In search of answers

One disadvantage of being a grey haired, introverted expat is that people give undue credit to  me of being a reliable spokesperson of the country I represent and want to share with me all their impressions of my country. And expect me to clarify all their doubts. 

My poor communication skills have aggravated my miseries: I have failed to drive home the point that the last good hindi movie I remember having seen was Sholay and that the worli-bandra link is not a monument but a bridge on a sea jocularly called sea-link, that Delhi is the political capital and not the fountain-head of corruption (as corruption is like God: omnipotent and omnipresent). To think that only south indians were behind and north indians were infront (of) bars is a myth and incorrect, that Suresh Kalmadi is not Suresh Kalam Adi and therefore not related to a towering  south indian legend called Abdul Kalam (who would rank as one of our greatest statesmen). And that the Kalmadi is also serving humanity by living behind bars, thus  exploding the myth of a  bigoted north-south divide in an otherwise peace and panel-discussion loving country, is all that i keep averring.

Not willing to accept (and recognise) my limitations people still expect me to know why Barkha Dutt was again so paranoid and profound (how could both happen?) last night while discussing ‘sluttery’ in prime time, why news channel these days have a panel discussion on everything (someone asked me if I saw that program where four eminent people (a nuclear scientist, a senior banker, a party president and a senior sportsman) discussed over two days if it was morally correct to throw a beer can on the road, and I said “unfortunately no”). The list of such ‘whys’ is so long that I am wondering if I can develop an algo that reduces these mysteries into a non-linear functional dissymmetry and circulate them as a questionnaire (when I actually said that, the crowd got so confused that I instantly realized ‘if I can’t convince, I should always confuse’).

Coming to the more important issue of holding a brief for my homeland, someone asked me how could one individual or a very few of them jointly and severally swindle many billions by circumventing and subverting processes and policies, why does it take so long to find out that act, can a minister singularly do such wonders like violating rules and collecting huge monies in ‘another’ account. If yes to all these, can an impossible irrigation minister issue orders to link all the rivers, an impossible HR minister mandate compulsory schooling for the whole country, a rational defence minister order compulsory service in the military atleast for 6 months in a life time….

The questions were too thrilling to ignore. I rushed home to see what “utopia” actually meant and whether it was a literary expression or merely a mythological description.

Some questions never have answers.

Dreams are Forever

Late last evening as i dragged myself to my home after a fairly hectic day, i saw this flash on NDTV about how MMJoshi could not table the PAC report on 2G in parliament.  I am no expert on parliamentary affairs. Nor do i have any serious urgency in knowing the contents. After a few decades when the courts finally decide who may have been the guilty, we can get to know the facts. By then, the amount involved in this scam could well pass off as the equivalent of tips paid in a scam of the times.

What is quite interesting and relevant is how a scam or an omission on the part of the administration is openly questioned and analysed in the West. This is  a very popular video showing Alay Grayson questioning the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve about certain holes in the Fed's balancesheet.  Pls click on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqM2tFOxLQ&feature=player_embedded

Can we ever get to watch something similar in the house of 542? 

.. Dreams are forever

Someone recently asked me if i would mind renaming my blog as http://www.thecribberkingdotcom/.      Advice welcome.

Throwing Grammar out of a Bullet Train

 

Well, that is a title I remember having come across some years ago while reading something somewhere. It was about how foot-loose modern day literature has become (pardon that atrocious phrase). It went on to describe how bad English has permeated our classrooms and how the beauty of the language has disappeared. How jargons and ‘dudism’ have inextricably gotten embedded in our expression.

Some well meaning professors who support me with their comments about this blog also accuse me for trading bad grammar for good humor. Yes I am not too strong on the grammatical side of the language. Prepositions are my grey areas. Or someone familiar with me will say ‘one of the many grey areas”. Well, it is not about my proficiency or the lack of it. The following ‘in-circulation’ makes a humorous reading:

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”.. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”.. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Smitten by Nostalgia

What we call progress is actually exchanging one nuisance for another. At the risk of being mistaken for growing senile thoughts, i would say the HQ (Happiness Quotient) was quite high a few decades back and contentment was just a few baby-steps away on the greed-curve.

