Desicritics Category: Culture: Books - Fiction

Book Review: A Nameless Place

PNH — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:20:05 EST

India is an extreme place, an intense place. I feel the spiritual energy in India accelerates the pace of our personal journeys. There is so much going on here.

I was born in India, and I have been writing all my life. I lived and studied in the UK for most of my life, where I have had two poems published. In 2007, I came to work and travel in India. This is when I started writing my first novel, A Nameless Place, which has just been published.

The novel deals with culture, spirituality and identity, as understood by Laxmi, a confused and frustrated British Indian girl. The experience of falling in love (with a man, with India, with life) takes Laxmi on a revelatory journey. The story is very simple, but for me, its themes are very deep.

Laxmi's experiences in India reveal to her that there are certain laws governing her life, that what we think and feel has a direct impact on the reality we experience. But understanding this on a theoretical level does not make any difference; a person has to apply and live by their understandings in order to notice a shift. Gandhi said, 'Be the change you wish to see in the world', and this has a spiritual relevance for Laxmi, who begins to change herself through expanding her awareness. Falling in love and learning to let go of the 'object' of one's desire is one of the ways Laxmi gains her freedom - from possessive notions of love and into a realisation of universal love. Laxmi's struggle involves redefining her values and overcoming cynicism, a habit she realises does not serve anyone.

I can't say much more about the plot, but if any fellow Desi Critics are interested in reading the novel, it is available at most major bookstores in India and can be ordered online from anywhere in the world from Pustak Mahal.

Editor's Note: This is a preview of the author's own book, if anyone would like to review the book itself, please contact us/the author

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: Holmes of the Raj

Aaman Lamba — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:56:39 EST

The long annals of Sherlockiana, as the Americans call the writing of fan fiction related to the Master, that immortal creation of Conan Doyle, has seen many a strange tale. As long as back as 1974, over 6000 instances of Sherlockiana were extant. The number has only grown since then, and the recent Guy Ritchie film will surely bring a new generation of fans, not that the interest in Sherlock Holmes has died down ever since the stories were published in late 19th century Victorian England.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle disliked the adulation, feeling it overshadowed his other literary works, but didn't mind the adaptations, writing to the American actor William Gillette, who asked if he could give Holmes a wife in his play, that "You may marry him or murder him or do what you like with him."

A new addition to the extended Canon of Sherlockiana is Vithal Rajan's Holmes of the Raj. This brings Holmes to India for a variety of cases and has him deal with a variety of notable characters - real and fictional. This is not the first time Sherlock Holmes has encountered India, having dealt with Tibetan issues in The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes, the exquisite Laurie King novel The Game and being familiar with Dr. Watson's service in Afghanistan.

Holmes of the Raj is a good book in many ways, some of which will be evident only to true Sherlockians, as we fans call ourselves. The book is richly researched and has a strong sense of contemporaneity - the scenes are redolent of the Raj era, with familiar characters, food, social traditions, etc. Familiar Holmes traits are played upon, such as Sherlock's tendency to keep Dr. Watson in the dark until the very end, and the good doctor's gallantry and sense of fairness.

The cases themselves have more historical significance than being intricately plotted mysteries. Each seems designed to provide a vignette into Raj events of note. The book begins with the Case of the Murdering Saint, wherein Holmes and Watson are asked to help resolve an intricate matter concerning the murder of the accountant of a Tamil monastery, purportedly by the Shankaracharya, who has confessed to the crime. The duo encounter various tropical threats, meet notables such as Madame Blavatsky of the Theosophical Society and the Rev. Dr. William Miller of the Madras Christian College. They play cricket with the members of the Madras Cricket Club and Dr. Watson sees the ravages of the tsunami of 1883, which had wreaked much havoc and led to 'disaster capitalism' of the modern kind, with German and English missionaries proffering donations in exchange for souls and trading rights.

