Losing our sense and sensibilities

I have terrible insulin resistance issue - i.e insensitivity to insulin.
It's because at one time I overloaded my body with junk - pastries and hot chocolate fudge. You know how calorie loaded these things are. No nutrition. Just calories. So, it was just natural that my body does not know how to process food now.

Today, I randomly checked some headline "serial X replaced by serial Y". I don't know abt these 2 serials. After my rendezvous with the super talented Barun Sobti in Iss Pyaar ko Kya Naam Doon ended, I never dared to venture into serials.

This got me thinking. So, if the viewership declines, we quickly change the serial. That means, we never cared about the serial and its content and its actors in the first place.
All we want, is viewership - which is popularity, which means ads and money.
We're doing more of more things nowadays. So nothing has its value.
I think we're dishing out more movies every week, so there's no more fun in going to the movies. Earlier we'd wait a year to see one Mani ratnam movie.
Now with movies being churned in hundreds, even the good ones get wiped off. No one remembers movies.
We used to get only 2 new clothes a year and there was much planning and anticipation for those 2 dresses.
We hardly ever got to eat out or eat snacks outside, so when it happened, it was a celebration.

There are so many channels, so many serials, no one cares about most things.
When there was just chocolate, vanilla and strawberry - life was better.
Now with 200 flavours, we're only more confused.

Our sensitivity to things have reduced due to over exposure.
I don't think it's good.
Over eating reduces the body's sensitivity to food.
Over working reduces sensitivity to work.
Over TV watching reduces the sensitivities of the eye.
Today, every kid has more toys than an entire class used to have in our days. I hardly remember being gifted toys. It was rare.
So, today, when a kid gets 3-4 toys a week, you know the state of each toy.
When 5 rapes are reported in a day, we lose our sensitivity to the issue. We think its casual. It happens.. Shit happens.. So, over reporting leads to less sensitivity to news.

We have fast transportation today. Earlier, the trips and the occasional weddings were planned in such detail. You just couldn't go to any place just like that.
Today, a single family's petrol bill per month exceeds the monthly grocery budget of most lower middle income families. I feel guilty whenever we go on long drives. It's precious fuel we're wasting and we're clogging the roads.. Roads are choked with road attacks.


Everything we do comes with some cost.
We're choking the planet and ourselves.
We're becoming insensitive. Most things have no value.
Then, what are we living for? Does life have a meaning?
Only when we're sensitive to ourself and our surroundings we can enjoy life to the fullest.

How to generate positive feelings while starting with none!

Ignore your feelings!  Writing isn’t about listening to your feelings.  It’s about writing despite your feelings.  Positive feelings don’t motivate you to write.  Doing the writing is what creates positive feelings.

From: http://thecreativelawyer.typepad.com/the_creative_lawyer/2012/12/how-to-get-writing-done.html

Neil Gaman on where he gets his ideas from

http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Essays/Essays_By_Neil/Where_do_you_get_your_ideas%3F

The Happiest Words in the English Language solicited

Schott has asked for the "happiest" and "sadest" words :-) Abt Schott.

About Schott's Vocab

Schott’s Vocab is a repository of unconsidered lexicographical trifles — some serious, others frivolous, some neologized, others newly newsworthy. Each day, Schott's Vocab explores news sites around the world to find words and phrases that encapsulate the times in which we live or shed light on a story of note. If language is the archives of history, as Emerson believed, then Schott’s Vocab is an attempt to index those archives on the fly.

Ben Schott is the author of “Schott’s Original Miscellany,” its two sequels, and the yearbook “Schott’s Almanac.” He is a contributing columnist to The Times’s Op-Ed page. He lives in London and New York.

His Web site can be viewed at benschott.com, and his Opinion pieces here.

Tech writers and women who'd love to replace them!

 http://modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/silicon-valleys-geek-chorus/

