tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81356431886341657822024-02-23T18:01:48.692-08:00Brick and ropeReflections on going EastJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.comBlogger170125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-3890255769391702402016-12-29T05:45:00.000-08:002016-12-29T05:45:26.000-08:0016 Best Books of 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Forget new annual resolutions to make myself a better human being in the new year. I would be satisfied if I could only re-discover some of my old good habits that have fallen by the wayside. With this post, I attempt to reclaim one.<br />
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Every year, for many years, I would spend a few days in late December looking at various 'Best books' posts by magazines and newspapers I respect, to get a sense of the best books published in the year. This would form a good part of my reading list in the year after. After a couple of years of hiatus, I decided to take it up again this week. The results follow.<br />
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There are many publications I admire for their book reviews and recommendations. Top of the list is The New York Times Book Review. Their annual <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2016.html?_r=0" target="_blank">Notable Books</a> list is always a key source of inspiration. Then comes The Washington Post, with their <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/entertainment/2016-best-books/" target="_blank">Best 10 Books of 2016</a> list, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/notable-fiction-books-in-2016/2016/11/17/ed0b0580-9ddd-11e6-9980-50913d68eacb_story.html?utm_term=.afa748cf2875" target="_blank">Notable Fiction</a> list, and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/notable-nonfiction-books-in-2016/2016/11/17/a976696c-9dde-11e6-9980-50913d68eacb_story.html?utm_term=.65d44d1da9ad" target="_blank">Notable Non-Fiction</a> list. The two other sources I have relied on this year have been The Economist <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21711295-best-books-2016-are-about-china-language-microbes-hereditary-power-inequality" target="_blank">Books of the Year 2016</a>, and the Financial Times <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/aec5898e-b88c-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9a62" target="_blank">Best Books of 2016</a> list.<br />
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After reading the reviews, and considering the type of books I have a personal bias for, here are two lists I have culled out for my reading next year:<br />
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<b><u><span style="color: #ea9999;">16 Best Books of 2016 - Fiction</span></u></b><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span><b><u><span style="color: #ea9999;"></span></u></b>
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<b><u><span style="color: #ea9999;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOpCbX0V_JnScFWtsCvt_xkmspNPAApqnS1aXpFdNHYxkWEMYFMJX4XhncOH_ZpcpX4Lrrkd_VkciRQfHOs-BLWRi016UM2fb-r0CvyEdqx3s5EntfbBtbDTX5j1SW-QxTlUI0wOh4eHo/s1600/41172218-44DF-4544-AA10-53AAA7543A55-COLLAGE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOpCbX0V_JnScFWtsCvt_xkmspNPAApqnS1aXpFdNHYxkWEMYFMJX4XhncOH_ZpcpX4Lrrkd_VkciRQfHOs-BLWRi016UM2fb-r0CvyEdqx3s5EntfbBtbDTX5j1SW-QxTlUI0wOh4eHo/s320/41172218-44DF-4544-AA10-53AAA7543A55-COLLAGE.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></u></b></div>
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<ol>
<li>The Association of Small Bombs: <i>Karan Mahajan</i></li>
<li>The Vegetarian: <i>Han Kang</i></li>
<li>Here I am: <i>Jonathan Safran Foer</i></li>
<li>Today will be different: <i>Maria Semple</i></li>
<li>Fixers: <i>Michael M Thomas</i></li>
<li>Heat and Light: <i>Jennifer Haigh</i></li>
<li>The Mandibles - A family, 2029-2047: <i>Lionel Shriver</i></li>
<li>Modern Lovers: <i>Emma Straub </i></li>
<li>The nutshell: <i>Ian McEwan</i></li>
<li>The people in the castle - Selected Strange stories: <i>Joan Aiken</i></li>
<li>What's not yours is not yours: <i>Helen Oyeyemi</i></li>
<li>Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist: <i>Sunil Yapa</i></li>
<li>Zero K: <i>Don deLillo</i></li>
<li>Commonwealth: <i>Ann Patchett</i></li>
<li>The trespasser: <i>Tana French</i></li>
<li>Selection Day: <i>Aravind Adiga</i></li>
</ol>
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<b><u><span style="color: #ea9999;">16 Best Books of 2016 - Non-Fiction</span></u></b><br />
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<ol>
<li>All the single ladies - Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation: <i>Rebecca Traister</i></li>
<li>The Gene - An Intimate History: <i>Siddhartha Mukherjee</i></li>
<li>I contain Multitudes - The microbes within us and a grander view of life: <i>Ed Yong</i></li>
<li>Pretentiousness - Why it matters: <i>Dan Fox</i></li>
<li>The Rise and Fall of American Growth - The US Standard of Living since the Civil War: <i>Robert J Gordon</i></li>
<li>Weapons of Math Destruction - How Big Data increases inequality and threatens democracy: <i>Cathy O Neill</i></li>
<li>When breathe becomes air: <i>Paul Kananithi</i></li>
<li>You'll grow out of it: <i>Jessi Klein</i></li>
<li>Evicted: <i>Matthew Desmond</i></li>
<li>Secondhand Time - The last of the soviets: <i>Svetlana Alexievich</i></li>
<li>China's Future: <i>David Shambaugh</i></li>
<li>The Euro and the battle of Ideas: <i>Marcus Brunnermeier</i></li>
<li>Half-lion - How PVNarasimha Rao transformed India: <i>Vinay Sitapati</i></li>
<li>Alibaba - The house that Jack Ma built: <i>Duncan Clark</i></li>
<li>Progress - Ten reasons to look forward to the future: <i>Johan Norberg</i> </li>
<li>Hillbilly Elegy: <i>JD Vance</i></li>
</ol>
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There it is, then. Looking forward to a solid year in reading, 2017!<br />
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JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-61695166928900235172013-05-12T08:04:00.001-07:002013-05-12T11:46:56.185-07:00The better angels of our nature: Steven Pinker vs Nassim Taleb<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In my years of reading, there have been a handful of occasions when I have read a piece of non-fiction that has genuinely opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at the world. Something that can truly be called to have created a landmark in my own mental landscape. <br />
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And practically every time that happens, you can bet there will be some expert somewhere ready to rain on that parade.</div>
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The landmark in this instance (which has shaken me out of a long self-imposed silence on <i>Brick and Rope</i>) is Steven Pinker's masterly book <i>The Better Angels of our Nature</i> - one of the best books of non-fiction I have read in my lifetime. And the 'expert' in question is Nassim Nicholas Taleb.</div>
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<b><span style="color: #b45f06;">First, the book. <i> </i></span></b></div>
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We tend to think of our current times as being racked with violence - all the stories of war, terrorism, gun crimes, rape and other such that dominate the news make it easy to imagine that these are really hard times. It is easy to hanker for the 'good old days' when people lived in low tech societies without the means for mass killings, lived closer to nature, in smaller groups, where the neighbour was your friend and the grocer gave you credit. Oh to be able to get back, you idly ache when another gory headlines lights up your screen, to those simpler times when violence didn't dominate one's life so.</div>
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Enter <i>The Better Angels of our Nature</i>. Thee central thesis of the book is that violence in most forms has not increased but actually steadily and dramatically <i>declined </i>over time, and by most measures we live in just about the most peaceful times that mankind has ever known. Pinker tries to demonstrate that with chart after chart of historical data on different forms of violence, and how they have trended over time - and in almost every case, things seem to move down.</div>
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Pinker's definition of 'violence' is expansive. He is not speaking solely about wars and war-related deaths. The book takes into scope homicides, human sacrifice, cruel and unusual punishments, slavery, genocides, lynching, corporal punishment of children, homophobic violence, violence against women, and the like. Basically any form of violence which a citizen of the world might face during their lifetime - either from enemy states (war); their own state / society (torture, anti-gay laws, sati etc); or from their fellow citizen (homicides). Along all of these dimensions, he makes the assertion that life in the 21st century is about the best it has been for mankind.</div>
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Pinker splits human history of violence into six major trends, each progressively more recent.</div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>The movement from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agrarian one, with cities and governments. He demonstrates how violence ridden the older lifestyle was, as shown for instance in the large proportion of human fossils found to have died violently (and young). Human life in the hunter gather period was indeed "nasty, brutish and short".</li>
<li>Between the late middle ages and the 20th century, the consolidation of minor feuding small kingdoms into larger states, with central authority and inter-state commerce.</li>
<li>The abolishing of socially sanctioned forms of violence like slavery, torture, superstitious killings, sadistic punishments and the like.</li>
<li>Post World War 2 - the historically relative lack of war and war related deaths. The so called '<i>Long Peace</i>' - more on this later.</li>
<li>Post cold war - reduction (again in historically relative terms) in all kinds of armed combat like civil wars, genocides etc.</li>
<li>The Human Rights movement since the second half of the 20th century - Reduced violence against ethnic minorities, women, homosexuals, children, and most recently, animals.</li>
</ol>
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Pinker fills up <i>The Better Angels of our Nature</i> with 104 charts and tables that attempt to demonstrate each of the trends above. Homicide rates in England, 1200-2000; capital punishment trends in the United States; 100 worst wars and atrocities in human history; deaths in wars involving the great powers, 1500-2000; global rates of death from terrorism; child abuse trends in the United States; violence by intimate partners; opinion poll trends in attitudes towards women / gays / child rearing; vegetarianism. The brushstroke is about as broad as you can imagine.</div>
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If you are the sort that is politically neutral, and have no particular fondness for one ideology over another, and you are genuinely interested in understanding the human condition, I can't imagine how you could come out of reading <i>Better Angels</i> without being enlightened, moved, changed.</div>
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So now, to<b><span style="color: #b45f06;"> the criticisms</span></b>.</div>
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When it was published in 2011, <i>The Better Angels of our Nature</i> received broad acclaim, making the Best of the Year lists at some of the publications I have most often tended to trust at <i>Brick and Rope</i> - the New York Times, the Economist, Guardian, and others. But, as is to be expected of any 800 page book on the social sciences, it also received its share of criticism. In my mind the criticisms of the book fall into three categories.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioo_QZyAklnXy0Izf984ZO5zszMAQ6JM4xM0jd3kY0WfTM6F5PGyFDTnd2aFUp_addc_17zi05rKC82dwI6yUndZV6hr6JQjikD5An-CaN08pN-qdjrd297oDwA3Gu1Hgsv2fm1lBMY5g/s1600/images+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioo_QZyAklnXy0Izf984ZO5zszMAQ6JM4xM0jd3kY0WfTM6F5PGyFDTnd2aFUp_addc_17zi05rKC82dwI6yUndZV6hr6JQjikD5An-CaN08pN-qdjrd297oDwA3Gu1Hgsv2fm1lBMY5g/s1600/images+(1).jpg" /></a>First, the <span style="color: #b45f06;">no-ax-to-grind, factual criticisms</span>. I agree with most of these. For one, the book is too long! 800 pages of really heavy material can be quite taxing, even for the most ardent reader. Also, while the chapters that describe and the demonstrate the reduction in violence are gripping and superbly written, I am a little less sure of the two chapters that deal with <i>why </i>violence reduced. Some arguments are easier to swallow here than others. And importantly, the evidence isn't strong for any of these. (It is an important tell that the 'why' chapters have the fewest tables and charts).</div>
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Second, there are the<span style="color: #b45f06;"> criticisms by the political left</span> - well meaning people who have been campaigning against gun violence, large military spending, war mongering, gay bashing and the like. These activists are doing admirable work, but their continued effectiveness depends on the notion of a world that is getting increasingly violent (<i>"be afraid, be very afraid!"</i>). Efforts of groups like these are almost certainly to thank for the remarkable reduction in violence we have seen over the decades - particularly in the areas of person-to-person violence (women's rights, gay rights, children's rights, animal rights etc), but also likely in the increased pacifism of democratically elected governments everywhere. But they are in the unenviable position of not being able to accept openly that they have indeed succeeded in their last few decades - because it runs the risk of current campaigns being derailed. In the midst of a heated debate on the most recent gun control legislation for example, the left is hardly likely to come out and endorse a work that says violence is already down by a whole lot. </div>
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There is one particular methodological criticism that this group most often levels on Pinker. This is that Pinker's choice of metric in many of his charts is incorrect. Over the course of history, the population of the world has steadily increased. So wars or murders or other forms of violence today claim more absolute number of victims than those in the past. But how can one know whether violence has trended up or down? To check this, Pinker often shows violence victims as a ratio of the relevant population at that point in time (number of deaths per 100,000 population, say). A lot of people have questioned the legitimacy of this metric. I, for one, am comfortable with it. I recognize the weaknesses of the metric, but I can't see ready alternatives that can be trended over vast stretches of time. I am willing to grant Pinker this one.</div>
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The third form of criticism leveled against <i>The Better Angels of our Nature</i> are of the 'statistical expert' variety.</div>
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<b><span style="color: #b45f06;">On to Nassim Taleb, and his problems.</span></b> </div>
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A few months after the book came out, Mr.Taleb came out with a <a href="http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/longpeace.pdf">scathing criticism</a> that he put up on his blog. Pinker responded to the criticism with this own post <a href="http://stevenpinker.com/files/comments_on_taleb_by_s_pinker.pdf">here</a>.</div>
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Here is my plain English translation of Taleb's major complaints with the book - </div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Yes, the world looks very peaceful since 1945. But that doesn't mean we don't live in a violent world. You might see a catastrophic, nuclear driven war break out that can kill millions of people. You can't just extrapolate from the last 75 years.</li>
<li>We have mass-extermination weapons now that ancient man did not have. So our potential for causing harm is infinitely more.</li>
<li>There is 'survivor bias'in the argument - if there had indeed been a massive nuclear war, Pinker (or anyone else) might not have been around to write this book.</li>
</ol>
My views on all these complaints is - "yes, but so what?" These criticisms miss the point on two major counts - </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>In my view, <i>The Better Angels of our Nature</i> is a <i>descriptive </i>book, not a <i>prescriptive </i>one. Its point is not "we have cracked this thingy called violence, you are free to open your champagne bottles now". It is more of "hey, did you take a moment and feel grateful for all the progress that you have made in these last few centuries? Your life is indeed so much less violent than that of your forefathers." In separate passages in the book, Pinker writes - "</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">"Man's inhumanity to man has long been a subject for moralization. With the knowledge that something has driven it down, we can also treat it as a matter of cause and effect. Instead of asking, 'Why is there war?'we might ask, 'Why is there peace?' We can obsess not just over what we have been doing wrong, but also over what we have been doing right."</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">"In this final chapter, I will not try to make predictions; nor will I offer advice to politicians, police chiefs, or peacemakers, which given my qualifications would be a form of malpractice."</span></blockquote>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>'Violence' as described by Pinker is not just warfare, which seems to be Taleb's major obsession. It covers all forms of violence that a citizen of the world might face in his life. Do I today face state instituted torture? Breaking on the wheel? Witch burning? Lynching? Murders? KKK? Slavery? Do children today get beaten black and blue by their fathers, or in their schools? Do women face rape as a 'just spoils of war'? Do women in India burn as often as sati, or as dowry deaths? The arrow of history, in all these cases seems to move in the benign direction. I appreciate Taleb's point that if war deaths are extrapolated as part of the same statistical distribution, given our current killing machine capabilities, we can imagine a tail event in 200 years that could cause (say) a billion deaths. And clearly, this type of event was not possible in the ancient world. But that extreme severity of the tail event doesn't answer the question - Given a choice of living in any violence minimizing world of his choice, would Mr.Taleb prefer to be born in the 21st century, or in the middle ages?</li>
</ul>
Before I end, allow me to indulge in a bit of ad hominem, something Taleb decries but generously serves himself from.</div>
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I loved <i>Fooled by Randomness</i>, but was very irritated and annoyed by <i>The Black Swan</i>. (See <i>Brick and Rope</i>'s review: <a href="http://brickandrope.blogspot.com/2008/12/black-swan-improbably-avoidable-book.html"><i>The Black Swan</i>: The improbably avoidable book of 2008</a>). Over the years, my view of the tough talking Mr.Taleb has not improved much.</div>
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Here is <a href="http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/12/10/black-swan-author-nassim-nicholas-taleb-divides-the-world-into-three/">a recent Taleb interview</a>, peddling his new book <i>Anti-Fragility.</i> I reproduce below the specific part of the interview about the Pinker episode:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">The Lebanese-born academic is not afraid to tear down the ivory towers, in which he himself resides. But he also displays an incredible sense of loyalty. After the 2002 <em>New Yorker</em> profile, of which Taleb complained that Gladwell “made me seem gloomy and I’m not gloomy,” the two writers became friends. In 2009, Gladwell told a <a href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/3671356" style="outline: none medium; text-decoration: none;">C-SPAN interviewer</a> that he feels an intellectual kinship with Taleb.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">So, when the renowned Canadian-born Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker penned a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html?pagewanted=all" style="outline: none medium; text-decoration: none;">critical review</a> in <em>The New York Times </em>of fellow Canadian Malcolm Gladwell’s novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/What-Dog-Saw-Other-Adventures/dp/0316075841/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355071030&sr=8-1" style="outline: none medium; text-decoration: none;"><em>What the Dog Saw</em></a><em>,</em> Taleb rushed to Gladwell’s defense. “I got furious. I feel loyalty for someone who does something nice for you, when you are nobody.” Taleb wrote a <a href="http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/pinker.pdf" style="outline: none medium; text-decoration: none;">scathing critique</a> of Pinker’s research in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1455883115" style="outline: none medium; text-decoration: none;"><em>The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined</em></a><em>. </em>In his critique, titled “<a href="http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/pinker.pdf" style="outline: none medium; text-decoration: none;">The Pinker problem</a>,” Taleb claims Pinker’s book is riddled with errors in sampling and doesn’t “recognize the difference between rigorous empiricism and anecdotal statements.” Pinker responded with his own paper in which he writes, <a href="http://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/comments_on_taleb_by_s_pinker.pdf" style="outline: none medium; text-decoration: none;">“Taleb shows no signs of having read <em>Better Angels</em>.”</a></span></blockquote>
So let me get this straight Mr.Taleb -<br />
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You like Mr.A because he is "nice to you when you are a nobody". Then you "get furious" at Mr.B because he writes a critical review of Mr.A's book. So you go ahead and write a scathing critique of Mr.B's book.<br />
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Real mature.</div>
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JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-75532397046903246852012-11-04T04:07:00.002-08:002012-11-04T04:08:18.816-08:00No country for young men<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not that long ago, Japan was the cynosure of the world's eyes - anxiously watched by the developed world, enviously admired by the developing. It was, by all accounts, the center of technology innovation and hi-tech manufacturing prowess. A whole cottage industry developed around Japan watching, and incorporation of Japanese principles into management. What a difference a couple of decades makes! At a conference the other day, someone asked a speaker "Is Japan the future of Europe?" That tone in his voice? Closer to dread than envy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The stagnation of the Japanese economy over the last twenty years is now a much discussed topic. The demographic challenges of the country are also well known as one of the fundamental drivers behind the malaise. I was as aware of the statistics as the next guy when I went for my first visit to Japan recently. From the moment the plane landed in Osaka, though, the reality of the situation hit me as if for the first time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If demographics is destiny, Japan is headed down a road to oldtown. Let's look at the statistics first. In 2011, 23% of the population was 65 years or older. By 2050, that proportion is expected to grow to 40%! Two our of every five people would be over 65! The very young, i.e. less than 15 years old population is only 13%, the lowest of major countries. And it is going down, not up. By 2050, this proportion is expected to be only 9%. The population pyramid of the country, which shows the distribution by age group, has been tagged by some as going from Pyramid to Kite.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This isn't all with their demographic trouble either. Apart from the distribution by age getting worse, the overall population of Japan, for all practical purposes, has peaked and has now started to shrink. The population today is exactly the same as it was in 2001. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now as I said, some of this was known to me, in broad brush-strokes if not in this detail. But seeing it in person is a whole other thing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Osaka is the commercial capital of Japan. I have never been to Tokyo and I guess I was expecting the sparkling sights and bright neon lights of the capital. The first impression Osaka makes though is not nearly as spectacular. There are the obligatory tall buildings and well developed roads, but it all seemed just a little run down. The hanging electrical wires, the mildly unsavory back alleys and the generally well aged buildings were my first clue that this wasn't going to be the Japan I expected to see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The more I looked, the clearer the images got. This is not a country for young men (or women). Most everyone around seems just a tad older than expected. I took the subway a few times during my stay, and by my count, I saw no more than three kids over all my hours of subway travel. Clearly, there aren't enough children in this country.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It isn't uncommon of course, for high income economies to have low birth rates. Much of Europe is a case in point. The way most countries end up solving that problem, is through more open immigration. Invite more ... let's say fertile, citizens from developing countries, and you solve two problems at the same time - those of getting enough labour force for all the work of running a country, and of making enough babies to <i>have</i> a country in the future. On this front, Japan seems maddeningly closed minded.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not a country that is very foreigner friendly. I don't mean the people are rude to foreigners. Far from it. In fact, I found the Japanese to be among the warmest, most helpful people I have ever encountered. But somehow, the culture as a whole seems too ... self-sufficient. Too internally focused. Closed. All signage in the city are in Japanese. Or almost all, at any rate. If you don't know the script, and have undertaken a foolhardy venture to explore the city by yourself, by subway, well - good luck to you!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I stand in line at a station along with many other patient locals, waiting for my turn at the ticket machine. I reach there finally, only to find that every single sign on the machine is in Japanese. I can't make out what buttons I am supposed to press to make a darn ticket pop out! I exit in frustration, walk up to the ticket booth attendant to ask for his help. Only to realize that he doesn't know a word of English either. We do some sign language, I show him the ticket machine, say the word 'English' many times, and he finally gets it. He directs to another machine on the side. This one does have English sub-titles. There you go! I am sure I am on my way now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Except of course, I am not. Turns out, the machine doesn't accept cards (or doesn't accept international cards, not sure which). It needs currency. And I don't have any Yen on me, having left the hotel confident in the ability of plastic to get me around the city. But what is it I see there? An ATM! That should do the trick. We are back to the patient line standing business now. Get to the ATM finally, to discover ... yup, all Japanese. Try to figure this guy out. A helpful old (they are mostly old) gentleman recognizes my problem and signs me some help. Not that it gets me far though, because the machine doesn't accept international cards either, even though it prominently displays the Visa and Mastercard logos. Finally, I find a currency exchange counter (also manned by a lady who doesn't speak English), get hold of some Yen, and at long last get on the train.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Walking the street later that night looking for dinner, I am reminded again that this country would rather be just left alone. I don't think my vegetarianism has given me this much trouble in any country as it did in Japan. The Japanese, bless them, have a well evolved cuisine of their own, and give no room for vegetarians in it. And going with the general trend in other matters, there isn't much in the name of international fare in the city either.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So yes, it can safely be said that this isn't a country that is going to willingly or easily welcome a horde of immigrants to solve its aging problem.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My short Japanese adventure over, I am on my Japan Airlines flight back, flying to Bangkok where a familiar Jet Airways to Mumbai awaits. My seat doesn't want to recline, hard as I try. I call the crew member. An elderly Japanese lady arrives, recognizes the problem in one look, and nods knowingly. She presses hard against the recliner lever while encouraging me to push back as hard as I can. I do, and with a soft creak of protest, the seat gives up its verticality. "It is a very old plane sir" offers the stewardess, smiling sweetly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few hours later, I am on Jet Airways, moving onward to Mumbai. Some rows behind are what appear to be half a dozen screaming children, their noises melding into one another, till it is no longer clear whether their squeals are of protest, complaint, celebration or simply ticklishness. We seem over-weight on our kids quota today. Yes sir, we are flying back to India.</span></div>
JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-77746590511448267532012-08-05T06:07:00.000-07:002012-08-05T06:07:50.859-07:00Books everyone seems to be reading<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has been an extended break from Brick and Rope for me. The great Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, explaining a long absence to his beloved, wrote -</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Duniya ne teri yaad se begaana kar diya,</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tujh se bhi dil fareb hain gam rozgaar ke.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Which translates loosely as -</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This world has left me bereft of your memories</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More heart rending than you are the hardships of a working life</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Such, readers, has been my state these last months. No complaints though. The <i>rozgaar</i> has been kind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One thing that hasn't changed in this time - I have been reading some very good books. On this, my return to the blogosphere, I thought it would be interesting to catch you up on some of the 'it' books - ones that everyone seems to be talking about and reading. So here is my quick take on some books that have been part of my diet recently. Fair warning - It has been an extremely satisfying reading year so far. Don't be surprised to see superlatives overflowing.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Aw5VIZ6xjIC2mjqBu3IAk8_FOsfBCYUqzCnALL7-IYQGH7Ei26AsPnBz2Af6XWD0DOX4VseG1hbEqF8XJSK6x54n7_z0WM9lFDtVCwy82Uy2EsO8KL9Ccl4uYgZTeNnZeUrAf1-lI7M/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Aw5VIZ6xjIC2mjqBu3IAk8_FOsfBCYUqzCnALL7-IYQGH7Ei26AsPnBz2Af6XWD0DOX4VseG1hbEqF8XJSK6x54n7_z0WM9lFDtVCwy82Uy2EsO8KL9Ccl4uYgZTeNnZeUrAf1-lI7M/s200/images.jpeg" width="150" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Thinking, Fast and Slow</span></b> - <i>Daniel Kahnemann</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How do we think? How do we make decisions? What biases do we carry with us in different situations? How exactly does our thinking work? Nobel Prize winning economist (and behavioral scientist) Kahnemann takes on some big questions in this book. And he knocks them out of the park. This is the father of Behavioral Economics, and this is one hell of a book. Buy it. Read it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">At Home</span></b> - <i>Bill Bryson</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxHnVQSBc__MSqLanmWj1Otb6SoNL5_mfLl18kbrwZoHoFWW9MURoXUCySSNOsxR9owSKMcrAnnA7VmYFEPwpdYYgfGQPUUmJe22CuVmpuQCbx_xItjcO5J9eq7-fJgb3qTdhe4z7adw8/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxHnVQSBc__MSqLanmWj1Otb6SoNL5_mfLl18kbrwZoHoFWW9MURoXUCySSNOsxR9owSKMcrAnnA7VmYFEPwpdYYgfGQPUUmJe22CuVmpuQCbx_xItjcO5J9eq7-fJgb3qTdhe4z7adw8/s200/images.jpeg" width="123" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How can you write a 500 + page book about the darn house you live in? Well, if you are as interesting (and interested) as Bill Bryson, quite easily, thank you very much. This isn't the most compelling Bryson work, but is quaintly interesting in its own way. Bryson moves from room to room in his house and takes us on historical journeys to tell us the story of how we came to live the way we do today. Some rooms are interesting, some are not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close</span></b> - <i>Jonathan Safran Foer</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj46edRP0T1n89wyM_VnUSMD-EdEtYLVGwHgNRcAmM6XyfbETI8UqnLW83QSZgkL_dYDuOjX0JSlXeYIknR_2PF5PJeTHUzs2hZaMufSOcaaFbXB6cBA7-ab9-SbBresO_SUKZXTbevvP4/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj46edRP0T1n89wyM_VnUSMD-EdEtYLVGwHgNRcAmM6XyfbETI8UqnLW83QSZgkL_dYDuOjX0JSlXeYIknR_2PF5PJeTHUzs2hZaMufSOcaaFbXB6cBA7-ab9-SbBresO_SUKZXTbevvP4/s200/images.jpeg" width="135" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The father of a young boy is killed in the 9/11 attacks. The boy goes into a form of shock others don't seem to understand. He withdraws into his own personal world. And then, he gets a sign from his dad - a key, to a very special lock. The little boy sets off, on foot, across New York, to search for the lock. Foer's storytelling is breathlessly good. His style and technique innovative like nothing else I can remember. I don't say this lightly - <i>Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close</i> is one of the ten best books of fiction I have read in my life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">The Eerie Silence</span></b> - <i>Paul Davies</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiag3q6xweiiNjked-JwsFcGUlhOyjwAncSeOHdrn5xq2te8sQ-YV9-88DAWxj32QtFTsA7zL0H_QV2POmROxiWRIAzHAcG7zQWQaei-uJfi4lgjU6vkA_OEaO1s6e_Z9Y9y5bVXTXg-Ug/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiag3q6xweiiNjked-JwsFcGUlhOyjwAncSeOHdrn5xq2te8sQ-YV9-88DAWxj32QtFTsA7zL0H_QV2POmROxiWRIAzHAcG7zQWQaei-uJfi4lgjU6vkA_OEaO1s6e_Z9Y9y5bVXTXg-Ug/s200/images.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is there intelligent life out there in the universe? If so, and if they wanted to communicate with the rest of the universe, how would they do it? SETI is the NASA organization dedicated to Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. Davies is their current chief. <i>The Eerie Silence</i> is a passionate story of how to systematically think of the search for life elsewhere. There are surprising questions I hadn't thought of before - for instance, did life start only once on the earth? Or is it possible it started multiple times? How could that be? How could we find out? And what implications might it have on the search for ET? An interesting book if you are into this type of thing.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-8Q0RTScjR2c0a_3mJJeh7-77lBYwqKs3MzSJ0ef-IN1jWD4UqtTBNEOh2HnAhkJWwaR_IKQ3WtjBZ3gf7LJvkF9rQ7mEnsjPNMLeY5pkLkQCbKT6VY7LMr8sXoUPGbl56Y1xMhjnxzc/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-8Q0RTScjR2c0a_3mJJeh7-77lBYwqKs3MzSJ0ef-IN1jWD4UqtTBNEOh2HnAhkJWwaR_IKQ3WtjBZ3gf7LJvkF9rQ7mEnsjPNMLeY5pkLkQCbKT6VY7LMr8sXoUPGbl56Y1xMhjnxzc/s200/images.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Earth: The Book</span></b> - <i>Jon Stewart</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, what can you say? It is the Daily Show team putting together their zany take on what new visitors to planet earth should know about our abode. Very funny in parts. Some crazy one-liners. But not exactly soul food for your intellect.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">The Mind's Eye</span></b> - <i>Oliver Sacks</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGOKbUxKqOqEqvot-7QvFdXUabuzq0QSKPUoXj0UD2mHzn1A5DZTOvhkr9IDvynuQ27F8HlHgwyA-XOWnL0uv-kzuuhr6raYRyGKVuVN6RlFluQm7qxDnP6A5GZxhLHI4C-kqLMJGMsM8/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGOKbUxKqOqEqvot-7QvFdXUabuzq0QSKPUoXj0UD2mHzn1A5DZTOvhkr9IDvynuQ27F8HlHgwyA-XOWnL0uv-kzuuhr6raYRyGKVuVN6RlFluQm7qxDnP6A5GZxhLHI4C-kqLMJGMsM8/s200/images.jpeg" width="140" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second book on the mind on this list. Master neurologist Oliver Sacks takes on cases of patients have strange maladies related to vision or skills of recognition (of things, shapes, colors, writing). Sacks is a practicing neurologist of such repute that one suspects the trickiest of cases land with him. His touch in describing these cases is delicate, his empathy deep and infectious. The book is a bit disjointed in pieces and isn't his best, but disjointed Sacks is better than most authors in their best form.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">The Tiger's Wife</span></b> - <i>Tea Obreht</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitl8n-R3YnWsfkCeo4u3dTjToVd-zcjQqjghiUxywZ9D47R8VLMJMMNbqJr9zYqZ36zcLGLhpumtguq2ieCg7iKNmGyzgv8itHZfyibHB8cQuq1TrnNCRl49HF568bbWG7kO1oNFesFuo/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitl8n-R3YnWsfkCeo4u3dTjToVd-zcjQqjghiUxywZ9D47R8VLMJMMNbqJr9zYqZ36zcLGLhpumtguq2ieCg7iKNmGyzgv8itHZfyibHB8cQuq1TrnNCRl49HF568bbWG7kO1oNFesFuo/s200/images.jpeg" width="132" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There seems to be a newly emerging generation of really young women writers who burst onto the scene with stunningly accomplished novels (it is almost never a non-fiction book). Add Obreht to the list. <i>The Tiger's Wife</i> is a novel by a writer with remarkable confidence. Snow covered lands, bombing in the city, an injured tiger, a deaf and dumb young girl in an abusive marriage, a messenger of death - these are just some elements of a hauntingly beautiful story. A shockingly good debut.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">The Sense of an Ending</span></b> - <i>Julian Barnes</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWL2xD-FeVPEbPHhFUonVpqmTgDCJ1R0pftTRqEJZMcYy5WfRNQ9-GLORJr-EKLa_ZnGBVuNEC50xBFwSvEOZZ97qEjO65h1_1gVCGjYkOaoxZ8eCUIgF_dc06C9KdgMNEeffvaxnUFH8/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWL2xD-FeVPEbPHhFUonVpqmTgDCJ1R0pftTRqEJZMcYy5WfRNQ9-GLORJr-EKLa_ZnGBVuNEC50xBFwSvEOZZ97qEjO65h1_1gVCGjYkOaoxZ8eCUIgF_dc06C9KdgMNEeffvaxnUFH8/s200/images.jpeg" width="131" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Booker Prize winning novel of 2011. Tony Webster is a middle aged man who is forced to rethink and rediscover his college days. Days when he and his little circle of buddies met a notably self assured man called Adrian Finn. Intellectual depth seems to radiate from Finn and the friends are vying with each other to earn his friendship. Years later, layers of their mutual relationship are revealed, slowly, reluctantly. Barnes has a masterful handle on emotional nuance. Every page drips with emotional understanding reminiscent of Ian McEwan. Some of the dialogue and repartee from the college days are sizzling and memorable. Great book!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Imagine: How creativity works</span></b> - <i>Jonah Lehrer</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjljGlkcX8hA_sBMyhgvSO21cjy1Tt2iHjyNoApH-nIM6vgMDpsZqj8knVvE5RYTqsYOxG093Ve0pJ5CCUjIymVJ9k87Z00NLOJ6bsc3XpVJ5ox0FewgH0Nq_kSHsXqer3xTTQeJuR7Vxg/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjljGlkcX8hA_sBMyhgvSO21cjy1Tt2iHjyNoApH-nIM6vgMDpsZqj8knVvE5RYTqsYOxG093Ve0pJ5CCUjIymVJ9k87Z00NLOJ6bsc3XpVJ5ox0FewgH0Nq_kSHsXqer3xTTQeJuR7Vxg/s200/images.jpeg" width="132" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It seems unfair to beat someone up when they are down. But hey, this books deserves the public's new-found revulsion much more than it ever deserved it's fascination for all these days. <i>Imagine</i> claims to unveil some mysterious workings of our mind that we can understand better to make ourselves more creative. I could have called it another mind and neurology oriented book on this list, but that would just be an insult to Sacks, Kahnemann and Ramachandran. This is scientific babble at its worst - throw around a bunch of jargon, add some interesting sounding anecdotes that are cherry picked to demonstrate whatever crazy theory you have come up with, put a cheap punchline on, and we are in business. Forget the piece about making up Bob Dylan quotes for which this book has recently become infamous and Lehrer has lost his job at the New Yorker. The intellectual dishonestly is not what should keep you away. You should not read this book - because it is terrible. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Breakout Nations</span></b> - <i>Ruchir Sharma</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSUhVhZ-_5ygLH3Yi93dM7iPFL8i9JSMlcchIBNhabe7B7hdun2p2C2GG6FBv4Y_QqKgXd6OFn9wHmB2yQSM1n3jg5KjLS3Ni9byNeCxHMfRwdmPT4XZcA2vReIfTXaXgxj2km0CVX1vo/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSUhVhZ-_5ygLH3Yi93dM7iPFL8i9JSMlcchIBNhabe7B7hdun2p2C2GG6FBv4Y_QqKgXd6OFn9wHmB2yQSM1n3jg5KjLS3Ni9byNeCxHMfRwdmPT4XZcA2vReIfTXaXgxj2km0CVX1vo/s200/images.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asking the big questions publicly requires guts in the investment business. And "Which developing countries will achieve breakout growth in the decades to come?" surely qualifies as a really big question. This is another book everyone and their uncle seems to be reading. I have had many friends recommend this book to me over the year. Is it worthy of all the noise? I think it is. <i>Breakout Nations</i> is an extremely well researched book, with lots of data that the nerd in me just loved. The anecdotes on different countries are tellingly selected. The attempt here is to look at a very wide set of countries under the 'developing' tag, and take a clear 'up or down' stance on whether they are headed somewhere big. It is to Sharma's credit that he takes a clear stand everywhere, which is tough to do with macro-economic trends. The one complaint - his cop-out on India. Maybe it was too close to home for him to be objective about it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">The Magic of Reality</span></b> - <i>Richard Dawkins</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyV4LjMYrAXC1HHeBX3ySLV_zz6KWWdNsJJuw4kNSyupNpPN2xWQX-ru6WncwFGQyPlhGFUBB-I5wcjS_nK861zCck1XgRUpj2FAPad1gw844kqXZqHWomYbf4doDjxQ3SdxTBy8MkQR0/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyV4LjMYrAXC1HHeBX3ySLV_zz6KWWdNsJJuw4kNSyupNpPN2xWQX-ru6WncwFGQyPlhGFUBB-I5wcjS_nK861zCck1XgRUpj2FAPad1gw844kqXZqHWomYbf4doDjxQ3SdxTBy8MkQR0/s200/images.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are books that you gobble up in an almighty gulp. Others that you want to savour in a slow, sensual session. Yet others, of course, that you want to spit out as soon as you start on them. The <i>Magic of Reality</i> is in that class of books that beckon you back, again and again, for a second helping, and a third, and another. This is a book targeted at young adults - kids who know a bit about science, and could be interested in a series of extraordinarily provocative and interesting questions - like 'Who was the very first person?'; 'Why are there so many different kinds of things?'; 'What is an earthquake?' and so on. Dawkins of course is one of the foremost scientists of his time, so his answers to the questions, while written in language accessible to the young, are not simplistic homilies of science. This is the real deal. Real science, presented in the most engaging manner you can imagine. And if there is a better illustrated science book in all of published history, I would like to see it! (Word of advice - buy the hardcover version)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">In the Woods</span></b> - <i>Tana French</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht_IXGGrC6ULcriQTK3OzGkSPn0uKzBoYvgxhc44-x_F7weRZfBBUPtbVqps_r0XEe-CpjUtBQseJ8cFOmcTsuoY4CtKNcW1mq6I2M05jS-T3kkNHcxMj8_j1R9oj8L4wWGL9V_kezYE4/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht_IXGGrC6ULcriQTK3OzGkSPn0uKzBoYvgxhc44-x_F7weRZfBBUPtbVqps_r0XEe-CpjUtBQseJ8cFOmcTsuoY4CtKNcW1mq6I2M05jS-T3kkNHcxMj8_j1R9oj8L4wWGL9V_kezYE4/s200/images.jpeg" width="125" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't usually do thrillers. I don't have the stomach for them, and they don't appeal to the better side of me. I finished <i>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</i> at record speed for me (I am a very slow reader). And I felt sick afterward. So it is surprising that I bought <i>In The Woods</i>, Tana French's acclaimed book. The reviews were just so good. Three kids go into the woods to play just like other days. Hours later, one of them returns, bloody, and in amnesiac shock. No trace is ever found of the other two kids. Years later, the third kid, now an officer with the police, returns to the wood to work on the case of a dead girl. Cut to multiple flashbacks, and psychological thriller music. I should have ignored the reviews and gone with my first instinct.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Freedom</span></b> - <i>Jonathan Franzen</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI-IVqbuG63QpoQ21OLMsiMszvIukv9WCFSneN1tWTqKBNk8koXd048rwPuP2W_6CtPnpkkfFhHN0i2jIIwOBM-euQS8B9bNHTFd0CmYneGGmtjzis4Bvn3PjXzS6JXD91ILkJNsUbXkA/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI-IVqbuG63QpoQ21OLMsiMszvIukv9WCFSneN1tWTqKBNk8koXd048rwPuP2W_6CtPnpkkfFhHN0i2jIIwOBM-euQS8B9bNHTFd0CmYneGGmtjzis4Bvn3PjXzS6JXD91ILkJNsUbXkA/s200/images.jpeg" width="134" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No book in recent memory has likely received the kind of bated breath expectation, and universal critical acclaim that Franzen's Freedom did when it was published in 2010. The Franzen Frenzy was so high that it put me right off the book and I decided never to read it. After all the euphoria cooled off over this period, I finally decided to give it a spin earlier this year. The verdict? One of the hallmarks of great literature is that they make me want to be a better person. <i>Freedom</i> did that to me. The psychological astuteness of this sedate drama that plays out over years in American suburbia makes you look for yourself in the characters, and for them in you. Hats off.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">The Tell-Tale Brain</span></b> - <i>V.S. Ramachandran</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTark-NWXS32D89RSSLyft92L2Fj7GOQRhtRExSJZasux1377Eat0b-End9Xn24RnscgQh3t9eglAwoceyfLgnctftX07KGAy7pjyerjlXI9MUdRTS_h79YC4pWantia4dKA_uP5z1fZ8/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTark-NWXS32D89RSSLyft92L2Fj7GOQRhtRExSJZasux1377Eat0b-End9Xn24RnscgQh3t9eglAwoceyfLgnctftX07KGAy7pjyerjlXI9MUdRTS_h79YC4pWantia4dKA_uP5z1fZ8/s200/images.jpeg" width="131" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The third (or is it fourth?) brain / mind book on this list. I became a big fan of Ramachandran last year when I finally read his <i>Phantoms in the Mind</i>. This book is his most recent work, and he has moved on from being a practicing physician to being a full time researcher. His understanding of the human brain is unparalleled. His ability to tell the story is stunning. Richard Dawkins has called Ramachandran the Marco Polo of neuroscience for all the unique exploratory experimentation he has taken on, to understand the mind better. If you want to know the most up to date picture of how our brain works - read this book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So there you have it - a quick walk through of my key reading over the last few months. As I mentioned before, it has been a singularly satisfying year so far in reading. I hope the months ahead remain as exciting! And I hope my <i>rozgaar</i> gives me even time to come back to you and share what I am choosing to read. Happy reading everyone.</span></div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-1737644325262240762012-05-20T05:51:00.000-07:002012-05-20T05:51:14.573-07:00A roof for the night<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It was past midnight when my flight landed. Late enough that the line for prepaid taxis was just a few people long. I was out onto the parking lot, two slips in hand ('the white one is for you, the blue one for the driver') looking for license plate number 8445. The driver turned out to be the chatty uncle variety, my absolute favorite kind of Mumbai drivers.<br />
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Driving through Mumbai in the deep recesses of the night has a surreal, post-nuclear-destruction sort of feeling. Streets usually bustling with chauffeur driven cars, dusty BEST buses, reckless taxis, and young men on motorcycles, lie now barren. The odd stray dog walks triumphantly in the middle of the road, as if inspecting its spoils. Streets where the airways are normally choked with honking cars, blaring music, hawker shouts, the whine and growls of non-stop traffic, lie now hushed. The triumphant dog barks hesitantly, half-heartedly, as if to convince itself that it isn't dreaming, and it seems to disturb some deep stillness around. The streets where the mass of humanity that calls Mumbai home jostle everyday, elbowing everything in their path so they can get to the 7:47 local, lie now empty. No one to shoo the dog away, no one it needs to run from.<br />
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"Kis taraf nikaloon sir?" asks the driver. He has left the airport area behind, and is now looking for specific direction. We perform the little verbal pirouette we Indians do all the time in conversations, mixing dimensions in unspoken understanding. Ask us a question about distance, and we will answer with time. The right answer to "<i>How far is the temple from here?</i>" is "<i>20 minutes</i>", not "<i>2.3 kilometers</i>". Similarly, the right answer to the driver's 'direction' question is not 'north', or 'to the left'. The unspoken pirouette demands that 'direction' questions be provided 'landmark' answers. "Near ITC Hotel" I say, and he nods in acknowledgement.<br />
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"Sir, do you know what the problem of ITC hotel is?", he asks after a minute of silent driving. I didn't know there <i>was</i> a problem, I think to myself as I ask him, "what?"<br />
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"Location", he tells me confidently, like he has given this a lot of thought. "See, good passengers want one of two things in a hotel". <br />
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I can't help noticing how his generic word for customers is 'passenger'. "They either want some peace and quiet, a nice garden, <i>baag bachicha</i>; or they want to be right in the center of the city, or right next to the airport. The problem with ITC is, it is neither. That is why very few passengers go there."<br />
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Now, my apartment community is right next to ITC, so I am not taking too well to this 'poor location' prognosis. So I try to look for any little chink in his story. <br />
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"What do you mean by good passengers?", I ask.<br />
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"Huhn?"<br />
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"You know, you said good passengers want one of those two things. But what do you mean by good passengers?"<br />
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"Arey what sir, good passenger means 7,000 rupees wala."<br />
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"Huhn?" It is me this time.<br />
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"The rate at ITC and other hotels like that sir. Rs.7,000 for one night. Even more sometimes. Good passenger means someone in that category."<br />
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This gets me thinking. If that is what the 'good passengers' want, what do the others want? I ask him.<br />
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"Oh, that is simple. Everyone has a rate sir. And Mumbai has something for everyone, at any rate. And you know what sir? Passengers only know hotels in their category. Ask them about hotels in any other category, and they wouldn't even know where it is. Even if they pass it every day, they don't see it! It is only us taxi drivers that know hotels of all types."<br />
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"So what are the other types of hotels that you take passengers to?" I ask him.<br />
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He thinks for just a few seconds. "Haan, just the other day, I had a passenger. He asked me to take him to a good hotel. 'In what range?' I asked him. And he said he wants something under Rs.2,200 a night. Now tell me sir," he dropped his voice, like an expert raconteur, "where will you get a good hotel for under Rs.2,200?"<br />
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Where indeed, I thought, and tried to think of a hotel that might be in that price range. I was drawing a blank.<br />
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""You know where I took him?" he said, after giving me a few seconds, "I took him to Subhash Hotel, in JB Nagar." Clearly, his theory on selective visual impact was true because I had never heard of, let alone remembered seeing, any Subhash Hotel.<br />
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"It is a good hotel, sir. Old. But not so old that it looks very bad. The passenger was very happy."<br />
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"But what if someone doesn't have even 2,000?" I push him.<br />
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"Below that sir, you can rent just a bed. You know, not a room. But there is a large hall, and they rent out individual beds on it. I can find you one for Rs.550."<br />
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"What if I don't even have 500?" I push him harder.<br />
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He is getting into the game now. I catch sight of a broad smile as we pass under a lamp-post.<br />
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"Below that sir, you get bunk beds. You know, like in the trains? They have three beds one above the other. You can only sit on them sir. If you try to stand you will bang your head. But they are really cheap. Only Rs.250 for a night."<br />
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About this time, incongruously, I am reminded of Antilia. Mumbai, where 'passengers' are out searching for a bunk bed for $5 a night, also houses Antilia, the 27-floor building in South Mumbai which is home to billionaire Mukesh Ambani, one of the richest men in the world. It is estimated to cost about $ 1 Billion, and is by far the most expensive private residence in the world. The 27 floors are home to Mr.Ambani, his wife and three children, and his mother.<br />
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So, Rs.250 a night for a bunk bed, huh?<br />
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"What if ..." I start, but the driver cuts me off, laughing now.<br />
<br />
"Less that that sir, there are a lot of places. There is the railway station, the footpath, the pedestrian bridge. Akkha Mumbai, sir!" he says, taking great pride in his wit, having placed the whole of Mumbai at the disposal of the penniless. "It is a little noisy, and there are a lot of mosquitoes. But you know what the rate is, sir? Nothing! Zero!" he laughs heartily.<br />
