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The whole truth by David Baldacci

Book review

Fictional thriller genre

No spoiler

Rating 3.5/5; like most David novels it starts with a bang, loses steam in the middle and then gears up for a delayed but great climax!

The first book in Shaw series apparently

This book was before the finale of the Camel Club series and I had to break the chronology and my rule by reading this book not in series!

There was this huge guy in Camel club and you can imagine Shaw to be the personification of him. Shaw does remind me of Reubin Rhodes, big huge hulk Of a man who works more with his muscular brain rather than actual brain!

News what we see now cannot be believed is the crux of the story! There are firms nowadays who can create news or the TRUTH! We have already picked up our sides and we have become so used to propaganda and news which fit our original belief that it does not matter what the truth is!

Now this firm tries different means in its armamentarium to create news and videos to create a conflict between the trigger happy Russians and the new emerging threat China!

Of course this was written years back and after the COVID phase every thing in the world will change! No one will forget this years for centuries to come! 2020 has been a very unforgettable year and the world has got different opinion about China. The basic viewpoint has been the same and this only acts as a fodder to the controversy starved brain!

In the middle of all this we have a crazy rich guy who feels that all this will lead to a an arms race and countries will buy weapons like crazy! This is of course after the fact that he is stinking and very powerful!

I guess the charm of being in command is so high that you can never be satisfied!

Then we have our hero Shaw who is a mix of Rambo and Ethan Hunt who is trying different missions to keep the world safe although his world and life is literally screwed!

Just when he thinks of letting it all go and settle with the love of his life Anna, he gets the biggest shock of his life and his biggest mission which quickly becomes personal and vindictive!

He is joined by a journalist Kate who is a double Pulitzer Prize winner and is starved for proper stories and somehow she gets this big scoop right into her lap and very soon she is the very centre of the whole mission!

Then you have the typical chase and bodies piling up in typical David Baldacci style and some neat misses and finally the grand climax straight out of a James Bond novel!

The novel moves at a fast pace and there is not much dull moment, though it took some time this was a breeze to finish since there was no beating around the bush and the language was simple and direct!

All in all a good start to another series but in all fairness it really is better if you finish one series and then start another!

Rest assured though, when we pick up a fiction it is understood that we don’t necessarily need the whole truth!!

Hells corner by David BaldacciBook reviewRating 4/5 only for the ending cause it is a completion of sorts without actually completing it…!Spoilers None but a good spoiler is that the Camel Club is safe! But if you have not read the previous books in the camel club series then you must stop right here and finish them first!The series is like this
The Camel Club: The Camel Club (2005), The Collectors (2006), Stone Cold (2007), Divine Justice (2008), Hell’s Corner (2010)This is the last book of the camel club series and this could very well have been the best if it can gone the Jeffery Deaver way. In Rhyme series, he is always one step ahead of the criminal and that’s what makes him the best detective ever!As soon as the camel club was introduced the most prominent and chief member has been Oliver Stone or John Carr and after the first two ones where others get some importance, the other book are mainly Oliver all the way.This one starts with a redemption of sorts for all the injustice done to Oliver in the hands of the government and senior officials in the CIA. So Oliver is given a task in the true re instatement of his work as an agent and he is supposed to go over seas in a suicide mission of sorts.Just when that could happen, there is a rapid gun fire and a guy runs and falls in a pit which supposedly had a bomb and a big explosion happens just few feet away from the US president and the UK Prime minister.Then the investigators Oliver from US and Mary from MI6 London join hands to decipher the truth.
Anytime though they get close to the clue they are either killed or vanishedA simple planting of a tree in the garden becomes a national security issue. Then you have the added dose of new technology courtesy Nanobots and you are completely lost by now since the bodies are getting piled up like no tomorrow in a typical Baldacci style of course!Except the members of the camel club you can be rest assured that everyone else is in the suspicion radar no matter how big or small he or she is!After a series of failure the partial redemption occurs when the whole team in spite of being out of commission save the president and in the nick of time. Alex gets seriously injured and the whole situation looks grim.In spite of getting to know who is the culprit, Oliver still messes up the chase and for the umpteenth time some members of the camel club are kidnapped and the whole climax is like a James Bond climax where you attack the super villain’s den!Even there things do not go your way or do they?And here come the kicker climax two incidents which pushed my book rating to 4! A fitting climax of this series which was stretching to a point of no return but now it done and dusted!Sayonara Camel club…The next is to finish the King and Maxwell series

