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Thappad – not a film review

I had deliberately not watched this movie for some time because I knew even from the trailer that it is a thought provoking movie.

What most who watched the film did not understand is that the movie was not about the slap at all!
(Got the bait now!!)

The slap was only the turning point or the indication or a wake up call for the wife to re assess her life. The mundane life she was living putting her desires and ambitions away for her husband and making his goals her own, his mother was her mother now, his dreams her own, his party her own and even his favourite colour became her own!

All these happened so gradually that she was in too deep. It was a person walking in a sleep or working in slumber and doing things mechanically. This sleep required a wake up call, which in this case was the slap but believe me it could have been anything. If some one feels that the slap is trivial then he or she will be surprised to know that it can be a simple act or word said by the spouse which can trigger this realisation that you also have a life and identity!

The things and people in the movie are actually not that far fetched but still I think they have shown the husband too oblivious to reality! May be he is still in Kabir Singh mode! Maybe he thinks that the world revolves around him! It took a thappad to make him also realise at least in the end that he is not the centre of the universe!

The thappad shook the wife but it made her realise that no one in that house actually cares about her feeling and no one appreciates what she does in that house. She gives them time to acknowledge that. The look she gives to another wife, the mother of her husband, her mother in law was like a daughter experting her mother to empathise with her. Why she did not scold her son? Why she did not just grab him by his ears and tell him to say sorry immediately!?
Why she did not even ask her how she was?
Those were the eyes which were decieved and heart broken and the saddest ones in the house.

The two days she also took to get a hold of her life, if she was the maid with no one to depend on or no self confidence then she would have just stayed. If she was the lawyer, she could have started with domestic abuse law suit. But she was a wife who had just woken up from a house wife coma and she needed to evaluate her options. Sh went to her father’s place and when she got the support from her father she made her resolve littile more strong. Add to the fact that there is another man in the house who treats his housewife with respect which she deserves.

Even after she moves out she still gives her husband ample chance to at least try to understand why she left him. He did not understand that he did not slap her face but her self confidence and he did not apologize for it. And apology is not saying sorry but it means that he or she understands that what he or she did was wrong and they will try with utmost sincerity to never repeat it again! It is pathetic that this whole range of commitment which is involved in apology has been reduced to this small word which people utter without meaning it…

A scene in which his boss tells him that what he did was wrong and it is so cool when he asks, “would you have slapped me or your senior?”
It takes efforts by everyone around him and her separation to finally realise that what he did was wrong and by the time it was too late anyway.

He did not now that love is like a string and once broken it cannot be fixed, if you try to fix it then there will be knots…

Of course the above is only a point of view of the movie, in real life it may not lead to divorce or else the amount of traumatic perforation I see in my practice will be the number of divorce. That before lockdown was at least one to two per week! Apparently men show masculinity mainly to women younger to them and think that it is their right!

Marriage is an institution which is easy enough to create but very difficult to maintain. A happy marriage is most difficult to maintain. It does not matter whether it was arranged or love marriage. Like how the lawyer says in the movie, marriage is just a legal agreement between two parties. The court or the society does not take into account the emotional component which is actually the most important. It does take lots of compromises from either party to make it work. Sometimes may be the compromises are just not enough and you may reach a breaking point or maybe a Thappad will do it for you!

And don’t worry, I have great respect for the institution of marriage, so maybe being optimistic about the movie in that as the husband says in the end, he will try to be better and maybe that happened later and they did give the marriage another go! Round two without the thappad of course! Being the eternal optimist that I am, I can always hope right!

In a famous novel by John Grisham, the accused is a black who killed the guy who raped his daughter. In the closing note the lawyer tells to the jury, “all I need all of you to do is you close your eyes and imagine that the accused is White! Now make your decision!”

In the same way I also urge you to do this, “close your eyes and imagine that the person who slapped is the wife and the one who recieved the slap was the husband!

Do you still think it was just a slap!?”

