Desicritics Author: Anuradha Goyal

Book Review: Delhi by Khushwant Singh

Anuradha Goyal — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:38:53 EST

I picked up Delhi by Khushwant Singh in my quest to read about Delhi, and I knew the author is someone who has spent his life in Delhi and hence expected it be a good read.

After reading the book, I am ANGRY.

Depending on how you like extensive erotica, you may love or hate this book, but that is not what makes me angry though I do not really enjoy reading 300+ pages of nothing but sleaze. I hate it because of the double standards that the author follows. I can ignore the sleaze as that is his world view may be, or that may be the lens through which he sees everything or more appropriately everyone. All through the book, he talks in first person through some historical figures, through common men from a certain periods, interspersed with his own encounters with a whore from Lal kuan and several other females. Each character is described from his bedside and no matter what their relevance in the world today is or the world then was, all he focuses on his their sexual behaviors. At the cost of repeating this can be Mr Singh's specialty or his world view but it makes me angry is when he does not go near his all time favorite topic in two chapters. And guess what these chapters are focused on - His father and grandfather. He never talks about how his father or grandfather treated their wives and never explicitly describes their intimate relationships. Surprisingly in the whole book they are the only characters who are pious, show no infidelity and only events that mark their lives are that they get married and then one after the other they have children. This is given the fact that his father became one of the richest persons in Delhi during the time when Lutyen's Delhi was being built, in a very short duration of time. If you have the guts to write dirty about every other female on this earth, dead or alive, please start with your own family, a family that produced a son with a head full of nothing but sleaze. Another way to look at it can be that he is at least being a bit courteous to his family, but then you feel it is so damn unfair.

If you can ignore what I write above, by putting the history in first person, with people like Mir, Aurangzeb, Nadir Shah and a Kayastha in the times of Nizammudin, it makes an interesting reading for people who may find text books very boring to read. He has written about Delhi from the times of Lodhis to the 1984 when the anti-sikh riots took place. There is nothing new that you may come to know about Delhi from this book, but the first person accounts makes it easier for you to visualize things as they might have happened. I do not see the need of interspersing chapters where he goes on and on about his encounters with Bhagmati, the female eunuch and various other females, some of whom he plays tour guide to and some walk up to him only to sleep with him. There is a whole chapter on farts, now what has that to do with Delhi.

This book is supposed to have been sold out even before it hit the bookstores with a third reprint within 15 days of release, I am sure there must have been a huge audience for the book. I could be biased in this review because of my anger. I waited to write the review after I had read the book, so that I write in a more neutral mode, but as soon as I started writing the anger re-surfaced.

Nevertheless, I did get a small list of places that I want to go to from this book which I had nor heard of earlier or at least did not have the context to go to. So to that extent, I am happy to have read this book. The format is interesting, probably should be used to make history more interesting.

I am not recommending this book, unless like me you are trying to read about Delhi and you feel compelled to read it.

Book Review: Sepia Leaves by Amandeep Sandhu

Anuradha Goyal — Fri, 8 Jan 2010 08:28:18 EST

It is a challenging task to review a book, when you know it is autobiographical and deals with the story of the storyteller. This is a bold attempt by Amandeep to bare his soul to the world, a rare feat. It is not easy to talk about your not so normal childhood, family and all that comes with it. It is not easy to talk about one's own parents and extended family. It is not easy to share your emotions as an observer. It is an immensely intense personal memoir, almost cathartic, a therapeutic need of the author to say the story. So kudos to the author for doing that...

The story takes you through the journey of author from the times he was a small child and since the time he can remember things to the time when he looses his father who in a way is his hero and the real protagonist of the story. He talks about his schizophrenic mother and how he and his father dealt with her and the situations that arose out of her erratic and unpredictable behavior. How their life revolved around her moods and antics, how some day the sun would suddenly shine on them and while the other days they would just be waiting for the rain to stop. Eventually it is a story of a child's persistent hope that one day he and his parents would happily live as a family and share their joys and sorrows like other families. He does manage to do that, may be not to the extent he wanted to, but they do end up living as a family.

His father's character is something you would empathize with while you admire him for his commitment for a woman he married, for a child that be brought to this earth and what he considers a family. His willingness to give up his career, his acceptance of bad behavior of his wife in public and humiliation at the hands of her family is something not many men can do. He is not even proud or boastful of what he does. He accepts whatever life has given him and considers it as his Sanjog (Fate / destiny), and works towards doing whatever best he can do. Eventually he finds some solace in pursuing some of his interests like listening to ghazals.

I would have wanted more details of the story. It seems the author discovered the reason for his mother's condition and his father's amazing commitment, but he knowingly or unknowingly did not share it. There are a lot of situations where the scene suddenly changes and how it changed is not explained. Like when they did go out as a family, how did they talk it out to his mother and what motivated her to go. What is the emotion that kept the child bound to his parents even when he lived away from them in a hostel? Why did he yearn to come back to his home in Rourkela. I would have wanted him to talk more specifics of the city and how the new city also made him distant from his extended family and how the neighbors and father's colleagues made a difference to his life or acted as the extended family. Though he does mention one of his aaya and a newspaperwallah who meant and lot to him, provided care when no one else did and who become a part of life and his mental family.

The events in the history have been used to depict the timeline, but sometimes the author gets frayed away by these events, which otherwise have no relevance to the story. Editing of the books leaves a lot to be desired. There are sentences which are dropped midway, there are popular poems that have been quoted wrongly, the language gets mixed up here and there and so does the chronology. The chapters in Italics are initially used for the present, but suddenly somewhere in between they mingle with the past. The book definitely deserved a better editing.