<br />
We are home now, and I have one last question. "Where do <i>you </i>sleep?"<br />
<br />
"Oh, a<i>pun ka night duty hai</i> sir. I work nights. I will sleep right here", he pats his seat affectionately.</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-7086052002101094202012-04-22T09:41:00.001-07:002012-04-22T09:41:35.499-07:00The grandmother at Zumanity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Let's talk about what happened at Vegas.<br />
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Nearly two years after moving back to India from the US, the family has decided to return for a short vacation. When you can occasionally afford it, the 'American spring for the Indian summer' trade is one that is pretty easy to make. What is less easy is the decision on where exactly to visit in the US. Particularly heavy debate centered around a couple of free days on the itinerary. The wife plumped for something kid friendly, I for Vegas. In an increasingly rare victory for our youthful urges over parental instincts, we put our chips on the strip.<br />
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So here we are, on our kidless night in Vegas, and the show we plan to catch is <i><span style="color: #741b47;"><b>Zumanity</b></span></i>. For those unfamiliar with it, <i>Zumanity</i> is an 'adult oriented' Cirque du Soleil show that runs at the New York New York hotel. It has the familiar Cirque acrobatics and athleticism, but is spiced up with a heavy dose of Vegas style cabaret sensuality.<br />
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The turnout is big and the crowd is all dressed up in their finery. The evening is young, the audience - less so. After all, at $100 a pop, the show isn't exactly up your average college student's alley. The lights dim, the pretty girls come out, and we are off. Over the next two hours, we have act after act of extremely skillful acrobatics performed by scantily clad, universally topless women, and scantily clad, universally well endowed men - though the latter needs to be inferred, and isn't as readily verifiable as the former.<br />
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Now, needless to say, this isn't the sort of show that plays regularly at the Prithvi theater in Bombay. The wife and I are one part thrilled at the delicious naughtiness of it all, and one part open jawed at the proceedings on stage. But most of all, I think we are just a bit awkward, if you get the drift. I turn to her to say something like "Wow! How did she <i>do</i> that??" and she returns a benevolent smile and a shake of the head that says "Yes, I am sure you were admiring the technical difficulty of that maneuver".<br />
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In the midst of this, two of the performers (needless to say, topless and well endowed respectively) call out for some audience participation. They jump into the front rows, search around - and while I am trying desperately to avoid eye contact, they pick a woman from row three. She says her name is Debra (or some such). She is dressed in a baggy pair of jeans and a generously large white T-Shirt. She looks old enough to be a grandmother a few times over, and she is blushing like a new bride. <br />
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So this hunk on stage sidles up to Debra, rubs his crotch suggestively on her hips while his nubile partner, wearing scarcely anything more than her smile, looks on with seductive encouragement. "So Debrrra", he purrs, rolling his r's, "what do you do?" If she was blushing before, now she is positively mortified. Giggling uncontrollably, she hides her face in her hands, and mumbles - you can't make this stuff up - "I am a school bus driver." <br />
<br />
The audience explodes in laughter.<br />
<br />
And I start thinking. Here, in vignette is a commentary on so much that is different about the American and Indian social constructs. This setup on stage would never, ever be witnessed in India. "Why do you say that?" asks the wife when I mention it to her after the show. Well, let us think, I say, and we come up with the list below.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #741b47;"><u>Top 10 reasons why a schoolbus driving grandmother named Debra will not be found on the stage of a risque cabaret show in India</u>:</span></b><br />
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[Caveat: All generalizations are false, including this one.]<br />
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Women don't drive school buses in India. So if she were making career choices in Hyderabad, the Indian Debra (let's call her Debrani) wouldn't be picking 'school bus driver'.</li>
<li>If Debrani were to be working in her youth, she would certainly not be working at this age. Her kids, if she had any, would consider it a daily public insult if their mother were to be off doing physical labour every day. "Why do you have to, mom? What are we here for? Are we not able to provide for you?", her well meaning if inadequately sensitive kids would ask.</li>
<li>If she had indeed worked and saved up money, Debrani would never spend $100 on herself for a night of pure pleasure. A gift for the grandkids? Investment in a fixed deposit? A pilgrimage? Sure. But a trip with the husband to Vegas (or equivalent) and a $100 ticket for an evening show? You've got something else coming.</li>
<li>If she did convince herself to spend $100 for an evening out, she would not attend a sexy cabaret show. Why? Because that would mean an explicit acknowledgement of her sexuality, and hey - Debrani would never do that.</li>
<li>If she were to magically make herself turn up at such an event, and the hunk called on her, Debrani would never step up on stage. Or the hunk would not call on her knowing full well that he wasn't going to get her up there. A <i>public</i> acknowledgement of her sensual side? Control yourself!</li>
<li>Debrani wouldn't find many of her peer group in the audience. All she would see would be faces of prurient men and bashful young lovers. Hardly a socially 'safe' atmosphere for her to come out in the open and on stage.</li>
<li>The said prurient audience would much prefer to see one of the 'bashful lovers' variety be called up on stage. Where is the gallery demand for grandma Debrani and her ilk?</li>
<li>If, through a series of unlikely events Debrani did land up on stage, the hunk would drop much of his levity and replace it with gravity and respect. "<i>Tho Debrani-ji, kaisa lag raha hai aapko Vegas me aakar?</i>" he would ask from a respectful distance. She is an elder hey, show some respect bro!</li>
<li>If the hunk had been dropped straight from Mars, did not know the rules of engagement, and tried to suggestively rub his crotch against Debrani's hips - well, let us just say it would not end well for him, 'redness of cheek'-wise, or 'continuity of paycheck'-wise.</li>
</ol>
And of course, the final reason why a schoolbus driving grandmother named Debra will not be found on the stage of a risque cabaret show in India -<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>10. There would be no risque cabaret show in India. The self-appointed keepers of our morality and 'Indian traditions' would burn the tent down after the first show.</li>
</ul>
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So there you have it - the Top 10 reasons I thought of - in the process ruining a perfectly wonderful show of <i>Zumanity</i> for myself. Sorry girls! Maybe next time.</div>
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As I mentioned at the top of the list though - all generalizations are false. Case in point - <i>The Vagina Monologues</i> has had an extremely successful run in Mumbai - at the aforementioned Prithvi among other places. So maybe it isn't India that has a mental block - just my outdated image of it.</div>
</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-27065608000808019512012-02-12T09:43:00.000-08:002012-02-12T09:43:36.409-08:00Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2012 - A quick bite<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not much of an arts and culture person. I wouldn't know a great wine if I were swimming in it, chanting '<i>There is no 'P' in our pool</i>'. The only opera I have ever heard is the one on youtube where that fat guy from nowhere shocked Simon Cowell's pants off on <i>Britain's Got Talent</i>. My considered view on Picasso is that he was anatomically challenged.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Be that as it may, I still found myself complaining in my first year back to India how there isn't much of an arts and culture 'scene' in Bombay. You know, like one might complain of how there just isn't enough broccoli in the supermarket. Yes, yes, I do know Bombay streets are an unending series of festivals strung one after another - between Ganesh Chaturthi and Mt Mary festival and dahi handi and eid-ul-fitr and Diwali, and countless other celebrations of forgotten mythologies, it feels like our streets are always being prepared for an upcoming festival, or being cleared of debris from a previous one. But that is not what I mean - I have been missing a secular, art and culture celebration, readily accessible to the masses, where you can hang out over a weekend day, look at some pretty stuff, eat something 'local', edify the kids' character - the sort of thing that is the mainstay of springtime in America (or fall in New England).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well turns out, once again, that I have underestimated the city. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Kala Ghoda Art Festival was first held in Mumbai in 1999 and has since become an annual ritual. In years past, my suburb-living self, reclining on a comfortable sofa at the end of the week, would consider a visit to Kala Ghoda with the same level of enthusiasm as a stewardess might have for cashing in her air-miles. So the festival would come and go, and I would read about it in the papers with an other-worldly detachment. This year, from a geographically more advantaged position, I was more amenable to the suggestion. So off we went on Sunday, to visit the 14th edition of Kala Ghoda Art Festival.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We decide to walk it up from VT. Like many things in Bombay, the Victoria Terminus, now reclaimed by the <i>maanus</i> as Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, is an astounding beauty that largely gets ignored in the bustle of daily life. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, it is 125 years old, and it has one of the most impressive facades of any building you will likely every see. But for everyday Mumbaikar life, it is just a railway station, and a darn crowded one at that. When you are in a leisurely frame of mind though, and are strolling gently with kids in tow, the beauty of the structure hits you. We stand for a few minutes across the street, taking in the view, seeing VT as if for the first time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A short walk leads us to Flora Fountain. Another iconic point on the map of Bombay, Flora Fountain is a site of strangely co-existing memorials. First there is the fountain, after which this spot, and much of the surrounding area take their name. Older even than VT, the sculpture is of the Roman goddess Flora, or so I am given to understand. But right there, vying for space, is a much newer memorial, one dedicated to the people martyred during the formation of Maharashtra state. <i>Jai Maharashtra</i> yells out the sign on the grass. There is an eternal flame burning nearby that has been sponsored by one of the gas distribution companies, maybe HP. Under the flame, the sign says '<i>HP salutes</i>'. In keeping with the confusing nature of this monument, it doesn't bother to explain whom HP salutes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our walk takes us past Kitaab Khana. The newest bookstore in this past of town has been in the buzz since it came up. I am wondering if I can get away with a quick sneak inside, when the daughter says "Appa, I want to go to the bookstore." Attagirl! Turns out, this is the first truly bookstore experience I have had in this city. Kitaab Khana is a wonderfully laid out store, with enough lounge space for adults and kids alike. The collection is a bit strange I have to admit. But the store is certainly worthy of a longer visit. Note to self ...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, we are at Kala Ghoda. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The thing that strikes me right away is how many people there are. They seem, happily, to be from all walks of life. From domestic servants to foreign tourists, not quite wed youngsters to toddler children (to which we add our own), every part of the spectrum of Bombay's humanity seems to be represented here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We hang out at the sculpture exhibits, which is where the festival seems to begin. My lack of artistic nuance is apparent right away. I am not sure at all whether the exhibits are brilliant or derivative, subtle or just plain boring. I go on, nodding intelligently at the large exhibit dedicated to the domestic crow. There is the shocking exhibit of a super-sized ashtray, made entirely of bones, with mega sized cigarette stubs sticking out. And the upside down table and chair arrangement, with cash, booze, jewelry and other allurements stuck to the underside, the tide, file laden top of the table reflected on a mirror flat on the ground - the arrangement is called 'under the table'. And so it goes on. The sculptures are very Indian in their context and content. And clearly, the viewing public is having a great time trying to figure out what is what. This is not a shy crowd though. They have no problem admitting they don't understand the concept of an exhibit. "<i>Yaar ye kya hai</i>" you can hear them asking one another, quite unabashedly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you go past the weird guy playing the flute through his nostrils, you get to The Wishing Tree, as it proclaims itself. Visitors have been playing along, hanging out their wishes on the branches. "<i>A clean Mumbai</i>", hopes one. "<i>Safety for my daughters</i>" wishes another, with feeling. "<i>No more hunger</i>" prays a third. And then there is the truly heartfelt one - "<i>Ek achhi si girlfriend</i>", pleads Raju, address unknown. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is a warm day, though not hot by any means. Nonetheless, the Bisleri stall seems to be doing brisk business. I walk over to buy some bottled water. There are three rates listed on the price list - 1 litre: 20 /-; half a litre: 10/-, and (only in India!) if you get your own bottle and just want it refilled: 5/-. We get our bottles refilled.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We walk around for a couple of hours, take in a street performance, some dances, and some children's theater. I know we have barely scratched the surface of Kala Ghoda festival. There are special screenings of movies; an acclaimed Heritage Walk; high voltage artists coming in to perform. But I have had my fill of culture for today. A feeling of holiness suffuses me. Broccoli did taste good. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next time, I promise myself, I will do better justice to Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We go home, put on some brainless TV, and order Dominoes.</span></div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-60221915971285609552012-01-08T02:14:00.000-08:002012-01-08T03:05:25.682-08:00The 10 best books I read in 2011<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2011 ended up being a surprising year in reading for me. In the year before (2010) my reading had been dominated by fiction. Geoff Dwyer, Colum McCann, Alice Munro, Joseph O'Neill, J.M.Coetzee ... some breathtakingly good authors had books out recently, and every one of them was worthy of a place of pride on my list. Add to it, there just didn't seem to be much interesting non-fiction going around. So when I collated my list of '<a href="http://brickandrope.blogspot.com/2010/12/best-books-of-2010.html">Best Books of 2010</a>', I extrapolated and made the prediction that 2011 was going to be the same. Boy, was I wrong!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2011 was a year of non-fiction - at least for me. There were very few fiction reads that held my attention enough. Some of the authors I follow most closely did not have a book come out this year, which made it all a bit dry. As I look back now at the best books I read this year, I find that 7 of the top 10 books I identified from my reading list are non-fiction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, without more ado, here is my list of the ten best books I read in 2011:</span><br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NON-FICTION</span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE-vFv7tHLMK7FqaYUDn1llObjxGj3LxbO1X3mA2erFQM9lUlvBS4eL-hVSOIS6gGjL1NT7EfJIBxG_CWLLN1WURonAaBK6ME7SDuuGSuw7gvnXZxCbbBzc7mYbEesi_yZaBEosymqqck/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE-vFv7tHLMK7FqaYUDn1llObjxGj3LxbO1X3mA2erFQM9lUlvBS4eL-hVSOIS6gGjL1NT7EfJIBxG_CWLLN1WURonAaBK6ME7SDuuGSuw7gvnXZxCbbBzc7mYbEesi_yZaBEosymqqck/s200/images.jpeg" width="131" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. <b><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">The Emperor of All Maladies</span></i></b> - by Siddharth Mukherjee</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deeply researched, movingly felt, and poignantly written. The best biography of cancer you are going to come across, from the latest in a line of wonderfully gifted Indian American doctor writers. This book took the largest killer disease of our time, and painted a rich picture of it in all its gore and glory. Must read for anyone passingly interested in cancer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. <b><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">Phantoms in the Brain</span></i></b> - by V.S. Ramachandran</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWt6tF3-3sUeYn0XGWM-xxss5fOSjEHrNcjG14iykT6JyepJ04jWtOaxyPFpchxdZT_U-RZyfeRD_unDGa4p8_VWSjzewXmoDbUWVjYQiQMRzkeQ50nDQLpjskD2aybPUQNkeTt3i4-hk/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWt6tF3-3sUeYn0XGWM-xxss5fOSjEHrNcjG14iykT6JyepJ04jWtOaxyPFpchxdZT_U-RZyfeRD_unDGa4p8_VWSjzewXmoDbUWVjYQiQMRzkeQ50nDQLpjskD2aybPUQNkeTt3i4-hk/s200/images.jpeg" width="129" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know this is starting to look like a trend. Another medical-ish book written by an Indian American doctor (a neuroscientist in this case). Believe me, that had little to do with my selection of this book. Ramachandran came out with a new book last year called <i>The Tell-Tale Brain</i>. I browsed through it in a bookshop and was spell-bound. Before I took it up though, I wanted to go back to the original book that made Ramachandran famous. And so the venture back to <i>Phantoms in the Brain</i>. The mind is the most mysterious of all human organs - the one we know the least about. In this book first published back in 1998, Ramachandran takes on some really bizarre sounds patients, and demonstrates how the brain of a 'normal' person behaves, by analyzing the symptoms of some of these abnormal situations. Why does one patient think his parents are imposters and not his 'real' parents? Why does another ignore everything happening in the world to her left (including ignoring to comb the left side of her hair)? Why does a third patient with a paralyzed arm claim that the arm lying next to her in bed is actually not hers at all, but belongs to her brother? Are these people just 'crazy'? Ramachandran, in the style of a Sherlock Holmes of the brain, leads us through each of these cases, diagnoses them through simple, intuitive experiments, and tells us what we can learn about how our own brain works based on these. Unputdownable!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. <b><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Debacle of Mortgage Finance</span></i></b> - by Viral Acharya, Matthew Richardson, and others</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrJqNTPC5e4iAr4DuySXGHFjNxexnE8sc49DY48JhbJ7EQGvrS6M_Y8xTplIl0LFFPD6dbABobg8aVB63YK9z5gRHdc0yvD-0jNSZNjKWKhoS2WusOOtvLguQeJe4koqrlbNgyw15_34M/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrJqNTPC5e4iAr4DuySXGHFjNxexnE8sc49DY48JhbJ7EQGvrS6M_Y8xTplIl0LFFPD6dbABobg8aVB63YK9z5gRHdc0yvD-0jNSZNjKWKhoS2WusOOtvLguQeJe4koqrlbNgyw15_34M/s200/images.jpeg" width="128" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not a book for the faint hearted. It is not a book for someone interested in a high level overview of what went wrong with subprime housing in the United States in the years leading up to the crash. But. If you are a professional in finance, with an interest in understanding the structural reasons behind the crash in mortgages in the US, this is a must read book. While many books have been written about the origins of the great recession, the fall of Lehman and others, this book focuses on an oft ignored, but supremely important part of the story - the role of Government Sponsored Enterprises (Fannie and Freddie) in driving the 'race to the bottom' in mortgage underwriting, and how their fundamental design was <i>Guaranteed to Fail</i>. It is not often remembered that the Fannie and Freddie bailouts cost the US Government more than all the other financial bailouts they embarked on over the last few years. It cost more than ING, more than TARP, and will continue to be the largest drag on the US Government budget for a long time to come. This book helps us understand what was so terribly wrong with Fannie and Freddie.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. <b><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">Moonwalking with Einstein</span></i></b> - by Joshua Foer</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5j01X-7Ma4mZOWk7zXAzy93WI14gWcDZqwvxDWlMYVe8lAjPzqTdOdwI4esNSxofx5Oa7_ml30a9S4fowZfHFiRP75z7krsiZHNaMZTHHbq0PeBmhL9cKZI4A-Ol_phy0G70BriuLD7o/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5j01X-7Ma4mZOWk7zXAzy93WI14gWcDZqwvxDWlMYVe8lAjPzqTdOdwI4esNSxofx5Oa7_ml30a9S4fowZfHFiRP75z7krsiZHNaMZTHHbq0PeBmhL9cKZI4A-Ol_phy0G70BriuLD7o/s200/images.jpeg" width="150" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a journalist for <i>Discover</i> magazine, Joshua Foer visits the US National Memory Championships, to see if there is an article there. He watches as professional 'mental athletes' memorize the order of ten packs of shuffled cards, recite thousands of digits of the number pi, stare a stack of photographs along with names and biographies and recite them right back later. Feats that seems beyond extra-ordinary - almost - dare we say it? - miraculous. He meets some of the contestants, and as one they all tell him that they have just average memories, that anyone can perform these feats if they learn the right technique and train their minds well. Foer takes on an experiment with himself - to see how much he can train his own brain. One year later, he participates in the US Memory Championships himself. And wins. <i>Moonwalking with Einstein</i> is the story of what happens in that one year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. <b><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">The Blind Watchmaker</span></i></b> - by Richard Dawkins</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9XjF9qMpjYC5eLgpIB1qx5PMH_OhyphenhyphenCIGbnP3uzQlKvc0PtupEGUIo_NG21YJ7nORKPXBOeY8f_DolYmy9SZ41B7gERatImd8agsYwRs72Eyd1sfCV4PCBMCDqGB3P7WauFOXEPXn_3K0/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9XjF9qMpjYC5eLgpIB1qx5PMH_OhyphenhyphenCIGbnP3uzQlKvc0PtupEGUIo_NG21YJ7nORKPXBOeY8f_DolYmy9SZ41B7gERatImd8agsYwRs72Eyd1sfCV4PCBMCDqGB3P7WauFOXEPXn_3K0/s200/images.jpeg" width="133" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Readers of <i>Brick and Rope</i> know I am partial to Dawkins. I like everything he writes. I like his science, his passion, his narrative style, his intellectually pugnacious attitude. <i>The Blind Watchmaker</i> is an old book - first published in 1996, where he takes on the question the most profoundly simple question about evolution: If evolution moves in tiny, random steps, how can it ever create the infinitely complex organs and animals we see in life? How can random steps lead to the creation of an eye? How can you explain the existence of a sophisticated Swiss watch, if the watchmaker is supposed to be blind? If you marvel at the complexity of biology around you, and have ever wondered how small improvement steps led to this brilliant end point, you must read <i>The Blind Watchmaker</i>. There is one chapter on the navigation skills of bats that is worth the price of the book many times over. Brilliant, in the way only Dawkins can be. An all time science classic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6. <span style="color: #b45f06;"><b><i>Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother</i></b> </span>- by Amy Chua</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqoGdwcNTysYv3FkPRKfiZy8vpytDCMkqWGIQUIQiNM3OT0F4O_ouSef8-CQ0Fro17_4SJw9vsEIEl1ucWtAJTS_p_-vQ7Fwdw2HIv0yA8C_yc9lQZOPGjzJ3lv0KKHxPyl5R0gVz8WTI/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqoGdwcNTysYv3FkPRKfiZy8vpytDCMkqWGIQUIQiNM3OT0F4O_ouSef8-CQ0Fro17_4SJw9vsEIEl1ucWtAJTS_p_-vQ7Fwdw2HIv0yA8C_yc9lQZOPGjzJ3lv0KKHxPyl5R0gVz8WTI/s200/images.jpeg" width="133" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OK, if you don't have kids, this is not a book for you. If you do, and if you have ever found yourself torn between the strict, achievement oriented, studies-come-first Asian way of parenting, and the more liberal, freedom oriented, let-them-find-out-what-there-are-best-at Western way, Amy Chua has something to say to you. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is an in-your-face, take-no-prisoners memoir of a highly successful Chinese origin woman bringing up her two daughters in America. The Tiger Mom speaks of how she ran her children's childhood with an iron fist, and how they turned out super-successful at the other end of that treatment. The book faced a barrage of criticism when it came out last year, as much of its writing flies (deliberately and provocatively) in the face of most of the current parenting convention in the West. It brings out the best aspects of an Asian upbringing style, of learning by rote, of practising and working hard till you feel your fingers are going to fall off. And, Amy claims - the children come out not just more accomplished, but also happier, and closer to their parents than Western children do. I challenge you to read this book and not have an argument with your spouse about it!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7. <b><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">Half Empty</span></i></b> - by David Rakoff</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFgKugGQ74NgeipZG-zkP4QckJD_CosKp0ERqxq4yrALnXC8jXglvgLziKLNYTYDataQNnpfSrD9Zy1vo61kXdA65yVFt_hsCOMWWhoF7wyRpOMwhf5fVBwexqMx-JsJMPfOtG-jwCu6s/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFgKugGQ74NgeipZG-zkP4QckJD_CosKp0ERqxq4yrALnXC8jXglvgLziKLNYTYDataQNnpfSrD9Zy1vo61kXdA65yVFt_hsCOMWWhoF7wyRpOMwhf5fVBwexqMx-JsJMPfOtG-jwCu6s/s200/images.jpeg" width="132" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Satire taken to a fine art. David Rakoff is a journalist with an eye for what is seriously wrong in the world around him, and the language to poke it right in the eye. The cover of Half Empty shows two cute bunny rabbits playing with each other in the grass. And somewhere behind them, jutting out of a bush, you can see the barrel of a gun pointed right at them. Further behind, there is a canoeist, happily paddling away - only he can't see that he is headed right over the edge of a waterfall. "WARNING!!" screams the cover of this collection of essays - "No inspirational life lessons will be found in these pages". To quote the blurb, which for once is absolutely accurate - "In this deeply funny (and sneakily poignant) book, David Rakoff views through a dark lens our sunny, gosh-everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won't come true." Hilarious!