I tried a collage of those little things that was integral to our daily life in the 80s and 90s. Needless to say i really miss them. Maybe i hated them then (familiarity breeding contempt) inasmuch as i hate today's realities...

We did not have iPads, I-Pods or Thinkpads, MP3 and MP4, Nintendos, Quadbikes, Video games, SatelliteTVs, DVDs or Bluerays, Home Cinema, Chat-rooms, Internets or any of the modern gadgets.  We called on friends to come out to play,  never rang the doorbell but  just went around the  backdoor… We had freedom, success, disappointments and responsibilities.

Those were the days…

Most of all, we learned to respect others…  Its different today. We are busy. Always.

 

No Less these

Another of those forwards that besiege me regularly. How creative people have become!!!. This one conveys the message that there is so LESS in life these days...

Our Telephone : Cord less

Cooking : Fire less

Food : Fat less

Dress : Back less

Youth : Job less

Leaders : Shame less

Government : Hope less

Job : Thank less

Police : Clue less

Policies : Aim less

Labor : Effort less

Conduct : Worth less

Relations : Meaning less

Attitude : Care less

Feelings : Heart less

Education : Value less

Arguments : Base less

Future : Direction less

and 

Our Expectations : END LESS....!

 

Yogagement - A new perspective

 
What happens when a renowned yoga Guru forays into imparting management lessons unwittingly? It becomes a library material for ordinary mortals like yours truly. Wondering what? Well, the recent Ramdev episode has a few Dont's to learn for every student of management. Let me share with you the seven axes of yogagement (credit me for coming up with this quintessential blend of yoga and management)

1. Know your skill set

Ramdev assumed that skills required for teaching yoga and becoming the political leader is the same He thought that skill sets are transferable.

Many professionals make the same mistake. They assume that if they are enormously successful in one area, they will automatically succeed in other areas.

2. Don't take people for granted.

Baba Ramdev assumed that his followers would follow him blindly. People became his followers because of his expertise and knowledge on Yoga. Once he became a loose cannon and started threatening violence etc. the followers ditched him. Moreover, people supported his anti-corruption agenda because of being anti-government rather than pro Ramdev.

Most of the corporate failures occur because either customers /clients or employees/employer are taken for granted

3. Know the motives of your friend and enemies - especially friends.

Baba Ramdev thought that the government was scared of him that is why senior ministers were courting him. The government was trying to prop him to divide the civil society and weaken their movement. Once the government realized that Baba Ramdev was not following the script they immediately cut him down to size.

People overestimate their impact when they are approached by powerful people/lobby without realizing their motives.

4. Differentiate between perception and reality

The image of Baba Ramdev as all powerful was created by the media. He started believing in this unreal image lionized by the media and thought that he can get away with anything. When the media turned its back and went on destroying his image, Baba Ramdev appeared to cut a sorry picture defending himself from their probing questions.

In corporate life too, the sycophants create the unreal image about a leader which the leader starts believing in.

5. When the going gets tough the not-so-tough gets going away

All of Baba Ramdev blusters, challenges and claims were dissolved when he was caught in camera fleeing wearing ladies clothes with women followers as shield while his followers were being beaten and harassed by Police. This one moment will haunt Baba Ramdev perpetually. If Baba Ramdev had protested and got arrested protecting his followers he would have come out one up on the government garnering all the sympathy and support even from his non-followers

Actions speaks louder than the words and the real person emerges when the mask is broken during the crisis/high pressure

6. First Introspect and then point fingers at others

Baba Ramdev demanded transparency and anti corruption laws against black money but could not give information about his own sources of funds. On asked pointed questions on the ownership of the companies and their accounts he and his team did not answer directly and side stepped the issue.

People living in glass-houses should not throw stones.

7. Don't follow brinkmanship strategy when in doubt or without backup

Baba Ramdev tried to garner support and goodwill by going on a fast without any clarity and as an amend to his previous goof ups. He thought he could create a mass hysteria, building pressure on the government. Government indifference and non- response forced him to break the fast in a whimper.

