Facebook Check-In

In your typical day when you visit your facebook timeline, do you see any check-ins from your friends on it ?

I do have some observations about them and probably some of my thoughts behind them,mostly sarcastic :)

• When travelling outside India, its a must to check-in on Facebook. Else the airlines will never give you the boarding pass.
• The check-in while travelling abroad should be at each of the transit airports. Else they can't use the washrooms in the transit airports, nor are they allowed to buy anything from the airport duty free shops
• One of my friend in the US, checks-in almost twice to thrice a week, travelling within US. Its from Atlanta to Detroit or to New York or wherever. That's when I realised that in US it must be a mandatory to checkin first on facebook before you check-in at the airport counter.
• Those who are abroad, say the US/UK kind of folks, will check-in when they visit a Temple. Probably the priest will give Prasadam  only for those who have checked-in.
• You will not see any one in India doing a check-in into temples, unless if its a trek to a mountainous temple or visiting the temple has a historic reason rather than a religious angle to it.
• If one visits a Five Star hotel looking beautiful photographically, then its kind of a must to check-in on  facebook. The taste of the food is immaterial. It should be visually appealing.
• If you are travelling to Leh Ladakh , then its a sin not to to a check-in. The mandatory photo should be the Pangong lake preferably on your Enfield Bullet and a Nikon DSLR. 
• One of the most important check-in especially for this year(2017) was to check-in before going to watch Bahubali 2 . Without the check-in the you wouldn't be allowed inside the theater at all.

The only real thing I see value in such check-in is marking yourself safe when there is some incident in your area or so. Your near and dear ones will know that things are fine. Else every time I see a check-in on facebook, I have to try real hard not to post any sarcastic comment on the same,

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10 of My Favorite Books

A long standing Facebook request - to document 10 of the favorite books which I have read -
So, here it it... though not in any given order, purely random as I tried to recollect from my memory.

1. Outliers : The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell
2. Iacocca : An Autobiography by Lee Iacocca
3. The Toyota Way : Jeffrey Liker
4. Five Point Someone - Chetan Bhagat
5. Gods ,Kings and Slaves : The Siege of Madurai - R-Venkatesh
6. Chanakya's Chant - Ashwin Sanghi
7. Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer
8. I am another you - Priya Kumar
9. Life Is What You Make It - Preeti Shenoy
10. The Professional - Subroto Bagchi

I might down the road - Keep adding, to this same list and the same blog, so that I also keep remembering the good books which I have read.

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Book Review : 2 states (The story of my marriage)

Book : 2 states (The story of my marriage)

Author : Chetan Bhagat

Price : 95/-

Its not everyday of your life that one gets the read a new Chetan Bhagat book. ( Do I sound like him now :)). I am sure, most of you who are reading this review, are already fans of Chetan Bhagat. Compared to the last two books, I liked this book more, but then nothing to beat "Five Point Someone". I am not sure why I liked this more, it could also be since again, it takes you to college life and then the real life, as against movie type stories in his last two books.

As like any CB book, one can comfortably complete this book in one day, though it might cost you a couple of hours of your sleep time, but its very well worth it. The book starts off as a flash back, like his last book, and then moves into the present. The storyline starts off with his life in IIMA, and then moves into his personal and professional life in Chennai. Very beautifully captured the details on Chennai and the mannerisms of South Indians, and then going north the lifestyle and mindsets of punjabis. It couldn't have got better. The book enhances the basic traits in these two communities and what are the ways one can get comfortable with them. To get the indepth details and what each of the community looks forward, can easily be found in this book, and will be remembered for life, since the presentation is very humorous and it will be etched in your mind.

The story also takes you to Goa, and since I am on vacation at home it felt all the more better.

Citibank , is an important character in this Novel, and I couldn't agree more on how Citibank really does business.

The story again has a spiritual angle and its beautiful. I cant wait to go to Pondicherry and visit the ashram once.

All in all, a great book. Its much much better than the last two books, but then FPS remains the best. This story could be a good sequel to 3 Idiots. Must read for all CB fans.

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