</span><br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">FICTION</span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWzTg1PJ0TV1A1fq4MA9OOX12vsfm6D-zvlVMphN-GSazbbZDKc19Tm4S3PKiCwD0ju4F-OVXIiqgg6rLjr4unoNqbZI1vuYqK9vd-UZsz4Xkvkjfrj22BsAQFDVNdBDBCUG0bKEc9bEM/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWzTg1PJ0TV1A1fq4MA9OOX12vsfm6D-zvlVMphN-GSazbbZDKc19Tm4S3PKiCwD0ju4F-OVXIiqgg6rLjr4unoNqbZI1vuYqK9vd-UZsz4Xkvkjfrj22BsAQFDVNdBDBCUG0bKEc9bEM/s200/images.jpeg" width="128" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8. <b><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">Our Kind of Traitor</span></i></b> - by John le Carre</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another one of my favorite authors. No one does spies better than le Carre. With the changing times, the spy novel has become more and more difficult to place. But le Carre seems to have the knack to bring out just the right notes every time. <i>Our Kind of Traitor</i> is a modest novel, with a modest plot and modest protagonists, as all protagonists in le Carre books tend to be. The understanding of the inside track of the spy world is deep as ever. The moral dilemmas faced by the protagonists are tricky as always. And the language is sparkling as ever. le Carre up to his usual tricks again, and getting them just right.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">9. <b><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">Super Sad True Love Story</span></i></b> - by Gary Shteyngart</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7RTHA9J_PsgJIpsF83hzzmOwG7s9gbxABy2GjpqocTQF4MMusN2JIbFOb7z0-sgTZ_c8TS2nwkaQBbrG-A5T5RvfhwgBU1DjZS94y7AH_P8ddYaVabch9O_S0h9zIZOPP-WCHY65VxvE/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7RTHA9J_PsgJIpsF83hzzmOwG7s9gbxABy2GjpqocTQF4MMusN2JIbFOb7z0-sgTZ_c8TS2nwkaQBbrG-A5T5RvfhwgBU1DjZS94y7AH_P8ddYaVabch9O_S0h9zIZOPP-WCHY65VxvE/s200/images.jpeg" width="163" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another satire entry on this list, in fiction this time. Gary Shteyngart's book is difficult to classify. It is part science fiction, and part social commentary. This was one of the first books I read this year. And what I remember most vividly is the language of the book. It is sparse and shocking. The setting is a future world when America has degenerated to being a third world country, the Chinese rule the world, and the hottest area of research is immortality. Stinging social commentary, ferocious comic power. At least slightly scary. A difficult book to get out of your head.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">10. <b><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">A Visit from the Goon Squad</span></i></b> - by Jennifer Egan</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4U_kFxByHQbRxRDCCfWTUYfImVom0WCsM7vQK-KpZr1JoIh6_-qmo6q6o2RwL8OBMoyh-6Ewnd7kYzsRcrZ50-xlyu3D09o6dLsCyAB0YSH9_i-9BYFl1hr78WGGR7p8BAK_uJm5Zr64/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4U_kFxByHQbRxRDCCfWTUYfImVom0WCsM7vQK-KpZr1JoIh6_-qmo6q6o2RwL8OBMoyh-6Ewnd7kYzsRcrZ50-xlyu3D09o6dLsCyAB0YSH9_i-9BYFl1hr78WGGR7p8BAK_uJm5Zr64/s200/images.jpeg" width="126" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Definitely my favorite book of fiction this year. I love books that experiment with narrative style. And <i>Goon Squad</i> does that with a flair that is breathtaking. The cast of characters is super interesting (a kleptomaniac, a punk rock producer, a PR executive for an African dictator - I mean, there isn't a shallow character here if you go looking for it with a fine-tooth comb). Some parts are written by an adult, some by a teenager, and a particularly amazing chapter is all in powerpoint slides. This is smart. This is the way fiction is meant to be. Read it!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So that rounds up my list of the Ten Best Books I read in 2011.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before I close, I must also mention a couple of books that were my biggest disappointments this year:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nouriel Roubini's <b><i>Crisis Economics</i></b> was a bore. Nothing that hasn't already been said before and better. I know the guy is supposed to be a savant of some sort. Maybe I am too dumb to understand the deeper points he is trying to make. But what I read, I wasn't jumping out of my seat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Booker prize winning <b><i>The Finkler Question</i></b> was tiring Philip Roth lite.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Brian Greene is one of my favorite science authors. But <b><i>The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos</i></b> had too far-fetched and thin a proposition. The book is certainly his worst to date.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dan Ariely is another one of the authors I have enjoyed tremendously in the past. But I enjoyed his <b><i>Upside of Irrationality</i></b> much less than I had hoped. Not enough new insights to publish a new book. I hope Daniel Kahnemann's <b><i>Thinking Fast and Slow</i></b> revives my interest in Behavioral Economics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I placed my first book order of the year on Flipkart yesterday night. The books should start arriving by later this week. I am itching to start a whole new year of reading. And this time, I am making no predictions on how the year will turn out.</span><br />
<br /></div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-33571803841634218782011-12-04T04:04:00.001-08:002011-12-04T07:23:14.082-08:00Ovalekar Wadi Butterfly Park<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If nothing else, our membership with the Bombay Natural History Society has changed this -</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The wife announces "There's a trip being planned to the Butterfly Park this Sunday". </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't smirk and wise crack "</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Butterflies, in Bombay? Are you sure this isn't the punchline of one of those crazy smart ads the Amul guys write up?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">" Instead, I groan at the prospect of another weekend morning's sleep sacrifice. "</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How early do we have to get up this time?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">" I ask grumpily.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we have been attending assorted hikes, nature walks, and garden trails arranged by BNHS over these past months, I have come to see this as a sort of pattern. Around the day of the said hike, I seem to go through each of the seven dwarf characters. The night before, I am <i>Grumpy</i> about the prospective sleep deprivation. On the morning, I am <i>Sleepy</i> - more than happy to hand the wheels of our minivan to the wife. I am <i>Sneezy</i> the moment I enter the park. Soon, all the greenery, the sight of other equally sleep deprived men, and an unmistakable feeling of self-congratulatory holiness makes me <i>Happy</i>. If our younger one allows me to listen to any of the information the volunteer is dishing out throughout the hike, I can quiz our daughter later, feeling like quite the <i>Doc</i>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this case, it turns out, the Grumpy act was not really necessary.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We get up relatively late, by hike standards. The rest of the city is still safely abed I presume because we find no traffic on our way to Thane. Apart from one brutal left turn towards the end, Google Maps does a good job of getting us there. We park in a makeshift parking lot in the middle of the two acre plot that is Ovalekar Wadi Butterfly Garden.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCmbh4Ehbobp8YL1RUsWfjwl9bSc5lKzqmAPTBxtDQIN-7epafTBpBSDIre1k1bktwspRXpCIp0RTYW1I8n4IOnZdc_NlxQeF3stu2S9Op0mOkYuaC_-kBCI4SRO2wfPxPGew1x9YQ45U/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCmbh4Ehbobp8YL1RUsWfjwl9bSc5lKzqmAPTBxtDQIN-7epafTBpBSDIre1k1bktwspRXpCIp0RTYW1I8n4IOnZdc_NlxQeF3stu2S9Op0mOkYuaC_-kBCI4SRO2wfPxPGew1x9YQ45U/s200/image.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Passion Flower, at Ovalekar Wadi</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"This is one of the best things about being a butterfly guy rather than a birder" says Isaac, the BNHS expert who is to be our guide for the day. "You don't have to wake up early." See, butterflies are cold-blooded creatures. They need the warmth of the sun to get them going in the morning. Early mornings don't do it for them. Just my type of creature, if you ask me.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Butterflies are largely tropical. For instance, there are only 700 odd species of butterflies in USA and Canada. And only some 60 odd in the UK. India, by comparison has between 1,200 and 1,400 species of butterflies. There are about 150 species just in and around Mumbai, 104 of which, by most recent count, visit this humble garden in the small village of Owla in Thane.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rajendra Ovalekar is the owner of the plot, and he joins us soon to share the story of his creation. Turns out he was attending a BNHS program himself some years back when he heard that his village, where he owned some agricultural land, is one of the most naturally butterfly rich parts of the subcontinent. He decided to convert his land into a butterfly park, and over the years has resisted the lure of big money pumped by real estate developers all around him as Thane becomes the next victim of Mumbai's concrete march. May his breed thrive.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Ovalekar Wadi Butterfly Garden isn't quite your regular butterfly park. For one, it is an entirely privately run affair, with no 'help' from the tourism or forest or environment department guys. For another, it isn't a confined garden. There are no glass houses, no nets anywhere. The owners have created the right ecological environment that invites the butterflies here - the right plants, the right rotting fruits, the right kind of flowers. But after that, it is all left to the butterflies. They come and thrive here entirely voluntarily. No confines that keep them here! It sounds sort of like an ashram for the winged ones.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The tour starts at the earliest stage of the butterfly life-cycle, the egg. The ones Ovalekar and Isaac show us are so small, you can barely notice them on the leaves. I wonder idly whether these guys are just jerking us around, showing us some random bead on a leaf and calling it an egg. I mean, how are you going to check, right?</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Spot the Caterpillar</span></i></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We walk around some more and there are caterpillars. This time there is no mistaking it. There are many kinds here - some furry and woolly, some more stark and woody. The nature photography gang is out in full force, balancing mini bazookas in their hands as they zoom in on two inches of crawling legs, intent on capturing this short burst of life for hard disk eternity, likely never to be seen again.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The chrysalis is unmistakable. Once Isaac has pointed it out, that is. Thrice. With a little stick the third time, for those especially hard of eyesight, like me. In my defense, the darn things are too well disguised. They blend so well into the background, I can't really be expected to spot them. Besides, it would be rude to spot them right away - I mean, think of the effect it would have on their ego. All that effort to conceal yourself, and suddenly - "There!".</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFUCDMjPBv2qwqduCAxAh5NeLBSnR6ql2Wfr73GAsF7ar66DNtzuVWY0qkXWwABvk6xlqutsvGuxed2LZZ5-psG8ZfJkDtWkZ9AxtZvy6cVvEd76gTyPAeowhKbyVI26jDMHHp7RJIGHQ/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFUCDMjPBv2qwqduCAxAh5NeLBSnR6ql2Wfr73GAsF7ar66DNtzuVWY0qkXWwABvk6xlqutsvGuxed2LZZ5-psG8ZfJkDtWkZ9AxtZvy6cVvEd76gTyPAeowhKbyVI26jDMHHp7RJIGHQ/s200/image.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXTlTnOu1hUhtxIuQFrfmsRq_NCoxGFeIW65afBsP2BMejY6YrA9H-p0yoxM305h_sf780Cth9w10wEAvkJdmJaSaynWp6afQ4kNyrLHU3Zgv_we88tTROjsYEpi4GHsa2s51UI8uXJL0/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXTlTnOu1hUhtxIuQFrfmsRq_NCoxGFeIW65afBsP2BMejY6YrA9H-p0yoxM305h_sf780Cth9w10wEAvkJdmJaSaynWp6afQ4kNyrLHU3Zgv_we88tTROjsYEpi4GHsa2s51UI8uXJL0/s200/image.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By now, I am raring to go - hit the color section, so to speak. The butterflies live up to the billing. They are everywhere. Isaac is naming them as quickly as we can see them, but there are too many. And he seems to know too much about each of them. I sort of drift in and out of the conversation. Most of these species have military words as their common names, I gather - something to do with British officers being the first to name them. We must have spotted a couple of dozen of them over the next hour and a half. If you ask me about them though, you are likely to get no better than 'black butterfly', 'the yellow one with orange tips', and 'the blue one that was really tough to photograph'. Later in the day, my daughter asks me a trick question. "Appa, what color are a butterfly's wings?". "Well, that is sort of an unfair question", I start, "You've got to tell me what sort of butterfly." "Ha, caught you", she goes, "all butterflies have transparent wings. There are scales underneath the wings, and those are what are colorful." So much for me playing Doc.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The little white guy is not a friend</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Along the path, we find a butterfly that seems remarkably amenable to being photographed. My camera is right in its face and it doesn't seem to flinch. "Hey, this one ..." I start, pointing it out to Isaac. "Oh that one has been caught by a spider" he says immediately, "It is slowly being eaten up". I watch closely with morbid fascination - yes, there - there are those tiny white legs of the ghost spider, firmly clasped around the body of its prey. It isn't really the love of modeling that was keeping my butterfly posing for my pictures. Eek!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The life cycle complete, we are back to where we started. Hot vada pavs await us. And steaming tea, poured into those thimble sized plastic cups specially design to be so uncomfortable that you never ever ask for a second helping. We gorge ourselves on the modest fare, and are soon on our way back home. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We hit the highway, and I am already fantasizing about the afternoon nap that awaits me. The wife breaks in - "You know, they are doing a trip to Elephanta caves next Sunday. What do you say?". "Oh come on!" groans Grumpy.</span></div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-17655752330791786162011-11-13T05:22:00.001-08:002011-11-13T08:35:49.428-08:00Book Review - Exorbitant Privilege: Barry Eichengreen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The USD / INR exchange rate crossed 50 recently (on the way up, just to be clear - though your macro economic intuition might be excused for imagining the opposite). This line was last crossed in the last quarter of 2008, when I am told something really big happened in the global economy. Certain siblings took a fall I hear ... it starts with an L, I am pretty sure of it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Milestones like this make me curious. So I got interested in the US Dollar, its story and its future. There is a broadly prevalent sense of the decline of the US as a sole economic power in the world. How does that impact the dollar, I wondered, as the world seems perversely intent on pumping more money into dollars while everything around was collapsing under the weight of problems centered in the home of the very same currency.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXXmjfjrxqhVPavv7twUbPlRa8VG82IZ61TXPPj44IQ7f6KKKHp-rhsoKc68Gr_n1oR7yLjt3pNfecyu_G45ib_sQIBzaWf2j21_8ZYGMkaDZ4gzAYnps_A1vL_1XSHpOKsoDAcehRtro/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXXmjfjrxqhVPavv7twUbPlRa8VG82IZ61TXPPj44IQ7f6KKKHp-rhsoKc68Gr_n1oR7yLjt3pNfecyu_G45ib_sQIBzaWf2j21_8ZYGMkaDZ4gzAYnps_A1vL_1XSHpOKsoDAcehRtro/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barry Eichengreen is a professor of economics at Berkeley, and one of the bigger name experts on the international monetary system. His columns also appear regularly in <i>Mint</i>, which is my introduction to him. <i>Exorbitant Privilege</i> is his delightful book on the rise and fall of the US Dollar. The book was published earlier this year, and has received some great reviews.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The dollar remains far and away the most important currency for invoicing and settling international transactions, including even imports and exports that do not touch US shores. South Korea and Thailand set the prices of more than 80 percent of their trade in dollars despite the fact that only 20 percent of their exports go to American buyers. Fully 70 percent of Australia's exports are invoiced in dollars despite the fact that fewer than 6 percent are destined for the United States. The principal commodity exchanges quote prices in dollars. Oil is priced in dollars. The dollar is used in 85 percent of all foreign exchange transactions worldwide. It accounts for nearly half of the global stock of international debt securities. It is the form in which central banks hold ore than 60 percent of their foreign currency reserves.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In short, the dollar is a pretty big deal. Actually, where foreign exchange matters are concerned, it is pretty much the only deal in town.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This gives the Americans some straight-forward benefits - no currency conversion costs for international transactions; no exchange rate risks in trade etc. But there are also some other much more serious (and controversial) benefits of the dollar's international currency status, particularly in the form of a reserve currency - </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">... real resources that other countries provide the United States in order to obtain our dollars. It costs only a few cents for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to produce a $100 bill, but other countries have to pony up $100 of actual goods and services in order to obtain one.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or there is the 'artificially' lower interest rates in the US because of all the inflow of foreign reserves into US Government bonds and the like.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This has long been a sore point for foreigners, who see themselves as supporting American living standards and subsidizing American multinationals through the operation of this asymmetric financial system. Charles de Gaulle made the issue a cause celebre in a series of presidential press conferences in the 1960s. His finance minister, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, referred to it as America's "exorbitant privilege."</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I quote this setup of the book so extensively because I for one found it simple and useful. As a relative outsider to the world of international finance, I have only had a vague sense of the benefits the US derives from its reserve currency status. Eichengreen does a great job of putting his financial journalist avatar to work as he lays out the argument in a very crisp and easily understandable 5 pages. And I have to say, I found the 'exorbitant privilege' phrase delectable!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a very short book, taking a chapter each to explain the origin, the dominance, the emerging rivalry, the crisis, and the possible future outlook on the dollar. The most interesting part of the dollar origin story in my mind was this little nugget:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Incumbency is thought to be a powerful advantage in international currency competition. IT is blithely asserted that another quarter of a century, until after World War II, had to pass before the dollar displaced sterling as the dominant international unit. But this supposed fact is not, in fact, a fact. From a standing start in 1914, the dollar had already overtaken sterling by 1925. This should be taken as a caution by those inclined to argue that incumbency gives the dollar formidable advantages today.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Food for thought, that. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eichengreen isn't one for playing to the galleries. His views on what the future holds for the dollar can only be described as ... mainstream. A tad boring I have to say. No exciting, unorthodox views on what might be in store. In broad brush-strokes, his take that the two credible rivals for the dollar are the Euro (in spite of Europe's current problems) and the Renminbi. He discounts the currencies of UK, Switzerland and Canada for coming from countries that are presently too small on the international economic scene to be able to make any noticeable dent. Japan, while a larger economy, still stands very little chance in Eichengreen's view, due to the many decades of governmental policy there to discourage internationalization of the Yen to retain export competitiveness. He is not very bullish on non-currencies that can compete with the dollar, stuff he calls 'funny money' - like the IMF's Special Drawing Rights.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His short to medium term outlook on Renminbi:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Someday, perhaps, the renminbi will rival the dollar. For the foreseeable future, however, it is hard to see how it could match the currency of what will remain a larger economy, the United States. Regional reserve currency? Yes. Subsidiary reserve currency? Yes. But dominant reserve currency? That is harder to imagine.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The thesis that emerges from <i>Exorbitant Privilege</i> is that we are moving to a world where the dollar will continue to be the dominant international currency, but will have to share the spotlight with two contenders - the Euro and the Renminbi. The 'Exorbitant Privilege' might not remain any longer. This will cost the US 1.5 - 2 % of their GDP in terms of additional interest expenses and international trade costs. But things could get much worse (from the dollar's perspective) if the fiscal situation in the US doesn't get reigned in quickly. And on this last one, he declares himself pessimistic.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are a sophisticated Foreign Exchange markets player, and are already aware of the nuances of international trade in some detail, you might not find anything new in <i>Exorbitant Privilege</i>. If you are looking for polarizingly strong views of the sort that get page views and comments on politico-economic blogs, this is certainly NOT the book for you. But if you are, like me, an outsider interested in a balanced view of this fascinating story of the birth, maturity and possible decline of the world's largest currency, and you want it all under 200 pages, I have a recommendation to make.</span></div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-73525503839367750592011-10-06T10:11:00.000-07:002011-10-06T10:11:46.175-07:00Business lessons I learned from Steve Jobs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">{<i>JS steps to the table, clicks the wireless white mouse once, lightly. The bright screen of the iMac comes alive in a second, ready to serve.</i>}</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-j3SdxeDTeuJ6SOsx4HORRh-PKKX6JqWvj-j7Rve9Gcm5Un7IDN-LNvSacxivfG2RgIqrCJB2iHjjPwiPr0dowQJeaclxT57jPVUZ7GMIXPvX-1NEHrCfAG3WHKWNc1MSNhRZ6MMjxQ4/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-j3SdxeDTeuJ6SOsx4HORRh-PKKX6JqWvj-j7Rve9Gcm5Un7IDN-LNvSacxivfG2RgIqrCJB2iHjjPwiPr0dowQJeaclxT57jPVUZ7GMIXPvX-1NEHrCfAG3WHKWNc1MSNhRZ6MMjxQ4/s200/images.jpg" width="141" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am no expert on Jobs. I am no rabid Apple fan. I don't own an iPad.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But if you have lived in the business world at all these past decades, it is difficult not to have been influenced by the man. At conference after conference, meeting after meeting, poll the audience on any question related to innovation, quality, marketing, design, product development ... much of anything really, and it was a fair bet that the name Apple would turn up in the top 5. So what business lessons have I learned from the man in the black turtleneck? Here is a quick list:</span></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's about the customer. Customers care about their stuff, not your stuff. So forget how your product works, and give them what <i>they</i> are looking for.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Less is more. No clutter. No pop ups. No wires. Enough said.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06;">Design is not just what it looks and feels like. Design is how it works.</span></i>" It is so easy to change something superficial and feel like we have enhanced customer experience. Opening up the hood and changing all the wiring underneath? That is the real deal.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Excellence' is a big word. Strive for it. Set the bar for yourself really high.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone likes drama. Remember the little flick of Jobs' finger in Macworld 2007? It flipped the page on the iPhone in his hand. '<i>Oooooh</i>' went the audience collectively. And the smartphone industry was never the same again.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06;">You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give it to them.</span></i>" A customer might tell you the next big innovation idea in your business in a focus group, but don't bet on it.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Profits matter. Just because you are selling a product people line up for doesn't automatically mean you will make money. Price it where it will make you a profit.</span></li>
</ol>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think it can be said without much exaggeration that Steve Jobs made a difference to people's lives in a way that few people in business do. Tip of the hat.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">{<i>... and with that, JS clicks the little apple icon on the top left of the iMac, hits 'Sleep'. The screen goes dark. Simple as that.</i>}</span></div>
</div>
JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-12976966581881979962011-09-25T05:42:00.000-07:002011-09-25T05:42:50.221-07:00Monsoon in Kerala<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has only been an hour, and Mumbai already seems a world away. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The airplane is languorously approaching Kochi, and I am mesmerized by the sight on the other side of plexiglass. It is fresh, it is a bright spring green, it is a plush blanket of verdant forest. These are the last days of the monsoon, and we are in God's own country.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is something truly jaw-dropping about approaching this land from above. It seems a thwarting of nature's plans, this stealing of a perspective that should be the birds' preserve. The hilltops are rolling underneath, wisps of white clouds kissing their foreheads. A newly refreshed Periyar river is flowing joyfully, a silver streak meandering through dense coconut groves. The green is everywhere. Our toddler is standing in his seat, ignoring every safety announcement, staring open eyed at a landscape overwhelmed by a color Mumbai allows but grudgingly. The other hues, where there are any, seem to pop out against the sage backdrop. There! There is a brown shingled roof, peaking out. There - a church spire, standing proud, white and tall, peering over the treetops.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our first destination is Munnar, a good five hour drive from the Kochi airport. We settle ourselves down into the minivan the travel agency has sent out to be our companion for this week, and we set off. While we are still within town limits, the rituals of weekend morning life play out around us. There are a lot of people on the road this early in the morning, and everyone seems dressed for something. Church, our driver tells us, and it is Eid today too. A group of men in crisp white <i>mundu</i>s walks toward us, laughing heartily at their private jokes, the women doing the same across the road. As our car reaches them, the men's group splits, one half walking into the compound of one of the hundreds of churches that dot the Kochi tourist map. The other half carries on, only to enter a chartreuse domed mosque a block ahead. There is the occasional temple too, the brightly statued <i>gopuram</i>s standing out for their novelty. We are of course in Guruvayur country so Krishna devotees aren't likely to be far off. But right where we are, driving lazily past the pedestrians, steering clear of the boldly marked 'bicycle lane', it is all the white of churches and the mosaic green of mosques.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Out in the countryside, on our way now and on every drive over the next two days, the monsoon's presence is everywhere. Spontaneous waterfalls gush down every hillside. They aren't tiny rivulets of water either. These are bold, roaring waterfalls, thundering down tall hills, spattering vehicles passing on the narrow road below. After the first ... oh I don't know, hundred waterfalls, the daughter finally stops being excited by them. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are on one of our daily quota of long drives when the monsoon skies burst open. We are driving precariously up a mountain slope, with barely enough room for cars on the other side to pass, and with scarcely a moment's rumbling notice, the torrent is upon us. The wipers are working extra hard as we trudge slowly up. Through the intermittently clear visibility of the windscreen, I see in front of us a David fighting the rain-god Goliaths. An auto-rickshaw, battered for wear, is struggling up the hill. It is overfull with passengers. The monsoon rain lashes at it from all sides, the blue tarpaulin curtains that drape its sides proving comically inadequate as they flutter violently in the wind. A bangled arm stretches out from inside, clutching at the curtains desperately, pulls them inside. It is fighting the strength of the wind. As we cautiously pass the auto, I see the wind winning this battle again, the shield of blue fluttering out of control. It is too loud outside so I cannot be sure, but I think I heard a squeal of laughter from in there.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Munnar is plantation country. Rubber and tea for most part, from what I can tell. As you go around, you are likely to be greeted every so often by rubber trees, neatly lined up in a plantation. Green plastic sap bags are tied around the midriff of rows upon rows of rubber trees, like a prayer assembly of extraordinarily tall schoolgirls, standing at attention in their green skirts. It is tea however, that gives the vista its distinctive look. Sloping patterned beds of tea plantations stretch all around Munnar, somewhere brown from having had their leaves harvested, but mostly at this time of the year, bright spring green. Plantation workers can be seen hard at work, even when the rain is upon them. These are mountain slopes, where no tractor can be used for harvesting. The workers (at least half of them women) carry what look like specially designed shears, with a collector box attached underneath. They keep clipping the leaves, the box filling up as the day wears on. These workers clip at least 50 kg of tea leaves a day, we are told, and the more skilled ones upto 100 kg. That is a lot of boxes.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tea plantations are a truly unique vocation, aesthetically speaking. Hills upon hills roll out in front of our eyes. Hills where human industry has displaced nature. Yet, somehow, the landscape seems to have been rendered more beautiful than it was before we started. We visit the Kannan Devan Hills Plantation Company, where they show us pictures of these hills over the decades. Yes, I have to admit, the plantations have made the hills more picturesque. I might be going out on a limb here, but I don't think we could say the same if we dotted these hills with call centers.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tea and Tourism seem to be the only games in town. Every car we pass seems to sport a yellow license plate. Which has an unfortunate side effect. There seem to be an acute shortage of local ethnic restaurants. Every culinary entrepreneur seems to be catering to the lowest common denominator of the tourist population. "Multi-cuisine" every restaurant board proclaims, wearing what out to be its shame with unseemly pride. Step inside, and we are ushered quickly into what are prominently marked 'Family Rooms'. We aren't allowed to linger in the 'common' part of any restaurant for any time at all. What exotica is being served in the outside world, we wonder sitting in our cosseted corner. It feels like being at the suite levels of the Titanic. If only we could step down to the sailors level, I am sure there would be loud music and bawdy partying.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After much searching, we do find an ethnic restaurant. I ask for the menu. No menu, I am told. "White or boiled?" the waiter asks me. We realize that is the only choice we have, white rice or parboiled. I vote for white. The water pre-served at the table is warm. And pink. Not sure whether to try it, I peer into the jug that has also been set helpfully at the table. No water in the jug. Rasam. A whole jug of it! As we wait to be served, I watch the middle aged couple at the other table in the 'Family Room'. The man has ordered ('boiled'). The wife however, seems to be there only to give him company. She coolly opens a large doggy bag she has got from home, unpacks her lunch, and starts eating. No one seems to mind, least of all our waiter, who finally comes out. He sets out our meal before finally starting to serve the rice. He balances a huge bowl in his left arm, and with his right, using a dinner plate as a serving spoon, he piles up heaps of rice on my plate. Using a dinner plate as a serving spoon! Boy, they like their rice in these parts, don't they?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On our way to Kumarakom, our last destination, the scenery changes. No more tea plantations. It is open field time now. Fields that extend farther than I am used to seeing anywhere else in India. Along much of the road, there is no cell phone coverage. The whole population seems caught up in an older era of communication. Until, of course, I notice the billboards advertising assorted local websites. "Where Malayalees Marry", claims the tagline of a matrimony site. m4marry.com the site is called, which sounds hilariously Malayalee if you pronounce the number in its original form.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kumarakom is Kerala as I had imagined it while we planned this trip. With birds. There are birds everywhere here. Exotic ones. At one point during the day, our daughter starts crying when I tell her she missed a kingfisher just flew past. "Why are you crying?" asks the wife dismissively, "you've already seen four kingfishers since morning." Well, there's the tagline for a great vacation day right there.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have planned on a day-long houseboat ride through the backwaters. <i>Grandeur</i>, our baby is called. It is a pretty grand affair all right, with two well fitted (air conditioned) bedrooms, a large living and dining hall, inexplicably ornate furniture, a captain, a full time cook, and a helper boy on board. It is late morning by the time we set sail. The waters are about 90 ft wide here. They are lined by paddy fields on either side, with little hutments housing the caretakers. Housewives are out in force. Across the waters, they are beating clothes on washing stone. And all the while, they are bantering with each other, shouting jokes across the 90 ft of water.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a day of lazy drifting along the backwaters (including lunch at anchor across a paddy field, alongside a tiny shack that shouts 'crabs for sale!'), we drop anchor for the night. The helper jumps ashore before we come to a complete halt. He is pulling in some long cables from land. Before we know it, he has rigged up a full power line and - what? - cable TV. Well, we can hardly be expected to eat dinner without cable, can we? Hey, we are houseboat people, not animals. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had feared mosquitoes at night, but it doesn't turn out to be bad as I had feared. Before we know it, the stillness of the night lulls us to sleep. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is our last day here. I wake up to a cock-a-doodle-do for the first time in memory. I step out to the deck. Life is starting up. The boats are already out and about. A houseboat passes our spot slowly. It has music on loud. "<i>Hawa hawa aye hawa</i>" croons Hassan Jehangir (or whoever it was ... what happened to him after this song anyway?) ... "<i>Yaar mila de, dildaar mila de</i>". </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Appa, you know what?" asks my daughter on our way back home. "When we went on the elephant ride, the elephant's ears kept flapping against my feet. Isn't that crazy?"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our car isn't here when we get out of the Mumbai airport. The driver is caught in traffic. "Bas sir paanch minat me pahunch raha hoon" he says.</span></div>
JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-37575575128132762822011-08-11T11:02:00.000-07:002011-08-11T11:02:23.343-07:00The politics of the clothesline<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Never thought I would witness this. I mean, India is a land of contradictory realities and all that, but somehow, witnessing such an exchange never struck me as a possibility.<br />
<br />
The centrally located, relatively new and decidedly yuppie residential complex in Mumbai that houses me, has a residents' Google list. (And, I am certain, a Facebook page, some twitter ID, and whatever else is the yuppie thing to do nowadays) On this Google list, there is a constant stream of emails from people listing their views on the community, issues of common interest, 'help wanted' ads for maids and drivers, and what have you. All nice and neighbourly. A recent email caught my attention. Judging by the immediate burst of hubbub it created, I wasn't alone.<br />
<br />
"<i>I think it shouldn't be allowed</i>," declared the writer, "<i>for residents to dry their laundry on an external clothesline</i>."<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJrHrhR4LX2-x9y5GnWU3iW7vo5M7s0Bbp9e_OF9y55zEMBkE55pPPAMgea0ZKEKg_0P_ynOSvSO_ob7ZkLzWhyphenhyphenryN7mchxMDcuZ8sDlrNx0oglGlUcxrG1GTHgXxqyH6vcfbMg8o62_0/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJrHrhR4LX2-x9y5GnWU3iW7vo5M7s0Bbp9e_OF9y55zEMBkE55pPPAMgea0ZKEKg_0P_ynOSvSO_ob7ZkLzWhyphenhyphenryN7mchxMDcuZ8sDlrNx0oglGlUcxrG1GTHgXxqyH6vcfbMg8o62_0/s200/images.jpeg" width="195" /></span></a></div>Now, if you have seen, passed by, lived in, any residential community anywhere in India, you know this much for a fact. The clothesline is a birth-right. We are the people the have hung our dirty laundry in public for all recorded history. We are the people that crane their necks out of freshly rented apartments, trying to look for the tell-tale nails and hooks the previous occupant might have left behind. We have a special kind of nylon rope that was invented for the sole purpose of becoming a clothesline. I am pretty sure we invented that weird 'three poles triangulating' sort of arrangement that supports clotheslines in open areas. We are, in short, clothesline people. "<i>I think it shouldn't be allowed for residents to dry their laundry on an external clothesline</i>"?? Gasp!<br />
<br />
"I agree", started the next email. Wait a minute. What? You agree?<br />
<br />
Turns out a lot of people agreed. <br />
<br />
I am not the most observant of people, so maybe I had missed something all these days. The next morning, I took a walk around, and looked up at all the balconies in our complex. Sure enough, no clotheslines. Except for the offending few that had so aggrieved our emailer. I can see a blue towel fluttering away from the fifth floor. A few ... let's say 'delicates' whose colors are indeterminate high up on the eighth floor. Oh, and one of the offenders, blithely oblivious to the heated chatter about them and their ilk, has a brown bed-sheet hanging out there, in all its yellow floral glory. Sweet! But strip those out, and there isn't any other line in sight. Hmm ...<br />
<br />
There are two primary arguments for the 'No Clothesline' movement. One is purely aesthetic. '<i>When I sit out on my balcony, I don't want to be staring at your well worn socks</i>' so to speak. Fair enough. And the other argument, derived from the same, but one step removed, is economic. Properties in clothesline strewn buildings lose value, goes this argument. Clotheslines are for the tacky, the middle class, the old. Add them anywhere near my apartment, and you are reducing my sale price. I tried searching for some research that might establish this causal relationship, but no luck.<br />
<br />
Electric clothes dryers have been around in the developed world since the 1940s. By the late 50s and the 60s, they started to be really popular. It started off, if I understand it right, as a symbol of affluence. '<i>I am successful, you can't see my underwear any more</i>', in a manner of speaking. Slowly, like with most household gadgets in the west, they became ubiquitous, and communities could scarcely recall a time when things had been different. There were still the pesky few who might put their laundry out to dry. But by now, every community had their own regulations barring such behaviour.<br />
<br />
In India, needless to say, communities have had much bigger problems than the impact of sun-drying clothes on real estate prices. Dryers were practically unknown and largely unavailable. Electricity was expensive. There wasn't much of a sense of personal space anyway, so the neighbour's clothesline blended right in to your life. So the dear clothesline lived on. Until now, it appears.<br />
<br />
The average electric clothes dryer consumes energy at the rate of 4,000 Watts. Yes, there is no decimal error here. You read it right the first time. It is probably the most energy guzzling domestic appliance invented by man, with the possible exception of central air-conditioning. How much is 4,000 Watts? Well, let us say you hang the clothes you want to dry on one of those standing clothes racks, place the rack in a room, and turn on a ceiling fan to dry things out ... You can come back three days later, pick up your clothes and walk out of the room feeling all green, because you still saved some energy by not putting the clothes into a dryer. <br />
<br />
"Why would I use the dryer?" my wife asks me, when the email debate comes up. "It over-dries my clothes, fades out the colours, and is too expensive. And all the while, I have this bright sun burning its energy out on my balcony, begging to be put to some use. What a waste!" That's true, I grant her, but there is something to the idea of not having to look at other people's laundry. Call me a snob.<br />
<br />
"<i>I think everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves</i>", someone bravely pipes in on the Google list finally. "<i>After all, this is India</i>." Attaboy!<br />
<br />
It is early in the morning, and I am walking my daughter to her school bus. We are walking past the building that started off the fiery debate. I look up. An old lady, sari all crumpled from a night's sleep is out on the balcony. She is moving slowly, her hands are full, and she is straining with the effort. Slowly, she is pulling off her clothesline the brown bedsheet, with its yellow floral print. She pulls it all the way off, and concentrating hard, flips it over, hangs it back out. She fastens it in place with a couple of clips, straightens her back slowly, takes in the view outside, turns, and trudges slowly back inside, ready to start the rest of her day. <br />
<br />
For a moment there, she looked like my mother.</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-70290700245524427632011-07-10T10:58:00.000-07:002011-07-10T10:58:42.203-07:00What am I reading?It has been a while since I posted about the makeup of my current bookshelf. It hasn't been for lack of reading. For all its consuming madness, my newly acquired India darshan lifestyle has at least two redeeming features - I eat great regional cuisine every week; and I have a lot of time to read. <br />
<br />
So the reading has continued on at brisk pace. As I have written before (see <a href="http://brickandrope.blogspot.com/2010/08/truly-terrible-place-to-browse.html"><i>A Terrible Place to Browse</i></a>), I am yet to find a satisfying browsing experience in India. Crazily, some of the airport bookstores are the best experiences I have had. The WH Smith in T-3 at Delhi and the Odyssey in Hyderabad (I think it is Hyd ... ) are among the best of the lot. But for most part, all my book buying has migrated to flipkart. Great collection, superb service, no hassles. No browsing pleasure, sadly.<br />
<br />
Anyway, as I was saying, the reading has been going along just fine.<br />
<br />
It has been a year dominated by non-fiction for me so far. Since <a href="http://brickandrope.blogspot.com/2011/04/book-review-finkler-question-howard.html">I reviewed <i>The Finkler Question</i></a> in late April, I have read just over half a dozen books. Here is a quick summary.<br />
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Let me start with the two books of fiction -<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUgqmZQss0DJJoLTAxeF0QM5MZni6u-lteuvd4M8UuCTUUsFH2Yngvd8AMIXN0C38qFt7KvCFH5T5QieeD1ayvA_J8RrgYVG3k4GJZE4VMfxtZvqn8M626f0BVRfcuX57Ha7B3BZKEi4/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUgqmZQss0DJJoLTAxeF0QM5MZni6u-lteuvd4M8UuCTUUsFH2Yngvd8AMIXN0C38qFt7KvCFH5T5QieeD1ayvA_J8RrgYVG3k4GJZE4VMfxtZvqn8M626f0BVRfcuX57Ha7B3BZKEi4/s200/images.jpeg" width="105" /></a></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Super Sad True Love Story</span></i> was one of the most highly acclaimed books of last year. [<i>Brick and Rope</i> <a href="http://brickandrope.blogspot.com/2010/12/best-books-of-2010.html">Best Books of 2010</a>] <br />
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There is a certain kind of book that only Americans can appreciate. Updike and Roth and Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace are authors considered 'greats' by Americans, but too parochial by most of the rest of the English speaking world (though Wallace is probably more universal than the rest). Gary Shteyngart seems headed for a similar destiny. <i>Super Sad True Love Story</i> is a striking book. Part science fiction, part love story, part social commentary on the social trends of the day, it is a book that lingers in your mind long after you are done with it. It imagines a 'very near future' when the Chinese rule the world; America is largely a third world country, made up of the ridiculously rich and maddeningly poor; where people share every minute detail of their lives reflexively on new social media; the young have stopped 'verballing' with each other, because it is so old, preferring instead to type semi-literately into Globalteens accounts with messages like 'What's up twat? Missing your 'tard? Wanna dump a little sugar on me? JBF. Sometimes life is suck.' The book is so shocking that it is difficult to ignore it. Some of the social commentary stings with ferocious comedy. As satires go, <i>Super Sad True Love Story</i> is a very good one, if that kind of thing is for you.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggC0q88pyYojlhZfzf6p3LyHGra0dIycx7WRT5KWrt-z8rp8jNwIVUyQLVRRfIGjVOYd7eMwfCi9dquHsbo5uuAxFXIcNTMFzDQqUmHbeLKHs2pHax7BTzw7m-Xg9TjUMTv-uJuhaDOMA/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggC0q88pyYojlhZfzf6p3LyHGra0dIycx7WRT5KWrt-z8rp8jNwIVUyQLVRRfIGjVOYd7eMwfCi9dquHsbo5uuAxFXIcNTMFzDQqUmHbeLKHs2pHax7BTzw7m-Xg9TjUMTv-uJuhaDOMA/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Here is Where We Meet</span></i>, by John Berger is another highly acclaimed book. Berger is the authors' author, perfect with technique, subtle yet moving. If someone you are trying to impress asks you which authors you like, John Berger is a name that should safely do the trick. The Elegant Variation recommends <i>This is Where We Meet</i> in their permanent recommendations, which is high praise indeed, far as I am concerned. This is a collection of short stories set in Portugal, or an imaginary country that is a lot like it. Lisboa, the first (and best) story in the collection is about someone - whom you are invited to assume is the author himself - meets his long dead mother. The interplay of the living and the dead discovers Lisbon (Lisboa) anew. There are great moments in the story, but honestly, Berger is too subtle for me. I can't with a straight face offer his name as one of my favorite authors. I wonder whether people will be impressed if I just said J.K.Rowling?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio42vFD1aLjFsLZUaIq7mjSi8KdfK7yLc2ply_IGfz7QcNEwoEOeoLJKfEvokApC_DGoVmMxbmtRwta8q9Rn0KPPMSH7N3Tj_yDulqc6HRVhQ30P7PghLquTIQNx7ygRhSo1txODAdfWs/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio42vFD1aLjFsLZUaIq7mjSi8KdfK7yLc2ply_IGfz7QcNEwoEOeoLJKfEvokApC_DGoVmMxbmtRwta8q9Rn0KPPMSH7N3Tj_yDulqc6HRVhQ30P7PghLquTIQNx7ygRhSo1txODAdfWs/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div>On the non-fiction side, let me start with <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks</span></i>. When I had compiled the Top 10 best books of 2010 list last year, I had put this one on top of the non-fiction list. Every source of book info that I respect had this book at or near the top of their list. And the verdict? It is well worth it. Henrietta Lacks was a woman who died in 1951 of cervical cancer. Her doctor in Johns Hopkins hospital took samples of her cancerous cells without her permission. As it happened, these cells turned out to be remarkably prolific, each cell creating new copies of itself once every 24 hours. As the genetic research industry started taking off, someone developed an industrial process for freezing, thawing, feeding and shipping these cells to labs all across the world. Soon, there were trillions of HeLa cells floating around all across the globe. They drove research that created hundreds of new drugs. The HeLa cells continue to live on, even today. The people who created the HeLa industry became fabulously rich. Meanwhile, the grandchildren of Henrietta Lacks are struggling to get through life without enough money to afford adequate health insurance. Henrietta Lacks was black. Her doctor was white. <i>The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks</i> is this story. And it is amazing.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2CwDtwXp2zJgBcmuykZEbI5-_dHYZYZ0wbeN-ucnLkhQc3AFMaxhj4W1MzbNWvrRrBesU7NuWTuMgkGV6R_gmezAPQy2B7FundSCFlVMXwgCs3w-d6qIV6tf4ETC4MG3xq9wu2-UExBk/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2CwDtwXp2zJgBcmuykZEbI5-_dHYZYZ0wbeN-ucnLkhQc3AFMaxhj4W1MzbNWvrRrBesU7NuWTuMgkGV6R_gmezAPQy2B7FundSCFlVMXwgCs3w-d6qIV6tf4ETC4MG3xq9wu2-UExBk/s200/images.jpeg" width="132" /></a></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Half Empty</span></i>, by David Rakoff is a book about negative thinking. We live in a world where that phrase has likely already put you off the book. Negativity and pessimism have a pretty bad rep in our times. Rakoff has an extremely witty take on why that is all wrong. Back in my college days, I had a little book that listed a thousand little variants of Murphy's Law ('If it can go wrong, it will'). In those days of youthful rebellion, I would guffaw at gems such as 'Smile - tomorrow will be worse'. Now of course, on the other side of a few grey hair, I find myself past such 'silliness'. But I couldn't pass when the cover of this book promised the following - "Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny gosh everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won't come true." Admit it, that is a pretty good sell. The essays are hilarious - I particularly liked the one where Rakoff takes off on the multi-award-winning musical <i>Rent</i>. Thrown randomly through the essays are Bush-bashing notes, which are a bit of a distraction - though to be fair, Rakoff <i>is</i> a gay, Jewish, media professional - that is three good reasons to hate republicans without even trying.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJMTiCMRddqYQqJYRQ66DwPyV-7w5e8xLC10H3mvmVzzeGK9dIT6g2LARagV2fWP_lK-irPFPif0T3VOPvMtHlpFuzJVycrrmtswbZKy071TDdQcXOsNsH4gaYR1aAB_56_JZEp3IP_9U/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJMTiCMRddqYQqJYRQ66DwPyV-7w5e8xLC10H3mvmVzzeGK9dIT6g2LARagV2fWP_lK-irPFPif0T3VOPvMtHlpFuzJVycrrmtswbZKy071TDdQcXOsNsH4gaYR1aAB_56_JZEp3IP_9U/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The Glamour of Grammar</span></i> by Roy Peter Clark was also published last year. I have thoroughly enjoyed some books about English language and usage in the past (think <i>Eats, Shoots and Leaves</i>), so the very title of this book was inviting. The book itself, unfortunately, was a bit of a let down. It reads somewhat like a series of mini lectures about the language - the teacher is clearly very good and very interesting, but the format doesn't work for me. Oh and by the way, the book is more for writers than necessarily for readers.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkFKh5vDObV2hLlnWD0zUebmcLwNdOiylEgr_8J8c3TYRQ8No2xKCCSoPnDl1Is9PzfT7wzBrEghjqoylpvGNbwz7lPskViI5RYthv3o_hcg62zZWsMEe-yVlJyusZjhVmt9G2QS0nydo/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkFKh5vDObV2hLlnWD0zUebmcLwNdOiylEgr_8J8c3TYRQ8No2xKCCSoPnDl1Is9PzfT7wzBrEghjqoylpvGNbwz7lPskViI5RYthv3o_hcg62zZWsMEe-yVlJyusZjhVmt9G2QS0nydo/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The Omnivore's Dilemma</span></i>, by Michael Pollan: I read <i>In Defense of Food</i> a year and a bit back, and <a href="http://brickandrope.blogspot.com/2010/01/in-defense-of-food-michael-pollan.html">fell in love with Michael Pollan</a>. So I have always been meaning to read his original great book, <i>The Omnivore's Dilemma</i>. Finally got around to it this last month, and ... how do I say this ... it is the greatest book on food you will probably ever read. There isn't a way for me to do justice to this truly great book in a short paragraph, so I am not going to try. But I will guarantee you this - once you read the book, you <b>will</b> change something about what (and how) you eat.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqgrX-q_sdDnAzWQ6h2pNFxngwsxDIn5MgO145p13u6bo_tUqOS29z_dCy98GJltxgYMwiL1bNfK2vDmn3uG-ERroCJvyhBhjB9iTocAaOM8j4HeMDyxft4GL6Lig69kwKCxBYZ5RJAPI/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqgrX-q_sdDnAzWQ6h2pNFxngwsxDIn5MgO145p13u6bo_tUqOS29z_dCy98GJltxgYMwiL1bNfK2vDmn3uG-ERroCJvyhBhjB9iTocAaOM8j4HeMDyxft4GL6Lig69kwKCxBYZ5RJAPI/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div>I read <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Super Freakonomics</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;">, finally. I like micro-economic popular books a lot. <i>Freakonomics</i>, <i>The Undercover Economist</i>, <i>Tipping Point</i> ... I have enjoyed all of them. But somehow <i>Super Freakonomics</i> felt like a bit too cutesy. I had no intention of buying the book. As fate would have it though, a friend gifted the book to me. A hardcover, illustrated edition no less. So I had to read it after avoiding it all these months. I have to say, it wasn't half bad. Some of the ideas were extremely interesting. The global warming bit right at the end was my favorite part of the book. If you liked Freakonomics, and it has been long enough since you read it and fatigue isn't going to take over, read this one. But if you are looking for some cool, new, insightful economic paradigm, move on.</span><br />