Once the case is disposed of, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson travel to Hyderabad on a matter of some urgency, as the young son of the Nizam is suffering from malaria and Dr. Watson's medical services are of need. Not as much a murder mystery as a medical one, this story is centered around Dr. Watson as he tracks the cause of malaria to the anopheles mosquito, leaving his notebooks to a young Dr. Ronald Ross, medical Resident of Bangalore, who would later go on in real life to be recognized for this discovery and receive a Nobel Prize.

They also make the acquaintance of a journalist down from Central India, Rudyard Kipling who accompanies them to the region as they are called on to address a crisis that could rip the Indian empire asunder - the manifold tribes of the hills were rumoured to be coming together against the depredations of the Raj, not dissimilar to modern Maoist movements.

This complicated case behind them, the duo repair to Nainital where they encounter various luminaries including Motilal Nehru, Capt. Francis Younghusband, and Kim of Kipling's fame, not to mention a certain mysterious American who goes by the name of Clark Gable. This is a truly enigmatic case and one can sense the author hinting at greater matters than he reveals which could have some significance for Indian history.

The penultimate case brings Holmes and Watson to the capital of British India, Calcutta and an old enemy, who is the last they might expect.

The slim volume wraps up with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson called out of retirement, the former from his beekeeping in the Sussex downs. They are faced with a modern threat to the British Empire, circa 1913, with India riven by terrorist plots, a unified Congress, and dark conspiracies in the halls of power. Sherlock Holmes must take a hand in history, not for the first time, and leave a lasting mark on the refined barrister Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who until then had striven for Hindu-Muslim unity and the rightful place of India in the commonwealth of the Empire.

Copious notes follow the cases, giving them a richer context and being the norm for Sherlockiana, as we have seen with the masterful The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, both by S. Baring Gould and the recent one by Leslie Klinger. One can only hope the author has more lost annals of Sherlock Holmes to discover and bring to us, as that would be a treat indeed.

The Writer In The Artist Spectrum

IdeaSmith — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 05:43:38 EST

I think all artists need an audience. This is everyone from musicians to sculptors to painters. Everyone who has ever expressed an idea in tangible form or otherwise has needed an audience. To those who disagree - if they didn't, then they'd just keep the idea in their own heads. There is an undeniable need in an artist for other people to experience their art. Art is after all, an interaction between the artist and the audience. It is absorbing impressions and communicating them to the universe outside.

Each art form carries its own framework of the artist/audience interaction and I think we gravitate to art forms that fit our needs the best.

The visual arts, painting and sculpting and other related arts are at one end of the spectrum. The artists are usually recluses. They rarely interact with their audience during the creation of their art and their only communication is in the final product. How often do you see a painter or sculptor standing next to his or her work, willing to talk about it? These people are somewhat reclusive and in some cases even antisocial, preferring the least amount of conversation with their audience.

At the other end of the spectrum are the performing arts - music, dance, acting, oratory. The audience is crucial to the performance as the performer himself/herself. Ask anyone who has practiced these arts and they will tell you how important it is to relate to the audience, to get them involved and enjoying the performance. As a result I think these are also the arts that draw the more sociable artists of all. Immediate and constant interaction with other people is very important to the performer. I'll go so far to say that performers are the artists who need other people the most, during every minute of their performance. (For the after, that's true of all artists).

So where does writing fall on this spectrum? Are we the reclusive visual artists because we hide behind our smokescreen of words? Or are we the vivacious performers because we are constantly engaging and facilitating conversations?

I always thought of a writer as someone who lets you sit on his shoulder and view the world as he sees it. Or even better, he lets you in through a little door, into his mind and allows you to read what he thinks and understand what it is like to be him. In that sense, the writer is exactly in the middle. The visual artist is at one end, holding out his art at arm's length for you to see. The performer is the quicksilver, weaving himself around you to take on your form. The writer, in contrast to both the above, brings you into himself and allows you to experience the world as he does.