The mood of the book is Melancholy. Read it to get an insight into how a child relates to his parents and what they mean to him, no matter what the world thinks of them. It is good read for parents who let their children live away from them, while they may be thinking of acting in the best interest of the child, but they probably do not realize that more than anything else the child needs them. A child will never resent a parent for not giving them the best of things in this world, but a child would always resent a parent for keeping him away from them for whatever reason.

An insightful read...

Book Review: Adventure Capitalist by Jim Rogers

Anuradha Goyal — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:40:24 EST

Jim Rogers and Paige Parker along with their anonymous team of videographer and web designer traveled 152,000 miles in three years covering 116 countries across the world, setting a world record. It takes a great deal of courage, conviction, resilience, patience and probably a bit of madness to take up this kind of a challenge. People start feeling homesick after a few days of journey and when they are thrown out of their comfort zone. To throw yourself in the middle of total chaos, to fight for visas on every border, to find a place to sleep and to locate your next meal, even when you have the resources to pay for everything, is no mean feat. The adventure is something that would keep inspiring whole lot of aspiring travelers like me.

The book with its 340 or so pages is too small to capture an experience that is so vast. So you do follow the couple’s journey as it happened chronologically, but you miss out on the details for most places. Author talks a lot of border crossings, the problems or the surprises that they had while crossing with their car. He also talks about the stock exchanges in all major countries, and how easy or difficult it is for a foreign investor to invest there. As they spend most of the time on the road, they do talk about the quality of the roads and have their own list of best and worst roads across the world. He also makes the book personal by talking about his marriage, his father’s illness and his death during the trip. He almost ends the book by talking about his visit to his father’s grave.

In the last chapter which should have been his reflections on the trip after coming back, he actually takes it as an opportunity to thrash America and how it is making enemies and alienating itself from the world. He also takes all possible digs at Alan Greenspan, who he hold responsible for fraudulent reporting by US government and responsible for inflated economy numbers. I am not an expert to say how good or bad his observations are, but I found them irrelevant in a book that should have been about his travel adventure and about his insights into investing in various economies around the world.

Considering that they traveled 150 miles a day on average, they had not more than 2-3 days per country that they traveled, so their connect per country per day is not really enough for them to be able to make any inferences or decisions on the country overall. Jim stops by to give investment advise on all these countries, and giving an impression that the decision is solely based on the 2-3 days spent in the country which seems unlikely. He and his wife also got married while on the trip so the trip also served as their extended honeymoon, no wonder they stop at certain places and find them romantic. I found his investment advises too shallow, as they lacked all rationale and the logic given was too high level. He only talks about balance of trade, demographics and the free trade as the only parameters to consider while trying to invest in an economy. I am sure there is far more to an economy and to investor’s decisions than this simplistic view.

The author makes some common observations like:

1. You can learn more about the country by talking to the madam at the brothel or a black marketer than by talking to a public servant or a government minister
2. Bureaucracy is a problem in every country and public in every country thinks they have the worst bureaucrats. ( Based on my conversation with people of at least 20 nationalities, I agree here)
3. Successful investing means getting in early, when things are cheap, when everything is depressed and when everyone is demoralized.
4. Everyone blames the foreigners when economy goes south. Always.
5. Immigrant always has to run a bit faster, which increases productivity.

For any travel enthusiast, this is definitely an inspiring book, but as a book I would rate it as average. The author had so much to share, but in the process of putting a bit of everything, he missed out on the depth on all aspects. He could have either written a book on each aspect or divided the book into various segments like travel, investment and personal story. Somewhere you just seem to be running along with the author, without stopping by to admire the beauty spread around, the insights lying here and there to be uncovered, the thrill of fighting against odds, the way to get out of the tricky situations, the dilemmas faced and resolved, surprises encountered and the whole aura around the travel.

As an author Jim could have definitely been better. Nonetheless, do read this book if travel is what your dream is made of.

Book Review: The Difficulty of Being Good by Gurcharan Das

Anuradha Goyal — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:50:56 EST

Gurcharan Das is one of the few multifaceted public personalities that we know of in current day India. He had an extremely successful career in Corporate India and has been an equally well read author, besides being a regular columnist in periodicals. What is interesting is that he is able to relate different worlds together and draw parallels where most people fail to see even a connection. This aspect of him makes it very interesting for me to read him.

I have not read his earlier book, though I have owned it since it was released. The Difficulty of Being Good is based on his study of Mahabharata during his academic holiday after his retirement from the corporate world. He studied various versions of Mahabharata, and as it happens to anyone who reads this text, he identifies with certain characters and with some situations and circumstances. He seems to be most influenced by Yudhistra, and his commitment to dharma. He more or less sees the epic from his point of view.

Das has also picked up some driving emotions that create this oldest story of mankind. He has picked up emotions like Duryodhana's envy, Draupadi's courage, Karna's status anxiety (having read Mrityunjay I do not agree here), Arjuna's despair (not sure if this is the right word for Vishaad) Bhishma's selflessness, Krishna's guile, Ashwathama's revenge, and his favorite character Yudhistra's duty and remorse. He has tried to elaborate the role of these emotions in events in these characters' lives and how it drove them for most of their lives. This makes you stop and think about what is the driving emotion in my life, an important question, if we know the answer we may be able to predict or at least understand our behavior. He also looks at these emotions through the lens of current day understanding of them. He draws parallels from today's corporate or political world to illustrate the point. He often introspects and looks at how his understanding of dharma at various times in life influenced and defined his choices in life.