Camel club by David baldacci…Book reviewFictional thriller genreRating 4/5 for the thrill!Spoilers… No spoilers!It is always a thrill when the novel is about kidnaping the president of a country especially a security conscious one like the US!Add to that you have a bunch of old fools or men who call themselves the Camel club who have so many mysteries in their pasts and you have a thriller! Why camel because apparently Camels are persistent! And here I thought it was elephants!I have always believed in reading the novels written by any author in series how he or she has written them. You can literally see the growth and maturity and word experience with each subsequent novel!So coming to the book, since it is Baldacci you have your regular dose of CIA FBI and other non intelligent acronyms for intelligence agencies and their collaboration and importance and how they are same but different! This is getting repetitive in his novels but I guess it’s the biggest truth…The moment I wrote that statement I could literally hear Jack Nicholson screaming onto my ear that, “you can’t handle the truth!”Well among the four, there is one who is as Mysterious as can be! He knows all the intelligence agecies secrets but lives in a cemetery!The primary story is that these almost bums witnessed a high profile murder while having their regular meet! Now since they are such shady characters it is an understatement that no one will believe them!
So now they have both the murderers and the authorities after them and the only way out of this pickle is that they find the killers before everyone else and why!Then there is the lead investigator Alex who is as confused as they come but having an amazing intelligence ability! Naturally his personal life is gone to the drains though his latest fling gives him the much needed support. His story has been left hanging so maybe it will continue.In the middle of all this quagmire you have some Arabs, Iraqis, Syrians and North Koreans who are present but legally dead!Put in a situation where the prez of US is seconds away from blowing the nuclear bomb and his advisors telling him that it’s necessary and you have a terror thriller!Regular Baldacci will love it since it is racy with never a dull moment while one who is reading for the first time I would suggest to start with his Absolute Power and gradually reach here!Camel club is read worthy…

This is a one of a kind Bluetooth frame which uses a modification of directed sound seen in the sound bar by the same company but in this case the sound is directed very close to the ear.

My previous experience with Bluetooth sunglasses has been very bad because it was just an earphone with a glass extension and the sound was pathetic. Not to mention the abysmal microphone and battery and of course you look like a guy who just visited the local fair and got something to wear which they usually give to retarded people just to make you go away!

So you can very well imagine my hesitance to get this frame which is an amalgamation of my two most favourite things, Bluetooth and Sunglasses!

Me being a Ray ban Aviator guy had resisted the need to buy this frame and the price of close to 25k was a little bummer for a sun glass!

Then when I saw this in the Singapore Airport Duty free section with a price tag of close to 15k which is almost half of what was available in Amazon (Ok, not exactly half but me being a Bluetooth fanatic did not need much more push!); the purchase was instant since my flight was boarding and the agony of having a Bose with you but you cannot use it till you are safely in the flight was like being in the sea and not being able to drink! (Again, you can excuse me for the adage since it is desperation more than sense which was speaking!).

So after the boarding and settling down I took our these sleek frames and the guide told be to download the app only after that I could use it! Talk about desperation!
Luckily the kind air hostess had not yet told us to switch off the mobile and the mobile network in Singapore is break neck speed so in an instant I could download the app and I was good to go!

You had to of course switch on the Bluetooth and get the phone connected to the Frame. The first time it took a couple of tries but every time I connect later it is really fast and accurate and almost instant with audio commentary so we know what’s happening.

The first time you wear this amazing piece of engineering you may not be impressed but the moment you connect it to the phone and listen to any music then you will be hooked!

Now, coming to the sound! It has to be listened to be believed. The clarity is really good and the best thing is that there is not ear phone getting inside the ear or any direct sound to the ear. On top of that the sound is presented in such a way that only you can listen to the sound and it does not disturb others. The best part is that in spite of all this you can still hear the ambient sound and this is an added bonus especially if you are driving or working out during the day!

The frames come in two different shapes and three different sizes and are unisex. Though I am a big Aviator fan as mentioned before, very soon I grew in to the shape and this was a pleasant surprise to me!

You have a single button for all the control and a single tap will power the frame and instantly connect the frame to the phone! This is after the frame announces the power in the frame and then another announcement is made that the frame is connecting to the phone!

The default music player is activated and the same button can be used for starting or stopping the music. It is almost feather touch and the button is very robust and hidden in the underside of the frame!
A double tap will change the track to the next while a triple tap will give you the previous track! The default music player is activated and the same button can be used for starting or stopping the music. It is almost feather touch and the button is very robust and hidden in the underside of the frame!
Since it has an inbuilt microphone and a very clear one in fact you do not have to do anything else! Walking and talking on the phone with the frame may give some stares especially if you are talking to yourself! So this frame does draw attention whether you want it or not!

