Savour the words.

Technology has creeped in the lives of millions of people whether you like it or not, whether you are irked by its advancement or admire it. It has replaced walking by scooter and motor cycle rides, sweeping with vacuum cleaning, candles by tube lights, test-tube babies by normal babies, normal fertilization by in-vitro fertilization,..the list goes on. Another important one includes replacement of books by e-books. For those accustomed to relish upon reading and re-reading old books, it takes time to settle in. For the younger, tech-savvy generation it is a welcoming aspect who are mostly addicted to screens be it the television or the computer.

Reading from the screen does have its pros and cons. If you had internet, you could always refer the meaning for words or places or people. It gives immense satisfaction to learn a new word in the vocabulary of any language.(I prefer English). It is even more exciting when you learn the etymology of the word. Derived from Latin or Greek or French, you could always connect it a similar word in pronunciation or anything to create a map.

There is the disadvantage of sitting in the same place unless you have a laptop or a netbook.

I usually resort to reading Crime fiction than many other genres of books. Humor comes next. Crime always excites me, the solving of a puzzle, the need of a motive to murder. Sometimes its distressing not to be able to find the person behind the crime. You could come up with your own ideas of the criminal based on the facts, which is extremely interesting. But Poirot's grey cells beats it all. I have to admit Christie's books are quite enthralling. You're befuddled at the plots yet it is intricately woven and brilliant. Murder for love, money, jealousy, craziness,..it totally gets to you. The delicacy in people's relationships, when the members of the family are cast into suspicion doubting each other as a murderer. Reading at night gives you creeps. Usually every murder is followed by another. Each book is unique.

I would rather read books with a mixture of such thrill and pattern of relationships between people than Lahiri's work based on immigrant-emmigrant culture differences and relationships. Its sort of boring to read about day to day happenings, nevertheless gives a complete picture of Indian life abroad. Yet there isn't the excitement with which you read a book to expect someone to get killed. It would be about who would marry who, does one end up happily or in loneliness? It tells you a great deals about feelings of people.

Puzzle solvers and mathematicians aren't very much into feelings of people. We're scientific. We need facts. We need logical thinking. We need a solution. As simple as that.

Yet, the human mind is a puzzle by itself.