The author wrote this book while he was trying to understand Dharma through Mahabharata, and probably that is why he has so much focus on Yudhishtra, who is son of Dharma and is often referred to as Dharamraj. Throughout the book he says through various characters and stories from the epic that Dharma is subtle or Sookshma. This essentially means that in the world of Dharma, there are no blacks and white, everything is in context. He also discusses various forms of Dharma, the sva-sharma and the sadharna dharma. Dharma that is bestowed upon you as part of being a community is called sva-dharma and this can come from being born in a particular family, caste or country or by being a part of any other form of categories in the society. For example the dharma of a magistrate is different from that of a shopkeeper. Then there is dharma that comes to you from within, with no impact from anything external from you, it is also said to be coming from your svabhava or something that comes naturally to you like heat comes naturally to fire. The same things can be dharma for one person at a point in time and not so for someone else or for the same person at a different point in time. Everyone faces times in one's life when it is very difficult to decide what is the right Dharma? Sometimes your sva-dharma and sadharana dharma end up being in conflict and you may have to choose one over the other.

The book talks of moral dilemmas that have no answers. These dilemmas have always existed and would always continue to exist. He looks at the humanity of the characters and also subtly points out to basic human nature which has not changed over eras. He also relates to these dilemmas to current day heroes and anti-heros, and the possible dilemmas that they would have faced and the characters they resemble in Mahabharata, and how they behaved from a primary driving emotion.

Gurcharan Das highlights lots of aspects of Mahabharata, history of how the story and characters may have evolved over a period of time when it was re-written time and again. How it has more questions than answers, how it has no black and white characters and how every characters has faltered somewhere during the story. He also looks at the story post the war, which is where most storytellers stop. I particularly liked the first chapter on Duryodhana and his envy, which can be looked at as both right and wrong depending on who is your protagonist in the story. The analysis of envy as a human driving force is really good, but the analysis of the rest of the emotions and how they drove the characters left me wanting.

Written with a global audience in mind, Indian readers would find a lot of repetition and retelling of well known stories. The central story has been told at the beginning, but a part of it is repeated as such in every chapter. Limitation of writing a book on Mahabharata in English is that it is very difficult to find English equivalents of certain words and the meaning never gets conveyed in totality. However if you understand basic Hindi and Sanskrit, you would enjoy the absolute words and the poetic flow.

While reading this, I found a resonance with Amartya Sen's 'Identity and Violence' which would have looked at the epic from the identity angle and how it drove the events in the story. Das has looked at the driving emotion of the characters while the same can be looked upon as the driving identity that drove the actions and finally lead to the Great War.

There is an amazing reading list at the end of the book, which the author has referred to during his course of study. This is going to be my most important take away from the book as I love to read books written around Mahabharata, which in my belief is the most complete book, which encompasses all possible emotions and dilemmas that a human being or position of a human being can face. I agree with the author that there are more questions in the epic than the answers and the discussions and arguments after each question only give us the various perspectives on the questions and the potential answers but rarely the absolute answer.

An interesting read, if you like Indian history and philosophy, or if you are searching for answers for some of your dilemmas. It's a simple reading but at the same time makes you stop and think about your understanding of your own dharma.

Book Review: The Leader's Guide to Storytelling by Stephen Denning

Anuradha Goyal — Thu, 3 Dec 2009 08:35:35 EST

For sometime now I have been trying to understand the art of Storytelling. To me it was always an art to weave the story in such a way that the audience keeps looking at you to know 'what next'. Wrapped in the story is the message which the audience takes away with them without feeling being forced upon. We all know that there are some people who are born with this art and some cultivate it over a period of time. To me it is a refined form of communication that combines knowledge, the context of knowledge for the current circumstances and the narration in a way that is appropriate both qualitatively and quantitatively for the situation at hand. The purpose of storytelling can be entertainment, education, passing the message, inspiring people, port knowledge or simplification of a complex communication. It can also be used for multi-layer communication.

The author of The Leader's Guide to Storytelling has tried to look at the business narrative aspect of storytelling. He tries to solve all the business problems that the leaders face via storytelling. He talks of various types of stories relevant in various business scenarios. He talks about the purpose of a story and about the depth that it should go to. He has tried to put a framework around storytelling with charts and tables explaining the various narratives which can be handy for a practical user. But what he missed is the how of storytelling. Till the storyteller knows the art of storytelling, the frameworks will be just like books telling you how to make a powerful Powerpoint presentation, which will look good on the projector but may not make any sense till you can explain what is written there.

Now, I think it is fair to expect a book on storytelling to be interesting to read. I am sorry to say that this book was quite boring to read. There is lot of repetition. There are only a few stories including one of author's personal stories that have been used as an example time and again throughout the book. All the books that derive a hypothesis out of few instances are like a thief telling a judge 'Ok, you have two witnesses who saw me stealing, but I can show you millions who have not'. While the stories that author quotes have leaders using the storytelling to communicate what they are saying. To me a clear communication, weather it comes by way of hard numbers or by way of stories is when the leader has a clear vision and knows exactly what he wants to do and what he expects from his teams. Unless there is clarity of thought, the technique used to communicate is just a means. Yes, storytelling can help in tricky situations. It can help in giving subtle messages, it can help tame the grapevine, and it can keep the flow of communication on within the organization. But to say that storytelling is the panacea of all business problems is flawed.