Among the many things this boom has given rise to—thousands of new companies, stratospheric
growth, cars with facial hair—is a new tech-journalism cottage industry, one that’s positioned
itself as a more accessible, more analysis-driven analog to insider-oriented, gadget-obsessed,
scoops-and-specs publications like TechCrunch and AllThingsD. It’s populated by a coterie of
young men (yes, much like the industry they cover, they’re almost entirely men) who’ve become
the Valley’s hall monitor, peanut gallery, and, often, conscience.
Matt Buchanan, @mattbuchanan
Age: 28 Snark rating: 3
Platform: The New Yorker
In a nutshell: The go-to source for nuanced explanations of tech trends
Sample headlines: “Reading the Web Alone, Together”; “The Problem with Instagram Everywhere”; “How Smart Can a Watch Really Be?”
Objects of disdain: Sexism, Nespresso, tech-fostered alienation, Internet.org (“less-than-charitable”)
John Herrman, @jwherrman
Age: 26
Snark rating: 5
Platform: Buzzfeed
In a nutshell: Trend spotter, utility reporter, and excavator of bizarre Internet culture
Sample headlines: “Watch This Guy Control a Rat’s Body with His Brain”; “Why Robots Are Stealing Your Dinner Reservations”
Objects of disdain: BlackBerry (“a failed state”), “the wireless industry’s crimes against the English language”
Sam Biddle, @samfbiddle
Age: 26
Snark rating: 10
Platform: Gawker’s Valleywag
In a nutshell: Silicon Valley’s self-appointed BS caller and stone thrower
Sample headlines: “Brit Morin Buys Bigger Office to Continue Doing Nothing”; “TechCrunch Now Writing Imaginary Press Releases”
Objects of disdain: Sarah Lacy, Dave and Brit Morin— basically every CEO in the Valley
Nick Bilton, @nickbilton
Age: 37
Snark rating: 2
Platform: The New York Times
In a nutshell: Star Times tech-business reporter who’s up to date on which way the money is flowing in the Valley
Sample headlines: “Texting Your Feelings, Symbol by Symbol”; “The End of an Era in Mobile”
Objects of disdain: None (Times reporters are too civilized for that)
Kevin Roose, @kevinroose
Age: 27
Snark rating: 7
Platform: New York magazine
In a nutshell: New York’s gimlet-eyed, sharp-tongued Wall Street and tech reporter
Sample headlines: “Tech Entrepreneur Offers Coding Lesson to Homeless Guy, Solves Poverty”; “Transit Strike Shows the Dark Side of Silicon Valley’s Privatization Fetish”
Objects of disdain: Burning Man, Uber, Peter Shih
Alexis Madrigal, @alexismadrigal
Age: 31
Snark rating: 3
Platform: The Atlantic
In a nutshell: The tech media’s essayist and philosopher, with a penchant for historical errata and extended word counts
Sample headlines: “What Is Medium?”; “Astronauts in Bathrobes”; “A Map of American Electricity Use in 1921”
Objects of disdain: Misinformation, “the melancholy of Tumblr’s infinite scroll”


 https://medium.com/matter-picks/8481456ed307

The six men on this list of tech writers most willing to be replaced by women

We asked. They offered.

Among the many things this tech boom has given rise to—thousands of bogus trend stories, stratospheric sexism, men with nonsense facial hair—is a new who’s-who-in-tech-journalism cottage industry, one that’s positioned itself as a more with-it, more analysis-driven analog to the hype-driven, status-obsessed, bros-and-their-uber-bros dominating the rest of the tech and media biz. It’s populated by a coterie of young men (yes, much unlike the people who work in the industry they cover and the consumers who drive it, they’re almost entirely men) who’ve become the Valley’s stand-in’s, list-dominators, and, often, men who work directly alongside women who write on the same subjects and then some (and, whom all of these men, when asked, would rather replace them on this list).

---

Matt Buchanan, @mattbuchanan
Age: 28
Platform: The New Yorker
Women to replace him: “There are so many options it’s hard to pick! I mean there’s Jenna Wortham or Nitasha Tiku or Kara Swisher or Adrianne Jeffries or Alexia Tsotsis or Laura June or Leslie Horn or Nicole Perloth or Xeni Jardin.”

---

John Herrman, @jwherrman
Age: 26
Platform: Buzzfeed
Women to replace him: “Plenty!”

“First, and feel free to exclude since she’s one of ours, Justine Sharrock. She’s not as visible on Twitter but she’s getting stories that nobody else in the tech press is anywhere near, and she’s deeply critical of SV. Great, deep reporting. Examples: ‘The Internet Explained By Prisoners Who Have Never Seen It,’ ‘How Many Retweets Is San Francisco’s Tax Break Worth?’”