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So this has been my little journey in books these past couple of months. I am back with another non-fiction book now, V.S. Ramachandran's <i>Phantoms in the Brain</i>. I am only 50 pages into the book, but let me tell you this - you are going to hear a lot more about neuroscience on Brick and Rope in the months to come. Ramachandran is a genius. <br />
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I hope the tide on fiction turns, because I am really keen to read some exciting and fresh fiction. The palate is all cleansed. Quite unlike my prediction at the end of 2010, I haven't really been taken by anything in the fiction world this year ... but of course half the year stretches ahead of us ... there is time ...<br />
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So what about you then? What have <i>you</i> been reading lately?JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-27061251695221644032011-06-18T23:45:00.000-07:002011-06-19T00:46:09.447-07:00What do I miss about America? A review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The monsoon arrived in Mumbai a few days early this year. One day it was all hot and sultry, and the next the gods had finally had enough and let the thunderous clouds loose. As lively pellets pelted the thirsty earth, I realized with a sudden sensory jolt - it has been a full year since I returned to India.<br />
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I had expected to get here right alongside the monsoon last year. Sitting in my basement in suburban Northern Virginia, I looked to this season of seasons with equal parts dread and fascination. [See my blog post from the time: <a href="http://brickandrope.blogspot.com/2010/05/re-discovering-india-1-monsoon.html"><b>The Monsoon</b></a>] As I watch the thundering rains this time around the very best way you can (i.e. from indoors), my mind goes back to how much things have changed over this year. Back then, I was - yes it needs to be said - scared. I certainly had the faith that coming back to India at that time was the right decision for us, but hey, there were a hundred different ways things could go wrong. We were leaving a country where everything worked, and moving to one where everything <i>needed</i> work. If others have made this move and have truly had no doubts, they are bigger men than I am.<br />
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More to soothe my nerves than anything else, I had then made a list on <i>Brick and Rope</i> of <a href="http://brickandrope.blogspot.com/2010/05/top-10-things-i-will-miss-about-life-in.html"><b>Top 10 Things I Will Miss Most about Life in America</b></a>. In that post, among other things, I wrote - </span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; line-height: 20px;">There is so much about the US I will miss back in India. Or I <em>expect</em> I will miss, is probably more accurate. I don't know for sure, do I? I might think I will miss something, but in reality I might actually not even remember it, and something much more mundane might tug at the heartstrings. Only one way to find out.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Let me put my stake in the ground. Let me put out in the public domain what I think I will miss most about life in the US. Maybe a few months after I move to India, I can look back upon this list and see whether reality at all resembled my predictions. </span></span></span></span></blockquote><br />
One year on, sitting on the right side of clear French windows watching the grey downpour falling 18 floors down, with a wet Mumbai spread out below me, and a steaming cup of coffee in my hands, I think it is time I looked at that list again. What are truly the things I miss most about life in the US now? Did I actually miss the things I thought I would? Here is a review of my predicted Top 10 and how they turned out:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">#10: <i><u>Things</u></i></span></b>: Turns out I don't miss the material things about the US much at all. Practically everything is available in India now (yes dear JS of one year back, even 60" HDTVs and TiVo). No, this prediction was a 'miss'.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">#9: <i><u>Suburbia</u></i></span></b>: Life in the city is a world removed from the suburban bliss of America. But it has its own special addictions. I wouldn't say I miss suburbia terribly, but I haven't quite become the comfortable city dweller yet either. Let us chalk this prediction down under the 'mixed' column.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">#8: <i><u>Saying Hello to Strangers</u></i></span></b>: Common courtesy is as lacking in the India of today as I remembered it to be. There are little pockets of civility in an otherwise 'too busy running and too scared of strangers to care to say hello' world. Yes, I certainly do miss the comfort of everyone being polite and courteous with each other.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">#7: <i><u>Football</u></i></span></b>: Well, it took me three years to learn to love football. It took about three months for cricket to regain its place in my heart. Notwithstanding my desperate surfing at 3 in the morning to catch live streaming of Super Bowl XLV, I have to say that I don't really miss football that much.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">#6: <i><u>Flowers</u></i></span></b>: Flowers blooming everywhere were one of the great pleasures of living in America. There is no shortage of flowers in India, only the relationship with them is different. Where flowers in the US are about adding color to the surroundings, in India they are about pretty-ing people (or gods) up. Indians tend to have a much more 'up close' relationship with flowers than their western counterparts. It is a difference I have gotten used to.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">#5: <i><u>Driving</u></i></span></b>: Long drives and road trips were a source of great pleasure to the wife and I for years. I never expected to gather enough courage to start driving in the crazy jungle of Indian traffic, and that hurt. It took me close to six months, but I did start driving again. I feel confident enough to give the driver a two day weekend. With the parents in Pune, the (extremely beautiful) 100 mile drive there every month or so is the closest we have had to a road trip, but the confidence is building ... maybe something more ambitious soon?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">#4: <i><u>Doing business on the Internet</u></i></span></b>: India is getting there but isn't quite there yet. Google maps works quite well. Buying books (and other essentials) on the net is a breeze. There is a Reliance version of Netflix. But if you want reviews on schools or doctors or plumbers; find the best furniture shop in your area; get your passport / driving licence renewed, you are out of luck. What is available is well short of useful. The slightly crazy thing is - one doesn't miss it that much. Like the H&R Block ads used to say 'we have people'.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">#3: <i><u>Two day weekends</u></i></span></b>: As its #3 position shows, this was something I was really worried about. Once you get used to 2 day weekends, it is difficult to go back. As it happens, I needn't have fretted. I work strictly 5 day weeks and practically never work on weekends (and no one from work ever calls me either). So on this one, I am happy to note that the fears were truly unfounded. I must mention however that this is very company specific. My employer in the US was very respectful of my personal time and I am grateful that the same has turned out to be true of my present employer. Let me not jinx it by talking more.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">#2: <i><u>Public libraries</u></i></span></b>: Hell yes! I miss them like hell. There are no libraries worth the name in Mumbai. No bookshops inviting enough to encourage me to go there on weekends simply to browse. I find bookshops here too transactional, too interested in getting you to buy something and get the hell out. I miss my Sunday morning trips to Barnes & Noble with the daughter, my occasional nocturnal visits at 9 in the night, to read something till 11 when they finally close down with a "we would be happy to welcome you again tomorrow morning at 9". Personally, this is probably what I miss the most.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">#1: <i><u>National Parks</u></i></span></b>: A close second. Yes, I miss them a lot. With the grace of Bombay Natural History Society, I have started discovering the bountiful gifts of nature in India in recent months. (We went for an immensely satisfying hike in Borivili National Park yesterday - the one year old in a kid carrier and the '<i>I am almost five</i>' daughter treading the rocks gamely.) But I haven't yet been to any other national park in India. I haven't necessarily pushed myself hard enough, so no excuses, but the sheer accessibility of natural beauty in the US is missing here in India. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before I conclude the review of this list, I have to mention one additional item that wasn't on my original list, but is something we sorely miss now - reliable child care. The many professionally run day care centers everywhere in America are what make two working parents possible. There is nothing comparable in India. The social infrastructure almost forces one parent to be at home, unless you are extraordinarily lucky with domestic help or local availability of grandparents. If you ask my wife her list of things she misses about the US, this is, without any hesitation, her #1.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So then, how did my original list do in terms of predicting what we were going to miss most about life in America? It was a mixed bag, I think. There were a few items that were spot on, a few that were way off. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Overall though, one year later, what surprises me the most is this - I don't miss my previous life nearly as much as I thought I would. To be honest, I don't believe I miss it much at all. Life takes over, I guess.</span></div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-18511590609698490442011-05-29T02:58:00.000-07:002011-05-29T02:58:05.703-07:00Five hundred Sundays later<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Nd_n6LBF3HlArLB4WT4wl61lIOD2ZesEG4c7H6FO376SolJDqEvmIe1AN1f_obC60cN4zHDI6F25o7vGeL2vMVdtag3S91FVvWw69i0erG8JLSZjwqO2zwbCs5Fcik1MLkmzvZkDIqc/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Nd_n6LBF3HlArLB4WT4wl61lIOD2ZesEG4c7H6FO376SolJDqEvmIe1AN1f_obC60cN4zHDI6F25o7vGeL2vMVdtag3S91FVvWw69i0erG8JLSZjwqO2zwbCs5Fcik1MLkmzvZkDIqc/s200/image.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>It is like a little camp, a mini carnival. At first sight, all I can see is yellow tarpaulin. Tens of tawny tarp tops tenting the terrain.<br />
<br />
"When was the last time you have been to an actual subzi bazaar?", my brother had challenged me earlier in the day. Does the produce section at Hypercity count, I had wondered sheepishly. His look was pure disdain.<br />
<br />
Our first stop was the ATM. No sir, your Visa is not welcome here at the bazaar. For everything else, there isn't Mastercard. In fact, our local subzi bazaar is exclusively for things only cash can buy. So you can leave your plastics home, thank you very much. And do not forgot to get your own bags. Environmentally minded laws banning thin plastic bags seems to have really changed the shopping experience that I remember. 'Bag?' asks every seller, with thin stocks of thick polythene.<br />
<br />
Stocked with cash, armed with bags, wearing our warm weather clothes and old chappals, we set off. <br />
<br />
In my childhood, the Sunday vegetable bazaar was an established ritual. Our weekly tryst with local villagers selling their imperfect looking but undeniably fresh vegetables. A large open area where the vendors would squat on the ground, vegetables spread out in front of them, the sun beating down from above. Our dad would stride confidently through the stalls, weighing this vegetable here, pinching that one there, enquiring prices, arguing about the quality, but for the first 30 minutes, not buying anything at all. We would be tired and ready to go home by the time he would start. We would stare at the felicity with which he handled the cauliflower, the way he would toss the cabbage up to get a feel for its density, the way the ends of okra would be casually snapped. Veggies in the bag, we would reach home tired and hot, but there would always be a reward. Hot samosas, jalebis, and pakodas from the local halwai! Another Sunday ritual.<br />
<br />
So how are things nowadays, I wonder, walking to one of these bazaars after some five hundred Sundays. <br />
<br />
Under the tents, it is a golden yellow, sunlight filtering through the tarp. It is an assault of colors, of smells, shouts. It is early enough in the morning that the vendors are still stacking their 'maal', but already, there are buyers eagerly eyeing everything, flitting restlessly from one stall to the other, looking for the best tomatoes, the freshest drumstick. Unlike the Sunday bazaar of my childhood, no one seems to be squatting on the ground. There are benches and chairs where the sellers are perched, with their pushcarts in front looking like a painter's palette - stacked with yellows, greens and reds. <br />
<br />
Everyone has his own style of attracting the buyer. Each has his own little ad jingle. 'Barah ka aadha kilo, barah ka aadha kilo' someone is shouting. I look around but cannot make out the source, or see what is being sold twenty-four rupees to the kg. We stop at a cabbage cart. The seller is the quick tongued variety. 'Kitna sahab? Ek kilo? Ded kar doon? Yeh wala lo. Mast hai sab. Mast. Arey eh!", this last exclamation aimed at a boy who seems to be a helper of sorts, 'woh bag khol.' He is also quick with the hands, weighing this, bagging that, doing the math, handing the cash. And all the while, his commentary goes on. Dad has a happy, tickled smile, playing along with the game. He is doing his tossing-the-cabbage thing. <br />
<br />
We are in the red section now, ten different tomato vendors, all shouting for our attention. A woman in a bright green sari is haggling with one of them. 'Woh nikalo!', she is yelling right back at him, taking away a couple of suspect tomatoes from the weighing scale and replacing them with others that look just the same, if you ask me. She is staring at his hands suspiciously, making sure he isn't getting too frisky with them, biasing the tarazu in some way. 'Arey aunty, bag sambhalo!' shouts a vendor from across the aisle, laughing. Her bag has given way, spilling potatoes everywhere.<br />
<br />
The greens section is all wet and fresh. Every cart has greens liberally sprinkled with water. 'Rasta, rasta!', a well toned young man is chanting as he makes his way. He is wearing ragged jeans and a sleeveless vest of black net, from what I can make out. His upper body is slick with sweat, and on his back is a sackful of cucumbers. He dumps it near a stall, where a boy, where looks barely twelve, is in charge, slicing the bag open effortlessly, digging the cucumbers out and stacking them neatly on his cart.<br />
<br />
My dad is at the lemon cart now, bargaining with a tiny woman who is playing the 'poor woman' card, but can't stop herself from breaking out into a grin every now and then, which reduces the impact somewhat. 'What? Such small lemons and 4 for 10 rupees?' my dad is asking in a tone that is intended to convey equal parts disbelief and dismay I presume. Kalyug is here, I tell you, he seems to suggest with a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head. 'C'mon dad', I tug him gently, cringing at this smidgen of a negotiation where the result is equally unimportant to both parties. No, I am going to be no good at this myself. 'Oh its part of the game!', my exasperated wife often says, 'you can't just give them whatever price they ask!' Well, my dad sure isn't giving that woman what she is asking. And we are going to be richer. By a full two rupees. Yay.<br />
<br />
There seems to be a little corner dominated by the herbs and spices group. For some reason, there seems to be something of a religious overtone to this section. There is an old muslim man, cap firmly on his head, green jacket with golden embroidery, grey beard somehow indicating both age and religion, selling garlic cloves and ginger root. Across the aisle, selling dhaniya and kadi patta is an even older man, with a little tape recorder next to him. The tape recorder is set to a low chant. 'ohhhhhhmmmmmm', it goes, slowly, sonorously, continuously, 'oohhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmm!'. What is it about spices and herbs that seems to attract the old, seriously religious types? Religion is the spice of life, anyone?<br />
<br />
'Ratnagiri saat rupaye!'<br />
<br />
Ah, the sweet smell! The saving grace of a relentless Indian summer; the desire long suppressed during my American years; ratnagiri, langda, hapus, kesar, banganapalli. The king of fruits. Oh yes dad, let's pile in the mangoes, shall we?<br />
<br />
The bags have been getting progressively heavier as the time has worn on. The handles are biting into my palm now. Boy, I should have gone with the shoulder jhola variety, shouldn't I? I can see the red welts of temporary discomfort lining my palm when I finally put the bags down. 'So, what do you think?" asks my brother, obviously enjoying the spectacle of showing off to an R2I. (Yes people, that's a term. There are enough of us Return To India folks around.) Well ... I start. <br />
<br />
'Arey, I almost forgot', interrupts dad. 'Let's take a short detour, shall we? Let's buy some samosas and jalebis from chandu halwai.'</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-333486134108848132011-05-08T01:08:00.000-07:002011-05-08T01:08:19.545-07:00The surprising charms of Mumbai<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Mumbai is one of the most crowded cities in the world. It is also, though I am not aware of any statistics, likely among the noisiest cities in the world. If the number of cranes I can see on its horizon are any indication, it is fast getting to be among the most concretized cities in the world. Nature, I have often surmised, has been beaten into submission by the megapolis. Pushed into a corner, brushed rudely away by the swarming masses. So when a friend mentioned that he was a member of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), I couldn't quite contain the snigger. And what does the Society do, I wise-cracked, water the four trees in Dadar?<br />
<br />
Well, turns out, there's a lot about this city I don't quite know. Many charms Mumbai has been keeping from me.<br />
<br />
It is a weekend evening and we are driving with our bird-watcher friend towards the Eastern shore of Mumbai, to pay a visit to the Sewri mudflats. These are mangrove swamps, declared a protected ecology by the government some years back. Every years, between the months of October and March, the area is the destination of a particular migratory bird species. We are headed, not to put too a fine point on it, towards Flamingo Bay.<br />
<br />
The Sewri mudflats have marshes that are extremely nutrient rich. So every winter for the last few decades, thousands of Lesser Flamingos descend here to peck at the mud, hang out with friends, enjoy the Bombay skyline, and generally have a good time. For the last few years, this has started to become something of a tourist event. We head there on a day BNHS has declared the Flamingo Festival. I am still half disbelieving - Flamingos in the wild? In their thousands? In the middle of traffic snarled, over-crowded, cramped for elbow room Mumbai? Puh-leese. About two kilometers from the mudflats, we start seeing the BNHS volunteers, in their blue T-Shirts saying "Save me", with the Flamingo neck making for the shapely 'S'. The crowds are surprisingly strong ... Hmm... either this is an elaborate hoax or there really are a lot of birds. We walk to the edge of the jetty and stare out towards the water. It is low tide, and the mud stretches for a distance before being kissed by water. And spread all over it, is a carpet of baby pink. Necks down, pecking the mud with love, are thousands upon thousands of flamingos. Guests in my city. Like they are college girls, and this is Fort Lauderdale in Spring Break. Like they are camera toting tourists, and this is Yellowstone in June. Like they are Bihari laborers looking for work, and this is ... well, Mumbai.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2IfKvNljE-dU1iIVM6Txqm9KTW79MaqvwGKdWt5f0gMR_WSqHR9v-8kkuiBxIG7doqgxybCDiZAMhIcPwQlc3_ufg62fATzF_7suGgH6C6rDn2CnG4QWmmCBQKKoScNMSCKtmFo8x578/s1600/main.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2IfKvNljE-dU1iIVM6Txqm9KTW79MaqvwGKdWt5f0gMR_WSqHR9v-8kkuiBxIG7doqgxybCDiZAMhIcPwQlc3_ufg62fATzF_7suGgH6C6rDn2CnG4QWmmCBQKKoScNMSCKtmFo8x578/s200/main.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>We stay there an hour, staring at the birds as they go about their business unhurriedly. BNHS has set up a tent with a lot of information on the flamingos, both the "Greater" and the "Lesser" variety. And they have volunteers in the 'Save Me' T-shirts everywhere, ready with information, happy to lend their binoculars.<br />
<br />
It is my first brush with nature in Mumbai since my return, and it makes me see her in a new light.<br />
<br />
The sister in law in visiting and is keen on a trip to the beach. Really? I ask her. You want to brave the beach in Mumbai? It is going to be a dirty, trash ridden mess, and overrun with people to boot. You are too negative, she tells me, a Mumbaikar at heart, two decades outside the city regardless. We get there early in the morning, and by the time we park our car and start walking towards the sand, I already know something is different. I can actually see all the way to the water. Which means .... "Where are the hawker stands" I ask no one in particular. The beach is mostly empty, and - here is the part that shocks me - clean. We get comfortable on our beach towels, watching the local lads playing a free-for-all version of beach cricket. The sun is still comfortably low on the horizon, the waves are crashing ashore with soothing regularity, the kids are busy building sand castles, the scattered palm trees are swaying in the morning breeze, the boys scream 'catch! catch!' every so often, and then break out in laughter as the catcher trips and falls right into the sea. "You know I quite forgot" I tell the wife an hour later, "we are still in Bombay".<br />
<br />
How about a visit to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, asks the bird watcher friend some weeks later. 'Sanjay Gandhi' national park? What is their logo, a pair of scissors going snip snip? I fall back into my defensive humor. Hey, it is a really good park, says the friend, defending her city from the barbs of someone who is still an outsider. I look it up. Well, I realize it is a pretty big deal. Sanjay Gandhi National Park is spread over approximately 25,700 acres, making it the largest urban park in the world. For comparison, Central Park in New York is about 850 acres. Hyde park in London is about 625 acres. The park is home to hundreds of species of birds and animals and an even larger number of plants.<br />
<br />
We reach there early one weekend morning. The plan is to pay a quick visit to Kanheri Caves located within the park, and then spend some time exploring the greenery. I realize as soon as we get there that the plan is too ambitious. The park is too darn big to explore in a day. And the Kanheri Caves are too interesting to just gloss over. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxZ5QVxA-XWTbhxtb3ENgXaa3KB_SJlaKauXki5kX70l8LiOFQRWcB83yxsf7a3sDl6dN0mAY4wcKeH0SNIhwJBsj7uEZiluD1yyUaNe1AIshDu10ckjZaBiVHepp39Gja06N0-_hIrE8/s1600/kanheri.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxZ5QVxA-XWTbhxtb3ENgXaa3KB_SJlaKauXki5kX70l8LiOFQRWcB83yxsf7a3sDl6dN0mAY4wcKeH0SNIhwJBsj7uEZiluD1yyUaNe1AIshDu10ckjZaBiVHepp39Gja06N0-_hIrE8/s200/kanheri.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Kanheri caves are Buddhist caves dating from as far back as 1st Century BC to the 'newest' caves that are from the 10th century. These caves are half monument, half practical abodes. There are about 110 caves in all, and they take some serious climbing to visit. This area has a lot of these caves from many centuries back, but I haven't visited any of them. I haven't been to Ajanta / Ellora or even to the much more accessible Elephanta Caves. Maybe that is why I am awed by the caves here. Tens of caves have been cut into sheer hard rock. Steps have been cut in the hundreds to make these caves accessible. And in the caves are these glorious reliefs of Buddha in his many poses.<br />
<br />
We climb down tired and hungry. Our bird watcher friend has come prepared with a picnic breakfast. But first, she suggests, let's get some cucumber. The vendors have placed themselves at the point of greatest thirst - right at the bottom of the stairs. We fall on them with gratitude, crunching into the juicy greenness of cucumbers greedily. Be careful, one of the vendor women says, seeing us walking under a tree. I look at her uncomprehendingly, and she indicates heavenwards with a lifted eyebrow. Monkeys.<br />
<br />
There is an email in my mailbox from BNHS. A list of events they are organizing in the months of May and June. Yeoor Hills, says one. Silonda Nature Trail. Tungareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary Monsoon Trail. I haven't heard of any of these places. But then, who am I to claim to know Mumbai's natural charms? I trust you Bombay Natural History Society. Lead me on.</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-65491552305192741682011-04-24T05:54:00.000-07:002011-04-24T05:54:10.855-07:00Book Review: The Finkler Question (Howard Jacobson)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_vKCW2gVAB5TXqKAIZZvccJf-4BDLy35PQ3jWEsA_aXTcfkeRGwL7hTAAdGqzIKuRa04zVJri8DaAVXCPI63WDJVmW81Svf413NBya_jOUGwEV9oTR_3NM-q5hF92Vn-9hIW6ez6wlTc/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_vKCW2gVAB5TXqKAIZZvccJf-4BDLy35PQ3jWEsA_aXTcfkeRGwL7hTAAdGqzIKuRa04zVJri8DaAVXCPI63WDJVmW81Svf413NBya_jOUGwEV9oTR_3NM-q5hF92Vn-9hIW6ez6wlTc/s200/images.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>Philip Roth must be a tall man. So tall in fact that his literary shadow seems to fall on every Jewish author in the world. Even one that lives across the Atlantic. If you are a Jewish writer of fiction in this era, I don't know how you escape the Roth comparison. It isn't original for the reviewer to do so, but then, who wouldn't?<br />
<br />
Howard Jacobson is the London answer to Roth. Before <i>The Finkler Question</i>, I don't think I have read what can only be called 'Jewish fiction' from Britain. I also don't believe I have read a Booker Prize winning book that I haven't liked. <br />
<br />
As an aside -<br />
<br />
Back from the early nineties, Booker prize winners have been a very safe bet with me. I have inevitably liked them. Back from the <i>English Patient</i> in 1992; through <i>Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha</i> (my first, and favorite Roddy Doyle); <i>Amsterdam</i> (my first but not favorite Ian McEwan); <i>Disgrace</i> (Coetzee's great, small book, which I finally read last year); <i>Life of Pi</i>; <i>The Inheritance of Loss</i> (again not my favorite Kiran Desai, but a great book nonetheless); <i>The White Tiger</i> (how unforgettable was Aravind Adiga's Balram Halwai?). Through the years, the Booker has been a great source for me. And of course, there was the greatest of them all - <i>Midnight's Children</i>, the best Rushdie, which is saying something. <br />
<br />
Some of these authors I have turned out to be disappointing with their second books, discouraging me from ever reading them again - Aravind Adiga and Yann Martel come to mind. But the winning book has almost always satisfied.<br />
<br />