Author's narrative in the book does not really make it an interesting reading, it is more like a research report. My concept of storytelling says the story must have 'Rasa'. I do not know if there is an English equivalent of Rasa, but it means the story has an emotion and it lets both the storyteller and the listener establish 'connect' with the story and bringing them together at the end of the story. This book is completely devoid of this Rasa, something that is very basic and something that I expected to be an integral part of the book on storytelling. The book completely misses out on the most important party in a storytelling session, that is the audience, how to change the narrative according to audience, how to judge if the audience is believing in your story or not, reading the feedback built in the audience responses, involving the audience in the story, provoking or inspiring them to join in and tell their stories. Storytelling can be turned into a two-way session where the teller and listener exchange places and storytelling sessions become knowledge sharing sessions or something similar.

What you can do use this book for is to understand the aspects of a story that you decide to tell, when to use which aspect, to be able to understand the purpose of the story that you are about to tell and narrate your story from there.

Travel Review: Bhojpur

Anuradha Goyal — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:47:45 EDT

The moment I heard of Bhojpur, I was reminded of the famous Hindi saying ‘Kahan Raja Bhoj, kahan Gangu teli’, a phrase which is commonly used to highlight the contrasts. The image of Raja Bhoj and hence his kingdom Bhojpur is that of something that has grandeur and prosperity which is incomparable. What you may not know is that he was actually responsible for building lakes in and around the present day Bhopal. He belonged to the Parmaar dynasty which ruled the region almost a millennium ago.

What is left in Bhojpur now to see is an unfinished but practicing Shiva temple in dark stone, known as Bhojeshwara temple, built in early 11th century. This temple is famous for the huge Shivalinga that it adorns. But as you may know Shivalinga has two parts Linga and the Yoni. The lower platform like part is called Yoni. The yoni in this temple is the probably the biggest you would ever see. The linga part is definitely not the largest, as a temple in Khajuraho has much bigger Linga. The yoni is huge and beautiful.

The roof of the temple is ornamental, with design in the form of concentric circles, quite like the temples in Khajuraho. There are four pillars inside the temple and the walls seem to have been put later or may be restored recently as they look too bland in comparison to the rest of the temple. My guess would be probably the temple was open standing on the four pillars, like many other Shiva temples, but I have no data to support that.

The temple is built on a huge platform, as was prevalent in those days, and on the right side of the temple there is a ramp, which was probably used to bring the stones up on the platform for constructing the temple. But for this ramp, we would have kept wondering how the huge stones and sculptures were ported on top of the platform and even to build the platform how the stones were ported. There are two small temples outside the main temple which are again practicing ones. The outer wall on the right hand side of temple has some unfinished artwork, which gives you a glimpse of how the work progressed as the temples were built.

Apparently the excavations at the place have revealed that the intent and plan was to build many more temples in this place, probably a kind of campus of temples like the one in Khajuraho, but it could not be done and even this temple had to be left unfinished. Though the idol was set up in this temple and the worship must have started, as this is still a practicing temple.

As you stand on the huge temple platform and look around, you would see what Jawahar Lal Nehru would have called the temples of modern India and what our future generations may blame us for polluting the world that we pass them on. You would see a line of huge factories, throwing a constant stream of thick black smoke from their gigantic chimneys, forming the skyline of the neighboring industrial town of Mandidweep.

How I wish I had lived in the times of prosperity in this land instead of going place to place tracing ruins after ruins.

Travel Review: Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh

Anuradha Goyal — Tue, 6 Oct 2009 06:38:20 EDT

45 Kms south of Bhopal is the world heritage site of Bhimbetka, on the Bhopal-Hoshangabad road. As you travel towards Hoshangabad from Bhopal, on your right you would be able to see rock formations on small hills, which at first sight would look intriguing. As you reach the road leading to Bhimbetka caves, you may have to wait at the railway crossing, which is mostly closed and is opened only when there are enough vehicles to cross and there are no trains in sight. But this is a point where you can refresh and fuel yourself at the MP tourism hotel, just before the railway crossing, as you may not get anything including water after this point. For photographers, this is a good point for taking a long distance shot of the rock shelters.

The Bhimbetka caves are one of the oldest known human habitations, dating back to some 10,000 years ago. The rocks here are estimated from the time when the area was probably ocean and the curved formation of rocks is said to be formed by the hitting of sea waves. There are more than 750 rock shelters that have been found in the jungles, with more than 400 with paintings, in and around Bhimbetka, but only about 20 caves are open to the public. These caves have paintings dating back from various periods during which they would have been inhabited. Paintings are primarily in red and white colors. There are few in green and yellow. Red ones are the best preserved, probably because of the rich color. White ones seem faded and are probably the oldest ones. At a lot of places, paintings have been done one upon the other, indicating that the artists have used the same space to paint and re-paint. The style of paintings resembles the Worli paintings and at times the Madhubani. There is predominance of geometrical drawings to depict figures. Only at one place could I find a non-geometrical human figure that looked like either Shiva or a meditating sage. Some of the paintings looks so fresh that it is difficult to believe that they are olden than a few days, and you have an urge to touch them and see if they have been recently painted. Some of them even seem to defy the dust that is all around.

