Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Book for the Month of June - Aparna's Pick : Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Meeting minutes:

PK – Hated the book. Liked Arthur.
Rashmi – Only read partially, thought it as a bit childish but did like it a bit.
Nari – Didn't like it. Vehemently protests that the sequels should not be selected for the club.
Venku – Thought was interesting. Ending was flat. Liked Eddie and didn't
care for Marvin. Also liked Trillian.
Priya – Loved it. Praises all over. Simply fantastic.
Vandu –Liked Ford, pitied Arthur, hated the book. Fell asleep reading the book.
Appu – It was ok. Beginning and ending were not impressive. It was funny at times.

Next Book (July) -Nari's pick: "A Prisoner of Birth" by Jefferey Archer. – Approx 20 dollars.

Naresh

Naresh / Nari / Dawg / Player are the several names he likes to go by. I must admit it is difficult to write about him; not because of his personality or the character he is, but because everyone on this blog probably knows him more than me.

I know him for about 2 years now and when it comes to describe him its a fairly simple thing to do..
He likes --
Sports - Outdoors / Indoors you name it and he is there
Movies - Animation, action, drama, crime anything
Food - Strictly vegetarian. (Eggs will do)

He hates --
Shahrukh khan for obvious reasons. However, I think his hatred for him stems from the fact that Aparna is big time fan of Shahrukh (Jealousy factor)
CRICKET. (May be because Shahrukh has started taking interest in it)

Apart from his likes and dislikes what makes him a great guy is he can pretty much mix with any group of people. He is a good listener when serious discussions are going on. On other occasions he can thrash talk and blow your brains out. He is a good motivator and will give you very unbiased opinion if you need or seek one.

He is a great cook and his specialty is Tomato Chutney. Not much of a reader, just like me. All in all a very social and humble person. Perfect ice breaker to get the party going. Very dependable and supportive guy!!!

Bhavesh

Rashmi

Rash is one of my closest friends and we go way back. Rash, Appu, Dharma and I met during undergrad at P.S.G College of Technology in Coimbatore, India. I have to say she is the most chilled out person I know and has a great sense of humor. For those of you who do not know she is an AMAZING singer!! and her favourite song is Ayee Ho Mera Zindagi Mein... If you want her to sing for you, this is the song, what say Rash :)

She loves to read, watch TV (F.R.I.E.N.D.S is her favourite show) and movies and party ofcourse. She has been doing the 10K run for the past two years and trains rigourously for it. She loves to travel wants to take a sometime off and travel in Europe and is also a food connoisseur. After undergard she worked in CTS (Cognizant Technology Solutions), Hyderabad for a couple of years.

She currently works at Freddie Mac as a Senior Business Analyst. She is married to Vicky, one of our friends from undergrad, and they live in Arlington, Washington D.C.

--Vandana

Dharma

Dharma was recently re-christened Chandu. I've known Dharma for over 10 years now; first thing I noticed about Dharma was that he speaks Tamil that sounds just like Hindi. He used to be a quiet guy in class until we got to know him. We also got to know the brainy side of Dharma. He was one of the four guys in our class who passed Engineering Drawing in the first attempt. Yes! Don’t underestimate this guy. He was also one of the few in our class who landed a job in Wipro (if I remember right) through the college placements. Later he accepted a job with CTS and has been working there for... a long time now!
From the happening Chennai, Dharma made his move an even more happening Green bay. Ever since he moved to Green Bay, I've heard that his social calendar has been completely booked. His latest passion is honing his dance skills. He's been taking some serious dance lessons and all. Who knows, we might see him on "So you think you can dance" or "Dancing with the stars" sometime soon. I'm sure he dances waaaayyyy better than he sings (one of my unforgettable experiences in college was singing a duet with Dharma in multimedia class). He's quite the adventure seeker… he's got two sky-diving experiences to boast about. He's also renowned for his Vandana-pinch tolerance or the lack there of....

Jokes aside, Dharma is a great guy and a wonderful friend.

--Rashmi

Bandhu

Vandana Devaraju or fondly called as Bandhu. Hmm.. I think its an honour and privilege that I gotta chance to write about her though I am sure Vandana does not share the same sentiments as me on this ;). The best thing about her is that she is a great sport. The amount of teasing we guys put her through, any other person would have probably taken offence to that but not Vandana. Though you might initially come across her as a quiet person, she will show her fun side once you get to know her.

She hails from the city of Coimbatore in India. She went on to do her Masters in Hosstra University, New York and joined JP Morgan in the same city. She is currently working as a Risk Reporting Associate. She digs Chinese food and is a typical New York girl who loves to party hard. Having finished her Masters in New York, she fell in love with the City and decided to settle down there with JPMC. If not working or partying you can find her cosying up on a couch with a wrap over her watching TV or browsing the net or lately with a novel. She also has a passion for thrills and became a certified Sky Diver recently.

And if you ever wanna know the reality on Rakesh Roshan shooting, just ask Bandhu :)

--Dharma

Vkat

Venkat is the veteran of this book club. He is the only one in the group with any prior book club experience. His participation in various activities of the PageTurners club is very salient. If it wasn’t for his taunting sarcastic remarks, some of us wouldn’t be a part of this deal. Although, he claims that he took up reading as a hobby, only after coming to US i.e. 11 years back, being his younger bro and having seen him all my life, I guess he had it in him from childhood. He is Mr. Perfect in the family with straight A’s and scholarships etc. Yep - that’s correct, that made me look reaaalll good in the family clan. Nevertheless, thanks to him my parents saved some dough which eventually was used to buy education for the underachiever in the family.