“Nitasha Tiku: Adds deep, focused reporting to Valleywag. Scoops all the time: ‘Meet the 28-Year-Old CEO of Bang With Friends,’ ‘Uber CEO on Driver “Assault”: It’s Not Real and We’re Not Responsible’”

“Jenna Wortham: I mean, maybe the most vital person on NYT tech team. Best at trendspotting: ‘Instagram Video and the Death of Fantasy,’ ‘The Best Thing I Learned At SXSW Was From the Unabomber’”

“Jessica Roy: Hasn’t been on the scene too long but has been great at Betabeat: ‘Business Insider’s Sexist CTO Has Resigned, But He’s Still Everything That’s Wrong With Tech’”

---

Sam Biddle, @samfbiddle
Age: 26
Platform: Gawker’s Valleywag
Women to replace him: “Nitasha Tiku goes without saying, in my book. But I’ll say it anyway; I’m honored to work with her.”

“I don’t think Kate Losse or Maria Bustillos would describe themselves as ‘tech writers,’ but they’ve written two of my favorite things about technology this year (or ever, really): Maria’s ‘Are The Startup Fellas Hellbent On Destroying Education Even Literate?’ and Kate’s ‘Feminism’s Tipping Point: Who Wins from Leaning In?’”

---

Nick Bilton, @nickbilton
Age: 37
Platform: The New York Times
Women to replace him: “Jenna Wortham, no questions. She is smarter and way wittier than I am, and she somehow manages to cover the tech industry in such a unique way. It’s almost like she’s a seasoned anthropologist who can write about the migration of bees in relation to Jay-Z’s latest album. I love that she covers tech from a cultural standpoint, like her piece on Instagram becoming irrelevant, and her astute observations about selfies.”

---

Kevin Roose, @kevinroose
Age: 26
Platform: New York magazine
Women to replace him: “I would pick Jenna Wortham, Nitasha Tiku, and the Betabeat staff! In addition, Adrianne Jeffries, Evelyn Rusli, Alexia Tsotsis, and Leslie Horn.”

---

Alexis Madrigal, @alexismadrigal
Age: 31
Platform: The Atlantic
Women to replace him: “I’m just looking up from changing diapers and making pot roast — I’m out on paternity leave — but there are dozens of excellent tech writers I read and admire. (I mean, obviously.) But to single out some names off the top of my head before heading back into the baby bubble: Kara Swisher, Kim Zetter, Jenna Wortham, Virginia Heffernan, Claire Cain Miller, Laura June, Nitasha Tiku, Evelyn Rusli, and of course my own teammates Becca Rosen and Megan Garber.”

Writing..often.. daily.. weekly.. regularly.. just writing

Just when I was thinking that I am becoming a bit better by writing more, here come to affirmative voices.

From http://pleasepunctuatethis.com/page/2:
Writing’s like exercise, you have to work out those muscles a lot to make them strong.

Also, a weekly writing plan for writers!
http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2013/09/weekly-writing-plan-to-strengthen-your-writing-muscles.html

Weekly Writing Plan to Strengthen Your Writing Muscles

Share this Blog Entry:

“Don’t be a writer, be writing.” – William Faulkner
Writing is like a muscle and with regular exercise, you’ll improve your ability to compel readers with your message and prevent those muscles from seizing up.
Make exercising your writing muscles a daily habit by incorporating this easy Weekly Writing Plan into your routine. This routine starts you off with 1 article per week. However, you wouldn’t use the same weight every day to strengthen your muscles, would you? Continue challenging your writing muscles by increasing the amount of articles published per week to improve your writing skills as well as build your exposure and authority.
It really does adds up! Check it out:

• 1 article per week for one year = 52
• 2 articles per week for one year = 104
• 3 articles per week for one year = 156

Start writing now using this Weekly Writing Plan and be on your way to the top of your niche! Simply click on the graphic below to view in a new window and then click the image to zoom in or out.


Weekly Writing Plan
Transcription
Day 1: Outline

1. Create a Catchy Title that Hooks Readers
2. Write Dynamic Subheadings that Organize Your Article
3. Establish Your Call-to-Action

Take a Break!
Focus on another task! Once you’ve written down your topic’s intention in an outline, allow your topic to sit in your head and even sleep on it. You will unconsciously “work on it” as your brain processes new and old information: what you already know about the topic, relevant information, experiences, memories, and more.
Day 2: Write

1. Review & Revise Your Outline for Missing Elements
2. Fill the Outline in with Quality, Juicy Details & Descriptions
3. Focus on Writing
4. Don’t Stop or Pause to Consider What You Wrote
5. We Mean It! Write Now. Edit Later

Take a Break!
Once you’ve finished writing, focus on something else – it doesn’t have to be complicated, just something that will pull your attention. You need to step outside of your power-writing mode by recharging your brain on another task.
Day 3: Revise & Proofread

1. Pretend It’s Not Your Piece
2. Trim Superfluous Text
3. Seek Out Holes in Logic
4. Revise as Necessary
5. Proofread for Spelling and Grammar
6. Repeat Steps 1-5 as Necessary

Take a Break!
Focus on a positive activity or thought. Day 3 can be grueling and humbling, so it’s important to reaffirm your strengths and remember the good things.
Day 4: Submit & Plan Release

1. Read Through the Article One More Time
2. Submit to EzineArticles.com
3. Develop Your Article Release Plan (Social Media, Newsletters, Alerts, etc.)