Animals form the primary subject of paintings, followed by humans and occasional trees and flowers. Zoo rock, one of the most famous rocks here, depicts all kinds of animals, primarily in white color and some in red. It can be a good exercise to stand below this rock and identify animals. There are scenes depicting wars with the kings and the soldiers on horses. You can make out the king from his decorated horse and at times with an umbrella on top of his head. You can see the swords and other weapons used in warfare then. There are scenes depicting community living, with groups of people dancing, drinking, playing musical instruments, performing rituals and enjoying life. There are couples depicted. Most of the paintings are on the ceilings of the cave. The guide told us that this place was chosen by the painters as the water could not reach there and hence the paintings would survive. But my feeling is that there must have been paintings all around, but the only ones to survive are those where the water could not reach. If you observe carefully, you would see that the paintings on the outer edges are lighter than the ones away from the edges.

Apart from rock shelters, there is an enclosure like formation, which the guide would tell you, is a potential auditorium and this is the place where the community gatherings were probably held. The throne like rock in the middle probably belonged to the headman or the king. I would say in the absence of any references, all this is subject to our interpretation.

About 100 meters from the entrance of Bhimbetka caves, there is a cave temple, which is still a practicing temple. We were told that this temple was set by the Pandavas during their agyaat vaas or exile. In fact the name Bhimbetka also refers to Bheem, and literally means the place where Bheem used to sit.

For a change Bhimbetka caves are a discovery that has been made by an Indian, unlike most old structures which were discovered by the wandering British officers. They were discovered as recently as 1958 by V. S. Wakankar, who did the detailed survey of the region on behalf of the Vikram University, Ujjain. He classified the various types of rocks and rock shelters. Later the excavations were carried out by ASI and others. Before the discovery of these pre-historic caves, this area was thought of as Buddhist hills, sprinkled with various stupas. These caves indicate the continuous existence of human life in this region over the ages, from pre-historic time to right up to the medieval period.

The place left me wanting to see and explore more. All reviews of the place and all the previous visitors told us that you can not spend more than 2 hours and most tourists just spend about 30 minutes in the place, but I think I could have spent some more time and if I was allowed, I would have wanted to go and see more rock shelters. There is only one guide, who does a pretty shoddy job and wraps up the whole tour in 10-12 minutes. You can do much better by picking up the ASI guide and using it as your tour guide. With the guide in hand you can find the paintings on the numbered rocks and also read the complete description of the same.

The caves would leave you wondering if the painters would have ever thought that their pastime would become a peep into their lives and times for the generations to follow. You would also wonder do we really need anything beyond a roof on our heads and some food to eat, to lead a happy life.

A must visit for anyone interested in the history of mankind.

Travel Review: Sanchi & Around

Anuradha Goyal — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:47:44 EDT

Sanchi is a small village, 35 kms north of Bhopal, and very close to Vidisha, a district in Madhya Pradesh and which was once upon a time business center in ancient India called Besnagar. Sanchi is known for Buddhist Stupas, many of which have been found on top of a hill here. The biggest one is often referred to as Great Stupa and it is believed that the relics of Lord Buddha were buried inside this Stupa by King Ashoka, who was related to this region by marriage. He married the daughter of a businessman from Vidisha. The smaller Stupas are supposed to be carrying relics of disciples of Buddha or other Buddhist monks and teachers. There are temples and monasteries around the stupa, indicating that it was probably a place of learning or practicing Buddhism some 2000 odd years ago. Budhha himself though never visited Sanchi or this region.

The great stupa is huge, a semi-circular dome, which stairs on its southern side to climb and take a parikrama,and 4 torans or doorways in all 4 directions, to enter the boundary around the Stupa. The original stupa is supposed to be made of terracotta and is hidden inside the present day Stupa. During its restoration, a layer of bricks and lime mortar were added on top of the original stupa. The lime layer has started to come off and gives an interesting character to the whole structure. There is a Chhatravalli or crown with triple umbrellas at the top of the Stupa, symbolizing the three tenets of Buddhism i.e Budhham Sharanam Gachhami, Dhammam Sharnam Ghachhami, and Sangham Sharnam Gachhami. Decorated torans make the whole Stupa look interesting. The southern toran seems to be more important, as it leads to the stairs that take you to the top of the Stupa and also carries the Ashoka symbol of four loins. Ashoka pillar also stood next to this Toran. The original structure was built in 3rd century BC, but the place kept getting constant enhancements from various kings down the line. It was enhanced in size, the balustrades were added, and images imported from Mathura were added. Various temples around the stupa were built or enhanced at various times indicating that the monument was living and was being maintained by the ruling kings till about 7-8th century AD. After that this was lost in the jungles and lot of damages were done to it by the local people who removed anything that they could use from the place, like they broke the Ashoka pillar and used it to extract sugarcane juice.

Each Toran is made of three horizontal panels which are placed on two pillars and joined together with smaller vertical stones and filled with well sculpted figures. Each Toran and its pillars are intricately carved on all sides. The upper part of the toran is depicted as being carried by elephants, lions, or by humans. The horizontal panels carry a spiral on both sides. The carvings carry the symbols of Buddhism like lotus and stupas, scenes from the life of Buddha and his disciples, jataka tales and scenes from everyday life of a Buddhist. Ashoka chakra and the four lions also repeated at lot of places. There are tiny stupas like structures scattered around the big stupa, which we were told were put by the people whose wishes were fulfilled after praying at the Stupa.

