Been watching a few episodes of different TV series lately -
1.My Wife and kids
2.Hope and Faith
3.Awkward
4.That 70s show
5.Rules of Engagement
6.Joey
7.My Boys
8.The Exes
Briefly, I have watched -
1.Shit my dad Says
2.outsourced
3.Coupling
Trying to watch 30 rock too, though not successfully 
Will write a bit about them all soon!
Faking it – By Amrita Choudary. This was about art thievery.
Delhi Durbar by Krishan Pratap Singh – Was a political thriller.
The Backbenchers – Extra Classes by Sidharth Oberoi.
The Diary of a Social Butterfly by Moni Mohsin (The same dudette who wrote Tender hooks)
Dairy of a Wimpy Kid - Jeff Kinney (not sure which of the series I picked up)
the book i have brought with me now -
karl aaj aur kal by cyrus broacha
and the second in stalment of dork.
i have read ‘the power of vasili’ by penny jordan which is a mills and boons book.
crazy about khan. the khan book was totally over the top,filmy and fun!
This post has to be about Battle for Bittora by Anuja Chauhan.
Man, is it funny! Its a treat reading it. Of course, it has hinglish in quite a few places. But it is the funny-ness that matters! (I know, I know that there is no word called funny-ness. Lets not be picky okay?) Sure, it is a chicklit. But to repeat myself, it is the how funny it is that matters 
Our ZAK – Zain Altaf Khan aka Maruti Zain ,the hero is tall, dark and handsome and is the scion of an esrtwhile royal family. The heroine and him start off on the right note(ahem), but start squabbling soon after. Little wonder, since they are both fight it out in the elections for which they are contesting against each other.
There are many LoL moments in the book – which I must say, is a rarity for me Anuja is Margaret Alwa’s daughter-in-law and is the wife of Niret Alwa who has a TV production house Miditech – that has produced shows like Roadies/Indian Idol etc. Here is their link .So, yeah, she is pretty well connected. She has spent years working in advertising. With her creativity, this dosent come as a surprise. Since ‘Battle for Bittora’ has a political backdrop, her mom-in-law’s anecdotes would have helped give some accuracy to some incidents.UP elections have been depicted with quite a bit of hilarity and probably reality as well Local accents are liberally thrown in.
Though ‘Zoya factor’ her first book on cricket is probably more popular, I loved Bittora a lot more Do read it! Beats Chetan Bhagat’s PJs hollow, if you ask me. Zoya may be made into a movie by SRk’s red chillies apparently. hope the movies turns out to retain the humor
I have this tendency of reading books in bookstores and libraries.
In some cases, I end up taking them home and in others, they stay back on the shelf after I have flirted with them a little
Crossword is the best place to ‘check books out’ :p
You think the book looks attractive ,has a cute name and an interesting blurb – then you try your luck out by reading a few chapters randomly.
I always feel guilty that the book store lets me get away with this. The old fashioned ones wudnt approve of this of course. For them, its like the arranged marriage meeting of olden times. Read atmost for 5 mins – made more difficult by the fact that there are no chairs/stools anywhere, Take a quick decision and either move on with it or without The new ones take a liberal view and provide couches to get acquainted with the book and give you permission to make out without screaming ‘get yourself your own room’ err..’go read elsewhere’ .
Needless to say, I am making hay while the sun shines
This was the new chick lit i read
This gets classified in teh category of young-adult literature though. About a Pakistani girl growing up in a small town in US, and balancing a conservative family that has a no-dating policy , on one hand with american high school life on the other. Perhaps I picked this book up since I have always been curious how parents in the US in the 90s would try to imbibe some ‘desi’ values in their kids. When today’s kids become teenagers, there will be little difference between India and the US, wrt values I suppose. But parents in the 90s, would have had an impression of India of the 70s and give their kids a cultural image of India of their times. And if that is indeed the case, I pity the kids. All of us know how important it is to feel you ‘belong ‘ when you are a kid. It would seem weird not to ‘fit in’ and do the same things that folks around you do. Of course, parenting always ensures there are boundaries. But the generation gap along with the cultural gap gives rise to more conflicts. Which is what this book deals with.
Since the protagonist was a Pakistani Muslim, her parents are probably more conservative than the average immigrant Indian parent.
I read these books for time-pass and I must say it was decent timepass. So, I shall not be critical of the book Lots of books are peddled as being witty and humorous, but will only be slightly so. But they are feel good books over all and serve their purpose. Skunk girl was also one such.
The author, Sabha Karim as per the blurb is living in New Delhi at the moment. Researching her next book on Razia Sultana, perhaps.