Many times by threatening to resign, executives try to create the pressure on their bosses but if the boss remains unmoved or challenges the executive to resign - the brinkmanship blows up in the face.

Courtesy Ravi

On Trust

Trust a person to such an extent that he feels guilty to cheat you.

This sounds quite interesting emotionally. I have come across individuals who have intimidated me by their modesty and simplicity. Some have sentimentally killed me by their goodness and some have really humiliated me by their forgiveness.

In the end, its the same old story - i am poorer in the hands of either a good person or a wicked tormentor. Its never the middle path!!!

Hello, Please Listen...

With many key issues burning and scalding the nation, i thought i should use my vast experience and ignorance to advise some of the in-limelight people. It may not solve their problems or miseries. But it will open their eyes and wisdom to a new practical perspective.. Here it goes...

To Anna Ji:   Clapping is fine.  Fasting too is fine. But it is a herculean task to weed out corruption from our system. The nation has not been able to accommodate another Mahatma. Remember the movie "Gandhi". When Gandhiji starts yet another fasting, Nehruji is shown grimacing and wrenching his hands in frustrations. What cannot be cured has to be endured. I have learnt it the hard way.

To Baba Ramdev Ji:    Did you actually jump down or was it a slip. Please take care Sir. Health is wealth. I started my yoga practice by watching your DVD some years ago. Then Shilpa's corrupted me. Thats brings back the issue of corruption in society. It is just futile to fight against the establishments. I was a big fan of T.N.Seshanji. Before that i used to vociferously support S.Gurumurthy for his tirades against establishment and corruption. I have kept changing my mentor but nothing has changed. Please think over. Yoga is more important than a corruption free society. No Guru ever has lived in peace and without controversy. Where there is income there will tax issues. So it is not a bed of roses anymore.

To Sushmaji:    If i were you, i would say to myself 'Men may come and men may go, i go on dancing for ever. I dance to the tunes of everyone that pays me and gives me benefit. I care two hoots if my steps are ugly or they resemble a tortoise trying to turn around quickly. What matters is i enjoy it. If you look into history, the Oshos and other great trend setters have done something wierd to sublimate. There is no rule or guideline that says one should not dance while singing bhajans'. So no need to apologise. Afterall dancing and singing are considered the purest form of meditation.

To NDTV:    I like your crusade against wrong doers and wrong doings. Please diarise the start date of an issue that you want to address and expose. And please cut cakes on the 25th, 50th and 100th day to commemorate the relentless fight.

To The Common Man:    Forget all these petty issues of inflation, corruption, ever soaring prices of basic necessitites, poverty, falling standards of living, unemployment, falling bridges and overflowing sewages. What is important is life must go on. Rome was not built in a day. It may take some million years but some day things will surely change. Hope is its own inferno. So let us close our eyes and live in hope. I know you are distracted these days by some crusader here or there. Aren't these seasonal in life?

To Myself:   If NDTV is the only channel you get to see and if you can be so profound after one week's regular watching, imagine how intelligent and wise the common man can be who gets to watch a dozen other channels doing the same thing but with a difference. So better understand your limitations. 

Dance Bharat Dance

  
It's Amazing 

How could there be a dearth of quality news or events in a country that has population in excess of a billion and has a GDP that ranks in the top percentile on planet earth - else,  what could explain the detailed discussion on whether Sushma's dancing was correct, good, incorrect or bad and the panel discussion involved eminent people who would surely have had lots to do in life. rather than devoting time to discuss this. Ain't i  too optimistic to say 'involved' as this could quite become a saga and be an issue for many years to come....

The beauty of watching our news channel is that the reporter or the newscast gets the liberty and pleasure of asking a question so long that it can sometimes be longer than the script of a Manirathnam movie. And the interviewed has to answer in just a word or two.  Long live press freedom.

ps: whatever... SS dances really well!!

PS to ps:  have been extremely busy lately and that should explain my rationed foray into these pages. I should bargain for a work-life-blogtime balance next time when i change my job

Thoughts of a thoughtless mind

A friend just alerted me with "I’ve just closed my “LinkedIn” account. They just made billions with the IPO and, oddly, have offered none of it to me — even though I’ve provided them with the information they need for free. So, until they offer some profit-sharing, I’ve closed that account. I just feel so…exploited".