The same can't be said about Nobel prize winners. I realize that the Nobel is offered to a body of work, to an author, not to a particular book, so the comparison is not a fair one. But Nobel prize winning authors haven't always been a big hit with me - accessibility of their books being an important obstacle in some cases.<br />
<br />
Anyway, back to the review, till a few weeks back, I hadn't read a Jewish book by a British author. And I hadn't disliked a Booker prize winner. Unfortunately, both these facts changed with Howard Jacobson's <i>The Finkler Question</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>The Finkler Question</i> is the story of three men - "two widowers and (Julian) Treslove, who counted as an honorary third". Two of them (writer philosopher Sam Finkler and long retired teacher Libor Sevcik) are Jews, and Treslove, who isn't one, would like to be one. Think of it as <i>Dil Chahta Hai</i>, thirty years and a couple of spousal deaths later, with a Jewish tilt. I say it is 'the story of three men', but really, it is more like the ruminations of three men, and the women in their lives, past and (infrequently) the present. <br />
<br />
I had posted a while back (<a href="http://brickandrope.blogspot.com/2009/08/honey-i-shrunk-plot.html">Honey, I shrunk the Plot</a>, Aug 2009) about the evolution of the modern novel to a place where the plot has become somewhat unfashionable. I don't always mind that (<a href="http://brickandrope.blogspot.com/2009/08/elegance-of-hedgehog-muriel-barbery.html">The Elegance of the Hedgehog</a> for instance). But sometimes, the introspective passages of a novel get a bit tired. And that is what happens with <i>The Finkler Question</i>. <br />
<br />
There are, to be honest, some crackling sentences and paragraphs in the book. Breathtaking prose written by someone who has his hand right on the pulse. For instance, introducing the melancholy Mr. Traslove, Jacobson writes -<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">'Cheer up,' people would say to him in the canteen. But all that did was make him want to cry. Such a sad expression, 'Cheer up'. Not only did it concede the improbability that he ever would cheer up, it accepted that there could be nothing much to cheer up for if cheering up was all there was to look forward to.</span></blockquote>Or this, with the men thinking about their lost wives (not the overly sentimental Erich Segal-ish first bit - that is what you need to get through to get to the delightful line at the end) -<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">How do you go on living knowing that you will never again - not ever, ever - see the person you have loved? How do you survive a single hour, a single minute, a single second of that knowledge? How do you hold yourself together?<br />
<br />
He wanted to ask Libor that. 'How did you get through the first night of being alone, Libor? Did you sleep? Have you slept since? Or is sleep all that's left to you?'<br />
<br />
But he couldn't. Perhaps he didn't want to hear the answer.<br />
<br />
Though once Libor did say, 'Just when you think you've overcome the grief, you realise you are left with the loneliness.'</span></blockquote>So, there are the ingredients for a great story - good characters, a very skilled writer. But then start the explorations of Jewishness. Which are fine, for the first fifty pages or so. Going back to Roth though, one gets the feeling that this has been done, and better, by the master many times over. <br />
<br />
By choosing old men as the protagonists, Jacobson is able to place some vigorously politically sensitive statements in the mouth of his characters. It is the sort of allowance one would give old men that the reader doesn't cringe reading some of these. <br />
<br />
And another thing - Jacobson keeps things light all along. <i>The Finkler Question</i> is quite exquisitely funny in parts - a funny take on Jews and their relationship to the world - so kill me for seeing a Roth connection. <br />
<br />
There are some interesting takes on the outside world's view of Jewishness -<br />
<br />
A character, whose upcoming Jewish culture museum has been desecrated by people who have 'wrapped rashers of bacon around the handles' of the door -<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">'It isn't just their overestimation of our horror of the pig,' she said, wiping her eyes. 'I'm sure, for example, they don't know how much I love a bacon sandwich, but it isn't only that, it's their exaggeration of our presence. They find us before we find ourselves. Nowhere is safe from them because they think nowhere is safe from us.'</span></blockquote>Ultimately though, it is a sentence from early in the book that describes things best for me -<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">'Don't you get sick of us?' she said, as though wanting to change the subject. 'I don't mean us, I mean Jews. Don't you get sick of our, their, self-preoccupation?'<br />
<br />
'I never get sick of you.'<br />
<br />
'Stop it. Answer me - don't you wish they'd shut up about themselves?' <...><br />
<br />
'All Jews. Endlessly falling out in public about how Jewish to be, whether they are or they aren't, whether they're practicing or they're not, whether to wear fringes or eat bacon, whether they feel safe here or precarious, whether the world hates them or it doesn't, the fucking Holocaust, fucking Palestine ...'</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">I</span> wouldn't say I am sick of it, exactly. That feels a bit harsh. But I did feel a bit tired by the end.</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-86558306465781869322011-04-10T10:06:00.000-07:002011-04-10T10:06:40.132-07:00Listening for fireworks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Mumbai is a full bodied, five senses sort of city. You can <i>touch</i> her in the crowds jostling for room on local trains, in the winding lines for Siddhivinayak on Tuesdays. You can <i>see</i> her, in every vibrant color of the visible spectrum, laid out vast in glorious detergent wetness, in Dhobi Ghat. You can <i>smell</i> her many scents, from the perfumed, air conditioned sophistication of glamorous malls to the base defecatory stench of Dharavi mornings. You can <i>taste</i> her, in vada pavs and Irani biryanis that feeble stomachs remember with terror the next morning. But most of all, you can <i>hear</i> her.<br />
<br />
Every place has a signature sound. An acoustic identity, if you will, an aural autograph. From my vantage point, that sound for Mumbai is the bursting of firecrackers.<br />
<br />
At first, I struggled to understand the 'any time any day' fireworks culture of Mumbai. "But what is the occasion?" I would ask, barely coherent when startled awake in the middle of the night by something that climbed right up the decibel chart. There has got to be a law against this. What's with waking the world up because your niece got engaged, or your son has got his driver's license or mother in law left town or whatever the momentous event happens to be.<br />
<br />
"Appa, is it Diwali?" my daughter would ask me every time. No sweetheart, it is not. It isn't Diwali. And it isn't going to be Diwali tomorrow either. But try telling the fireworks crowd that. By the way, who <i>are</i> these people? What do they have against quiet and peace? And where is all this money for blowing up in smoke coming from? <br />
<br />
Well turns out, there are times the fireworks crowd does go quiet. And that speaks volumes too.<br />
<br />
It is the quarter-final of the world cup. The biggest match of the tournament so far. Pre-tournament favorites India are playing three time defending champion Australia. There is no news in the newspapers today but for this. It doesn't matter if your paper of choice is white or pink. It is all cricket everywhere. Ricky Ponting has played a gem of an innings. But this is a new India. There is confidence in the fans on the street, and in my office. We will make it, runs the quiet, confident refrain. But is there a hint of nervousness I hear just under the surface? I rush home to watch the Indian innings. (Did the guy who invented HD ever get a Nobel prize? No? What are the oldies in Sweden thinking?)<br />
<br />
All windows and french doors of my 18th floor apartment are open as I pace in front of the TV, riveted by every ball being bowled. I can't sit because things are not going India's way when I sit. The God is still at the crease. And every time Sachin hits a boundary, I hear a roar of approval from crowds all around our community. I can hear sounds from miles around, and everyone in the country, at this moment, is doing the same exact thing - watching Sachin.<br />
<br />
The fireworks gang is out in full force. Every boundary is celebrated with a pyrotechnic blast. The sky slowly filling up with smoke, the sounds reaching a crescendo. And then the city goes awfully, sickly quiet. Tendulkar is walking back on the screen, and India is still a long way from reaching its goal. My mom is on the phone. She is going to sleep. Can't take the tension. Here is the kicker though - "I will be listening for fireworks." So there are my mom and dad, lying in bed, quiet, TVs silenced, hearts still beating, determined not to hope. But their ears are pricked - listening for fireworks.<br />
<br />
And what fireworks there are. It starts slowly, tentatively, but as it gets clearer and clearer that India was going to get to the finish line, the fireworks gang get more and more confident. The decibel level keeps increasing steadily. Finally, when Yuvraj hits that last boundary, running down the pitch like a man crazed, hugging Raina in a deathly embrace, the skies in Mumbai lit up again. The tentativeness is forgotten, the city speaks in booms. The joy of a people lights the skies up spectacularly.<br />
<br />
"Do you still watch cricket?" was a question every acquaintance would ask on my return to India. Truth is, I did not. Watching from across the seas, in the silence of my basement, over a rickety internet site, never really got my juices going. I will try to get back into it slowly now that I am here, I had told myself.<br />
<br />
"BOOM!" goes another of the massive rockets. It is official now. I am back to being a fan. <br />
<br />
It is the 30th of March, a day before the financial year end. A day that is going to be really busy at work. The entire country wakes up with butterflies in the stomach, and it has nothing to do with the year end. India play Pakistan today in the semi-finals. It is a match-up to beat all match-ups. A no-holds-barred street fight. At half past noon, my blackberry buzzes. It is a text from my mom - "Match starts in 1.5 hrs. God bless India". Yeah ... no one is really going to be working much today. <br />
<br />
We have set up a large screen and a projector at work. The crowd has started to get together well before the first ball is bowled. The boss and I try to hold a quick meeting while the match is still in its early stages. But every few minutes, we can hear the crowd outside cheering, whoops and yells pierce the walls of the meeting room. Our eyes meet. "I don't think this is working", my boss says, "Let us just do this another day."<br />
<br />
BOOOM!! Go the fireworks later that evening, when the first Pakistani wicket falls in the chase for, strangely enough, the exact score that India had chased down just a few days back. And the BOOMs keep coming. Numbers two, three, four ... When the last man holes out, I run from my TV screen at home to the window. I don't want to miss a second of it. It is ecstasy. An outpouring of emotion unlike any I remember seeing in recent years. The skies are alight. The noise is deafening. India are through to the finals! (And Pakistan is going home.) <br />
<br />
We decide to watch the finals with my parents. At least my mom will save on texting costs.<br />
<br />
Say an alien were to visit India today. Someone who knows nothing of the country, and certainly nothing of the game of cricket. If this alien were to perch atop its spaceship roof, balanced precariously on the dome, listening to the sounds of the city, here is what it might hear -<br />
<br />
BOOM. BOOM. <i>[Some early bowling success for India]</i><br />
Silence. Long, multi-hour silence. <i>[Sri Lanka consolidates slowly but surely]</i><br />
A collective gasp, an extended groan. <i>[Mahela cuts loose in the closing overs]</i><br />
Horns blaring, screeching of brakes, more horns. <i>[Traffic comes back to life between the innings]</i><br />
GASP!! <i>[Things do not start well for India. Not by a long distance.]</i><br />
<br />
And then things go really quiet. <br />
<br />
The city, the country, waits. <br />
<br />
Prays. <br />
<br />
Dares not dream.<br />
<br />
The skies are silent, forlorn. India is getting closer in the chase, but no one is getting the fireworks out yet. Not wanting to tempt fate. Afraid of being the jinx that brakes the slowly emerging spell. <br />
<br />
All is silent, and we wait.<br />
<br />
And then the moment arrives. Kulasekara, steaming in to bowl to Captain Courageous. Puts it in the spot, and the artist formerly of long locks, breaks every shackle, lets the monster shot loose. The ball sails over the boundary, the bat is swirled one final time for effect, and the deed is done.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0fdxqgL4ihPFXnNU9X_BWbH2tMNa5kkjIljEMiw936Nx9ZeR_Kc6QdfzuAJnduZaQna4N_S56tY-YWZ8swpix-Esahl9Thv_0i-DGjw6mNuMBhwyWt8FwXKDCvfaAp1eCvbHDffFjxqo/s1600/60c16__51977902_51977901.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0fdxqgL4ihPFXnNU9X_BWbH2tMNa5kkjIljEMiw936Nx9ZeR_Kc6QdfzuAJnduZaQna4N_S56tY-YWZ8swpix-Esahl9Thv_0i-DGjw6mNuMBhwyWt8FwXKDCvfaAp1eCvbHDffFjxqo/s1600/60c16__51977902_51977901.jpg" /></a></div><br />
YEAHHHHHHH! Comes a massive, collective yell from downstairs. And the skies - they finally, finally burst open.<br />
<br />
The fireworks continue through the night. Smoke is everywhere. People are running out of their homes, waving India flags, hugging everyone in sight. Youngsters are shouting slogans. It is unlike anything the sleepy daughter has ever seen in her young life. We won, she knows, her grandma told her.<br />
<br />
"Appa, is it Diwali?" she asks me, playing our old game. No sweetheart, it is not Diwali. It is bigger. Much, much bigger.</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-83871678871720640582011-03-24T11:34:00.000-07:002011-03-24T11:34:31.427-07:00Book Review: The emperor of all maladies (Siddhartha Mukherjee)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZKvIPyImB3b5yL3cNR2w20Ux6-ASpnLgSqJnjqI2nuwQhrxGAPzBk6JGayeX_Sb9jXqtkBE1z6GKd7d_3Itea1XzR8xLozh0R2svRLlz0xbgT3lrtLNvisR51oKbdroO2JJXgpXaNpqg/s1600/cover-198x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZKvIPyImB3b5yL3cNR2w20Ux6-ASpnLgSqJnjqI2nuwQhrxGAPzBk6JGayeX_Sb9jXqtkBE1z6GKd7d_3Itea1XzR8xLozh0R2svRLlz0xbgT3lrtLNvisR51oKbdroO2JJXgpXaNpqg/s200/cover-198x300.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>A dear friend lost a loved one to cancer this past month.<br />
<br />
It was an unhappy coincidence that at the time I was reading Siddhartha Mukherjee's much acclaimed book on the disease - <i>The Emperor of all Maladies</i>. Coming as it did right on the heels of a bereavement, there was unmistakably a sharper edge to the book for me. How can one, I wondered, go through this sort of pain and grief every day of their working lives? How can one live this disease for a living? And how, when it comes right down to it, can one write about it with understanding, compassion and scientific inquiry, in a way that doesn't belittle the grief of those touched by the subject?<br />
<br />
<i>The Emperor of all Maladies</i> is a book that achieves what at first blush seems unachievable. It brings you face to face with one of the greatest killers of our age, opens it up to you, makes you intimate with it, and never ever lets the science or the history get in the way of the sheer humanity of the storyteller.<br />
<br />
Readers of <i>Brick and Rope</i> likely know my weakness for doctors who can write. Atul Gawande of course has been a longtime favorite and I am a bit of a sucker for others of his ilk. That said, as much of the reviewing critics noticed last year when <i>The Emperor of all Maladies</i> made practically every <i>Best Books Of the Year</i> list on non-fiction, Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cracker of a writer. For one, he is instructive without being pedantic.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">We tend to think of cancer as a "modern" illness because its metaphors are so modern. It is a disease of overproduction, of fulminant growth - growth unstoppable, growth tipped into the abyss of no control. Modern biology encourages us to imagine the cell as a molecular machine. Cancer is that machine unable to quench its initial command (to grow) and thus transformed into an indestructible, self-propelled automaton.</span></blockquote>As I was saying, instructive, interesting, an evocative image to tell us what cancer is about. Then right after that comes a passage with another catching turn of phrase. (Wait for it till the end of the paragraph)<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The notion of cancer as an affliction that belongs paradigmatically to the twentieth century is reminiscent of another disease once considered emblematic of another era: tuberculosis in the nineteenth century. Both diseases were similarly "obscene" - in the original meaning of that word: ill-omened, repugnant to the senses. Both drain vitality; both stretch out the encounter with death; in both cases, <i>dying</i>, even more than death, defines the illness.</span></blockquote>Isn't that a remarkable last sentence?<br />
<br />
One of the things I have wondered for a while about cancer is why it seems so much more visible now? It is the disease of our times, it appears. It is the ailment that is most commonly visible in the context of mortality. Why, I have wondered. Turns out, there are some really simple answers.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">With a few notable exceptions, in the vast stretch of medical history there is no book or god for cancer. There are several reasons behind this absence. Cancer is an age-related disease - sometimes exponentially so. The risk of breast cancer, for instance, is about 1 in 400 for a thirty-year-old woman and increases to 1 in 9 for a seventy-year-old. In most ancient societies, people didn't live long enough to get cancer. Men and women were long consumed by tuberculosis, dropsy, cholera, smallpox, leprosy, plague, or pneumonia. If cancer existed, it remained submerged under the sea of other illnesses. Indeed, cancer's emergence in the world is the product of a double negative: it becomes common only when all other killers themselves have been killed. ... Civilization did not cause cancer, but by extending human life spans - civilization <i>unveiled</i> it.</span></blockquote>And Mukherjee going on to offer more reasons on why cancer is so visible today, but I will let you read that in the book.<br />
<br />
The triumph of <i>The Emperor of Maladies</i> is not merely that is a colossal compendium of knowledge about one of the most visible killers of our time, though it is that. It is not even that it is such a wonderfully written book with language that practically pulsates with emotion. It is that through the entire book, Siddhartha Mukherjee reminds you that he is, at the end of the day, a doctor. If the history and the science of cancer are the heart of the book, it is the patients that provide the soul to the book. They form the narrative thread that holds the book together, they keep the lesson from turning dry. And they kept my eyes from staying dry.<br />
<br />
<i>The Emperor of Maladies</i> was a universally acclaimed critic favorite in 2010. I can see why. </div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-55063571037109467202011-03-11T23:22:00.000-08:002011-03-11T23:22:23.671-08:00The flexible policemen of Mumbai<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i>Horn. Screech. Horn. Horrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn. Men shouting. "98.3 FM Radio Mirchi - It's hot!" Screeeeech. Horn. </i><br />
<br />
The white noise of Bombay on the road. My mind stopped processing it after a while. I don't hear any of it any more. Just like I don't see the beggar knocking on my car's window; or the children my daughter's age, coated in dust, lethargically wading through trashcans on what their more privileged peers call a 'school day'. I don't see anything. I don't hear anything. I am in my now customary hand-to-the-ear pose, the phone totting position that is symbolic of an Indian wheeling and dealing away. I am in my own little zone, till ... <i>SCREEEEECH! Thud.</i> <br />
<br />
"Hey I will have to call you back, my car just got in an accident."<br />
<br />
The dull thud. The siren sound of a traffic incident that is too puny to be dramatically termed a 'road accident', but is still large enough to be an eyesore till fixed. A fender bender, is what I used to call that - in that other life of mine all those ages ago, in Uncle Sam's yard. It is a first for me since I returned to India, so I am a bit disoriented, unsure of the process, the protocol. We are on the right lane, or what is half-seriously referred to as the 'fast' lane, on what is nominally a national highway. There are a million cars on the road, and my driver has just parked the car right where it got hit from behind, has left the car and is walking towards the culprit vehicle behind us. Soon the bender and bendee are engaged in some serious yelling, arms slicing through the air, spit flying, sweat tango-ing with the spit in mid air. And all the while, the two cars are parked right where they were. The backup is now really long, and getting longer every minute. The two drivers show no signs of letting up. To their credit, the cars stuck in the backup seem to take it all in their stride. No one is honking at us ... or let us say, people aren't honking any more than they do anyway, just to keep things interesting. They are rolling down their windows to hear more of the bender-bendee altercation, but 'no hard feelings' seems to be the mantra.<br />
<br />
"Should we wait for the police?" I ask my driver, which in retrospect sounds remarkably naive. "Nahin sahib", he replies after a momentary pitying look. We need to go to the nearest police station, I am told, to lodge a First Information Report. Oh Kay, I tell myself. This is going to be interesting, if that is the word I am looking for. The car seems to be making all sorts of unnatural noises as we take off once again, to the disappointment, it appears, of the drivers right behind, who know they have just missed some action. To the police station, it is.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJqa2WGFwlfrCRSS7sLaRfugzqjXYFTiydh35HZ3YVMxu2-IkM8n4PNkrT0NW53aJUs6kgrUKUhsM3FEApb6-sXBmFZGoCopoC62ckqAvuJ0xQqbnX_D8RbCZwGGyiMipp-2BU9qLa9gA/s1600/ts.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJqa2WGFwlfrCRSS7sLaRfugzqjXYFTiydh35HZ3YVMxu2-IkM8n4PNkrT0NW53aJUs6kgrUKUhsM3FEApb6-sXBmFZGoCopoC62ckqAvuJ0xQqbnX_D8RbCZwGGyiMipp-2BU9qLa9gA/s200/ts.jpeg" width="81" /></a></div>"<i>Saharsh Swagat Ahey</i>!" claims a big signboard at the police station, cheerily welcoming people who somehow don't seem appropriately enthused at the prospect. So begins the adventure, I think.<br />
<br />
"Once every few months," a wise man had said to me soon after my return to India, "you should go to a government office." I looked puzzled as he had continued, "It is a great leveler. It keeps you grounded."<br />
<br />
It has been a good thirty minutes since we came in here. Two different men in uniform have come by to look at the car, have scratched their chins lazily, and have drifted back to where they came from, with nary a word on what I am supposed to be doing. The third man has just come out, and is going through the same motions. Promisingly, he is holding a pad in his hand, and has a pen tucked away behind his ears. He takes one quick look at me, incongruously dressed in a suit (Hey, what am I to do? I was on my way to a meeting!), and asks, "gaadi koun chala raha tha?" My driver steps forward, his expression equal parts deference and indignation. "Chalo" says the policeman, turns around and walks back in. Now 'in' is probably not precise. There is a little wooden bench placed in the porch of the police station, with just enough seats for the complainants to sit, and a desk at which the policeman is perched. My driver sits opposite the man, and they get going in Marathi. I look around helplessly for a while and as the conversation continues, slowly drift outside. <br />
<br />
As good a time as any to browse around a police station. <br />
<br />
There is a large framed notice outside called 'Rights of Citizens'. It seems to list all the right things, including telephone numbers of officials whom you might call in case you are asked for 'consideration' when registering your case. Hmm. How many of the complainants coming here can actually read this board, I wonder. And among those who did, how many would be able to work through the euphemistically phrased 'consideration'?<br />
<br />
Step out some more and there are notice boards of some sort. The first of them is blank, but for a few internal administrative notices. But to the right of this, there is a notice board grandly saying 'WANTED'. Wow, now here is the juicy bit. I walk briskly to it. There are three pictures on the board. Black and white, photocopied from some other source, so they look like cutouts from a newspaper's classified pages. Three grainy pictures of men with varying degrees of facial hair. And that is it. No names, no details, no '<i>Reward of Rs. 50 lakh for anyone providing information leading to arrest'</i>. Just three stupid pictures. Move on guys, this path to instant riches seems to be under construction.<br />
<br />
Hey, was that ... is that ... it is, isn't it? It really is. A dirty, grimy cat, with a freshly killed mouse still dangling from its mouth, blood still wet! Hold your breath, don't puke, count, count - one. two. three. four .... Yes, better now. Seriously, a dead mouse? And the cat itself is being pursued by a determined dog. What is this? National Geographic HD? And for the love of God what is that constable doing on the floor? Oh, he is sweeping and mopping the floor! Now that is a flexible job description, isn't it? Crime fighter .... plus janitor. <br />
<br />
My driver is walking out triumphantly, barely able to stop his grin. "Mil gaya sahab" he says, thrusting the copy of our FIR into my hands. I take a peek - it is three pages long! And densely written on every page in meticulously penned Marathi. So here is another skillset required to be a policeman in India - good handwriting! Doctors need not apply.<br />
<br />
It is precisely 84 minutes since I stepped into the station, and we are on our way out. I am crossing the parking lot, filled to capacity with dust covered Maruti Omni and Daewoo Matiz cars. (Didn't they stop manufacturing Matiz many years back?) Each seems to have some illegible writing on them, under layer upon layer of dust.<br />
<br />
We are almost at our car when a woman, nearly hysterical in her worry jumps out of her auto rickshaw and grabs the nearest policeman's arm. She is speaking with great urgency and despair, and the policeman seems barely able to keep up. I grab snippets of her story - "my handbag ... he snatched it and ran ... it has a passport in it! Visa bhi hai, Amreeka wala! ..."<br />
<br />
I feel sad for the poor woman, who was probably shopping for her trip to the USA, before she had to pay a visit to the house of our hawaldars-cum-janitors-cum-marathi-essayists. We start backing out.<br />
<br />
"<i>Saharsh Swagat Ahey!</i>" I read again, and we are back out.<br />
<br />
<i>Horrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn. Screech. Men shouting. "98.3 FM Radio Mirchi - It's hot!"</i><br />
