Reading in Pune

Pune has a decent number of options for books. I am a fan of the 'International Book House' at Garware corner near Deccan Gymkhana. Much better and personal than Crosswords which is just a mall of books, so only titles that bring in money there.

Piracy for software and books is very much the norm here. Western prices converted to INR make them too costly. If anti-piracy was strictly enforced, Microsoft would die in the user market and Linux will be king. So, it is kind of tolerated as even if 5% take in an original one, it is still decent revenues.

Another way is the pavement stalls which come up at different spots as well.

There must be a few more good sources but have no idea where in Pune (camp most likely)

Everybody's Jammin

Caught in a traffic jam yesterday. In Pune they are common place. Some God/Leader/Saint/Prophet is dead/dying/getting born. The believers take out a loud, noisy, dusty road blocking processions with the local vagabands drinking and dancing. It is just one more way Indians show their lack of civic sense.

India has historically been a country callous towards life including human. It has been raped, plundered, looted and ruled over the centuries. This brings me to how ambitious plunderers from the past are portrayed.

Alexander came to India with the intent of loot, plunder and conquest. Hitler and Chengiz Khan has similar objectives. One is 'the Great', the others are not exactly identified as such. Purely in square miles, Chengiz Khan outdid both combined. Should'nt he be the greatest?

Hitler is bad because he killed a lot of white, christian populations along with others. So the allies have painted him as worse of the three.