Listen up all you single people out there, if this post on a Guardian blog is correct, you too can attract a suitable boy/girl by reading the right kind of book in public, such as on the subway, on the bus, in a park, in a cafe etc. Now I am not much of a cafe person, and prefer to do most of my reading in bed, standing at a tall desk, and occasionally in the smallest room of the house. And the only time I chatted up a young lady reading, she was holding Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude", and I think she prefered to be left with her solitude. You can read similar stories of others in the comments section of that post; here is a sampling:

"If I ever bumped into a young lady reading a David Foster Wallace novel, I'd do my best to disregard my lack of physical appeal while turning up the charm and attempting the seduction of my life. Unfortunately I think there's more chance of bumping into a singing Daschund belting out an uncanny version of Bohemian Rhapsody."

"In the US, "Christian fiction" about the coming rapture/apocalypse is quite popular -- seeing someone reading that doesn't just turn me off, it scares me."

"I was clocked reading Geek Love by an attractive girl on the tube the other day. She asked me what it was about, and I told her: a circus family experiment with drug and radioisotope cocktails to breed their own freak show. She went strangely silent, turned away, and started talking to her friend on the other side."

"- A DIY manual - this guy's already hitched and a home-maker. No chance

• Shakespeare's complete works. You'd never be short of conversation."

...

So maybe it is time for me again to appear in public, hefting Tolstoy's "War & Peace" or Dante's "Inferno". To rephrase an Apache Indian song "Arranged Marriage":

"Me wan gal say a soni kudi Me wan gal that say she read wif me"

Also any ladies, reading this post, please give me your suggestions as to what would work best?

...

A related link derged up decause of comments: this witty NYT essay titled "You Can't Get a Man With a Pen".

is the title of the latest offering from the percussion mastero/Dj/ tabla-ist Karsh Kale. My fav tracks are "City Lights" (for the way sitar is used), "Hole In The Sky" (for its hot damn tablas) & "Rise Up".

About two years ago, I managed to catch him spin his wizardry at a club here - the man produces good stuff, let me tell y'all. He also has made some superb live music as part of the Tabla Beat Science collective - the other "Beats" include Zakir Hussian, Talvin Singh, Sultan Khan etc

Since this is the second most emailed article on BBC's current page, I thought I should reflect on this monkey business a bit. This article reports on Delhi Metro's latest hire, a large black-faced langur called Shri. Bajarang Bali. Ok, I made that name up; blame the BBC's shoddy reporting for not mentioning this gentleman's good name.

So Big B gets paid $150 for his services, which consist mainly of glowering menancingly, and baring his fangs at his relatives and cousins, who happen to be notorious fare jumpers. As a spokesman for the Delhi Metro put it, recently one such cousin of Big B's boarded a train at Chandni Chowk station and travelled some 3.5 km to the Civil Lines station before alighting. Since he was hungry, he also glared at his human cousins for "kelas", "angoors", etc were not forthcoming. How dare they? Did they forget who saved Sita-ma?

Yes sir, we are like this only; cows on the streets, monkeys on the subways. By the way, Vikram Chandra's monkey in his novel "Red Earth and Pouring Rain" is a fantastic teller of tales.