He sounded like a Karl Marx.

I just extended that to the various things i do and thought how it would look like in the commercial world or the space of capital markets.

I closed all my Google accounts because the stock is perpetually on a rise - i thought the company's top, middle and bottomlines all improved  because of my using of various Google services -  the perennial searching i do (sometimes even to spell my own name correctly), the various mail accounts i have, the tonnes of photos and documents that lie embedded without a second re-look in its servers.. the list is bottomless

I stopped using car because it resulted in every ancillary and allied services making money without anyone caring to share the revenues, stopped wearing clothes for similar reasons, stopped eating for very same reasons and finally stopped doing anything and everything for want of proper revenue sharing model with me - which enabled everyone to make a spread out of my consumption while i remained poorer by that much of margin. And all i ended up was sitting in a corner of a room - without anything on and without anyone bothering to notice me - let alone talk or feed. 

I broke my resolve which wasnt even worth a day's length.

BTW - the poverty line has been described as something lying around Rs 20.  Many years ago when i used to manage some branch of a bank, i used to think of the various social Govt sponsored schemes "why are they doing all this to bring people above poverty line. Simply push the poverty line lower and it solves all problems even before they are addressed". Much the same after 20 years.

Sunday, Terrible Sunday

Uff - What a day!!

I told myself 'don't get upset with people or situations. They are powerless without your reactions'.

As if i didn't have enough on hand, Wickram Butt's 'Haunted' came to see me. Didn't the pervert have a different name to call the ghost - the wickedram should consider himself lucky he got away with such a mean act.  Not to speak of the subtle attempts at voyeurism. Where is that superhuman third umpire i described some pages ago!!

 Whenever i see a Iyer in life i will remember this terrible movie and would do my small service to humanity by requesting the Iyer to watch this movie and take his ire out in whatever way he wants to.

Nature's Simple Rule

80% or more of time to build and
20% or less to destroy.

The wise man goes beserk

"The road to success is always under construction" again that familiar voice. Yes, the wise man took his position just behind me and wanted to continue with yet another of his evening lectures when  I interrupted 'why sir, again our civil engineers at work? why don't they give it to the private sector'.  With a smile that was a warning to me, the wise man said 'you dont know what life is. Life is full of uncertainity. It means missing expected things and facing unexpected things'. 

I said i could not agree more.  In order to please him i said 'Uncertainity is full of my life and the synonym for missing is expectations in my life'. I thought such a sob story will make him move over to more important topics like IPL, O's popularity rating (i am these days extremely careful and just say O, rather than suffering a slip of tongue), the five-days-in-a-row repeat of Rahulji's weak attack, the twists to 2Gs and above all the big boredom of watching any news channel in india (you can watch on Monday morning and then on Friday evening - you would not miss anything). 

But the wiseman was in no mood to relent and instead asked me what would i do if i knew the world was coming to an end soon. The wicked me asked 'how soon sir?'.  He ignored me like a dirt or bufallo's back and continued ' Each person around you is going to hurt you at some point of time. It is on you to decide what is important, the pain or the person'.  It clearly appeared to me that he has gone through a book of quotations and was trying to weave together a philosophical discourse with interconnected quotes. And found in me a gullible listener.

I explained how each of us has learnt to hurt and exploit the otherin life. And when it comes to progress i am so selfless that i allow only my shadow to be ahead of me. Same with everyone.  And there ended a session which deprived me of what the book of quotations said about various aspects of human behaviour.

Mumbai - that ultimate city

Inspite of living in Mumbai for a full four years, i never ventured into travelling in a local train and i must admit i missed something precious in life for an experience.  Only local train commuters in Mumbai will know how helpful their co-travellers try to be......  

This one is a forwarded piece - a 'real' story and you wouldn't fail to laugh

Last week, a hapless victim fell prey to the over enthusiastic Bombay's local train commuters.