I have an interest as well as at least a little bit of talent in music as well as painting. I've performed on stage and I've won some recognition for my paintings. But writing is art that feels most like me.

Writers are the only other people who understand my alternating between being a social butterfly and an extreme recluse. That back-and-forth is the very essence of being a writer. Letting the whole world in and then shutting it all out - it's as natural as breathing for a writer. We have neither the stoic dignity of a visual artist who doesn't need another person till he has finished. And nor do we have the unwavering adaptability of a performer to dissolve into other people. We have a little bit of both and we oscillate, collecting material from the world around us, turning it over in ourselves, carrying other people inside our heads and then examining how we feel about that. The words, the thoughts are constantly shifting and shaping themselves and we chase after them with nets of language to convert them into stories for the next person to ride our minds.

Book Review: What Men Think About Sex - Guilt-Reading

IdeaSmith — Fri, 8 Jan 2010 21:18:22 EST

I've just finished reading my first novel of the genre called DickLit (as opposed to ChickLit).

The book by Mark Mason is called 'What Men Think About Sex'. My initial reaction, one chapter down was,

Whaaaaat? It's fiction?

and immediately felt cheated.

Despite its seemingly nonfiction (meandering into 'self-help' territory?*cringe cringe*) title, it is an out-and-out fiction story set in the form of diary excerpts of the protagonist.

The story itself is quite readable and Mark Mason even manages to pull off making The Clare Jordan Five and Three-Quarter Feet Handicap Stakes sound believable. The above is a contest between two men to seduce women whose names or seduction locations start with the letters C, L, A, R and E. All because the common object of their affections bears the now-offending name of Clare Jordan. Don't ask. It sounds bizarre but in a funny way, he manages to make it work.

On the other hand, I hate it when writers pull stunts like that, making a book sound like something else in its title. I only bought it because the blurb described it as the male 'Sex And The City' which at least half of you know (assuming an equal gender-ratio split in the readership of this blog) was originally a newspaper column.

I was mildly surprised at how like ChickLit it was. I even flipped over the cover to check that I hadn't misread what may have been a 'Marcy' or 'Margaret' Mason. No such thing....an ordinary, if not pleasant-faced man stared back at me from the book's inner flap. The format is even like Bridget Jones' Diary!

Okay, enough about what I don't like about the book...but when did I say I didn't like it? Such homogeneity with the female standpoint is reassuring.

Except, what is it with men and guilt? A particularly intriguing excerpt from the book goes on about the Guilt/Temptation trade-off. It says that men can and do feel guilt about succumbing to temptation. Exactly why they do succumb then and what's worse, doggedly chase after such temptation-laden situations is not answered.

"Because he does. Sorry I can't be more cogent than that, but I'm concentrating on Bloke Feelings at the moment, not Bloke logic. Which is by the way, your answer. Concentrating on feelings instead of logic is precisely what blokes do when Temptation's hovering."

That's cool, really is, since women have libidos too and yes, we give in to temptation too.

What stands out to me is that none of the women I know who cheat, have experienced the kind of soul-searing Guilt that Mason describes. It's not exactly that they are callous, but they've accepted their own folly and somehow made their peace with it.

It may be a fact that there are probably fewer women in such situations than men (okay, let that just be opportunity rather than character tilting the stakes). Be that as it may, shouldn't it be easier for an average man to reconcile this conundrum? Either be strong enough to withstand temptation & wise enough to avoid it. Or lay your guilt to rest. And yet it appears, they carry it around like a festering, burdensome sore, never resolving it and mostly adding to it.

The old adage,

All men are dogs!

...used to sound to me like Anticipatory Bail. Ever notice that it's only cheating men who say that? A sort of 'I can't help it, I'm a man' thing.

Somehow I'm not sympathetic. Truly womanlike, I want to say, good job he can't get out of the guilt then. He deserves it. Consider it my repartee to the guy who told me,

Why do women have periods? Because they deserve it!