Apart from Stupa 1, Stupa 3 is the only well preserved monument, all others are in various stages of ruins. On the west of the Stupa 1, the stairs take you down to a plain area, with slanted wall, which has a huge water tank and the ruins of a monastery. Monastery is almost square in shape with rooms all around and a central courtyard. This part has been discovered during very recent excavations. Another set of stairs would take you down to Stupa 2 and on the way you would see a huge begging bowl. There are lots of small stupas in the south and east of Stupa 1, and it is believed that they belong to the disciples of Buddha. Some of these stupas have a square base, indicating that they are from the Gupta period, by virtue of the architecture.

The stones on the floor and along the circular boundary wall of the stupa have various inscriptions in Bramhi or Pali script. Guide told us these are the names of the donors who donated that particular stone. Guess how old is this tradition of advertising your name for eternity through a small donation. Like most world heritage sites, this place is also well maintained. There are lawns around the Stupa and each and every stupa and temple is well numbered and you can refer to the guidebook to read a detailed description. Tourist guides are available who would take you around and tell you the stories of the place. We were lucky to get a guide who was a student of archeology and could explain many things. Though I would recommend the world heritage series guides by ASI as the best bets to get the correct and detailed information on the monuments. But as they say there is more power in stories and never underestimate the power of local knowledge, so do speak to people around and they would always surprise you with some interesting and unknown information. Sunrise and sunset are the best times to visit the place, not only to escape the heat of Indian planes, but also to see the Stupa with sunrays falling on it, almost giving afeeling of being made of sandalwood instead of stone. For photo enthusiasts it is good time to capture good pictures. There is a certain serenity that you would feel during mornings and evenings. If you are lucky you will get to see a lot of peacocks in the mornings. As you stand on the hill, you can hear and see the trains going past the hill. If you are going from Delhi to Bhopal, you can see the stupa on your left, just keep an eye out for it after you pass the Vidisha station.

Heliodorus pillar is a spot between Vidisha and Udaigiri caves. It’s a small spot and many locals would not know about its exact location, but they may tell you about it if you ask for ‘Khamb baba’. The legend is that the pillar, which is actually a garuda stambh i.e a pillar carrying the Garuda symbol, which is a carrier of Lord Vishnu, was erected by a Greek scholar names Heliodorus, who had adopted Hinduism. The pillar dates back to 150 BC and has inscriptions in Brahmi. What you see there and what you read on the ASI boards is only this much, and the pillar seems to be standing all alone in an enclosed ground. But when we spoke to the people around the area, we heard some interesting stories. There is no way to validate these stories, but one person told us that the pillar is as much inside the ground as you see outside and this piece of land is continuously going inside. They also believe that there is a temple made of gold beneath the pillar, and the place can not be excavated. Whenever there has been an attempt to excavate the place, the place was filled with Snakes and Scorpios, making it impossible to excavate. There is a mysterious tree close to the pillar, and if you notice closely, there are a lot of nails that are stuck into the trunk. A villager told us that the place is use for lot of Tantrik rituals, and there are at least a ton of nails inside the tree, the bark keeps covering the nails and people keep putting the nails there. There were a stone sculptures depicting the Sati and for the first time I saw the significance of Agni or fire in the marital relationship. The sculpture depicted that it’s the fire before which the couple commits to each other and it is in the fire that they leave the world together. There can be many questions around it, but an interesting perspective.

Beejamandal is a temple complex right in the town of Vidisha, but again not many people know about it and there are no boards guiding you this ancient site. It was constructed as a temple dedicated to Charchika Devi, an avata of Durga, by Parmar King Navbarman in 11th century. Aurangzeb destroyed it and converted it into a mosque. After independence it was taken over by ASI and it is just a monument since then. It’s a temple built on huge platform like the one at Bhojpur. The broken sculptures have Hindu deities on them, some erotica figures prominent in them is Kirti Mukha of Mahadeva. The remains of the temple are lying around the platform, broken and disfigured, thousands of them. There is a stepped well and a Bawdi near the temple which is said to be dating back to 8th century. Two pillars near the Bawdi depict Krishna leela or the stories from Lord Krishnas life. The Bawdi is supposed to have a water source beneath it and is said to maintain a constant level of water. Site has pathetic state both inside and outside the monument. Strangely while we were trying to locate the place, everyone said the people here are not nice and they would never answer anything, and this sentence came to us from almost everyone we spoke to. We as visitors of course can not comment on people, but why this downplaying of people.

Museum at Vidisha houses a lot of artifacts and sculptures which have been found at various excavation sites in and around Vidisha. There is a huge statue of Kuber and another one of a Yakshi. There are pieces scattered all over the museum, which also sells the plastic of paris versions of the sculptures along with few books.

Udaigiri Caves are cave temples, built sometime in 4-5th century by Chandragupta Maurya. Cave temples are first temples that used to exist before the temples were built on land, on raised platforms, and later various styles of temple architectures came into being. There are about 20 Hindu and few Jain cave temples on the hill, but the only piece of work that you may take notice of is a sculpture of Vishnu’s Varaha Avatar on the wall of cave 5. Apart from that there are temples devoted to more or less all Hindu deities, most of which have been destroyed. Here again you would notice that the features on all figures are very Greek, so either there was a lot of Greek influence in India at that point in time, or the artists were Greek so the influence or possible that these were the general features and our current day features have evolved from there. On top of the hill are ruins of a temple which it appears is from the Gupta period and again a huge pillar was found there, similar to the Ashoka pilla at Sanchi. On your way down you can see a rest house which was built by the king of Gwalior about a 100 years ago.

