Textbooks or Jokebooks

The month of November this year seems quite unlike the rest of the months, for me (and I believe for the rest of my Engineer friends too who graduated this year). One simple reason for that – I'm not studying this time of the year around! Four years isn't a short span not to get used to studying during the PL (better part of November and initial few days of December)

Just this thought forced me to go back to those PL days: the cocktail of jounces, insightfulness, confusion, frolic and panic! One very crucial point of debate during these PL days, while studying, was whether or not to use reference books wholly…

They said: Don't use local author books to study.
They meant: We use them to make our notes. So we don't want you to find out. You may suffer.

They said: Use only foreign author reference books.
They meant: We don't understand them. But it's cool to say we use them. You may suffer.

I confess, I'd used local author text books for most subjects (which amounted to sacrilege in our department); but not because everyone else did, but because I didn't find a better book to study from.
Right at this moment as I write, I'm reminded of a comment made by my friend Aditya: "Would you use a technical book from Pakistan because it is foreign?"

But then I'm diverging from the issue. Are the local author text books readable? Should I spend money reading junk? Or wait a minute, it isn't complete junk, it's entertainment!
A word/phrase goofed up, I'm used to, not a big issue. But what I read from a friend's text book yesterday made me go for this subject; I'm reproducing directly this interesting piece of information I happened to read from the Multimedia Systems text book (Third Year) published by Tech-Max, Page no. 3-17, the chapter on 'Audio'. Read on:

Music consist of following things :

    * Songs
    * Rhymes
    * Tunes
    * Poems
    * Remix songs
    * Ragas.

Music is divided into two groups as follows:

Classical Music: In classical music there are various artists based on their Gharana. Ragas and other songs are played in the classical music. This is a typical classical music. This is based on seven Suras : sa_re_ga_ma_pa_dha_ni and combination of these. India has rich cultural heritage in classical music. Lata didi has sung the highest number of songs in various languages.

Western Music: Western music is like Pop, Rap, and much more. You can get more familiarity with western music if you take look in MTV or V Channel.

Ok, I’ve checked it again. It’s exactly as it is in the book – word by word, no spelling mistakes on my part. I couldn’t put sic after every line, but then reading this does make me sick (excuse the pun if it was one). I’m only enlightened about genre of music and Lata didi.

If this is the reason why they did tell us to use reference books, then I’m all for it, or rather should have been :-(
Dash it. Would I’ve passed?

PS: Jokebook for Sale. Multimedia Systems for Third Year IT.