At least I only bleed once a month. Guilt bleeds you every waking, conscious minute and if you don't know how to tackle it, the rest of your life is an endless pursuit of distractions from your own thoughts.

How about the book itself? I guess I liked it. A small part of me, the cynical one still holds out asking,

Do real men, I mean the ones walking around everywhere really think like this? About love and a special someone and the need for a 'spark' over and above good looks?

And then I think of Adi, Moksh, Rohan and I have to say, at least some of them do.

The Tree of Wishes

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Tue, 5 Jan 2010 07:59:37 EST

A long time ago, in the dim and distant past, 1984, while I was very near pushing up daisies, my mum went off to the Chisti tomb and tied a thread to the marble window, like many other pilgrims, to beg for my life. Well, as you can see it worked and since then, this idea of asking for a wish to be granted from a saint has been resonating with me for obvious reasons. So when I read in the book I got as a Christmas gift, called "The Blue Manuscript" by Sabiha Al Khemir, that there was a tree of wishes, where people would tie a ribbon torn off from their clothes when asking for a wish. This tree of wishes was on top of a saint’s tomb. When the ribbon springs free and flies off with the wind, then the supplicant would know that his/her wish has been granted.

Coming from India and being a Sufi myself, that spoke to me, very loudly even. But I am jumping ahead, let's get back to the book.. There are two separate stories that are linked together through a blue manuscript, written and illustrated by the Court Calligrapher, ironically called Ibn Warraq, to the court of the Fatimid Caliph al Muizz in Egypt. He dreams and thinks about how best to write his masterpiece. He looks up into the sky and prays and begs for divine guidance and at the end, he feels that God speaks to him in his heart and guides his pen and he sees what the manuscript should look like in a vision.The manuscript is a copy of the Quran commissioned for the Caliph’s mother, in two volumes. It is the calligraphers crowning glory, his best and last work. He lavishly writes it in letters of gold, using a feather pen on vellum dyed with Lapis Lazuli brought all the way from Afghanistan. He becomes one with the letters, having taken a vow of silence for 6 years, during which he slaves over the creation of this masterpiece. One volume is buried with the mother of the Caliph and the other volume is to be buried with him, as a reward for his excellence and ultimately is lost.

The first volume is found sometime in the 20th century and the dealer divides it and sells individual pages of it for the horrendous sum £100,000 per page, thereby putting a very high value on whoever can find the undamaged second volume.

Some dealers get together and fund an academic international archaeological dig in a tiny village near Cairo in Lower Egypt to find this second manuscript. Some scholars join the dig for other purposes, related to exquisite rare Fatimid pottery and other reasons that I do not want to divulge, so as not to give away the plot. The second story is primarily of this dig, the archaeologists and their interaction with the villagers, with some flashbacks to the first story at the time of the Fatimid Caliph, which details the work of the calligrapher, the Caliph's mother interwoven with some history.

In the village there is a blind mysterious man who remains in the shadow of the book, emerging once in a while to tell a story to the Tree of Wishes, because the villagers have long ago ceased to listen to him. His stories are lovely, like stories out of the 1001 Nights. He speaks to the tree and the tree is listening. I loved that imagery.

Do you remember the story behind the shrieking tree? The idea that you go and embrace a tree and then shriek out your sorrows and pains into its rough gnarled bark and trunk. The tree absorbs your pains and leaves you limp, but happier an d relieved. I envisioned the Tree of Wishes to have a trunk like this one below, a big thick solid tree which has been on this earth for centuries, burrowing deep into mother earth, having seen hundreds of thousands or even millions of pilgrims move underneath its leaves, going on tiptoe to tie a ribbon, sometimes touching the bark and wishing from their hearts.

So this tree of wishes reminded me of a tree that I had seen in Sanchi with prayer flags. Here is a picture that I took then and it is the same concept like the one in the book.