Can you imagine a frame which has a software update!? well, this one has a update and after that you get new features which are more futuristic! The latest software update gave the button volume control ability! So you press on the button and twist your head sideways to increase or reduce the volume and it really super cool! Talk about some James Bond stuff!

The frame is light but robust with water proofing and the charge lasts for weeks on moderate use. The charge is through the included cable which gets magnetically connected to the frame and you can hook it to any USB charger. It takes about an hour for full charge and you are good to go!

Nothing can be perfect though so you have some cons! You can use this only during the day since these are proper shades and you may not always look like Mika Singh if you wear it indoors or in the night to listen to music! If you wear spectacles then you can never use this anyway since these are plain shades.
The Bose community board is full of people who want this to be made prescription glasses but it does not look to be in the near future.

Of course the glasses are replaceable with other colours which are available in Amazon (not now of course but after lockdown!) and apparently you can change them with prescription glasses. This of course voids the warranty which is very important in Bose products since the repair out of warranty does not come cheap though it is another matter that people (not me!) who have Bose may not get it repaired and get a new one or they are the ones who do not worry about minor problems like money! (again not me!!)

This is a must buy for any music lover and one who goes for long lonely drives in the car!

Hour game by David Baldacci

Book review

Genre Fiction murder mystery

Rating 4/5

Spoilers… It is a murder mystery so spoiler is murder! Which I will not do! So no spoilers!

In any murder mystery, the author hits the nail when the murderer is introduced in the novel but you can never guess who he or she is!

The best ones are those who make you think but draw a blank! I am fairly good at getting it right if the character has been introduced! There have been very few instances where I have been stumped and those novels or movies were pretty awesome!

In spite of me getting the guy or gal right in this one, the book is still very well written and racks your brain!

The odd pair of an athletic Michele and the able bodied king works as there is no romantic complication between them as yet! Detectives who are paired and of opposite sex work when this happens like in Monk or even the Mentalist to an extent!

So you have the whole thing start with the pretty gruesome murder of an exotic dancer and that is hour one! After that the bodies keep piling up! You have hour two and three as a young couple in car getting it literally! Then you have so many hours more and finally you have a young mother of three killed so badly and the husband is blamed for it!
The one tick off was a very good clue! Read it to know more!
The only problem is that if it was an Lincoln Rhyme novel then after the third kill, Rhyme would have got the pattern and prevented the fourth one in spite of being quadriplegic!

Here the tweedle do and dum just stumble from one to another barely surviving purely by luck and finally getting their head straight!
Not very efficient detective I must say!

You have a rich family with the head in hospital in terminal care who also gets killed! You have his proud wife, then you have two sons; one of who dies young while the other spends better part of his life in spending money or enacting fake battles!. Then you have this confused girl of the family and the daughter in law who is substance abuser! And put in a couple of helps here and there!

In another part you have a poor family with head who is a no gooder who also gets Killed! His hard working wife and kids and mother in law!

Throw in some lawyers, FBI guys and cops in the pool and you have your soap opera!
Also throw in some bad Date choices of the two detectives and you end up thinking, “what were you thinking!?”

The middle part of the book really streches the plot too far. It could have been cut short by at least hundred pages!
In this the best novel is “and then there were none!” Simple short book with so much mystery and you cannot guess the killer! Now that’s a perfect murder mystery!

This too is good but not great! Regular Baldacci readers will like it while others can start from the first one!

I started Baldacci this year and this is my tenth in series! The novel is second of maxwel and king series though!

So read since the lockdown gives you plenty of time but remember that money is the root of all evil!

Whatsapp Co(ka)rona!

My general rule of Whatsapp is the Indian penal code rule which was innocent until proven guilty!

If it is a Whatsapp forward then it is false until proven true!
In the days of lockdown, people have only two major company whihc transcends all Barriers! One is the Television and the other is the mobile! Both of them now mostly depend on the internet so that becomes the lifeline!

After the work of the day is done, all that is left is to guage the current situation and pick up your phone to Whatsapp!

In Corona it started with jokes on the Virus, or China or lockdown as such! So you have your regular Virus and China jokes followed by husband wife jokes which frankly in the days of gender neutralality feels dated! Then you have a list of boredom killing games or web sites or skills to learn! My wife has taken to tik tok to learn quick snacks which is easy to make and ready to eat! Many still see videos of street food and think those were the days!

