night - I know I was up then :)) - as soon as we see our salary in the bank account (the messages from the bank regarding your bank balance are never more welcome!), it is literally a time to celebrate...and if the month starts around the weekend then it is an absolute party...

Janice...Janice...

Hey just a question out for the cyberspace - do you guys have Janice(s) (a la Friends!) at your workplace, in your personal spaces? Would love to hear of them...and swap notes too (yes as guessed I have a Janice at my workplace too!!!)

I must say though for every Janice in this world, it is very quick to put on a Joey expression...

What should we have for dinner?

After a long (more often), hard (sometimes) day at work, all one wants is to reach home and find a hot, delicious meal ready :)
Only if wishes were horses and all that...so the perennial question always remains - "What should we have for dinner"- this more often than not elicits instant groans or silence (depending on what kind of a reaction you tend towards!)....and before one starts envisioning a 4 course meal, even a simple (yet interesting meal) option is so difficult to find and more importantly to think of...

Haven't we worked our brains enough for the day in the office for us to come back and work them again for a menu...
Searching the Internet will always somehow yield results which will require items you don't have just at that moment...can technology not help with a simple invention which would automatically scan what items are available at home and prepare a menu? The rest one can take care of...

Well till some brilliant scientist figures that one out, tell me what are you having for dinner, I might be able to pick up some clues from there...if not for today then some other day...

Movies this Weekend

Saw 'The Hangover' and 'New York' this weekend (with the Multiplex strike over, it is time to heave a sigh of relief!).

'The Hangover' as my FB status also said is a MUST WATCH...the Tiger in the Bathroom is simply hillarious...it is so well put together, you find youself laughing all the way. Of course with the 'A' Certificate, you did not see the movie cut and 'Beep(s)' every 5 minutes...

'New York' you can watch for the candy value that its lead players bring and to see an Indian commercial film treat a socially relevant topic and treat it with sensitivity and actually make you sit up...not often have I seen this happen and to make popcorn uneatable....

Keeping up Appearances

I have been watching re-runs of 'Keeping up Appearances' on BBC Entertainment and I think it is absolutely hillarious...actually BBC Entertainment is quite an exciting channel - lots of old and new BBC programming and with minimal advertising (how I love that!)
The word 'incorrigible' truly describes Patricia Routledge playing Hyacinth Bucket (or Bouquet)... her neighbour who is perpetually coerced into having teaaaa, one almost feels as jittery as her everytime she is called out and doesnt blame her for being oh so jittery.
And of course the poorest soul amongst them is Richarddddd (the oh so sweet husband!).
I loved the episode where Hyacinth turned a simple country picnic into riparian entertainment...and another gem is where a Bobby has the misfortune of visiting her house to inform her of about her 'Daddy' and Richard is sent on 'business' to get Daddy out of jail.

Holiday Pictures - An Exercise in Patience

I was looking through some material on the internet - NY Times has this amazing article series - 36 Hours in ______; so the latest installment was on Cork, Ireland...but more on this later...
Going through the slideshow of pictures, I realized something...Travel pictures need to be treated with patience...I think when we are out of the house and on a holiday, we feel this insatiable urge to capture each and every waking (and sometimes sleeping!) moment of the holiday...so we start to click from the moment we board the taxi to go to the airport/train station (suddenly the most hideous traffic becomes a picture subject!), boarding the mode of transport...right to the hotel's bathrooms, the drink that you just ordered...I could just go on and on....Of course one of the most important pictures are the landmarks that one sees...again the rush to remember them seems to be filled through photographs...and not through the most natural of lenses - our eyes - DUH!
How many times have we come back after a day's tour, and revisit the day through the pictures...do we actually remember what we really saw...I know how many times I lament about not having seen the Big Ben clearly...rather I was just keen to capture it all through my camera (not that the Big Ben is not a photogenic monument or even the Tiger that we spotted at Ranthambore) but I miss the actual view...

I think it has also got to do a lot with how we view vacations now - they are something to be raved about back home, normally pushed for VACATION TIME, so we try and crunch our itinerary, a check against numerous boxes that we go around our life with...though it may not be everybody's perspective but I figure there is some truth in it...