</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-29407377484128250802011-02-20T02:52:00.000-08:002011-02-20T02:52:19.723-08:00Book Review: Our Kind of Traitor (John le Carre)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilWOMwZq_-ZDi4EQjUuop_B9EOItRqjtdcHZ5Y_7VHSWNSKxg8N7mhqq3UOOi5YT2zKc9mtQlXh-tv8JZVI7ri6h_A3ZAnrYIlkNVCyNUpThn2C8MXi076QGqGk4XsoTDKnYTjQL8hTjo/s1600/le+carre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilWOMwZq_-ZDi4EQjUuop_B9EOItRqjtdcHZ5Y_7VHSWNSKxg8N7mhqq3UOOi5YT2zKc9mtQlXh-tv8JZVI7ri6h_A3ZAnrYIlkNVCyNUpThn2C8MXi076QGqGk4XsoTDKnYTjQL8hTjo/s200/le+carre.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Is a spy novel relevant in this age? In fact, are spies themselves relevant? And - boy, things are getting seriously ridiculous now - are <i>British</i> spies relevant? The <i>Brits</i>? What are they, like the Rishi Kapoor of global politics? Once a proud and dominant member, reduced now to roles of fat, middle aged funny men in marginal films? So here is an author whose stock in trade has been this personality - now turned fat, middle aged and irrelevant. How, I ask myself, does le Carre go on? How does he write when his subject matter is getting from the front pages of global newspapers to the 'style' section? Trust the great man not to leave this question unasked.<br />
<br />
Perry, an academic from Oxford, a man most unsympathetic to spies, is one of our protagonists in <i>Our Kind of Traitor</i>, and in this scene below, is meeting for the first time with Hector, master spy-runner.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">A mutual inspection ensued. The two men were of equal height, which for both was unusual. Without his stoop, Hector might have been the taller. With his classic broad brow and flowing white hair tossed back in two untidy waves, he resembled to Perry's eye a Head of College of the old, dotty sort. He was in his mid-fifties, by Perry's guess, but dressed for eternity in a many brown sports coat with leather patches at the elbow and leather edges to the cuffs. The shapeless grey flannels could have been Perry's own. So could the battered Hush Puppy shows. The artless, horn-rimmed spectacles could have been rescued from Perry's father's attic box.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Finally, but long after time, Hector spoke:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">'Wilfred <i>bloody</i> Owen,' he pronounced, in a voice that contrived to be both vigorous and reverential. 'Edmund <i>bloody</i> Blunden. Siegfried <i>bloody</i> Sassoon. Robert <i>bloody</i> Graves. Et al.'</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">'What about them?' the bewildered Perry asked, before he had given himself time to think.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">'Your fabulous fucking article about them in the <i>London Review of Books</i> last autumn! "<i>The sacrifice of brave men does not justify the pursuit of an unjust cause. P.Makepiece</i> scripsit." Bloody marvellous!'</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">'Well, thank you,' said Perry helplessly, and felt an idiot for not having made the connection fast enough.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The silence returned while Hector continued his admiring inspection of his prize.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">'Well, I'll tell you what you are, Mr. Perry Makepiece, sir,' he asserted, as if he'd reached the conclusion they had both been waiting for. 'You're and absolute fucking hero, is what you are' - seizing Perry's hand in a flaccid double grip and giving it a limp shake - 'and <i>that</i>'s not smoke up your arse. We know what you think of us. Some of us think it too, and we're right. Trouble is, we're the only show in town. Government's a fuck-up, half the Civil Service is out to lunch. The Foreign Office is as much use as a wet dream, the country's stone-broke and the bankers are taking our money and giving us the finger. What are we supposed to do about it? Complain to Mummy or fix it?'</span></blockquote><br />
Did you see that bit? <i>The sacrifice of brave men does not justify the pursuit of an unjust cause</i>. You know right then, dear reader, that you are in good hands. The best in the spy business, in fact.<br />
<br />
This passage came back to my mind recently when I was reading news coverage of the Tahrir Square revolution. This past Friday, Mint, in its Quick Edit section had a piece called 'The Trials of the Spies'. Here is what the piece said:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">John le Carre would not have blundered so badly. After Egypt, it's the third time in as many decades that US spooks have been caught napping while major political upheavals and secret operations have passed "undetected". A Reuters report on Thursday said that US director of national intelligence James Clapper has told a Senate committee that spies were "not clairvoyant".</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">One advertised reason for such failures is the paucity of "human intelligence" (read: real spies) in places where there's trouble. There is little evidence of learning from past mistakes. Central Intelligence Agency director Leon Panetta has said that his agency will pay more attention to social media for signals of trouble, as if the "other" side will merrily continue to use Facebook and Twitter. Le Carre's men (George Smiley for sure) would have posted more spies on the ground, instead of following Twitter.</span></blockquote>So, it turns out, spies continue to be relevant. Hmm, there is a thought.<br />
<br />
[By the way, unrelated note - is there any other newspaper in India that is half as good as Mint? Not even close my friends, not even close.]<br />
<br />
So, past 80 now, is le Carre, the master of the spy novel, the man who single-handedly pulled up a whole genre of fiction from cheap thriller category to convert it into fine literature, still up and with it? Is the writing, in other words, still any good?<br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">But then Luke had always been a worrier. From infancy, he had worried indiscriminately, rather in the way he fell in love.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">He could worry as much about whether his watch was ten seconds fast or slow, as about the direction of a marriage that was null and void in every room except the kitchen.</span></blockquote><br />
How great is that? 'A marriage null and void in every room except the kitchen.' Oh yes, the man's writing is still sharp. The melancholic spy at the center of his world still very much alive.<br />
<br />
<i>Our Kind of Traitor</i> is a short read. The tale of a young couple from Oxford whose path crosses that of a large family from Russia, with unexpected and far-reaching effects. In his most recent book before this one, <i>A Most Wanted Man</i>, le Carre showed rare form, evoking memories of his best days past. With <i>Our Kind of Traitor</i>, he keeps the faith alive, even if the flame doesn't grow much brighter.</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-12531506146152279322011-02-06T00:04:00.000-08:002011-02-06T00:08:06.051-08:00Just what the doctor ordered for BIMARU<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Demographics is destiny. The fate of nations is often written in the language of population pyramids and median age. So they say.<br />
<br />
<i>Imagining India</i>, Nandan Nilekani's book that was one of my favorite reads of last year, takes an interesting twist on the 'demographic dividend' clich<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">é</span></span>. Before we get to the twist, let us make the basic argument for a demographic dividend in India.<br />
<br />
The median age of the Indian population today is 25.9, making it one of the youngest large countries in the world. Brazil's is 28.9; China's is 35.2 (increased rapidly from a few decades back, due to the one child policy); Russia's 35.8; the US is 35.8 and Japan is the second oldest country in the world with a median age of 44.6 (Monaco is the oldest at 48.9). <br />
<br />
[For a full listing of median age of different countries, see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_age">here</a>.]<br />
<br />
Historically, when a young population has met enabling government and adequate capital, the results have often been spectacular. As Nandan writes -<br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">In 2020, India is projected to have an additional forty0seven million workers, almost equal to the total world-shortfall. The average Indian will only be twenty-nine years old, compared with the average age of thirty-seven in China and the United States, forty-five in Western Europe and forty eight in Japan. [...]<br />
<br />
India already has the second largest reservoir of skilled labour in the world. It produces two million English speaking graduates, 15,000 law graduates and about 9,000 PhDs every year. And the existing pool of 2.1 million engineering graduates increases by nearly 300,000 every year.<br />
<br />
A talented pool of workers, along with abundant capital and investment, presents us with immense opportunities for creativity and innovation, which can in turn lead to rapid gains in productivity growth and GDP. This had once enabled Europe to emerge as a centre for manufacturing innovation in the nineteenth century; similarly, at the peak of its dividend between 1970 and 1990, the United States saw the birth of new technology-based industries that determined the direction of the global economy over the past few decades. Such an opportunity - to emerge as the new creative power and a centre for new knowledge and innovation - now lies with India.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><br />
</span><br />
So that is the standard 'demographic dividend' argument made about India. What is the twist? Well, the twist is what Nandan calls '<i>India's double-hump: The camel in our demographics</i>'.<br />
<br />
Demographer economist Ashish Bose first coined the term 'BIMARU' in the 1980's in a one-page summary of a large population report sent to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. <b><i>BI</i></b>har, <b><i>MA</i></b>dhya pradesh, <b><i>R</i></b>ajasthan and <b><i>U</i></b>ttar pradesh have long been the sick members of the Indian family. In recent times, their perennial illness seemed to also catch on to Orissa, making the new, equally sickening acronym BIMAROU. Ashish's new take on the demographic evolution of the country, vividly captured by Nandan's phrase 'double-hump' is this -<br />
<br />
While India as a whole is young, and the population pyramid looks healthily like a true pyramid, it is not the same story across the country. The states in the South were remarkably young a few decades back, and have tended to dominate the growth story in India in the last two decades - think Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi. But now, the demographic story there has largely played out. The real dividend now is (surprise, surprise) in the BIMAROU states. <br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">As demographers such as Tim Dyson and P.N.Maribhat have shown, if we peel India's demographics like an onion, we end up with two very distinct areas within the country - a north that, thanks to its recent high fertility, stays remarkably young over the next two decades, and a south which faces rapid ageing. By 2025 north India's population will still be very young, with a median age of just twenty-six. But the median age in the south would be about thirty-four - similar to Europe's in the late 1980's.<br />
<br />
This means that India's demographic dividend is actually a double hump, one of which is already nearly exhausted. The first hump in the dividend came from the south and has been 'expensed' in the economic growth that the south and the west of India experienced as early as the 1970s, when their infant mortality began to fall. In the northern states, however, infant mortality has only just started to trend down.<br />
<br />
As a result, it is the second, larger hump in India's dividend which is yet to peak, and which will come from the northern states - and primarily from the BIMARU regions. Ashish has estimated that the share of BIMARU states alone in our population growth between 2001 and 2026 will be around 50 percent, while the share of the south will be only 12.6 percent. As a result, over the next decade, the north should begin to ride the crest of its dividend, towards higher growth.</span></blockquote>So, is this just a lot of hot air, the lazy musings of a septuagenarian economist? Not quite. There is some real growth data that has started to support this thesis. Swaminathan S. Ankileshwar Aiyar, easily one of the most entertaining economic columnists in India, wrote <a href="http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Swaminomics/entry/new-miracle-economies-bihar-poor">a piece in early 2010</a>, where he asked the question - <i>where are the new miracle economies within India?</i> No prizes for guessing the right answer.<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Historically, the chronically poor states were Orissa plus the BIMARU quartet (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh), of which three have been sub-divided. Have these eight poor states participated in India’s boom?<br />
<br />
Yes, absolutely. Indeed, five of India’s eight ultra-poor states have become miracle economies, defined internationally as those with over 7% growth. The best news comes from Bihar, historically the biggest failure. From 2004-05 to2008-09, Bihar averaged 11.03% growth annually. It was virtually India’s fastest growing state, on par with Gujarat (11.05%). That represents a sensational turnaround. Nitish Kumar deserves an award for the most inclusive revolution of the decade.<br />
<br />
Other poor states have done very well too. Uttrakhand (9.31%), Orissa (8.74%), Jharkhand (8.45%) and Chhattisgarh (7.35%), have all grown faster than the standard miracle benchmark of 7%. [...]<br />
<br />
The elephant in the room has always been Uttar Pradesh, a huge, poor state of almost 200 million people. The excellent news is that UP’s growth rate has risen impressively to 6.29% annually. This falls short of the miracle benchmark of 7%, but not by much. [...]<br />
<br />
Rajasthan, which grew fast earlier, has slipped down a bit, to 6.25%. The most disappointing performance comes from Madhya Pradesh (4.89 %).</span></span></blockquote>So are the BIMARU states starting to come around from their sickness? Hell, yeah!<br />
<br />
I must say though - I find the sense of <i>fait accompli</i> that underlies conversations on demographic dividend in India somewhat frustrating. Indeed, demographics is a powerful force. But it isn't everything. Just because one has a good demographic story going, one can't sit back and start counting the moolah. Indeed, several economists have been consistently questioning the entire foundation of the demographic dividend thesis recently.<br />
<br />
Reverend Malthus was the one who made the most infamous demographic prediction in economic history when he said that "Population has the constant tendency to increase beyond the means of subsistence." May I am really behind on my newspapers, because I haven't heard of human civilization collapsing under the weight of population just yet. <br />
<br />
Why didn't Malthus' demography driven prediction come true? One word - productivity. As population increased, if there had been no scientific innovation, and human economic productivity levels had been held at the same levels, his dire prediction might indeed have come true. What changed the story is the massive increase in productivity led by the industrial revolution. Michael Mandel makes this point powerfully in his essay in Business World <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2004/nf20040913_4396_db084.htm">here</a>. <br />
<br />
The point is not that demographics are unimportant. Indeed, there is enough data to prove that they are a tremendously powerful force. But they aren't enough by themselves. If that were not so, economists over the world would have been talking about the huge demographic dividend in Nigeria!<br />
<br />
The BIMARU states could well be the future of India. There is enough early evidence to suggest that they are taking on that destiny. But they could still lose the plot from here. So M/S Nitish Kumar, Mayawati, Naveen Patnaik, Ashol Gehlot, Raman Singh and others - Here is a humble request from an optimistic Indian - you have a great thing going on. Please don't screw it up!</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-10009119084770804552011-01-25T23:21:00.000-08:002011-01-26T00:13:51.267-08:00354: A Love Story?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Her dress is short. Stop-you-mid-sentence short. A soft, figure hugging thing that isn't on intimate terms with the knees of the wearer. Stylishly unkempt hair. Black leather boots zipping up to pampered calves. Dusky, Smita Patil looks. "Hi!" she says with a suspiciously open smile, as she slides in next to my neighbour "looks like I am going to be sitting with you for two hours."<br />
<br />
9W-354 flies the supremely busy Delhi-Mumbai sector. Both airports are so busy, and squeezing more flights in so difficult that Jet Airways has come up with the innovative strategy of flying really large airplanes on the sector. We are flying a Boeing 777 tonight. Seats 300 or thereabouts. A large hulk of a carrier that usually does international routes. So the inside is unlike anything one is accustomed to seeing on domestic routes. Clean, well spaced interiors. Full fledged in-flight entertainment system loaded with the latest movies (<i>Look there</i> - can you see the guy watching <i>Munni badnaam hui</i>? And <i>there</i>, and <i>there</i> too ..). Nine passengers per row, in a 3-3-3 format. We are in the middle three, the seats labeled D-F-G for some reason. Why the silent 'E', I wonder. I am settled into D, curled up with my book. Dusky-Miss-bare-legs is in G. And in F? Well, in F, the envy of every male in the Boeing 777, is my neighbour, slouched low in his chair, the nervous, unsuspecting object of the lady's affections, lost to the idiot box, trying to choose between <i>Zabaan Sambhalke</i> and <i>Ye Jo Hai Zindagi</i>.<br />
<br />
It starts naturally enough. She presses the little light bulb on her controls - so she can read the in-house magazine, presumably. The light turns on in F. My neighbour looks up surprised, as does lady G. Turn it off. Try again. Same result. Their eyes meet, and they break out into a chuckle. "Here, maybe I should try pressing <i>your</i> button", says G, reaching over and across F, who is now paying full attention, <i>Zabaan Sambhalke</i> be damned. A pock-marked Pankaj Kapur is speaking on in impotent silence, unable to compete with babe-in-boots. His button - turns on his light too. So no reading for her tonight. "The magazine isn't very good anyway" says F awkwardly, and they laugh.<br />
<br />
"What are you going to do in Bombay?" she is asking him when I put on my headphones, determined not to stare any more.<br />
<br />
So much for that. <br />
<br />
It is a few minutes into my '<i>Two and a Half Men</i>', and G has just picked her legs up to the seat, knees pointing skyward, the extraordinarily short dress all bunched up at her hips. Oh come on! There should be a law against this kind of stuff! She unzips her boots, takes them off, and puts her feet down, crossing her now entirely bare legs at the ankles. And here is the thing. She isn't sitting with her legs pointing straight out under the seat in front. Neither is it turned towards her aisle which presumably has more space. Her legs are stretched out so they are in front of F, who is now shifting his own legs somewhat clumsily out of the way to make space. Okayyyy ... we have upped it a notch haven't we, miss?<br />
<br />
I am back to Charlie Sheen's antics for now. All the while I am aware that Pankaj Kapur still doesn't have an audience, and that G is asking question after personal question of F. I take a break between episodes and take off my headphone, just in time to hear F ask "Do you always ask people so many questions?" He is smiling, but from what I can see off the corner of my eyes, it is a strained smile. G, on the other hand, is completely nonplussed. "Why not?" she asks in return, like this is a game in <i>Whose Line is it Anyway?</i> where you are supposed to speak only in questions. He shakes his head, still half smiling, half unsure. "I am going to watch this show, if you don't mind" he tells her finally. I can't see his face, but the tone sounds a bit tired, maybe even peeved. She doesn't say anything. For two minutes. "Listen" she says, after a bit, tapping him. He seems to be repenting his brusqueness from a few minutes back as he takes off his headphones again -<br />
<br />
"Yeah?"<br />
"Is this a Boeing 777?"<br />
"I am not sure. Let me look .... yes, it does say so."<br />
"Is that bigger than a Boeing 747?"<br />
"I don't know to be honest. But it must be. After all, 777 is bigger than 747, isn't it?"<br />
<br />
Laughter disproportionate to the quality of the joke. Friends again?<br />
<br />
By the time the food tray come along, they are lost in conversation. "But I can never pack light. I always have sooooo many bags ...", she laughs as she hands him the little cup of achar. The conversation doesn't skip a beat as he takes it casually, opens it up for her and puts it back in her tray. "Isn't it difficult if you are traveling by yourself with so much luggage?" He seems to be doing more of the talking now. In fact, I get the feeling it is mostly him talking. He seems taller than I had imagined too. Or is he just sitting straighter?<br />
<br />
"We have begun our descent into Mumbai" says the suave Captain's voice, and I start gathering up my stuff. "That is my favourite", F is telling Miss-booted-up-again, "you should try it some time." She is smiling as she looks around on her seat. "I could take you there" he adds, also handing her the buckle of the seat belt she has been looking for.<br />
<br />
We are on the ground, and everyone is standing in the aisle, jostling for space, bending at torturous angles to reach bags up in out-of-reach overhead bins. I have just retrieved my upright and a sorry, crumpled up suit. F and G are still in their seats. "Don't worry" he is telling her, "I will help you".<br />
<br />
The bus doors close with a hydraulic <i>whoosh</i>. I settle into my window seat, ready for the long ride back from the plane to the terminal. I can see the two of them on the tarmac, probably the last people off the plane, in line for the next bus, still talking. He has two bags in his hands and two slung on his shoulders. She is standing close to him, lightly holding on to his arms. He nudges her gently out of harm's way as a luggage trolley rolls under the plane.<br />
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The bus jerks awake, and we set off.</div>JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8135643188634165782.post-12659883610466415282011-01-17T10:00:00.000-08:002011-01-17T10:00:04.524-08:00What? Why you laughing sirji?It is the monsoon and through some momentary impetuousness I have made the brave decision to get out to break the Sunday fast. Not having the courage to drive myself in the deluge that is Bombay during these months, I decide to cab it. The daughter and I bundle ourselves and our dripping umbrellas into a rickety black-and-yellow, much past its youth, and I wonder whether it has learned how to swim. The cabbie is incongruously cheerful and the prattle pours out from him quite in tune with the pattering on his roof. He rolls the passenger window down to turn the meter to 'start' and puts pedal to the floor. Not that the effect can be perceived, mind you - back when this car was built, Rajesh Khanna was the new kid on the Bollywood block, and 30 kmph made you dizzy. So let's just say that we are away at speeds moderately higher than a brisk walk. We are about to venture climbing up the flyover that will take us to Matunga and delicious vada sambhar when an SUV, horn blazing, flies past us. I hear the full Doppler effect as the monster car comes from afar, catches up, and soon goes past. Right at the point of going past though, it steps right into a large puddle of rainwater. Before I could scream in surprise at the effect, the water is being sprayed - through the still open passenger side window, and all over my 'casual but chic' sunday clothes. I am drenched in stinking rain water from a puddle. And as I start yelling at the SUV, I realize it is a government vehicle, as I read the inscription on its back - Jan Kalyan Vahini - Namaste. (Public Good Vehicle - greetings!). <br />
<br />
You are never too far from a good laugh here in India. Most of it is at the expense of unintentional comedians roaming our streets every day.<br />
<br />
Just this other day, I am at an airport with a senior banker who has kindly offered to take me to the lounge based on his gold card, or some such. I am happy for the partial quiet and peace the lounge offers, so take him up on it pronto. My benefactor, after making sure I am comfortably 'lounging' away, makes a beeline to the coffee machine. He looks bemused at the many options on the machine and finally, decisively presses 'cappuccino'. The machine sputters for a few moments, pours out the drink and is done. My benefactor looks at his cup, grunts, and starts scanning around for an attendant. "What is this" he scolds the confused employee - "is this all you give in the name of a coffee? Why don't you guys get your machine fixed?" - And promptly sends the man looking for 'some real coffee'.<br />
<br />
My favorite laughs are on signboards. Take the library I went to the other day, for instance. This is one of those places that rents out books 'two at a time for two weeks'. The books look like they were printed the weekend after Gutenberg got done with his thing. A musty smell is everywhere, and the odd yellowing page is fluttering away in the dead breeze of the fan. A borrower, probably not a regular, is looking at the section on 'English literature and poetry'. He doesn't look the type, so the snob in me is instantly on guard. Aha, I tell myself, unintentional comedy alert! Our friend looks at Tolstoy, Dickens and Faulkner, and finally decides on a James Hadley Chase. Funny enough, but the setup has more potential. So wait for it, I tell myself. 'Bhai sahab ...' he begins loudly as he addresses the librarian. 'Yeh kitaab kitne ...'. 'Shhhh!' goes the librarian, rolling his eyes at the uncouth customers he has to deal with. 'Shhhhh!', and points to a board hanging on one of the bookshelves. 'PLEASE MAKE SILENCE'. <i>Ka-Chinnnnggggg!</i><br />
<br />
Then there are signs that truly intend to be funny. But somehow their writers seem to have gone just a little offbeat with their message. Take this one for instance. Driving down Bandra, my favorite Bombay suburb, the other day, I notice a firm that is engaged in the unfortunate but quite necessary services of post mortem arrangements. 'XYZ', the board proudly proclaims, and for those who were fortunate enough not to have had a past acquaintance with them, it boldly states what it offers - 'FUNEREAL SERVICES!' (Yes, no typo there. And the exclamation mark is decidedly <i>not</i> mine.) Now, the owner probably bought too large a board, and saw that there was still a lot of space that he could fill out. Why waste good real estate, I say. Let us just convert these into advertisement billboards for our funny slogans. But how can you write a funny slogan to attract people to a 'funereal' services company, you ask. See, that is why you weren't hired for this job. Here is how - "GRAVE PROBLEMS - NOW RESURRECTED!"<br />
<br />
I was at a furniture shop yesterday. We looked at some piece, the guy gave us a price, we ignored him, gave him a completely made-up price from the top of our head, and told him about three other competitors who were ready to give us the product for said made-up price. He is more than happy to jump into the conversation, and gives us five reasons why this product is just not comparable to anything else on the market. "That teak is only for termites sir! This here is top quality material. I made it myself, with my own hands." We go good-naturedly back and forth for a half hour before it is time for us to leave. "I will let you know" says my wife to him, as she gathers her stuff. We are on our way out when I notice this gem right behind the"own hands" guy - "Customer is a KING" the sign grandly, if somewhat ungrammatically, states. "And a KING never bargains!"<br />
<br />
Incredible !ndia - Come for the casket, stay for the jokes.JShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04389094051972795199noreply@blogger.com4