{"id":2737,"date":"2003-04-15T14:38:25","date_gmt":"2003-04-15T09:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alpha.ravikiran.com\/blog\/2003\/04\/15\/book-exchange-turnsinto-mini-bloggers-meet\/"},"modified":"2003-04-15T14:38:25","modified_gmt":"2003-04-15T09:08:25","slug":"book-exchange-turnsinto-mini-bloggers-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/vintage\/200304\/book-exchange-turnsinto-mini-bloggers-meet\/","title":{"rendered":"Book exchange turns?into mini bloggers meet"},"content":{"rendered":"

It all started when I called in a standing promise<\/a> from Yazad<\/a> that I could borrow this book<\/a> from him whenever I wished. Three witnesses were called in to ensure that the handing-over process was free and fair. There was international presence too. The press wasn’t invited.
It ended with the discovery that I am a genius in the garb of simplicity<\/a> and that I have a a scholarly bearing about [me]<\/a><\/p>\n

Many things conspired to prevent the momentous event from taking place. The night before the meeting, I was in the same state that Salman Khan got into in Andaz Apna Apna<\/i> as a result of Amir Khan’s machinations.* The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation dug up trenches all around my office, perhaps anticipating an invasion by American special forces. (after all, anti-war types keep saying that India could be next ) But with grim determination and gritted teeth, I landed up, albeit 45 minutes fashionably late and just before Sampada could throw a tantrum (in Yazad’s words ) I didn’t know which to fear more – a lady’s tantrum or a German’s disapproval of unpunctual people, but thankully I was spared both. <\/p>\n

Sampada was as vivacious as I’d expected her to be. Sameer being the silent type shouldn’t have surprised me. After all, I had my own experience to go by, but it did. I had met Yazad before, so he wasn’t a suprise. This time, we did not get into an argument about whether a government was needed or not, but we did manage to discuss ostentatious Indian marriages, a German’s cultural shock at finding people without a sense of time (he meant people in Africa, not me – at least that’s what he assured me) and the Protestant movement and Martin Luther’s part in stopping the sale of indulgences. <\/p>\n

I think I missed a lot of the conversation this time because of BMC’s war preparations. I want to make it up.
Here’s to many more such meetings! When do we meet again? This time I promise I won’t be late. <\/p>\n

*You know, where Amir takes revenge because Salman subjected him to a diet? That state. Literally<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It all started when I called in a standing promise from Yazad that I could borrow this book from him whenever I wished. Three witnesses were called in to ensure that the handing-over process was free and fair. There was international presence too. The press wasn’t invited. It ended with the discovery that I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}