Book review

Fictional thriller genre

Rating 4/5

Series Camel club number four

Spoilers Anyone who hasn’t read the first three camel club series can stop right here! The story moves forward from Stone cold and there are spoilers of the previous book…

So Milton is dead and Oliver in the rage mode has killed the senior director Gray of CIA and Simpson, a senator! Although they deserve it, it is still a homicide and this one is how he escapes the long hands of the law or CIA!

The fact that he had killed ten odd agents in close combat feels like a smaller issue I guess!

Oliver for all the training of staying away from notification and prominence does little in those lines!

He is always in the news and always gets attention drawn to him!
And when someone asks for ID he behaves suspect! So pardon me if it doesn’t look convincing!

Many recent movies are in similar theme like John Wick or Equaliser or Jack Reacher where a man with shady past is in his retirement period and then something gets him out of the dormant phase to the full blown volcanic eruption!

David’s narration is simple and fast paced with interspersed humor and shocks here and there!

In the first two Camel club, the group were in the wrong place in the wrong time! And they had to make things right! In the third and this one, they are the centre of the problem and solution!

Oliver runs to a simple village with a disturbed boy which was reminiscent of his Wish you well novel but then even this simple town is not so simple as we get to know! He gets into the murky drug and coal business of the town and gets sucked in!

Then you have a tracker who tries to catch him earnestly first and then reluctance creeps in as he questions his life choices and his superior who happens to be the chief villain!

Close on the tracker is the Camel club remaining members lead by Annabelle (not the ghost doll but equally scary!) And they close in on the mystery in their own quirky ways!

Helping the Camel Club in the confused secret service agent Alex ( I feel Alex is now the epitome of a confused guy! Alex in grays anatomy is confused and Alex cross in cross series by James Patterson is confused!!)

Just when the mystery reaches a cross roads of sorts, you have a jail scene similar to the simple Genius novel where you are shown what torture is and this is the time when we realise that any big institution like he jail or CIA can be manipulated by the whims and fancy of one ego maniacal tyrant!

With so many characters there is bound to be some deaths and in David Baldacci novels they are so common like the fruit flies on an old banana!

Of course in the end there is some justice and calm which is a relief since the last camel club novel did leave things hanging so to speak!

Till the last camel club, Hell’s Corner which was written three years later! So of course that’s my next read!

In between that David has written three more novels including a king and Maxwell series!

David, please finish one series and then do next! Can’t expect us to remember everything in the previous one if read long back right!?

At least in this one though there was some divine justice!!