Gateway Retreat is a MP tourism hotel, which is quite well maintained and managed. It is at walking distance from the monument and you can go for an early morning walk around the Stupa from here. I am quite impressed with most MP tourism properties, and their hospitality, they are giving good competition to the private players. I am sure most other state tourism boards in India can take few lessons from MP tourism. Sanchi attracts only about 1 lakh tourists a year, and most of it is school children or Buddhist from Sri Lanka. This figure can definitely be improved, probably not many people know about this place.

Tropic of Cancer is a virtual line that divides the northern hemisphere into two parts. It passes through North of Bhopal, and you can cross it as you travel between Vidisha and Bhopal. I want to see equator also some time.

Visiting Sanchi is like visiting a piece of history, which thrived at some point in time, was lost in another, only to be re-discovered by later generations, looking for their heritage.

Indian Summer Drinks: Helping You Keep Your Cool

Anuradha Goyal — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:39:06 EDT

I dreaded summer the most when I was shifting back from Bangalore to Gurgaon. At the same time, I was looking forward to the wide variety of food and drink that you can enjoy in the various seasons of Delhi. In a never changing weather like Bangalore, the food that you consume also remains more or less the same throughout the year, but in a place like Delhi the food that you consume changes with the weather. In summers you have the cool drinks and lot of liquid based food, in winter it is the dry fruits and ghee based heavy food and in the monsoons, it is the fried Pakoras with piping hot tea.

I discovered or rather re-discovered the wonders of the cool Indian drinks. There are Sharbets, juices, thandai and a other lemon and fruit based drinks. Listed in an alphabetic order, here is an attempt to go down a memory lane, remembering the summers gone by:

Aam Panna: This is the typical Indian summer drink made from Mangoes, usually from the slightly raw ones with green cover. You boil the green mangoes, and then add sugar and jeera (cumin seeds) to the boiled pulp, add appropriate quantity of water, chill and serve with ice. The king of fruits does give you a drink that you would cherish for a long time. There are off the shelf versions available that you can simply add to water and have. Traditional Indian restaurants like Halirams and BIkanerwalas offer this as a drink in their menu. But nothing beats the one you make for yourself after creating a mess with you hands and your clothes.

Amla Juice: This is a drink that I don’t remember from my childhood, but this summers I enjoyed it the most. I am sure you can make it out of fresh Amlas (Indian Gooseberry), but the one I use is available as an Amla extract. You get just add some salt and optionally some heeng or Asafetida, chat masala, black pepper powder and you have a refreshing summer drink ready, which not only helps to manage the summer heat but also keeps your body healthy and immune.

Bel Sharbet: Bel is a fruit which is hard on the outside and is pulpy inside with Orangish Yellow color. You have to break it open and then scoop out the messy pulp in a container. You can add whole lot of water to bring it to a drinkable consistency and add sugar to taste before you drink. You can also try adding a bit of lemon or some other fruit juices like orange or litchi. I prefer it with a dash of a citrus fruit. If you want to serve it to guests and want to make it look more presentable, you can churn it in a blender for few minutes. In all probability the fruit will be too big for you to consume in one go, so you can preserve it in deep freezer, take out some and have it anytime. It has an amazingly cool effect and you would be able to feel your body heat cooling down. No wonder it is offered to Lord Shiva on Shivaratri.

Jal jeera: It’s a traditional North Indian drink primarily consumed during summers. On the roads you would see lot of street vendors selling it. You can spot them through their trademark red cloth covered matkas (clay pots), with mint leaves and lemons decorating the pushcart. You can have it with plain water or with soda, with salt and masala added to taste. For preparing it at home, Jaljeera powder is readily available at grocery stores, you can add lemon juice with water or soda, top it up with some mint leaves and ice and you have a refreshing drink ready. You can also add ginger for the flavor.

Khas Khas drink: This dark green colored drink is made out of Khas khas or poppy seeds, though I could never make out how it gets the green color. Like other fruit drinks, this is also available in concentrate form in bottles, from various brands. You can just add water and ice and it is ready to drink. The taste is sweet, and I like it all by itself, and has never tried adding anything else to it.

Lassi: This can easily be called the national drink of Punjab made from curd. Not sure if this is a reality, but people across the country think that whole of Punjab uses washing machines to make Lassis. But underlying thought is the assumption that so much Lassi is consumed that a mere blender would not be enough and you need a blender of the size of a washing machine. You can make it again salted or sweet. The salted variety can be further flavored with coriander leaves, mint leaves, heeng (asafetida), ginger etc. The sweet variety can be flavored with various essences or with real fruits like Mango or Banana. Chhaachh is the diluted variety of Lassi which can be had along with the meals and provides for a good digestion. To have the south Indian variety, buttermilk, add a tadka of rai (mustard seeds) and add some red or green chilies, ginger and asafetida.

Rose Drink or Rooh Afza: This is a traditional old drink; I can remember its TV ads from my childhood. Rose flavored, bright pink colored, just add some water and ice and go for it anytime. It is my favorite drink to flavor the cold milk on hot summer nights. You can also try it with fresh Water Melon juice with a bit of lemon, another refreshing drink in your hands.

Sattu: This is a drink that traditionally belongs to Bihar and the around. This being readily available in NCR and other parts of the country is a symbol of a kind of globalization within India, where we are getting to taste the flavors of our own diverse country. Sattu is available in primarily two varieties chana and Jaun i.e. black gram or maize. There are other varieties also, but I have no experimented with them. This is available as powder in the grocery stores, though I am told you can make it at home as well from the whole grains. For the convenience pick up the powder and mix it with water. You can make it either with salt and lemon or with sugar. I make it with gur ( jaggery) and it tastes yummy and gives an instant cooling impact.

