Books again..

After a longish break -- again back to books and writing. Picked up "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" and it became yet another book which I could not keep down once I started reading it. Fast paced, with a monologue styled writing, concepts of ideologies, identity, strong undercurrent of nostalgia in the first half, this book for me rates better than "Moth Smoke", which incidentally is another on my favs list.

Finished "The Middlemen" by Sankar. A moving read in terms of a realistic portrayal of unemployment in Calcutta during the 70's. The author, in the epilogue also gives the inspiration that went into writing this book, his inner emotional dilemma of depicting the bleak situation pessimistically as is versus his duty as a writer to bring the reality to the public.

Have now picked up Chowringhee by the same Author. Next on my reading list!

Tall Claims?

The Maharashtra FDA has taken a popular health drink maker to court over the advertisement for their health drink which claims that children who drink it grow taller by 2 inches than children who don't.

I have always been irritated by this advertisement and have often wondered why no rival company had created a ruckus over such an exaggerated advertisement and often wished someone would interfere to take these people to task for such baseless claims. If they indeed have "research reports" to back their claims I wonder what it would contain?!

Would they have had 2 identified groups of children one group who were regularly given the drink and the other one not, over a period of years? If yes, how did they neutralize any biases when selecting these groups? Did the children in the first group have tall parents compared to those in the second group, were they from any specific regions of the country, how was it known that they did not take any other health supplements etc etc...As much as I try I cannot conceptualize a bias-free study which could give this result...and hence my irritation at ads like these.....

It remains to be seen what the company's response in this case is.

Aside/Is it only me who feel that off late, all SRK ads are big disappointments? the bear one...the paste one...really really unoriginal and with no TOMR.

Loved the new NIIT ad though. Superb visuals.