how to...

'How to live'. Well, it is hard to imagine a more embarrassing book to be seen reading or carrying. What could be more cringe-worthy-except, perhaps, Freaknomics or Eat, Live, Pray (two out of three, dear). What is that anyway? Chick lit? Is one allowed to use such phrases nowadays? Is it like that joke about the Panda bear: Eats, shoots, and leaves?

[Reminds me of rushing into Judd's secondhand bookstore, just off Russell Square...

The Mongol to Sandy, the rather sour looking Scottish owner: "Do you have any girly books?" In a bit of a hurry. Can you just point me to where they are?It's a present."

Sandy [horrified]: "I beg your pardon."

Mongol: "girly books, you know?"

Sandy, clearing his throat, putting on his sternest expression: "No, I'm afraid I don't know."

Mongol: "Books. For. Girls, " he says, spelling it out like a Red Indian. "You know, books that girls read."

By now everyone in the shop is just a bit startled and looking at us so I hastily add:

"Oh, don't mind him, he's just come from Afghanistan."

That settled them down a bit, but it came out in the wrong way, so that some thought he was, like Watson, returning from service in Afghanistan.]

~~~

"Are you okay?" N asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Why shouldn't I be okay? I mean, at least I think I'm okay," I replied.

"No, really, are you okay?" he repeated, but this time with an emphasis on the last word that was quite unsettling. What did he mean by that? And then, with one arm on my shoulder:

"Are you okay?"

"Hey, stop it already!" [Once, a pretty Indian girl had stopped me in the street to tell me that I was talking to myself. I ignored her, of course, and walked briskly on, lips tightly closed together. But you know, the crazy thing was that for a moment I thought, hey, maybe that's her chat-up line"]

What is the sane response you think to yourself. Feigning a bit of madness is always a good sign. At least it puts you into the mood for one of your lectures.

"You're a complex guy, K".

Well, not sure if that was a compliment but the way the conversation was going I doubted it. In any case, it's quite weird when you're already thinking of how you can fit bits of people's conversations into your next blogpost instead of answering them then and there.

"Hey, don't say that in front of the Mrs. Ammo. She'll think you're saying I've got a complex!"

"Can't you be serious for a moment?" N continued.

"Well, yes, for a moment, yes."

But back to Montaigne. Already a few people have asked me, in all earnestness, "is it one of those self-help books?"...and the tone in which it is asked means they're really saying you really need to read one.

There's a vast section on self-help at Variety Books, just off Liberty Market. Lots by that first-class charlatan and fraudster, Deepak Chopra. I don't think 'The Secret' has got here yet but there are crate loads of Cohelo -"very deep" I was told by a colleague who, when he's not reading very mathematical papers on finance or pumping iron is, quite disturbingly, into Jane Austen.

There's a lot of it about, books like: 'discover the inner me' , the spiritual me within. Lots of Osho and Krishnamurthi-though that's stored under 'philosophy', next to the very cheap photocopies of Russell. Can't help thinking, there's an awful lot of self in these self-help books. You want to find one (or a genre?) that goes something like: self-help for the anonymous self. And all this inner enlightenment can be had for less than a thousand rupees with the help of some good ol' eastern /ancient wisdom. Wheel on Mr. Rumi, Zen, Tao, or Pooh.

But, but, how to live? That's the question. The 64 million dollar question (originally, it was 64 thousand). Closely followed by 'how to walk' and 'how to breathe' (it's all in the Yin-Yang, or so I'm told). Also, on the New York Review of Book's list is 'all you wanted to know about being a muslim but were afraid to ask' (lots of pictures of muslims blowing themselves up)...nearly as popular as 'philosophy for dummies'. Gaddis, where are you when you're needed!

Lots of Chomsky, too. (No zizek, thank god). It takes its toll. One of the local maulvis told me, "we'll never succeed until we dismantle the military-industrial complex and put an end to the elite structures of power that run the show...me and you, we're the subaltern class."

"Yeah, like, whatever". Except, brother, I know you'd be the first one to string me up if you and your fellow goons ever came to power. Four legs bad, two legs good. There must be a book on how to avoid appearing rude when vomiting in response to a conversation with a fellow human being?