Day 5: Promote

• Published: Yes – Fulfill Your Article Release Plan & Engage Your Audience
• Published: No – Awaiting Review? Take a Floater Day
• Published: No – Were There Issues Found? Address the Issues and Resubmit
• Contact EzineArticles’ Support as Needed

Floater Day

• Brainstorm Article Topics & Future Article Titles
• Scope Out the Competition
• Research Trends
• Connect & Engage with Your Audience
• Read (Anything!) & Simply Absorb the Information

Want to share this image? Simply copy/paste the code from below into your blog or website.
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Additional Resources

• How to Create Quality Content in 7 Steps [Learn more]
• How to Use Timeboxing to Write Articles Efficiently [Learn more]
• How to Prevent Article Writing Information Overload [Learn more]
• How to Promote Your Content [Learn more]
• 5 Methods to Put More Time on the Writing Clock [Learn more]
• 5 Steps to Gutting Your First Draft [Learn more]

Two lives... one similar journeys

Yes, I am still unable to break free from the clutches of Gautham Menon's VTV.
It's mesmerising - just that you need to be ready for that emotional outlash.

Also, there is this film critic, whose language, more than the criticism itself, shines.
He calls Nee thaane enthan pon vasantham as Nee thaane enthan poison Ivy.
Some of his reviews transport you into a Victorian era. His language is tough for me, but that's the fun, isn't it?

A while ago I had read his ruminations about his job as a critic.
http://baradwajrangan.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/bitty-ruminations-75/

I'll just post some bits from Gautham's past and Baradwaj's past and you can make the connections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautham_Menon
One left his Engineering career and pursued film making. Another left it to become a writer - film critic!

The similarities are endearing. I think Baradwaj is even trying his hand at screenplay. Don't know how well that will turn out. Reviewing what's been created by someone is a totally different art than the art of making something.  Similarly I don't know if Gautham ever wanted to be an actor :-) He does feature in 1 sec parts as a background dancer in some songs. Was he interested in acting too? Did he hold back because of the 'stereotype' required for a Tamil hero? Never know.

Being an English teacher is so different from being an English book author!
To know so precisely what is it that you want, and what is it that you are good at and also what is it that can keep you afloat - is a talent in itself. Kudos to all those with a crystal clear vision.

P.S: On 23-Sep I read this piece about Jabberwock. It echoed many of my thoughts too! Maybe I should take this kind of thing too!
http://jaiarjun.blogspot.in/2009/12/private-luxury-doing-your-own-thing.html

Gravity's rainbow review

Another review of an unreadable book.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-rainbow.html

Half the dictionary comes alive in this article, so I dare not read the book being reviewed :-)

Strangely, this reminded me of Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds.
I was compelled to check if Tarantino used Gravity's rainbow as an inspiration.
We cannot truly rule that out! I was pleasantly surprised that there were few others who found this similarity!


http://berkshirereview.newyorkarts.net/2009/08/26/movies-inglourious-basterds-tarantino/#.Ujbmiz9Vh2o
Tarantino does not carefully weave these events into the broken threads of actual history, rather, Inglourious Basterds, like Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, is a delirious alternative history within an alternative world war.

http://www.academia.edu/891735/Tarantino_in_the_World_of_Ideas
Here, the author says that Quentin's Inglorious Basterds has as much relation to World War 11 as did Thomas's Gravity's rainbow.

An analysis of unreadable writing in the times of clickthrough culture

An eloquent article with wonderful analysis on some of literature's most difficult reads and what makes them appealing despite the literature demanding extreme patience from the reader.

http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2012fall/unreadable.php

The 2013 Booker nominees!