But this is far too much like India. Here are two pictures which sort of show the dusty rather barren nature of the area.

The dry dusty stony land, almost exactly like the area where the excavation is being held. Instead of Saqqara, imagine an earthen mound with a small shrine on top.

Ignore the fat bloke in the middle (damn fella keeps on popping up in the strangest of places), but imagine another view of a rather barren stony, sandy land, interspersed with isolated hardy trees, in the middle of a very poor village and then you are there, where the story is set.

The author describes the heat, the relationships between the villagers and the scientific team, the bureaucracy, the permits to dig, and even the cook and his apprentice, the bumpy dusty ride daily to and from from their camp in the half finished school to the dig. She also talks about onions, about mangy dogs, the dishdiba, smoking, the oligeneous eyes of the Egyptians, the religious element, the slow going nature of the village combined with blind unreasoning violent action.

The tree of wishes is planted on the mound with the grave of a woman. As the blind story teller tells it, a man accompanied by his heavily pregnant wife were travelling the desert in this location many many moons ago. The wife then suddenly goes into labour and the man finds a small cave in which she gives birth to his son ,but dies in childbirth shortly after. Knowing that his son will also die, as there is no way of feeding him till he reaches the next civilised outpost, he puts the baby at his dead wife’s right breast, and with a heavy heart walls up the cave to protect them from the animals and leaves weeping bitterly. Several years later, he happens to return to the area with a caravan and notices with great surprise that the wall he had built has been broken open and the ground was covered with the footprints of a child. He finds his son and the dried desiccated body of his wife. Th eamazing thing however is that her right breast is still weeping breast milk. He rescues his son and gives his wife a proper burial. This becomes the shrine, for the miracle provides the saint and since then, people have been coming to the grave of the mother and asking for wishes to be fulfilled, wombs to be quickened, marriages to be held and so on and so forth.

The author treats each character with their national characteristics, the difficult to understand Irishman, the inscrutable Japanese, the reserved Englishman, the exuberant Italian, the secretive but open Egyptian, the confused mixed race British Tunisian translator, the organised German, the natives and so on and so forth. She writes very well. You can almost taste the dust, feel the oily roll of the riverside waves, hear the biting insects flit about in the dark heavy almost oppressing hot night under the mosquito nets, feel the thud of the pickaxe in the archaeological trenches and the susurration of the sieves which are checking the dust and mud for any piece of archaeological value.

But while the above bits spoke to me, I found some of the passages of writing too abrupt, almost like staccato. To me it felt wrong. This is Egypt she is writing about and there nothing happens abruptly. Everything takes its time, there, where millennia have passed slowly and gently like the flow of the Nile.

In some of the passages her writing is also very dark, and there is no brightness to it. I like some of the nobility of the spirit to show, like for example in The Sunbird by Wilbur Smith. That showed nobility of spirit, despite the protagonist being a hunchback. He had a soaring vision and ideas. This book also had a similar soaring vision, but instead of going up in the sky as a glorious huge condor or a giant eagle, it became like a furtive magpie, skittering around in the shadows.

I was also bit disappointed at the rather limited historical information provided. She talks a bit about the Caliph’s court, some very basic archaeological techniques, some bits about pottery but nothing much there. It was like layman historical writing about. If you are writing historical fiction, I would have liked to have felt that you have more command over that period and more details to make the experience of the flight of fantasy deeper. I dwhidn't get that feeling. Finalile ly, not giving away the end, but I found it to be a very limp ending. Here I was hoping that the end would be akin to flying Pegasus to the skies and instead I ended up with being savaged by a dyspeptic sheep.

I was a bit disappointed and not very impressed, but I suppose it's alright. To her credit I have to say that she handles language very well. SHe definitely has a flair for using words and she describes the translator's work with a passion. To the translator in the book, words are alive and build bridges or walls, and change with the development of the plot, but I don't want to give away too much. Wait for the next essay where I review another book which is a bit similar but boy-oh-boy did that one knock my socks off....