Soon after finishing his Master’s at Villanova University, he secured a job in Verizon communications and ever since he has been working his tail off in that company. Since then he has been a denizen of downtown Philadelphia. Knowing how much he loves fast pace life, it is not surprising that he refuses to live anywhere but the city. Besides reading, his passion lies in family (btw I am his numero uno and vice-versa), sports (watching, playing, anything about sports), fitness, movies and of course Philadelphia Eagles. He is socially active with liberal ideas and helpful nature. He is also very ambitious and proved repeatedly that he can achieve anything he sets his mind on. B dawg, that is all you are going to get for the $$$ you gave me to write “nice things” about you man. There is some more nice stuff on my hard drive, but I need see the check first.

All jokes aside, I just want to mention one thing before I close this. He came a long way from a government Telugu medium school to where he is right now and it was not easy. I am proud of him and will always look up to him.

Cheers
Naresh

PK

Pratap Kiran mostly known as PK is the bar tender of our cool gang who is always ready with his mixer.People also call him the "MATH GUY" (he can do more of mental maths, for which I need a pen and a paper).Everyone comes to him with their problems(on computers) and he is busy fixing them. He is so busy at work that most of the time he spends in reading Eenadu News.

Last year he learned the game of watching American Football and is now a follower of it. This year he plans on watching the Base Ball game.He LOVES to play Cricket and Tennis. He also knows Taekwando. He is also in the process of taking Swimming lessons(trying to stay under water for 10 seconds). Once he is done learning maybe we can expect him to stay under water for a couple of seconds more.

He is a very caring and kind person but with strong a heart and is never biased. He quit smoking for which I am very proud of and addicted himself to "B & B" (BOOKS and BEER).

He is as for now working for Johns Hopkins(Med Campus) at Baltimore.

Aparna Aiyer

Meet Appu – President of PageTurners - a simple, witty, happy-go-lucky girl with razor-sharp brains. Appu hails from Chennai, India and is recently married to my younger bro, Naresh, whom she had met in RIT, NY during her MBA. They both are currently settled in Chicago, IL.

Appu lived and studied in various corners of the world and has seen half the world - a true cosmopolitan in every sense. She is a voracious reader – hence – the president of our book club. She also enjoys watching movies, sit-coms and playing tennis, ping-pong, and Wii. Despite marrying Naresh, she continues her love affair with Haldirams (for those of you who do not know, Haldirams is a pre-packaged, delicious Indian snack).

She is currently working as a SAP Analyst for Hospira Inc. Once you get to know her more, you’ll see the dare-devil and the leader in her. She could rally the folks and get them excited about any event, whether it is to Formula-1 racing or to Sky-diving. Thanks to her – some of us can proudly proclaim to have gone sky-diving. Who knows where she’ll take us next?

Oh yeah, did I mention? - She is also my favorite sister-in-law. :)

~Venku

Priya Maruwada

I have been asked to write about Vice Prez of the club and my wife Priya. As you all know major disadvantage of writing about your own wife is you cannot tell the truth which sometimes is also a major advantage :).

Priya was born and brought up in Jamshedpur, India. she holds a Master's in Computers from BITS Mesra. She learnt Indian classic dance(I have no clue what form of dance she practices so I am not going to write the name and I also realize that I am in trouble now) for at least 10 years. Now she is a member of a group called Jhumoor that does classical dance performances here in Baltimore ,U.S.A. Priya is also learning taekwando, swimming, tennis and as you can see from the picture Skydiving. she loves motor cycles and goes crazy whenever she sees one on the road. she likes trains. Priya loves to read and she likes to read famous person's life stories.

Now that I have written what she loves to do, now i will tell you all about what she hates the most. she hates cricket , Foot ball , cooking and washing dishes and of course daaah me :).

Bhavesh Mistry

Bhavesh started off being a colleague at work but fortunately for him, he had to share a cube with me for a few months and since then has been a friend. He is a cricket fanatic. Whether you see him working or not, there will always be one session of cricinfo.com open on his laptop.
He is very easy-going, always-sleepy/drunk-looking (and he doesn't even drink..!!) and likes bowling, volleyball and OF COURSE as I mentioned above LOVES cricket! Whenever we have gatherings you can always find him with a throw ready to sleep while everyone else is wide awake. His reason for joining this club is to make sure that he spends some time to read coz otherwise he would never pick up a book unless it was for some career advancement.

Latest news about Bhavesh is that he is engaged and will be getting married beginnning of 2009. So we wish him all the best for the future (although I think his wife Shweta needs it more!). What Say?

--Aparna

Page Turners!

Welcome to the Page Turners Blog. We are a little different kind of a bookclub. Different because unlike bookclubs which mainly comprise of individuals who love to read, our group consists of people who hate reading as well. This club was started as an attempt to get people who love to read, but don't have the time, to get back to reading and at the same time to introduce the magic of books to the people who hate it.

This blog has been created to document all our thoughts and opinions about the books that we read collectively. This group meets every third Sunday of the month and due to the constraint of location (most people reside in different parts of the country) we have the meeting via a conference call. The later posts to follow will be introductions of all the club members.