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/sep/12/man-booker-shortlist-2013-decade

It's interesting that The guardian has so many courses in creative writing!
http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-masterclasses/creative-writing-courses?guni=Article:in%20body%20link

• About Guardian Masterclasses

• Click here to find out more about the full range of workshops and courses

Latest

• 

  Grammar can be fun

  Become a grammar grandmaster with senior Guardian editor David Marsh
  • Date: Monday 25 November 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £39
  

• How to write for children

  How to write stories to fascinate and entertain the toughest audience in literature
  •Date:19 October or 16 November 2013
  •Location: The Guardian, 90 York Way, King's Cross, London N1 9GU
  •Price: £229
  

• Getting started on your novel with Andrew Miller

  Take your first steps in novel-writing with a Costa Award-winning author
  
  • Dates: 5-6 October 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £399
  

• Free your creativity and get started on your book

  • Dates: Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 October 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £399
  

• Truth and lies with Lavinia Greenlaw

  How to use fact to fuel your fiction
  • Dates: Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 November 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £349 early bird (limited), £399 standard
  

• Develop your writing: plot and character with Kate and Greg Mosse

  Through a series of practical exercises, workshops and discussions, students will develop stories with the potential to become fully-fledged novels
  • Dates: Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 November
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £349 early bird (limited), £399 standard
  

• The essentials of writing crime fiction

  Solve the mystery of how to write gripping crime fiction with a two-day investigation into the genre led by top authors
  Dates: Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 October 2013
  Times: 10am-5.30pm
  Location: The Guardian, 90 York Way, King's Cross, London N1 9GU
  Price: £349 early bird, £399 standard
  

• Develop your writing: how to structure your novel with Gillian Slovo

  Working on a novel but losing your way? This weekend clinic will get your writing back on track
  • Dates: Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 October 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £349 early bird, £399 standard
  

• How to research and write historical crime fiction

  How to dig up dark secrets from the past and find the beating heart of the story
  
  • Dates: Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 September 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £400
  

• How to write fiction based on family history

  Date:Sunday 29 September 2013 or Sunday 3 November 2013
  Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £199 Early bird ticket (limited)
  £229 Standard ticket
  

• Adapting for the screen

  
  • Dates: Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 September 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £349 Early bird (limited); £399 Standard
  

• From first ideas to first draft with Ed Docx

  All writers get 'inspiration' - it is what to do with it that is the problem. This course, led by novelist Ed Docx, aims to provide budding writers with a set of practical tools that will help them get the best from their native creativity
  
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £400
  

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  • Date: Saturday 5 October 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £229
  

• How to write science fiction

  Take your writing to new frontiers - let Liesel Schwarz, Ben Aaronovitch and Oli Munson be your guides to creating scintillating sci-fi and fantastic fantasy
  • Date: Saturday 28 September 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £229
  

• How to write a play

  Lifting the curtain on the unique, and uniquely rewarding, process of writing for the stage.
  • Date: Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 October 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £400
  

• How to write a memoir

  • Dates: Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 October 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £399
  

• Secrets of successful self-publishing

  A one-day workshop aimed at anyone who wants to learn how to be successful at self-publishing
  • Date: Sunday 29 September June 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £150
  

• Writing historical fiction

  Learn to use the past to inspire new stories, with award-winning novelist Katharine McMahon.
  
  • Dates: Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 October 2013
  • Location: The Guardian, King's Cross, London
  • Price: £400
  

• How to write memoir with Damian Barr

  A dazzling memoir course led by the inimitable Damian Barr, author of Maggie & Me. Those who successfully complete the course will qualify for an award in creative writing from UEA, whose alumni include Booker winners Anne Enright, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro
  

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  One of the questions we are most frequently asked is 'why should I sign up for one of the UEA-Guardian Masterclasses?' Here are six good reasons
  

• How to write travel stories

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• How to write the new biography

  Acclaimed non-fiction writer Frances Wilson leads a course for those with a true story to tell who want to find an original way of telling it. Writers who successfully complete the course will qualify for an award in creative writing from UEA
  

• How to tell a story

  Award-winning writers, Bernardine Evaristo and Ross Raisin, will take you on a six-month journey through the art of storytelling. Writers who successfully complete the course will qualify for an award in creative writing from UEA
  

Jorge Luis Borges on Writing

Maria, how can you come up with such articles?
Another great article. I tried to pick a few points, only to realize that EVERY single statement here, could not be missed.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/03/jorge-luis-borges-on-writing/

Best of which were:

On writing and aging:

To reach the point of writing in a more or less uncluttered manner, a more or less decorous manner, I’ve had to reach the age of seventy.

It’s toxic to imagine an ideal reader, defying Michael Lewis’s assertion that the awareness of an audience’s existence exerts “invisible pressures” on the writer:

An absurd statement; how is a person going to write better or worse because he’s thinking about who’s going to read him?

