Reading Mania

I've been on a reading frenzy the last couple of weeks and realize that I have spent quite a bit of money on one of my favorite pastimes. After all money spent on books can never be termed as wasteful expenditure provided you learn something every time you read a book.

Over the past few years, I have come to realize that my focus when it comes to reading seems to be more on finishing up a book as soon as possible, rather than enjoying and assimilating the content. The result therefore is that I forget most of the plots as soon as a book is read. This is is both good and bad. Good because there is always a book waiting to be rad even though I have read it once. Bad because my reading style is against the very concept of book reading. This definitely has to change and I realize that I need to take things a little easier. It's not that I don't enjoy reading but the compulsion to finish it soon seems to override the joy of reading and relishing the book.

Also my book reading habits fluctuate wildly. I keep have reading phases (wonder if most of us do). There are phases where I read only comics and then switch only to fiction or only to finance and investment funda books etc. The current flavor of my book reading season seems to be Hindu Mythology. I've been reading the Ramayana and Mahabharata (one version by Rajaji and one by Devdutt Pattanaik) and just gobbled up 2 more books yesterday about Hanuman and Devi. Devdutt Pattanaik's works have given a whole new meaning and understanding to the concept of myth in relation to Hinduism and every book I have read so far (4 at the last count with one more ordered and on the way) has taught me something new that I had not known or comprehended.

I've been building my book collection with a long term view in mind. My kids will need all the knowledge that they can lay their hands on and essential to the development of every Indian child is stories of our rich cultural and religious heritage. The book shelf in my rented apartment has already run out of space and the next challenge is to find a place to keep the new books that I seem to be buying almost every week. I have decided to stop the buying for at least a couple of months and several new books now await to be read. Flipkart has totally spoilt me!

My trading account seems to be locked out and I had sent the bank an application to change my correspondence address 4 days back and find it hard to imagine why they take so long to process a request that takes all of 45 seconds to enter in their system. ICICI Bank sucks big time.

A new project awaits me and work on it will begin in a week or two and after that it's going to be ten months of slogging with 2 weeks spent on-site and 2 at home. The days of having fun are over at its going to be back to the grind and that is precisely what the mind needs now.