After the jokes you get the forwards which are two broad type! One is to scare you about Corona and the other gives hope or even a cure!

The scary ones will feature some patient gasping for breath (which was proved to be fake!) Or some inner video stolen from national geo or some other site showing the animal market in China! One video will talk of doomsday prophecies while many forwards will be of some book or the other where such a pandemic was mentioned! Notable was Dean Koontz’s book! With so many books being written about conspiracy theories, the law of statistics is that some of it will get true!
There’s a serial in Netflix which even mentions Corona being a Bio weapon! Talk about weird coincidence!
Another forward talks about the role of America in the generation of Corona!
Then you have a big forward telling how the whole Corona problem is the China trying to become a super power!
Finally you have messages with some statistics which make them look genuine but they are still fake! These include why death is more in some place or how some country is hiding death and the real situation!

While the overall negative but supposedly serious messages are plenty, you also have some misquided positive messages which are even more dangerous!
One message starts with the name of a real famous Doctor and gives many technical terms but ends up with telling that Tea is the treatment for Corona! Am sure many other home remedies are getting thrown in the treatment pit! You have some clove water or honey water or some turmeric milk or even copper vessel!
Some messages will be how that the people infected are so many but the death rate is so less so don’t worry! But I guess it’s better to err on the side of caution!
Then you have medical forwards with links which look so genuine telling how drugs like HCQ or Oseltamivir or anti HIV drugs are like the treatment of choice! Or how drugs like Ibuprofen and Azithromycin may cause problems! Or how getting BCG vaccination protects you!
All these have to be taken with lots of caution and make sure that you consult a health professional before taking the leap which can be very dangerous!

You also have a deluge of neutral messages like how you have to be clean, or a glorification of Hindu tradition of namaste or japanese tradition of Bow! How not your diet habits have either saved or caused you in trouble! How to pass time using the net or how to learn skills during the lockdown!
In times of shortage of masks you have a ton of videos telling how to make home made masks or how to improve the mask quality! Or how to get great deals on mask!
Also you have many financial advisors who will give you advice on money matters! These are forwards which do not have to be true or false! They are neutral! In times like this, these are the best forwards!

Then there are a group of massages which look like they are helping but in fact are causing more problems! Like how world is going to shut so rush to the shopping mall! Or to the petrol pump or a medicine is effective in COVID so rush to the store!

This was the main reason why people had rush in the shops, why no masks are available even for medical personnels and no sanitizers to boot! I also get messages how one particular shop is going to open only for some time with limited stock! You can imagine the rumble it may have caused!

Then you have lots of messages supporting the lockdown or the clapping of hands or social distancing which all start well but many times end in some Voo doo whimper!
Read them for fun but don’t take them seriously!

In fact, don’t take any Whatsapp message seriously! Read, enjoy and delete! But please think ten times before you forward!

These simple tips can help you!

1. Don’t believe any Whatsapp forward! It is false until in very rare condition proven true!
2. Don’t forward without checking at least once if the message looks genuine or at least written by a human and not someone who has just taken some drugs!
3. Try to make your own message with good sources and send only if you have something new or different to add!
4. Do not forward controversial messages especially the ones with doomsday prophecies!
5. Everyone has TV so if Tom Hanks has got COVID believe me that everyone knows!
6. If there is a new treatment strategy then it will be known to the health professionals and to WHO since no other protocol can be followed without getting into trouble!
7. Finally understand that Whatsapp and FB are only for entertainment and not for information!

It’s more important now to clean your house, cook and take care of your kids and parents. And most importantly stay at home!

You can forward this one though!!

Split second by David Baldacci

Book review

Fictional thriller genre

Rating-3.5/5

Spoilers-None

Two presidential candidates, two secret service agents and two criminal attempts! Both the times the two agents are unable to perform their duty because of a split second decision! The one act that screwed their careers!

This is the first book in the series King and Maxwell! And it was a thrill ride to the end when it becomes a fictional shooting of a crazed mind!

It starts very well like all David novels and of course after Train journey he is back to his playing field!

The level of suspense and mystery is kept alive to the very end and this is plain detective series from the word go!