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

Movie Review: The Reader

Blokesablogin — Sat, 5 Dec 2009 23:47:29 EST

Finally, I watched The Reader, the controversial film that won an Oscar for Kate Winslet. Personally, the sex scenes in the first part of the movie almost made me stop watching it. I am not a "puritan" against sex, rather, I felt it took away the primary focus of the film which, according to me, was illiteracy, and as an extension, bigotry.

The Holocaust draws a great parallel in my mind with The Partition of 1947. I have many Punjabi friends who are still mentally struggling to "make sense" of it. While the German efficiency of the camps were unparalleled in the history of the world, the chaos of the Partition was no less chilling in its aftermath. The big difference between the Holocaust and the Partition is that in the case of the latter, no one went on "trial" after decades to "prove" one way or the other, who was "wrong".

The film, an adaptation of a German book entitled the same, written by a German, was very well received in Germany and later the English translation did well too. The story was told in a straightforward manner where a young high school boy has an affair with an older woman who makes him read to her before they get into bed.

Years later, the boy, now a Law student, sees her being charged with war crimes. During the course of the trial he realizes that she, Hannah Schmitz, was illiterate and she forced the interned Jewish women in the camp read to her, before she sent them to their deaths. Rather than acknowledge that she is illiterate, she agrees to a long prison sentence.

The denouement of the film, according to me was the final scene, when the grown up boy, a successful lawyer, goes to America to give the Holocaust survivor the money that Hannah had bequeathed her. The lady, a survivor and author of a book on the holocaust refuses the money as she cannot give "absolution" to Hannah, but instead accepts the battered Tin can to keep her "pain" alive.

The tin box was very symbolical. Both the interned and the guards had the same kind of box to keep their "treasures" in. Once, I read a book that was written by a prison guard who likens his life to those of his "prisoners". He says that his friends are prisoners and his life revolves around the prison. His entire social life was defined by it. He wonders what "punishment" was, really.

The primary question in the film is about literacy. Whom do we call literate? How do we define it? Just learning to read and write, does that make us "literate"? The Jews "worship" literacy as their Torah is "everything" to them. I once had an interesting conversation with a Rabbi who was making snide remarks about Hinduism and the illiteracy amongst Hindus. It was very illuminating to me the preconceived notions people have without bothering to "learn" about anything different.

This, was the basis of this film. The law is indeed narrow. It is indeed about what is "written". Hannah was told to be a "guard" and not let anyone escape. And she carried out her role as "guard" perfectly, but she was "charged" at a time when the SS was rendered "illegal". Law almost becomes a spoof at that point.

Amidst the straight and narrow line of law, we also have the larger field of morality and human values and emotions. We "connect" in many ways as humans, just as the boy does with Hannah. While there is an innocence in him, she is ruled by her fear of not being able to read. In trying to hide that, she appears to be cold and manipulative. Yet, the boy wonders at the tears and laughter she expresses while he reads to her.

A poignant scene was when he visits her a week before her release. He asks her what she has learned. She simply replies, "Does anything else matters? The dead are already dead. I have learned to read."

In the Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that the wise neither grieve for the living nor the dead (BG II-11). This is a very interesting line. The sense of ego that separates "us" from "them", I and you, makes it impossible to see the validity of this statement. However, the "wise" who have dissolved this false notion of "I" and "You" do not have any grief for the living or the dead.

I doubt that Hannah had realized this truth. She was certainly eaten by her "guilt" as she reads more books by Holocaust survivors when in prison, where she teaches herself to read. She finally views the world from "their" perspective rather than "hers". That makes her commit suicide on the day she was to be released.