The essential advantage I see in it is that the short story can be taken in at a single glance. On the other hand, in the novel the consecutive is more noticeable. And then there’s the fact that a work of three hundred pages depends on padding, on pages which are mere nexuses between one part and another.  

Alfonso Reyes said that one published what he had written in order to avoid spending his life correcting it: one publishes a book in order to leave it behind, one publishes a book in order to forget it. (I couldn't agree more. For all the new code I wrote, I would keep revising, adding comments and debugs endlessly. My boss once had to stay, "Enough! Stop it now. We have to release the code!")

I wonder how we came up with popular and bestseller lists for everything!
Just because someone or something is popular, is it guaranteed to be good for all or even guaranteed to be good in the first place? Don't we have tons of examples for that? Popular chocolates, popular serials, popular movies... What does popular then mean? That MANY people used it or saw it or probably even liked it.. I am sure many of these lists are rigged which can easily be seen even with the Oscar selection (given that only a handful of people really make the choice). I don't know how the bestseller thing affects artists. I am sure many of them have seethed in anger about this concept of bestseller. Same for career choices, isn't it? Popular career choices - medicine or engineering. Anything below, is for under achievers. If so, why do they have a Nobel prize for other things?
What great things have these over achievers, joining medicine or engineering done? In India - I can surely claim that 99% of the engineers are not engineers. Then what are you?

I have no clue how all this popular or bestseller thing started, but it has driven people in wrong directions. That's for sure.

I just read the Forbes India Celebrity 100 Nominees List...

http://forbesindia.com/article/special/forbes-india-celebrity-100-nominees-list/34337/1

I think Rajinikanth is not on the list! How many people would agree to that? I guess he does have a national fan following or atleast in the 4 south Indian states :-) It's not that I am his fan, but I am just point out to the things they've missed. I guess most stars start out wanting to be in such lists and later when they become choosy about their work, they despise the same lists which they once wanted to be named in. That's the irony of life. You become famous, only to desire isolation and anonymity in the end.

Also, read the comments... and viewers telling that actor XXX should have been on the list.
Hilarious I should say. 

Also, this is a place to mention my frustration with Midnight's children. After all the hype and recommendations by friends, I started to read the book. I had read the first 17 pages, almost 30 times. I could not proceed beyond that. There were as many characters as a yellow pages has. I made a tree diagram for the characters and their relations so that I don't get lost. I had to constantly use the dictionary to understand the vocabulary. After so much hardship, I finished the book and realized that I found no joy in having read it! It did not amuse me. Some small thoughts and phrases amused me but as a whole to me it was a failure! But, this book had won the booker of bookers! Who am I to dispute? What did all this mean? It meant that:

a) I am not ready for Salman Rushdie. Simple. He's way ahead of my league.
b) There COULD be a possibility that people are reading and raving about this book, just because it won the Booker and just to show off that they are well read.

But - I will never say that it's trashy - that it's not a good book. I have no right to say that. I can say, that it did not appeal to me. 
Same happened with Jhumpa Lahiri. I had read her - Interpreter of maladies and was blown away by the stories. So, I followed it up with The Namesake and it failed me immsensely.
Same disappointment with Love in the time of cholera and The museum of innocence.

While on books, a few books that I really loved are - Dan Brown's Da Vinci code and angels and demons, Neelam Saran Gour's The song without an end and other stories, Jane Austen's Price and Prejudice, Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the wind, Khaled Hosseni's The kite runner.

While on books - please note that when we re-read a book 5 or 10 years down the line, we may get a different feeling from the same book. Why? Simple because the person reading the book has changed. The book has not changed for sure, has it? It's solid print on paper and no one can magically erase and re-write them. Then what changed? We... with time. It's an important point to realize. That explains why some friendships change over time, preferences change, everything changes..

I think I am biased towards short stories because you cannot write without a story in a short story. In a whole blown novel you have a lot of padding like Jorge mentioned and I have to read the padding to get to the story.  I don't like padding. I just like the core story, I guess. So, I'm all for powerful stories without the added girth. 

There are good times to be a writer and be published. There is self publishing option too.
But, all this leads me to wonder, do we have more writers than readers? Is it like the Indian traffic jam situation where we have smaller roads but increasing vehicles? How do some of the authors sell?
After Chetan Bhagat, Amish Tripathi became a phenomenal success and has inspired many others. Many do not view Salman Rushdie as Indian, also he's not accessible to the masses, so the man who won the booker of bookers, is not an inspiration for many :-)