Sherbets and Juices: There are all kinds of concentrate sherbets and canned juices available off the shelf. The widely available flavors are orange, pineapple, apple, lemon, litchi and mango. But with India going global, you have flavors like cranberry, blueberry, kiwi etc are also gaining popularity. One of the flavors that I particularly relish is Lemon Barley.

Shikanji: This is the common lemon drink, variants being salted, sweet, salt and sweet. You can have it with plain water or soda. Add the flavors as you like, masala, jeera, ginger, mint, coriander or anything that catches your imagination. It provides you for all the necessary salts that you loose with sweat during summers. Modinagar, a town that lies on way to Meerut from Delhi is famous for its Masala Shikanji and if you ever travel on that road, you must try this out.

Bunta Soda: This is the roadside variety of Shikanji, made from soda which comes in a bottle which is locked using a glass marble also called bunta and hence the name. It is ubiquitously available on the roads. Earlier they used to serve it in glasses, now they give you the disposable paper containers and that’s the only change that this drink has seen over ages.

Thandai: This is the most energy giving drink, primarily made from almonds and other fruit seeds and spices. You can make it at home and it is also readily available off the shelf. Add couple of spoons to a glass of either water or milk and relish the rich taste. I am yet to taste it this summer.

Ice Teas: Ice tea is not a traditional Indian drink, but I find them the best option to have in a modern day coffee shops. My favorite remains the traditional Lemon, but the other fruit varieties also sound exciting. You can very easily make Ice tea at home, just put less of tea and add the right flavor.

Try them out sometime.

Book Review: Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani

Anuradha Goyal — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:44:05 EDT

Nandan Nilekani is someone I admire, someone I know a bit having worked in Infosys during the days when he was the CEO. After reading Imagining India, I want to write this letter to him.

Dear Nandan,

I just finished reading your book on Imagining India, which you have structured around various ideas: ideas that worked, that did not work, ideas that are still in process and some ides that must be explored, experimented and implemented. We are all familiar with most of these ideas, some by virtue of our education and some by virtue of the hyper active media in the country.

For someone like you who has been at the forefront of the revolution that swept India in the last couple of decades or so, there is so much that can and you must share with the world and especially with young Indians. Here are some of the things that I can suggest, but I am sure there are many more:

1. How to build a brand from scratch?

I think one of Infosys’ biggest contribution to India is the creation of a brand whose roots are purely Indian, but it is as global as it can be. You created a brand at a time when there was no known global brand that came from India, and you did build this brand consciously. You made sure the quality of your services provides the base for the brand that is strengthened by the right mix of PR and media relations. You created the brand by focusing on the aspects that were usually ignored by Indian corporations till Infosys brought them in fashion. You created a brand around values that had deep roots in India and around human capital that not many at that time looked at as asset. You created a brand that commands respect above everything else.

2. How to create the supply base where none exists?

You created a system to convert all kinds of engineers into software engineers. There was huge opportunity for Indian software industry, but the education system in the country did not even produce 1% of the engineers with required skill sets. Most people would have taken this as a bottleneck and backed out. But you started the trend of taking bright engineers from all branches and then putting them through a university like course, to convert them into software engineers like an alchemist. There are arguments for and against this. But to me this was a great move probably the biggest innovative idea that created today’s Indian IT industry or the so called the IT dream. But for this innovation, everything else might have failed.

3. How to achieve scale without diluting the core?

One of the important success factors for Infosys has been its ability to scale without diluting the values and the ways it operated. It maintained its middle class culture while dealing with the best and some of the most flamboyant personalities and companies. You must share how to scale up in such a way that the whole organization is geared up for the next level of scale, how to sync up the scale of various aspects of the organization and that too on a continuous basis.

4. How to groom yourself for handling this scale?

Not many people realize that while you were building this organization, you must have constantly groomed and prepared yourself for handing the bigger challenges, managing the current organization while laying down the vision for the next one. I remember in one of the quarterly town halls you said ‘Guys, help me, I am also learning to handle a billion dollar organization’ Now it must have been a challenge to prepare yourself for handling something that grew far beyond your own dreams. Share with is how to dream big and constantly keep improving the size of your dreams. There would be lot of stories and learnings that you must share with the future leaders so that they can learn from your experience.

5. How to use PR effectively without spending a fortune?

I think a tool that Infosys has used extremely effectively during its growth trajectory and continues to do so, is using positive PR through variety of media. Whatever you did differently or innovatively was used to put the company in the right light, be it training the support staff, be it airlifting the employees during hurricanes, be it hiring the graduates from ivy league colleges and making them work from Bangalore, be it campus connect or be it building the world class campus. I think PR was always used very intelligently which not many organizations do.

6. How not to let the limitations of your environment limit your dreams?

You created a world class campus right in the middle of mess. You competed with and challenged the best in the world, when most Indians thought they can not do so, when the business environment in the country was not really supportive. Tell us what drove you, what gave you confidence and what kept you going. Tell us the course corrections you took to adjust to the external environment and tell us what worked in your favor and what limited you.

As I was writing this post, news of you handling the Unique ID project came in, I am sure you are happy to take on that responsibility as you have advocated the need of UID throughout your book.

Wish you all the best for the new role where you would have new challenges to handle and I am sure new heights to be defined. I would love to work with you again sometime somewhere.

Thanks & Regards
Anuradha