The "author" in America, who had evidently made money by telling her "horrific" tale, could not find it in her to "forgive" Hannah, as she NEVER saw Hannah's point of view. Many times, my grand father used to tell us that we needed to "win" against opponents of the same "background" as us. He used to say that winning over an adversary who was like a kindergartner while we had done our Masters was unworthy of us. That makes us wonder who was the "illiterate" in the film and needed to be "read" to.

No one is denying the horrors faced by the Jews in the holocaust. The Germans have also faced a lot "guilt" for generations who had nothing to do with it. They have paid for it, literally, by taking up the "cost" of the war as much with their national conscience. As a nation, they are still paying their dues.

If this rhetoric of the Jews is to be acknowledged, then every Muslim in the world should be made to feel guilty for every Hindu who was massacred hundreds of years ago. Likewise, the new resurgence of "Hindutva" that wants to apportion "blame" to "Muslims" is the same ridiculous nonsense that is perpetrated by the "Jews" who believe that the world should never "forgive" the "ills" perpetrated against "them" in the past. This sort of political rhetoric continues to this moment where we continue to justify wars and violence and terrorism.

This is foolishness. Human beings have done some foolish and ignorant actions, with or without justification and we continue to do so. None of us are so wise to not be grieved by life and death. SO, until that state is reached, it is good to "learn" and see the "other" person's point of view before passing "judgement". And let us learn to "win" with equals, not "illiterates".

Book Review: Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

Fleiger — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:16:34 EST

Pirate Latitudes reminds you more of Eaters of the Dead or Timeline (minus the time travel aspect) than Michael Crichton’s more famous books like Jurassic Park, Prey. Like many historical novels starring pirates, it is a bit cheesy in pieces.

Port Royal, the lonesome British colony in the Caribbean seas, is surrounded by the Spanish waters. The undeclared (and unacknowledged) war on the Spanish empire is carried out by the privateers, who find support from the colony’s influential citizens, including the governor. Hence, when the governor comes to know about a treasure nao possibly kept in the Spanish harbour of Matanceros, he brings the lucrative venture to Capt. Hunter.

Unfortunately, Matanceros is an impregnable island fortress, with garrison led by a vicious Spanish commander, Cazalla. Hunter and his crew is well motivated to carry out the raid, many having personal grudges against Cazalla. But the waters of Caribbean are infested than more than just Spanish warships, and Hunter’s Cassandra faces natural and man-made obstacles on the journey. Not to mention, the new Secretary sent by His Majesty Charles II to Port Royal has a grudge of his own, against Hunter.

As I said, the novel has the true historical, piratical flavour to the narration. The story (like in Timeline or Eaters…) doesn’t shy away from the more gruesome (or lascivious) details of the life in the colonies in 17th century. Cazalla’s bloodthirsty nature is as well portrayed as the often lawless life in Port Royal. Cassandra is manned by such names as the Moor, Lazue, The Jew and Sanson the French assassin. Each one has his own interesting backstory, excluding the captain, Charles Hunter. Then again, you can spot the good guys and the bad guys right from the start, and none move away from their side of the fence.

While Hunter’s crew is filled with such experts, the Spanish don’t fare so well on their side. True to the maritime nature of the novel, the actual raid and the land battles are almost too easy to win, and too quick to finish. It is the sea battles and the voyage of Cassandra and El Trinidad which are the truly thrilling aspects of the action.

Don’t expect to read something like Jurassic Park or Timeline. But this will be very interesting for the fans of Michael Crichton, or the fans of pirates. After all, add pirates to anything, and it becomes good, right?

The Book That Inspires Me Everyday

Saurin Parikh — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:20:12 EST

For someone who hails from a creative field, and is an atheist, this book is my Geeta, Quran and Bible, all rolled into one. The book I refer to is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

I am sure The Fountainhead needs no introduction, but for those who have come in late in life, here’s a laconic précis of its storyline. The Fountainhead is the story of Howard Roark, an architect. Roark is the quintessential man; he is how every man should be. He fights conventional standards, the system, the society and the woman he loves. From the sound of it, the story’s premise might seem hackneyed, but it is more than just one man’s fight against everything that is wrong. The book teaches you how to live, what to follow, what not to follow, why your individualistic thoughts are your prerogative, and why upholding them is so important. In a way, The Fountainhead is the finest self-help book. There are very few guideposts to find, this book is one of them.

