Today when you rejoice over how a fast brought a country together and hope for change, and then think how today would be a historical day twenty years down the line, think about two folks. Especially about why the former is on a political fast. And then ask yourself why you did not read each clause in detail and discuss.

So we are at it again. It is the month of April and the PMC has started making those formal statements about water cuts. Each year they do it and, they also repeat the reasons as to why there is a water problem. Namely:

• lack of a map/structure of the water pipe network
• a significant percentage of the water pipes being broken down due to rust resulting in water loss
• valves at important junctions cannot control/regulate the water pressure leading to water loss
• unregulated water loss from the public outlets
• most of the reservoirs are around 40% of their water capacity
• rain water harvesting is not widely adopted across housing societies
• "tanker mafia"

This drama will continue till around mid-May and thereafter folks-in-power will decide on a 60% cut till the rains put in enough water. And each year I will wonder what prevents them from putting some scheduled percentage cuts right at the beginning of the season - say, 20% right when it is mid-March ? When you are running short of cash, you don't usually splurge till your pockets are empty and then suck ice-cubes do you ?

Finally I got around to creating a shelf on the Goodreads profile for books that I'd like to keep and read again. There ought to be a lot of books in Bengali that should get listed. It would be interesting to see how or, what books stack up for others.

If you cannot see that shelf then please leave a comment and I'll see what can be done.

• Have you ever managed to cook Maggi within the 2 minutes ?
• Have you had a large transaction and a subsequent payment on your credit card and received a call from the company about your limit being increased by a whopping amount ?

This isn't a rhetorical question. If I have a bunch of fiction/non-fiction/potboilers that I intend to get rid of what is the best way ? Host an open house and let folks pick what they want ? ;)

Looking for a property/apartment leads to all sorts of questions. And, then there is the latent exasperation around why builders don't have a standard format when publishing specifications. For example, you look at electronic items - TV, toaster, microwave ovens, refrigerator and what not and you'd notice that there is this somewhat familiar way of explaining the power ratings, the power consumption ratings, the capacity and so forth. Not so when it comes to apartments. You'd have to grapple with notions of sale-able area, carpet area that includes/excludes terrace, flat area that implies an inclusion of the car parking area, absence of the percentage of the total land that forms the super-built up area, the somewhat ill formed write-up on the maintenance charges per square feet and the list goes on. Then of course there are the myriad 'certifications' and appraisals each project touts in order to demonstrate the 'state of the art' (I thought that this word went out of fashion post Rajiv Gandhi era). This doesn't even include the need to be clear about the municipal zones the property is under.

Having done this twice (yes, we just settled on something at Pune) the only somewhat easy route has been the financing institution (LICHFL this time as well). Ahh well ! Let's see how things go in the future in terms of possession of the property.