Stone cold by David BaldacciBook reviewGenre Fictional thrillerRating 3.5/5This is the third book featuring the Camel Club and there are three more to go so it’s safe to say that the members of the famed club will be there in the next one! Or will there be new ones?Spoilers None!You must read the book The Collectors before this to understand the flow and get to know the characters.Of course you must have finished The first camel club to know The Collectors!David gave a gap between the novels and writes another series (king and Maxwell) in between so it is difficult to get back the story so far at first!Once you start though it all comes back to you!
How a group of four elderly men form a boys club called Camel club and then give membership to others! And how they land up bang in the middle of a soup or the other!I have been reading David Baldacci books in order so that I get a feel of the growth of the author and I don’t like to jump!Like any David novel, the beginning is simply awesome and shocking! The killing and bodies pile up like a traffic jam during the rush hour!
His narration is both slick and funny sometimes!Sometimes the most complex kills are made so effortless while sometimes the simplest ones get complicated!So you have a guy called Harry who works as a man who tries to find security flaws in systems and in places! That part how he gets into the plane is simply awesome!He also routinely kills old CIA agents in innovative fashions on the instructions of her mother!Then you have the Casino owner and who as in the last book was relieved of millions of dollars by Annabelle and now is chasing her like a dog whose bone was snatched by the kitty in the last minute!While the two stories collide due to common characters, the end could have been more dramatic is what I felt!
All what we learnt in the previous novels is digged deeper and more truths are revealed!The most interesting character is of course Oliver Stone aka John Carr and he is an amalgamation of John Wick, Nick Carter and Jason Borne! So he can do no wrong and he can kill like no tomorrow and he cannot be killed or taken prisoner!How the villian of the previous books Simpson and Gray come back to wreck havoc is also shown! Hope they are settled for good now at least!There are two tragic deaths in the end and one of them was very unexpected! It was really shocking for me!…So it is a fast paced thriller with never a dull moment and this is like the third John Wick movie! All fight and not much talk!David regulars will love this!The next novel by David is not a continuation of Camel club apparently! He waited for couple more years to do that!
But I have decided to break my rule of chronology and get the next novel in Camel club aka Divine justice as my next read!Read away Camel club readers!

Book review

Genre Thriller

Rating 3.5/5Spoilers- None

There are no spoilers because the world is no longer black or white but grey!

We have started accepting things which could have been considered immoral or wrong some ages back

!Even a crime like murder is acceptable if done for ‘National’ interest!

Welcome to the grey area!

Just when I was getting used to the Camel club, David went back to King and Maxwell! And the story is so connected to the previous one, it is undisputed that you need to go in series to get this one!

It is not a compulsion though since you can still get the story if you are intelligent enough! ( Then again if you are reading David Baldacci instead of Yuval Noah Harari then maybe you need to question your intelligence!)…

So here the chief two investigators have two most common problem in the world! One is money and another is mental!
So the whole book is in fact how they deal with the problem!Sean takes up a case since he needs money and just when he thought it was a simple open and shut one (that statement itself is a misnomer as there can not be any open and shut case!);

The case gets so complicated when agencies like (a typical Baldacci novel!!) CIA, FBI AND this time DEA! are thrown in like dice on a Ludo board!A genius scientist who is distantly related to Turing is killed or he committed suicide (that’s never the case!).

Sean is sent to investigate and meets the silent genius who is the victim’s daughter with a special type of Autism!Just when he was getting around the camp, the bodies keep on piling like the dough in a pizza kichen!Add to it an ‘accidental fire’, many other genius scientists, one wife who seems lovely and lonely! (That’s a dangerous combination so if you ever encounter anyone similar then just listen to your head and not heart and simply RUN!!).

A regular Baldacci adventure will obviously have a brave break in, a boat chase, one helicopter crash and many kills here and there!The final pages could have been trimmed and made more better as the only way our agents survived was that one guy had a change of heart!

And to sound more clever by giving clever clues to finally find a route to camp and to get a long lost treasure! That’s epic optimism!

After getting so much torture Sean asks for money for others makes it a proper fiction novel!!

I am little disappointed in the gals of the book though! They could have been much better! Instead they are shown to be either depressed or lonely or plain evil! And all just wanna drop their pants for Sean which is irksome to say the least!

The introduction of the one sane person in the whole book, a psychiatrist is one of the few saving grace in the book!

Hopefully Michelle recovers mentally (another back story there and that’s a shocker!) for good though even in that state she made a cracking case in the mental asylum and in the camp! So more gal power in the next one Baldacci!

The best part of the novel is the description ok the Beale Cipher! That’s an interesting information and sure to keep your curiously juice flowing!Just for that you can read the whole book!
Of course you might as well skip to the end but where is the fun in that!!So thirteen books done in series which I started this year! So in the year of the CORONA, this may turn out to be my only great achievement!Read on genius!!

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!!