So anyway my point is that all this hurry also often does not lead to good, memorable pictures all the time... and though most of us cannot say our claim to fame is that of an ace photographer, given modern technology we can still get marvelous pictures (if we still insist on doing it thru photographs!) if we are just patient...take the time to look around where you are, absorb the surroundings and when you feel 'one' with the place, take a picture or two and you will realise that the view just looked even better :)

Electricity Problem

Well my house has turned -officially- into a furnace and with the airconditioning strictly limited to the non-TV viewable areas (cause the DTH wire does not extend to these rooms :(), so have shifted the TV to my room. While I may not be able to see much of cable television...well honestly the only channel that I miss is the Discovery Travel & Living...(oh how I love this channel and its capability to transport you to wherever their intrepid reporters are! But well more on this later in another post)...coming back so what does one do with a TV but no cable? And to keep in mind that I am not one of those people who go WOW when they read about a resort where no TV is available (my reaction is absolutely the opposite...)
- Watch new and all your stacked up movies...While I enjoy a new movie as much as the next guy, but what I esp like is to watch a movie from the DVD collection (an evergrowing one!!!) at home...I think besides the fact that you obviously like the movies (which is why you bought them!) and remember the dialogues by heart that you can almost do a dialogue-karaoke while the movie is running (and with music subtitles, you can actually do songs too:)), it's just plain fun and their ability to remind you of what was happening (at the exact moment or around the time?) makes the movie viewing that worthwhile...so in fact just like photographs they are a peep into your past...What do you think?

Anyway what I have been watching this week - Something's Gotta Give (watching it right now...), my wedding videos, Mamma Mia (oh how I fall in love with ABBA again and again after seeing this movie - of course not to mention the men - the older ones that is - are just so dishy...and to add to their celluloid wow qualities, they can sing too...

Marley & Me

Normally one would see either a movie based on a book adaptation or read the book first...and for some reason whichever order you do it in, I always seem to find the movie version far more impactful than the book....I loved Pride and Prejudice when I read it as an impressionable 12 yr old, but I absolutely fell in love with Mr. Darcy when I saw the BBC adaptation on Star TV (back in the good ol' days when Cable TV stood for quality)...who hasnt swooned at Clint Eastwood (in Bridges of Madison County - oh wait, I was swept away by the bridges themselves too :)), Omar Shareif in Dr. Zhivago and more recently at Matt Damon in the Bourne Trilogy (although by the end of it one just had to say Thank God there were only 3 books...or were there more?)

This week went through the same experience, I bought Marley & Me over the weekend (the book!) and started to read it...then yesterday, while I was only half way through the book, got the DVD and watched it...of course I knew the dog would die but to see it enacted on celluloid was way too much for my stron tear ducts to handle...once the movie was over, the enthusiasm to finish the book was replaced by the focus to just 'finish' the book...so pages just became a number which needed to be conquered and not actual words which had any meaning...

Lesson for the day...Finish the book first and only then watch the movie (unless you absolutely detest the thought of wasting time reading!!!)...it will be worth it...

Cheap Travel

In these times when the most common refrain is - "hang on to your job...at least you still have one", a holiday (irrespective of the distance one has to travel to) has gone down shockingly (well this might be an exaggeration!) in our list of priorities.

So what is the way out? Cause in the job(s) (that we still have!) one still needs a break...I have been researching on ways to travel cheap...few options-
* Frugal Travel - The benefits of Internet research have long been known...this still remains the best way to identify the best bargains and actually build your whole itinerary
* Freeloading Travel - We all have relatives, friends in plenty all over the world...why not reconnect and travel to places where they are...oh yes airfares and sundry expenses will still need to taken care of but you get one big chunk of holiday expenses - acco, out of the way and your budget sheet...and you are always there to return the favor
* Home Exchange - a la The Holiday...this movie introduced (at least me!) to the option of Home Exchange...and when I looked up the internet there are websites dedicated to it...Haven't seen much evidence of it in India (I am not too frequent a visitor on Craiglist, so not sure if that has such an option)...

However the bottom line is that all the above and many more that you can tell me of, need moolah!
So if you don't want to spend money and don't have the time either (you need to work extra hard remember??) but are bitten by the wanderlust bug, then armchair travel is the BEST option for you...

This is exactly what I have been up to today...There is just so much material on the internet (that is the easiest to access) that you can be transported to whereever you want to go... travelogues (those are a little hard to find in my experience - at least off bookshelves in India)...And most people seem to be writing only about India...and even if there are about other countries, in India surprisingly you only get travelogues about India...

Entry One

I started this blog almost an year back but it has remained blank all this while...cause my convoluted brain couldnt decide where to start from...anyway have decided to take the leap and will talk of some of the things I like...movies, travel and general goings-on...