Careful assessment of clues and revisiting the crime scenes for clues and fresh perspective is the flavour of the book!
Of course this is no Jeffery Archer and his Lincoln Rhyme! So the result also is in sync!

Many of the deductions are plain chance and most of the moves are purely muscle which makes it unrelatable to the real secret service work!

So you have protesters of Vietnam war or Nixon, you have the importance of Presidential candidates who may never win the election but can be valuable King makers! , You have two agents who want to find answers and everyone else are support staff whose mention may spoil the plot so I am letting the sleeping nuts lie!

All in all a good fast read but the whole novel could have really trimmed down to half rather than beating down the bushes with a feather stick!

You may take a split second to get the book but it is a long one so takes hours to read!

Book Review

Genre Fiction drama

Rating 3.5/5

Spoilers…None

As you might have guessed it and like how it will be mentioned in the book cover, it is about a train journey which takes place around Christmas time!

Another departure and this time the train kind from the classic thriller you expect from David Baldacci! I seem to like his departures better than the routines!

Train journey is always a special moment especially done with family and our childhood was spent in the railway stations! We used to have long journeys ranging from 1 to 5 days! One train we took was from Bangalore to Howrah! That was five days! Every time we stop at a station or the train gets delayed we have a mini adventure! Even within the train we have had so much! The first few days our home cooked food will be used and after the third day it will be the chance to eat the junk from the train Pantry!

David Baldacci also describes train journey and it was like a throwback to the old times! The train there is of course no less than an Airplane where you have separate compartment and individual toilets and waiters and bar and posh restaurants!

The story is how the lead is banned to fly for two years for losing his temper (I think the minimum people can do when they are thousands of feet in a metal box flying so fast is to at least maintain some decorum and decency! Or better yet, take the train!).
So he is forced to take the train and he meets someone with a blast from the past! How it all pans out in two different train is the syrupy mushy story with an added mystery which could be the author’s attempt to fill the pages with some words!

The description of train compartments and the working of train may remind you of the Airport by Arthur Hailey but boy I wish Arthur would have written a book on train! It would have been right on TRACK!

So anyway you have the lead who is a war journalist in the past now relegated to writing coffee table books!, you have an eccentric co passenger!, You have a famous director with his crew who want to make a movie on train, you have a young couple who want to get married in the train! You have a priest who can do miracles! And you have two ladies in the train! One the current temporary craze and the other a lost love of the past!

Add to these you add a mystery of the missing sun glasses and a big avalanche which brings the huge train to a halt!

The premise reminds me of another train classic The Orient express by Agatha Christie which remains my favourite train book ever! But believe me this one is not half as bad so give it a whistle!

Although the setting is recent times but halfway through the book you feel that you are in the 1950-60s! The book gives you a warm feeling that may not melt your cold heart but may prevent frost bite!

To understand what that means you can read the book!
All aboard!

Last man standing by David Baldacci

Book review

Genre Fiction thriller!

No spoilers

Rating 3.5/5

David Baldacci is back after Wish you well and how! Though I loved Wish you well but I really want to read David Baldacci for the thrillers and not drama!

No spoilers since the whodunnit will simply blow your mind!

One thing I would like to comment, if you have a captive and you describe how he or she plans for escape and then escapes only to be caught then please don’t waste 30-40 pages in that! Just say he tried to escape but was caught!
In this day and age unless you are being Murakamic metaphorical then we simply don’t have time to beat around the bush!
Ditto for describing some horse riding or other activities which finally has nothing to do either with the story or the ending!

As the title suggests, Web London is a very special FBI rescue team who goes on a mission and freezes which actually saves his life!
How and why and who is the whole story!

You have your regular FBI stories and agents with so much ego and stories and scars that it becomes a routine!

You have drug dealers who live life king-size!

You have the parents of the kid in the mission gone wrong who start their life refresh! They move off to the country and start a horse farm!

If that’s how your rein in your high horse then you have the perfect setting!
No one seems to be who they are and the person whom you least suspect turns out to be the mastermind behind everything gone wrong! I could have never guessed who and that is a major twist!

You have a hostage rescue story gone wrong and that is the one thing which glues all the characters in the story together!
It is quite remarkable how one incident affects everyone in different ways!
Then you have judges and lawyers getting killed phonetically! And you have hypnosis as the cream in the cake!

