MY FIVE ADDICTIONS - TAG REQUIREMENT

I have been tagged by Balvinder and have been asked to spell out my five addictions on my blog. I have just done a study of the human memory system and the study tells me that when you want some information from your long term memory, you need to pre-activate it to get results faster. So, ever since I got the message from Balvinder, I have been trying to pre-activate my memory. The results have not been very encouraging. Can only think of two reasons for this state of affairs - either no memory or no addictions? Maybe I donot have any addictions? So, I asked my wife who is sitting 11000 kms away, and she was better at this memory thing and told me the following, and I seem to concur with her. So here goes.

Morning and Evening MUG of tea. Thanks to NDA, as a matter of fact even before that, this habit has stayed with me and has sort of become an addiction. After I get up, I can just about finish brushing my teeth and then I get this urge to have a hot mug of tea. It has to be just off the stove, or I need to warm it up again in the microwave. I have burnt the inner portion of my lips on many occasions, but just cannot get over this addiction of this HOT MUG OF TEA (these are jumbo mugs that can really hold some tea). It is the same in the evening. Come back from work, sit down, loosen up and then start itching for this concoction brew discovered by the Chinese. We have always loved a blend of Lipton's Green and Brooke Bond Red in a 50-50 proportion. In 1988, a friend introduced us to Nonsuch tea from the Nilgiris. Enjoyed the flavour of this tea too for a number of years. Could not get it in Canada, so switched back to the Lipton - 'Wah' Taj combination. (Reminds me of Zakir Hussain every time - that is the beauty of good advertisements). On coming back to India after six years, and to Chennai, I found Nonsuch again in the Nilgiris store but the standard is not the same now.

Newspaper. This is another addiction that I have not been able to shake off since school days. These days I read two newspapers from cover to cover - The Times of India - love it for its wide coverage, and the Hindu - love it for its indepth and very conservative coverage. Imagine 'The Hindu' is not very happy with the Indo US nuclear deal. I personally feel India could not have got a better deal than this one - to get defacto recognised as a nuclear weapon state, in addition the 5 duly recognised nuclear weapon states; without signing the NPT; split our nuclear research facilities into civilian and military use and yet come out of the denial regime. This the best Manmohan Singh could have done for us. Thank you, Sir. Newspaper and the hot MUG of tea make a deadly combination in the mornings. Love this combination.

Lately, my blog. This blog is becoming quite an obsession and I am wondering if I would need treatment to get over this phenomenon. Like Amitabh Bachchan said in Namak Halal, I can talk blog, sleep blog, eat blog....... Can any body help me with what is the next stage? I do hope it cools off sometime soon.

The Stock Market and NDTV Profit. Thank God for the blog, this has cooled off a bit. I now spend more time blogging and so donot have time for the TV. Also, the stock market has gone into a crazy nosedive and I donot want to do anything except watch and ....... wait. I have always believed that I follow the stock market because it gives me intellectual satisfaction. They say, stock market is the barometer of the economy and if you can predict the stock market, well you are good, since the market gets affected by politics, economics, and just about anything. Predicting the stock market is the toughest thing one can do. However, no nation can advance without a stock market...... you need capital besides other things.... this one is for my wife. She hates the stock market........ She is happy with a 10% return on FDs when the inflation is ruling at 13%.

Reading. I love reading books and magazines. As can be made out in my blog, I love reading about war, aviation, religion, management, leadership, and just about anything else that helps me understand why people do what they do in different corners of the world. Why are we the way we are and why are they the way they are? I would love to visit all the places that I read about. Would love to visit Japan once in my life time. I had heard about the Japs from a friend in 1975. They had visited Japan and had some very complimentary things to say about the Japs. Read about Japan a bit and have a great desire to visit specially after I saw them in aciton in India. In 1994, saw the Indo-Japanese bridge being constructed over the Yamuna, while I was living in NOIDA. I used to cross the Yamuna everyday, twice a day during the period the bridge was being constructed. What amazed me was that the bridge construction started on time and on the very first day itself a board was put up to say that it would be completed on a particular day, two years hence......... well, the bridge was inaugrated on the fixed date....... although it was ready about two weeks before the date. The contractor was L&T. The other bridge on the Yamuna was being built by Gammon India - started much before this bridge and took more than double the time.

I suppose that finishes my tag(ged) assignment. Hope I pass Balvinder. I am not sure as to what was expected of me - I have just done what I am capable of doing.