Birthdays are notorious as they bring up the dreaded ' what am I doing ' questions. I usually body-swerve these introspective annoyances as they inevitably lead to some resolution or the other. And resolutions are for commonfolk. But then haughty dismissal of the common is also getting common, so I thought I'd get one up on that this time. I observed that five minutes into a conversation with anyone, I start grumbling about not having enough time to read. That becomes my cue to jump to halcyon student days and I start holding court . And when I pause for breath, the audience in question sports a genial party smile and says: "nice meeting ya". If talking about reading is bragging, talking about not being able to read is worse. It would be an admission of being an - pardon the translation - asafoetida box. So, like a makeover movie's fulcrum scene, where one 'takes charge of life' etc. I made a resolution: to channel all available free time (whatever li