Our hero, a man from Pune, wanted to go to Matunga, but as luck and trains would have it, boarded a fast train not halting at his destination. He panicked on realising his mistake but by then the local had started moving. On seeing his plight, a sympathetic co-passenger decided to come to his rescue.

It seemed that he had been commuting by that particular train (6:03pm Kasara Fast) for the past 6 years and had noticed that the train always slowed down just before Matunga station and crawled at a snail's pace while passing through it. He told the man to jump out of the running train as it slowed down and that with a little bit of fleet-footedness, he would make it safely on terra firma. However, knowing the man's inexperience, he added some words of caution:

"Keep running the moment you jump or you'll fall. Just keep running." He stressed the word "running" lest the man not know the laws of motion. The train did slow down just before Matunga station and at the prompting of his mentor, our hero jumped out of the train and started running as if all hell had broken loose.

What he didn't realise, of course, was that he was running parallel to the train instead of running away from it. Meanwhile, the train slowed down further, so that the man was running faster than the train. In the process, he reached the door of the next compartment and the footboard commuters there pulled him in thinking he was trying to board the train! To his agony, the train picked up speed and sped past Matunga and his new co-passengers started to congratulate him on how lucky he had been, until he told them that they had actually undone what he had done with great difficulty.

Those standing at the door of his "ex-compartment" had witnessed the whole drama and just couldn't stop laughing at the poor man's situation, while he grinned sheepishly!! !

Ae dil..

hai mushkil  jeena yahaan,

Zara hatke, zara bachke,

yeh hai Bambai meri jaan

Loaded House

Forget astrology. 

This is a matter of interest to even a student of astronomy. A loaded house. These are rare occurrences - Five planets in close conjunction and one of the nodes not too far away..  Wow!!

Soothsayer's Revellery

I dont know why but it is completely a trader's mindset that dominates my psyche or approach to life. To me it is more important to be correct than being succesful.

A couple of days ago my crystall ball alerted me about the likelihood of some unpleasant events from the 11th and this morning i get to read this in media..

Italians will on Wednesday flee Rome over fears a giant earthquake is coming following a seismologist's 1915 prediction that "the big one" will strike on May 11, 2011.

Italy was never in my horizon of focus. I was more trained on Taurus rising people and countries. Will wait and see over the next few days.   

Someone asked me why all my astrological statements are either forewarning a disaster or negative. Well, he is right. We humans dont normally think of that weird character under a banyan tree with a magnifying glass in his hand and looking around for distressed people, unless we reach a boiling-point in our life. My Professor used to tell me man seeks divine intervention or astrological advice only when he is in trouble. I have never folded my hands in prayers in front of a deity when my investments are deep in the money, while i am on religious pilgrimage when it is bonus time!!

 

Taurus Rising

The planetary positioning in the coming days is quite interesting. Jupiter transits into Mars later today - (for those following Lahiri Ayanamsa / Systems Approach). This heralds better times for Aries, Leo and Libra ascendants. Jupiter is a slow moving planet and therefore the benefits could be felt over a year's period.

What is however more significant about the next few days' transitory influences is that 5 planets occupy Aries - which could be somewhat distressful for Taurus, Virgo and Scorpio ascendants.

Especially for Taurus rising people and countries.

India is Taurus rising at 7 degrees - the next ten days could be somewhat stressful in the areas of financial markets and relationships . A nearly similar combination occurred in May 2000, a year known more for the dot-com bubble to hit its worst point in that March.  To recall  an event for the Indian markets, the central bank intervened on the foreign exchange markets and announced moves to stabilize the INR in May 2000 after the currency hit a record low against the U.S. dollar.

This time around the planetary positioning is bit different with all three 'dusthanas' linked in one way or the other for Taurus rising. In astrological parlance, the areas that get affected during such a combination of transits are financial markets, mishaps, external debt or war related fears and mis-appropriation of wealth. For India in particular, the impact to Mercury (ruler of entertainment, speculation, communication, IT) could be cause for worry .. Another scandal related to one of the Gs? (i meant 1, 2 or 3G). Avoid travel.

As i firmly believe, Guru's transit (that is Jupiter's) is always noteworthy.

All IMHO.