The new thing and angle in this one is the Psychiatrist which is interesting in that most of the FBI agents and their family require counseling and that’s really scary! Since the is the FBI, the confidentiality may not be concrete!

Finally the last few pages you have all the pieces of puzzles sticking together and you have the much needed closure!

All in all a typical Baldacci ride!
Just don’t be the last man standing to read this one!

Wish you well by David BaldacciBook ReviewGenre FictionRating 4/5A departure from David Baldacci! Many times I had to go back to check whether it was really David Baldacci only!It starts like any other David Baldacci, a car ride which you know will go bad! But then when it really happens is when you realise that the setting is not the present times but in the 1940s!The family loses the Father and mother becomes catatonic. The boy called Oz and Girl named Lou then are sent along with their mother to their grandmother Louisa!City dwellers after that big shock find another shock where they would now have to settle down in a village close to a mountain which was described by the father in his novels!One gloomy thing to another leads to them slowly coming to terms of their life. Learning to farm and riding mules to coal mining to getting to give birth to animals!The picture has been painted so nicely that you can imagine doing these things!Lou is the girl who must become old and cold at an young age! One loss after another makes her a realist and pessimist. But she is the strong willed character who may falter in between but still be there for her brother and mother!Oz is innocence personified in a little boy with eternal optimism and belief that it will all be better someday!Louisa the grandmother who for the better part of the novel is the iron willed strong minded and well balanced village lady whom you do not want to mess with! She is the bridge who joins the pessimism and optimism of her grand kids!Cooper the lawyer and perhaps their only literate friend is a rare man of character and good will!The simple times doesn’t mean that the time was simple but it simply means that people were simple who would not hold back! In these times you know who is good and who is bad! No twists or turns!As the family gets by they are stuck with a tragedy involving their friend Diamond who is another sweet character providing the much needed comic relief in an otherwise sombre narration!Ably assisted by the house hand Eugene, they try to overcome one problem and another to finally come to a much deserved happy ending!This is of course only because the setting is 1940 when happy ending was the norm!The eternal fight between man and environment and village folks and capitalists has been poignantly described!Was expecting a thriller by David Baldacci and instead got an emotional rollercoaster!
Not that I am complaining!
In the era of negativity, this novel some old song gives you the warmth which you need but never get!Wish you well is like the wishing well which delivers!This has been made into a movie which I want to see!

Saving faith by David Baldacci

Book review

Fiction thriller genre

Rating 4/5 for the Intense introduction and the nail biting climax which of course is not how the real world works of course!

No major spoilers

David Baldacci uses FBI and CIA in his storylines so much that I feel he has some inside information!

A one word summary of the book would be that it emphasizes the rivalry between the two premier investigation agencies of US; namely the FBI and CIA. Though the anti Hero was from the CIA in this case, it could have been anyone of those who put patriotism in front and give their own definitions to it!
Any act done with that thought process is deemed right in the mind however evil or cruel it may seem!

You kill people and even FBI agents as if you are swatting a fly! Money moves around like a ball while playing passing the parcel!

Where ever you are though, it is understood that there will be people of honour and there will be people who are corrupt. Then again financial crunch can make anyone sell his or her soul! Especially if you are in CIA or FBI, it is imperative that you don’t trust anyone! In fact one of the mole or leak was so unexpected! Kudos to David for that! Never doubted that guy to be the mole!

You meet you above average PI Lee who on a routine surveillance saves a girl called Faith who is under FBI costudy on a case against another guy Buchanan who is getting blackmailed by our anti Hero who is the chief of CIA! Talk about twists and this is a roller coaster ride!

Lee saves the girl and runs only to get caught between a cross fire between the agencies with no one to trust!

The novel also points out how most agents start decent but the lure of money or financial problems or lack of apppreciation can turn anyone!

The language is simple and straightforward and there is no beating round the bush!

Though the Robin Hood has now gone international! The two people who were lobbying with parliamentarians were doing it to send more foreign aid! The ethics of how they do it and why they must be so rich is debatable!
In the end of it all, you always have the prince Saving the damsel princess in distress! Just change the location but the storyline remains the same!

Of course it is always wonderful to see the proverbial bad guy fall but like I mentioned before, it happens only in movies and books! Real life is only a matter of keeping faith or holding on to it! Saving faith is a dream (not the book but the metaphor! The book is however a one time read!)