The other protagonist of the book is Peter Keating. A complete opposite of Roark, Keating is what man shouldn’t be. And ironically, for most part of the story, you will relate to Keating more than you relate to Roark. And this why The Fountainhead should be read by everyone, especially the younger generation. The transformation from Keating to Roark is an essential exercise in self-evaluation, self-discovery and self-belief.

As I read The Fountainhead, I could fathom the things that Keating did. On the other hand, Roark’s character left me in wow. I wondered if I could really be like Roark. I could feel that I was myself like Keating (a parasite, selfless, unprincipled egoistic, unethical) and as the story unfolded, I realised that I had to be like Roark (a creator, self-sufficient, self-confident, an end of ends). And thus started my journey from Keating to Roark. Of course, being completely like Roark might not be possible, but every day, I try to be a little less like Keating and a little more like Roark.

For me, the best part about The Fountainhead is that it doesn’t preach. The book makes you realise things by yourself, without having to tell you directly. The fact could be that someone might not be able to extract a deeper meaning from the story like I did, and even without that, the story by itself is fascinating. Ayn Rand has weaved the story in such a way that you itch to read the next page. It’s a story that won’t let you leave it alone.

The book was first published in 1943 and since then it has had a cult following. The essence of the story stands true even today. Ayn Rand gave birth to her theory of Objectivism with this book, and followed it up with her next – Atlas Shrugged.

The Fountainhead, the story of the quintessential man, is by itself the quintessential novel. A true classic, this is how a novel should be. Its longevity – still published after over seven decades – vindicates its power and brilliance.

Ayn Rand once wrote: ‘A spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry.’ Well, The Fountainhead is the fuel of the spirit that is me. And all I can say is: make it yours as well.

Book Review:2 States

Saurin Parikh — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:14:39 EST

A movie based on Chetan Bhagat's second book was released last year. A movie based on his first book will release later this year. A movie based on his third book is said to be in the scripting stage. His newly-released fourth book makes it very apparent that Chetan Bhagat loves his books being turned into movies.

Reading 2 States – The Story of My Marriage, Chetan Bhagat’s latest novel, is like watching a movie. He’s even named the sections as ‘Act’ instead of ‘Part’, as is commonly seen in books. The characters are filmy and so are the situations and sequences. In fact, the story is nothing but one filmy cliché after another. How many times have we seen a college wherein a new girl is sought by every other male, but only the hero gets her? Millions of times, right? Well, here’s one more time; the only differentiating point being that never before has the college been IIM-A. Then, how many times have we seen parents not approving their son’s/daughter’s love interest? Millions of times again, right? Here’s another. I won’t say more; else I might give away the story. But then, since the story is full of clichés, it probably won’t be that hard to figure out.

Clichés aside, if a light read is what you’re looking for, then you’ll enjoy 2 States. Bhagat’s brand of tongue-in-cheek humour is gratifying. The book is not long and the story – apart from the father-son discrepancies (another cliché, by the way) – is not boring. Chetan Bhagat knows who his audience is and he writes for them, and very well at that. After all, he hasn’t become the ‘biggest selling English language novelist in Indian history’ out of fluke. His novels aren’t intellectual literature, but then he doesn’t even want them to be. Hence, one shouldn’t be making an intellectually critical analysis of his books. I won’t, I probably don’t even qualify to do that anyway.

My only grouse with 2 States is that there is nothing novel about it. But, while it doesn’t match up to Five Point Someone, it definitely is much better than One Night @ The Call Centre and 3 Mistakes Of My Life.