A beautiful mind

I think the most beautiful mind is the one that is endowed with  limitless power to imagine and create.  There are examples galore for creativity, but i am always stunned by the violin duo Ganesh & Kumaresh. The other area of visible creativity in our day to day life is the advertising world. How beautiful some ads are. The best ones hardly speak.  The one below is pretty old - must have been in circulation for easily a decade now - but i am happy to see it any number of times.

A Norway for Every Mother

The caption could amuse you. I wanted to say "Norway, the best place for Sons" but then how else do i salute that supreme phenomenon called Mother and which other occasion could be better than the second Sunday of every May or thereabouts..

Well, its the same me who said sometime back why do we need an occasion to salute a mother, dad, wife, brother, sister, lover, enemy, traitor...the list is long.

Norway has been ranked as the best place for mothers by a US based organisation. The survey for 2011, which is released around early May every year,  has ranked Norway the best place in the world to be a mom, where maternal and child mortality rates are low, women's life expectancy and years in school are high, and the average maternity leave is about one year. Australia and Iceland are among the top three. Afghanistan and a few african countries form the bottom league.  US is at 31, largely because of higher maternal mortality rate - reportedly the higheset among developed countries.

India at the 73rd place doesn't do its cultural heritage any proud. Our professed respect for womanhood and therefore motherhood is somewhere lost so as to keep us way behind many progressive 'thinkers' - goes to prove scientific progress and respect for values can coexist.

I have generally considered myself blessed but somewhat less fortunate in life. If i count my blessings and delve deeper,  one of the main reasons for being eternally blessed and being not too unlucky is the presence of a great mother in my life. Every mother is great, no doubt. You need to see this one - its differently special.

Second Hand Books

When was the first time that i bought a new book from the shelf?

I hardly remember. School and University was on scholarship, which included books and food. So no question of buying a text book. Either because people  must have taken me for a voracious reader or  they must have considered me ill-read in need of some good books to read - i ended up over the years with a decent collection of books.

But  when did i buy the first new book.

During the early eighties when i used to come to Bangalore for my school vacation, i first picked up a Hadley Chase book for Re 0.75 in Majestic, Bangalore, from the platform.  This was my first purchase of a book. With hardly any money  in my pocket. the choice to buy was restricted to anything that was cheapest , yet good for my taste .While reading was a religious hobby, i had not been a serious buyer ever. But a compulsive borrower.

Soon i made it a habit of buying books on platform. I hated the glossy showcased book stores and considered them veritable sources of irritants, created and funded by the affluent public to highlight how poor i was and how unaffordable the good books were (a schoolboy's frustrations are always weird).

The book i remember most from my platform collection is RK Narayan's English Teacher. The book must have changed atleast a hundred hands before being dumped into a second-hand seller's warehouse as i could see a dog's collar almost in every page. Since i had heard so much about this one, i bought it for a little over 1.00 Rupee. It has been my most cherished purchase ever.

In the next few years, my collection swell to over a hundred. books.  Sometimes i would buy a book clearly knowing i would never open the pages, but i wanted to demonstrate my interests in everything that mattered.

And when i found my first job and left my home-town i left these books behind (i thought i would be rich enough soon to buy fresh from the press) and carried only the English Teacher with me. I also made a note of Mysore Publications, which was the indian franchisee probably for all of RKN's reprints. And thought of going all the way to Mysore to buy all his writings (if possible even a royalty).

But habits die hard. Neither i bought all his books nor i graduated into buying books from book-stores. The joys of buying a second hand book  from a platform vendor was too good to be discarded.  

Even today i buy second hand books. It has got nothing to do with affordability. Nor is it an outcome of  my philosophy in life about reading. 

In recent years, i have even started buying books sold in traffic signals and pavements, that are new and obviously pirated ones.  I, perhaps, dont see in piracy a serious crime.  I believe imitation is the best form of admiration. Equally believe that the inventors of copying machine and other similar gadgets found in their invention a karmic contribution to the world of reproduction chain.  Therefore, all that i need is fodder for my reading needs and it hardly matters who serves that.

Update: I have still not bought my first new book from a Higgin Botham's or Crossword. My wife does.